Japan’s 32 Best iPhone Apps (All Available In English)

It's not really a secret that Japan is absolutely crazy about cell phones . And even though domestic makers churn out more than 100 different handsets every year (some of which are simply amazing ), the iPhone is selling over here. SoftBank Mobile , the country's exclusive iPhone provider, doesn't release official data, but estimates put sales in Japan at well over one million units so far - not bad at all in this hopelessly over-saturated market. In other words, Japan doesn't hate the iPhone, as some blogs suggested in the past. It never did. The local developer community has noticed and produced a slew of apps aimed at a global audience. What follows is my subjective selection of the "best" of these made-in-Japan apps, all of which are at least available in English. (I left out iPhone games released by big companies such as Capcom , Konami , Sega or Namco to focus on apps created by startups or individuals based in Japan instead.) My personal favorite is a free (and fantastic) GPS-based photo sharing app called Memory Tree (just like all the apps in the following list, it works worldwide). But here's a round-up of all the 32 apps I chose, grouped in six categories (games, productivity, tools, photography and art, music, and everything else). TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco