Christian Cantrell

You're quite right. I've lived in New Zealand most of my life until 2&half years ago when I moved to New York. I worked in the Telecommunications Industry in NZ for about 8 years, and for a while NZ had the most advanced systems in the world.

The reason in our case was that some of these big tech companies like to test their product in a smaller market such as NZ or some smaller european countries before they commit to the huge investment required to make an impact on the US market.

That's my theory for many of these other products reaching european markets before the US as well.

Ah but you are missing the anti-business mentality of our media, and culture.

Therefore more regulations, which reduces the desire for innovation.

Capitalism my friend, is what brings new technology.

As for the GPS/phone I believe US GSM coverage is very poor. Here in Brazil we have GSM, CDMA and TDMA, which makes possible to travel to Europe with need to worry about roaming and other stuffs.

with NO need to worry...

Wow, if only Irving Berlin were still around, I can almost hear it now....

"New hardware, and firmware,
Send load,of them phones, here from there,
For the Yanks are buying, the Yanks are buying,
Credit cards tumbling everywhere..."

No, I guess it doesn't have quite the same pizzaaz, huh...? ;-)

I think it's actually pretty cool that the planet is at a stage where new things can make more sense initially in a more-quickly-developing country than a more-fully-developed one... here are some of the angles I see:

-- Many of the new devices are more service-based than previous devices have been. The local carrier plays a big role in what kinds of hardware or data services you can use. With a regular computer you can be by yourself on an island... with a networked computer one connection would bring you everything in the world... but when your device can follow you around, and you want personalized info-crunching done on the server, then the local network effects are a lot more important than they've been with previous devices.

-- For one-to-one voice communication, the US has already recently amortized digital landlines. India, China, Africa all have vast stretches of area where landlines would be prohibitively expensive. US buyers would gain incremental feature evolution for dumping old hardware, while in many other parts of the world mobile technology is much, much cheaper than what other places may have already purchased.

-- Phone use varies culturally. Many of the developing areas have high-birthrate social strategies, where the extended family provides multiple types of insurance. The west is more atomistic, more individualized, and there's often less pressure to be constantly in touch with a small group of people. Some societies offer greater benefits to constant contact with "the group".

Those last two factors influence the first... there's a tipping point at which a potential local service provider can see a viable market in a region. Don't worry, we in Virginia and California won't be so backwards much longer...! ;-)

"What American doesn't need a altimeter-barometer-thermometer-compass-GPS-atomic-solar timepiece strapped to his or her wrist?" Can I get mine with a belt hook, please?

cu,
jd

I think it also has to do with "legacy infrastructure" that exists in the US. As a country that generally leads the development of the /infrastructures/ that these gadgets rely on, we often implement these infrastructures right away, possibly before they've been fully standardized or all the kinks worked out. The US often has the very first elementary devices that take advantage of these infrastructures (e.g. cell phones, GPS receivers), but I believe innovation can sometimes be stifled by the non-ideal "legacy infrastructure" that's in place. Just look at all the copper communications cables around the US that are gradually being converted to fiber, and the indiscriminate mess of wireless phone protocols. Countries that jump on the technology bandwagon later have the benefit of our hindsight... they can just jump right to the best technology and use the proven standards, which makes innovation a heck of a lot easier.

It seems very similar to the difference between building an application from scratch, and having to convert or enhance a legacy application!

"Countries that jump on the technology bandwagon later have the benefit of our hindsight... they can just jump right to the best technology and use the proven standards, which makes innovation a heck of a lot easier."
I have to argue against this statement. Atleast when it comes to cell phones where Sweden and the rest of Europe adopted GSM as a standard long before US, and stuck to it. Hence the coverage, atleast in Sweden is spotless.

I have yet to see any infrastructure or technology being developed here before any other country.

Anyone got a good sample?

My 2...

I worked at Vodafone in the UK back in '96/'97 and we built the world's first pay-as-you-go, no-contract service. Most of my friends had IR-enabled phones and we could exchange phone book info and play two-player games over IR. Several of my friends back then had web-enabled phones and / or phones with full email capability.

When I moved over here (California), my 'new' US cell phone seemed like an antique compared to what I'd been used to in the UK :(

European cell phone technology has always been years ahead of the US market for one very simple reason: scale. In order to get critical mass in the US, a vast amount of expensive infrastructure needs to get built. In Europe, it's much easier (especially when carriers are prepared to share physical infrastructure!). Normally, economies of scale play in America's favor but cellular technology tips the other way.

I think companies view making a product mistake in the U.S. as a near-fatal blow to the long term business prospects. In a way, then, they use Europe and Asia, in particular, as testing grounds to get a product just right before they do a big launch in a U.S.

That does leave early adopters, like me, frustrated but most Americans equate innovative with buggy.