no word on my order
Well, it's 21:00 and no call so far. I was 15 on my store's list. Anyone else hear?
Well, it's 21:00 and no call so far. I was 15 on my store's list. Anyone else hear?
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iPhone 4 Japan (Softbank)
- Thread starter svalentine
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I wasn't able to reserve until the 18th. To make matters worse, I'm reserved at a Softbank on a military base where a crap ton of people use iPhones.
I'm not expecting mine for quite some time to be honest.
I'm not expecting mine for quite some time to be honest.
This is only a wild guess but I think if you didn't get a call yet you're better off and stand a good chance of getting one on release day. My local Softbank Store was just making sure to call all the poor souls like myself who are lower down on the list as early as possible so that we know we aren't getting one on the 24th.
Well, you never know. Maybe Apple allots a proportionately higher number of units for that store considering the demand.
At least you got your order in on the 18th. That's the day they cut off preorders altogether. I'm guessing that folks who walk in on release day to order are probably looking at late July for theirs unless Apple really ramps up production.
I'm currently with the AU family plan and have been thinking about switching to Softbank for the iPhone. I'm on the family plan with AU and am a little confused about how Softbank's messaging works.
If my wife and I are both on Softbank (white or double white) can we email each other for free? What is the difference between SkyMail (SMS) and ShaMail (S! Mail). These are both different from "regular" mail?
Do any of you use TextFree to send messages to friends and family abroad?
The easiest way to explain it for an AU user would be:
S! Mail = E-mail, same as using a regular email address (gmail n whatnot)
SMS = (Similar system as AU's C-Mail), uses phone number, short message service
What is the difference then between S! Mail and SMS? What exactly would incur charges? Can I configure the iPhone mail application with my gmail account and this would be taken from data packets?
Thanks again...
Thanks again...
I'm still waiting to hear about my pre-order as well. I was 4th in line on the 15th, and got my pre-order stamped at 17:15. Apparently the shop I went to (a company store in non-Central Tokyo) still has no idea how many units they're receiving tomorrow. Tomorrow!! Incompetent clowns. 
Anyone else getting the shaft?
Anyone else getting the shaft?
After getting the "I'm so SORRY but having placed your order on the 17th of course you're not getting yours on release date..." call from my local Softbank store rep yesterday I tried to get him to give me some semblance of a predicted DOA but he refused saying only that he'd call when it came in.
So finally I sort of sarcastically asked "will I be waiting for days? Weeks?? MONTHS?!?!?" and he replied with a jolly tone "oh I'm sure it won't be MONTHS!" as if that would totally make me feel better.
Great...
I dropped in to my local shop yesterday to ask about what the process is for picking up my phone. They just told me that they will call me on the 24th when my iPhone is in.
I booked a half-day off tomorrow so that I can get my iPhone as soon as possible but I'm not telling my girlfriend because she wouldn't understand
I booked a half-day off tomorrow so that I can get my iPhone as soon as possible but I'm not telling my girlfriend because she wouldn't understand
I booked a half-day off tomorrow so that I can get my iPhone as soon as possible but I'm not telling my girlfriend because she wouldn't understand
Hehe - that really cracked me up!
I am in a similar situation (with Softbank, not girlfriend). They say they will call me sometime on Thursday when my phone is ready. They don't seem to realize how ridiculous that is to someone in my situation. Long drive, and busy schedule tomorrow.
Crossing my fingers for a call with 'come and get your iPhone' first thing in the morning!
I got a call this afternoon from my Softbank shop saying I can come pick it up tomorrow afternoon.
One happy camper here
One happy camper here
I got a call this afternoon from my Softbank shop saying I can come pick it up tomorrow afternoon.
One happy camper here
No call here yet and I really don't expect one to be honest...
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS (OS4.0b3): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)
5:15 on the 15th, here. Doesn't seem to matter to these clowns.
iammike1 said:
5:15 on the 15th, here. Doesn't seem to matter to these clowns.
I got in line at 4 PM on the 15th, ended up being #14 in line.
Computers went down on the night of the 15th, so came back on the morning of the 16th and went to the head of the line since I was there the night before.
Downtown Tokyo, Waseda area.
Just talked to another SoftBank monkey and was told that the SoftBank shop I pre-ordered at still did not know how many phones they were getting tomorrow and therefore could not promise me anything, despite the fact that I was the 4th person to pre-order. I told them that there better a phone waiting for me if they didn't want the loudest, biggest, angriest gaijin they've ever seen in their lives.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS (OS4.0b3): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)
Something like that. Wouldn't take much to intimidate the pansies who work there, I think.
iammike1 said:
Something like that. Wouldn't take much to intimidate the pansies who work there, I think.
I'm in Kanagawa, just a stone's throw away from the boarder with Tokyo.
For anyone who hasn't had a call from Softbank yet, I would just walk into the store tomorrow morning. They will either get the phones in tonight or first thing tomorrow - if someone turns up for work early, they may have a very early delivery (think about the delivery time options for the courier companies!).
If they say you'll have to wait another week, give them a sob story - oh, I told all my friends I was getting it today... - look upset/disappointed, and you may get someone who crumbles and does you a favour.
For anyone who hasn't had a call from Softbank yet, I would just walk into the store tomorrow morning. They will either get the phones in tonight or first thing tomorrow - if someone turns up for work early, they may have a very early delivery (think about the delivery time options for the courier companies!).
If they say you'll have to wait another week, give them a sob story - oh, I told all my friends I was getting it today... - look upset/disappointed, and you may get someone who crumbles and does you a favour.
If they say you'll have to wait another week, give them a sob story - oh, I told all my friends I was getting it today... - look upset/disappointed, and you may get someone who crumbles and does you a favour.
Unfortunately, the employees at the base Softbank are very Americanized...so I have a feeling they'd just ignore me. lol
According to the website:
http://mb.softbank.jp/en/price_plans/whiteplan.html
any message you send/receive from one Softbank phone to another will be free, regardless of whether it's a short message (SMS) or a long message (email/MMS). When you send a long message, be sure to send to the person's phone number, not the email address. I'm not 100% sure, but if you send to the email address as opposed to the phone number, it might get charged for packet data.
I seem to remember a long time ago (when the company was called J-Phone?) that if you sent a picture to another person, there were packet charges. I think sending pictures evolved (got renamed) into MMS. So, it could be that sending pictures are free between Softbank phones (as White Plan says free MMS) - but I doubt it as that can be quite a bit of data.
If you live in one of the bigger cities, some of the Softbanks have staff who speak excellent English and can help you out, if you need it. For example:
http://mb.softbank.jp/en/customer_support/shops.html
Or try one of the larger electrical stores, like Yodobashi. The first time I tried to sort out a phone, on one spoke English there, so as a half joke, I asked if anyone spoke German. They said yes! So I ended up sorting out a new phone in my (and his) crappy German.
As butaro has already said, S! Mail is just regular email (except when you send it between Softbank phones - it's free and you only need to use the person's phone number) - if you want to write an email to a yahoo/hotmail/another phone carrier in Japan, it will be charged by packets.
As you know, (almost) all phones in Japan have their own email address so you can easily write to someone if you want to instead of calling. I regularly do to a friend who's on Docomo.
NB
The above isn't 100% true when dealing with iPhones (from the link above):
# 2 Messaging iPhone mail addresses (xxx@i.softbank.jp) incurs packet communications charges.
What does this mean, I hear you ask? From what I've heard, it's not possible to message an iPhone on its number, you have to use the email address, hence you have to pay for packets.
Oh, also note that White Plan doesn't come with the "email/internet experience" as standard. You have to pay 315 Yen/month for that. They call it the S! Basic Pack.
iPhone on Softbank
You can SMS out to and receive SMS messages from anyone on Softbank. You can NOT SMS to or from anyone outside of Softbank.
Email is treated as standard data and is, by far, the most used method the Japanese use to communicate between phones. In fact, your name@i.softbank.jp is an IMAP Email server. I even have it setup in Mail.app so I don't always have to use the phone keyboard.
Data...I don't ever care how much I use, I think you have to get the "unlimited" data plan with the iPhone but I might be wrong there. For me, once I hit a certain amount of data each month, the bill for data no longer rises.
You can SMS out to and receive SMS messages from anyone on Softbank. You can NOT SMS to or from anyone outside of Softbank.
Email is treated as standard data and is, by far, the most used method the Japanese use to communicate between phones. In fact, your name@i.softbank.jp is an IMAP Email server. I even have it setup in Mail.app so I don't always have to use the phone keyboard.
Data...I don't ever care how much I use, I think you have to get the "unlimited" data plan with the iPhone but I might be wrong there. For me, once I hit a certain amount of data each month, the bill for data no longer rises.
I think you mean ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival), mate. DOA = Dead On Arrival. But what do I know.