Hacker News Reader

Comment by thasmin | Hacker News Reader

I think that's the point. The Japanese are great at making a product better, but not very good at innovating an existing product. They may have made a music player that has the same specs as the iPod years earlier, but they never would have made the mainstream version.

View on HN

Gah, my blood pressure.

The year is 1978. Microsoft is selling BASIC interpreters. Apple exists in a garage. A Japanese company creates this quirky little tape deck with headphones which -- get this -- you're supposed to actually carry with you, so you can listen to music while not at home. Hilariously stupid idea, right? The Walkman will be lucky to sell a thousand units, to say nothing of crossing over to the mainstream. The Japanese should just stick with what they're good at -- perfecting things made by white people.

Other fun Japanese inventions (culling from Wikipedia):

  The Biplane
  Graphing Calculator
  Solar powered calculator
  Camcorder
  Digital Camera
  Blue lasers
  VCRs
  Anything made by Nintendo
  Flash memory
  Various types of steel
  Quartz wristwatch
  The continuously variable transmission

Yep, nothing innovative or new there.

Um, no.

I think the point is that the Japanese electronics manufacturers were (and are) very good at producing standalone devices, but missed the boat on devices (like the iPod) which get their power from their tight integration with the PC.

The standalone-device model works really well for some applications (e.g. digital cameras; you wouldn't want to have an iPod-style camera that you had to tether to a specific computer to get your photos out -- you want one where you can just swap cards like disks and keep shooting), but less well for others.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com