I am very pleased with my new iPad 2.

With a Speck plastic cover snapped on the back of the iPad, and an Apple Smart Cover protecting the front, I am happy to carry it almost everywhere.

It is a great drawing tool, using apps like Brushes or AutoDesk Sketchbook. I love it.

I ported my cell number to Google Voice, moving it from AT&T. It was painless, taking roughly 24 hours to complete.

Since I was out of contract, and starting to consider a move to a new phone and perhaps a new carrier, I thought it would be good to take a break from carrying a smart phone at all.  Seems like a good way to observe what I am missing, see what I value most in the device I have spent the last two years using – the iPhone 3G.

What does this gain me?

• Valuable (I hope) insight into the utility and value of having a mobile phone/internet connection with me at all times.
• I am saving the money I spent having my iPhone on the plan at AT&T.
• I can receive calls on my desk phone in my office. For some reason, getting a good signal with AT&T in my office has been less than reliable. And since most of my waking hours during the week are spent in the office, it makes sense to do that.
• I can receive calls on another cell phone, like a prepaid phone, when I decide I actually need one.

Should be interesting. Will it be the games I miss, or checking email and twitter feeds?

The honeymoon was already over for some of the other applications I had been using daily. One of the apps I used the most was Cyclemeter, a really terrific tool for tracking my bicycling. When I discovered that there was no way to export in bulk the data, I no longer felt like using it. I could just as easily track my rides in a notebook.  If I knew I was going to keep carrying around an iPhone, using Cyclemeter would make sense.