The rest of the world may be drooling over it, but Japan is not really warming up to the iPhone, according to Wired. The tech-fashion magazine gives a number of reasons why not:

• The iPhone has a relatively expensive monthly data plan, in a market that is very competitive;
  
• It lacks features that are common in Japan, such as multimedia messaging, video recording, and a TV-tuner;
  
• The low-quality camera;
  
• It's not Japanese. The Japanese are pretty hostile towards foreign brands, as Nokia and Motorola experienced earlier;
  
• And - adding insult to injury - the Japanese think it has an unfashionable design.

The story sparked a heated debate on the Wired website to the point where Wired editors found themselves having to make changes to the original article, and close the comments because they contained remarks getting dangerously close to racism. Or "Why Wired-readers don't like Japanese that don't like the iPhone and journalists that cite from previous articles by their own hand."

[Illustration from crunchgear]