Hands0n
4th July 2008, 11:02 PM
I have said, more than a few times this month, how I have been using my 2G iPhone more and more in lieu of the laptop as I mooch around doing my stuff.
This has sort of been growing on me gradually, moreso as I have been reading how others have been using their iPhone to do the stuff that one normally associates with laptop (when mobile) or desktop (when in office or home). It has been an interesting experience.
I am no newcomer to trying to do this. For very many years, since the time of my Palm Tungsten (circa 2000), then on to my Compaq and then HP iPAQ I have been trying to usurp the laptop. My success has been limited, mostly I would say down to the inadequacies of the PDA's OS and limitations of the apps and services.
Time moves on and we have the likes of Google Maps accessible from anywhere with a 'net connection. We also have the beginnings of Web 2.0, the webapp is becoming fairly ubiquitous. And then there is mobile data networking that has become almost de-facto in less than two years, with suitable tariffs and availability.
And then came the iPhone. This little gizmo has been something of a convergence tool, allowing us to coalesce the recent technologies into a single highly functional hand-held device. Suddenly, the laptop is beginning to look a bit jaded in comparison. I am finding less and less reason to lug the beast around.
It seems that I am not entirely alone in this. It was very interesting reading the tales of another traveller in iPhone Survivor: Traveling Without a Laptop (http://db.tidbits.com/article/9625).
What do you think? Can you see your way to leaving the laptop at home the next time you travel? Increasingly, I can.
This has sort of been growing on me gradually, moreso as I have been reading how others have been using their iPhone to do the stuff that one normally associates with laptop (when mobile) or desktop (when in office or home). It has been an interesting experience.
I am no newcomer to trying to do this. For very many years, since the time of my Palm Tungsten (circa 2000), then on to my Compaq and then HP iPAQ I have been trying to usurp the laptop. My success has been limited, mostly I would say down to the inadequacies of the PDA's OS and limitations of the apps and services.
Time moves on and we have the likes of Google Maps accessible from anywhere with a 'net connection. We also have the beginnings of Web 2.0, the webapp is becoming fairly ubiquitous. And then there is mobile data networking that has become almost de-facto in less than two years, with suitable tariffs and availability.
And then came the iPhone. This little gizmo has been something of a convergence tool, allowing us to coalesce the recent technologies into a single highly functional hand-held device. Suddenly, the laptop is beginning to look a bit jaded in comparison. I am finding less and less reason to lug the beast around.
It seems that I am not entirely alone in this. It was very interesting reading the tales of another traveller in iPhone Survivor: Traveling Without a Laptop (http://db.tidbits.com/article/9625).
What do you think? Can you see your way to leaving the laptop at home the next time you travel? Increasingly, I can.