1-Seg: Not So Hot. Next iPhone: Maybe Very Hot
The other day, Japan was playing Korea in the World Baseball Classic, and that apparently was a huge thing. Students all over my school were watching the game on their cell phones using the “1-Seg” TV-tuning feature.
You might think that this is a good example of why the iPhone isn’t doing better in Japan, but I didn’t get that impression. When I asked these students if they usually used the feature, I got the reply, “this is the first time I’ve used it.” Indeed, I never see them using this–and then today the student lounge had about 15 cell phones playing the game.
But then I saw the reason why:
I noted that most people were watching more than one cell phone at a time, together. Didn’t make sense until I saw the reception: it was horrible. The picture was constantly stopping and breaking up. And really, who wants a telescoping antenna like that on your cell phone?
Ironically, the people at China Unicom, the mobile provider that is claiming it got the iPhone contract there, is aggressively advertising the next iPhone as having a TV Tuner–at least, something called “UNITV,” which might be a broader technology interconnecting cell phones, PCs, and TVs–not sure about that.
Other leaked 3rd-Gen iPhone features: E-wallet, video conferencing, and PC tethering (i.e., using your iPhone as a modem to channel an Internet connection to your PC).
Sounds cool. Could even be true–SoftBank let loose with iPhone 3G news well before Apple announced it, and turned out to be on the money. Should be interesting to see how this develops.
haha! I noticed that too! I’m happy for Japan but many many other ex-pats on facebook and twitter were writing that they were hoping that korea would win. Also apparently the japanese media disparaged america for not sending their best players so that’s why japan lost so easily. I didn’t watch it so i don’t know… but it would seem to me their best players were playing on Japan’s and Cuba’s team lol.
In further news, i’m curious what you think about the recent media absurdity about asking obama very unintelligent questions that seem bent on turning the public outcry against AIG(which is now very misdirected as most people realized… i hope) towards Obama for “not doing anything” or “cushioning the fall” for those responsible. I mean obviously no one is mentioned George W Stupid. Curious is all:)
“that’s why *America lost so easily” sorry for double comment.
The tethering, I think, is a huge bonus for iPhone users- I can’t wait. The iPhone and a netbook, and you can do a huge amount of work with much smaller, lighter stuff in your bag than ever before.
The other feature that I really like is the thing where if you lose the phone, or it’s stolen, you can get it to give you its GPS coordinates- and you can send a command that wipes all your contacts, emails, settings, etc from the phone.
The stuff I’ve read indicates that’s only via Apple’s Mobile Me (or whatever that service is called) but I’m hoping they’ll open it up or have a free version for everyone, since I just use Google (it works, it’s free, etc).
The GPS coordinates are not such a big deal to me- even with A-GPS, you usually can’t locate yourself closely enough to see which house you’re in, for example. But being able to wipe your phone clean? Now you don’t have to worry nearly as much about some goon snagging all your data, assuming you realize you’ve lost it soon enough; just wipe the phone and all you’re out is the money you need to buy another one.