Last week was the first time that I actually considered my iPhone as an actual computer. The reason for this was actually out of necessity rather than me trying to be clever. I had the morning to myself, and I’d decided to go the mall, do some writing/creating. The issue was that my computer’s battery was completely drained and even so, it doesn’t typically last more than like 2-3 hours depending on what I’m using it for.

I solved my battery issue by dusting off my wireless keyboard (originally bought 4 years ago for my mac mini) and decided to use my iPhone instead. Bluetooth’ed the keyboard to my iPhone and I was off. The really surprising thing is of course that the size of the screen was more than adequate for my needs. In fact I was on such a roll that I reduced my inbox down to no emails (by replying to all the people that I kept putting off), wrote 7 scripts for my comic strip, wrote the previous post and this post - in short, a lot of writing.

Then I got to thinking why I was able to do this? Why was I able to focus so distinctly? Basically this setup is the ultimate in distraction free computing. The iPhone will allow you to work in one environment at a time. There is a focus that comes into play in the constraints of such a system. There are no other things that can distract you from actually doing other things. No comics you’ve downloaded, no music you could be fiddling to download. Hell, my computer system can be a distraction in and of itself.

This setup stops that dead in it’s track. The biggest part of the whole setup is the keyboard, and that is without a doubt the smallest keyboard on the market. 4 years later it’s still and industrial marvel for me. Sure it would be great to have a larger screen, but it’s not terrible. It’s a minor constraint. The great thing that you get from such as set up, is carrying is much much less and the battery life is INSANELY good compared to any single computer.

So I sit here actually computing while listening to internet radio (which I’m recording as well), while typing on a bluetoothed keyboard wirelessly and can go on for hours without having to really think about battery life or whatever.

The whole thing really blows my mind.

All the keyboard fuctions work as well, from the volume controls to the brightness functions. The elegance is insane. For those that have the above items, I strongly urge you to give it a go sometime, you might be surprised by what you end up coming up with.