I am back in Japan only a month after I was here last. I love coming to visit but this was a bit of a quick return trip. Fortunately it is because of a new project that needs some coordinating instead of something bad.
I decided to try something a bit different on this trip in that I have left my iPhone in airplane mode instead of turning it off for the week. That means it won't try to connect with the very expensive phone network here in Japan. As most of the apps on an iPhone are worthless without data connectivity, I have turned on my WiFi network while still keeping the phone in airplane mode. One benefit of that is that I am still able to send text messages to other iPhones. That is because iPhones use iMessage when both parties are using Apple products. That allows you to get text messages on your iPad. I can't send messages to Android or Windows phones, but as my wife has an iPhone, it doesn't matter.
This has been great because Skype has really been awful lately. On Mother's Day, we tried to use it to talk to our daughter in North Carolina. The calls kept getting dropped and we kept having to reconnect. Here in Japan, I can only get about 30 seconds of the call before it gets dropped.
It is kind of nice to still be able to keep in contact with my wife via text messaging even though I am so far away. While iMessage isn't perfect, it is working. I have to keep the phone awake to keep the WiFi signal going, but I am not sure if that is because of the hotel or how WiFi works in airplane mode. I will keep playing with it to see what magic makes it work.
While I enjoy my Android phone and think it is better for certain tasks, I have to give a point to my iPhone for communication use on International travel. At least for those of us paying our own wireless phone bills. For those with employer provided mobile phones, it doesn't matter as you never see the bill.
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