In the Parlance of Our Times

What people who don't use Apple products don't get is how Apple pays attention to the little details that make the difference between a product just functioning and a product functioning elegantly. (Miele is another company that does this.)

Take the Airport Express, for instance. I've had mine for nearly three years now and can't imagine being without it. At home I've used it to stream music, extend my wifi network, and to make a usb printer available on the network. And that's all cool. But here's where the detail stuff comes in: Apple lets you store up to 5 configurations, called profiles, in the Airport Express. Each profile allows you to configure the Airport express for the various purposes it can serve. One profile can make it a wireless client to stream music, for instance, but not provide network access, another can make it an access point to connect to a network and distribute IP addresses, another can just make it a bridge to a network, and so on.

Why would I want to change the configuration on any regular basis? Because when I travel, I bring the Airport Express with me and use it to provide wireless access in hotel rooms where only wired internet access is provided. When travelling with just one laptop, it's mostly a convenience factor (though I recently used the Airport Express to get free internet access in a hotel room where free wireless was provided only in the lobby). When travelling with two laptops, it allows both of us to use the internet at the same time while only paying one connection fee. And when travelling with the iPhone, it gives wireless internet access where otherwise I would have only AT&T's EDGE access.

It's the profiles feature of the Airport Express that really makes this all work easily. I've set up several profiles for handling the various situations and just switch between them depending on my requirements of the moment. No hassle, no fuss. I love it.

A couple of months ago, before the iPhone was released, I was telling Jason that rumors of a video iPod with wi-fi were making me rethink the need for an iPhone. After all, an iPod with video and wi-fi would do most of what I wanted the iPhone for, without the need for a monthly contract. No, Jason said, it's not the same; a cell phone with data service gives you the internet from anywhere and that makes all the difference.

Having just completed my first trip with the iPhone, I'd have to say that Jason was right. EDGE data service over the iPhone turned out to be way more valuable than wi-fi, and not just where wi-fi was unavailable. In three out of the three hotels we stayed at, wi-fi was available but barely useable. At the last place we stayed I did a speed test using EDGE and then again using the hotel wi-fi. EDGE won out over the hotel wi-fi by about 50%!

Since we were visiting big cities on the east coast, EDGE was much faster than it is here at home - usually 150 kbs or faster. So checking and sending email, using google maps, even web browsing all happened at speeds that didn't make me want to pull my hair out. I had decided to make this trip without a laptop, to see if the iPhone could provide all the functionality I needed. The experiment was a success; I never missed the laptop. The one thing I thought I'd miss about the laptop - access to the NYTimes crossword - was easily solved by buying the newspaper.

While using EDGE at the hotel kept me free from the frustrations of bad hotel wi-fi, the real value of the iPhone was in the ability to use the web and Google Maps wherever we happened to be. We were driving from Brooklyn to Manhattan in a cargo van and were forced (by a very nice policeman who didn't give us a ticket!) to make a sudden change in our route. Being totally unfamiliar with the area we would have had a hard time figuring out how to get to our destination without the help of Google Maps. Later in the day we used Safari to determine which, if any, of the IKEA stores in the NYC area had certain items in stock before deciding which one to drive out to. Another time we used the phone to pinpoint the exact location of a restaurant we'd visited last year, saving Louise and Michael the usual agony of following me up and down streets as I tell them "I know it's around here someplace; let's just go down one more block..."

After this trip, I think I need to revise my earlier description of the iPhone. It's not just a cool toy. It's my new cool travel essential.