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Comment by w1ntermute | Hacker News Reader

One of the things that really shocked me is how everyone still carries around electronic dictionaries when their cell phones should be able to fulfill that capability. The idea of one-function hardware is still deeply ingrained in the Japanese psyche in a way that it hasn't been for years in the West. As an American I always find it preferable to consolidate all my devices into one (which has turned out to be the cell phone), but the Japanese still like to carry around separate devices for each task.

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I'm in Japan. That's the wrong example. Cell phones came with a music player, rfid (your train pass, membership cards, and TVs long before the iphone). These electronic dictionaries come bundled with several different types like English/Japanese, Oxford, etc. that would cost you a small fortune separately and most are needed for college prep and college. Using a cell phone might work but for most adults but at school it's unacceptable for exams and studying.

You're spot on. When I first saw Google Wallet, I thought, "haven't Japanese cellphones been doing this for a while?" Also, I have an electronic dictionary, a DS with a dictionary game, and a phone with a dictionary. I still prefer to use my electronic dictionary when possible. The reason is simply that it is by far the best. It has the most extensive dictionary (including many computer terms), more (quantity and quality) useful examples, it also has better features for jumping across dictionaries and makes it really easy to quickly look up other words in definitions, and finally, it has much better written Kanji recognition than the DS and phone. I imagine if a phone dictionary worked this well, people would use it. It's not like I carry it everywhere with me, but like flocial says, when I'm seriously studying Japanese, I prefer to have my dictionary.

You also don't need to recharge dictionary. Just a little battery to change a few times a year.

I've had a very different experience with this. One of my friends from the US was made fun of for carrying around a FlipCam there because all their phones (pre Android/Apple) could already do that and in addition, they could edit their videos right from the phone. They would constantly ask "it JUST takes video?" They saw us Americans as the ones with oversimplified one button gadgets.

The Japanese phone mfrs have had complete control of the entire platform (network, hardware and software) for too long. More than likely the dictionary mfrs and the phone mfrs were just staying out of each others' verticals. Now software (Apple,Android) is finally disrupting that and changing the market but I wouldn't agree that the Japanese thinking is around single function products. There's just a better solution now that didn't exist in the market before. Even then, I feel like culturally it's ok to use a dictionary in class but not a cell phone...

This article (http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/kenya-hara-on-japanes...) does a good job describing how "less is more" is interpreted differently in Japanese design.

Sounds like if not for its size, the Japanese would appreciate the Hole Hawg. :)

I don't think it's a preference for dedicated devices in that instance - the electronic dictionaries are just better than most cell phones for that purpose. Most people haven't switched over to smart phones, so the screens are small, and the English alphabet doesn't map all that well to a cell phone keypad (compared to a QWERTY keyboard, or Hiragana on a cell phone keypad). Newer electronic dictionaries also have a stylus and do handwriting recognition. On the other hand, the Nintendo DS electronic dictionary is pretty good, and much cheaper than an equally functional 電子辞書.

As much as i'd like to have a universal device sometimes a well-crafted, well-designed, dedicated device is hard to give up once you are used to it.

Would you rather use a TI-calc emulator on android or the actual device?

The emulator, hands down. And that's being a long-time TI calculator user.

I am probably two orders of magnitude faster[1] on a real TI than on an emulator. The muscle memory there is deep, and doesn't translate to my phone at all.

[1]no, really

Well, if I am doing anything serious, I use Mathematica or MATLAB, so I haven't had to do anything besides basic arithmetic on my phone.

They wont let you into an exam with a phone.

That's an artificial restriction, which isn't a primary concern to me.

The user experience is many times better on a real TI then in an Android emulator or even in a computer. For some quick math calculations a computer or Android calculator is find. If I'm doing a lot of math problems I rather use a TI. The usability is just way better.

95-99% of the time, I'd actually prefer the built in android calculator, because the buttons are bigger and I'm only doing simple arithmetic. I'm perfectly willing to sacrifice the remaining times in exchange for not having to carry another thing.

Use Addi for more complex stuff: https://code.google.com/p/addi/

It is a matlab/octave emulator. It works great, even on my 2.1 android phone.

I'd rather have an HP-48G. Oh, I have two. And an HP48G emulator on my phone. RPN muscle memory runs deep.

No it's not. Japanese cellphones probably have had Japanese-English dictionaries in them even before smartphones took hold here. I saw them being used to look up English words all the time.

What Japanese are attached to is the 12-key flip phone form factor. So much so that Sharp released a 12-key flip phone running Android a year or two ago. My guess is that the dictionaries fill a high-end niche that cellphones historically could not: when you need a more extensive dictionary, have to look up a lot of words or translate entire sentences, and need to type quickly. As smartphones (iPhone, Android) become dominant, I think those dictionaries will disappear.

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