Seriously… Can the iPhone or the iPod Touch replace your laptop for your mobile computing needs? What about just some of them? Two respected technology gurus (whom I greatly respect) have posted articles on this very subject.
Ernest Svenson a/k/a Ernie the Attorney recently traveled to Panama, and he decided not to take his laptop with him and to rely on his iPhone instead. His article discusses the email, phone, and applications aspects in detail. Ernie concludes that while he would not forego his laptop, it was reassuring to know how much could be done on the iPhone.
Dennis Kennedy has also written a series of articles analyzing whether the iPod Touch can serve as his secondary laptop. Dennis walks through his thought process in analyzing his needs and wants on this issue, and it is a very interesting read.
Sources: "Can You Travel Without a Computer, And Just Take an iPhone?" by Ernest Svenson, published at his Ernie the Attorney blog, and "My New Laptop Computer is an iPod Touch" by Dennis Kennedy, published at DennisKennedy.com.
Ben,
Thanks for the mention. Unfortunately, I find myself reading your blog post and commenting on it rather than finishing my series, but I’ve vowed to try to finish it up later this week. Ernie’s posts on the subject are great.
Dennis
For just keeping up with what is going on at the office, I think you really can do it with an iPhone. The iPhone (currently) lacks the ability to edit (or create) a file such as Word file, but it occurs to me that in the many years that I had that feature on my Treo 650 thanks to DataViz’s Documents to Go, I never actually used the feature. All I need to do on the road is read a file and send an e-mail with comments, which the iPhone does very well. If I truly want to “work” on the road, which means being able to create documents, access my firm’s document management system, etc., I need a laptop. But for the large portion of the time that I just want to keep on top of what is going on in my office, the iPhone 2.0 software with the Exchange integration works great. I do wish that it synced with Notes and Tasks and I wish it had copy-and-paste — software issues that I’m sure will be addressed before too long.
I agree with Dennis’ assessment of the iPhone/Touch approach to an ultra-portable office. Like Dennis, I’ve had Docs to Go or Windows Mobile on most all of my smartphones. When I switched to the Blackberry Curve, it was then I realized that I never really used Word or Excel processing on any of these smartphones (or even the PDA’s before them). These programs just provided better viewers than anything built into the devices. I would like to be able to copy and comment in an email based upon reviewing a document, but I really need a notebook for anything more.
Adding notes, tasks, and copy/paste to the already excellent Exchange integration will round out the iPhone/Touch as a reasonable alternative for the short jaunts, or even for daily use between those late night hotel sessions we’ve all endured reviewing and preparing documents for clients or courts.
Being a iphone accessories salesman I truly do believe you CAN currently rely solely on you phone at all times. Although, I am guilty of being on a Toshiba laptop right now.
Good article and comments. I love downloading podcasts to my iPod and making playlists because it is convenient; I can listen to them at anytime.