It's true that Asian cellphones often get the newest features long before their North American counterparts, but the latest Japanese version of the iPhone 3G has something that hopefully won't be deemed necessary any time in the near future.

In order to deter the unfortunate phenomenon of "upskirts" (which I shan't go too deeply into on this here gadget blog, except to say that they're pretty much exactly what they sound like), Apple has installed a loud shutter sound on the Japanese version of its popular phone, in order to help deter users from taking pictures unnoticed.

The shutter sound is triggered even when the phone is set to silent mode.

According to Cult of Mac, the feature is fairly common on the country's various cellphone models, as the advent of camera phones has led to a rash of upskirts and their inverted counterpart, the "downblouse." Many phones in the country make a similar shutter sound or say "cheese" when a photo is snapped.

Much to chagrin of many, the last version of the iPhone featured neither.