Posts by David Webb

Nokia, Apple and Sudden Extinction Events

Nokia

I think Nokia has a long term plan rather than a short term. Everyone is jumping on the Android bandwagon, but Nokia is working on MeeGo which is their answer to Android. Maemo though is pretty darn good, I own an iPhone and an N900, since I got the N900 I haven't even bothered to charge the iPhone (the N900 is that good).

The problem (I believe) is that Nokia never really penetrated the US market place, they were huge everywhere else but Americans preferred American phones (go figure) so they naturally prefer the iPhone and any other US based device, Nokia was always fighting a losing battle on that front, the yanks just don't get it, Nokia phones are better than Apple phones, but the yanks would rather have an inferior phone than an European one.

Will Nokia manage to fight back with a killer phone? I don't know. They can't compete with Android, no one can, Android is in a class of it's own with anyone and their mother being able to release an Android phone with a huge ecosystem. It can however bring out incredible high end mobile phones, and if MeeGo is a success (which I hope it is) they may just do that.

Should Nokia be worried? Not really, they produced a mobile which is the most bought electronic device on the planet, ever, selling more of that model than Apple sold iPods.

I would however get someone to address Ovi, it's pants, and Nokia Maps takes too long to load on the N900 compared to Google Maps on the iPhone, apps wise, Maemo is Linux, just compile it in scratchbox and hope, but the N900 is more a geek device than a phone, but damn it's a gorgeous bit of kit.

Me though, I'd bring out a version 2 of the N900 with capacitive rather than resistive, I'd bring out a new version of QT designed specifically for mobile development, add .NET (mono) to Maemo native so people can hack in C#, I'd make minor tweaks, but yeah, the N900 just ticks every box, including the "blinds niece when she takes a photo of herself and the flash blinds her" box.

Paraguayan model to strip if team wins World Cup

Knockers

I'm sure everyone in England has seen enough boobs/tits/whatever already when they watched England "play".

Microsoft justifies lost Office 2010 upgrades

Upgrade

I upgraded from 2007 to 2010 yesterday, for free. They had an offer where anyone who purchased Office 2007 could upgrade to 2010 for free so I got mine through the Ultimate Steal (£39) and now have 2010, Ultimate Steal having gone up to £49 now.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/tech-guarantee/

Loving 2010.

Apple adds 'make the web go away' button to Safari 5

Ads

It's not actually removing the adverts, it has to load up the page (with adverts) and then you click the button to show just the text, you are still downloading the adverts and the entire webpage.

It'll make it's way into the iWhatever though as a nifty "function" but, odds are when you press the button it'll display the text AND an advert supplied by Apple, that'll be the next "feature" they add.

Facebook founder called trusting users dumb f*cks

Maybe

Having all that information available is one thing, but the ability to search through it is another. Even with the default settings it's hard to just find "someone" unless you know their name, and even if you know their name you need a lot of personal information to be able to find them in the first place.

For instance, say you want to find John, no last name, you can't remember it, all you remember is John was born in 1985 and is somewhere in England, it's practically impossible for you to find that particular John, you can search for John and get 500 results out of 89692345 and go through each of them, but yeah, the data without the ability to search through that data kind of helps?

Unless anyone can point me out how you can narrow down the search result to John, born in 1985 and from, say, Blackpool.

F*ck you, thunders disgruntled fanboi Apple user

Ending

"There's a Linux penguin, a fanboi, and a Windows luser in a plane, and the pilot says, we're carrying too much weight, one of you has got to go, and the fanboi says, well, I can't jump because..."

White mac's can't jump.

Adobe clutches chance to bury Steve Jobs 'hog' insult

Nope

There are no real alternatives to Photoshop on any system. If we use Open Office as a comparison, it's taken years for it to become mature enough to stand up to MS Office. If Adobe said "screw you Apple, no more flash, no more CS" it's not just graphics artists that would cry.

Apple needs Adobe more than Adobe needs Apple, if Photoshop became Windows and Linux only, it would be impossible to justify the cost of a Mac + Windows over a PC + Windows, or even a PC + Linux.

Photoshop is an industry standard, it's not something you can replace with 3 months worth of development and a coating of "ohh shiney" that Apple would produce (also neglecting the fact that Apple's would be Mac only, you need a standard which is cross platform).

A quarter of underage children have social networking profiles

Coppa

I believe you'll find that it's 13 because the companies in question are American and are therefore beholden to the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (Coppa) which means for anyone under 13 to sign up, they need verfiable permission from a parent.

The Pirate Party is the shape of things to come

5 years?

I can sort of see what would happen with a 5 year copyright (or 10 year). Music companies would pull out of the UK and prohibit imports. Tech companies would also pull out, no more Windows nor Windows software (including games), so the UK would be the first country in the world to be forced to switch to Linux, except that our internet would be stuck as it is now, or even suspended totally, tech companies not willing to lose copyright protection over their hardware/software would suspend their licence agreements with the phone companies. ISP's would lose their licences with Cisco etc. for the backhaul.

It would totally cripple the UK, never mind being disconnected after downloading 100,000 songs, there would be no internet available in the UK to download even 1 song.

Think about how much of our tech requires proprietary software/hardware, patents, licences, copyright laws, without them we would be screwed, even I can see that!

iPhone, IE, Firefox, Safari get stomped at hacker contest

Chrome

Any word on Google Chrome, or is it still harder to exploit because of the sandbox mode?

Big Phone to US: 'Give us spectrum. Then shut up'

I see!

"crowd that the US has 117 million 3G subscribers, edging out number-two Japan's 110 million"

Indeed, but the US population is 307 million, Japans population is 127 million. As a percentage then, the US is around 35%? Japan is at almost 100%. Sure, it's easy for him to say "we have 7 million more 3G users than Japan" but by penetration, Japan are way ahead.

Tell him to come back when around 280 million Americans have 3G (although by then, Japan will probably be 100% 5G!)

Windows Phone 7: free tools, captive Marketplace

Did you read it?

I'm sure you read the article before posting and of course noted:

"The three tools Redmond is offering are Visual Studio 2010, including a free Express version as well as an add-in for the full IDE, Expression Blend 4.0 for designers, and XNA Game Studio 4.0"

In other words, MS are giving away an express version of VS2010, as well as EB4 and XNA, that is 2 commercial packages and an express. MS have offered express versions (free) of c++, c#, web developer etc. for a very long time, and for a mobile you really don't require the full bells and whistles version of VS2010 anyhow, you pick your programming language (silverlight, design through EB4/VS2010E) and off you go.

Of course, if you're a student via Dreamspark you can get the full version of VS as well as develop xbox games for free, and a whole host of other neat software (including server 2008 R1). So, which part of free went over your head?

As for x-code, don't even get me started on that travesty of an "ide", I'd rather be a victim in Saw 7 than use that pile of junk.

Steve Jobs Flash rant put to the test

Title

"Instead, it should be comparing against the HTML 5 implementation written by apple, on an apple designed platform and concluding that HTML5 is 2 to 3 times more efficient than Flash"

I agree, they should have tested HTML5 on Safari, on OSX..... wait, they did, what was your point again?

Zero* welcome for 200 Welsh TV shows - in Wales

Figures

If I remember correctly the actual figure isn't 0, it's just classed as 0 because not enough people watched it? They had the same thing with 5 where 0 people were watching, only people were watching just under a certain threshold for it to actually count as a figure.

LibDems score copyright coup

Nope

On the contrary, I'm on the NPG's side in that debate, Wikipedia was in the wrong and should have taken the images down, it was just an example.

NPG

I'm not sure if anyone remembers but recently the NPG went up against Wikipedia for stealing thousands of copyright (in the UK) images. I think the images in question, and the actions taken by the NPG would pass the measures in this ruling.

With that in mind, and this legislation, ISP's should now block access to Wikipedia? After all, Wikipedia ignores international copyright law when it suits them and treats it as US law under "fair use" or whatever.

It does seem a bit dangerous and lots of web sites may be caught out.

Forget SETI, this is how you find aliens: Hefty prof speaks

Sphere

A Dysons Sphere is just a way to collect energy, a huge grid of satellite in space which absorb the energy from the Sun to be used on Earth, possibly at a time when our energy demands far outstrip what is available.

Apple turns the flamethrower on Android

Nope

Hate to point out the obvious but Nokia is as rich as, if not richer than, Apple, with assets of over $53 billion compared to Apples assets of $42 billion. Jobs was proud to announce Apple were a $50b company, Nokia already were.

When it comes to phone patents, Nokia could take Apple to the cleaners and back again, HTC is an easy mark to go against, why go for the ones that could defend themselves against this patent, go for the small fry.

Jobs: I'll decide what to do with Apple's $40bn cash pile

Not quite no

25billion is a drop in the ocean, wouldn't even pay the interest. We're about £1,000billion in debt so that's 2.5% roughly.

What's on the mind of the Freetard eBookworm?

7 - Twilight

Twilight, it's about a guy who pretends to be a 17 year old kid and even fakes his way to get into school with other underage teenagers. He then hit's on an underage girl before finally revealing his age to be over 100 years putting the teenage girl into dangerous situations with another stalker (after he stalks her himself, including sneaking into her bedroom to watch her sleep and probably stealing her panties to wear). It's one of the modern dangers of the internet age that, people lying about their age to hit on underage girls.......

Westminster politicos told to grasp Vista nettle

Windows

It's not "forced" on anyone at all, my local MP used *our* money (taxes) to purchase a Mac, £1,500 on an underpowered laptop of our money being spent when £500 could have been spent instead.

MP's have their own expenses (as we're all aware) and spend them as they deem fit (as long as they don't get caught). This would most likely be for computers which are in Westminster and already run Windows so switching them to Mac's would cost an inordinate amount of money (and cause a major issue with the Taxpayer Alliance) and switching to Linux would also not go down well, most MP's are not in their 20's/30's so getting the old folks to learn a brand new operating system would knock up the TCO to unacceptable levels.

So the question should be "why not install Windows?"

Opera auditions for iPhone browser spot

oerr

"Apple thinks an alternative browser would confuse users, just as an alternative e-mail or music download client would, and they're probably right"

Change that to:

Microsoft thinks an alternative browser would confuse users.

Of course, the DoJ, EU etc.. all disagreed with that, but as it's Apple and not Microsoft, we'll overlook it a little.

Cambridge Council denies iPad plan

2 outta 6

"Seriously, a stylus, document reader, handwriting recognition, a USB socket and maybe a calendar. That's it. Basic, cheap and easy"

iPad, 2 outta 6 isn't bad I suppose, iPad has no stylus, no handwriting, no usb, it's also not cheap and easy, basic, yep!

Play.com touts Nexus One with added price

Not Play

As stated it's nothing to do with Play.com themselves, it's a bit like saying ebay is at fault for people over-charging on stuff that's on ebay. Play.com in this instance is just the marketplace for a 3rd party seller, they themselves are not supplying the mobile phone.

Brits take iTablet moniker for 12in iPad rival

Random title #7231

1a. Mechanical hard-drive <-- with the size, it most likely will contain a laptop hard drive yes, but it's not as if you're going to be throwing it around, the screen would break for a start

2. FAT32 file system <-- err, Windows XP and above use NTFS by default......

3. Camera on back <-- beats no camera at all

4. 2kg <-- still light enough

5. 802.11b/g <-- true, an oversight, maybe they will do an Apple and add N to version 2

6. No SD card reader <-- how do you know that? There is no reference

7a/b screen <-- again, no mention of the hardware specifics

8. 1.6GHz Atom <-- it's cool enough but fast enough to run Windows and Multi-Task, something that Apples CPU is unable to do, in fact, the iPad can't multi-task at all, maybe that explains the lack of Flash, the iPad's CPU is so underpowered, it can't actually run it.....

9. Accelerometer? <-- does OSX have support for such a thing? No, it comes from the software on the iPhone, so could they, I don't know, install software on the iTablet which has the same effect? Yes

10. GPS? <-- USB ports, 3G support, a myriad of ways to get GPS on it, and your choice of software too.

11. Multi-touch? <-- Yes, Windows 7 supports Multi-touch and it deals with it fantastically, all the little Aero touches too will come into their own, touch the title bar on screen, wiggle your finger and watch all the other windows minimize. Windows was doing Multi-touch over a decade ago.... (it's even in Windows XP oddly enough)

12. Requires AV software!! <-- Yes, it's one of the joys from having choice and in choosing an operating system used by oh, I don't know, lets say 93% of computer users (probably more, people who buy Macs tend to also buy Windows to get stuff done)

Umm

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but that image shows Windows XP not Windows 7.

Will it tempt me to get one? No, I have no need of a tablet PC of any factor or OS. Is it better than the iPad? Most certainly. Will it outsell the iPad? Nope. Will Apple fanbois come rushing in spouting inane facts about why the iPad is the best tablet choice for any tablet by far and all that malarky? Most defiantly.

Adobe to Jobs: 'What the Flash do you know?'

Chrome

If Flash crashes on Chrome, Chrome kills the plugin with a message saying "this plugin crashed, whoops!", although if Flash did take down Chrome it would only kill the one tab rather than the entire browser.

Anyhow, is Jobsworth right to bar flash from the iPad? Up to him, but he should realise that he will not be able to advertise it in the UK as a "full" internet device without it, the iPhone already got slapped down by the ASA because it doesn't play Flash and if he is trying to market it as a device for viewing the internet, he really should allow it to, you know, play the majority of the internet.

It's all bull though, Jobsworth wants HTML5 and he wants the HTML5 with his own codecs, not ogg or whatever, but that other one I can't think of right now. By only allowing the iPad to use HTML5 (and it'll obviously only support Jobsworth's preferred codecs) he throws a spanner in the works. What'll be so nice now is if Microsoft and Mozilla team up and say "ok, IE8 and Firefox will only use OGG in HTML5, we will not support any other standard", that'll piss off Jobsworth!

iPad runs Windows, Nokia runs OSX

Better idea

Instead of buying a really expensive bit of useless kit then having to play with it to get it to actually do what you want it to do (i.e. run Windows/Linux) why not pay *less* and get a tablet which already comes with Windows or Linux on it?

Seriously, if the only use for the iPad is as a thin client so you can run Windows over a network, doesn't it show you peoples mentality when they choose that over something that runs what they need?

"Hey, you have a choice, you can have this Windows based tablet with Windows on it, and you can dual boot Linux, or, you can have this iPad which runs a phone OS and if you want to do real work, you gotta install software to link it up to your Windows/Linux box!"

Adobe heats up iPad Flash bash

Control

It's all about the money. Apple makes their pennies from all the crap apps that run on iTunes, but they would have no control over flash websites which could offer the same apps (running over Flash) for free.

Why spend £9.99 on an application from iTunes when you can use your iWhatever to go to a Flash website (over 3G or W-Fi) and have the same content without the charge.

Seriously, open Flash, put down a button control, map that control to an mp3 with a "fart" sound, change the button controls text to "Push" and there you go, you just made 25% of the iTunes content, for free!

Who ate all the iPies?

Sheesh

Multi-tasking is important in a larger "mobile" device. It's supposed to be able to take you away from using either a desktop, a laptop or a netbook, and even (in this case) a mobile phone. Because of this the ability to run more than 1 task at a time is important, especially in a consumer based device.

You're sitting (laying) on your sofa, you've managed to load a HD movie onto your iTampax, but you want to also get some emails done at the same time as watching the movie. On a Windows (or Linux) based Tablet PC, no problem, you run WMP in a box and move it to the side, open up your email client (or browser) drag it to the right and it docks taking up half the screen for you to do your emails on whilst watching the movie on the left hand side.

You suddenly think "shoot, I need some more info about this email, I need to talk to Jed" so you fire up messenger, log in (over wi-fi) and start chatting to Jed whilst watching your movie and having your emails open. Jed gives you a link to a web address which has the information you need for the email you're writing, you click the link, Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Internet Explorer opens up and using Windows 7 Multitouch technology taken from "Surface" you have exactly the same experience in ANY browser as you do with the iPad, so that's 4 applications running at the same time.

You finish your email, say "cya Jed" shut down all but the movie and then continue to watch it.

The iPad *cannot* do that, if you're watching a movie, that is *all* you can do with the device for 1 1/2 - 3 hours, if you have an urgent need to use it for sending an email, so you shut down the movie, open your email, crap, you need something from the internet, shut down email, open browser, get the information you need, shut down browser, open email, finish email, shut down email, open movie, continue movie........

Its terrible and Windows based tablets totally and utterly destroy the iTampax.

Steve Jobs re-invents the portable telly

HD Video

It doesn't support the required resolution (1280*720) for HD video, it's resolution is 1024*768 so yes, it's height is enough for 720p but 720p is 16:9, the iPad is 4:3 so it is therefore incapable of displaying HD video as the screen does not meet the specifications.

The on-screen keyboard is a joke, for the lesser screen area on an iPhone having a keyboard without numerics etc.. is justifiable, with the larger screen area on the iPad there is no reason to *not* have a proper onscreen keyboard so you don't have to faff around with pushing buttons to type in numbers.

If you want it to be really usable, you have to add objects to it, like I dunno, a proper keyboard? That negates the use of the thing turning it into an expensive netbook, so why not just get a proper netbook which is WXGA (proper 720p) for half the price? It has pretty much no use in the real world other than for people who will try to find a use for it to justify paying so much for something that is, in effect, an oversized ipod.

Nokia Q4 shows it ain't dead yet

Oh really?

With 49% of the smartphone market, who in their right mind thought Nokia was dying in the first place?

Paddy Power takes bets on iPad shipments

8/1

8/1 under a million, it's a niche market without mass appeal. People who own an iPhone won't need the iPad, people who own netbooks, won't need an iPad. The only people who buy it are people like Stephen Fry who gush about any Apple product no matter how terrible it is.

It doesn't have business Apps like MS office, so no appeal there, it doesn't really have much appeal unless you try to find something specific to use it for, which means it'll end up gathering dust somewhere or another, so my money is on 8/1, under 1m units sold this year.

Survey shows strong demand for Apple tablet

No

Apples market share is more around 10% if you include both Mac's AND iPhones/iPods into the mix, note sure where this report pulled the 17% figure from but:

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/01/02/apple-market-share-tops-10-windows-share-lowest-since-tracking/

Shows 10% when taking both systems into account, probably 0.01% without the iPhone.

Cadbury flakes in face of Kraft bid - cuts expected

So...

It's going to take them 22 years to pay off the debt, what are the odds that Kraft themselves gets bought out because of this? They cannot afford Cadburys. It's a bit like Porche trying to buy VW, in the end VW bought Porche!

Plus Oreos suck and are pretty disgusting, do we want Cadburys to start making tasteless chocolates?

One second-hand space shuttle: Yours for $29m

Well....

There have been only 2 (afaik) super sonic passenger jets, French/British Concorde and the Russian one, the American's couldn't work out how to make one so gave up. Is it derivative? An airplane which needs to expand and contract, Concorde is a technological marvel.

Though based on your own assumptions. Glider with rockets added so it can lift off and glide down, I'm pretty sure many planes can glide without power so it's not exactly rocket science (that's a pun) to figure out the shuttle. It's not a "different way of going in to space" it's the same method the yanks stole from the Germans after world war two, a giant frikken rocket, all travel into space is the same theory, strap a huge rocket onto something and fire both up into space. Coming down is the easy part, you get gravity for that.

Upon seeing Concorde you marvel at the engineering required to make it fly at super sonic speeds, you marvel at its beauty, Concorde from an engineering point of view is far superior to the shuttle in so many ways.

Avatards rush to name sprogs Pandora

Oh dear

They seem to be opening a future Pandora's box there.......

Discrimination warning over airport body scanners

Pregnancy

As far as I know, if you are pregnant you're not allowed to be x-rayed, in hospital the nurses got pretty angry at the portable x-ray bloke for not giving warning. So even though I'm male, every time I go to the airport I will claim I'm pregnant and cannot be x-rayed and it would be against my human rights to deny the fact that I am pregnant (even though I'm a guy). It could work.

Steve Wozniak, your time is up

Nope

I don't believe you should ban the guy from your pages. So he's chosen the Googlephone over the iPhone, big deal, 87% of people prefer smartphones not made by Apple (and 100% of people prefer non-smart phones made by companies other than Apple) and over 90% of people prefer a computer not made by Apple.

This wouldn't even be an issue if, like Jobs, he failed failed and failed again before going back to Apple, the only reason Jobs is in the public perception is because engineers and designers at Apple make him look good, Woz doesn't have that, but he's harmless, leave him be, and if he thinks "hey, this product is better than an Apple product" more power to the fella, shows he's not a brainwashed apple-tart.

World braces for Lindsay Lohan sex tape

Wow

48 seconds worth? Wish I could last that long, lucky girl!

Survey outs Britain as nation of tech twits

Who is..

Who is the CEO of:

Intel

IBM

HP

Samsung

Sony

Honda

BAE

Lego

Nokia

Ford

So far I'm 0/10! Some of the biggest companies in the world and no idea who their CEO's are, so a large percentage knowing the CEO's of two American companies is pretty decent.

Google gets all Minority Report with Street View

Not really

As long as they on public property they have the right to take a photo of you, on private property they have no rights to. But, if you are in a photograph which is being used as an advert, I think you would have a pretty strong case for getting paid for it.

Greenpeace: Apple ain't so brown anymore

Hrm

Let's have a look at my Microsoft Windows 7 box... The outter layer appears to be made out of a substance that seems to be "cardboard", I'd assume that is 100% recyclable, if its made out of recycled material I don't know. Lets pull the container out... It's made of plastic! A closer inspection is required here..... Let's have a look, it would appear that the container is made out of Polypropylene, a recycled/recyclable material, which means Microsoft Windows 7 packaging is very green!

It's all a load of bull really, political gesturing from a bunch of hippies.

Google to mobile industry: ‘F*ck you very much!’

Nice

Nice article Andrew but one mistake (maybe more than one, but only one that I can be bothered to point out):

"One of the most puzzling tech business stories of the last ten years is how Nokia surrendered its smartphone lead and reacted like a rabbit in the headlights when the game changed. "

Nokia still has the smartphone lead, Gartner suggests it's lead is 3 times the market share of Apple, Apple is sitting at 13%, Nokia at 49% or something like that. Not sure, it was on the BBC anyhow. Nokia controls almost half the smartphone market, by anyones calculations that is a lead in the smartphone market, and with the N900 and Maemo it should hopefully start to claw back the (little) marketshare it has lost to Apple/Android.

So, can you recommend a search engine other than google?

Firefox 3.7 to feel need for speed with multicore boost

It did ask.......

"Oh, plus it made itself the default browser without asking. I fucking HATE that."

Previously it asked "IE is not your default browser, would you like to set it as your default browser?" and you clicked "Don't ask me again" and pressed "Yes", so don't blame IE for something *you* did.

Anyhow, Chrome 4.0249.43: 386.2ms

IE8 : 4003.4ms

I don't use Firefox, and never will.

Google tries to quietly trample on Apple's toes

Nokia

Latest figures suggest that Apple's share of the worldwide smartphone market is 17%, Nokia is at 36% in contrast which leaves 47% of the market without Nokia or Apple, this leaves a lot of space for Google to make an impact, if they steal market share from Apple and Nokia as well as some from the remaining 47%, they could have a moderate success with their phone.

ISPs slam Digital Economy Bill's multi-million pound price tag

Hands up

Hands up all those businessmen out there who allow bittorrent on work machines so your staff can download, whats that bands name, JLM? JLF? I dunno, that boy band. None of you? Good! Just in case why not you know, set up your router to block P2P.

I do disagree with this bill though, whats to stop file sharers constantly switching between ISP's costing ISP's a fortune in connection/disconnection charges? Charges which will have to be passed on to consumers. It's totally unworkable and will do nothing to stop file sharers who will just switch on encryption or use a system where their IP is never revealed to the people they are downloading from (as well as whitelists/blacklists)

iPhone gets a decent keyboard

Seriously

Yesterday there were what, 3 iPhone and 1 Apple stories on the first page, and today another iPhone story, is the register a convert to the jobsian way or something and trying to force apple upon us so we defect from PC's and crackberries? Does any other phone or company get the coverage on this website that apple and the iphone is getting?

Japan falls for the iPhone

@Jim 4

Quite correct I guess. 3% of the total 34M is 1,020,000, just over 1 million iphones sold in Japan.

Japans population is 127,704,000 / 1,020,000 = 1 iphone per 125 people.

USA's population is 304,059,724 / 17,000,000 = 1 iphone per 17 people.

If the iphone holds 3% of the market, 100% of the market is 34,000,000 mobile phones in Japan which access the internet (a totally incorrect figure, market penetration on mobile phones in Japan is something like 65%, 65% of 127m is 82m) so based on 34m mobiles, 1m isn't really all that much (based n 82m it's trivial numbers).

What we are seeing is market rubbish "ohh the iphone holds 49% of the market in Japan!" when in reality, the iphone in Japan holds (based on 82m) just over 1%.

Compare that with Nokia who "only" managed a 0.3% market share in Japan before pulling out, Apple are only slightly higher than that, so by anyones standing, Apple have failed in Japan, with a minuscule market share of a minuscule market using CDMA technology, whilst the majority of Japan uses FOMA (FOMA has roughly 40 million subscribers in Japan).

Depending on where you read, you can come up with figures that the Japanese mobile market shifts 5 million units a month, any person who can consider shifting 1m units in 2-3 years a total success needs treatment for their Steve Jobs obsession.

Semi-useless info

Without a direct split between iphone and ipod, there is no way of telling which device the Japanese are using. Are they sticking with their advanced mobiles and using the ipod touch, or are they switching to the iphone?

Apple have (worldwide) sold 34m iphones, 17m of them to the US and 17m to the rest of the world, Japan has 120 million people, 3% of 17m is 510,000, doesn't really seem so impressive like that does it, Apple selling 510,000 phones in Japan. But again, without knowing the exact figures of the split between iphone/ipod then it's just a rough percentage guess.

However if you look at:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/18/iphone-nabs-46-pecent-of-japanese-smartphone-market-the-tiny-ja/

It gets broken down pretty well, Apple may hold 46% market share for smartphones, but in Japan smartphones are a tiny market, Apple doesn't even break out of the "other" category which have a total market share of 22.6% (others that is, not Apple on its own).

So in summary, the iphone market in Japan is tiny, lumping it in with the ipod to seem like it has higher growth than it has is pretty terrible.