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Is Softbank’s new iPad 2 campaign worth it?
Updated 2011/11/09 -- see bottom of the post
For the iPhone 4S launch, Masayoshi Son, Softbank's CEO, decided to go all out to keep his customers from going to aU by KDDI.
Fun Fact: during his keynote on October 7th, one day after Steve Jobs passing away, Son-san declared tearfully that these campaigns were his gifts to spread the Steve's "art work" (he used the word 作品 as opposed to 製品) to as many people as possible.
One of these campaigns is for the iPad and it's description is very confusing. See the figure below:
Many people take this to mean that you can get a 16GB iPad for free, ¥0 per month, if you are already a Softbank iPhone subscriber. That's not true because ¥1,860 monthly discount on the second to last line only applies to the communications charge and not to the iPad hardware monthly cost. Going to the cost simulation page shows this well: your minimum monthly bill is still ¥1,860 (the cost of the 16GB iPad 2) and the data plan is free up to 100MB.
So in the end we get a free data plan if we don't use 3G internet (almost don't use it, 100MB a month wouldn't get you much farther than regular email checking). That sounds like a classic mobile operator swindle: giving you something for almost free and then hammering you with extra high fees whenever you go over the pathetically low usage limits. Let's look at the data plan details:
So yes, free for 100MB, capped at ¥4,980 over 111.5MB or you could choose to just pay a flat plan ¥4,410 every month whatever your usage. You end up paying a ¥470 premium for the flexibility of paying nothing the months when you almost don't use 3G... Is that actually a good deal? I put the numbers into Numbers to see:
- iPad 2 16GB + ZERO data plan under 100MB usage per month: ¥22,320 per year
- iPad 2 16GB + ZERO data plan over 111.5MB user every month: ¥63,540 per year
- iPad 2 16GB + FLAT data plan: ¥56,700 per year
So over the course of a year you would be saving money only if you stay under the 100MB cap for more than 3 months.
Is that a good deal? If you only use the 3G for emailing in the train and turn off the modem when not in use (letting it check your mail every 15min in the background would significantly bump your usage) then it could be. But having already an iPhone, do you really need to check your email on your iPad?
Myself, I will probably pass on that campaign. What would really be interesting would be a tethering option for my iPhone at a reasonable price... Well reasonable would really be ¥0 as I consider I'm already paying for the bandwidth and how I use it is none of Softbank's business. An "acceptable" price would be maybe ¥1,000.
Please tell me in the comments what you think about this campaign.
Update: Very good point added in the comments by Maddy. If you get an iPad from Softbank for that campaign and remove the SIM card, never to use it again, you still get to download the Softbank WiFi roaming profile that lets you connect to all Softbank / FON / YahooBB / Tokyo Metro access points for free (that's a pretty extensive network in Tokyo) and a GPS to boot. That's a clear advantage over buying a WiFi only version from Apple for the exact same price.
Lantern Festival in Hiroshima
For the Obon summer vacations I went to see my wife's family in Hiroshima. Although I've been there 4 or 5 times before, it was the first time that my visit coincided with the anniversary of the atomic bomb blast on August 6th and the 灯籠流し — lantern festival. To commemorate the victims, we float tens of thousands of lanterns representing the dead's souls on the river in front of the 原爆ドーム — the A-bomb dome.
Despite buying a nice Manfrotto tripod for the occasion, I'm a bit disappointed with my photos of the event... The conditions were not optimal, after queuing up for more than an hour to launch our lanterns on the river, I started shooting. But the unbearable heat (the high riverbanks blocking any wind and the hundreds of people crowding the launchpad and the bridge were not helping) as well as my wife and her friends clamoring for retreat towards a cold beer and plenty of wine at a nearby restaurants meant I took a mere 20 quick shots and left with my shirt completely soaked.
Impact of 3/11 disaster on Tokyo real estate marketing
Now a bit past 3 months after the March 11th disaster in Japan, we can observe some trends of changes to different aspects of life here. Here is one thing I could see on the real estate business 震災後 (post-disaster): there is a big focus on designing buildings that not only will withstand earthquakes, but will also help living conditions during the days or weeks without water/gas/electricity that follow as we continue to witness in Tohoku. Recently, on my way to work, I was handed a pamphlet outside my station for apartments for rent at a new building in Sugamo (Northern Tokyo). The 4xA4 page glossy paper advertisement shows on pages 1 & 3 pretty pictures of the interior and modern amenities. The back page shows a plan of the neighborhood and touts 0 key money, 0 agent fees and free rent and parking space for 2 months (this was already becoming more common before March). Pretty much standard... But on page 2, something new: a full-page dedicated to the "防災 qualities" (disaster prevention) of the building. Here is a scan with some explanations:
- The 2.2ha park in the middle of the grounds can hold 500 people camping for 1 week.
- Storage rooms hold water reserves, batteries, lamps, covers, radios, emergency toilets and other emergency supplies.
- Benches in the park can be converted to kitchen counter tops. The pergola can be tented over to provide shelter for refugees during bad weather. A line of multiple manholes is ready to set up emergency toilets.
- The building is 7.4km along main arteries from Otemachi (the traditional business center of Tokyo) meaning that even if all trains are stopped after a big earthquake you can walk home in about one hour and a half.
The website for the building also has a page on its disaster prevention design.
iPad 3G and Pocket WiFi alternatives in Japan
So the pricing for the iPad in Japan are out. It seems even devices sold at the Apple Stores will be SIM-locked to Softbank, breaking many hopes of seeing DoCoMo come into the picture and shaking things up a little.
This has definitely not changed my thoughts on the device, it would very much piss me off to pay twice for 2 iPhone and iPad data plans.
This morning, my buddy @kuriburi who is more enthusiastic than I am, called me from the line at the Softbank shop to discuss the situation. Interestingly enough, people were fleeing in droves after receiving the pamphlet describing the full pricing... We entertained the thought that it might be more interesting to buy a WiFi version and get a Pocket WiFi device from data plan specialist eMobile.
@kuriburi left the Softbank line and we started gathering data from the web:
- Softbank's iPad device prices and data plan pages
- Softbank's Pocket WiFi page
- eMobile's Pocket WiFi page
And after crunching numbers here are the results, first for the iPad 64GB version:
And for the iPad 32GB version:
It still seems the Softbank's default option with integrated 3G is very aggressively priced compared to the competition. But if you can limit yourself to less than 300MB of 3G data per month, you can save up to ¥9.000 on the 32GB iPad over the 2 years contract period. Not much for sure, but some people might be interested...
Note: we have not taken into account the eMobile Super Light data plan because a 3MB/month data plan will not let you do anything but access email (and then without pictures) which does not count as a full usage of the device.
Note 2: here's a link to the spreadsheet, if you see anything wrong with the data please notify me in the comments.
Cat Street matsuri
Taken with my iPhone on Cat Street, the street that connects Shibuya to Omotesando. I'm pretty impressed by the picture quality of my iPhone, I should take more photos with it...
Sagami Original condom ad
Love needs distance, an interestingly touching ad for Sagami Original condoms airing on Japanese TV recently.
A man from Fukuoka and a woman from Tokyo (1.200km apart) run towards each other and meet in front of the Osaka castle. This commercial proves you can sell condoms without stupid childish sexual innuendo...
Japan is supposed to have the most advanced condom makers – as this claims to be the world's thinnest condom. But with the staggering amount of できちゃった結婚 (literally "oops I got married", meaning getting married because you got your girlfriend pregnant, a shotgun wedding) I hear about – a colleague of mine says 50% of all marriage in Japan are thus, he's exaggerating but he speaks from experience... – it seems all this technology is going to waste.
Driving school and discrimination awarenesss
As I said in a previous post, I do not have a driving license it every now and then I get itchy and think about getting one. So the other day, feeling itchy, I scanned the web to find driving schools close to my new home in Ikebukuro and found the Koyama driving school.
Interestingly, they claim to be the only driving school in Tokyo to cater to the gaijin population by offering a curriculum entirely in english. So I checked out the prices on the English and Japanese versions of the site for basic manual license:
- Japanese: ¥302,950
- English: ¥398,630
Wow, those bilingual driving teachers sure come at a big premium don't they? Well if you compare the detail of the prices here's what you find:
So if you actually compare the detailed split-up, the english textbooks cost ¥18,900 compared to ¥5,250 which I can understand. All the lesson/test fees are the same. The only other difference is that the entry fee is ¥83.000 more expensive if you sign up in english...
Now the interesting thing is not that it's more expensive, I would consider it normal to have higher lecture/training fees in english language in Tokyo. What's shocking is that there is so little awareness of "discrimination being bad" in this country that no-one thought it a bad idea to write down the price hike for this special service (which could be justifiable) as a random meaningless admission fee.
Suffice to say, I will not be bringing my business to this shop...
Softbank’s “summer scam” campaign
Softbank is launching a fun summer campaign with its cute mascot お父さん:
Use your Softbank 3G phone overseas this summer and get a chance to win one of 100 flower-necklace-wearing-お父さん straps!
Way to go Softbank! It's a classy move, trying to lure customers into using their cellphone overseas at ￥200/min and potentially incurring ginormous phone bills, all for a chance of winning a ￥150 keitai-strap...
View from my new place
Last night was the first clear sky sunset I could catch since we moved in the new apartment in Ikebukuro. 梅雨 (the rainy season - literally rain like plums) is not over yet so it was a lucky day.
I can't wait until the typhoon season - after a typhoon, the skies are like washed from any cloud or fog - when I should be able to see the Fujisan clearly from my window.
Eclipse excitement building up
The solar eclipse craze is building up less than 2 months before the big day. This nice map resumes pretty well what you'll be able to see from major cities in the country with and the times to adjust your schedule. (click to zoom)
Better hope 梅雨, the rainy season, will be over by July 22nd...
Amazon Japan also started selling eclipse sunglasses
Interesting language point: solar eclipse in Japanese is 日食 which basically means "eat the sun"... Sound pretty cool.
Also I'm extremely disappointed as I was invited by a now retired colleague to come to his home on 奄美大島, one of the only islands dead center on the full occultation path, but I was not able to get plane tickets to get there. There is only one plane per day from Tokyo, operated by JAL, and they sold the exclusivity of all the seats for a week to their travel agency branch JTB who sold out their insanely expensive tourist packages months and months ago... Of course, in a typical Japanese move, JAL never thought it might be a nice idea to buff up the number of flights for the once in a lifetime occasion.
If I still were a student, I would've taken the 48h boat trip. Alas, my salaryman life does not permit it anymore...
Moving to the city
After a bit more than 1.5 years since moving to my current place in 志木, it's time to move again. I've set my mind on a tower mansion 2 minutes from Ikebukuro station in Tokyo and should get the keys by the end of June.
The view from the living room should be like the picture below on clear days (albeit from a lower vantage point but I should still be able to glimpse the Fujisan). Can't wait to be doing cool Tokyo timelapses from my own window.
fujisan view - the weird white triangular building is Nakano
This time, my company does not wish to rent it for me and take it out of my salary as I am a local contract employee. So this is my first foray into actually signing a rental contract and paying all the fees myself upfront. So lets break it down:
- 1st month of rent (you pay your rent in advance in Japan) = ¥220.000
- Moving in on 26th of June so 5 days worth of rent until 30th = ¥36.700
- 敷金 - deposit, 2 months of rent = ¥440.000
- 火災保険 - fire insurance = ¥25.000
- 鍵交換代 - lock change fee = ¥35.000 (that's a hell of a lot for a lock!)
- 町内会費 - neighborhood association membership fee for 2 months = ¥500
For a grand total of ¥757.200 or three quarters of a million yen... upfront... it hurts...
And actually, I should count myself lucky, this is rather cheap and most of it is the deposit which I'll mostly get back. Apartments here, especially new ones, often have a 礼金 which is also called key money and is a nice gift of 2 months of rent to the owner.
Thinking of all that money makes me a bit more partial to the idea of buying a place for myself...
Corporate flu prevention in Japan
Since coming back from Golden Week vacations, my company has been sending flu-related information by email to all employees twice a week.
Last week we had an employee coming back from the US get yanked into quarantine at Narita for a week because he sat in the vicinity of a guy with a fever.
Today we received the following email:
Due to prevention of New type Flu, VTSJ Safety & Health Committee would like you to deploy as followings.
Before coming work place, it is necessary to check your body temperature. If you have more than 38℃ of fever, Report to your manager and call to inquiry counter (phone desk organized by the health ministry).
*If you are not able to talk by Japanese, inform to your HR Department.
When your team member will be infected a flu, Manager must report it to Safety Group by attached format. Manager must ask your team member to avoid coming to his/her work place until approval from Public Health Department.
Along with PDF flyers about proper hand washing and "coughing etiquette" as well as the official excel-made (everything is made with excel in Japan) "Flu Patient Declaration" form for use by managers to report to Human Resources.
One of my team members didn't come to work today because he wasn't feeling good. I'm tempted to rat him out to the company with the provided form and get him quarantined until next week... (^o^)/
Chinese food is best in Chinatown
In a previous post I was talking about driving all the way to 横浜の中華街 for a chinese lunch. Now I've finally gotten around to processing the pictures in Aperture and uploading them to flickr.
MOSDO – MOS Burger x Mister Donuts
Mister Donuts x MOS Burger = MOSDO!
Starting May 12, MOS Burger and Mister Donut will start a joint marketing operation mixing their respective products:
- MOS will have burgers with a hole in the middle of the patty
- Mister Donuts will sell burger shaped donuts - reminiscent of Mamido burger I reported about a while back (sorry, I still blogged in French at that time)
At first I thought they were doing a horrible frankenstein-esque combination of donut buns and meat patties... Gross...
