Web browsing was, as expected, far and beyond a better experience than I’ve had previously. No surprise here.

Those of you who followed my SXSW experience know I find Twitter to be an invaluable tool while traveling. On the Treo I was relegated to accessing Twitter with the Treo’s wimpy web interface. On the iPhone I was able to use the Twitterific application and it was, again, a much smoother experience.

Email on the iPhone is a mixed blessing. It sure looks nice, but the UI is quite a bit slower than I had with ChatterEmail on re Treo. This is largely due to the lack of physical keyboard meaning I didn’t have shortcut buttons for filing messages and such. That said, the virtual keyboard on the iPhone allows for MUCH faster typing than I had on the Treo. In fact, this blog post comes from the iPhone while on board a plane from Las Vegas to Dallas (thanks to the WordPress application).

Battery life was also a difficult bit to manage. I found I could make the battery last for a full day only by disabling Bluetooth, WiFi, Location Services, and auto-brightness. I could leave 3G on and make it through the day, though I found the speed benefits were outweighed by the battery savings gained by disabling 3G for all but the heaviest web-surfing needs.

SMS works very well on the iPhone, though I realized that I got very used to using copy and paste on the Treo. In situations where I had to alert multiple team members or colleagues to the same bit of info, I would simply type the message once and use the clipboard to facilitate sending to the rest. On the iPhone I had to retype the message over and over again.

So while the iPhone has a long way to go on its path to maturity, it is clearly a superior platform, especially with the growing App store. I look forward to more software updates and applications that will make use of the iPhone on future trips even smoother!

And, as it turns out, the former will be introduced by yours truly. I have spent the past few months working with the other members of the Ad Standards Committee crafting these, and it will be my honor and pleasure to introduce them for public comment.

So if you’ll be in town, come on down to ad:tech on Wednesday morning to hear about these two fantastic new developments. If you’re not, they’ll be publicly available for your review after the event. Either way, please take the time to digest what’s been created, and offer any comments you may have. We look forward to hearing what you think.

And that’s my fear. The concept was fairly new, certainly not planned to turn out this way, and it was perfect. Next time there’s a congregation of savvy social media-types at a trade show, though, I’m concerned that too many will come into it planning to do something like the Zuckerberg audience-keynote, and completely overdo it. Obviously some ethics will develop over time, and it will balance out.

But we already *have* the balance. So can we all please just keep it in check? I don’t really have any interest in seeing trade conferences ruined just “because we can.”

Wield the power responsibly, folks. We have everything to lose.

• Twitterized Attendees Shape The Show
• Music Through Wednesday: Béla Fleck, Van Morrison, R.E.M.
• Thursday Music: Body of War, Wheatus, The Presidents of the USA, Bowling For Soup
• Friday and Saturday Music: Vampire Weekend, The Redwalls, The Supersuckers and The Rolling Stones

The music festival really blew me away, and in basically 4 days I saw more than 24 acts, including:

• American Bang
• Béla Fleck
• Ben Harper
• Billy Bragg
• Blue Cheer
• Bowling for Soup
• Brendan James
• Dead Confederate
• Foreign Born
• Jonathan Rice
• Kate Nash
• Kevin Gordon
• Papercranes
• R.E.M.
• RX Bandits
• Serj Tankian
• The Presidents of the United States of America
• The Redwalls
• The Supersuckers
• The Vines
• Tom Morello
• Vampire Weekend
• Van Morrison
• Wheatus

Was a great week, and is also great to be back home!

I’ll also be attending the South By Southwest conference. First half of the week is the Interactive conference where I’ll likely be providing some coverage that will appear on our iPodObserver.com site as well as our Mac Geek Gab podcast. Second half is the music conference, which may also generate some content for us, and might just possibly offer me the opportunity to tuck the laptop away and enjoy an evening or two of bands performing. It will definitely be a busy week, and likely a fun one, too. It will be nice to get back to Austin again.

I’m talking about how I just came back from Macworld Expo and nearly everyone I know who was at the show is now quite ill. One associate is even in the hospital due to complications with his asthma combined with whatever virus he acquired at the show.

Thankfully, I remained healthy, but it most certainly was not by accident. Knowing how many people got sick last year, I headed into Macworld Expo this time equipped with alcohol-based wet wipes and some Purell gel. Chuck LaTournous was kind enough to lend me (and nearly everyone else in the Speaker office) gel when we were there together, too, and I’m sure that helped immensely.

My advice to everyone for next year: treat Macworld Expo as though you were on a cruise ship. All it takes is one person to start a chain of events, and keeping yourself as protected from that chain as possible is the only move you have.

Maybe we should solicit Purell to sponsor Cirque du Mac next year? I’ll put in the call.

• Weds, Jan 16th, 1:15pm-2:30pm — Running your Mac Lean, Clean and Mean – In this session, we’ll go through a series of tips, tricks, and software tools to help you keep your machine running at its best — and know when it isn’t. Slated for Room 2009/11, which is in Moscone West, this is open to all Users Conference attendees.
• Weds, Jan 16th, 8:00pm-12:00am — Cirque du Mac 5.0 — We’re holding our infamous party again and, yep, I’ll be manning the drum throne for most of the night with the Macworld All-Star Band. Should be a blast! It’s invite-only, but if you catch me walking around at the show feel free to ask me if I have an extra ticket available.
• Thurs, Jan 17th, 6:00pm-8:00pm — Mac Podcaster Meetup — Adam Christianson has put together a panel of fantastic Mac podcasters, and I’m honored to be among them. Others are Ken Ray, Victor Cajiao, Leo Laporte, Scott Bourne, and Cali Lewis. We’ll be talking about all things Apple and Mac, and these discussions have become something I really look forward to at the shows. This is open to anyone with a Macworld Expo badge and will be held at Jillian’s, which is in the Metreon at the corner of 4th and Howard.

Come to one or all of them, if you can, and please do say hi!

The Mac Observer sees a layout refresh, changing the location of the columns, moving the content up and to the left, and allowing room for some more modern ad types. Comments thus far are relatively positive, with perhaps some additional tweaks required to make the forums perfect. All in all, I’m very pleased with this new look!

Deals On The Web has images now! They’re everywhere, including the headlines view, the summaries view, the deal details, and the RSS feed. It’s so refreshing to see these there. We’ve needed them for a long time, and Stephen Swift really delivered on this one. We’re very fortunate to have him on board.

Tomorrow has me traveling out west again. This time it’s a little different than most. I have a gig with Fling tomorrow morning at the UNH homecoming game here in Durham, New Hampshire. Then I head to Boston and get on a plane for San Jose, CA where I’ll be playing that night with Paul Kent and his Silicon Valley Houserockers, celebrating Paul’s birthday. Looks to be an interesting day, for sure! My flight is on Jet Blue, which means no “real” meal service, so I’m a little concerned about that, but… I’ll manage. Sunday I get to hang out and relax with Paul, his family, and some friends, then Monday a meeting in Cupertino before getting on the redeye home. If you need me to focus on something, Tuesday might not be the best day to call.

Lastly, I hadn’t reported in since we set up the new BackBeat Media office in Austin last week. Things went splendidly and the office *really* came together nicely. Jeff and Toni seem quite comfortable there, and we’re looking for big things to come. Nice work, everyone!

I think that’s it. More from the road, perhaps, and certainly more once I’m back in the office next week.

This time, I used both Kayak and ITA’s Matrix to find my options, and I have to say that the results are miles above what’s available elsewhere. The big difference here is that these engines clearly are geared towards giving the user what they want. Instead of obsessing over having me on the same airline throughout my trip, Kayak and Matrix pull together the best times and prices for me, regardless of carrier. Finally someone’s getting the idea.

Though I found Kayak’s layout/interface and the flights it found to be better, these two tools will stay in my arsenal going forward (with a nod to SeatGuru, since I couldn’t live without that knowledge!).

Technorati Tags: podcast expo, travel

John F. Braun (who remains in Connecticut) and I are loosely planning to do a Mac Geek Gab podcast remotely but, there again, timing, schedules and technology are playing right along with us, so…no promises.

All in all it’s shaping up to be an excellent week. I’ll also have opportunity to don my BackBeat Media hat and speak with some developers about their marketing strategies, but the details of that will have to wait until after the conference starts. Rules are rules, or so they say.
More from the road, I would guess… if not, then certainly more when I return. If you’re going to be there, drop me a line.

Technorati Tags: wwdc