Well I am finally back from Los Angeles and settled in at home. Nearly 8 weeks with only an iPad and I came out remarkably unscathed. A few key apps (Goodreader, Pages, and AirSharing for printing) saved the day countless times.

A funny thing happened recently though. While in California I arranged for pickup of an iPhone4 at a local Apple Store. Was lucky enough to get my order in and confirmed by email for pickup on Day 1 – June 24. The scene at the store was hilarious and fun. I had to wait about an hour – not so bad. Since I didn’t have access to my household iMac for syncing and setup, i used the store wifi to download apps. I kind of enjoyed the app reset. I have far fewer apps now (ironic since folders makes organization so much easier) and I like it that way.

But the funny thing is that between the improvements to the email client, and multitasking, I am actually reaching for my iPhone more in relation to my iPad than I had been when using my 3GS and iOS3. It was probably 80/20 iPad/iPhone. Now its more Ike 50/50. iOS4 really is that much better to me. And I didn’t even particularly think I missed not having multitasking 🙂

I can hardly wait for iOS4 to hit the iPad, and I am eagerly awaiting the iPad-specific changes that will hopefully come with it. I assume/hope that the recent improvements to iDisk, and web versions of mobile me apps, portend bigger and better things for the iPad when it comes to productivity and file system type stuff.

Speaking of which, I have yet to switch away from my current workflow…Goodreader for primary file system, Air sharing for printing, and Pages/Numbers for productivity. I am tempted by DropBox + QuickOffice, or Google Docs and the apparently increasing number of apps designed to work with GD. But I am really holding out for a unified solution from Apple. No matter how robust 3rd party solutions may be or become, I can’t help but think that Apple could blow them out of the water if only they decided to do so.

Getting back to the Mail improvements in iOS4, I would still truly love the ability to collapse and expand folders, and have the app remember the state of those folders (perhaps even sync the state across devices!) I am a major nester of folders and subfolders to archive my email so this is a big deal for me. Sorry to keep harping on it 🙂

EDIT: forgot to mention…one of the best things about iOS4 Mail is the ability to move messages from one account to another. Saweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!! Cant wait to have that on the iPad!!