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iPod Takes Japan by Storm
conq writes "BusinessWeek reports on the soaring popularity of the iPod in Japan. From the article: 'iPod mania is alive and well in Japan -- one of the most competitive consumer-electronics markets on the planet. Despite an array of well-entrenched Japanese rivals, such as Sony and Matsushita, the iPod had cornered 51.3% of the digital-music player market as of the end of 2005, up from about 32% in 2004, according to research firm BCN. Sony was a distant second with 16.2%, while Panasonic grabbed just 8.2% of the market.'"
Popular technology popular. Interesting....
That's payback for the whole Walkman thing back in the 80's !
... and I saw a LOT of people wearing iPods in the trains, walking on the streets, and at the Narita airport. I talked with a few people about the iPod, and most were using them for Japanese pop music ripped from CDs: I did not meet anyone who had used the iTunes store.
Further, most of the models I saw were the video iPod or the Nano. Very few older photo iPods, and none of the earlier generations.
I'd say that the iPod was the dominant music player that I saw (although there were a few portable CD players)
Until I owned one.
I've owned at least 6 or 7 different non-IPOD players including RIO's, RCA's, hard drive, flash based, you name it.
My wife bought me a Video Ipod this year and I was skeptical. "Why not save the $50 and get a non-Apple one.". After less than 3 months, I like it so well, I'm ready to trade her Rio Carbon in for a Nano just because its so easy to use. I generally consider myself tech savy (using Linux since 1997) but the interface just seems so slick, so smooth, so simple to use with one hand that I can't get over it. Just the fact that you can rate songs as you play them and have that transferred back into Itunes seemed to represent a higher level of integration (seamlessness) than I saw with any other player and client-side software combination.
Want to fast forward though a song? No problem. Couple of intuitive ways to do it. Love the album art. I used to download podcasts with a non-Itunes client and download to my other players. Completely simple with Itunes and the Ipod.
I'm not suprised. Apple just got it right.
Japan is a culture that has been historically known for being very group centric, and supportive of the group which they are part of. Them choosing a foreign product over a local product is thus surprising to me. I assumed the fact that the XBox was foreign was the main reason it never took off in Japan. Then again, it was more or less a "PS2 without Japanese games" when you look at the big picture of consoles at the time, so that may be he reason for it's bad sales. I'm guessing the popularity of the iPod is due to the younger generation breaking off from the ideals of the older generation, and willing to buy an interesting product even if it is foreign. Even today Japan is going through big changes in terms of the position of women in society and external influence.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
a 'real' iPod killer
Here's one for only $7.
Just wait until Godzilla gets back from his battle with Mothra.
It'll beat back this iPod invasion.
Maybe the trend here is that Japan doesn't like big, brawny electronics. Perhaps they like simple, cute, almost frivolous electronics. Less is more!
XBox-Fanboys constantly claim that these evil Japanese racists only buy Japanese products.
How is that possible?
Japanese do exhibit nationalistic pride (it's not racism). It's similar to how many Americans will only buy American cars and trucks.
iPod style manages overcome the bias, because it is more stylish (which is important to teenagers) than other products. It's cool to own [and wear] an iPod so whether or not it was made in Japan doesn't matter.
X-box does not share such a cool factor, it's an equivalent to PS2, so nationalism becomes the deciding factor.
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Now we need a Naruto SE with all episodes loaded. My kids would NEVER speak out loud again.
Japanese do exhibit nationalistic pride (it's not racism).
It actually is, in many cases. Japanese culture is pretty well steeped with homogeneitic inclinations. "Polluted" people are discriminated against in many areas of life. Read up on the "burakumin."
Apple market share slips 30% in Japan
Looks like captain obvious feels mightly insightful today.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
War was beginning. ....
Japan: What happen?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the iPod.
Operator: We get signal.
Japan: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Japan: It's You !!
Apple: How are you gentlemen !!
Apple: All your mp3 player are belong to us.
Apple: You are on the way to destruction.
Japan: What you say !!
Apple: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Apple: HA HA HA HA
Japan: Take off every 'wma' !!
Japan: You know what you doing.
Japan: Move 'wma'.
Japan: For great justice.
[!] No, I can't see my comments. They are not worthy of +3 moderation.
Is anyone but Lada actually behind American automotive companies?
Hell, I'm not even sure Lada's still behind.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Why does your average MP3 player need to be more intuitive? My Rave MP has up and down arrows instead of a virtual scroll wheel. The latter may be somewhat cooler, but it's not any more efficient. You can operate it just as fast, just as easily, with one hand. You have playlists, shuffle, etc. Fast forwarding through a song is as simple as--get this--holding down the fast forward/skip button. I use folders to organize my songs, and transfering them to the Rave is as easy as plugging it in and dragging and dropping from Windows Explorer (or more frequently, Nautilus. It auto-mounts just fine in Ubuntu.) Not having to run any extra client software at all is what I consider "integration." And not only did it cost me well over $50 less than the equivalent iPod, it had features that the iPod lacked, like a digital FM tuner, the ability to record songs off of radio, and a built-in microphone for voice memos. And finally, looks: It's a deep cherry red and roundish instead of pure white and squarish. So? It looks just fine and even if you hated the color you could easily hide it in a shirt or pants pocket.
Props to the Apple marketing department. Props to whomever put together the iTunes store. Props to whomever put together such a slick, minimalistic package and make it popular. I'm not knocking the iPod in any way, I'm just sick of people trying to convince me that all other MP3 players are ugly and nigh impossible to use. I select the folder (or the playlist), I select shuffle, I hit play--what can possibly be simpler than that? I drag and drop from the file manager I *already use* to organize my music--what proprietary client feature could make it easier than that?
What could possibly be worth an extra $50? I'm not going to pay it for the brand name just so I can impress my friends. I'm not going to pay it for an interface that's no more intuitive than scroll arrows. I'm not going to pay it for the software that cannot run natively in Linux and eats up more memory/CPU than Explorer alone in Windows. And I'm damn sure not going to pay it just for the white paint job.
I'm not trolling, I just genuinely don't get it. All the "features" that make the iPod so superior are either already present on many (most?) other MP3 players or just a matter of taste (white and square design vs. roundish and colored.)
My Rave MP has up and down arrows instead of a virtual scroll wheel. The latter may be somewhat cooler, but it's not any more efficient.
When you want to scroll down faster to get to the bottom of your list, how do you do that? Can you hold the button down harder?
The beauty of the scroll wheel is I can go faster or slower or many subtle degrees in between depending on how fast I move my thumb around.
Could just get a brick for free..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That's precisely the same reason I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books.
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