Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

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> Can anyone explain me the economics of why a novelty hardware supplier would Not invest in drivers / software in parallel?

There is no single company from Asia that deals in mass produced consumer goods that's capable of doing decent hardware and decent software at the same time. As soon as you take a peek below the surface, no matter what, it begins to reek.

Let's just go through the stuff I personally own or have experience in peeking... Samsung does decent hardware, but their modifications to Android, or their "hacks" for powersaving that keep messing up apps, or their "smart" TVs that are buggy and slow as fuck (not to mention riddled with ads!)... Sony makes excellent cameras hardware-wise but the software/firmware side sucks ass - the fact that they require a dedicated software to be used as a webcam instead of just exposing UVC is already braindead enough, but even more so given that they run on Linux and the Linux kernel already ships with UVC gadgets. Nintendo makes excellent games but even the new Switch 2 ships with a chipset that's years old. Mediatek's leaks for BSPs / Android are frightening in terms of code quality.

Unfortunately, the competition just isn't there. Chinese companies are even worse penny-pinchers than Korean or Taiwanese, and Western companies outside of Apple and Raspberry Pi just don't give a shit because they can't compete with Asian price dumpers or because, like many things in the ham radio scene, get cloned in a matter of months.

I don’t think there is a need to limit this geographically. As a rule hardware companies are bad at software. It doesn’t really matter where they are from. If you’re including things like TVs that spy on you, don’t forget Visio. They are one of the poster children for making TVs with content tracking and/were they are based in California.

The exceptions I see include Apple and Raspberry Pi. And even then, there are missteps.

It’s not intentional… it’s just that companies rarely have integration as one of their core strengths. If you’re a hardware company, you are good at making hardware. The skills necessary for that are very different than the skills needed for software. To get both, you need management that values both and can build the separate teams. Especially true when you can argue that you’re working with the “community” to build out software and fix bugs. If you’re still selling enough hardware, how can you say these companies are wrong?

That’s honestly a hard thing to do unless that is your competitive advantage. And for Apple and Raspberry Pi, I’d argue that is their competitive advantage in their markets. For a long time they were the small fish in big ponds. So they needed to have some trait that allowed them to command higher margins. Integration of hardware and software was it.

This is slightly racist and totally wrong on many many points. Are American hardware companies better at software? Dell? HP? Vizio? Intel? AMD? Or European companies: Philips, Siemens? It's all the same. Even Apple has the abomination of iOS on their great HW..

> Are American hardware companies better at software? Dell? HP? Vizio? Intel? AMD?

Depends. If you're looking for consumer goods, they're just as dogshit as everyone else. Products intended for large commercial customers, particularly where support contracts are involved, tend to be actually decent.

> Or European companies: Philips, Siemens?

Never had an issue with Hue, never had an issue with Bosch-Siemens "white goods".

> Even Apple has the abomination of iOS on their great HW..

iOS certainly is not an abomination. I'm using both Android and iOS, and the latter is much more polished.

There is no single company from Asia that market electronic physical experience. Other than Nintendo. IOW there's Nintendo.

East Asian companies hasn't shifted into maximizing perceived values over functions. I think it just feels fake and wrong to many. Another factor that I think might exist is, it might be simply hard to inflate values and sell experiences as East Asian company entities without good connections and/or cultural understanding to sell to developed Western markets.

East Asian engineers don't share the pain points as Western audiences. People don't use webcams - less sympathies exist for the urge to see faces. People don't use Linux on laptop - Windows is normal and fine. Don't recognize annoyances as annoying as often - it's considered signs of weakness. (Not sure about Nintendo complaints - people everywhere happily pay $80 for another Mario remakes on top of $500 console. Isn't that what you're asking for?). Kids aren't as interested in ROM cooking or piracy or software freedom in general - way more interested in enforcing IP rights themselves than demanding something from IP holders.

Or, widespread "just don't give a shit because they can't compete with Asian price dumpers" could be another reason. East Asian nations each has its own internal markets with massive surplus production capacities. Western companies had progressively moved into value engineering for survival, as Swiss watch industry famously did. The costs of East Asian physical products never represented its cost in the first place, only utility in context of economy at export destinations, and that might have affected how companies at the destinations have come to be.

> There is no single company from Asia that deals in mass produced consumer goods that's capable of doing decent hardware and decent software at the same time.

Doesn't apple do most of their manufacturing in asia? I don't get your point. We certainly can't match this quality in the west.

> Doesn't apple do most of their manufacturing in asia?

Yes, but on the back of every MacBook there is the line "Designed by Apple in California" and the software is made in California as well.

Asia is just chosen for manufacturing because of the close proximity of supply chain vendors and cheap but reliable labor cost.

Well then Asia is de-facto doing the hardware. Apple is just paying for it.

Apple is famously sitting on a mountain of cash. How easily do you think they could replicate the supply chain of even one of their products without outsourcing it?

Apple is designing the hardware in the USA, not Asia. Asia designs the manufacturing process, which they are quite good at.

> Asia designs the manufacturing process, which they are quite good at.

Not even that, for some parts like the aluminium cases ("unibody") or the laser-bored microholes in their old magsafe connector for the LEDs, Apple designed the whole process.

Any thoughts into the Why? Culture, finance, …? I get your point. Also thinking about Sony or Nintendo. Billions more to be made if only those firms where more technically-commercial (make accounts and buying stuff for parents Easy).

Cutthroat capitalism is definitely part of the reasons, especially when looking at China and the low end of the market. When there are dozens if not hundreds of factories that have the skilled people to put up a hardware design either from scratch or as a clone of something already existing, "time to market" trumps everything - the earlier you can get the product on Alibaba, Temu or the alphabet-soup sellers on Amazon, the better. As soon as the hardware is ready and the software somewhat stable, out the door it goes - there is no responsibility, no accountability along the chain, so why invest in it?

For the "big ticket" brand items, honestly I don't know. If anything I wouldn't blame it on culture (partially because I lack enough knowledge of Asian cultures, partially because blaming systemic issue on culture can quickly devolve into outright racism), but on capitalist incentives once again - the common standard seems to be "as low in terms of quality as you can get away with", there is no market force pushing for better products, and no legal/regulatory pressure either.

IMO, it’s company culture and focus. At Apple, they are focused foremost on designing the customer experience. If you’ve ever unboxed one of their products, you can tell from the first moment that they care about even this part of the product life. It’s only 5 minutes and yet someone has clearly spent time on it. That carries through to the integration of hardware and software in the products. That doesn’t mean Apple is the best at either hardware or software. IMO, there are companies that do just as well or better at either of those things. But Apple does whole product design better than anyone. That is something that is very difficult to add to an organization that doesn’t understand it. IMO, it really started for Apple with Steve Jobs and being the founder, he was able to drive that into the culture. But it wasn’t there even for them at the start. IMO, it really got going when Steve returned the second time and drove products like iMac and iPod.

Apple products aren't just well designed, but they feel like each has specific tiny set of target audiences they are built for. That would be a very politically unpopular move in East Asian cultures, one that could socially kill the targeted group.

What about DJI?

Let's just say I'm pissed about the Mini 3 Pro's controller. Has an USB-C host and client port but isn't capable of actually using them for anything relevant, and the built-in wifi is rotten. Zero way of extending the drone's functionality by writing one's own apps/scripts - but the cheaper N1 that just uses a phone, there's hacks for it...

For one their app does not work on a recent pixel but does e.g. on an oppo…Id say GP argument is valid.

s/from Asia//

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