Review: Gengou Free – Japanese Years
Submitted by The Japan iPhoner on Monday, 16 February 20093 Comments
Some of the best apps on the iPhone are the simple ones – and Gengou Free [iTunes] is a perfect example of this.
It only does one thing – converts the non-Japanese calendar year into the Japanese calendar year.
Whilst it’s not the kind of app that you’ll use everyday, there are times when it’s indispensable, such as filling in forms at your local ward office or trying to remember your date of birth when being stopped by police for owning a bicycle.
It is very iPhonesque, oozing sex appeal thanks to the rolling dials that you flick your finger across to change the year you’d like to convert.
There is also a paid version of Gengou [iTunes], although I’d suggest that the free version without bells and whistles does the job just fine.
This sort of app would be a lot more interesting if it could handle all the historical eras and not just the most recent four.
Thanks for your comment Peter.
The paid version of the app, Gengou [iTunes 115 yen], has all eras back to Taika 1 (AD 645) and also has the Japanese era names.
[...] Gengou free [iTunes] is another handy app for people living in Japan – I reviewed that here: essentially it converts the non-Japanese calendar into the Japanese calendar (and vice-versa) – handy when form filling. [...]