hen you look at lives of tech-savvy people today, you will find, but not limited to, iPhones, Blackberrys, an array of mobile devices. In other venues there will be Dell Laptops, Apple MacBook Pros. Why? It seems as if this idea of cloud computing--access every where we go is a necessity. It is an unconscious duty to check your twitter account, or your facebook for the latest updates. Has cloud computing changed the way we live?

One may ask--What is cloud computing? Well Wikipedia put it this way; Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like the electricity grid. But why do we need a laptop to access our e-mail, or check our bank account, when these task are more frequent than building a PowerPoint presentation or making a clipping-mask in Adobe Illustrator? Do I need a MacBook Pro to check my facebook? Do I need a 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 processor to send an e-mail to Grandma? Why would I use an iPhone to surf the web? Or a BlackBerry Curve 8350i to read The New York Moon?

The iPhone has solved a lot of problems. It has allowed us to relax. Take away the clutter of what’s the norm, and keep what’s absolutely necessary--what you see. How many times do you use a keyboard when your reading the news at CNN.com? How long of an e-mail do I need to type to require a full-size QWERTY keyboard? I don’t wan’t to make the Apple iPad look good, I’m just thinking outside the box. I see the iPad as tool that will change the way we cloud compute. It makes it easier. Back in 2009 40 percent of iPhone users access the web more on a mobile device than on a PC.¹ Now it’s 2010 and 0.03 percent of all web traffic comes from the iPad,² in it’s first week of sales. Android passes iPhone in web traffic in the U.S,³ and Gartner marketing research firm predicts in 2010, 4.5 billion apps will sold on the iPhone, for a total of $6.8 billion in revenue.⁴ It seems that no one cares about laptops anymore. It’s a thing of the past. And I think you have an idea of revenue the iPhone forked in for iTunes.

Im spooked. This whole idea of internet living, cloud computing, social network has made a twist in American society. Your life is now on the web. I could talk about the bad things about the iPad, like the missing camera. The issue is your life. Once you get an iPad, iPhone, or Android your life will rapidly spread throughout the web. It’s more convenient. No loading screen that says “Windows XP...oops, Windows Vista.” No spinning Apple wheel. No more scrubbing through applications to find your web browser, or mail--just tap. You don’t have to type in http://www.facebook.com, just tap the “f”. Were talking rapid-life-updates. Who would want to go on facebook if they had to wait 3 minutes for Internet Explorer 6 to load? With the iPad, one wouldn’t think twice about a privacy policy. Why not add my address to the social network info? Oh, and then my siblings and parents? and maybe my geolocation coordinates which facebook is planning on implementing.⁵ In case you need to find me, just check my facebook.

It seems as if this is what people are looking for. So maybe there’s not an issue. Maybe individuals do want to go to www.pandora.com without logging in and it starts playing your favorite music, with a friendly invitaion saying; “Hi Aman. Pandora is using Facebook to personalize your experience.” Maybe people do want to visit http://www.spokeo.com and see half there information from facebook. And the iPad makes it very easy to keep these all updated for Mr. Web Crawler.

I must say that as a web designer, I can't help but be snatched into the web of cloud computing. The iPad is the future. We're already being asked to make applications for the iPad/iPhone, so that means we have to get one. As the iPad's popularity grows, clients are going to want their site to look nice on the iPad. And if your not using a 960 grid system, the site might show up funny. Major networks like CNN, TEDtv, Reuters, ESPN and others, were pulling their hair getting ready for the launch of the Apple iPad. Their sites where incompatible with the iPad. They used Adobe Flash which is not available on the iPad nor the iPhone, and switched to HTML5. But that's not to ugly for me since I try to avoid Flash.

The greater issue is you are pretty much public domain. Twitter, facebook, myspace, have all joined cahoots with the media. So if you do something big, and it hits mass media, they go to facebook for press images and place a nice little © facebook below the picture. Not only that, when you apply for a job human resources is going to check you out. Your statuses, your pictures, your post, your tweets--just to see your. . .life. Cloud computing right? I call it “iPadlicdomain”.