While Japan represents the second largest market for Apple's Macintosh computers, making headway here hasn't always been easy, which is reflected in the lower market share of about 3.5% in Japan compared with the current 7.5% in the U.S. Apple started selling Macs in the Japanese market way back in 1986, and I have un-fond memories of hacking my computer to work with kanji fonts while we waited a year for the Japanese version of System 7 "Kanjitalk" to be released. (OS X's support for every language on one install disc is real win for multi-language users.) Despite Apple's lower market share numbers,it's interesting to see impression Apple's designs make on other products.When original iMac was introduced in 1998,Japan experienced boom in iMac-colored products made of see-through plastic which Japanese referred to as"skeleton,"for years there wasn't product you couldn't find in Bondi Blue or Tangerine Orange.After slow start,iPhone has really begun to catch on here, grabbing 46% of the smartphone market and causing the popular boy-band SMAP to cancel contract selling NTT Docomo's phones and switch to Softbank so they could sell iPhone.Now,just about every product you can think of is copying iPhone,from new Canon IXUS camera with iPhone style finger gestures to host of new candybar phones with iPhone app-style gimmicks built in.Qunli.