Viewing the Apple i-Mode Store
I finally had a chance to check out the Apple i-Mode store. I had been meaning to get around to it out a week or so ago when the news was announced, but I didn't remember until today. I was looking forward to seeing it because I had this idea it was a mobile iTunes store for some reason, but it's not. It's just a mobile iPod/Mac mini store for the most part.
Want to see it for yourself instead of the default error page the site throws at normal web browsers? If you're using FireFox (and I can't really imagine a good reason why you wouldn't be) you can install this great extension called User Agent Switcher, which allows you to add custom user agents to your browser and swap them on the fly. I use it for testing mobile sites, and to fool some regular websites like Kaiser Permanente's member pages which inexplicably insist on IE for Windows (it doesn't have any ActiveX controls or anything so it doesn't make sense).
Anyways, install the extension, reboot FireFox then go to the Tools menu to create a new User Agent using this string: "DoCoMo/2.0 N900i(c100;TB;W24H12)", then use the Tools menu again to swap to that User Agent and when you visit the URL again, you can see the whole i-Mode store. Trust me, it's not particularly exciting, but it's worth a visit just to see. Don't forget to swap back after you're done otherwise you'll start getting some wacky errors from other sites.
Actually, before you swap back, go check out other cool Japanese i-Mode sites like Yahoo Japan's Mobile version. I don't read Japanese, but it's interesting to click around and see what a really fleshed-out mobile site looks like.
-Russ