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Having used the iPhone 3G since August 2008, I am definitely a fan (fanboy?) I am currently addicted to Tap Tap Revenge 2, and I probably spend most of my traveling time glued to mobile Safari. However, since the iPhone 2.0 upgrade, I have noticed that only people who don’t ride subways could possibly have designed the “out of range” error alert!

3G or Not 3G, that is the question!
Whilst all men were created equal, some men created 3G networks more equal than others! My carrier in Japan (Softbank) has terrible reception in subway stations. In between stations, don’t even bother (apparently only Seoul, Korea has this Super-3G ability). Since iPhone 2.0 I get endless prompts every time I move between stations saying that I am out of range (duh!) Maybe they can also set the acceleromator to tell me when I’ve fallen over too! The iPhone software designers obviously don’t ride the subway, heck California doesn’t even have one!

Who Cares?
We care a lot! Everytime I need to feed by TapTap Revenge 2 addiction whilst on the train, I have to set the iPhone to flight mode. Unfortunately the other day I forgot to set it back, and wondered why no one was calling me all afternoon!

Why Apple’s Software Is So Good?
The ability to create great software is predicated on being able to empathise with your users. Most business software is terrible in this respect because the developers rarely share the same experience as their users. Even when working in the same company, it is hard to “share the pain” of the user. Design errors I have made in the past, whilst sometimes caused by feelings of disdain or arrogance, were largely due to a lack of shared experience – a lack of empathy. Apple is famous for doing lots and lots of user acceptance testing, but where do they do it?

What Can Apple Do?
Apple’s Japan dev team are mostly limited to doing localization. It’s no secret amongst developers here that  most US software companies do very little development in Japan beyond localization (Sun Microsystems is an exception). A little birdy also told me that even at Google Japan, the work is “boring” because the “really fun stuff” is all done in the USA.

Mobile phones are so integral to Japanese society because most people use public transport everyday. Literally millions of people ride the subway daily, using their phones to consume information and play games. The iPhone dev team could spend more time testing their product in different physical environments around the world, not just America. Alas, these issues persist, so it’s no wonder the iPhone uptake in Japan is lagging. Maybe if some of Apple’s Cupertino designers lived here and used the product they would empathise with their users more.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 1:55 am and is filed under iPhone, japan, mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.