Both applications are very simple and involve swinging your iPhone (or iPod Touch) through the air in various slashing motions thereby maiming or killing imaginary enemies. Graphics are almost non-existent, as it’s quite difficult to look at your screen while ducking and swinging, isn’t it. Background audio accompanies both applications and of course, there are some nice sound effects of sword hitting sword, and flesh. To be honest, the apps are quite pointless, but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the action. They really gave me a good work-out.

Click here to read the rest of the review.

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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.

The creators over at www.hakarist.com say that it will provide data on the latest earthquakes in Japan within ten minutes of them occurring – handy if you’re nowhere near a TV or the Internet.

The app is simplicity itself, the first page showing a list of today’s quakes (and a link to a list of yesterday’s); click on an earthqyake and a detailed page shows the epicentre, time, strength (Japanese scale of 1-7), depth, tsunami status, magnitude (richter scale) and latitude / longitude. There’s also a static image of a google map showing the epicentre location.

A must for anyone who is unnerved by the ground shaking beneath their feet!

Largely as a result of the popularity of the iPhone amongst foreign residents in Japan, Softbank has now added an English page to their website detailing all available price plans.

http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/price_plan/

Basic contract

Their basic phone package is their White plan (¥980 per month) , which gives you free calls to other Softbank users between 1am and 9pm. From 9pm to 1am calls are charged at ¥21 per 30 seconds. Calls to other networks / landlines are ¥21 per 30 seconds 24 hours a day.

Many users upgrade to the Double White plan, which for an additional ¥980 per month gives you a 50% discount on these prices (¥10.5 per 30 seconds).

White Plan

Data plans

Whilst you don’t necessarily have to buy a separate data plan (under the white plan data is priced at ¥0.2 per 128bytes), being an iPhone user you’ll be heading for bankruptcy if you don’t. Softbank’s cheapest data package is 12,250 packets for ¥1,029, but if 1 packet is only 128 bytes then 12,250 packets will only give you 1.6mb of monthly downloads. Bearing in mind that the iPhone is all about data (I typically download about 400mb per month), most users choose the unlimited option at ¥5,985 per month.

http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/price_plan/packet_full/index.html

Prices correct as of January 2009

Total cost

On top of the (Double) White plan and data charges, you’ll usually be paying for the phone itself (unless you bought it outright when signing up). The amount will depend on the deal you got at the time – mine is subsidised by Softbank (50%) so I’ll be paying about ¥2000 a month for the duration of the two year contract.

Visual voicemail is extra, costing about ¥315 per month.

In total, for someone who doesn’t use the phone much, you could expect to be paying about ¥10,000 a month. A lot of money? Perhaps, but it’s worth it.

English Support for iPhone users in Japan

Telephone support for English speakers http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/support/contact/customer/index.html

Softbank shops with English-speaking staff: http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/shop/index.html