I was in San Francisco last week and I got myself an iPod Touch while I was out there, which (if you’ve been off-planet) is a little like the iPhone, without the phone. In other words, it has the gorgeous interface, web access via wifi and 16 GB’s of storage (as opposed to the rather measly 8 with the iPhone). And of course, it doesn’t come with an expensive contract, slow network connection or tempt you to unlock it and turn the device into a useless brick when you next upgrade your firmware.

I’ve always been quite bearish about the iPhone, mainly for the reasons I just stated. But the iPod Touch is without doubt not only the best MP3 player ever, but also the best, beautiful and fantastic gadget I’ve ever used.

Not only that, but it’s already changed the way I behave and I think provides us with a glimpse of the future. OK, it’s an MP3 player, with a cool, geeky interface. But the revolution is having their Safari browser connected permanently to my wifi network.

Like most of us, I spend a good proportion of my time on a ‘puter and have 4 in various rooms in the house. So there’s never one very far away, whatever I might be doing and wherever I happen to be. Very often I’ll read something offline (in a book or magazine) and go to a ‘puter to find out more. Or I’ll have a thought I want to write down or investigate further and again, off I go. Or I just want to check out YouTube, Facebook or LinkedIn. But now I have a device that I carry around that’s always on, always online on a fast connection (at home at least), with an interface that’s better than a key board (or certainly as good) and always in reach. So my use of my PCs has dramatically fallen in just a weekend.

I’ve been saying for a very long time now that someday soon, the mobile will become the device that most people will use most of the time to access the digital world. And that the mobile will do to the PC what the PC did to the mainframe. But the Touch is the first time that I’ve had the evidence for it.

Of course, things need to happen to get there. Our PCs need to be replaced by docking stations, with full size keyboards and monitors, so we can dock our mobiles into them to get full functionality. Though who knows if voice will eventually take over the command interface? We need faster, more reliable, affordable network connections when we’re outside our home or office wifi. And handset manufacturers need to upgrade their game to Apple standard, or Apple’s going to kill them, once they overcome the incredibly basic, but solvable, errors inherent in V1 of the iPhone.

But all this is within reach quite soon and, as today’s iPod Touch shows for me, most of my non-work web access will now be via this truly amazing little device. And I’ll undoubtedly use the MP3 functionality sometimes too.

My only whinge is that it doesn’t come with even a basic carrying case, which just seems mean.

Changing the subject a little, I was on the West Coast buying my Touch but mainly hanging around AdMob’s offices in San Mateo. It’s always very strange for me to visit. Firstly, the jetlag gives it something of a dreamlike quality and boy, I really suffer badly while I’m there - conversely, I bounce straight back just about as soon as I de-plane back in Europe. But it is a little like being someone else for every trip.

Even though I run the European operation and am obviously in touch with San Mateo all the time, it’s also very strange seeing a successful startup grow so rapidly, but in snap shots of 3 months, or 6 weeks sometimes. My first trip was actually to see Omar in Philadelphia on St Patrick’s Day 2006 where he was doing his MBA. AdMob was little more than proof of concept at that stage. Then, I became the first hire, the funding was arranged and the team suddenly increased by a third as the invaluable Mike Rowehl joined Omar, now on the West Coast, in a tiny office in Sequoia Capital’s incubator offices on the legendary Sand Hill Road. And after that, there’s new faces and names to learn on every trip, as well as new offices, which also keep expanding every time I visit.

This trip was also weird, as I experienced my first real earthquake - 5.6 on the Richter Scale and described on the TV news flash as “moderate”. No one was hurt, fortunately.

I’m sure you get used to them if you live there, but if you’ve been through an experience where the building shakes and things fall off shelves, you spend quite a lot of time wondering when the next one is coming and running the “Drop, Cover and Hold On” mantra through your head.