As I wrote in my post on 15th, until several years ago each Japanese cellphone had always had a phone number and an email address provided by the cellphone company which sold the cellphone because Japanese regulation didn't allow people to change sim-card by themselves. Cellphone companies improved their products individually and people could use their phone number and email address as far as they used same cellphone company. So, when people switched their cellphone company, they had to change their phone number and email address.
It was inconvenient but as far as people keep using same cellphone company, it wasn't a problem and they could renew their cellphone machines to a latest model. Since Japanese cellphones included email functions from the early days, it got color display quickly and by 2000 new models with camera came out. People started exchanging photos via emails with their new cellphones and it became an explosive hit item.
After that, Japanese cellphones got more and more small improved functions such as a small window display on the surface to show mails arrivals, missed calls, and time, connection condition, and battery level, IR communications function, internet accesses and so on. Therefore, when first smart phones came out, some people said, "So what? Almost same things are available with my current cellphone." In fact, still certain number of people are using the old-type Japanese cellphones even now.
Of course the emails with old-type cellphone can't see files made by computer, moreover nowadays the size of most internet sites became too heavy for these cellphones, but still they has enough advanced functions similar to smart phones. Then, from some point people started calling them "Galapagos Cellphones".
Galapagos is the name of islands on the Pacific Ocean belonging to Ecuador. Location-wise the islands has been isolated and creatures on the islands are uniquely evolved. The famous historic scholar Charles Darwin (1809-1882) visited the islands and wrote "The origin of Species". Yes, it is a metaphorical name to express it got isolated improvements inside of Japanese islands.
The cellphones are still on sale and some people prefer them over smart phones. Apparently their OS systems are particular to these cellphones, moreover the OS is different between each cellphone company thus it is said that it won't be a target for computer viruses because they are too minor. So, perhaps they have less functions but safer. Then, do you think they can survive for a long time same as elephant tortoises on Galapagos Islands?
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