Apple’s announcement that iTunes music can now be downloaded direct to the iPhone over the 3G network has seen a lot of excited fingers jumping up and down on computer keyboards around the world.

So exciting was this news that it even provoked me (that’s me that only buys a couple of albums off iTunes per year) to tap the iTunes App button on my home screen and have a look around for the first time.

But alas, there was to be no downloading iTunes songs over 3G for me just yet. Apparently, Softbank are yet to come round to the idea, thus if you do try, you’ll just be faced with the same old message that you need to be on a wifi network.

I popped into the Apple Store (Shibuya) tonight to confirm that this is the case (“yes”), and to find out if they have any idea when the service might arrive in Japan – to the latter they couldn’t say anything but “wakarimasen”.

I’m secretly quite happy about this as I spend enough on my iPhone already (all those premium cigarette-lighter apps), and anything that makes it harder for me to impulse buy can’t be bad.