I actually walked past it last night. Looked ok and not visually stunning like the Apple Store in Singapore. I really wish Apple got creative and designed something cool. Even the Apple Store in Liujiazui, Shanghai has a better design.

I'm going to head there later today to take a quick peek before heading to Haneda.

Anyone finding any significant value in buying an iPhone in Japan? I’m going in two weeks and will update the thread if I find anything.

The Yen continues to falter, so if you can buy at BIC or another retailer and get the tax back, then the savings could be significant.

Update- Osaka BIC @ namba


15 pro max 189800 yen
15 plus 139800 yen
Both w/tax for cheapest model.

Calculated without tax in Japan vs. home with tax, it’s maybe $170 cheaper.

Make sure it supports all the crucial bands at home. I deliberately bought an iPhone 14 Pro Max in Canada because it still has a SIM slot. Too bad I had to pay 12% sales tax. :(

IIRC all iPhones sold outside China now support all of the same frequencies worldwide.

Well, since I'll be in Tokyo soon enough, holding off on my iPhone purchase until I see how it plays out there. Would love to get the taxes reimbursed.

Just buy at Bic Camera and you’ll get the taxes back. I think I’ll hold off on buying the phone in Japan as I ran the math with T-Mobile. After trading in my iPhone 12 Pro Max that was almost free using Chase points during a promo, I paid about $410 to apple in monthly payments for an iPhone 13 Pro Max, now T-Mobile will give me $1,000 for that IP13 to get a 15 Pro Max so somehow it seems that I’m making money on these trade ups 🤯

I’ll still get the MacBook Air 15 in Japan because I’ll save more on that, plus I can sell my 2016 MBP15 through one of those trade in services, and I’m using the $450 keyboard lawsuit to cover the other part of the cost.

At this point, whatever I need or want and find it in Tokyo, I'm buying it there. Good point, should check with T-Mobile on deals with current iPhone trade in before buying it in Tokyo.

Source? This would be very impressive if true because historically this wasn't the case.

A Canadian iPhone would have the highest chance of being largely compatible with US carriers. I haven't had any issues using mine with T-Mobile and AT&T in the US. I don't get access to mm-wave, but I don't care.

I'm surprised to learn that Japan has the same model as Canada. That's good news, but the mandatory shutter sound is annoying if that's a hardware feature in the Japanese model.

I think it was mentioned somewhere that the sound for the camera is location dependent regardless of where the phone was bought - I am not sure if that means the physical GEO location of the phone triggers the sound, or the location/language setting of IOS triggers the sound.

I have my phone on silent mode of the time. I don't recall hearing any shutter sound when I was in Japan.

I believe it's a feature for phones purchased in markets where shutter is not mutable. At some point in the last 2-3 years, Apple updated the OS/firmware so geolocation will allow muting the shutter when those phones are outside areas where muting is disabled. None of this applies to phones purchased in most countries.