Free iPhones

Soundtrack: Mozart's Requim Mass in D Minor VI
Softbank, Apple's iPhone carrier in Japan, recently annouced that due to struggle sales, they will now be giving the iPhone away for free.
Before the iPhone landed in Japan, there was alot of debate about how it play out in the savviest of tech markets. It looks like we have our answer now.
I hang out with alot of オタク (to be defined later) and the iPhone has not permeated this niche, which should have been the easiest target. After the week long lines in Harajuku were done, the hype was exhausted. People were unwilling to sacrifice the capabilities of the "normal" Japanese handsets: credit cards functionality, ewallets, auto-charging RFID etc... These are mostly hardware functions that the iPhone does not offer (yet). Even the software functionality has a few holes, most notoriously, the lack of emoji (which was later rectified by an app).
All in all, even for a Gaijin like me, the iPhone has some key Japanese features missing, but the strengths and sheer ingenuity of the device mostly make up for this.