Instead, traction has been found in the lower price ($200-$250) space.  The Nook has been a quiet, but solid, success.  The Kindle Fire is targeted for that segment and so is the Kobo e-book reader.  That may be the sweet spot for Android tablets as e-book readers and media devices as opposed to laptop replacements (the iPad).  Rather than focusing on killing some sort of giant in a market (and remembering that people don’t like things related to killing), I’m glad to see that some of these devices may be finding their markets.

If it seems “sucky” that Android tablets could be “relegated” to a low end market, don’t think about it that way.  Think about the fact that for every iPad maybe five or ten Android tablets will be sold, as a less expensive alternative when reading e-books and watching a little NetFlix is all you really want.  You wouldn’t say that iPads are relegated to being a low priced replacement for laptops – they’re a desirable product in their own right.  So, focus, instead, on making the $200 to $250 Android tablet the best e-book reader/video platform on the market.

So, Apple spends a lot of time and effort crafting a user interface. When the first Android phones came out, they were very similar. They’ve diverged since, but they originally had a lot in common with the iPhone’s UI and physical design. Other touch screen phones came out with the same kind of icon and touch interface. Now Nokia has the N9 out, and although the icons are visually different, it’s the same set of motifs.

Samsung and Apple are duking it out over technology patents and design patents. While that’s bad for the consumer, we do recognize that it sucks to be the company that makes an investment figuring out how to get multi-touch (which was not invented by Apple, but implemented as part of their UI) onto a very user friendly interface, and then have everyone steal that research. If that happens enough, where’s the incentive for a company to do the groundbreaking work that others will, essentially, copy?

It’s not a novel problem. In the 1980′s Intel 286 compatible chips were coming into the US market from Japan, complete with the mistakes that Intel made and then isolated on their chips. It was an obvious copy. You can go into any dime store and find $5 sunglasses that are almost identical to $500 designer sunglasses. (No, it doesn’t say D&G in rhinestones, it says G&D).

One response is to provide all sorts of legal protections around design, and then you get lawsuits over “your off button looks suspiciously like my ‘off’ button.” At the other extreme you do nothing and all the money spent on UI research really benefits all the other market players that copy. In a world where we have a better understanding of interfaces and how critical they are product development, this is something that will need to be addressed.

Let me also ask another question.  Say the Metro interface from Microsoft really catches on and they become “THE” phone to have.  Would it be right for Apple and Android to adopt that UI in their phones?  And what does that say about the companies that copy?  How much do they really care about user experience?

Thank you Steve Jobs.  Not just for giving me decades of cool, new and exciting technology, but for leaving us with the best question we should all be asking ourselves every morning.

It didn’t just burn out in the last few weeks.  It took months to get here.  I re-engaged with the seven habits in an effort to claw my way out.  It’s hard.  On the flip side, I don’t see any out except to do any of the following:

• Change what I’m doing (I’m working on that).
• Change my role (I did that).
• Improve diet an exercise (trying and failing).
• Work on myself as and individual (I’m working on that).

One thing that seems to set Apple apart is their ability to acquire or conduct fundamental research into what these products should do, build something they can believe in, and secure the long-term supply contracts to economically deliver those products.  By contrast, some of its competitors outsource their engineering, do a lot of “me-too” engineering, or fail to develop a product they have enough faith in to risk those long term contracts.  Take a lot of the Android tablets that have come to market.  In some cases they are virtually indistinguishable from each other or the iPad, against which they compete.

I’m not saying Apple is a formula for success for every company, or that they are without flaws or failures.  Their products have bugs and defects as well.  What I think is missing from the argument that many companies make “demand isn’t there,” is only partly true.  It’s very evident that consumers must first work themselves out of difficult positions (such as under-water mortgages) and the 9.1% unemployment rate means many people do not have disposable income.  However, given that, Apple has managed to grow.  In fact, their price to earnings ratio (a rough measure of how expensive a stock is relative to its the actual economic performance of the company) is a reasonable 14%.

Security, the feeling, comes from creating a secure environment.  Building savings increases the sense of security, for example.  Working to create a secure environment for my family, for example by ensuring my wife and child to know I am there and I will be there when they need me, builds their sense of security.  It eases their concerns.  Keeping my skills current and marketable helps create a sense of employment security.  Knowing that I am part of a community that takes care of people in need helps me realize that a community will be there if I need it.

Living without security, of course, is living in fear.  If there is no sense of security in my life then I could become paranoid.  I might begin seeing enemies where none exist.  I might also see dangers where none exist.  I think that people sometimes transfer their fear of one thing to other areas, which can lead to paranoia, xenophobia, or outright bigotry.

Of course security is taken from people regularly, through no fault of their own.  They lose a job with benefits, their spouse may abandon them, get sick, suffer a criminal incident, or be a victim of a natural disaster.  They may even be in an area where employment is hard to come by, and some parts of the US are seeing unemployment rates well above the national average.  How do you establish a sense of security in that environment?  How do you make your wife and child feel safe?  I don’t know.  I am fortunate, and I recognize that.

But why make that switch?  How does it sit with my broader principles?  In part, it falls under the principle of excellence.  In part it also falls other principles, which I have yet to elicit and document, which involve making sure you are able to support your family.  This means I have to find and execute on opportunities that are higher margin and better long-term opportunities.  My current core skills are in demand, but are increasingly lower margin and increasingly open to more competition.

That requires I add new skills which are current and marketable.  As technologies become mainstream, the competition for that job broadens.  It moves to large outsourcing firms all over the globe.  Generally, in the US, the most lucrative markets are leading edge markets.  I can see this in the rates that the market has been able to support for similarly skilled individuals.  Java enterprise is no longer a leading edge technology, the way it was in the early 2000′s.  It would be in line my principles to add to my skills and find better opportunities.