Category: macOS

Eki-Net Mobile Ticket Quick Guide

Eki-Net ads compare paper tickets with cheaper mobile tickets featuring the Suzuki twins Mariya and Mina

Sections

JR East Mobile Ticket Basics
Eki-Net Discounts
JRE POINT Integration
Registration
Ticket Purchase
eTicket and Ticketless Use

Mobile Ticket Basics
The JR East online train ticket reservation system comes in 2 flavors: multi-lingual JR East Train Reservation for inbound visitors, and Japanese Eki-Net for domestic users. Both of these differently branded services share the same basic system, internet domain name and similar account registration process. However the accounts are not compatible as ticket menus, discounts and related services are different. Japanese Eki-Net is a sprawling travel service portal that covers everything from train tickets to package tours and car rentals, far too large to cover here. This guide is limited to setting up and using eTicket and Ticketless services of the Eki-Net Japanese web site and app, and using them with Apple Pay Suica which gives you the best value with JRE POINT integration.

To understand how and when to use Eki-Net, it helps to know the basic categories of JR East mobile ticketing:

  • Regular Train Lines
    • Suica (Transit IC cards) pays the station to station distance based fare using the Stored Fare balance of the card (SF).
    • Eki-Net Ticketless: Limited Express reserve seat mobile tickets (Narita Express, Azusa, Kaiji, Odoriko, etc.) used in combination with Suica to pay fare.
  • Shinkansen Lines
    • Touch and Go: a ticketless non-reserve Shinkansen option that uses Suica • Transit IC card SF for non-reserved seat travel on JR East Shinkansen lines. It works exactly the same as Suica for regular transit, no discounts but there are JRE POINT transit rewards for Suica. Free pre-registration required.
    • Eki-Net eTicket: a Shinkansen mobile ticket that bundles Shinkansen distance fare + Limited Express seat reservation in one eTicket attached to a Suica or Transit IC card. Eki-Net eTickets do not use the Suica SF balance but attaching an eTicket to Apple Pay Suica for example, makes for extremely convenient and seamless local train to Shinkansen connections with just iPhone or Apple Watch.

Eki-Net Tokudane discounts
One of the nice things about Eki-Net is that it offers the same discount rates to all Eki-Net users unlike the 2 tiered EX service which has smartEX with tiny discounts and EX-Press Reserve with large discounts.

Eki-Net discount eTicket and Ticketless are called ‘Tokudane’ and are reserve seat only. Tokudane eTickets are also limited in number for each each train and can disappear quickly. The general rule of thumb is, the bigger the discount, the faster they disappear. Tokudane Tickeless are limited to reserve seat capacity of the train and are easy to get at the last minute.

Eki-Net • JRE POINT Integration
Eki-Net is highly integrated with the JR East JRE POINT system and just like any ‘mileage club’ out there, ticket purchases come with JRE POINT rewards that can be turned around and used for ticket purchases and Green Car seat upgrades. Basic point rewards are earned with any Eki-Net registered credit card purchase. JR East VIEW CARD purchases earn extra JRE POINT rewards.

Eki-Net Registration
Registering and managing an Eki-Net account can only be done via the web site.

Go to the Eki-Net web site, tap register, go to the bottom of the welcome page, tap proceed

The Eki-Net registration YouTube video has a quick visual explanation of the steps:

Steps 3~5 (0:33~0:53) enter email address to receive the registration URL.
Step 6 (1:07) register name, address, phone number, account ID and password.
Step 7 (1:29) register a credit card. Foreign issue credit cards can be registered if 3-D Secure compliant.
Step 8 (1:50) register Mobile Suica or plastic card ID numbers (up to 6).
Step 9 (2:17) sign up or decline Eki-Net promo emails, confirm info and tap register (2:48).

Eki-Net Ticket Purchases
You can either use the Eki-Net website or Eki-Net app to search trains and purchase eTicket and Ticketless train tickets. You can bypass manual login with Eki-Net app that supports Face ID / Touch ID login, download Eki-Net from the Japanese App Store.

It’s helpful to know to know a few basics.

Step 1~2 (0:37) enter station points, date, departure time, number of people and tap search.
Step 3 (0:51) select the train.
Step 4~5 (1:05) select the seat type: eTicket non-reserve, Tokudane discount (reserve), Green Car, JRE POINT Green Car upgrade, etc., then select having a seat assigned or select via the seat map.
Step 6 (1:49) select your credit card, enter security code and purchase you eTicket.
Step 7 (2:27) link eTicket with Apple Pay Suica or other registered IC Transit cards.

Here are screenshots of the steps using Eki-Net iOS app.

1: Enter search criteria
2: Select the train
3: Select the seat type
4: Select the seat
5: Confirm and scroll to bottom
6: Tap Purchase
7: Tap Yes
8: Tap Attach
9: Confirm IC transit card name/number and tap attach
10: Confirm Seat assignments and IC transit cards and tap Attach
11: Tap OK
This how an eTicket looks in Eki-Net app
Tap the ticket in Eki-Net app to change or cancel
This how an eTicket looks in Eki-Net web

Using eTickets
Apple Pay Wallet and Suica App do not have any of your mobile ticket information and you do not need to launch an app to use eTickets or Ticketless. Just get on your train.

Eki-Net eTickets with Apple Pay Suica are extremely convenient

The only notification you will receive is a reminder email from Eki-Net before departure. Eki-Net app is handy for confirming eTicket seat assignments and attached Transit IC cards, just tap the your ticket to view details.

Your eTicket is linked to Apple Pay Suica, all you do is tap the Shinkansen transit gate and go through as show in the above video using Apple Pay Suica on Apple Watch. Your eTickets are validated online, there is nothing you need to show to the conductor or station staff.

Eki-Net App is convenient for checking eTicket details, seat assignments, changing attached Suica cards, etc. Tap the eTicket to see details.

Using Ticketless
Once you have your Ticketless seat reservation, simply get on assigned train car and take your assigned seat. Conductors already have your seat information and do not check or validate your seat assignment.

(Updated 2023-03-30)

iOS 16: missing features in Japan (updated)

Any WWDC OS announcement is always a matchup contest of what’s coming for America and what’s missing in other regions like Japan. Let’s take a quick look at what’s coming, what’s not and other quirks on the iOS 16 feature page.

What’s missing

Live Text that actually works for Japanese

Japan finally got Live Text and Visual Lookup. While it’s great that Live Text supports Japanese language, it doesn’t support vertical Japanese text which means there are lots of times when it won’t work. Basically Live Text Japanese is pretty useless without robust vertical text support. And yes it’s depressing to think that iOS and macOS in 2022 still cannot do precise multilingual vertical text selection that QuickDraw GX could do back in 1993.

Maps

It’s weird that Apple is advertising transit cards and low fare balance warnings as a new Maps feature. I guess it’s new when it’s new for America. Apple Maps has had low fare warnings for Suica since the October 2016 iOS 10.1 update. The add new card part is new either but low fare warnings aren’t working in beta 1. Bottom line: there is no new transit functionality such as granular route selection, sorting etc., thought the UI is improved and more compact. Walking directions have also added elevation information. As Japan is missing from the WWDC22 announced list of countries getting New Maps this year (countries like Saudi Arabia that have yet to see an Apple Maps Image Collection van), Japan will continue to be the Apple Maps challenged country. I’m pretty sure Taiwan will get New Maps long before Japan does, if ever.

Apple Pay and Wallet

Apple Pay Later is only for America at this point, ditto for ID in Wallet, both missing and no surprise. Order tracking in Wallet is listed for Japan and also key sharing, though BMW is currently the only company offering a digital key for Wallet. Wallet compatible Home-Office-Hotel digital keys have yet to be announced though there are many digital keys on the market for Android.

Other things

Live Captions, Control Apple Watch with iPhone, Apple News, Weather app minute by minute precipitation are missing. Siri Japanese voice 1, the guy voice, and voice 2 are new and higher quality. Voice 1 sounds more soft and fey to my ear. That’s okay but the previous guy voice was a bit easier to hear outside with ambient noise.

iOS 16 Gallery

WWDC22 Keynote Apple Maps segment showed in-app add transit card and low fare warning with reload option
iOS 16 Apple Maps Transit directions doesn’t add new functions but the UI is improved for easier option selection, walking directions now include elevation information
Live Text now supports Japanese but vertical text scanning doesn’t work
Live Text Japanese scan in Translation app doesn’t work for vertical text

Big Sur Time Machine Migration

Howard Oakley reports a smooth experience upgrading to macOS 11.0.1 Big Sur. Good news, but I’m waiting for the 11.1 update while preparing for the Big Sur big move by getting my Time Machine updates in order: I retired the old Time Capsule, removed the hard disk and repurposed it as a local Time Machine backup disk. Goodbye NAS Time Machine backups.

As Oakley pointed out just after WWDC20, and as Ars Technica confirms in their Big Sur review, updating to Big Sur comes down to 2 Time Machine choices: 1) the legacy HFS+ hard link way and, 2) The APFS snapshot way. There is no way to migrate from HFS+ Time Machine to APFS Time Machine except by starting afresh. The default Big Sur Time Machine setting formats a new disk as APFS as shown in the video. Goodbye HFS+ Time Machine backups.

Oakley’s key advice is this:

I also strongly recommend that, whether using HFS+ or APFS to store your Time Machine backups in future, you start making a fresh backup set with Big Sur. You’ll have to do that if you switch to using APFS anyway, but following the problems which occurred with Catalina, you’ll be much better off if you archive your old backup set and start afresh.

To do that I plan to:

  1. Backup macOS Catalina 10.15.7 to 2 different Time Machine hard disks: one for archive, one for migration
  2. Turn off automatic Time Machine backups
  3. Upgrade to macOS Big Sur 11.1, then if the upgrade is successful…
  4. Wipe one of the Catalina Time Machine hard disks and let Big Sur Time Machine create a new APFS backup with auto backups.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

UPDATE
I had my backups in order and decided not to wait for 11.1 and went ahead with Time Machine APFS migration with 11.0.1. It worked out pretty well, the upgrade from macOS Catalina was smooth and trouble free, unlike the upgrade from macOS Mojave.

Time Machine migration was equally smooth. I put away my archive Time Machine backup hard disk and reformatted the 2nd Time Machine HD for APFS (4 TB Western Digital ‘Green Label’). I then let Big Sur Time Machine do a default setup which reformatted the disk again. A completely new Time Machine backup of my MacBook Pro late 2016 1 TB SSD took about 3 hours. After the backup was complete the Time Machine HD was busy indexing for the next 8 hours. I checked Activity Monitor but could not find which process was doing the indexing.

After indexing was over Time Machine APFS snapshot backups do seem faster than the old HFS+ variety. I need more time with it, especially accessing Time Machine backups, but so far so good.

UPDATE 2
All is good and Oakley has a wonderful post that outlines how much better APFS Time Machine backups are over previous versions.

The State of OpenType Variable Japanese Fonts

OpenType Variable Font support in focused on browsers and Adobe apps
CSS is the main focus of variable font support

Typo Labs 2018 had some interesting updates on OpenType Variable Fonts (OTVF), where they are now and roadmap directions to the future. The most interesting presentation by far was Jason Pamental’s Variable Fonts and the Future of Typography. One benefit of using variable fonts in our era of multiple digital devices is that maximum readability for any given content can be optimized across devices with optical sizing which doesn’t sound very sexy but pays big dividends.

Apple leverages this with the variable font capability in their San Francisco system font. It’s the thing that makes Dynamic Type dynamic and has existed on macOS since the QuickDraw GX era, Apple’s TrueType GX fonts provided the technology base for OTVF. Pamental stresses that there are many more important benefits to variable fonts than just optical sizing and the future of digital typography needs to incorporate them. I strongly agree with Pamental’s view but I also see problems.

The initial focus for OpenType variable fonts has been CSS web development and optical sizing support is in already in Safari and Chrome with Firefox and Edge joining any day. You can see and play with variable font examples on Axis-Praxis (ignore Arphic’s hideous  AR UDJingXiHei font, it’s some Chinese designer’s idea of a Japanese font). So far, so good.

We Have Been Here Before
The real problem is going to be the same problem we had before with OpenType: advanced typography feature fragmentation. I interviewed one of the top Japanese font engineers back in late 2003, Tomihisa Uchida of Iwata Corporation and he explained the problem. At that time Adobe was pushing the Japan market away from the expensive Japanese Postscript printer font model to the dynamic font download model of OpenType Japanese fonts with PDF and InDesign J. What Uchida san said in 2003 is still true today:

I work with newspaper fonts and layout. Newspaper font designs are different because the text is always vertical. Fonts need good layout to look their best.(Japanese) OpenType has fractions, third-width and quarter width glyphs, but most applications are not OpenType-feature aware so it’s a real waste. The result is pretty ugly.

Right now, the only OpenType (Japanese) layout engine out there is InDesign (J)…(this) means you have to use InDesign to access OpenType advanced typography…no matter what kind of fancy fonts you have, they look bad with poor typography.

Advanced Typography Feature Fragmentation in Action
You can see and test this problem for yourself on macOS with the recently revived egword Universal 2 Japanese word processor app and Pages. Hiragino Japanese OpenType fonts bundled with macOS are chockfull of advanced typography features (both AAT and OpenType tables) mentioned by Uchida san and much more: glyph variations, vertical substitutions, extended character sets, etc. The full set is listed in the crusty old macOS Fonts >Typography palette.

Hiragino font options
Hiragino advanced font features are found in the Typography palette but they don’t work across apps or platforms, some options are just plain broken

Hiragino has many advanced typography features but they don’t work across apps or platforms. Some listed features such as glyph variants are completely broken. Pages accepts some of the Hiragino advanced features but does not offer vertical text layout, a basic Japanese typography requirement because the Pages team only implements the lowest common denominator typography features that work across WebKit, macOS and iOS.

egword Universal 2 has excellent Japanese vertical and horizontal text layout but ignores Typography palette advanced fonts options in favor of its own app palette which only offers a sub-set of Hiragino font features.

The only place to use the whole Hiragino feature shebang is a trip to InDesign Creative Suite J. What’s the matter with you, don’t you have one?

egword Universal 2 ignores the Hiragino font features in macOS Typography palette but deploys a limited subset in its own palette
Pages accepts some Hiragino options offered in macOS Typography palette but glyph variants are broken in macOS Mojave

Variable Fonts and What’s Missing
Where do OpenType Variable Fonts fit in this scenario? What and how are features offered and how does an app present them to the poor user who might want to use them?

The answer is something I have been trying to write about from my very first blog post and revisited last week. 3 years in I think I finally understand it: the QuickDraw GX vision thing. Not the API or any of the GX technology that westerners got hung up on missing the big picture:

QuickDraw GX, the vision part not the API, was the only major text layout architecture in a major OS I know of that treated all typography from anywhere as one single thing available to all applications. The Steve Jobsian ‘it just works’ for the entire world’s advanced typography.

Apple’s advanced typography technology lineage goes back to QuickDraw GX

The critical difference was the GX vision of the world’s advanced typography and layout as one unified common fundamental thing that just works and is available everywhere seamlessly across the OS and all apps. All this advanced typography stuff doesn’t work unless it is one unified thing. To paraphrase Uchida san ‘fancy fonts look bad with poor typography’. Without vision and focus OpenType Variable fonts will turn out to be fancy fonts that look bad most of the time.

Apple is the only company in the world that owns both the software and hardware across personal computer and mobile platforms so it comes down to 2 points.

  1. If Apple can’t come up with an advanced typography vision again, OpenType Variable Fonts will suffer the same advanced typography feature fragmentation fate that OpenType advanced typography has suffered from all along: it will live in the Adobe app ghetto which is fine for the designers who live and work there, but it never leaves that world. It will be ignored by most of the developer community because they can’t figure it out on their own when different advanced typography features are fragmented and scattered across OS platforms and frameworks (UIKit, AppKit, Core Text, WebKit). And when app developers ignore it font developers are much less inclined to support OTVF, especially Japanese and Chinese font developers who have exponentially larger development costs than Roman based font developers.
  2. When that happens typography remains stuck at the lowest common denominator feature set but users will never know the difference, or have the opportunity to find out. The end result is that after all this time, 22 years later and counting, fancy fonts still look bad with the poor typography we end up getting. That’s sad.

Only Apple can give us world savvy advanced typography and layout as a one thing OS vision model for the rest of us. That might be too much to ask for in this era where open web standards dictate what kinds of, ahem, western centric advanced typography we get, but if Apple can’t do it, nobody can.

Macintosh Dog Days

It’s going to be a long dry summer. Maybe it’s the lack of any new hardware but one week after WWDC18 wrapped up the Apple tech blogger crowd are already bored. Witness: as of June 14, 2018 it is 182 days since iMac Pro was last updated. Only 182 days since it was reported that Apple finally broke the hardware update jinx and here we are again. The rest of the Mac dog day lineup is here.

I have another measurement suggestion: 10,950 days. How many Mac hardware hand wringers are over that mark and how many under? It would be fun to know, I suspect the majority are over. My MacBook Pro 13″ 2016 model isn’t even close to feeling like a cool step up the hardware ladder that my MacBook Air 13″ 2011 was but it doesn’t matter much.

I use my iPad Pro 10.5″ more and more. A recent screen drop incident left me without it for a week and I realized it had become my go-to device. Going back to the laptop for everything was not fun. I’m glad it’s there but 3 years from now I think Mac hardware will matter less than ever for ever more people.

This may not be a popular opinion but until Apple dumps the Intel architecture I don’t see the Macintosh platform moving forward much.