Last weekend I planned a three-day weekend trip to the west coast, and for the first time, I didn’t write and schedule blog posts in advance. I made the decision to write my daily blog entries for Fluent Every Year from the road, on my iPad.

There were a few daunting parameters to this experiment. It meant accepting the iPad’s onscreen keyboard as my only input device, and it also meant depending on WiFi access to be available, since I do not have a 3G version.

The first thing I found was that WiFi is not as ubiquitous as I like to believe. I stayed in a different hotel each night, and only one actually made WiFi available in the room. The other two offered wired internet service in the room, and one had wireless available only in the lobby, and only for a daily rate of $13.

I learned that one simply can not expect to use their iPad everywhere they go, even if the hotel promises internet access. If you expect to have a reliable connection, you’ll need to pack an access point, or else expect to be hunting around for a coffee shop.

For sake of convenience I decided to write my blog posts in the hotel using the Notes app, and then find a coffee shop with internet access and just copy-paste the content into WordPress. That was fine for the most part, but there was another problem which wasn’t so easily worked around: the keyboard.

Any significant amount of typing becomes a terrible burden with the iPad’s on-screen keyboard. It’s horrible even for short messages on Twitter… but for a blog post which typically lands between 600-1000 words, it’s terrible. Painful. Completely unrealistic.

Even worse, the keystroke combinations required to form HTML tags on an iPad are rage-inducing. To make a link, press [123], then [#+=], then <, then [ABC], then a href, then [#+=], then ", then hopefully you’re pasting the URL, then ", then [123], then [#+=], and >, and now you’ve opened the tag…. you still have to close it later.

When I returned home, the first thing I did was test it out with my bluetooth aluminum keyboard, which works like a charm. Next time I travel out of town, I’ll pack the wireless keyboard with the iPad. I expect that will be far more acceptable — especially with HTML!

I’m also going to look around at MicroCenter and/or Best Buy and see if I can manage to find a small wireless access point which doesn’t require a bunch of cables and a big power brick. It would be nice to know I can rely on internet service at the hotel.

However, it should be noted that the small, lightweight iPad is not a bother to carry to a coffee shop. In a situation like mine, I could easily type up my blog post in Notes using a keyboard, and then carry the iPad to a coffee shop and paste it into WordPress. Unlike a larger, heavier laptop with a short battery life and big power cord, carrying the iPad is like carrying a small book or magazine.

And that highlights one enormous advantage for the iPad — it’s size. My flight was much more enjoyable than they have typically been in the past, because I was able to watch movies comfortably on my flight with a very viewable 10-inch screen. In stark contrast, the guy next to me on my flight out was squinting at a movie on his iPhone, and the guy next to me on the flight back was cramped and precariously bending his arms to operate his laptop in the tight conditions of economy seating.

Furthermore, the ability to carry several movies, dozens of books, access to the internet, and a usable (if frustrating) blogging tool all in such a small package is a huge win for a traveler. And for the majority of people, the keyboard shouldn’t be a big deal, since there aren’t a ton of people writing long blog posts on a daily basis.

But even for me, I think packing my bluetooth keyboard along with my iPad is still a huge improvement over carrying a laptop, so in spite of my two severe complaints, I’m still convinced that this is a revolutionary device.

This morning there were people lined up around the Apple store, standing in the rain as they waited to be the first to own an iPad. The store opened at 10:00. I went at 12:30. No wait, no line. I walked out at 12:35 with my new iPad.

I didn’t expect to like it so much!

The first thing that’s immediately clear is that it’s not just a big iPod. Its more. The iPad is big enough to read on. It’s completely useable as a web browser, e-Book reader, video player, etc.

Even with the small handful of apps available today at release, I am already impressed. The news apps are fantastic. The weatherbug app is awesome. Kayak is killer. So far, I’ve only downloaded free apps, but most of them are exciting to see and use. The potential for this device is huge.

The built-in apps are updated, too. The music player looks a bit more like iTunes now. The contact book looks like an actual contact book. The photos app has lots of cool new features, including allowing the device to act as a digital picture frame. And I’ve never had so much fun playing with Google maps as I had today.

After playing with it all day (battery life also rocks), I have just two complaints. First, typing with the on-screen keyboard is painful; it would probably be fine for on-the-go use, but anyone making extended use of the iPad is going to want the accessory keyboard. And second, it runs apps designed for iPhone/iPod, but they run small and are a pain to use; though I imagine that over time, most apps will be updated to work on the iPad and this will be less of an issue.

I’m convinced this is the future of computing for many people. Apple has redefined the computing paradigm with the iPad. And thanks to the iTunes Store and App Store, it will be extremely difficult for any competing product to pose a challenge.

I’m also convinced that this will be a Kindle-killer. Or, perhaps more accurately, that Amazon will have to put some serious new features into the Kindle, and lower the price, if they hope to survive in an iPad world.

After being tremendously frustrated with my iMac failing to burn DVDs, and stressing myself out over what media might be supported, I’ve hit upon the solution to my problem: unicode characters.

I wanted to burn a DVD containing AVIs of Russian video, and I had given the Burn Folder a Russian name. Every time I tried to burn, I was greeted with error 0×80020022, and the media was immediately ejected.

Remembering the days of CD-R media and the compatibility hassles I once experienced, my first thought was to go buy a different brand of DVD media. But I experienced the error with the new media as well.

After stumbling onto a Mac support forum in which users blindly suggested that renaming a file had fixed the problem, I realized that I was probably trying to use forbidden characters in the volume name. Spelling my Russian words out in a Latin alphabet did the trick, and I am now burning the files.

I see a lot of complaints from developers about Apple’s app approval process. But here’s the thing: If developers aren’t complaining about app approval, it means someone, somewhere, is not doing their job right. If apps went out the way developers wanted them to, they’d have ugly interfaces, poor memory management, and no error checking whatsoever.

Personally, I like Apple’s app approval process. And I like the fact that it’s rigid and painful. In fact, I don’t think it’s rigid enough. I’d like to see them make it even harder to put apps like “iFart” online.

But, like it or not, iFart isn’t going to cause a system crash when you receive a phone call while using it. And that’s what’s important. The iPhone isn’t just a handheld computing platform…. it’s also a phone. And that means it has to work. It can’t be crashing all the time. And Apple’s process helps make that a reality.

MacBook Touch Mockup

The part that’s unclear, though, is… well… everything else about it.

But here’s my theory:

The MacBook Air was an incredibly cool new addition to Apple’s laptop lineup, but it was really mostly a sales dud by most measures… and I think the only reason for that was that the price was too high. But I believe the Air was merely an interim product — a way to begin recovering some of the costs associated with designing a completely disconnected, paper-thin computer.

Think about it: if you take a paper-thin tablet computer, lose the touch-screen, and add a keyboard… what are you left with, if not a MacBook air?

So what, then, do I expect to see? I think the iTablet (or whatever they choose to call it) will be exactly that: a MacBook Air, sans keyboard. I believe it will fit into a manilla envelope the way the Air does… and I believe that alone will be enough to distinguish it from all the other tablet computer offerings we’ve seen so far. A 10-inch tablet that fits in an envelope is exactly what every traveler on earth wants.

But that’s not enough. OS X has had some excellent handwriting recognition software for quite a while, but it will be better if I don’t need a tablet to enter it. Such features make this an easy Kindle killer. And in fact, if you include a stylus and allow me to write directly on the screen, you might as well go that extra step allow me to use my new iTablet as the world’s best ever replacement for a Wacom tablet.

And if the rumors I’ve heard about it pairing magically with the iMac as a second screen are true, well, how could you not think it’s worth that $799-999 rumored price?

Apple just never ceases to impress me. This is another home-run. Go watch the video and see how huge this tiny little laptop really is.

A few weeks ago I got an iPhone and was unable to use it with my computer. Last week I got Adobe Lightroom and then was unable to use it with my computer. The time had come to do something about that. So Friday I went to the Apple store and I got OS X Leopard.

I was unsure if Apple was still supporting G4 computers, but I was able to find that answer on their web site: they are. What I was not able to find, however, was any indication that I could upgrade. In other words, I was not prepared to do a clean install and wipe out my computer. The representative at the Apple store confirmed that I could do an upgrade.

The upgrade process took nearly three hours, and used almost all of the 10GB of free space on my hard drive. I hadn’t expected that. But I’ve found some ways to recover some space, so that’s not an issue. In fact, there really aren’t any issues. It just goes in and works. All of the upgraded software kept my settings and kept on working as I expected.

The only thing that stopped working was the driver for my Wacom tablet, but Wacom has provided almost a dozen driver upgrades on their web site in the three years since I first installed it, and after downloading and installing the new driver, my tablet worked like a charm.

The new features, going from 10.3 to 10.5 are amazing, and seem to run quite well on my iBook, even if it’s not a dual core Pentium. And yes, I took a few minutes to play with the new features of the OS, but only a few minutes, because what I really wanted to do was play with Lightroom… which is awesome.

And what about the iPhone? No dialogs popping up when I plug it in. No device listed in iTunes. I think something must have gotten set to ignore the iPhone when I tried it on 10.3.9 and it didn’t recognize it. Time to Google it.

It has been pointed out that I actually predicted the iPhone two years ago.

I bought my first iPod on Thursday, June 9, 2005. The following day, I wrote this:

The real magic is the iPod itself, though. I couldn’t understand what was such a big deal about iPod when reading reviews, but after having it in my hand for five minutes everything was clear. This really is one ingeniously designed technological wonder. I wish Apple would make cell phones. And tv sets. And cars.

And apparently I wasn’t far off with my next comment, about tv sets, given my positive experience when I first looked at Apple TV.

Okay, so I got the iPhone. It’s just a phone, a set of ear buds, a USB cable, and a cradle, all tucked neatly into a very small box.

I bought it from an AT&T store and asked if it would require a new contract or if I could just continue the contract I already have. The representative who sold it to me told me I could just pick up my existing contract where it is now.

Then she told me it’s really easy to activate the phone, you just plug it into iTunes and do it all from there. Wow, that sounded cool.

Well, I got it home and plugged it into my G4 iBook. Instead of activating iTunes and showing the new device, it brought up iPhoto… as if I’d plugged in a camera! A little digging around on Google revealed that iPhone requires iTunes version 7.3 or later, but that version of iTunes won’t run on OS 10.3.9, the version on my iBook.

Okay then. I pulled out my PC and plugged it in. (Yes, I love my Mac so much that I don’t even plug in the Windows computer.) Booted it up and went to install the latest iTunes. The latest version, 7.4.10, requires XP but I still use Windows 2000. Fortunately, iTunes 7.3 (the minimum required version) can run on Windows 2000 with service pack 4.

All right then. That meant I had to install Service Pack 4. So I downloaded the service pack and installed it. Then I downloaded iTunes 7.3 and installed it. Finally… I’m on my way. Then I plugged in the iPhone and…?

Unrecognized USB device. A little more research revealed that the phone itself isn’t supported in Windows 2000. It requires XP or Vista, or Mac OS 10.4.10.

Final verdict? If I want to use my new iPhone, I need to upgrade my computer(s) or buy a new one. I’m not ready to do that yet.

Fortunately, I was able to install the latest iTunes at work this morning and activate the phone. To cap off the entire experience, I do, in fact, have to start a new 2-year agreement.

So on the plus side, I finally have my iPhone, but on the minus side, I can’t sync with it at home, and I’m now locked in to AT&T for two more years, unless I pay the early termination fee.

And so, as far as user experience upon purchasing a new iPhone, I give it a 2 out of 5. It’s horribly non-Apple to choose not to support older versions of the Mac OS — particularly previous subversions of the current version! It’s even worse to make those requirements so hard to find — I should not have to search Google to find a way to activate my $399 cell phone.

The cardinal sin, though, is the much talked about partnership with AT&T. For Apple, a company known for user experience, locking Apple users in to a company with a reputation for horrible customer service is unforgivable.

I stopped at the Apple store on Michigan Avenue on Saturday to have a look at all the newest stuff they’ve got out.

The new iMacs are beautiful, well-priced, and have enormous screens. I think I want one. And the Apple TV was something that didn’t really wow me when I read about it online, but playing with one in the store made a big difference. I think I want one of those, too.

Somehow, in spite of all the iPhone hype, I managed to walk into the Apple store without the thought ever entering my mind. But upon entry, you’re surrounded by demo models of iPhones, and after I’d played with everything else, I went ahead and played with an iPhone.

I love it! It’s awesome. I’m going to see if The New AT&T (formerly known as Cingular) will be offering them, since my contract will be up for renewal in a few months. If I can wait and get it at a discounted rate for signing a new contract, I will. If not, I may just go buy one next week.