J-PHONE Group’s J-SH04 (manufactured by SHARP)
21 years ago today, one mobile phone changed the course of history.
On November 1, 2000, the Japan-based J-PHONE Group—an antecedent of SoftBank Corp.’s (TOKYO: 9434) mobile business—launched the J-SH04, a mobile phone with the world’s first fully-integrated camera.
Back then the popularity of mobile phones was exploding in Japan and the communication standard was about to shift from 2G to 3G.
How did the J-SH04’s mobile camera measure up? The built-in, back-facing camera had a resolution of 110,000 pixels. While the pixel count was much lower than the megapixel cameras of smartphones today, it was an impressive feat for the time.
Also revolutionary was the J-SH04’s ability to attach the photos it took to messages. This gave birth to J-PHONE’s service called “Sha-mail” (“photo mail”), which soon became a household name.
The J-SH04 and the Sha-mail service were runaway hits for J-PHONE and helped boost the company’s subscriber growth. Other mobile phone operators in Japan followed suit with their own camera phones and similar services. Camera phones then became a standard around the world, and, as they say, the rest is history.
In the current 4G and 5G era, it’s easy to take high-resolution photos and videos on smartphones and share them instantly. Thinking back to the J-SH04’s launch 21 years ago, one cannot help but feel a sense of nostalgia for the mobile phone that started a revolution.
(Posted on November 1, 2021)
by SoftBank News Editors
