I plan to use my Droid phone on the hike. In one device, I have a 5MP camera, a digital compass, a GPS, a map, an SMS and e-mail device, access to the internet, and a phone.
In general, I agree with leaving technology out of the wilderness but am willing to make exceptions. I will use discretely around the shelters and will use it sparingly in general to preserve battery. We will take a charger that works with 2 AA batteries. I will keep it in a Pelican case.
Primarily I will use it in trail towns. The map and GPS will show me where I am, and where the pizza is. My main purpose is to update our trail journal. It would be nice to enter short updates and a daily photo if possible. I have looked at three web sites to post the trail journals.
My preference would be to use trailjournals.com because it seems to have the best "community". But there is no interface for mobile devices so you need to update from a PC or use a transcriber. I updated it directly using the phones browser but it is a pain. Also, I cannot include pictures I have taken on the phone.
My second choice was postholer.com. They have a mobile version of their website and have the ability to post your location on their google maps overlay of the AT. You can also update via email and include pictures but it is a pain as well because you have to use special 15 character codes and curly braces (all a pain on a cell phone) in order to associate it with your post.
So blogger.com is my choice. I have made updates using the Droid and is easy. The main site is of course a pain from a mobile device but it also has a mobile site that is usable. But using email is so easy that the others are almost unnecessary. I just send an email with my update and a photo to a special coded address and it appears in my blog with the appropriate date/timestamp. The email can include multiple pictures.
And for "community", I will use whiteblaze.net.
