Is iPhone 3GS Apple’s netbook?

I must say that I’ve been one of the voices asking Apple for a netbook or tablet for a long time now. And I’ve tried many PC netbooks and I think they’re pretty cool and actually surprisingly useful even though they have small keyboards.

But after getting an iPhone 3GS I don’t feel the same need for Apple to bring out a netbook anymore. In fact, I find myself leaving my MacBook behind more and more and just working off of my iPhone. It’s a combination of things that makes that possible but most of all it’s the increased speed. Everything just happens right away and with 3G data on the go from everywhere I can do the things I need wherever and whenever.

Email: The iPhone has become a very strusted email partner for me. The speed of the 3GS certainly helps. I sort a lot of email into various folders and some of them I deal with later on my Mac. I use GMail to consolidate all my accounts and having access to all my email on the go is great.

Web: What can I say? Mobile Safari is great. Okay so it doesn’t have Flash support but I can live with that. Most sites I need to access work just fine on the iPhone.

Scheduling: I have access to our shared company calendar for viewing and editing and it has all the events and things I need to know about.

Twitter: My favorite Twitter client is Tweetie 2. With it I tweet just about as easily on the iPhone compared to Mac.

Facebook: I don’t spend as much time with Facebook as I used to but they’ve done a good job with their iPhone app. Basically I don’t feel I miss the full web site that much.

Landscape keyboard: The landscape keyboard functionality that arrives with iPhone OS 3.0 makes typing, at least for me, much better for me on iPhone. I make less mistakes and type faster. Not quite as fast as on a regular computer keyboard but close enough.

DropBox app: I’m a big fan of GetDropBox and having access to my files from the iPhone is great. I currently have some 30GB in my DropBox account and with the iPhone app I can at least view most of my files.

Documents To Go: I don’t work that much with Office documents like Word and Excel but sometimes it’s just a must. Currently I prefer Documents To Go for this. It allows me to sync Office documents from my Mac to my iPhone and I can also create and edit Word and Excel files on the iPhone.

EverNote: I use it mainly to take notes and capture info. In some ways it overlaps in functionality to DropBox but I use EverNote more for text information and some graphics and DropBox for my work files.

Google Docs: We work a lot with Google Docs at Shufflegazine and having access to them on the iPhone is a great help. I can’t create documents and editing is limited but that’s okay for now and I’m sure they’ll expand on that in the future.

So there you go, most of the functionality of a netbook in my much smaller iPhone 3GS. I’m not saying that iPhone can totally replace a netbook for everyone – having a larger screen and real keyboard is sometimes a must – but it can in many ways it can. I’ve found that with the increased speed of the 3GS I can leave my notebook behind, and that’s a great feeling.

What’s your experience? Does your iPhone replace a netbook/notebook, at least to some extend?

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