Japanese cell phones increasingly diverged from global standards and trends to offer other forms of advanced services and smartphone-like functionality that were specifically tailored to the Japanese market, such as mobile payments and shopping, near-field communication (NFC) allowing mobile wallet functionality to replace smart cards for transit fares, loyalty cards, identity cards, event tickets, coupons, money transfer, etc., downloadable content like musical ringtones, games, and comics, and 1seg mobile television. Phones built by Japanese manufacturers used custom firmware, however, and did not yet feature standardized mobile operating systems designed to cater to third-party application development, so their software and ecosystems were akin to very advanced feature phones. As with other feature phones, additional software and services required partnerships and deals with providers.
japanese cell phones increasingly diverged from global standards and trends to offer other forms of advanced services and smartphone-like functionality that were specifically tailored to the japanese market such as mobile payments and shopping near-field communication (nfc) allowing mobile wallet functionality to replace smart cards for transit fares loyalty cards identity cards event tickets coupons money transfer etc downloadable content like musical ringtones games and comics and 1seg mobile television phones built by japanese manufacturers used custom firmware however and did not yet feature standardized mobile operating systems designed to cater to third-party application development so their software and ecosystems were akin to very advanced feature phones as with other feature phones additional software and services required partnerships and deals with providers