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Leopard Claims Half the Japanese OS Market In October

Posted by Zonk on from the not-quite-the-beatles-though dept.

hoagiecat writes "Is Apple like all those bands who claim to be "huge in Japan"? Leopard accounted for 53 percent of boxed operating systems sold in Japan in October — even though it was only on sale for the last six days of the month. 'The software went on sale worldwide on Oct. 26 with sales kicking off at 6 p.m. local time in each country. Users in New Zealand and Australia got their hands on Leopard first, but Tokyo saw the first launch at an Apple retail store. About 200 people lined up in light rain to buy the software at Apple's store in the ritzy Ginza district of Tokyo. Lines also formed at other Apple stores across the country and at major electronics retailers, where special events were held to mark the start of sales. Combined with other sales of other operating systems including Tiger, Apple had an overall 60.7 percent share of the market in October -- that's a big jump from the 15.5 percent share it had in September, which was itself the highest share Apple had managed to get so far in 2007. '"

9 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. In Japan... by BWJones · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'll tell you that I just got back from Japan a couple of weeks ago and there is a serious hunger for Apple's products. When there, every time I pulled out my iPhone to check an appointment or change a tune (or anything), I had people asking me all about it. Even in technology jaded Japan where you can watch TV on your cell phone, they are absolutely stoked about Apple's iPhone. My comment to one guy in the Apple store there when I went in to buy a cable and became a minor celebrity due to possessing an iPhone was "what's the big deal, you have the iPod touch", to which he responded, "but that is the iPhone and we don't have that yet!".

    Just wait for the true subnotebook or tablet. That is going to sell huge in Japan.

    --
    Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    1. Re:In Japan... by pcgabe · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Even in technology jaded Japan where you can watch TV on your cell phone, they are absolutely stoked about Apple's iPhone.


      It's possible that you may have fallen victim to Japanese politeness. I know that when I was there, my co-workers and friends teased me about the iPhone (not because I had one, but because I'm American).

      "Oh, it has a big screen. How many TV channels can it record simultaneously?" Zero. "Oh, well then, that explains the price! HAHAHA!" (Don't get me started on what my Japanese colleagues considered 'humor', that's another rant in itself)

      Japanese phones are, by my estimates, about two years ahead of ours. The only thing about the iPhone that my friends over there found interesting was all the HYPE. They could not see what the big deal was all about.

      However, they do have a tendency to say small things are big deals, out of politeness. Can't speak Japanese, except for mumbling a few phrase-book standards? "OH, your Japanese is excellent!" Speak fluent Japanese? "..." (no comment)

      You have an iPhone? "Wow, what an amazing phone!" You have a standard Japanese phone that does everything an iPhone can do, plus does your taxes, transforms into a scooter, makes you pudding, and gives you blowjobs? "..."

      The rule of thumb is: The cooler/better something is, the less they say about it. The more they talk about it, the less cool/awesome it is.
      --
      Don't put advice in your sig.
    2. Re:In Japan... by dancingmad · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Um, I work in a Japanese office in Aomori and I don't have an iPhone but one of my coworkers is an Apple fan and he's stoked about the iPhone (he went and bought an iPod touch a couple of weeks ago).

      The design is light years ahead of even the best Japanese phones (I have one of au's best summer phones and while I like it a lot and it has a lot of features the iPhone doesn't, like TV and a English/Japanese dictionary) and the UI is better than American phones but still clunky compared to the iPhone.

      --
      "There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
  2. Re:Huge in Japan by djh101010 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    David Hasselhoff is huge anywhere where you can't understand a word he is saying. So, everywhere then, is what you're saying? Gotta say though, his appearance in the Spongebob movie shows that he doesn't take himself too seriously so, I see that as a plus.
  3. Re:not entirely surprising by Lars+T. · · Score: 1, Interesting

    that's a big jump from the 15.5 percent share it had in September, which was itself the highest share Apple had managed to get so far in 2007.

    This big jump makes sense, really. Who in their right mind would buy Tiger a month before Leopard is coming out, Obviously enough to account for an 15.5 percent share ...
    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  4. Actual Usage by MisterSquid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A friend of mine with a 3G-capable blackberry-like phone in the US (West Coast) said he ran races with his iPhone-using friend. According to him, her iPhone loaded many pages (over EDGE) more quickly than his 3G-capable phone. The explanation was that the chipset in the iPhone (among other things) was much faster than what was on his phone. (Wish I knew what kind of phone he was using, sorry.)

    Anyhow, all this hand-wringing over the best features, like criticisms of 1st gen iPods, misses the point that what works in practice can't be compared to theoretical bests. The iPhone is amazing primarily because of its OS and the fact that web use of EDGE is rare.

    When the telcos offer better networks (speed and coverage) hopefully successors to the iPhone 1.0 (including non-Apple competitors) will improve on what the iPhone has to offer. For now, people like you are considered "insightful" for what amounts to a wish list.

    --
    blog
  5. Re:I'm not surprised, compare the fonts by Rocketship+Underpant · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Agreed. Language input switching is instant in Leopard (heck, I could never even get it to work right in XP), and those pop-up Japanese dictionaries are invaluable. I use them daily.

    --
    He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
  6. Re:Huge in Japan by doughrama · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've installed Leopard on three Apple machine (Mac Pro, G5 Power Mac, G5 iMac) so far with zero problems. I still have a G4 iMac and a G4 Mac mini to go, just been to lazy.

    My general opinion is that Leopard is by far and away the best OS from Apple so far. The only installation problems I've read about had to do with people who were using APE. http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9806005-37.html Just out of habit I always do a fresh install so I typically never get bit by these types of issues.

    As far as speed/performance is concerned, I found Leopard to *feel* considerably faster on all my machines so far. Whether or not it actually is faster or if Apple is just using tricks to alter my perception, I don't know... But I do know that my perception is that it feels quite a bit faster. When I first installed Leopard on my Mac Pro I was initially very concerned, every time I tried to do something (or doing nothing) my HD would grind away and the system was definitely a lot slower than Tiger. That turned out to just be Spotlight doing it's initial indexing. After an hour or so (I didn't pay attention) the initial index completed and all was well.

    Is there room for improvement in Leopard, absolutely. But that whole notion is simply a understood reality, there's always room for improvement. IMHO Leopard is a bigtime improvement to Tiger, and it appears that you're relatively happy with Tiger.

    One of the many improvements which is worth the price of admission for me (as dumb as it may be to begin with) connecting to different network devices now happens on a separate thread. Long story short If you're connected to another computer and that computer goes away your machine no longer hangs and becomes unusable while it tries to find it's missing connection.

    I've read reviews, and tend to agree that people don't like the transparent menu system or the new 3D Dock. Neither of these things bother me much. In fact I really like the look of the new dock, but that's because I always have mine on the left side of the screen and it won't display in the 3d style with that configuration.

    One of the things I both love and hate are Stacks. I really like how Stacks functions. Stacks basically does exactly what I used to do manually but makes it better and more automated. What I hate (and I can't stress this enough) about stacks is that the icon it uses to represent the folder is dynamic. This really lame when you have an applications folder and the icon for the applications folder is AddressBook since it's the first app in the folder (alphabetically.) With a wink and a nudge from a Apple authority I've been lead to believe that Apple is going to change this behavior with a update.

    All in all I prefer Leopard to Tiger and I fully recommend the upgrade.

  7. Re:Huge in Japan by C0rinthian · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm running Leopard on my MacBook Pro, and have no complaints. Spotlight is significantly faster, and I pretty much use it as an application launcher now.

    Regarding stacks: If you don't like the icon, there is a workaround. Basically make a junk file with a custom icon of your choice. Then set its last modified date way in the future. It will always show as the top of the stack.