I had to disable Adblock Plus for some reason to get the entire page to load.
Ditto on the point where Japan is stuck in the 1980s future. Everything's optimized for tiny cellphone screens optimized for text. If I recall correctly iPhone adoption was slow, and many people lacked a desktop to provide updates. I still find wifi to be incredibly scarce in Tokyo. If people want a desktop, they go to a cafe. If they want a mobile connection, it's faster to just use your telecom plan.
The primary reason for slow iPhone adoption in Japan was that both NTT Docomo and au/KDDI, the largest carriers, initially refused to stock it. (Japan has a strange model where the telcos basically control what handsets can be sold.) SoftBank was the first to start selling it, and this propelled them from being a bit player into a top-tier telco.
No way. It's hard to exaggerate what a smash hit the iPhone was in Japan. It immediately changed the mobile landscape, and continues to have an outsized market share: ~57% compared to 45% in the US
Yes, once it was available, but dominant players NTT Docomo and KDDI refused to sell it for years. It was SoftBank who took a punt, and it paid off big time.
Wifi WAS extremely scarce in Japan. When I lived there a few years ago the phone plans were great for me but it was very difficult for friends visiting to have internet even in Tokyo. When I was there last year there seemed to have been a pretty big push in preparation for the Olympics, most stations did not have WiFi in 2015 when I moved away as an example
If by “a few” you mean more than 5 then maybe. Free WiFi in all convenience stores, most train stations (almost all in bigger cities Tokyo, around half in bumfuck countryside where I live), many major public spots and department stores, expressway buses, and many cafes and restaurants all have free WiFi.
I was without a SIM card for several months recently and rarely had to go far finding connectivity.
Fanboy’s Annoyance list contains a filter ##.headersocial, which is triggered by the headersocial class on the body element, and so it nukes the whole page. I’ve reported this upstream; I believe changing it to ##:not(body).headersocial should fix this site, or maybe they’ll make an exception for this domain instead.
I've seen a lot of pocket wifi routers also for locals, which is really neat when you travel and your accomodation comes with one of these since you can carry it around all day for wifi and don't need a simcard.
Ditto on the point where Japan is stuck in the 1980s future. Everything's optimized for tiny cellphone screens optimized for text. If I recall correctly iPhone adoption was slow, and many people lacked a desktop to provide updates. I still find wifi to be incredibly scarce in Tokyo. If people want a desktop, they go to a cafe. If they want a mobile connection, it's faster to just use your telecom plan.
That seems to have changed under COVID.