There are two iPhone apps on my second screen (my test screen) that I played with over the weekend – Highlight and CardMunch.

Highlight has been getting a lot of buzz over the past week, touted as SXSW’s “Breakout Star”. I wasn’t able to attend SXSW, but I heard a lot of people were loving this app. Essentially Highlight lets you find out about the people near you. Here’s what they say on their website:

If someone standing near you also has Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone. You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with them. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight can help you remember it.

I tried it out recently and it was very cool. It showed me that I was near a guy who was a friend of a friend, and told me a little about him and the things we had in common (presumably pulling from our Facebook likes). At a conference or when traveling, I could see this being a very useful app. I must confess, however, after I tested it out I quickly changed my setting to “pause” as I didn’t really want a bunch of people knowing I was near them and knowing all about me. That aspect is a little creepy.

The second app, CardMunch, is LinkedIn’s app that allows you to take a picture of a business card and it will give you the person’s contact info and LinkedIn history, complete with a button to connect with them on LinkedIn and the ability to download that card to your phone’s address book. It seems to take a little while for the card to be processed (someone told me they actually have humans doing this), but when it does come back its a very useful tool. I’ve been snapping pictures of business cards and throwing them away when I get them.

This app probably has a limited lifeline as I would imagine soon our phones will allow us to easily beam our contact info to and from other phones via something like NFC. But until then, its going to come in handy for me.

My second screen - the apps I'm testing

Yep, that's what I'm saying baby

Some of you know the saga I went through with cell phone carriers lately. The long and short is, I used to be on AT&T and in Atlanta the service is very poor and at a certain point I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I researched and saw that Sprint had very good reviews in Atlanta and bonus, Sprint had the ability to integrate Google Voice so that it would run natively on the iPhone. (if you’re curious, here’s why I love Google Voice)

So I switched to Sprint. And it sucked. Not only was the service perhaps worse than AT&T, but the Google Voice integration never really worked.

About two months ago I switched to Verizon. I have not dropped one call yet. In two months. Seriously.

I love the service with Verizon. I get service everywhere, including in my house which seems to be in a black hole when it comes to both AT&T and Sprint.

In order to get Google Voice integrated onto the iPhone, I had to jailbreak it. I didn’t want to do that but until Verizon allows you to port your Google Voice number directly into your phone, it’s the only way. I used the apps Phone GV Extension and SMS GV Extension. Works like a charm now.

If you’re not satisfied with AT&T or Sprint, I can’t recommend highly enough the switch to Verizon. It just works better.

Thanks to @gumboshowjoe for sharing this mashable report on mobile commerce. Some really good stuff in it. However…

My problem with reports like this is that they add tablets into their consideration set for “mobile”. But tablets are mostly used at the same time and place a person would use a laptop. It confuses the results when you say “people shop more on mobile devices at night than they do on computers”, with the main source being tablets on the couch. As a marketer, that means nothing to me.

Your tablet isn’t with you everywhere the way your phone is. You typically don’t use your tablet while walking or driving. Or while you’re in a restaurant. Or in a store. Or at an R.E.M. Concert. You use your phone.

I’ve been saying for a long time that tablets are not “mobile devices”, at least not any more than laptops are.

I usually get a lot of people disagreeing with this point, so let the debate begin…

As a follow up to my post this week about how I’ve moved to using the iPad 2 with a bluetooth keyboard instead of a laptop, I thought I’d post this recent example to further emphasize the point.
 
Last week I was in a client meeting out of town. The meeting was in an older area of their building, one in pretty dire need of renovation according to the client (and I agreed). There were very few power outlets and, get this, no wifi for guests.
 
I was with three of my co-workers. They all had laptops and I had an iPad 2 with a bluetooth keyboard.
 
We started at 9am and worked until 1:30, having lunch brought in. I was the only one who was online because I had the iPad 2 with AT&T 3G. I was also the only one that never had to connect to power. In fact, we went from their office to the airport where I used the iPad while waiting for the flight. Then I used it the entirety of the almost two hour flight back. And I never had to charge the iPad the entire day, still having 15% battery life left when I was reading on the iPad later that night before bed.
 
We all took notes on Evernote, which works just as well on the iPad as it does on a laptop.
 
I know long battery life and cellular connectivity aren’t some kind of advanced iPad technology, but the fact that it does those two things and laptops today don’t, make it a far better travel computer than anything else out there for me.

I’ve been a laptop guy for, well, as long as I can remember. I think probably everyone reading this is. The thought of not having a laptop is likely something that seems almost impossible to most of you, I’m guessing. And I was the same way a month ago.

It’s important to note that my experience won’t be the same for those of you that are programmers or designers where you need complex software to do your job. But for anyone else I think what I’m about to describe could be a solution – if you’re looking for one. I wasn’t, it just kind of found me.

I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with the iPad in the past. Truth be told, after a few months in to the original iPad, I wasn’t a huge fan. Then I liked it again. Then I put it down again. I even state in this post in October of 2010 that the iPad absolutely IS NOT a replacement for a laptop. I really couldn’t figure out how it was going to fit into my life.

As the iPad 2 came with more features and functionality, and as apps continued to get better and better, I began to get more interested in how a tablet might be relevant in my life. And I have many friends who LOVE their iPad’s, using them all the time, so I was pretty intrigued. I decided to push the limits and see exactly what was possible today with the iPad.

I decided to force myself to only use the iPad 2 for a week. No laptop, no desktop, just the iPad. With a bluetooth keyboard. That was a critical component to add to the mix. Without a keyboard, the iPad is a really nice device but not very usable in a business/work setting other than the occasional note-taking.

For iPad 2 bluetooth keyboards, I tried them all, and landed on the Zagg ZAGGFOLIO but I didn’t like the case, so I just pulled the keyboard right out of it (see pic below). Now I travel with the iPad (caseless) and the bluetooth keyboard that I plucked from the ZAGGFOLIO. And I love that. The keyboard is small and easily fits in my bag, and serves as a stand when I want to watch something on the iPad without holding the device in my hand. And its a great feeling keyboard, too.

What I learned through the process was that the iPad 2, with a bluetooth keyboard, is a very versatile and effective device (again, in my life, may be different for yours). I realized that I have different use cases for when I want a computer and when I break those down, an iPad 2 and a desktop serve all of my purposes.

My iPad setup

Here’s a breakdown of the times/settings I need a computer, and what device(s) I am going to be using:

At home, chilling — iPad

When I’m at home, mostly I want to sit back and read or watch content.  Occasionally I will reply to a quick email or  send a tweet, but I don’t need to write long-form content all that much.  So the iPad works just great for that.

At home, working — iPad with bluetooth keyboard 75%, desktop 25%

I need a keyboard.  Since we have an iMac at home, I can easily use that to work.  However, having now used a keyboard with an iPad for a few weeks, I find this to be very easy, especially when working on email or documents.  Since blogging on the iPad still isn’t brilliant, I often prefer to use the desktop for that when its available. Btw, more on my blogging process here, as there are times I use the iPad and times it just won’t work 100% for WordPress.

At work, at my desk — desktop

When I’m at my desk I’m going to be using a desktop, likely a Mac Mini. No real reason to lug a laptop around, back and forth from home, when I already have a desktop at the house and I have an iPad for in-between. I don’t think I’ve had a desktop for ten years at the office, always a laptop, so this will be a bit of an experiment. And thankfully with tools like iCloud and Dropbox, I can pretty much access any of my files no matter where I am.

At work, in meetings — iPad with bluetooth keyboard

When I’m in a meeting, I can easily take notes on the iPad and review documents.  I find it too cumbersome to bring a laptop from meeting to meeting, but the main benefit is the battery life of the iPad.  I can use it all day and not have to worry about lugging around a power cord for a laptop.

Traveling — iPad with bluetooth keyboard

When I travel its usually for a client meeting or pitch, to meet with folks in our other offices, or to attend a conference.  On a plane its very easy to crank through email on an iPad with a keyboard. Then when I want to sit back and read, I just put the keyboard away and hold the iPad in my hands. It’s great to be able to have that ability, to dock and undock depending on my needs.

So for the foreseeable future, I’ll be using my iPad 2 with a bluetooth keyboard as a laptop replacement. Granted, everyone who knows me will attest to the fact that my preferences change like the wind, but for now I’m digging my laptop-less life.

I’ll be writing more about this later in the week, but essentially I’m moving into 2012 with a bit of a laptop-less setup. The increased capabilities of the iPad 2, the improvement of the apps that allow me to “work”, and the incredible difference that a bluetooth keyboard makes to actually get things done, have changed my use of computers pretty drastically.  
 

Man, what a bummer. I was so happy to switch to Sprint last November in order to have direct integration with Google Voice.

And if you’re not up on it, here’s more on what Google Voice is and the reasons I love it.

Only, the “integration” is shoddy at best, working half the time and the other half of the time my calls come from a Sprint number.

But the worst part is the coverage for Sprint is amazingly worse than AT&T in Atlanta, at least for me. It’s horrible. All the reviews I read online said otherwise, so I thought I was getting Google Voice integration (not so much) and a bonus of better coverage.

Now I’m going to switch to Verizon. I can’t take not being able to make calls at my house or the office. I’ll just use the Google Voice app on Verizon and hope for the best.

Electronic Arts has a great sale going on with many of their iPad apps being only $.99. I don’t know how long this will last but you should check it out.
 
While looking at their selections I ran across their Monopoly iPad game. I was always a fan of Monopoly back in the day, but my wife hates it and honestly, who has several hours and a bunch of friends around to play a board game? 
 
But for $.99 I thought it would be worth a shot to see how this game plays on the iPad. And sure enough, its great. You can play against the computer, against friends on a table top or within the same wifi network on individual iPads. So far I’ve only played vs. the computer and you can usually get through a game in 20-30 minutes if you hustle.
 
Also, I noticed that Prius must have some kind of sponsorship because you can be a Prius as your Monopoly piece. So far I’ve stayed with my tried and true Race Car piece, but its cool to know brands are playing in the space. I’d like to see some of the companies that already have deals with Monopoly get involved so you can “theme” your boards, but that doesn’t seem to be an option yet.
 

Walmart, you know I’m on an iPad, because your ad is showing up on espn.go.com/ipad.

So why would you show me a page like this when I actually click on your ad?

Please try harder in 2012, Walmart.

I saw this in a client meeting yesterday. Couldn’t resist.