How Steve Jobs 'out-Japanned' Japan

[imageWIS]

Interesting article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...apop012811.DTL

 

[Neo_Version 7]

Minimalism ftw.

 

[gwolf]

didn't read. black turtleneck and jeans were too repulsive!

 

[Dashaansafin]

Lol at Apple innovation. More like marketing genius. Nothing they make is innovative and I say this as an Ipod, Iphone, Ipad user.

 

[blairh]

Originally Posted by Dashaansafin

Lol at Apple innovation. More like marketing genius. Nothing they make is innovative and I say this as an Ipod, Iphone, Ipad user.

What a bunch of bullshit. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad were all game changers. You and your stupid avatar can get fucked.

 

[gdl203]

Not to mention Macintosh decades ago, Epistole, etc... Windows and Office wouldn't exist if Apple didn't show them what a winning user interface should look like.

 

[indesertum]

Originally Posted by blairh

What a bunch of bullshit. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad were all game changers. You and your stupid avatar can get fucked.

apple products might have been game changers, but none of the technology was revolutionary or mind boggling (like sony used to like the article mentioned). i'd say it's a good combination of marketing, simple aesthetics, simple user interface, minimalist features, defined functions. nothing nobody hasn't done before, but they took it to a new level

 

[holymadness]

^^ Do you even remember what phones were like before 2007?

 

[Joffrey]

Originally Posted by indesertum

apple products might have been game changers, but none of the technology was revolutionary or mind boggling (like sony used to like the article mentioned). i'd say it's a good combination of marketing, simple aesthetics, simple user interface, minimalist features, defined functions. nothing nobody hasn't done before, but they took it to a new level

Seem to forget that Apple was the first company to put it all together and make it worth owning. No point innovating if you don't know how to package the product into something you can sell.

 

[Pantisocrat]

Apple is not innovative. That's 100% true. Go to Korea, Taiwan or Japan and live there for a while. Alternatives to the i-whatever exist in multiple variants BEFORE apple products hit the West. Malaysia and Singapore now both have various tech hubs and their products are all over Asia so Apple is focusing more or less on design and marketing to woo non-Western users. It's not worked out so well for them. To a mainland Chinese, apple products cost significantly more than they do in the states, so the products have become more or less status symbols.

 

[Sanguis Mortuum]

Originally Posted by Dashaansafin

Lol at Apple innovation. More like marketing genius. Nothing they make is innovative and I say this as an Ipod, Iphone, Ipad user.

Did you ever try to use a pre-Apple touch-screen? They were ****. Apple were the only ones to realise the potential of the technology and actually invest enough to make it not ****.

 

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by Pantisocrat

Apple is not innovative. That's 100% true. Go to Korea, Taiwan or Japan and live there for a while. Alternatives to the i-whatever exist in multiple variants BEFORE apple products hit the West. Malaysia and Singapore now both have various tech hubs and their products are all over Asia so Apple is focusing more or less on design and marketing to woo non-Western users. It's not worked out so well for them. To a mainland Chinese, apple products cost significantly more than they do in the states, so the products have become more or less status symbols.
The iPhone accounts for 38% of the smartphone market in Japan; in 2010, that was 72%. Android, the ultimate iPhone clone, now accounts for 57%. So much for domestic innovation.

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Just thought i'd chime in

Originally Posted by holymadness

The iPhone accounts for 38% of the smartphone market in Japan; in 2010, that was 72%. Android, the ultimate iPhone clone, now accounts for 57%. So much for domestic innovation.
Those numbers are misleading. (and mathematically confusing the way you wrote it!) I just wanted to point that out. The "smartphone" market in Japan is still small. So huffing your/our chest out and proclaiming Apple/Google to be winning the **** out of Japan is not quite accurate. Apple is estimated to have shipped about 5 million iPhones to Japan in total. At the end of 2010 - the "big three" in Japan: Softbank had 23 million subscribed users. (this is where the iPhones are) and NTT had around 56 million/KDDI has about 32 million, (none of which are iPhones). By the way Softbank is still pretty much giving away iPhones with the "iPhone for everybody" campaign. (it's like the "free" phone you get with a 2 year contract). So yeah As far as Android goes - when I was there in Feb, it had been about a year since Android had been widely available in Japan. So in roughly a year and a half, Android has halfed the market share of the iPhone in Japan, taking it from 70 something percent to 30 something percent, when they are trying to give the iPhone away. They had a two or three year head start on Android too. Brutal. http://mobileinjapan.com/2010/10/20/...sold-in-japan/

 

[eg1]

Wasn't the whole icon-driven GUI a Xerox PARC thing?

 

[Pantisocrat]

If you really want to talk about "domestic innovation" then you should move to Mountain View or Sunnyvale and live there for a while too. Your domestic innovators are mostly foreign born, many of Asian extraction. So both research and manufacturing are outsourced. This is in contrast to many Asian mfgs. who vertically integrated research, design and manufacturing. Just how long do you think Apple can keep this up? How is IBM doing these days?

Originally Posted by holymadness

The iPhone accounts for 38% of the smartphone market in Japan; in 2010, that was 72%. Android, the ultimate iPhone clone, now accounts for 57%. So much for domestic innovation.