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Your friends in Japan had never seen an iPod in 2005? Apple claimed the iPod had 60 percent of Japanese market share as early as November of that year. http://

by irons 17y ago

Your friends in Japan had never seen an iPod in 2005? Apple claimed the iPod had 60 percent of Japanese market share as early as November of that year. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/nov/16japan.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/nov/16japan.html It kept the lead until September of 2009, when Sony crowed that the Walkman had outsold the iPod the previous week... because the iPod's share had been cannibalized by the iPhone. Nice work, Sony! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ansrP2IonbRA http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a... "Better spec'ed" devices that didn't involve a computer necessarily cram more user interface onto a limited surface, which is why almost by definition, those devices were harder to use. The iPod won not just because its interface was better, but because there was so much less of it. Offloading complex functionality to a general-purpose computing device made the iPod a better music device. There's really no getting around this point, even if the iPod's successors are becoming general-purpose computing devices themselves.

rythie 17y ago
Well they weren't my friends as such just normal non-tech Japanese that I met in various hostels around March 2005. It seemed like it was just getting established at that time, whilst a few had heard of them, the people I had met had never used one. I note that even in the U.K. 2003 very few of my non-tech friends were aware of the iPod still. The big things at the time in Japan in March 2005 seemed to be the PSP (just released), High Definition TVs (there was one in a shop but were impossible to find in the U.K. at the time) and 100Mbs broadband. Oh yeah and I saw 3D cinema in the World EXPO whilst I was there. Mostly these things are being touted still as new in 2010. I'd agree that the iPod won because they made a nice device, but I think that's because that is what the American/European markets demand. However there are lots of markets in the world where functionality and price are lot more important than usability, like the massive emerging ones in India and China.

by irons 17y ago

rythie 17y ago

Well they weren't my friends as such just normal non-tech Japanese that I met in various hostels around March 2005. It seemed like it was just getting established at that time, whilst a few had heard of them, the people I had met had never used one. I note that even in the U.K. 2003 very few of my non-tech friends were aware of the iPod still. The big things at the time in Japan in March 2005 seemed to be the PSP (just released), High Definition TVs (there was one in a shop but were impossible to find in the U.K. at the time) and 100Mbs broadband. Oh yeah and I saw 3D cinema in the World EXPO whilst I was there. Mostly these things are being touted still as new in 2010. I'd agree that the iPod won because they made a nice device, but I think that's because that is what the American/European markets demand. However there are lots of markets in the world where functionality and price are lot more important than usability, like the massive emerging ones in India and China.