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Month December 2008

Entries 10 Total

Identifying Japanese Mushrooms on the Go With the iPhone

Dec 31, ’08 10:33 AM


Ever found yourself out and about and suddenly in need of a guide to Japanese mushrooms?

If you recognise this situation and are an iPhone / iPod touch owner, you’ll be pleased to hear that help is now at hand.

The Japanese publisher Shogakukan has recently released ‘Japanese Mushrooms: The basic 50 types’ [iTunes 230yen]

There’s also been a fair bit of online coverage of their forthcoming sushi app, sushi neta zukan (illustrated sushi encyclopedia), which is to debut in the app store in January. However, as has been pointed out elsewhere, if you simply can’t wait there are already a couple of sushi apps for iPhone / iPtouch out there, Sushimonger and SushiTime.

Whilst writing this, the most interesting thing I discovered was that whilst Shogakukan is widely known for its distribution of films such as iChi the Killer, it’s company profile reads:

Though it is not possible for publications to solve the world’s problems, they are capable of sowing small seeds that move people’s hearts in a positive direction. It is the task of publications to sow seeds that bear fruit in our lives and bloom as flowers. That is our philosophy.

Hmm. I’m not quite sure how sadistic violence and rape fit in there…

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Review: Japanese for iPhone: Japanese-English Dictionary

Dec 31, ’08 9:03 AM

EDIT: This app has now been updated. For a review of the incredible new version check out the review by Diego

Japanese: The Japanese – English Dictionary
2300 yen / £11.99

Rating: ☆☆☆

Being a student of Japanese, and being a foreigner in Japan, one of the first iPhone apps I looked for was a decent dictionary. Having been disappointed with the limited vocabulary of a dictionary I’d bought for my old DS Lite, I was keen to find one that used Jim Breen’s EDICT as its main database, and (if possible) supplemented by additional dictionaries aimed at those looking to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

‘Japanese’ [app web site - includes demo video] [iTunes], an app developed by codefromtokyo (a one-man-show?) matched these criteria. It contains 127,829 words from the comprehensive JMDICT and KANJIDICT2 databases, as well as a dictionary of the kanji that appear in the JLPT (divided into the four current JLPT levels).

Additionally – and this is pretty sexy – it contains mini-movies showing the stroke order of all kanji taken from the Shodo Project.

Word groupings

As well as appearing in the main dictionary, entries are grouped into various categories to enable easy search / use. These are:

Hiragana & Katakana; Kanji (listed by radical / stroke count / school year / kokuji [native Japanese kanji]); classification (e.g. agriculture, anthropology, architecture, art…); counters; expressions (“I love you” “nice to meet you”…); proverbs; vocabulary lists.

The vocabulary lists are particularly useful as they allow you to build up your own personal word lists for quick reference and review.

Search

Whilst the various categories as listed above may have their uses, I think that they are ultimately of limited functionality when it comes to finding what you’re looking for – they’re more likely to be of use when using your iPhone as review / study tool (although you’d be far better off with iAnki for that).

Searchability is the key to a dictionary’s usability – ‘Japanese’ gives us several options.

1) Browse the catagories as listed above
2) Input your word in Japanese using the regular keyboard. You can use romaji or hiranaga / katakana for this.
3) Use the iPhone’s Chinese handwriting keyboard.

The handwriting recognition function is possibly the most useful thing about this dictionary. It’s figuring out kanji readings that often proves to be the biggest stumbling block for me when I’m out and about in Japan – despite having ‘learnt’ the majority of the basic 2000 when at university, I’ve since found a lot have fallen down the back of the bookshelf in my mind.

Where the app falls down

Whilst it’s a good, solid dictionary app, there’s still several areas where it falls down.

  • History function. The most useful thing about my dedicated Sharp electronic dictionary is its history function, whereby when I return home I can see a list of words I’ve looked up recently and transfer them to my flash cards / Anki.
  • Dedicated support for Japanese handwriting recognition. Ok, so it’s Apple that needs to act on this one, thus perhaps it’s unfair to include this as a point against the app. Currently, handwriting recognition relies on using the Chinese keyboard (thus throwing up a lot of non-Japanese kanji during the search procress). Let’s hope we see this introduced with the next major iPhone update.
  • The price. At 2300 yen / £11.99 dictionary is flying in the face of typical App store pricing, and good reason to not buy the App. Whilst it is cheaper than its nearest competitor (Longmans) it is still way too expensive for what it is. I’d like to see it down in the 300 – 500yen range.

Overall rating: ☆☆☆

‘Japanese’ is a good solid dictionary app with a nice clean iPhonesque user interface. It’s super-fast when searching for words, and has never caused my iPhone to crash (always a bonus!).

Were it not for it being overpriced it would be getting 4 stars – and the final star will be earned when the History function is introduced!

Comments (5)

Losing an iPhone in Japan

Dec 29, ’08 11:42 PM

Image: Midorisyu on Flickr

Last week I did the unthinkable – left my iPhone on a train.

I’d just stepped off a Tokyu line express at Kita Senju in the north-east of Tokyo. Reaching into my pocket to check my Twitter account for the 76th time in 20 minutes, I found to my horror that it wasn’t there – nor in any of my other pockets.

There followed an agonising wait of almost two hours as the station staff phoned ahead to stations down the line to ask them to search the train – but at each one they reported that they’d just missed the train.

The situation was made a little more stressful by my losing my wife at the same time, but that’s another story…

Finally, the call came through – it had been handed in at Koshigaya station, some 12 stops down the line.

Would this happen anywhere else? I’m pretty sure that had it been the UK that’s the last I would have seen of it.

Initially, I thought that this was simply because Japanese people are honest and altuistic – but a tip-off from my friend who found the police knocking on his door six months after he’d claimed his lost-then-found wallet from the local koban (police box) prompted me to look into the subject a little further.

The reason for their visit was simple – my friend had failed to pay a reward to the finder of his lost property, and thus was breaking the Japanese Finders’ Law.

Japanese finders’ law creates well-defined incentives to encourage finders to report their finds and disincentives to misappropriation. To use Levmore’s (1986) finders’ law vocabulary, Japanese finders’ law provides a simple system of carrots and sticks. Japanese civil law provides that a person who finds a lost article shall deposit it with the police, or with the security office of the building in which it is found, if such an office exists. The law then provides two carrots. First, if the owner claims the object, he or she must pay the finder a fee of 5 to 20% of the object’s value. Second, if no one claims the object in a specified period of time, the object is returned to the finder (Civil Code [Minpo] 1896, 1898; Ishitsubutsuho 1899).

Japanese criminal law also provides a stick. Although Japanese law contains no penalties for nonrescue (a finder is free to look the other way from lost property3), a finder who misappropriates the property for his or her own has committed embezzlement and is subject to a fine of up to 100,000 yen and imprisonment of up to one year. I have found that while prosecution of adult offenders for the ordinary appropriation of lost property is rare, embezzlement of lost property is the second only to larceny in the number of juvenile cases brought by police to prosecutors (Tamiya & Hirose 1998:155), and adults are often prosecuted in particular situations, such as when the acquisition is connected with a more serious crime or when intent is particularly obvious. Even when prosecution is not initiated, the process of investigation in Japan is often a punishment in itself.

[source]

My (Japanese) partner however tells me that a lot of people aren’t really aware of the law (especially young people), and that it’s being handed in would more likely be due to the fact that that is the done thing. I guess ultimately it depends on the individual stance of the people who ignored it and / or the person who handed it in.

Whatever the reason though, I’m glad I was able to get it back so swiftly. Two hours with no Twitter access was almost more than I could bear.

Comments (3)

Travelling on Public Transport With the iPhone in Japan

Dec 29, ’08 10:40 PM

n700 shinkansen_1739

Good news for iPhone users who frequently travel on the N700 Shinkansen on the Tokaido line – in March 2009 JR will be launching Broadband.

Having said that, usually I find the 3G network perfectly adequate – faster than my broadband connection back in the UK. Mind you, it did have problems updating Google Maps fast enough to keep the speeding bullet on-screen when tracking it using GPS last week.

Incidentally, according to EveryTrail, we were cruising towards Osaka at over 400KM. (Surprised, I checked with a member of the train crew who seemed just as surprised as me. As she explained, 280km/h was the train’s top speed.)

Train Timetables

I’ve found the iPhone to be an ideal companion when travelling by train or bus.
For a start there’s Ekitan [iTunes - Japanese account required], the most user-friendly iPhone Japanese train timetable I’ve yet to find – loving the new GPS feature for locating the departure station, although it could do with being a bit snappier. Like the fact that station names can now be input using romaji, although output remains Japanese-only.

I’ve also trialled one of its main competitors – Jorudan Co. Ltd. [iTunes] The unimaginative name is a forewarner of the general dullness of the app, which is totally lacking in iPhone sexiness. Not recommended.

If I’ve lost track of where I am when on a train, it’s handy to be able to fire up the GPS and get a quick fix. Like the other day when on an unfamiliar line in Saitama. Being an old train it was lacking in digital displays showing the vehicles progress – but Google maps showed me exactly what I did(n’t) want to know – I was travelling in the wrong direction having gone past the stop where my in-laws were waiting to pick me up.

Bus Travel

I also used to avoid using buses in Tokyo because I never knew where I was supposed to get off, being unable to make out what the driver was saying (other than “the bus is stopping at the traffic lights / the bus is moving / the bus is leaning to the left / right / the bus is a light shade of gray / the driver loves to talk”). Now I simply track the vehicle as we travel, and get off when the blinking blue blob seems as close to my destination as I think it’s likely to get.

Whilst Google maps does now provide support for bus routes (at least in the major cities), I’ve found that the timetable is by no means comprehensive – it doesn’t list our local bus route at all.

I should point out that if one heads out into the Japanese countryside, the story may be very different when it comes to map support. I recently made a trip out to Hanno (Saitama), only 40 mins from Ikebukuro, but upon arrival found a complete lack of 3G connectivity. Whilst the GPS continued to show my location (as the blue flashing blob), the map failed to load in the background, making it pretty useless. “Ah, I’m in that gray square…”

With it being such early days we can expect to see big advances in navigation tools for the iPhone in Japan. Things I’d like to see include:

1) Walking directions in Google Maps (for figuring out how long it takes from A to B)
2) More accurate GPS results in all GPS apps
3) Station names in English in Ekitan
4) Intelligent searches in Google Maps – that is, searches possible even when the address supplied is incomplete or in the incorrect order
5) Alarm in Ekitan that goes off when the train is approaching your stop (could be linked to time rather than GPS so that it works on the Subway)
6) Comprehensive bus routes
7) Teleporter

I look forward to seeing what 2009 brings.

Comments (0)

When Two iPhone Owners Meet…

Dec 29, ’08 10:26 PM

If you’re an iPhone owner in Japan, I’m sure you can relate to this…

This comes from www.applenoir.com


I wonder is the meeting’s going to finish early…


When did you buy it?!!
The 11th of July! You…?


What apps do you use? What about your RSS reader? Case? How’s your battery?!

Er, excuse me but we’re still in the meeting… are they even listening?!


You have no idea how much I see myself in this cartoon…

Comments (1)

Review of the Blackberry 9000 Bold

Dec 7, ’08 8:30 PM

Anyone who uses a BlackBerry in Japan will look at this upgrade as a long overdue breath of air. But you won’t find me chucking my iPhone anytime soon.

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iPhone – the Musical

Dec 6, ’08 10:30 PM

No iPhone blog would be complete without the classic iPhone musical video, courtesy of David Pogue.

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iPhone App Review: Ekitan Japanese Train Timetable

Dec 6, ’08 1:16 PM

One thing I was always wanted to be able to do with my old phone in Japan was check train times. Yes, you can do that with Japanese phones already, but the interface is enough to put off anyone who finds Kanji challenging.

Ekitan for the iPhone has changed all of that. Whilst it stills works primarily in Japanese (a recent update means you can now enter station names in Romaji, but the search results are still only displayed in Kanji), the interface is so beautifully intuitive that it doesn’t really require much bravery to use.

It will not only tell you what time the trains are leaving – it also gives you the price, number of changes, time taken, alternative routes and the status of all railways (useful to find out it there’s any serious delays).

The update to version 2.1.1 (iTunes Link) brought significant improvements, with the addition of GPS support. Not sure which station you’re at? Ekitan will use GPS to figure it out! There’s also bookmarks for those regular commutes, and a detailed search history.


The recent introduction of an English keyboard is a clear attempt to better serve the many iPhone-wielding foreigners in Japan, so my guess is that we can only see further improvements there in due course, such as the introduction of romaji names for all stations.

Ekitan is 350 yen and available from the App Store (Japan).

Developer’s website

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Emobile Announces the Dual Diamond S22H

Dec 4, ’08 3:30 PM

The range of Windows Mobile devices continues to expand in Japan with the announcement of the HTC Dual Diamond S22H from Emobile.

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New Nokia N97. What a Time for Nokia to Be Jumping Ship in Japan!

Dec 2, ’08 5:36 PM

Engadget is reporting on a New Nokia handset that has all the bells and whistles.

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