Hacker News Reader

Comment by ting_bu_dung | Hacker News Reader

This article has a pretty shallow definition on how China is 'cutting edge' in mobile tech. Apparently cutting edge means:

a.) can do things without switching apps. (?!)

b.) uses QR codes (invented by Japan, popularized by Japan)

c.) pay things on phone (invented by nokia, popularized in europe)

and the dominance confirmed by

a.) a single quote from kik founder (who is trying to convince people qr code is...good?)

b.) bigger mobile user base (well of course, they have more people)

c.) uber lost in china (if you're a foreign company in China and you haven't learned yet Chinese government only lets Chinese companies win, then...)

View on HN

> a.) can do things without switching apps. (?!)

This actually is "cutting edge" if you compare it to the bullshit we in the West have to deal with daily. I have way too much apps on my Android phone, none of which can talk to each other (despite intents) and half of which should be infrastructure-level anyway.

> b.) uses QR codes (invented by Japan, popularized by Japan)

... and almost completely ignored by Europe and the US. That they turned something potentially useful into actually useful is interesting in its own right.

> c.) pay things on phone (invented by nokia, popularized in europe)

Except it is 2016 and in Europe (and presumably in the US) it only barely works somewhere, sometimes, for some things.

I mean, let's not play double standards - if it's entirely fair to call Western companies (especially SV startups) "innovative" for wrapping something common in a Bootstrap theme, or turning something that should be a product into a butt service to extract rent from people, then it's entirely fair to call China "cutting edge".

ApplePay is pretty nice, actually. China is great at low infrastructure easy to deploy solutions because it is still kind of a poor country, but the same solutions would never be accepted (or needed) in the west.

I don't know for QR codes, but swish payments (pay things on phone) are very popular in Sweden. I can swish my local fruit seller, the bar tenders and my friends in a matter of seconds.

As far as I know Sweden is generally more advanced in this kind of technologies than what I see in Hong-Kong.

QR codes is interesting. The tech companies here considered QR codes low tech and backwards, ironically, and basically didn't invest in it in the hopes of going with BLE (bluetooth low energy) beacons and at a time NFC.

NFC was considered inferior to BLE too but BLE has come and literally no one uses them.

The reason why QR isn't adopted is because none of the major platforms has invested in it. Apple, facebook, don't have native QR support.

In China QR is built into wechat, which everyone has.

I think part of the reason both QR and BLE don't fare well in the West is related to the point a), about doing things without switching apps. QR codes and BLE beacons are things that should be interacted with on the OS level, not requiring a separate app for every possible vendor that decides to use codes/beacons. Alas, the primary application of BLE today is trying to trick people into spending more on shoes and clothes. What a waste of a potentially very useful technology.

When I had a look at the proposed BLE specs for iPhone I was disappointed that it seemed an app could only see it's own beaons. I'd quite like an app that could show any beacons around and say who's they are and if there are any offers or cool stuff associated. I think as it is store A's beacons can only be seen with store A's app and store B's only with store B's and who wants that?

QR Codes are everywhere, though.

Bus stops just have a QR code that you scan to get the live countdown clocks for the next bus; there are many payment systems using QR codes, etc.

"Bus stops just have a QR code that you scan to get the live countdown clocks for the next bus"

When there is a panel displaying in Arab numerals (i.e. for humans, directly) the same information, the QR code solution becomes a silly and convoluted thing that has to use the user's high tech just for the sake of it.

Except you can’t offer such panels at bus stops in the middle of nowhere. You can offer QR codes even at bus stops literally in the middle of nowhere.

Most of the entries were less than amazing. QR codes in particular still feel like a gimmick that's slower than a working system, or even Googling a few key terms. In a country with near-universal credit/debit card penetration, I don't actually want to pay with my phone most of the time - small merchants using Square totally solves the problem for me.

But not switching apps would be freaking amazing. Anything resembling a decent inter-app API, or a scheduling process that doesn't suspend apps for small focus switches (which still regularly crashes even high-end apps like Amazon) would be magical. Many of my apps would be much more valuable with even minimal non-switching, and I'd write sync/communication software myself if the focus issues didn't make it so painful.

> a.) can do things without switching apps. (?!)

Another term for this is integration. It is not just about not switching apps, it is about ingratiating different features (chat&social&payment&voucher) and providing a natural and consistent experience for users in a single app. You don't see that quite often for SV companies.

How innovative is this? I am not sure, but definitely something new and first popularized by Tencent in the era of QQ before 2008.

> b.) uses QR codes (invented by Japan, popularized by Japan)

Not main point of the article, there are plenty of other innovations in the areas of living streaming and drone technology, but unfortunately you missed them.

> c.) pay things on phone (invented by nokia, popularized in europe)

Not sure about how Nokia and Europe did it, but in China you can pay movie tickets, utilities, taxi fees, fines, etc in a single app. Maybe Europe was a pioneer in this and I wasn't aware of that.

Check out for swish in Sweden: "According to Arvidsson, the Swedes love Swish so much, it’s already revolutionising the local banking system, with several major banks refusing to accept cash at all, and as of late last year, four out of every five purchases in the country were being made electronically."

Payment by phone is already a big thing here.

Thanks for sharing this.

In terms of mass adoption of cashless transaction, the timeline in two countries seem to be parallel:

http://www.businessinsider.sg/wechat-why-it-dominates-china-... - AUG. 11, 2015

http://www.sciencealert.com/sweden-is-on-track-to-become-the... - 16 OCT 2015

I had never heard of Swish until now. Very interesting. I know there are some differences, but how is it fundamentally different from something like Square? https://squareup.com/

Thank you

Square has a mobile phone payment option, but most of their actual use is as a small-merchant credit card processor. They have no integration into larger stores (which have their own card readers), and as a result there's no real point for users in setting up their mobile pay system. My credit card works with Square and everything else, an app would only work with Square.

Not familiar with Square but Swish started as an app for payment between individuals, such as friends sharing a restaurant bill or payment of used things (think Craigslist etc). People even use it as payment for used cars. It was developed by all major banks in cooperation, so huge network effect from start, uses the well established "mobile bank id" for authorization and is instant and currently free. The instantaneousness means that you feel safe to hand over the keys (in the car sale case) the moment your app beeps to confirm the transfer, which is within a few seconds after the buyer authorized it on his phone.

Later a version for merchants was developed.

Ok that makes sense. I work in finance and was wondering about what other countries/companies are doing. Thanks for the info.

One thing that I was thinking about though was about the regulations and scare around security might be hindering development here in the U.S. .

Again, thanks for the info.

Some additional info: your phone number is identifying the transfer target, and is associated with your debit bank account number behind. So you don't have to share anything additional, if your friend or the buyer has your phone number he can initiate a transaction.

/s here's a page to go and apologize for disagreeing with the article http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/world/asia/china-apologise...

But all the world is following up China with the stupidest idea ever, reinventing a CLI in a chat.. Seriously, we had this interfaces in IRC bots about 20 years ago.. And now it seems the holy grail of technology..

Except IRC bots did not succeed and took over the world. I doubt if there is any non-technical people still using IRCs. And in terms of the features, you cannot make payments using IRC bots.

Even if IRC bots could theoretically be feature-complete, you can't judge a product by saying "oh we had this feature as well earlier, just that we didn't succeed." Having a feature and having a feature that is successful can be quite different.

Microsoft might had the concept of tablet way earlier than Apple but it was Apple that made the success around iPad.

Having a successful feature doesn't mean that is the best. Apple Pay is far far better than using QR codes to pay. The stupidest gui is much quicker than a CLI on a phone. I hope that all this hype for the oldest interface in the world resurrected will collapse soon.

Being able to use somethingis considered a feature. Since apple pay is only accepted at walgreens and a handful of places, it's pretty lacking om that feature.

I am sorry but I think there are some misunderstanding here.

Are you saying that China is inventing a CLI on a phone? Because that is not true. Just touch and gestures.

I agree that "Apple Pay is far far better than using QR codes to pay.", less dependencies is always better.

I believe they're referring to Slack, which is arguably nothing more than a browser-based IRC clone.

I think they're referring to the recent craze about bots (or "conversational interfaces", if you want to sound smart). They've been all over the news in past few months, for some reason considered new and innovative.

You should probably read it again, focussing on the use cases not just the technical details. The technical details are more the Chinese characteristics than the actual features.

Maybe it's hard to understand if you haven't seen it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com