Yahoo! Japan for the iPhone

So, Yahoo! Japan website came out with an iPhone edition. Not sure why they didn't announce it before the iPhone launch, but it is available now. This may be good for Japanese speaking iPhone users in other countries too as there were hardly any contents in Japanese intended to be accessed by this mobile phone.

The URL (website address) is not described on their website. I guess they expect you to access http://yahoo.co.jp/ from your iPhone or maybe there is a preset on the Japanese edition. If you want to try it from your Safari browser, go to http://ipn.yahoo.co.jp/.

First iPhone 3G Selling at 3PM Thursday, PDT

The first iPhone that will be sold to public should happen at 3pm Thursday, Pacific Time. This will be in Japan which is actually 7am Friday, Tokyo local time.

Reports state that by early afternoon here in California, there were more than 50 people in line at the SoftBank Omotesando store, the only location starting iPhone sales at 7am in Japan. Other stores are scheduled for noon on the same day.

Interestingly, the iPhone is expected to be available at virtually all stores that sell cell phones, according to SoftBank's announcement. In Japan, cell phones are usually sold through "channel stores", most of them being an electric appliance store, which exists in every city throughout the country.

Here are some links to iPhone websites or sites that may potentially report the initial launch in Japan:

• Official SoftBank iPhone 3G website
• http://www.ustream.tv/channel/17495
  Claims to be reporting live...
• http://www.iphone13.com/
  A blog about iPhone
• GIGAZINE
  Online IT magazine
• TBS News
  One of the major broadcast stations. Video rich compared to other broadcast stations in Japan.
• NHK News
  "Government property" national broadcast station.
• Yahoo! News - iPhone
  Yahoo! Japan's largest share holder is SoftBank; 40.16%. However, iPhone is treated no special on their site. Rather seems to be totally unrelated or ignored.