[boondaburrah]

Can confirm, the Sharp phone I owned in Japan had an absolutely fabulous screen, 1080p in 4.5" (I long for compact flagships), vivid colour with customisable profiles, including an electronically switchable privacy filter (using the toggle buttons in the notification shade) with 3 designs! The OS had been optimised to run smooth as butter, even with crapware. Too bad it also had to have all the docomo apps.

[exikyut]

What do you mean by switchable privacy filter? Something that reduced the viewing angle, perhaps by adjusting the color profile?

[boondaburrah]

There's a physical layer of the screen between the touch glass and the LCD that can be turned on, reducing the viewing angle. Anyone looking from the side will instead see a floral pattern, butterfly pattern, or something else I forget (stars?), depending on your setting. (You can't pick beyond these three because each pattern is physically its own layer it looks like)

This is classic Japanese market electronics. Rather than increase bottom line, add loads of niceties to compete.

My phone was a smartphone, a mobile wallet (osaifu-keitai, tap-to-pay), my train pass (osaifu-keitai is different hardware to android pay, as it works on turnstiles, even when the phone is dead/off, and has been a thing since 2004), a television (over the air!), an answering machine (no messages stored by carrier; the phone picks up if you don't answer and records it to the SD card), had those privacy filter things, and a really responsive camera.

Sadly, it has a non-replaceable battery and refuses to update android unless it can connect to a docomo tower (I think docomo hosts it's phone's system updates on internal network only, not internet). I had to retire the phone long before the hardware gave out.

I'm pretty much stuck with the phone's stock android because A) It's sharp, so the android hacking community hasn't heard of it. and B) I don't think any ROM would have drivers for any of the galapagos features. (especially I need osaifu-keitai, which as well as being a wallet and my train pass, has all of my arcade top scores associated with it (whenever I go, I just tap the phone and the arcade machine looks me up - unlocks all the bonuses I've achieved and my prefs))

[exikyut]

> There's a physical layer of the screen between the touch glass and the LCD that can be turned on, reducing the viewing angle.

Oh, wow.

> Anyone looking from the side will instead see a floral pattern, butterfly pattern, or something else I forget (stars?), depending on your setting.

Wow.

> (You can't pick beyond these three because each pattern is physically its own layer it looks like)

I see.

> This is classic Japanese market electronics. Rather than increase bottom line, add loads of niceties to compete.

TIL the Japanese are still ahead of us with stuff that's really nice, and the rest of the world succumbed to being flooded out with high-fructose corn syrup laden toy electronics that hack our attention spans.

> My phone was a smartphone, a mobile wallet (osaifu-keitai, tap-to-pay), my train pass (osaifu-keitai is different hardware to android pay, as it works on turnstiles, even when the phone is dead/off, and has been a thing since 2004), a television (over the air!), an answering machine (no messages stored by carrier; the phone picks up if you don't answer and records it to the SD card), had those privacy filter things, and a really responsive camera.

Wow.

I can't find it now but I remember seeing a Japanese phone that had OTA TV, a GPS, and even a fingerprint reader on the back. I checked the date, and the thing was made in 2008. Shakes head

> Sadly, it has a non-replaceable battery and refuses to update android unless it can connect to a docomo tower (I think docomo hosts it's phone's system updates on internal network only, not internet). I had to retire the phone long before the hardware gave out.

Hah.

> I'm pretty much stuck with the phone's stock android because A) It's sharp, so the android hacking community hasn't heard of it. and B) I don't think any ROM would have drivers for any of the galapagos features.

Mmmm...

> (especially I need osaifu-keitai, which as well as being a wallet and my train pass, has all of my arcade top scores associated with it (whenever I go, I just tap the phone and the arcade machine looks me up - unlocks all the bonuses I've achieved and my prefs))

_wow_ that is absolutely awesome.

What's really sad is that if this sort of integration ever came to the US I know it'd be used in the most invasive ways possible :(

I wonder if there are any videos documenting any of this out there. I wouldn't mind seeing this stuff in action, especially the game console bit. That's awesome.