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Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

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Re: Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

#41

Post by delackner »

kstenerud wrote: post #32

The article kind of misses the point. The reason why people are leaving the Japanese phones for the iPhone is because Japanese phone interfaces SUCK BALLS. And they have ALWAYS sucked. I suffered through 5 years of one phone after another being such a terrible user experience that I think it scarred me for life. And don't even get me started with Sony, who replaced the perfectly functioning joypad in their phones (wh…

This is so true. Example: My iphone died recently, so while waiting for the 4s to come out I used a 3-4 year old Sony Ericson lying around the office. It has so many buzzword features! It even has dedicated media playback buttons on the outside! Yet how do you call someone? It takes 6 button presses. Press down > click on first name > Call > Voice Call/Video Call/PushTalk > No Message/Create Message > Call/Call with ID/Call with no ID/Country code

That's insane. It is like no one ever tried to make a phone call with their phone when designing it.

Don't get me started on the text editing screen. It is a modal text area that flips between movement within the whole text and movement within the single word you are editing. I love Vim, and I still hate this text entry method.

This whole topic has been covered many times before, but its roots are various and you could write a book on the subject of why most firms (both japanese and non) are just so horrible at consumer software interface design.

Some people suggest that it is just that the Japanese firms were only really good at hardware, but that rings false. I've seen a lot of really horribly designed Japanese computers and mobile phones before the iPhone came out, even just judging the hardware by itself on simplicity and reliability.

Re: Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

#42

Post by jayfuerstenberg »

rayiner wrote: post #30
teyc wrote: post #6

What Apple has executed is actualy mass luxury. Its goods are perceived as high value objects, where status is more important than breadth of functionality (more on this later). Perception is very important. For instance, a discount store would stack up items and use cheap-looking layout to create the perception that they are cost cutters. Similarly, a luxury item should be perceived as objet d' art where functionali…

Apple doesn't really market themselves as a luxury brand. Compare a Mac ad to a Lexus ad, for example. What you're describing isn't luxury. Having a product where "functionality is clear and straightforward" isn't luxury, and it isn't art. It's good engineering.

Precisely.

For the most part they stripped away the complexity of computers and made the internet a consumer-level technology.

Re: Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

#43

Post by tuppy »

shioyama wrote: post #38
rubashov wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "overall picture is bleak" if you measure societies by flashy, marketable headline developments and gadgets. It is rather good if you more soberly consider household incomes and trade figures. Japan continues to dominate many high tech industries. Look at the 787; over a third of it is made in Japan and it's all the key hi tech bits like the carbon fiber wings. Japan may indeed be in some sort of withdrawn middle…

The malaise comes not from the absolute position of Japanese companies in the world, but from the direction they're headed in. There was a great article in the Economist a while back about this: http://www.economist.com/node/14793432 Since this article was published, the situation has gotten worse. The earthquake sure didn't help, but the situation wasn't good even before that. Sure, 10% or something of the parts tha…

>The problem which many have mentioned here and elsewhere is that while Japan is unrivalled in craftsmanship ("monozukuri") -- making physical things -- exactly the opposite is true when it comes to "unphysical" things like software.

This is something I do not understand. Why is there a cultural aversion to creating beautiful software? As an example, Honda has some of the most beautifully designed interiors in the automotive world. Simple, elegant, functional, with quality materials. The design is often very Apple-like (at least relative to other manufacturers, though they are improving). I would think that the culture that gave us wonderful interaction with a vehicle would be able to provide a similar sort of experience with a phone. What's bizarre is that most pre-iPhone Japanese phones have the UX of a mid-90s Buick: lots of buttons, nothing really arranged properly.

To me it's just strange that they were unable to produce it, but I am not surprised at all that the iPhone is so popular. I feel like the iPhone should have come out of Japan, but didn't.

Re: Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

#44

Post by ilamont »

delackner wrote: post #41
kstenerud wrote: post #32

The article kind of misses the point. The reason why people are leaving the Japanese phones for the iPhone is because Japanese phone interfaces SUCK BALLS. And they have ALWAYS sucked. I suffered through 5 years of one phone after another being such a terrible user experience that I think it scarred me for life. And don't even get me started with Sony, who replaced the perfectly functioning joypad in their phones (wh…

This is so true. Example: My iphone died recently, so while waiting for the 4s to come out I used a 3-4 year old Sony Ericson lying around the office. It has so many buzzword features! It even has dedicated media playback buttons on the outside! Yet how do you call someone? It takes 6 button presses. Press down > click on first name > Call > Voice Call/Video Call/PushTalk > No Message/Create Message > Call/Call with…

UI design by engineers. It's been a problem for most (but not all) Japanese hardware products I've owned, including every single device with a lens or screen attached.

Re: Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

#45

Post by shioyama »

tuppy wrote: post #43
shioyama wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The malaise comes not from the absolute position of Japanese companies in the world, but from the direction they're headed in. There was a great article in the Economist a while back about this: http://www.economist.com/node/14793432 Since this article was published, the situation has gotten worse. The earthquake sure didn't help, but the situation wasn't good even before that. Sure, 10% or something of the parts tha…

>The problem which many have mentioned here and elsewhere is that while Japan is unrivalled in craftsmanship ("monozukuri") -- making physical things -- exactly the opposite is true when it comes to "unphysical" things like software. This is something I do not understand. Why is there a cultural aversion to creating beautiful software? As an example, Honda has some of the most beautifully designed interiors in the au…

Have you looked at Japanese websites? Most of them have pretty terrible design/UI. It's the same thing.

My take on this is that you have to look more broadly to understand the tendency for cluttered design in Japanese interfaces. Walk around a small neighbourhood in Tokyo and you'll see how cluttered the layout is. On small "roji" (back alleyways), Japanese like to stack potted plants outside their front doors in a pretty disorganized arrangement. Streets are generally not straight, neighbourhoods rarely follow a grid layout.

(Shimokitazawa is probably the best example in Tokyo of this: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/11/04/japan-debating-the-... )

It's the same thing with cluttered interface design, except that whereas in urban layout it produces something amazingly complex, intricate and fascinating to explore, in UI design it just results in frustration and inefficiency. But I'm convinced the two come from the same source, and that you can't entirely separate them.

The beautifully designed interiors you mention come from a completely different place (mentally, not physically). I don't quite know how to reconcile the fact that the two come from the same country/culture, but I do believe they have both been here for a long long time. It's just that software somehow tends to bring out the former, whereas monozukuri brings out the latter.

Re: Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

#46

Post by ericd »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #14

For me the meta insight is that this kind of thinking is a huge deal for startups. So the challenge is that as a team you are putting together something that probably everyone thinks is useless (or at least only marginally useful), and yet to have to stay focussed on the problem(s) you are addressing and take care to address them cleanly and with style. It is actually in those places where others cannot see that some…

There are very few companies whose idea I initially thought was useless that have ended up going big - twitter is one of the only ones on that side of the spectrum. Sure, they may have some issues that need to be overcome, but for the most part, the ones that have gone big have a very obvious core appeal. If everyone thinks it's useless despite understanding the crux of the idea, I think that's a really, really good sign that you need to go back to the drawing board.

Re: Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

#47

Post by hugh3 »

wavephorm wrote: post #37
jbm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the best graduates from Tokyo University wind up at Nintendo. It was considered one of the best places to get a job. Nintendo is not a company I would want to emulate. It is getting squeezed by Sony and Microsoft, and even its innovations in terms of casual gaming seem to be on the verge of going away. I consider it a colossal waste, but I guess YMMV. Disclaimer: I thought the same when the DS came out. I was…

Sony's network problems will haunt them for years. I think they're done in the game industry. Microsoft is lacking in innovation in every single category I can think of. This would be the perfect time for Nintendo to crush them both.

Actually I was thinking that this would be the perfect time for Apple to crush them both...

Re: Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

#48

Post by dantheman »

stevenj wrote: post #33
dantheman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Nintendo's success primarily has to do with them employing one of, if not, the best game designers that has ever lived - Shigeru Miyamoto. By trusting and empowering him they are able to have taste, just as Jobs's taste defined Apple, Miyamoto's defines Nintendo.

In case you haven't read it yet, this is an interesting piece about Miyamoto: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/20/101220fa_fact_...

Thanks, great find.

Re: Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

#49

Post by meric »

latch wrote: post #40
wavephorm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony's network problems will haunt them for years. I think they're done in the game industry. Microsoft is lacking in innovation in every single category I can think of. This would be the perfect time for Nintendo to crush them both.

How xbox 360 escaped the ring-of-death is baffling to me. I guess the $1billion hit they took to extend warranties either really spoke to consumers, or people just don't care if they have a 1 in 3 (or was it 1 in 4?) change of getting a dud.

My brother's xbox got the ring of death. He took it to the store he bought it from and they fixed it up. It wasn't a big deal to him.

Re: Japan: We're losing to Apple, and here's why

#50

Post by shard »

rayiner wrote: post #30
teyc wrote: post #6

What Apple has executed is actualy mass luxury. Its goods are perceived as high value objects, where status is more important than breadth of functionality (more on this later). Perception is very important. For instance, a discount store would stack up items and use cheap-looking layout to create the perception that they are cost cutters. Similarly, a luxury item should be perceived as objet d' art where functionali…

Apple doesn't really market themselves as a luxury brand. Compare a Mac ad to a Lexus ad, for example. What you're describing isn't luxury. Having a product where "functionality is clear and straightforward" isn't luxury, and it isn't art. It's good engineering.

Apple markets itself as a luxury brand in one of the largest markets in the world: China.

"Apple's image in China now emphasizes not rebellion, but luxury --or as Wolf puts it, "exclusivity." Its gorgeous glass-walled storesare located next to high-end clothing boutiques like Armani, Versace, and BMW Lifestyle."

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/01/red_delicio...

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