Did Steve Jobs just save me $350?

So, today is the big iPhone 2.0 reveal.

A lot of the stuff that's showing up is VERY cool, but there's one piece of info in particular that has some pretty major implications for me. As some of you know, I'm headed to Japan for a few months starting in mid-July, and the best dictionary solution out there seems pretty clearly to be a dictionary loaded onto a palmtop like an iPaq or Palm Pilot - but the total package is over $300 even if you get an older, used piece of hardware. But I've just seen some interesting hints that i may not have to drop that chunk of change - apparently 2.0 includes some kanji recognition software:

http://gizmodo.com/387188/iphone-20-firmware-will-have-handwriting-recognition-go-to-japan-and-china

If this was accompanied by a good port of a Japanese dictionary, Steve Jobs will have officially saved me a boatload of money, since my phone was originally a gift. Then again, I might just spend that money on a new phone, depending on how sweet the 2.0 hardware is. Remains to be seen, though - the descriptions I've read of the J/E dictionary Edict are so great that anything less would seem like a serious compromise.

There's also some indication that this is a longshot - HWR wasn't present in the beta version of the Japanese interface: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=479920

If you want some insight into how successful the phone has been as a wedge to turn people on to the whole Apple lifestyle thing, I'm actually getting all of this by keeping an eye on the World Wide Developer's conference liveblog at Gizmodo right now . . . http://live.gizmodo.com/.

The Phone Is Life!