PHOTO COURTESY OF APPLE

Our digital marketing and new media expert  Mitch Joel weighs in on Apple's latest. 

We're moments away from Apple letting us Canadians play (for real) with it's new touch-tablet, the iPad. Some of my road warrior brethren have already crossed the border to bring one home, and yes,  I've had the good fortune to spend some time with the iPad. But here's the big question: can the iPad replace laptops and all the wire that go with them? And is this the ultimate business tool for those on the go? Well, the answer is ...

Almost. 

Or, as Maxwell Smart used to say: missed it by that much! Here's a run-through of the best and the worst about the iPad.  The great? iPad is: 

Super thin: It's going to be hard to find a form more favourable than this for the business traveller going forward. 

Brilliantly crisp. The screen is amazing. The glare is almost  non-existent and everything looks very fresh and new.
 
Great for books, movies, TV and pictures. Considering that you can't always hooked up to an Internet connection, it's good to know that any type of media resident on this device plays, reads, looks and sounds great. 

Full of amazing app potential. You can rest assured that  the recent gold rush we've seen for iPhone apps will pale in comparison to  what is being developed for the iPad. Apps like Trip-It, Flight Tracker, Kayak and more make this an indispensible tool for the ultraportable road warrior. 

A completely re-invented way of dealing with email. The ease of flicking through email does make going  through a lot of mail fairly painless and much more visually appealing. 

You can almost do everything with it – but it's not a smartphone or a laptop, so you're going to have to curb your apprehensions and think of it as a device that is between the two. It will take some getting used to, but after a few minutes, it will be obvious that this type of device will become the business traveller's standard going forward. 

Think about sitting next to a client in an office or hotel lobby and how great it will be to demo products, review videos or even go through presentations. This is going to be perfect for on-the-go sales reps, realtors, artists, and for anybody who does small group presentations.

The not-so-great? Ipad is: 

Not as light as you may think. Granted, it's not as heavy as your standard laptop, but there's just too much goodness in the iPad for it not to be a little on the heavy side. 

It needs a cover. Or a slip or something. No one wants to scratch up a screen that beautiful. If someone releases a cover that can also triple as a stand  and can be angled better for typing, that will change many people's current  complaints about what the iPad doesn't do so well. 

Difficult to type with for those on the go.  The iPad lies flat, and it's not easy to type while hunched over an airline food tray, or while sitting at the gate. If someone can create the ultimate slip cover from the last point, we've got a winner, winner, chicken dinner! 

Lacking a camera and phone. For the road warrior, having the ability to use Skype would be a huge bonus.  

Not seamless with wi-fi technology. No one wants to be tethered to a connection, so the 3G with wi-fi version is the only way to go. The problem is that wireless and wi-fi technology hasn't been perfected yet. So, while it's a negative, this is more of an indictment on our current state of connectivity. 

Lacking Flash. Flash has become a standard technology to view websites, so while Apple battles it out with Flash's owners, some websites will be a challenge.

Overall, it's important to remember that this is only the first generation of the iPad, so it hasn't found its legs. That being said, it is an awesome piece of technology that will have your flight mates leaning over your shoulder for a look. Expect all of the bad listed above to be fixed in upcoming iterations (which won't take too long). The iPad is going to change mobile computing, and it is going to become an integral part of the road warrior's arsenal. And, remember, if you can't wait for the next generation iPad, it's not an iPhone or a laptop… it's an iPad, so keep your expectations in check.

 Mitch Joel | mitch@twistimage.com

Voice recorders have always been handy for remembering things, thinking aloud through business challenges or sending to-dos to your assistant. In the past few years, these devices have come a long way. The Olympus LS-10 Linear PCM Recorder, which features 2 GB of built-in memory and has a slot for an additional SD card, is nothing short of a portable digital audio studio. For the past few months, this is the tool I’ve been using to record my audio podcast. And that’s the other fun part: Now, if you’re feeling like you’re constantly in the air and not spending enough time with your teams, you can use this to share your stories – it’s like your own internal podcast. The hand-held device records in WAV, MP3 and WMA file formats, making the content easy to transfer, edit and share.

Sure, the latest tech can help you get down to work wherever you are. But time on the road (and in the air) is also the perfect opportunity to let loose and play. Sudoku was never my thing, and lugging around a hardcover of Dan Brown’s latest just isn’t in the cards. So, in the spirit of March Break, here are two of my favourite ways to kill time when not strapped to e-mail or grappling with a smartphone.

Have you ever dreamt of becoming the mayor of Yorkville or Yaletown? Now is your chance. One of the hottest games, applications and online social networks – yes, it’s all three and more – is Foursquare. This app for the iPhone and Android phones (though it can also be accessed by any mobile device with a browser) allows you to “check in” and tell your friends where you are, so they can recommend where to shop and eat and what to do nearby. As more and more people connect, you learn more about the best spots to frequent, and the more you go to a specific place (and tell your social network), the more status you earn for that locale. And yes, you can be named “mayor” of your favourite bar, restaurant or hotel. You can also receive hyper-local offers (like free appetizers at certain restaurants) and, as with the best of video games, you can unlock badges that give you real-life street cred (and some additional goodies).

For those of you who’d rather stay in your hotel room, the Cinemin Swivel lets you project a crisp 60-inch image from over eight feet away. This amazing multimedia pico projector is about the size of two packs of cards but still lets you get that movie theatre experience for around $300. It pulls your video files right from your iPod or iPhone (or you can use a VGA-to-AV adapter to connect a laptop). The coolest part about this mini-projector is the 90-degree swivel hinge that makes it simple to project on any surface – even the hotel-room ceiling.

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Living in the moment is one thing, but being able to share memories of the Olympic Winter Games with everyone you know is priceless. Here are three winners that made it onto my personal techie podium for the Games.

Gold goes to the Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera, which is quickly becoming the standard for top video bloggers and podcasters. Despite its super-small size, it has a healthy 2.5-inch screen and captures video in stunning 1080p HD. You can store everything on standard SD/SDHC cards, and it holds up to a 32GB card, which is about 10 hours of recording. The Zi8 also beats the competing Flip Video cameras. First, it has an external microphone jack, so you can buy an extra mic and clip it on for near-professional audio to go along with the HD video clarity. Second, it takes amazing 5-megapixel widescreen HD still pictures. While you might not think 5 megapixels is a lot in a world of 12-megapixel point-and-shoot cameras, it’s plenty unless you’re planning on blowing up your pictures to poster size. On top of that, with a simple push of a button, the Zi8 pops out a USB plug, so you can connect it to your laptop and upload from the camera directly to YouTube, Facebook and Flickr – no cables required and no need to wait until you get home to share the glory of the Games.

Silver goes to the Powermat. Finally, you can travel without all those pesky wires. The Powermat has both portable and home/office versions, but you’ll instantly fall in love with the travel version. All you do is attach a small receiver to the back of your favourite devices – iPhone, BlackBerry or digital camera – and when you place them on the Powermat, they charge wirelessly (and as fast as if you plugged them into a wall outlet). Travelling with the Powermat means no longer worrying about which adapter goes with what device.

Bronze goes to the iPhone App Store, which can turn your average cellphone into a personal remote control for everything connected with the Winter Games. Sure, you have to pay for some of the apps, but what’s a few dollars if it means you’ll be smarter and more informed than the people sitting next to you? You can track events and medal wins and even find great places to eat and hang out in Vancouver to celebrate. Pushing it further, apps like AroundMe also fill you in on places to eat, stay and visit. The Nearby listing lets you find interesting information from Wikipedia about what is around you, wherever you are. It even gives the distance of your destination from where you are and a map view/route on how to get there, plus you can e-mail the information to a friend. Think of it as your personal concierge out West.

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It’s hard enough to keep track of what your friends and followers are saying on Twitter, let alone all of the great Olympic sports content pumping through this micro-blogging platform. TweetDeck is an amazing stand-alone appli­cation that you can download to your computer or use as an iPhone app. This multicolumn viewing application allows you to select specific keywords (like “alpine skiing,” “figure skating” or “ice hockey”), which you will then see in their own unique columns. Think of TweetDeck as NORAD for your Olympic Games Twitter experience. In one quick glance, you can read, follow and respond to everything as it happens in near-real time.

Now when you're relaxing poolside at the Miami Four Seasons, you'll be able to catch up on your reading by borrowing a Kindle. Actually, since it's their Kindle, it's not really your reading, is it? Which raises an interesting question about this new amenity: how does a luxury hotel like this decide what to put in their loaner libraries? There's the Times, of course, but we've always been able to read the paper by the pool. The press release says they'll be loaded with "37 best-sellers and classics by literary luminaries including Dan Brown, Jane Austen and Bram Stoker." Dan Brown? A literary luminary? Really? At least they seem to be casting a wide net. 

I was stuck, and it was my own fault. After a long flight delay, I found myself in New York City, walking toward one of the most challenging places in which to find a healthy meal: Times Square. Beyond pizza, hot cashew nuts and a pastrami sandwich bigger than my head, I had no idea where to turn. So I turned to Twitter and sent out a request to my online community for a healthy, fast and fairly priced meal. I wasn’t expecting much. Maybe “What? Are you saying that the Carnegie Deli is not fat-free?” But within a few minutes, I had the information I needed and, based on multiple recommendations, managed to eat a lightly seared piece of fresh tuna with vegetables at Blue Fin (attached to the W New York Hotel in Times Square). The “wisdom of crowds” (a term coined by James Surowiecki in his bestselling business book of the same name) prevailed. Amazingly, Blue Fin was also on Twitter and even thanked me for my patronage.

Without question, using hardware, software and mobile applications in order to adopt a healthier lifestyle is one of the best uses of technology for health-conscious road warriors. And it’s more than just restaurant recommendations. Travel and tech really come together in connecting you to other like-minded people.

Sure, if you’re looking to, say, monitor your running, you can grab the amazing Nike + tech for your iPod/iPhone to tell you how fast you’re going or to help you choose a playlist to keep your pace up. But along with Nike + comes an amazing online community that includes iPhone apps and discussion groups, where people are connecting to organize running groups and create running routes based on things like length of run, difficulty and even scenery. (There’s also lots of conversation around healthy meals and dieting tips for both pre- and post-runs.) So even when you’re out on the road and away from your regular routine, technology and online communities are there to help keep you both motivated and healthy.

Whether you’re looking for a delicious smoothie, a way to track your fitness or someone to connect with for dinner or a game of Ultimate Frisbee, technology can help you surround yourself with the right people. In other words, with a little research, business travel doesn’t have to mean taking time out from your health.

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Remember when the idea of having 500 songs on one device seemed a little excessive? Even though iPods are not the cheapest of consumer electronics, I recently decided to take my old iPod (“iRecycle”) and turn it from a backup hard drive for my laptop into my music iPod and my iPod touch into my learning iPod. As seamless as switching from songs to podcasts is on the iPod, I was having a hard time managing all of my media. Now when it’s time to hit the gym, I grab the iPod that is filled to the brim with tunes only and leave it in the bag, and when I’m waiting at the gate or for the seatbelt sign to turn on, you’ll find me filling the space between my ears with audio and video education and insight. Two iPods for two very different uses – who would have thought?

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It’s the most depressing and most useful iPhone application for the travelling foodie in your life. Healthy and Fit Communities (healthyandfitcommunities.com) serves up a Restaurant Nutrition application that displays the nutritional value of menu items from some of the bigger chains. If it’s not depressing enough to realize just how fattening that double cheese bacon burger is, the app can also track what you have eaten on an ongoing basis and can even be tied into its own online health community. It will look at everything from fat content and protein to sugar and carbs and is constantly updated with new menu items. So if you’re worried about what you’re eating or if you want to get serious about eating better on the road, this may just be the perfect fit.

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It wasn’t too long ago that if you called someone a geek, it was grounds for a good pounding. Now it’s cooler to be Larry Page than Brad Pitt (and even Mr. Pitt was on the cover of Wired a few months back). “Geek” is a term of endearment. So how do you shop for the geek in your life?

ThinkGeek is a veritable Walmart of gizmos, gadgets and toys for the tech jockeys on your list. Where else can you get a T-shirt that says “What Happens in the Holodeck Stays in the Holodeck”? And no, it’s not just Star Trek paraphernalia (although those interactive tribbles would make a great office desk accessory). You can also get next-generation technology like the Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard, which projects a real working virtual keyboard onto any flat surface. Imagine the heads that will turn in the airport lounge.

Rolex and Breitling are nice, but the wacky watch selection at Tokyoflash Japan, designed and created in a limited edition from the streets of Japan, might be more within reach. I’m currently sporting a Tokyo Time Evolution Barcode IP Black that I picked up in Thailand, though you can now buy it online. Beyond being stopped daily and asked if that’s really a watch I’m wearing – it does look more like something out of The Matrix than a timepiece – the sole act of explaining how to tell the time on these tech beauties makes them worth the price. (Each watch tells the time in a very different way.)

If the person you’re shopping for likes a bit of the old with a bit of the new, consider the Pulse smartpen from Livescribe. This “pen” (which is about the size of a Sharpie marker) records the audio part of meetings, but what makes the Pulse truly unique is what happens after you adjourn. By pointing the pen to a specific note you wrote, you can instantly play back the audio from that exact moment in the meeting. The pen comes with special paper, which can be bought as refills. (You can also print your own paper from a standard printer when you run out.) Now you don’t have to make heads or tails of that chicken scratch anymore. You can hear what was being debated in the room as often as you like and keep it for posterity.

People who love technology and gadgets are now even easier to shop for (thank you, Intertubes!). And while most of us have moved beyond the idea that the perfect gift is anything with flashing buttons, sometimes that works just as well.

Mitch Joel is the president of Twist Image with offices in Montreal and Toronto. His first book, Six Pixels of Separation, named after his blog and podcast, is in stores now.

Write to us: letters@enroutemag.net