AppleInsider Staff"It is true that Mr. Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. and our president (Masao) Nakamura held a meeting," an NTT DoCoMo spokesman told the Agence France-Presse, declining to reveal the timing or content of the discussions.
Kyodo News in its own report said DoCoMo is Apple's first choice to market the iPhone to Japanese consumers. However, the carrier may be reluctant to accept Apple's demand for a share of subscriber revenue, the news agency added.
The Wall Street Journal had reported earlier this week that Jobs met with Nakamura, but that Apple has also been talking to Japan's No. 3 operator, Softbank Corp.
A subsequent report by way of Reuters suggested the iPhone maker was playing the two Japanese carriers off of one another ahead of a deal to launch the iPhone in Japan sometime in 2008.
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Amber Neely
16 Comments
As some other rumor/news site noted, Japan doesn't have an EDGE network, so they'd need a 3G iPhone for this to work.
Interesting. Veeeeeeeery interesting.
As some other rumor/news site noted, Japan doesn't have an EDGE network, so they'd need a 3G iPhone for this to work.
Neither did O2 until a few weeks before the iPhone UK launch and it's been gradually trickling outwards from London since. Apple are quite happy it seems to launch without EDGE and without 3G.
Neither did O2 until a few weeks before the iPhone UK launch and it's been gradually trickling outwards from London since. Apple are quite happy it seems to launch without EDGE and without 3G.
I'll bet money that a 3G iPhone and the Japanese release coincide.
Neither did O2 until a few weeks before the iPhone UK launch and it's been gradually trickling outwards from London since. Apple are quite happy it seems to launch without EDGE and without 3G.
That may be true... but As far as I know, Japan doesn't have a GSM/GPRS network either. So this leaves us with 3 possible courses:
1) 3G iPhone
2) NTT is launching a 2G GSM/EDGE network
3) The Japanese iPhone will use WiFi as it's primary connectivity.
I doubt it's 2 or 3...