Japanese Burger King Embraces Mobile Touchfrastructure
Burger King is letting Japanese customers "have it their way." Their latest restaurant lets iPhone users plug in an iPhone and listen to their personal music collection.
Those umbrella-aping translucent cones hanging over the tables are known as "musical showers," and their function is to deliver music in an isolated fashion to you and your significant -- but not too significant, it's still BK, after all -- other. All you'll need to do is plug your portable media player into the provided receptacle and the tunes you know and love will literally shower down upon you.
Awhile back we noted the idea of touchfrastructure, or the flexible and mobile infrastructure that touch screen devices are creating. We've seen people use their iPhones and iPads everywhere from their car to the kitchen. (If you've been to the Apple store recently, you've noticed the obsession with these "magic tables".)
The last we saw, Apple's iPhone makes up 72% of the Japanese smart phone market (though this is a bit of a stretch, considering that even Japanese "dumb" phones are pretty darn smart). Regardless, it's an interesting move -- the fast food chain is enabling personalization in public spaces, while essentially crowdsourcing its in-store hardware.
