Anyone have any work arounds? No news from either developer… Post here if you have any news!

I put together a post  here of some recent thoughts regarding the direction of online media, particularly direct response versus impression media. Cliffs notes is:

• online media is a true direct response media and is better at direct response than it is brand awareness
• brand awareness activities online need new creative sizes (less commoditization) and more creative exploration
• we need to maximize the value of all the traffic we do manage to attract by making sure sites are tuned to maximize conversion

The iPad represents one of the most intuitive ways to manage email and I find I can blast through it each morning on the train, marking unread the items that require deeper assistance with my laptop (which I now leave in the office).

If I need access to any web apps safari or individual apps provide all the access I need (evernote, omnifocus, gmail). If anything requires more robust formatting or graphics tweaking, I move the drafted doc to my laptop-as-desktop via evernote, email or pages to email.

Whats striking after a month is that with mobile me and dropbox, I can keep all of my machines (including the iPad in sync quite seamlessly. This makes me yearn for a true desktop both at home and at work…a bit ironically perhaps.

I’d venture a guess that other traditional laptop only-types like me might have the same urge. So my conclusion is that desktop mac sales might actually see an increase in popularity with the advent and wider adoption of the iPad, I am curious what others think…

Only bummer is Jobsco can’t control the crappy network service AT&T is attempting to provide (which is soiling the reputation of the iPhone and hurting it’s growth.) I am a resident of a suburb of New York City. Each day thousands of iPhone users and I struggle through a dark commute. The AT&T service basically is non – usable for 80% of the ride (see image below: the box represents little or no service). This is inexcusable and destroys almost 2 hours a day of productive time.

Sad thing for Apple is there is little utility for a fantastic device if it can’t access the web. FYI: Verizon subscribers have connectivity the entire way. (I tested this myself on a droid for 2 weeks).

Further bad news for Apple: I have watched as many familiar train faces have shown up with new Verizon blackberries or Droids. Folks are to putting down their iPhones for a better network, or even worse, starting to carry two devices (this wastes money and kills the elegance of a single device, charger, platform, etc. Thanks to AT&T, technology has once again made people’s lives more complicated- shame on them). This New England commuter use case demonstrates further why Apple needs to build a CDMA iPhone folks could use on the superior Verizon network. I would pay full price at this point for a CDMA and contract free Verizon iPhone, as I am sure many others would from DC to Boston.

Simply stated AT&T service is horrible on my commute from Fairfield county to New York City. This is an affluent demographic that would likely pay full bullet for a data plan for the forthcoming iPad…but no one will till there is a CDMA version of the iPad or they buy a MIFI. AT&T’s argument that most recent network speed (not coverage consistency!) test that declared them winner (which is suspect in my mind…they clearly test in favorable environments and definitely do not test the common use cases of millions of commuter each day.)

AT&T got lucky with the iPhone. It covered up a glaring wound in their network… and they better bend over for Steve to keep the exclusivity so all the iPhone hardware loyalists theoretically stay locked in to a second tier network. As soon as there is a CDMA iPhone, you can bet on a mass exodus from ATT.

Its too bad amazing hardware doesn’t make up for crappy network coverage. For the love of god, Verizon and Apple, will you please get this deal done, its a no brainer!

The first example is the acquisition of Flip Video by Cisco. The news set off a post from crunchgear that asked if we were moving into an era of “dumb” tech (bad choice of words IMHO…”better designed” tech would have been more appropriate). The meme here is that tech is indeed becoming more efficient and more usable through better design (this is what made Flip attractive to Cisco and the millions that bought a Flip camera).

The next example is a higher order geek problem today, but it serves to show that we are getting closer to a world where my Mom could build and deploy her own cloud server. Although she probably doesn’t know what that means yet, if she knew that she was capable of  building something like this, it might trigger her to think about putting these tools to use and  build a solution to enhance her productivity with her clients. Dave Winer identified the potential of using the Amazon EC2 to buld a cloud based server in an hour. The key to the concept is that he published non-technical directions to put this technology into the hands of the masses who had previously thought this was unattainable without technical help. I hope this will help spur creative solutions at a time when creativity will be accelerated by contracting economic conditions.

The mass use of easy-to-consume technology (technology designed for mass consumption) will eventually help us get our economy back on track. Ideas will be executed, revenue generated, and jobs created because non-technical people will be empowered to create and use their creativity to solve problems.

Jobs and revenue have been created recently through simplification of technology: Look at the iPhone: a better smartphone and development tools lead to massive adoption of the platform and the application store. There are thousands of developers now earng a living creating applications. Millions carry the Flip them in their pockets and update and share videos in minutes (and create new online ad inventory of which they may share in profits).

Tough times often lead to great leaps of entrepreneurism and creative disruption. It looks like that maxim is holding true today.

Given that ~30% of users access the internet from work, it looks like we still havent seen the sweeping productivity lift that pundits promised back in the gogo years, but we are on track. Go web, go!

Below is some interesting data about this work online activity:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

This is a well thought out and designed explanation of why we are going through this craziness.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8]

iPhone Keyboard is a required offering.

I Believe the iPhone is one feature away from dominating the Enterprise AND the consumer space for smartphones/micro PCs. Steve needs to back down on his touch only mantra and design a real keyboard that slides out underneath the entire phone (a la Sony Xperia or these concepts). Apple has created a new market and ecosystem for these usable small computers that people can  lean on for most of their personal personal computing. Whats missing is a real keyboard.

Witness the thousands of teens glued to their QWERTY text messaging hardware or Blackberries. Teens are  the sweet spot for Apple’s consumer strategy. In the enterprise, to satisfy the needs of the QWERTY addicted  and really impress the large enterprises about the fact the iPhone is a true portable productivity tool, they need to build something that actually works the without any education. Ironically, I think the iPhone keypad is one of the only things Apple has  designed in a few years that requires a lot of knowledge to use properly.  Now I love my iphone, but I definitely catch myself doing less mobile mail on it due to the cludgyness of the keyboard for my hands. I prefer SMS because it allows me to be less formal and I dont have to type as much. I belive this is a lost opportunity for Apple and they need to listen to users on this one.

We need an Apple NetBook (NetMac?) yesterday…

The Hackintosh meme has left the station and its only going to get more momentum. I  and many others will likely buy a sub $400 netbook and install OSX in the coming 6 months. Personally,  I need a commuting machine and the Air is overpriced for what I need. I want somethign small to throw into a bag that I can pound out mail on the train. I also would likely use this machine for travel and weekends, rather than bringing my larger desktop laptop. Since the MobileMe sync services are working so well, it really doesn’t matter what machine I am on…everything on every machine should theoretically sync. Its working for me today on the multiple machines I use. Apple is a design company, and they design great hardware. The netbook is an opportunity to do something that is uniquely Apple and a lower cost. I believe, like the iPhone/iPod, the Apple experience on a netbook will create a great channel to recruit new converts. That and I don’t want to write a check to Dell…

What do you think…are they getting these things ready or are they going to ignore the market and push everything into the new multi-touch technology (including a netbook)??