May 27, 2009 • 25 mins
Smartphones have been very successful in the EU and Japan, but the US didn't catch on until the iPhone. This isn't an isolated incident -- the US market often lags behind its foreign counterparts. Learn more in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Join Josh
and Chuck, the guys who bring you stuff you should know,
as they take a trip around the world to help
you get smarter in a topsy turv economy. Check out
(00:20):
the all new super Stuff Guide to the Economy from
how stuff Works dot Com, available now exclusively on iTunes.
Hither everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is
Chris Polette. I'm an editor here at how stuff works
dot com, and sitting next to me, as always is
senior writer Jonathan Strickling. Well, howdy, Well, then I figured
(00:42):
this is gonna be another US centric so I thought
I'd go with the the US centric kind of howdy. Yeah.
You know, a lot of times we were very careful
to try to remember and we don't always remember. We
try to remember that, um, there are other countries in
the world other than United States as far as what
we talk about, and it's hard to do, but as
as as American citizens were often told to ignore the
(01:03):
fact that there are countries besides the United States then,
and that you know, when you've lived here your entire life,
that's your point of reference. So it's it's understandable that
that we might fail in that regard. But um, you know,
one of the things that's that's very hard to not
notice when you're a fan of different technology blogs is
that other countries get a lot of cool stuff and
(01:26):
we here in the United States may get it later
or even not at all. That can be really frustrating.
It sure can, especially if you're a big fan of
of pro wrestling video games, because gosh darn it, Japan
gets all the good ones. You know, I really wanted
that u E a Australian rules football game because it
always looks so cool when they were playing on ESPN
(01:47):
and you can't get it here. Yeah, there's actually, uh,
there's a whole host of different kinds of technologies that
you know we'll see on you know, you can turn
on a technology program on television or read a blog
and you think, why that sounds really really cool, and
then you get to the end of it and it
says there's there are no plans to bring it to
the United States at this time. That seems to happen
a lot, and I mean, smartphones are a good example, right,
(02:10):
smartphones we're talking about Yeah, because you know, smartphones huge
in Japan, huge in Europe. Uh, took a really long
time to start getting a grip on the consumer market
in the United States. And I would argue, if it
weren't for the iPhone, we would still see that I
don't I and there are a lot of people that
are on your side in that case. Well, yeah, because
(02:31):
the iPhone really was like the the perfect entry model
for a smartphone into the consumer market in the US.
It's beautiful, very stylish, has a lot of uh, you know,
it makes it looks really easy to use, as opposed
to a lot of the smartphones where people are just like, wow,
those are a lot of buttons, um, and there are
a lot of functions here and a lot of menus,
(02:53):
and I just don't know if I can navigate. All
I want to do is be able to make a
phone call, maybe surf the internet. Um. And then they
get the iPhone, which makes everything really easy, and then
they're like, oh wow, I can I can do all
sorts of stuff beyond just calling and surfing the net.
I can do this, this, this and this, and it's
all easy because there's just a simple little icon I
push and the device does it all for me. Well,
(03:15):
in the US, you know, just that was the thing
is that these consumer smartphones just didn't really happen. I mean,
the smartphones that you saw were pretty much meant for
executives and early adopters. So you had like the tech
geeks like such as myself who would go out and
try and out a new smartphone, and you had the
executives who had to be attached at the hip to
(03:36):
their office at all times, and everyone else just kind
of dealt with their regular phone. Meanwhile, in Europe you
have people working on a three G network on a
smartphone and doing all these cool things that you know,
the average US cell phone uh consumer just didn't even
know could happen. They they weren't even aware of it.
(03:57):
So that's that's probably the quintessential example. We can kind
of go into why that is. Um, actually that's kind
of what we really want to talk about. Yeah, as
a matter of fact, if you want to talk about
the iPhone, UM, Dave Taylor actually thinks the iPhone is
where it all change for the United States because, um,
those of you who are Apple followers maybe not. Well,
(04:19):
you know, fans so much as people who can't even
stand Apple, both pay a lot of attention to the company. Um, well,
you know, Steve Jobs is sort of a shall we say,
domineering factor in the marketplace. Well, you know, when they
took the iPhone two different providers, Apple started making demands
that nobody else was making. They wanted things like revenue sharing,
(04:42):
which is, you know, oh my gosh, what are you kidding.
Apparently American cell phone companies are you know, they're set
in patterns. This is the way we do things here.
You know. You if you're going to sell your hand
set through us, you gotta do these three things, you know.
And uh, Apple apparently said, hey, you know what, if
you want this cool phone, you're gonna play our game too.
(05:04):
And so a T and T was the one that
worked out in agreement with them that both parties could
abide by and stick to. And um, it's a game changer.
Other other companies couldn't get their cool phones in the
market because the providers just didn't want to band on
any of those rules, and they wanted a different kind
of financial model. And a lot of this has to
(05:25):
do with the government's role in business. UH. In the
United States in general, it's considered a bad thing if
the government gets involved in your business. What's a consumer economy, right,
it's you know, businesses competing with other businesses is a
good thing. And the ideal, of course, is that it's
going to be a free market. I mean, of course
(05:46):
it's not a free market, but that's the ideal. Uh
that you know, the everything is pretty much dictated by
the companies, and it's all supply and demand and that
kind of thing, right, And so if there's a demand
for something, a company will supply it because as that's
a way to make profit, and then other companies follow
suit because they can't be left out of the game.
(06:06):
It's just that that's not really how it always plays out.
Sometimes companies are like, wow, that's a huge investment for
us to do that. Let's not do that and let
someone else take the plunge, and we will hold off
doing it until we absolutely have to. Uh. You have
other nations like like Sweden or Japan, where you have
(06:26):
governments that are encouraging companies to build out infrastructures so
that the citizens will have the benefit of that technology. UM,
and they take a very hands on approach in Japan
in particular, uh, where you could argue that, Okay, well
this this definitely is good for the Japanese consumer, but
(06:49):
it may not be the best thing for the business.
It's definitely much more um well, like I said, hands on.
I mean there's some people might even use the word
interference based upon what we're talking about here in your
point of view. Yeah, you know, I guess it all
depends on what side of the desk you'res you're on
at the time. Right. So, and in these countries, you've
(07:11):
got companies that are are something. You know, you've got
these efforts, I guess I should say not just companies,
but these these technological efforts that are subsidized by the government.
So these are things that are sponsored by tax dollars.
Citizens are paying taxes and the government's using that money
to help build out infrastructures and support technology. And you know,
you even have government programs for specific technological innovations. So
(07:35):
you have government money pouring into the hands of these
companies so that they can develop specific gadgets and technologies.
That's what that's bottom line why a lot of these
these countries are are building out their technological framework faster
than the United States is because we don't do that. Okay,
you want to talk you want to talk about a
(07:56):
technology that I think is exemplifies that. Okay, and that's
that's the Internet. Yeah, good example. Okay, the Internet, which
began in the United States of America. Yeah, so it
was part of the defense initiative to help communications along
should the telephone network go down. Yes, the grandfather, I
guess you could say, or at least the father of
(08:18):
the Internet is our pannet, which was part of the
you know, good old DARPA's uh initiatives. And yeah. The
idea there was you would you had all these the
centers of information, these big computing centers. Uh, we're talking
about supercomputers here that had no connection with one another,
and let's say someone manages the sabotage one of those devices, Well,
(08:42):
then you lose all the information that's there. There's no
it's all centralized in a specific place. So they wanted
to come up with a way to spread that information
between different machines so that if you were to take
out one, you wouldn't lose the functionality. You'd have other
um computers that are still up are able to communicate
with one another, so no one link would bring down
(09:04):
the entire chain. That's right. And you know, being the
country that originated the Internet, you would imagine that the
United States would have the fastest and more robust network.
Oh boy, would you be wrong? Absolutely. Um. In fact,
I was looking at some some information that I found
on speed matters dot org, which is done by the
(09:25):
Communications Workers of America, and they do a report every
year on on broadband access. The thing is um. In
two thousand and eight, the median speed of broadband access
in America was two point three megabits per second. Meanwhile,
the media and speed in Japan was sixty three megabits
(09:46):
per second. Well um, South Korea's forty nine megabets per second,
Finland is twenty one, France is seventeen megabits per second,
and Cannack, Canada was seven point six megabits per second.
And they're just you know, just next door. Yeah. So
the thing is um. You know, all these countries, Uh.
There there are a number of reasons for this, but
(10:07):
I think part of that is that the governments and
a lot of these countries are actually pitching in. They're
they're taking an active role in the development of the Internet. UM. Plus, uh,
you know my personal opinion, and I didn't read this
on the side, I think it helps to be a
smaller country geographically. We have an awful lot of territory
to cover with broadband network. And when you're talking about
(10:29):
laying cable down, you know, when you're looking at and
you're looking at a nation as large as the United
States with with such a diverse geography, when we've got
all these different kinds of environments. I mean, we've got
you know, everything from you know, snowcapped mountains to deserts
and everything in between. Um. Yeah, it's not easy to
(10:50):
to make sure that everyone is connected and has a
really fast connection. It's just it's a monumental task. UM.
So that is part of it. Another part of it,
of course, says the whole government thing that, like we
pointed out. UM, I should also take this opportunity to
say Australia, I totally understand that you guys have it
harder than we do. UM. Please don't write to me.
(11:13):
I totally already know. So. Uh. I know that a
lot of Australians, when they hear us complain, think that
it's all sour grapes. Um, but you know it's just
some sour grapes. It's not a whole case. Yeah, maybe
you know a six pack of sour grapes. But yeah,
I mean there there are a lot of factors that
are involved with that. And part of that as the
(11:33):
free market. You know, the government wants to stay out
of uh, you know, organizing and man mandating that we
have faster broadband speeds. But in some places there's only
one or two broadband providers at least of any size
and reliability, and those are factors that people consider when
they purchased broadband internet speed. Yeah, that that gets really rough.
I mean, like I don't know about you. I don't
(11:55):
have a whole lot of choices from my internet connection. Um.
I either I go with one major company I won't
say its name, a cable company, a cable company, or
I pretty much go without unless I go with a
very small independent kind of bias. B Yeah, they're DSL
(12:16):
operators in the areas where we live. But there's a
major phone company that that offers CSL and then a
bunch of smaller companies. But the thing is those of
your options or satellite broadband it's not we don't have
a lot of fiber to the home. Uh here in
Georgia we don't have, or at least not where we
live in Georgia. UM. I think there are actually fiber
(12:37):
to the home efforts in some places in actual UM
looking at the maps on speed matters dot org, some
of the rural areas where maybe smaller cities have a
lot better broadband penetration than some of the big, big cities.
I think that's because again geographic area and maybe local
government involvement. UM. Anyway, Uh, you know, I found an
(12:58):
article on GisMo do talking about technologies that took off
in other places but not in the United States. UM.
It was actually done March third this year by John Herman,
and uh one of them is one of that you're
very familiar with laser discs. Laser discs, you know, they
just stopped making those. Yeah, I mean just now. And
(13:20):
I thought of that as a technology was in the
seventies and early eighties. No, but yeah, see this is
again me being sort of involved in my own environment
and not looking worldwide. In Japan they're huge, there's actually
the robust market. Well they're about the size of a
record I'm sorry, UM, but yeah, they during the heyday.
(13:43):
He said, they were, you know, five hundred percent more
popular there than they were here. And part of that
was because of the quality, and um, you know, part
of it because they were just cheaper in Japan. Here
here's another interesting thing I read. UM. I had read
that Japan tends to take in a lot of technology information.
(14:07):
So let's say that a company here in the United
States develops a new technique to build UM microprocessors and
publishes a white paper on it. Japanese firms will be
very quick to jump on that and can and and
analyze it and you know, find the best ways of
incorporating whatever they can into their own methods. But they
don't tend to export their knowledge. Ah, it's funny you
(14:31):
would say that. Oh yeah, I have a whole section
on Japan. Yeah. I found this right right as I
was finishing up doing my research for the podcast. Happened
across an article by Jeff Yang at s f gate
dot com, which is the San Francisco Chronicle. UM, and
he did it a whole article about the culture behind this.
And I was looking at the technology before about specific
things like the laser disc or cell phones. Um, But
(14:54):
he actually gets behind the culture, and the culture is
a big part of that. And you're right. The tend
to keep their technology at home, their best and coolest technology,
And part of that is because they, like in Japanese culture,
they prize stuff that's elite. They want to look cool
and they want to be the ones who had the
(15:15):
most innovative features. Um. And especially with kids, like the
teen markets are huge, absolutely huge, and you think that
that wouldn't matter so much, but the youth market in
Japan is uh drives a lot of the market. Right.
And and this was something else I I had seen elsewhere,
not not in that particular article, but I had seen
(15:37):
sort of the the cultural difference. Like, for example, in America,
you may encounter someone who has the opinion of this
device is good enough for what I wanted to do.
It doesn't cost a lot, so I'm going to get
this model, whereas in Japan it be this model is
the sleekest, sexiest, coolest version of this particular device. That's
(15:58):
the one I want. Yes, Plus it's got all the
features which is gonna make me look cooler. Yeah, so
it's a status thing as well. It's just a cultural differences,
not not to you know, boil it all the way
down to status. It's definitely not just status, but that's
an element. No, yeah, that's that's a part of it.
And and a lot of people want to be bleeding
(16:19):
edge consumers. In fact, people upgrade. According to Yang's article,
people upgrade their tech uh yearly or even more than that,
sometimes every six months. They'll go out and get the newest,
coolest cell phone. And so they're starting to sound like
tech journalists because you know, if you guys are tech heads,
or you know some tech heads, you know, those are
(16:40):
the people who go out and they have to have
the absolute best version of whatever it is that just
came out. That's the kind of mentality we're talking about,
except that in our culture that's sort of a minority,
and in Japanese culture it's the opposite. Yeah yeah, well,
I mean talking about the cell phone thing, there's uh
actually young women are driving a lot of that and
uh it's it's a culture called KTI, which is basically, um,
(17:05):
you know, culture around the cell phone, sending pictures and
doing things with your cell phone. Um, there's there's a
whole group called the pardon me if I mangle this
uh oh yay ubisoku thumb tribes. They're known for repetitive
stress injuries from texting and uh, I mean it's it's
(17:25):
affected public health, sexual morays, media consumption, even impulse buying.
Because here's another technology that's not here, um, the ability
to pay with your cell phone buying something from a
vending machine because you have the r f I D
chip embedded in your cell phone with your credit information
on it. That's popular in Japan, but because of you know,
legal ramifications and the marketing telling people that Americans just
(17:48):
don't want it, we don't have it here. Yeah, then
the we we actually talked about then in an earlier podcast,
and as we pointed out, then another big barrier again
is that when you're talking about rolling out that technology,
there are an awful lot of different uh pieces that
have to come together for that to work. You have
to have the support from the hand sets, you have
to have the support from the cashier, like as soon
(18:08):
as you know, like each cash register needs to have
a device that's capable of reading that information. Um, and
of course the tracking information. There's lots and lots of
different pieces, and it is possible to do it. In
a very secure way, but it would cost money to
roll that out, and um, a lot of businesses and
banks in the United States are not willing to make
(18:28):
that initial investment. UM. So we're you know, we're not
likely to see it anytime soon. I guess we can
spend if you don't mind, we can talk a little
bit about how this might you know, we might have
some attitudes change in the United States over the next
few years, because now we have a ct O and
a c i O in time for the first time. Yeah.
(18:50):
So these two guys they're working very hard on trying
to h to shape public policy about technology and everything
from being able to share information shan about what the
government is doing so to make it more transparent to
the average citizen United States citizen, to figuring out, you know,
how can we promote innovation, how can we reward innovation? UM.
(19:13):
So we might see over the next few years some
policies that more closely resemble those of our friends overseas. UM.
But that's something you know, we're we just don't know
yet and nothing, nothing has really been set in motion yet.
But it's early days. So yeah, and that's the kind
of thing that's going to take a very long time
for it too, more than an administration, I would imagine,
(19:34):
just because you know, you're talking about such an enormous
scale here. So but there we there's reasons to be
optimistic yep. Um. And you know, I think it helps
too if you know, there's one thing to be said
for market forces, and then there's another thing to be
said for geographical uh flexibility as far as how much
(19:56):
you can physically do and how much people can afford
to do. But you know, marketing is part of that.
So if you're one of those people that really is
drooling over that gadget that they're releasing in Europe but
they don't have here, um, you know, you can always
contact the company let them know. You know, it never
hurts if they if they find out that people really
do want that stuff here, then uh, you know, if
(20:18):
if enough people want it and it's worth their while,
maybe they'll do it. Of course, then again, maybe it
runs on a frequency like uh, you know that doesn't
work here, like one of the things that another one
of those technologies from the Gizmoto article mobile TV people
in other countries Brazil, Japan, South Korea again, Southeast Asia. Um,
they carry around portable TVs and they run on UHF
(20:39):
you know digital TVs. Now, you just don't see it here.
Of course, part of the frequency that they use for
those is covered up by existing TV stations here or
used by the military, so that part of the radio
spectrum that would be kind of difficult for them to use. Yeah, exactly,
Yeah cool. Well I'm I'm tapped out. Yeah that was
(21:00):
that was good? Excellent. Well, I guess that just means
that we're now down to listener maid. Alrighty, then today's
listener mail comes from Connor is from Manchester, the UK.
So Connor, forgive me hi. I often hear you talk
(21:23):
about MAX, so I thought one of you might also
be one of Steve jobs faithful, and you might have
an answer to my question. I find myself having to
use XP on Bootcamp less and less as more and
more programs and games come with MAX support, So I
thought this growing support must mean a growing demand for it.
How many MAX are out there as a percentage of
all uses? I believe they call it market share, I heard,
(21:46):
but I don't believe it's that high. Love the show,
keep them coming, Connor, I know that wasn't a Manchester accent,
but I couldn't resist. You know, we just lost a listener,
maybe several. Well, you know, we probably gained the people
who like fake English echo from from Southern tech journalists.
UM connor. Uh, yeah, that's is called market share. You're right,
(22:08):
aft pcent is high. In fact, it's too high. It's
it's not fifteen percent yet, but it has been growing
over the last couple of years. And there are a
couple of different ways you can look at market share. Um.
One common way is to look at, uh, what percentage
of operating systems are out there on the market, So
you're not necessarily looking at machines, you're looking at OSS.
(22:30):
According to net Applications, they did a report back in
January two nine. They found that the mac OS ten
accounts for about nine point nine three percent of the
OS market. Well, there you have it, and then market
They actually looked at sales sales figures as well, and uh,
that range between seven and eight percent, So we're looking
(22:52):
at around uh, really it's about a ten percent market
share when you really get down to it, because you
have to look at you know, older versions of the
OS and thinks of that nature. So about ten percent
of the PC market out there, the personal computer market
I should say, not just PC, but the personal computer
market out there you could say belongs to Mac. Uh.
And of course there there are some things to keep
(23:14):
in mind with regard to that. UM. One of those
is that you know you're contributing to the PC share
there because you have XP running on your Mac. So
when you're running XP on your Mac, it's not a
Mac anymore, it's a PC sort of. Um So, So
if you're looking into the stats on OS is when
you go, I don't know how you use your Mac
with XP. Maybe you're surfing the web. Then it's registering
(23:37):
as a Windows machine, right, you know, which it is temporarily.
UM So that's part of it too. And ten percent
might seem tiny, but considering how low MAC was a
few years ago, UM, it's it's actually quite substantial. You
have to remember that each percentage point represents millions of users. YEP.
(23:58):
So going back to my earlier point from the earlier discussion, UM,
part of this is is marketing driven. I think I
think a lot more developers are comfortable with the direction
of the company based on Steve jobs leadership and how
strong it's done. With non Mac things like the iPhone
and iPods. I would say that the iPhone and the
iPod managed to bring so much more attention to Apple
(24:22):
and Apple products. People were so blown away by the
iPod and the and the iPhone that they said, Hey,
you know, I really like these devices. How could I
look into the actual computers these guys make. You know,
they may not have ever thought of it before, and
I think that really did add to a boost to
their sales. That's called the halo effect. And it has
absolutely nothing to do with Bungee Studios nor the Xbox,
(24:43):
but but it is. It is called the halo effect
because it surrounds the other products by that manufacturer and
it has uh you know, I have read articles that
that suggests that that is exactly what's going on, that
the iPod and iPhone have a halo effect and are
bringing the Mac market share. So that was a good question. Connor,
Thank you very much. If any of you have any
questions for us, you can write us tech stuff at
(25:05):
how stuff works dot com. And if you want to
learn more about everything that we've been talking about, including
cell phones, smartphones, the internet, wiring, that sort of thing,
you can find all that how stuff Works dot com.
We will talk to you again really soon for more
(25:25):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff Works dot com and be sure to check out
the new tech stuff blog now on the how Stuff
Works homepage, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Join Josh
and Chuck, the guys who bring you stuff you should know,
as they take a trip around the world to help
you get smarter in a topsy turv economy. Check out
(00:20):
the all new super Stuff Guide to the Economy from
how stuff Works dot Com, available now exclusively on iTunes.
Hither everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is
Chris Polette. I'm an editor here at how stuff works
dot com, and sitting next to me, as always is
senior writer Jonathan Strickling. Well, howdy, Well, then I figured
(00:42):
this is gonna be another US centric so I thought
I'd go with the the US centric kind of howdy. Yeah.
You know, a lot of times we were very careful
to try to remember and we don't always remember. We
try to remember that, um, there are other countries in
the world other than United States as far as what
we talk about, and it's hard to do, but as
as as American citizens were often told to ignore the
(01:03):
fact that there are countries besides the United States then,
and that you know, when you've lived here your entire life,
that's your point of reference. So it's it's understandable that
that we might fail in that regard. But um, you know,
one of the things that's that's very hard to not
notice when you're a fan of different technology blogs is
that other countries get a lot of cool stuff and
(01:26):
we here in the United States may get it later
or even not at all. That can be really frustrating.
It sure can, especially if you're a big fan of
of pro wrestling video games, because gosh darn it, Japan
gets all the good ones. You know, I really wanted
that u E a Australian rules football game because it
always looks so cool when they were playing on ESPN
(01:47):
and you can't get it here. Yeah, there's actually, uh,
there's a whole host of different kinds of technologies that
you know we'll see on you know, you can turn
on a technology program on television or read a blog
and you think, why that sounds really really cool, and
then you get to the end of it and it
says there's there are no plans to bring it to
the United States at this time. That seems to happen
a lot, and I mean, smartphones are a good example, right,
(02:10):
smartphones we're talking about Yeah, because you know, smartphones huge
in Japan, huge in Europe. Uh, took a really long
time to start getting a grip on the consumer market
in the United States. And I would argue, if it
weren't for the iPhone, we would still see that I
don't I and there are a lot of people that
are on your side in that case. Well, yeah, because
(02:31):
the iPhone really was like the the perfect entry model
for a smartphone into the consumer market in the US.
It's beautiful, very stylish, has a lot of uh, you know,
it makes it looks really easy to use, as opposed
to a lot of the smartphones where people are just like, wow,
those are a lot of buttons, um, and there are
a lot of functions here and a lot of menus,
(02:53):
and I just don't know if I can navigate. All
I want to do is be able to make a
phone call, maybe surf the internet. Um. And then they
get the iPhone, which makes everything really easy, and then
they're like, oh wow, I can I can do all
sorts of stuff beyond just calling and surfing the net.
I can do this, this, this and this, and it's
all easy because there's just a simple little icon I
push and the device does it all for me. Well,
(03:15):
in the US, you know, just that was the thing
is that these consumer smartphones just didn't really happen. I mean,
the smartphones that you saw were pretty much meant for
executives and early adopters. So you had like the tech
geeks like such as myself who would go out and
try and out a new smartphone, and you had the
executives who had to be attached at the hip to
(03:36):
their office at all times, and everyone else just kind
of dealt with their regular phone. Meanwhile, in Europe you
have people working on a three G network on a
smartphone and doing all these cool things that you know,
the average US cell phone uh consumer just didn't even
know could happen. They they weren't even aware of it.
(03:57):
So that's that's probably the quintessential example. We can kind
of go into why that is. Um, actually that's kind
of what we really want to talk about. Yeah, as
a matter of fact, if you want to talk about
the iPhone, UM, Dave Taylor actually thinks the iPhone is
where it all change for the United States because, um,
those of you who are Apple followers maybe not. Well,
(04:19):
you know, fans so much as people who can't even
stand Apple, both pay a lot of attention to the company. Um, well,
you know, Steve Jobs is sort of a shall we say,
domineering factor in the marketplace. Well, you know, when they
took the iPhone two different providers, Apple started making demands
that nobody else was making. They wanted things like revenue sharing,
(04:42):
which is, you know, oh my gosh, what are you kidding.
Apparently American cell phone companies are you know, they're set
in patterns. This is the way we do things here.
You know. You if you're going to sell your hand
set through us, you gotta do these three things, you know.
And uh, Apple apparently said, hey, you know what, if
you want this cool phone, you're gonna play our game too.
(05:04):
And so a T and T was the one that
worked out in agreement with them that both parties could
abide by and stick to. And um, it's a game changer.
Other other companies couldn't get their cool phones in the
market because the providers just didn't want to band on
any of those rules, and they wanted a different kind
of financial model. And a lot of this has to
(05:25):
do with the government's role in business. UH. In the
United States in general, it's considered a bad thing if
the government gets involved in your business. What's a consumer economy, right,
it's you know, businesses competing with other businesses is a
good thing. And the ideal, of course, is that it's
going to be a free market. I mean, of course
(05:46):
it's not a free market, but that's the ideal. Uh
that you know, the everything is pretty much dictated by
the companies, and it's all supply and demand and that
kind of thing, right, And so if there's a demand
for something, a company will supply it because as that's
a way to make profit, and then other companies follow
suit because they can't be left out of the game.
(06:06):
It's just that that's not really how it always plays out.
Sometimes companies are like, wow, that's a huge investment for
us to do that. Let's not do that and let
someone else take the plunge, and we will hold off
doing it until we absolutely have to. Uh. You have
other nations like like Sweden or Japan, where you have
(06:26):
governments that are encouraging companies to build out infrastructures so
that the citizens will have the benefit of that technology. UM,
and they take a very hands on approach in Japan
in particular, uh, where you could argue that, Okay, well
this this definitely is good for the Japanese consumer, but
(06:49):
it may not be the best thing for the business.
It's definitely much more um well, like I said, hands on.
I mean there's some people might even use the word
interference based upon what we're talking about here in your
point of view. Yeah, you know, I guess it all
depends on what side of the desk you'res you're on
at the time. Right. So, and in these countries, you've
(07:11):
got companies that are are something. You know, you've got
these efforts, I guess I should say not just companies,
but these these technological efforts that are subsidized by the government.
So these are things that are sponsored by tax dollars.
Citizens are paying taxes and the government's using that money
to help build out infrastructures and support technology. And you know,
you even have government programs for specific technological innovations. So
(07:35):
you have government money pouring into the hands of these
companies so that they can develop specific gadgets and technologies.
That's what that's bottom line why a lot of these
these countries are are building out their technological framework faster
than the United States is because we don't do that. Okay,
you want to talk you want to talk about a
(07:56):
technology that I think is exemplifies that. Okay, and that's
that's the Internet. Yeah, good example. Okay, the Internet, which
began in the United States of America. Yeah, so it
was part of the defense initiative to help communications along
should the telephone network go down. Yes, the grandfather, I
guess you could say, or at least the father of
(08:18):
the Internet is our pannet, which was part of the
you know, good old DARPA's uh initiatives. And yeah. The
idea there was you would you had all these the
centers of information, these big computing centers. Uh, we're talking
about supercomputers here that had no connection with one another,
and let's say someone manages the sabotage one of those devices, Well,
(08:42):
then you lose all the information that's there. There's no
it's all centralized in a specific place. So they wanted
to come up with a way to spread that information
between different machines so that if you were to take
out one, you wouldn't lose the functionality. You'd have other
um computers that are still up are able to communicate
with one another, so no one link would bring down
(09:04):
the entire chain. That's right. And you know, being the
country that originated the Internet, you would imagine that the
United States would have the fastest and more robust network.
Oh boy, would you be wrong? Absolutely. Um. In fact,
I was looking at some some information that I found
on speed matters dot org, which is done by the
(09:25):
Communications Workers of America, and they do a report every
year on on broadband access. The thing is um. In
two thousand and eight, the median speed of broadband access
in America was two point three megabits per second. Meanwhile,
the media and speed in Japan was sixty three megabits
(09:46):
per second. Well um, South Korea's forty nine megabets per second,
Finland is twenty one, France is seventeen megabits per second,
and Cannack, Canada was seven point six megabits per second.
And they're just you know, just next door. Yeah. So
the thing is um. You know, all these countries, Uh.
There there are a number of reasons for this, but
(10:07):
I think part of that is that the governments and
a lot of these countries are actually pitching in. They're
they're taking an active role in the development of the Internet. UM. Plus, uh,
you know my personal opinion, and I didn't read this
on the side, I think it helps to be a
smaller country geographically. We have an awful lot of territory
to cover with broadband network. And when you're talking about
(10:29):
laying cable down, you know, when you're looking at and
you're looking at a nation as large as the United
States with with such a diverse geography, when we've got
all these different kinds of environments. I mean, we've got
you know, everything from you know, snowcapped mountains to deserts
and everything in between. Um. Yeah, it's not easy to
(10:50):
to make sure that everyone is connected and has a
really fast connection. It's just it's a monumental task. UM.
So that is part of it. Another part of it,
of course, says the whole government thing that, like we
pointed out. UM, I should also take this opportunity to
say Australia, I totally understand that you guys have it
harder than we do. UM. Please don't write to me.
(11:13):
I totally already know. So. Uh. I know that a
lot of Australians, when they hear us complain, think that
it's all sour grapes. Um, but you know it's just
some sour grapes. It's not a whole case. Yeah, maybe
you know a six pack of sour grapes. But yeah,
I mean there there are a lot of factors that
are involved with that. And part of that as the
(11:33):
free market. You know, the government wants to stay out
of uh, you know, organizing and man mandating that we
have faster broadband speeds. But in some places there's only
one or two broadband providers at least of any size
and reliability, and those are factors that people consider when
they purchased broadband internet speed. Yeah, that that gets really rough.
I mean, like I don't know about you. I don't
(11:55):
have a whole lot of choices from my internet connection. Um.
I either I go with one major company I won't
say its name, a cable company, a cable company, or
I pretty much go without unless I go with a
very small independent kind of bias. B Yeah, they're DSL
(12:16):
operators in the areas where we live. But there's a
major phone company that that offers CSL and then a
bunch of smaller companies. But the thing is those of
your options or satellite broadband it's not we don't have
a lot of fiber to the home. Uh here in
Georgia we don't have, or at least not where we
live in Georgia. UM. I think there are actually fiber
(12:37):
to the home efforts in some places in actual UM
looking at the maps on speed matters dot org, some
of the rural areas where maybe smaller cities have a
lot better broadband penetration than some of the big, big cities.
I think that's because again geographic area and maybe local
government involvement. UM. Anyway, Uh, you know, I found an
(12:58):
article on GisMo do talking about technologies that took off
in other places but not in the United States. UM.
It was actually done March third this year by John Herman,
and uh one of them is one of that you're
very familiar with laser discs. Laser discs, you know, they
just stopped making those. Yeah, I mean just now. And
(13:20):
I thought of that as a technology was in the
seventies and early eighties. No, but yeah, see this is
again me being sort of involved in my own environment
and not looking worldwide. In Japan they're huge, there's actually
the robust market. Well they're about the size of a
record I'm sorry, UM, but yeah, they during the heyday.
(13:43):
He said, they were, you know, five hundred percent more
popular there than they were here. And part of that
was because of the quality, and um, you know, part
of it because they were just cheaper in Japan. Here
here's another interesting thing I read. UM. I had read
that Japan tends to take in a lot of technology information.
(14:07):
So let's say that a company here in the United
States develops a new technique to build UM microprocessors and
publishes a white paper on it. Japanese firms will be
very quick to jump on that and can and and
analyze it and you know, find the best ways of
incorporating whatever they can into their own methods. But they
don't tend to export their knowledge. Ah, it's funny you
(14:31):
would say that. Oh yeah, I have a whole section
on Japan. Yeah. I found this right right as I
was finishing up doing my research for the podcast. Happened
across an article by Jeff Yang at s f gate
dot com, which is the San Francisco Chronicle. UM, and
he did it a whole article about the culture behind this.
And I was looking at the technology before about specific
things like the laser disc or cell phones. Um, But
(14:54):
he actually gets behind the culture, and the culture is
a big part of that. And you're right. The tend
to keep their technology at home, their best and coolest technology,
And part of that is because they, like in Japanese culture,
they prize stuff that's elite. They want to look cool
and they want to be the ones who had the
(15:15):
most innovative features. Um. And especially with kids, like the
teen markets are huge, absolutely huge, and you think that
that wouldn't matter so much, but the youth market in
Japan is uh drives a lot of the market. Right.
And and this was something else I I had seen elsewhere,
not not in that particular article, but I had seen
(15:37):
sort of the the cultural difference. Like, for example, in America,
you may encounter someone who has the opinion of this
device is good enough for what I wanted to do.
It doesn't cost a lot, so I'm going to get
this model, whereas in Japan it be this model is
the sleekest, sexiest, coolest version of this particular device. That's
(15:58):
the one I want. Yes, Plus it's got all the
features which is gonna make me look cooler. Yeah, so
it's a status thing as well. It's just a cultural differences,
not not to you know, boil it all the way
down to status. It's definitely not just status, but that's
an element. No, yeah, that's that's a part of it.
And and a lot of people want to be bleeding
(16:19):
edge consumers. In fact, people upgrade. According to Yang's article,
people upgrade their tech uh yearly or even more than that,
sometimes every six months. They'll go out and get the newest,
coolest cell phone. And so they're starting to sound like
tech journalists because you know, if you guys are tech heads,
or you know some tech heads, you know, those are
(16:40):
the people who go out and they have to have
the absolute best version of whatever it is that just
came out. That's the kind of mentality we're talking about,
except that in our culture that's sort of a minority,
and in Japanese culture it's the opposite. Yeah yeah, well,
I mean talking about the cell phone thing, there's uh
actually young women are driving a lot of that and
uh it's it's a culture called KTI, which is basically, um,
(17:05):
you know, culture around the cell phone, sending pictures and
doing things with your cell phone. Um, there's there's a
whole group called the pardon me if I mangle this
uh oh yay ubisoku thumb tribes. They're known for repetitive
stress injuries from texting and uh, I mean it's it's
(17:25):
affected public health, sexual morays, media consumption, even impulse buying.
Because here's another technology that's not here, um, the ability
to pay with your cell phone buying something from a
vending machine because you have the r f I D
chip embedded in your cell phone with your credit information
on it. That's popular in Japan, but because of you know,
legal ramifications and the marketing telling people that Americans just
(17:48):
don't want it, we don't have it here. Yeah, then
the we we actually talked about then in an earlier podcast,
and as we pointed out, then another big barrier again
is that when you're talking about rolling out that technology,
there are an awful lot of different uh pieces that
have to come together for that to work. You have
to have the support from the hand sets, you have
to have the support from the cashier, like as soon
(18:08):
as you know, like each cash register needs to have
a device that's capable of reading that information. Um, and
of course the tracking information. There's lots and lots of
different pieces, and it is possible to do it. In
a very secure way, but it would cost money to
roll that out, and um, a lot of businesses and
banks in the United States are not willing to make
(18:28):
that initial investment. UM. So we're you know, we're not
likely to see it anytime soon. I guess we can
spend if you don't mind, we can talk a little
bit about how this might you know, we might have
some attitudes change in the United States over the next
few years, because now we have a ct O and
a c i O in time for the first time. Yeah.
(18:50):
So these two guys they're working very hard on trying
to h to shape public policy about technology and everything
from being able to share information shan about what the
government is doing so to make it more transparent to
the average citizen United States citizen, to figuring out, you know,
how can we promote innovation, how can we reward innovation? UM.
(19:13):
So we might see over the next few years some
policies that more closely resemble those of our friends overseas. UM.
But that's something you know, we're we just don't know
yet and nothing, nothing has really been set in motion yet.
But it's early days. So yeah, and that's the kind
of thing that's going to take a very long time
for it too, more than an administration, I would imagine,
(19:34):
just because you know, you're talking about such an enormous
scale here. So but there we there's reasons to be
optimistic yep. Um. And you know, I think it helps
too if you know, there's one thing to be said
for market forces, and then there's another thing to be
said for geographical uh flexibility as far as how much
(19:56):
you can physically do and how much people can afford
to do. But you know, marketing is part of that.
So if you're one of those people that really is
drooling over that gadget that they're releasing in Europe but
they don't have here, um, you know, you can always
contact the company let them know. You know, it never
hurts if they if they find out that people really
do want that stuff here, then uh, you know, if
(20:18):
if enough people want it and it's worth their while,
maybe they'll do it. Of course, then again, maybe it
runs on a frequency like uh, you know that doesn't
work here, like one of the things that another one
of those technologies from the Gizmoto article mobile TV people
in other countries Brazil, Japan, South Korea again, Southeast Asia. Um,
they carry around portable TVs and they run on UHF
(20:39):
you know digital TVs. Now, you just don't see it here.
Of course, part of the frequency that they use for
those is covered up by existing TV stations here or
used by the military, so that part of the radio
spectrum that would be kind of difficult for them to use. Yeah, exactly,
Yeah cool. Well I'm I'm tapped out. Yeah that was
(21:00):
that was good? Excellent. Well, I guess that just means
that we're now down to listener maid. Alrighty, then today's
listener mail comes from Connor is from Manchester, the UK.
So Connor, forgive me hi. I often hear you talk
(21:23):
about MAX, so I thought one of you might also
be one of Steve jobs faithful, and you might have
an answer to my question. I find myself having to
use XP on Bootcamp less and less as more and
more programs and games come with MAX support, So I
thought this growing support must mean a growing demand for it.
How many MAX are out there as a percentage of
all uses? I believe they call it market share, I heard,
(21:46):
but I don't believe it's that high. Love the show,
keep them coming, Connor, I know that wasn't a Manchester accent,
but I couldn't resist. You know, we just lost a listener,
maybe several. Well, you know, we probably gained the people
who like fake English echo from from Southern tech journalists.
UM connor. Uh, yeah, that's is called market share. You're right,
(22:08):
aft pcent is high. In fact, it's too high. It's
it's not fifteen percent yet, but it has been growing
over the last couple of years. And there are a
couple of different ways you can look at market share. Um.
One common way is to look at, uh, what percentage
of operating systems are out there on the market, So
you're not necessarily looking at machines, you're looking at OSS.
(22:30):
According to net Applications, they did a report back in
January two nine. They found that the mac OS ten
accounts for about nine point nine three percent of the
OS market. Well, there you have it, and then market
They actually looked at sales sales figures as well, and uh,
that range between seven and eight percent, So we're looking
(22:52):
at around uh, really it's about a ten percent market
share when you really get down to it, because you
have to look at you know, older versions of the
OS and thinks of that nature. So about ten percent
of the PC market out there, the personal computer market
I should say, not just PC, but the personal computer
market out there you could say belongs to Mac. Uh.
And of course there there are some things to keep
(23:14):
in mind with regard to that. UM. One of those
is that you know you're contributing to the PC share
there because you have XP running on your Mac. So
when you're running XP on your Mac, it's not a
Mac anymore, it's a PC sort of. Um So, So
if you're looking into the stats on OS is when
you go, I don't know how you use your Mac
with XP. Maybe you're surfing the web. Then it's registering
(23:37):
as a Windows machine, right, you know, which it is temporarily.
UM So that's part of it too. And ten percent
might seem tiny, but considering how low MAC was a
few years ago, UM, it's it's actually quite substantial. You
have to remember that each percentage point represents millions of users. YEP.
(23:58):
So going back to my earlier point from the earlier discussion, UM,
part of this is is marketing driven. I think I
think a lot more developers are comfortable with the direction
of the company based on Steve jobs leadership and how
strong it's done. With non Mac things like the iPhone
and iPods. I would say that the iPhone and the
iPod managed to bring so much more attention to Apple
(24:22):
and Apple products. People were so blown away by the
iPod and the and the iPhone that they said, Hey,
you know, I really like these devices. How could I
look into the actual computers these guys make. You know,
they may not have ever thought of it before, and
I think that really did add to a boost to
their sales. That's called the halo effect. And it has
absolutely nothing to do with Bungee Studios nor the Xbox,
(24:43):
but but it is. It is called the halo effect
because it surrounds the other products by that manufacturer and
it has uh you know, I have read articles that
that suggests that that is exactly what's going on, that
the iPod and iPhone have a halo effect and are
bringing the Mac market share. So that was a good question. Connor,
Thank you very much. If any of you have any
questions for us, you can write us tech stuff at
(25:05):
how stuff works dot com. And if you want to
learn more about everything that we've been talking about, including
cell phones, smartphones, the internet, wiring, that sort of thing,
you can find all that how stuff Works dot com.
We will talk to you again really soon for more
(25:25):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff Works dot com and be sure to check out
the new tech stuff blog now on the how Stuff
Works homepage, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
twelve camera. It's ready, are you
TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
Popular Podcasts
Boysober
Have you ever wondered what life might be like if you stopped worrying about being wanted, and focused on understanding what you actually want? That was the question Hope Woodard asked herself after a string of situationships inspired her to take a break from sex and dating. She went "boysober," a personal concept that sparked a global movement among women looking to prioritize themselves over men. Now, Hope is looking to expand the ways we explore our relationship to relationships. Taking a bold, unfiltered look into modern love, romance, and self-discovery, Boysober will dive into messy stories about dating, sex, love, friendship, and breaking generational patterns—all with humor, vulnerability, and a fresh perspective.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com