With that said let me talk about my reservations about Apple products long term, specifically in a post Steve Jobs Apple. Steve is a visionary that has brought apple back from the brink and really transformed it into a consumer devices and software company. They just also happen to sell those desktop and laptop computers still.

Working in the tech space it is interesting to glean tidbits of information through the various interviews. In several occasions I have heard of Steve being the guy that envisioned a product or technology. In his D8 interview he talks about the technology behind their iPhone, iPod and iPad devices and how he realized & envisioned the resulting product suite starting with the phone (see below). By the way this was all brought about by the want to produce a tablet that undoubtedly has roots in their early efforts of the newton.

Also in the Product Management book Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love the author (Marty Cagan) sites Steve as being one of the most gifted Product Managers he has seen. There are many other references here to Steve being the GUY that dreams Apples' cool stuff up. This is really refreshing in a day and age of CEO's being the financial guy or the operations guy and even when they are strategy people they don't dream up the product that often.

This brings me to the question and possibly point. When Steve is no longer able to serve Apple, who will take the innovation reigns? Sure they can find a CEO but who will innovate and bring us these cool products. To date I have seen little of any successor. There are appearances by several VP's in their marketing videos with VP of iPhone Marketing, Senior VP of iOS Software, Senior VP of Hardware & Senior VP of Design (guy with the great British accent). With Steve's health issues a while back I'm sure Apple is aware and working on this but it doesn't make me warm and fuzzy inside that we haven't seen or heard of anything or anyone.

From the brink of no longer being in existence to a valuation higher than that of Microsoft, Apple has really gotten a great deal of things right in the last 10 years. I also love their products and the emotion I and my family get from using them (direct and indirect). I hope they can continue this not only in the short term but in the post Steve Jobs reality that is inevitable.

While watching the promotional video I noticed that fuel economy was not the strong suit, obviously!

Not only do I have to figure out how to come up with the $375,000 1 year lease but the gas bill too.

Moving from the HiBore to the Launcher (which I have not liked the looks of in years past) was seamless. Usually you have that period where your hitting it well but can't really put it where your looking, however I had none of this break-in time. The best part is I got another 7 to 20 yards depending on how hard I choose to swing at it.  I got the Tour version which is 430CC's instead of the 460CC of the regular version. I found that my club head speed suffered by about 4-7 mph with the larger head. That has been the case for the last few drivers I bought, so if you have not tried a bit smaller head you might want to.  The major improvement is the sound, the HiBore wasn't known for it's solid acoustics but the Launcer's is light years different and better. i also like the larger grip. I'm not sure if it's an extra wrap larger or more but it fits in my hands alot better. With that said, my only complaint here is that it does make it harder to work the ball. The larger grip and longer shaft are likely the culprits here. It just doesn't respond as much to the rolling over and holding off of my hands. Also i would have like to have seen a few more loft options other than the  8.5, 9.5 & 10.5 in the tour versions. The 460CC version comes in 9, 10.5 & 12 degree lofts.

Overall this was a great update to my bag and welcome addition with the extra distance down the fairway. Being able to switch from 3 year old tech to new and not have to suffer much was fantastic.

When I got the iPad I immediately got the Books application and was ready to grab a few titles and experience something I had been looking so forward to. Unfortunately for Apple I couldn't find anything and after a few days of resistance I installed the Kindle app for the iPad. The selection of course was huge since Amazon has been doing books since it's inception and eBooks for a handful of years now. After easily finding the book I was interested in I was surprised at the features. Of course they have a bookmark feature but there were some hidden gems like community highlighting & notes. Of course it's cool that you can highlight and add notes to certain passages but you can also download highlighting that others or the kindle community have added as well. Takes me back to college when you would buy used books that already had someone's hard earned study notes.

So if that wasn't enough they just released the Android version of the Kindle app. I installed it and whala, all my highlighting and everything comes across from the iPad app. not only that when I launched the app on my phone it automagicly was on the page I last bookmarked, allowing me to jump back and forth from the iPad to Andorid phone without search for my place. Multi device consumption is pretty nice since the 3 year olds don't let me take my iPad out of the house unless they are coming along.

If you think about it, the Kindle team over at Amazon probably doesn't care if they make a device. They had the relationship and the ability to sell alot more books if they had an electronic distribution system. issue was they didn't have a socially acceptable device to distribute them to. Their own hardware was just a means to an end and Apple has probably only made them happier they don't have to be in the consumer hardware manufacturing business.

From a Product Manager standpoint however there are so many insights and truths in here that it's a worth while read. For instance, how many times have you heard one of your developers say "We can't do that because it's too labor intensive on the (blah) system". Well the people who matter most don't care.  I'm not saying you shouldn't listen and performance bottlenecks definitely have to be considered. Just realize your users don't give ANY thought to if your DB has to work a little harder or your network's bandwidth needs to double.  They just want to get their work done faster or better. That's what they pay you good money for.

7 Reasons To Hate Your Code

I'm not tremendously upset about this and frankly it's nice to see such a successful products company having the same issues as the rest of us.

1. Feature requirements vs. Time & Money – We all have great aspirations and almost always bit off more than we can chew in a release.
2. Separation of Product Management & Engineering – If you ask most PM's & look at almost all Product Manager job postings you will find the PM is almost always the lone guy/girl who is the interface between the business side and engineering but has no managerial control over either.
3. Strength or Type A Personalities – This one is often overlooked but a PM has to have a strong personality. Often engineering will see a feature from a developers eyes, and many times that's not a clients nirvana. PM's have to be able to stand up for clients regardless of what team members it can upset. I tell everyone I work with that "If your not saying something bad about me at some point, I'm not doing my job right and definately not pushing you enough." If a PM can't fight for what they want in their product they are just PB's (Product Babysitters). I do want to point out this does not mean a PM has to have a poor or adversarial relationship with Engineering, quite the contrary. This should be viewed as a means to strengthen the relationship much like a family that argues but loves each other through thick and thin.

There are many other reasons but if your a PM consider yourself the shepherd for your clients and you may have to stand your ground and beat engineering with that crook, but they and your clients will love you more for it in the long run.

What do you think? Funny & Quirky sense of humor of Yahoo missing an edit of a programmers sense of humor?

Great stuff and thanks to Stewart, keep it up.

Carlo was outside talking to people in their cars and walking by. I chatted with him about the time and while he doesn’t keep track of the hours he put into the project he did say "I started the programming pretty much after I took down last years and finished as this years went up. I’m still tinkering on timings too. To put the display up I had 2 weeks vacation and it took the whole time."

Pretty cool stuff on it’s own but it makes it even more special that they collect money for charities. Carlo supports the local Multiple Sclerosis Foundation but said they will give it to anybody that the donor prefers. Last year they collected over $2,000 and are shotting for $4,000 plus this year.

The video below was shot on my new cell phone so it’s not eh best but pretty cool none the less.