Cloud computing and iPhones/iTouch

Currently I'm often in the US for work, which is handy because work is close to an AppleStore and invariably I just have to go there and buy an iPod. In fact, given the exchange rates, I've had to go there every single time I've visited the US this year - there's a lot of people in Ireland that need cheap iPods.

So the current crop of pre-Xmas iPods arrived two weeks ago. Now I'm not sure I'm tempted - I have a 2nd-gen Nano and given that 4th gen are going back to 2nd gen form-factor and unusally for Apple kit, my 2nd-gen Nano is still going strong with battery life despite being used (and dropped) continuously.

But there is the new iTouch. It is pretty. I kinda want one - they are cheaper and slightly better than the old ones. I reason to myself that I want one for browsing the web (regardless of the fact that I'm pretty much connected to the net for at least 8 hours a day). I reason that I could have the holy grail, ubiquitous, fast, hassle-free access.

A lot of people are moving as much of their life (mail, docs, etc) onto cloud computing platforms (e.g. google/gmail/gdocs), meaning they can ditch the luggable and get a new sub-notebook / netbook. But I would go further. Why can't I pretty much do most quick tasks on an iTouch like formfactor.

• email
• banking
• government services
  
• messaging
• light web-browsing
• reading docs / pdf's.
  
• social networking

We are about to reach the point where the majority of new data generated daily will not be generated by corporations, governments and businesses, but by individuals, primarily using social-networking sites. Will there be a similar tipping point where most of this data is coming not from PC's, laptops or subnotebooks but from iTouch / blackberry devices?

If so, doesn't this mean we have a lot of work to do? In the last wave of mobilisation, when the dangerously oversold WAP technology was being pitched as the 'mobile internet'. A number of banks put some part of the banking systems online. But the limitations of the technology really hampered solutions and most were failures. The limitations nowadays are not about the protocol, the hardware or the bandwidth. They are about the screen and the input mechanism. This is where a lot of the thought of the second-wave of mobilisation needs to happen. Using the limited screen space to maximum effect. Any application that I habitually use today online in a web browser should be possible on an iTouch. Not some limited feature set. The whole thing.

This means no long HTML forms, but paged forms are okay. I should be able to partially save information (park it while I answer a phone call). Pre-filling / guessing information would be useful. Providing standard information from my iTouch to supply information (hint semantic tagging) as well as have my learn information I provide to my various sites, to help me when I'm filling information on other sites.