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Leopard Claims Half the Japanese OS Market In October
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Nov 14, 2007 05:22 PM
from the not-quite-the-beatles-though dept.
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. '"
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An interesting counterview (Score:2, Funny)
Also, there is well documented evidence that Apple computers are not suitable [shelleytherepublican.com] for impressionable children and promote the use of dangerous and illegal "Wi-Fi" technology [shelleytherepublican.com] in our AirPorts.
Fortunately, sober and well-written articles such as these provide a cogent argument against the Macintosh cult.
Huge in Japan (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Huge in Japan (Score:4, Funny)
Don't hassle the Hoff!
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Re: (Score:2)
Re:Huge in Japan (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Huge in Japan (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [news.com] 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/p
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
In Japan... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just wait for the true subnotebook or tablet. That is going to sell huge in Japan.
Re: (Score:2)
Heh, so then you're telling us you were "big in Japan"?
A bit more seriously, I still wonder why iPhone excitement equates with Leopard though. It doesn't seem to over here in the US.
Re:In Japan... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:In Japan... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, phones here are just as closed as in the States, so as to charge the user as much as possible for access to each carrier's unique flavor of internet access and multimedia content. Want access to the regular internet? Each time you start up a session and connect to a page, they charge you 300 yen for the privilege. My Japanese friends were impressed that I had figured out how to get around Docomo's file-naming obfuscation on my SD card so that I was able to upload photos and video as well as download them without having to use the network.
By the way, a correction to your rule of thumb: the cooler something is, the more Japanes talk about it. They're all about giving kudos, and I got sufficient compliments for my iPod Touch. I just had a high school student write an essay where she claimed that the iPod was the world's greatest invention, and that the iPhone would be even better. If the Japanese aren't saying much about a gadget, it's either because they just really aren't gadget people or you're bragging about it too much. If they're openly belittling something of yours, you're most likely not actually in Japan.
As for the actual article referred to by the submitter, Apple's great triumph was to claim half of the boxed OS sales for October. What kind of a statistic is that? Most new PCs are sold with Windows pre-installed, not boxed; hardly anybody buys it separately. So what Apple is saying is that more Apple users went out and bought the new OS for their old computer than PC users bought a boxed version of Windows. How surprising is that statistic? What percentage of the Windows-using public actually ever consider upgrading the OS separate from buying a new computer?
I'm a Mac user, but Macs are only slightly better represented in Japan than anywhere else. Apple lost a lot of market share in the 90s that it has failed to take back, and Microsoft's site-wide licenses work well with Japanese corporate and government institutional mentality. japanese typically admit to liking Macs, but a lot of the universal stereotypes carry over (too expensive), plus they want something that they know works with everybody else.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the most status symbol obsessed place I've ever been for an extended period(been here 2 years total). This would only compare to maybe, just maybe, a small subset of LA. But here, it's EVERYONE in the target age. Apple markets a brand and then inflates prices to make sure it loo
Actual Usage (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:In Japan... (Score:5, Informative)
Nokia published some figures for EDGE vs 3G chips a while back, but I can't find them now. At idle, 3G uses slightly less power than GSM/EDGE. On voice calls, 3G uses roughly double the power. For data, 3G uses about a quarter of the power for the same data throughput.
The biggest drain for 3G phones is that they have to keep the GSM radio polling so they can fall back without going off air for a period when they lose the 3G signal. In Japan where there is no GSM network, you don't have that inefficiency to worry about.
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Re:In Japan... (Score:4, Informative)
Gota love the usual diply AC, and the mod who gave him informative.
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Re:In Japan... (Score:5, Informative)
How much do you know about the Japanese mobile phone market?
Do you live in Japan?
Do you speak and/or read Japanese?
Do you have an account with a Japanese mobile phone provider?
There is no EDGE in Japan, nor is there GPRS or even GSM.
Japan has 3G (UMTS/W-CMDA), CDMA (different frequencies than North America, so most North American phones CDMA phones won't roam in Japan, and no EV-DO yet), and local systems (PDC and PHS).
Yes, the latter are pre-3G systems, but to refer to them as 2G is somewhat misleading since in the context under discussion 2G means GSM/GPRS/EDGE.
The iPhone is an GSM/GPRS/EDGE device with 850/900/1800/1900. There is no GSM/GPRS/EDGE in Japan on any band. An iPhone will not roam in Japan.
The only non-Japanese phones that will roam in Japan are 3G phones with UMTS 2100, and some CDMA phones from carriers outside of North America.
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there was some confusion... (Score:5, Funny)
Mod Parent: HILARIOUS (Score:2)
1/2 the market??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or will it now run on whitebox PC's and i missed the announcement?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
New Software Package Sells Well In Japan (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:New Software Package Sells Well In Japan (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because they all bought the OS so they can admire it on their bookshelf. No, no wait, I know! They all bought it so they can install it on their Dell boxes! No wait...
I think it's pretty safe to assume that each copy of the OS sold represents a single Mac user, barring the VERY, VERY few OSx86 hackers out there.
I do agree though, this says nothing about Apple's growth in Japan. It just means existing Mac users are excited about upgrading to Leopard (moreso than XP users to Vista, but that's a no-brainer), it doesn't mean that Macs are necessarily gaining ground.
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Re:New Software Package Sells Well In Japan (Score:4, Insightful)
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What? (Score:4, Insightful)
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not entirely surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
This big jump makes sense, really. Who in their right mind would buy Tiger a month before Leopard is coming out, unless they specifically can't/wouldn't use Leopard for some reason? It's more impressive to me that they're beating out Microsoft, but I guess MS relies on the PC makers for most of its sales; it doesn't really need to specifically sell Vista when people are replacing their PCs fairly often. Macs generally last longer (or at least are kept longer) from what I hear, so it's more likely that someone will buy a boxed copy of a Mac OS upgrade than a Windows upgrade.
Meaningless numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
For all we know Leopard only sold 250 copies nationwide. Or this may be a one time spike that means nothing.
In other words. (Score:2)
Boxed OS sales for Windows are limited typically two groups in the US.
1. Those that build there own PCs
2. Those that must have the latest upgrade.
Maybe laptops are a HUGE percentage of PC sales in Japan. Almost nobody builds those. Then you have the must have the latest. Well they have already bought Vista when it first hit the market.
I am sure that Apple is doing well in Japan but this is all hype.
Not really a big accomplishment (Score:5, Insightful)
1.) It's boxed sales. The people who upgrade via boxed sales are the ones who aren't going to wait to get new hardware to upgrade the OS. These people are likely to be the early adopters who will buy within the first week
2.) Vista has been out for a while, and the people who have upgraded via boxed sales have likely done it by now. Vista sales come from OEM distribution, not buying a shiny box at Best Buy.
3.) I would expect the numbers for November to drop substantially, as the early adopters will have their copies, and sales of boxed copies drop. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if hardware sales pick up a bit, as people find the holiday season and new OS to be a good time to take the plunge and buy a new computer.
The numbers to pay attention to are Apple's share of new sales, especially in laptops, and Apple's share of total installed base (which is harder to calculate accurately).
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Tiger? (Score:2)
Obvious comment (Score:2, Troll)
Conspicuously absent from the article is any mention to the real numbers that make the percentages. I mean, if the real numbers turn out to be something like 800 total, of which 424 Leopards, then the "article" is just marketing. Likelihood of that, bigger than 53%.
Apple 100% share! (Score:5, Insightful)
And somehow a line of 200 whole people in a city of 12 million (0.00166% of the population) doesn't seem like very many. More than 200 people probably lined up in the light rain to buy the Japanese equivalent of hot dogs that night.
I'm not surprised, compare the fonts (Score:5, Insightful)
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Keep in mind (Score:2, Insightful)
The operative word being "boxed" (Score:4, Insightful)
Deal-breaking bug (Score:5, Informative)
There are videos of this floating around YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1pVOJL41x0 [youtube.com]), and I checked it out myself at the local Apple store. Total IME lock-up, and it uses up 100% of your processor time.
Other than that glaring bug, Leopard is easily the most friendly Japanese OS out there, and it now has a big-name Japanese dictonary & thesaurus, as well as J-E and E-J dictionaries built right in.
Here's hoping Apple gets their shit sorted out for the
Re:Deal-breaking bug (Score:5, Funny)
Does it also have a feature to locate the other person who speaks Esperanto?
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Well, Japan is all about quality (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bull$hit (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm, you do know the difference between a "market" and an "install base," right? When the headline reads, "Apple claims 8% of US computer sales" that means they sold 8% of the computers in the last quarter or month or year or whatever they're using as a measure. It does not mean Apple machines make up 8% of all the computers in the US. Apple claimed half the market in Japan last quarter. They did not claim half the install base or even half the combined market for OS's and OS+hardware bundles. Maybe you just need a better understanding of the terms used.
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and WHY is Windows always OEM and included? (Score:4, Insightful)
so for Vista, you buy a new PC.
for leopard, well, you install it on your old mac, just like you did the last 3 major upgrades
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Leopard does feature better Japanese support. See Apple's "300 features" page here [apple.com] and here [apple.com]. I'm not saying that makes the upgrade worth it necessarily. But it does add additional incentive for Japanese users.
Re: Misleading headline (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I need a computing environment that supports both Japanese and English seamlessly. Leopard fits the bill nicer than anything else I've ever used, including Vista (which I have to admit is pretty good).
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Re:Apple users are the only ones dumb enough... (Score:5, Insightful)
Contrast.
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in 1976 I was in Cupertino, crystal bits of snowflakes all around my head and in the wind, and Steve Wozniak and me thought we could make a few Dollars selling homemade computers. Delivering breakthrough devices like the Apple II and the Macintosh, we were successful, until the Mac clones almost doomed our company*. But here's my comeback on the road again; things will happen while they can. Right now I'm writing this post on my MacBook Pro while I will wait here for my man to