I had an interesting conversation at work yesterday. A lot of news was coming out about the new Windows Phone 7 Series operating system and someone mentioned that they were surprised that we won’t start seeing the phones until around the end of this year.

“Doesn’t that give competitors a chance to copy what they are doing?”

I said that I didn’t think so and gave my reasoning, which caused another employee to accuse me of being an Apple commercial. Not exactly. My thoughts aren’t so much about Apple as they are about creativity and copycats.

No one can deny the impact the iPhone has had on the mobile phone market. Apple came in and set a new standard and soon afterward everyone tried to copy what they had done.

Companies began to say, “Now everyone is going to want touch phones. We’d better start making touch phones or we’ll be left behind.”

So what did they start doing? They started making touch phones. And what better way to push a touch phone to market quickly than to make an iPhone knock-off. After all, they seem to know what they’re doing.

Unfortunately, just because something looks like something else, doesn’t make it as good as something else. It’s like a guy who can’t get the hot girl, so he settles for a robot girl. She may look just as good, but the wiring is off.

Apple has put a lot of time, effort, and shall we say, love, into making the iPhone relevant. You can’t copy that unless you are willing to put in the time. Amazingly, Microsoft has done that.

They didn’t set out to copy the iPhone OS. They built their own thing from the ground up. Personally, I was glad to see it. Seth Godin talks about this concept a lot in his new book and I agree with him. There are too many companies making cheap and quick knockoffs instead of striving to make rare art.

After spending years in the museum observing, it looks like Microsoft finally decided to finally pick up a brush and start painting.

I have to admit that I was looking forward to the announcement of the iPad. After Apple completely changed the way we think of mobile phones I was curious to see if they how they might reinvent the tablet. Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed.

What is this better than?

Surfing the web?

Apple claims this is “the best way to experience the web.” Really? Um… where’s the Flash support? I realize that Flash is past its prime and the web is moving forward, but Flash is still a huge player and featured on a ton of sites. This is slightly annoying on my iPhone, but unforgivable on the iPad.

eReading?

So this thing is supposed to kill the Kindle? I do believe that eReaders are going to vanish from the marketplace—at least in their current form—in the next few years. I think people are interested in a device that does everything and eReaders are only good for reading books and doing some web surfing.

One thing the eReaders do have going for them currently is the eInk. It’s as easy on your eyes as printed pages of a paper book because it is not a backlit display. The iPad doesn’t have this technology. Apple claims their screen is pleasing to the eye, but I’m just not convinced.

Work?

Forget productivity. The iPad doesn’t allow multitasking. It’s basically an over-sized iPod touch. It lacks a USB port—are you kidding me?—so you can’t just connect a flash drive or external hard drive and drag and drop your files. If you want to transfer files, you’ll have to do it through iTunes or an App. 

And speaking of hard drives… the largest hard drive you can get for the thing is 64GB. And did I mention you can’t just hook up a USB drive for added space? I do think they’ll have an adapter you can buy, but how lame is that? I love the idea of have to carry an adapter around with so I can use my flash drive.

The iPad also lacks a camera so you can forget video conferencing via Skype or anything else unless you bring along a separate camera… and adapter. And since it is app-driven, I won’t be working in Photoshop anytime soon. I know they have an app for that, but seriously, it’s not even worth talking about. Plus, it’ll be a pain to transfer my files. I guess I could always just e-mail them to myself.

Conclusion

I know that Apple is selling this thing below the previously rumored $1,000, but I’m going to take a long look at the competition—no, the iPad isn’t the only tablet on the planet—before I even think about buying this. And if the competition doesn’t have anything worthwhile, I’ll probably just wait for version 2.

The other day a coworker mentioned that he would buy an iPhone if he didn’t have to work with AT&T. He had a bad experience with them and doesn’t care how great the iPhone is if buying one means dealing with AT&T.

AT&T has obviously spent a ton of money on their image—polished logo, defined color scheme, consistent television and print advertising, a website, etc. They have worked really hard to make sure they look like they are the best at what they do.

So why isn’t my friend impressed? Didn’t he see the commercials? Hasn’t he seen the polished marketing promises? Doesn’t he like their logo?

Too many companies think looking good is all that really matters. As long as they look trustworthy then they must be trustworthy. As long as they look competent and friendly, then they must be competent and friendly.

The problem with this is that people bring their experiences into their perception of your brand. If I know nothing about your company, all of the polished marketing might have the desired effect on me. However, one negative experience can suddenly change that look completely because I will be reminded of that negative experience every time I see anything about your company.

A good image may bring in some new clients, but it takes having a good company to be able to keep them. Add these two elements together and you can have a great brand. The world is in need of more great brands.

I just read an article about how a travel search engine named Kayak believes Microsoft copied their design for Bing. I did notice some content similarities in the screenshots from the article, but from a design perspective I think it may be pushing it to suggest they copied.

Sure, the color schemes are similar, but I think Bing is a much cleaner design. The colors are a little more subtle and the layout feels less cluttered.

Aside from the screenshots, I found very little to really compare. There are millions of websites on the internet, and when you have similar content you are bound to find similarities in design. How many times do you hear a song and think it sounds familiar even though you’ve never heard it before? Similar is not the same as copying. A copied site would be where you are confused about which site you are on.

I’m sure there are some really confused people out there who somehow ended up on Bing when they really wanted to be on Kayak, but I think the majority of people won’t have this issue. I’m sure that Kayak only helped themselves by landing some free publicity with Microsoft. Maybe they’ll land a few more customers as a result.

Apple has really done a fantastic job of marketing themselves. They have really understood the value in communicating a message by keeping it simple and to the point, while Microsoft has always tended to overcomplicate their marketing by trying to cover everything. I recently saw a video called, “Microsoft iPod,” which I thought did an excellent job of showing the difference in marketing between the two companies.

Apple hasn’t just created products, they’ve created culture. Who hasn’t heard of Podcasting, the iPod, or the iPhone? They have done an exceptional job of creating innovative user experiences and people have gravitated to this, especially people who have become more disgruntled with Microsoft. In spite of all this, I do think that Apple has some challenging days ahead.

Why Apple could be in trouble

Apple has always been strong in user experience (UX), but has never really focused on building a developer community. Microsoft has done quite the opposite in building a solid developer community, but has often frustrated everyday users by having complicated user interfaces and cryptic documentation.

Now, Apple has decided to shake things up by creating the App Store and releasing an SDK to allow developers to create their own applications. On the flip side, Microsoft has started to focus more on UX and has finally begun to hire the designers to make it happen.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is just as difficult to be a good designer as it is to be a good developer, but I think it is a whole lot easier to build a design community than it is a developer community. You can use a functional application that looks bad, but you can’t use a beautiful looking application that isn’t functional.

Microsoft can only improve on design, and any improvements they make will build momentum. On the other hand, Apple will have to struggle through the growing pains of building a developer community, which will at times affect UX in a negative way, which loses momentum.

Yesterday I upgrade my iPhone to the new OS and decided to make sure my Apps were updated as well. I soon found out that the server had crashed, which didn’t surprise me considering the number of people I expected to also be upgrading. What I didn’t realize was the importance of this upgrade from a security standpoint.

Apparently the latest update fixes 46 vulnerabilities. Welcome to the big-time Apple! Not too many years ago I remember a number of people gloating that there were no viruses on Macs. Last night I read through over 50 iPhone pages of terms and conditions that said over and over again how Apple should not be held liable for any Third Party software or security issues including attacks and viruses.

How many people will switch to a Mac with the false idea that it is perfectly secure and realize that they will have the same problems in a prettier, more expensive package? Granted, Apple has recently cut prices, but more people using your stuff is more people to complain about it, especially after their bubble of hope is burst.

Apple has done some incredible, innovative things in its history and they continue to raise the bar of excellence. Hopefully they can navigate the deeper, rougher waters ahead, if for no other reason than I would like to continue to enjoy the experience of using their products.

Seth Godin wrote about how unemployed college students can make their mark in the current economy. He received some mixed responses, but I have to say that I couldn’t agree with him more.

Several people responded to his list of things to do with excuses of why they couldn’t accomplish those things. My response is, people who say they can’t do something usually don’t.

I hate it when people tell me I can’t do something.

“It’s impossible.”

“That’s the way we’ve always done it.”

“Nobody else has ever been able to do that.”

Sound familiar? The world is full of too many people who settle for good enough.

They graduate from college and think it is good enough and so they quit learning. They get married and think that is good enough so they quit trying to impress their significant other. They find a job that they don’t like, but it pays the bills so it’s good enough.

I’m not saying that these things aren’t difficult. Sometimes it’s difficult to find time to read. Sometimes it’s difficult to love your spouse. Sometimes the job you want is hard to find. But just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible and it shouldn’t be an excuse to settle.

The only time you should settle is when you’re dead.

I am constantly writing, but rarely share what I write. When I do share, it is typically verbal. I’ve decided to finally change all of that with this blog. I have long delayed this because I have so many interests that I could write about, but writing about everything can become a bit confusing (I know Seinfeld was a show about nothing and they made it work, but nothing is so much easier than everything).

Anyway, I figured I would use this blog to write about my love/hate relationship with marketing, my thoughts on apple and microsoft, and my passion for good design along with my annoyance at not-so-good design.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts or questions related to these areas and I look forward to some good conversation.