Softbank custom email notifications
I've been well aware of this problem since the day I got my iPhone in Japan but I've hesitated posting about it because I knew it would be a pretty long post.
So, I apologise in advance, this will be a long post.
If you can't be bothered reading it all, the short version is this: Either stop using your @i.softbank.jp address and use Yahoo or MobileMe instead OR start complaining to Softbank/Apple and get them to either start using actual push email for @i.softbank.jp addresses or get them to fix the custom notification implementation so that it uses audio/vibrate (then get Apple to extend the audio/vibrate notification!).
I've had the original iPhone since its first release last year so I'm not new to it all.
I think there are potentially quite a few reasons this is the way things are.
First and foremost would be that Japan is the only country (that I know of) where your phone carrier gives you an (@carriername) email address when you sign up. People in Japan use email on their phones very differently from the rest of the world. For example:
- SMS isn't usually called SMS here. Different companies have different names for it. AU (KDDI) calls it C-mail, Vodafone (now Softbank) called it Skymail. I'm not sure what the others call it but I'm sure they have their own names for it too.
- SMS (C-mail, Skymail, whatever you want to call it) in Japan generally can't be sent to phones on other carriers. It's used for sending SMS to phones on the same carrier/network and is considerably cheaper than SMS in other countries.
- People in Japan use email (not SMS. Actual email using their @carriername email address) on their phones to send to phones on other networks, to normal non-phone email addresses (Gmail, Hotmail etc) and to phones on the same network when the email requires more than the SMS character limit. They use this type of phone email much more than phone users in other countries from what I've seen and heard.
- A lot of Japanese don't have computers and don't use non-phone email addresses (Gmail, Hotmail etc) for sending email. They do it all on their phone.
Second reason. The Japanese mobile phone industry is quite insular. Japanese phones aren't generally exported. They're made to work with Japanese carriers using features common in Japan but not elsewhere. Evidence of some of these points
here. When you buy a new Japanese phone with a Japanese carrier, there are no customisations the carrier is required to make to get that phone working with their systems, because they're made for the Japanese market and carriers.
The main point of this second reason is the iPhone did require at least one customisation by Softbank and that's the email notifications. The Softbank email service (for any of Softbank's phones, including the iPhone) doesn't use actual push.
Someone in the Japanese phone industry once explained to me how it works but I can't remember the exact technical details. When an email is sent to a Japanese phone (except the iPhone) it does immediately notify you and it does immediately download the email, just like push. It's not using push though. It's using something else. Sorry, I can't remember the name or the details and can't find any details about it on the intarblogs!
It does seem that the iPhone at least partially supports this behaviour, as evidenced by the
'You got a mail.' screen. That message shows within a few seconds of a mail being sent to the @i.softbank.jp address so the Softbank network is definitely instantly notifying the iPhone that there's new mail, much like push.
That screen doesn't appear on non-Softbank iPhones because outside of Japan people don't have the @carriername email addresses.
The text 'You got a mail.', the big green 'Dismiss' button and the general design of the screen suggests that Softbank either did this part of the UI entirely themselves or at least had a lot of input. The English text is grammatically incorrect and the 'Dismiss' button doesn't feel like something Apple would do. 'Dismiss' at first suggests that you're at least dismissing the email, or perhaps even deleting it.
Because it looks like Softbank built this part of the notification system, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it's not working perfectly. They're not the best phone company in the world and they're dealing with a brand new 'type' of phone, quite unlike Japanese phones.
Because Japanese phones are built for the Japanese market and carriers, it's also probably the first time a Japanese carrier has had to make any sort of customisation to get it working. That's possibly another part of the reason it's not great, because it's new and they haven't worked it out yet.
Third reason. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the main reason there's no audio or vibrate notification at the same time as the 'You got a mail.' screen. Because Softbank are not using push, and the 'You got a mail.' notification isn't part of the usual iPhone UI, or the Mail.app, or mail in general, there would be no way for a user to customise this notification.
If Softbank altered the current 'You got a mail.' notification so that it vibrated and played audio, how could the user change the audio that plays or any other settings related to this notification?
Some might say you should be able to change it in Settings > Sounds but those settings are currently only for Mail.app actually receiving mail, not this non-standard stuff Softbank are using.
I can see why Softbank might think that no audio or vibrate notification is better than having them and the user not being able to change them, but I think I'd disagree.
So, as far as I can tell the only options for making things work the way they do on all other Japanese phones are...
- Complain to Softbank about the current system. A friend and I have already spent quite a while speaking to Softbank staff in a store, Softbank Customer support by phone, plus their managers. We both speak Japanese well and explaining the problem and listening to their responses was easy. Some of them didn't understand the problem at all but the ones who did mostly responded with "Yes, that's how it is". They didn't even seem to understand that it was a complaint and that we want something done about it. If you want to call and complain (please do!) you can call 157 (press 8 for english support if you need it).
- Stop using your @i.softbank.jp address and switch to Yahoo or MobileMe. This option sucks a bit for a lot of reasons. Though Yahoo does work, it's not "real" push apparently. MobileMe works but of course Apple are having problems with it, plus it costs $99USD a year. The main problem with this is actually quite massive, and will probably remain a problem even if Softbank fix this whole thing. You can't customise the notification for new email at all (WTF Apple!?)! It vibrates ONCE and plays a short tone ONCE. The whole notification last about half a second. I'm very surprised there aren't a lot more people complaining about this. It seems like a massive issue to me! There is an app called 'asVibra' for extending the vibrate/audio notification for new SMS which just changes a number in a plist file. I do wonder if the same can be done for the email notification. As soon as I've jailbroken my new phone I'll search for it and reply if I find anything. It will also be interesting to see if there's any evidence of the Softbank text only implementation, and even more interesting would be if someone could actually alter it and make it play audio! I doubt it though...
- ???
Anyway, this whole @carriername new email notification thing is a bonus compared to the rest of the world and in a way it's surprising there's any notification at all. Still, it'd be great if it could be improved.
