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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

#71

Post by MrScruff »

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…

But the point is, they SHOULDN'T have to compromise. That's just Apple deciding what people will use, even if it's the wrong thing. It's taking a little bit of good advice to such an extreme that what appears on the surface "visionary" would upon closer inspection reveal itself as insanity. Hubris has a way of creeping up on you when your power remains unchecked for too long.

You always have to compromise. Unless you would argue that Apple has been busy introducing features to iOS that nobody wants. It's always easier to throw in a half implemented feature with a badly thought out interface than take the time and energy to think things through and do it properly. This doesn't just apply to interface design, it applies to everything.

Unfortunately, doing things properly takes time and sometimes you succumb to the pressure to just get something out there. But your customers will feel the lack of time, energy and thought you've put into it. And most of the time you'll end up having to go back and do it properly at a later date.

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

#72

Post by slowpoke »

angus77 wrote: post #51
wh-uws wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With my decidedly limited knowledge of Japanese tech out outside of videogames and some phones, I would say Shigeru is about as close as Japan has to a Steve Jobs

Except that most people (even Japanese people) don't know his name.

That would make him closer to Dennis Ritchie, eh?

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

#73

Post by thomasgerbe »

shioyama wrote: post #45
tuppy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 p…

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

There are some pretty well designed ones.

http://bm.straightline.jp/

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

#74

Post by paperwork »

bluedanieru wrote: post #39

One thing he didn't mention that I've noticed is that many Japanese companies, particularly in the consumer electronics space but in other industries as well, maintain completely separate product lines outside Japan vs. what they sell here. This is (or was) especially striking with phones where you simply couldn't buy made-for-Japan mobile phones outside Japan, and likewise you couldn't find non-Japanese phones in Ja…

So why would an international company have separate product lines like you mention? It is hard to believe that international businessmen would forgo the opportunity to profit abroad, simply because something is made for the local market. Could it be that Japan only products are more experimental, and when the prove successful, they are rolled out to rest of the world?

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

#75

Post by Raphael »

peteretep wrote: post #62
ilamont wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would actually give a lot of the credit for Apple's taste to Jonathon Ive, with the backing, direction, and final approval of Jobs. I think Shigeru and Ive were both masters of design and interface, and besides their influence on the look and feel of the product, could operate at the level of actually engineering/creating. For the Wii project, some of Miyamoto's ideas didn't make it into the final product. For inst…

> final approval of Jobs I have a blog article brewing on this, but for now: what drove Apple was Steve Jobs' /taste/ and that others believed in his taste. The first time Tim Cook presents a computer with a major feature missing - ie: no CD drive or no floppy drive, the audience will think he's crazy, and will think it's proof that the company can no longer work without Steve-o. It wasn't the coming up with new idea…

Maybe you just picked a poor example, but CD drive is actually something Jobs would take out, so critics would likely see it is a continuation in his spirit. Tim Cook would be more likely to be chastised if, say, the new laptop were covered in brand stickers.

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

#76

Post by peteretep »

Raphael wrote: post #75
peteretep wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> final approval of Jobs I have a blog article brewing on this, but for now: what drove Apple was Steve Jobs' /taste/ and that others believed in his taste. The first time Tim Cook presents a computer with a major feature missing - ie: no CD drive or no floppy drive, the audience will think he's crazy, and will think it's proof that the company can no longer work without Steve-o. It wasn't the coming up with new idea…

Maybe you just picked a poor example, but CD drive is actually something Jobs would take out, so critics would likely see it is a continuation in his spirit. Tim Cook would be more likely to be chastised if, say, the new laptop were covered in brand stickers.

> something Jobs would take out

did take out. That was the point.

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

#77

Post by kstenerud »

MrScruff wrote: post #71
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…

But the point is, they SHOULDN'T have to compromise. That's just Apple deciding what people will use, even if it's the wrong thing. It's taking a little bit of good advice to such an extreme that what appears on the surface "visionary" would upon closer inspection reveal itself as insanity. Hubris has a way of creeping up on you when your power remains unchecked for too long. You always have to compromise. Unless you…

In this case, it's a problem of Apple being a regional company. They think only in regional terms, completely ignoring what people in other countries consider to be important.

And their market penetration suffers heavily as a result. If that's not enough reason to stop forcing compromise on your customers (ESPECIALLY with so many competitors in the space), I don't know what is.

They always seem biggest before they fall.

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

#78

Post by nobody314159 »

arkitaip wrote: post #11
nobody314159 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense - if it wasn't for focus groups we wouldn't have been able to launch our new car with improved whip holder!

Well, that's better than our focus group; they just want faster horses.

Ours insisted on backwards compatibility

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

#79

Post by cdavid »

shioyama wrote: post #70
cdavid wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concerning websites, when you compare rakuten Japan and say UK, you see a stark difference in how things are presented. This may just be due to the UK site being done outside Japan/by foreigners, but this would hint at a some preference toward clutter for Japanese customers ?

The classic case of this is Google vs Yahoo in Japan. Yahoo is more popular, and if you look at the layout, you'll see that it's much more cluttered (or at least, that there's loads more information). At one point Google caved in (in Japan) and added more buttons to their top page, but I see they've switched back to the basic logo + search bar. Another thing to consider is that the cluttered thing is not only Japan:…

Yahoo Japan is a pretty Japanese company (dunno about the proportion of Japanese workers there). I only got a very small look at it during interview there, but google Japan seems much more westernized as far as the workforce is concerned.

It would really interesting to know who is responsible for rakuten UK (or any other country). Since prices are in JPY, I am quite confused about the meaning of rakuten UK...

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

#80

Post by bluedanieru »

paperwork wrote: post #74
bluedanieru wrote: post #39

One thing he didn't mention that I've noticed is that many Japanese companies, particularly in the consumer electronics space but in other industries as well, maintain completely separate product lines outside Japan vs. what they sell here. This is (or was) especially striking with phones where you simply couldn't buy made-for-Japan mobile phones outside Japan, and likewise you couldn't find non-Japanese phones in Ja…

So why would an international company have separate product lines like you mention? It is hard to believe that international businessmen would forgo the opportunity to profit abroad, simply because something is made for the local market. Could it be that Japan only products are more experimental, and when the prove successful, they are rolled out to rest of the world?

In the case of mobile phones, if they were in fact experiments they must have considered every experiment a failure, as virtually none of what you saw in the Japanese domestic market informed the design of overseas products. Yet they continued with the same basic design principles year after year. Look some of them up if you like, and you will see what I mean.

They don't see themselves missing out on any opportunity, because they are already certain that their domestic market is fundamentally quite different than every other market in the world, and must be treated as such. This is something fully within the sphere of consensus for them. They aren't behaving like rational actors, but rather like normal humans whose cultural attitudes prevent them from even examining many of their beliefs. Bring it up and you will likely be treated to an expert display of confabulation and rationalization. You can do this with any people on Earth depending on the topic, but the Japanese happened to have picked an unfortunate one.

This is why people think Japanese are xenophobic. They're not, not really. Not any more than most other cultures. But they do tend to think they are very different from everyone else in the world, for better and for worse. This essay is itself a good example, being more nihonjinron navel-gazing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron

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