bocastephen

As a follow up to my last post, I hope someone local in Japan can help me. I can place an order online for the phone, shipping in 3-4 weeks just in time for my next Tokyo trip, but when I select the option for pickup, the Apple website says I cannot ship to the Apple store for pickup, but rather choose from some generic non-Apple locations for pickup, and I have no idea what they are.

Any advise or guidance on ordering from Apple.com in Japan with local pickup would be appreciated.

cascadegreen

Sorry, I can't help you on the pickup thing (hope someone else can) but in case you missed it AFAIK the shutter sound can't be turned off on a Japanese iPhone (as mandated by law) even when you leave the country. Apparently it's a firmware thing? I've seen posts of people that jailbreak around it or get their phone replaced when they return to their home country, but no other solutions.

bocastephen

The shutter is no problem, I had a Japanese Samsung that did the same thing.

mjm

Shoot me the list of places and I will put them in context for you and advise.

bocastephen

Unfortunately my auto translate grabs the Japanese text before I can stop it, but here are some of the translated locations....I am taking these entries to indicate a shipping company that receives Apple products for the customer to pick up.

Konan 1-chome center
Konan 2-13-26

Togoshi center
Togoshi 5-3-15

Nakameguro center
Nakameguro 2-6-13

However, that aside, I am running into two possible issues - first, the system wants a phone number to text when the shipment is sent, and it will only take a local Japanese number, and second, it might not accept payment from a foreign credit card, and there is no way to connect with anyone online at Apple Japan for chat (especially English chat).

Additionally, I can't claim the tax refund from an online order, but if I forgo an online order and try to buy it in the store, I need to assume there is zero chance of finding stock in the store anywhere near Tokyo for at least another few months, similar to the lack of inventory here in the USA, so I stuck ordering online, paying the tax and figuring out how to get the order to go through (I don't understand how a company sells a product, yet refuses to carry sufficient inventory ). I really wish I can just buy it in a local Apple store around Tokyo, but with my trip in early November, that is probably a bad strategy.

KPT

If I remember correctly, I was able to buy my 6S in store in November, using the reservation system. Then again it was the S year, so demand may have been slightly lower.

People who buy devices directly from Apple in Japan are the exception. In general, people get their devices through their carrier, not Apple.

mjm

Those are Yamato Takyubin Distribution Centers. I assume there is a counter inside at which you could collect the phone.

Mail me if you like and we can maybe work something out in exchange for something from the ridiculously wonderful cereal aisle at a supermarket stateside. ;-)

bocastephen

Just checking if anyone bought one of the Japan iPhone models and tried setting up SUICA or ApplePay on it, especially for mixed (foreign/Japan) use.

mrploddy

So Apple Pay and Suica went live for Japan today.

For Suica you need to download the Suica App to set it up and also have the latest version of iOS.

I am not in a position to do a live test till next Sunday when I plan to get a new Apple Watch Series 2.

Regarding a comment an earlier poster said - the Suica app on my phone has detected that I don't have a iPhone 7 or a Apple Watch Series 2 paired and won't let me do anything yet.

I also spoke with Apple Japan via live chat and they confirmed only Japanese models had both NFC A/B *AND* NFC Type F (Felica)

-mrploddy

bocastephen

Great, thank you! I think the most important test is the account setup, specifically if you can register mobile suica on the iPhone using either cash top-up only like on Android, or a foreign credit card - if a Japan issued card is required, I guess the phone is a non-starter for non-Japanese.

ebanpaiku

Looking forward to your test (thank you in advance)! I'm able to use a US credit card with mobile suica on android so hopefully it will work with this as well!

cascadegreen

Unless the teardowns are wrong, it's the exact same NFC chipset (NXP 67V04) in both the USA and the Japan models of the iPhone 7. I'm sure the information available to the customer service reps (who aren't engineers and are just given what to tell customers) is the same on the website, namely that only Japan iPhone 7 models currently support Felica, but the question some of us are asking is if Felica will be unlocked & supported in non-Japan iPhone 7's at some point in the future since there appears to be no hardware reason they couldn't.

The guess is that Felica is owned by Sony, so they'd have to pay a licensing fee for each Felica-capable chip, which Apple wouldn't want to do unless you were living in Japan and likely to use it.

bocastephen

From what I read, the Felica chip is included in every iPhone sold (at least the CDMA models), but only the Japan phones have some sort of software that turns the chip on, otherwise it remains dormant. Not sure where this software is run from or if it can be hacked to run on a non-Japan iPhone without jailbreaking (my guess, no).

mrploddy

http://ascii.jp/elem/000/001/256/1256780/

Firmware :x

cascadegreen

I can't read Japanese and the google translate is pretty rough. Is the article claiming the phone versions just have a different firmware? If so, that's good. A software hurdle could be removed by Apple at some point; a hardware hurdle couldn't.