Amazon Japan's ready to get in on that iPhone action. Just head to http://www.amazon.co.jp/ on your iPhone, and you'll find a new site layout custom-made for your handheld. It's not all products and "buy" links; while not all full-sized Amazon features are there, bestseller lists, reviews, recommendations, photo close-ups, and more will keep you busy inside the World's Largest Bookstore while you ride the Chuo Line. Works with iPod touch over WiFi too, of course.

Twice in one month? SoftBank Mobile has again lowered the minimum price of its all-you-can-eat "Packet Flat-rate Full" data plan for the iPhone 3G. The minimum fee for low packet usage, lowered earlier this month from a flat JPY5985 to JPY1695, now drops to JPY1029 per month. If you're a light data sipper, you might pay as little as JPY2324 per month for your combined White Plan, S! Basic Pack, and Packet Flat-rate Full data plan (though once you start playing with web sites and the App Store and other iPhone goodies, you're not likely to stick to that data diet).

The move is SoftBank's response to competitor DoCoMo recently dropping its minimum packet plan fee to JPY1029. Keep duking it out on price, boys; I've got lots of stuff to download!

Press release: http://www.softbankmobile.co.jp/ja/news/press/2008/20080826_01/ (Japanese)
Previous price drop: http://www.tekronomicon.com/stuff/2008/08/iphone_3g_data_plan_just_got_c... (English)

Big electronics retailer Bic Camera claims to be the first retailer to join an initiative by the Communications and Information Network Association of Japan (CIAJ) and the Telecommunications Carrier Association (TCA) to collect and recycle discarded mobile phones. Take your old phone to a Bic shop near you, where it'll get put down for good by a drill (to ensure destruction of data) and sent out for recycling of precious metals and other salvageables.

http://www.biccamera.co.jp/shopguide/campaign/cp_recycl/index.html (Japanese)

What's salvageable besides gold and platinum and the like? A working screen, for starters. Enter Plaza Create's use-and-recycle "ECO digi MODE" digital camera, available at some Palette Plaza and 55 Station photo processing shops in Japan. It's a 3-megapixel camera with flash and 2.4-inch LCD panel, that takes up to 50 non-editable shots. (Snap a bad one, and you've got 10 seconds to erase it; otherwise, it stays and counts against your 50.) The cost is JPY1980, which includes burning your photos to CD-ROM after you turn in the camera to a shop. (Printing to paper is available for usual cost.)

What's eco about it all? In the same way that old film-based returnable cameras could have their film replaced for re-use, the ECO digi MODE simply needs its memory erased to be ready for another go. (Side thought: Erasing memory is fortunately easy, but the recyclers will have to be careful to prevent putting even one unerased camera into the next user's hands.) What're more, the LCD panel itself is a recycled part, taken from disassembled mobile phones. Plaza Create says it wants future models to incorporate more recycled parts, including the camera sub-assembly and flash unit, presumably also from mobile phones or discarded pocket cameras.

http://www.plazacreate.co.jp/ecodigi/ (Japanese)

New this month in the Eco digi MODE lineup is a waterproof model, safe up to 3-meter depths; ask for it at a Palette Plaza or 55 Station near you.

Mobile industry consultants Eurotechnology Japan KK estimate that between 75,000 and 125,000 iPhone 3Gs were sold in Japan between the device's release on July 11 and the end of the month. The company describes its methodology in an August 8 message:

• SoftBank Mobile subscribers increased by 158,900 during June 2008, but 215,400 during July 2008.
• Eurotechnology sees no similar large jumps in past data, other than seasonal jumps in March of the years observed (attributable to strong sales before the traditional start of the financial year, school year, and general employment year in April).
• As no other high-profile phones were introduced by SoftBank in July, the month's unusually high subscription increase of 56,500 users can be safely attributed to new iPhone 3G subscribers (including existing SoftBank subscribers adding iPhone as a second phone, or defectors from other carriers).
• The above would not count existing SoftBank subscribers upgrading from an existing phone to iPhone. With no numbers released by SoftBank, Eurotechnology guesses at a number similar to the 56,500 new subscribers – or for simplicity, 100,000 total.
• Assuming a +/-50% margin of error on the number of upgrading subscribers yields a ballpark result of 75,000 - 100,000 iPhone 3Gs sold in Japan during July 2008.

If sales keep up that pace, Eurotechnology estimates between 640,000 - 1 million iPhone 3Gs sold in Japan during 2008. Nice numbers - though still only 1.2 - 2% of all handsets sold in the country for the year.

The Japan iPhone 3G sales numbers are a big piece of guesswork, but it's a rough block to start whittling into useful shape as more data appears. Stay tuned for more –

iPhone 3G users in Japan: SoftBank Mobile just unilaterally made your monthly data fee cheaper. Maybe.

The company is revising its monthly JPY5985 all-you-can-eat "Packet Flat-rate Full" data plan, required for all iPhone 3G contracts, to a cost of JPY0.084 per packet. The new minimum fee drops to only JPY1695 for up to 20,175 packets; the fee rises with usage from there, up to a maximum of the old cost of JPY5985 for 71,250 packets or more.

In other words: it's still all-you-can-eat, but light users can now shave some coin from their bill. At the same time, SoftBank Mobile is strengthening its E-mail (i) service for iPhone 3G to store users' mail indefinitely with no scheduled deletion, though a mail data limit of 200MB or 5000 messages will still apply.
http://www.softbankmobile.co.jp/en/news/press/2008/20080805_02/index.htm... (English)

Speaking of iPhones: If you're still trying to find one in stock in Japan, weekends may be your best bet. Neither Apple Japan nor Softbank Mobile are making big announcements about availability, but Business Computer News' analysis of sales data found spikes in iPhone 3G sales on July 18 (Friday), and July 25-26 (Friday and Saturday), pointing to the timing of shipments. As reported earlier, the two iPhone 3G models snapped up 45% of all mobile phone unit sales in Japan on July 11, but plunged to single digits soon afterward due to simple lack of stock. On July 26, however, the 16GB iPhone 3G regained the top-selling mobile phone slot, with 8.8% of unit sales. (The 8GB model rose only to #16, at 1.6%.)  
http://bcnranking.jp/news/0807/080728_11375.html (Japanese)

Sanwa Supply has a new stylus aimed squarely at Japan's legion of new iPhone 3G users, the PDA-PEN17. The JPY2097 stick has a conductive sponge tip, and is good for any touch or drag operation that you'd normally perform with a finger. (Once again, a free piece of advice to stylus manufacturers: Why not tell customers to buy and hold two pens, chopstick-style, to enable two-finger pinch operations?)
http://www.sanwa.co.jp/news/200807/pda-pen17/index.html (Japanese)
iPhone accessory collection: http://www.sanwa.co.jp/seihin_joho/iphone/index.html