Living the iLife

Mark Prigg, Science and Technology Editor
23 Aug 2010

Techno-savvy Londoners are abandoning their worldy possessions and instead living their lives out of a laptop. The digital minimalist is able instantly to access their music, photos and film collection from any computer in the world - and to move house (and country) at the drop of a hat.

This means the end of the CD, DVD and book collections, as well as the TV and Sky box.

Hermione Way is a 25-year-old entrepreneur who lives in Covent Garden. She is in the final stages of transferring her life online and selling her possessions.

Everything to do with her existence, including her business, online video-production site newspepper.com, is run from three gadgets: a MacBook, an iPad and an iPhone.

"I don't have a CD or DVD collection and I'm in the process of chucking out all my books as I can read them on my iPad," Way says. "I haven't owned a TV for three years. I can watch online, and use things such as iPlayer and 4OD TV to see programmes from anywhere on the planet."

The key advantage to living from a laptop, Way says, is the freedom.

"Books and things are clutter, and I now feel I can get up and go anywhere in the world, and that's incredibly liberating. I can't think of anything I miss. I've just come back from three months in San Francisco - I had a pack with some clothes in it and my handbag with my computer inside.

"I don't need physical possessions, and I don't want them. I have a flat in London but I don't have much there - I rented it out while I was in America and I didn't really have to move that much stuff out."

Even Way's business follows the principle of living in the "cloud" - the invisible, giant internet space where people store and access their data. She recently gave up renting an office for three full-time employees in favour of a private members' club.

"We looked at the prices of clubs and decided it wasn't worthwhile having an office any more, so now we work from The Hospital in Covent Garden, which we also use for meetings. The only thing you need to be able to do this is a fast WiFi connection," Way says.

The emergence of cloud technology has freed people from being dependent on their laptop's hard drive and has got around the biggest potential drawback to living your life from a laptop: what happens if your machine is stolen or breaks down.

"All my data is stored online, so even if I lose my computer, it's not a big problem, I just log in from another machine and my information, music, pictures and other files are all there," says Way. "The only downside is that I am a total internet addict. I feel anxiety if I can't go online for half an hour - I think my online life is far more exciting than my offline one."

While once it was the domain of the tech-nerd, now digital minimalism is going mainstream, with even the most technophobic consumers transferring their CD collections onto their laptops. Compact disc sales have declined by roughly 50 per cent from 2005 levels worldwide, while global revenue from digital music has nearly quadrupled in the same period, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

Photography has also been revolutionised for the everyday user, with the death of the photo album as snappers go digital and use sites such as Facebook or Flickr on which to store their photographs.

Experts say the book is the next item on the digital minimalism list. The advent of the iPad and the ebook, such as Amazon's Kindle, have seen consumer electronic book sales triple between 2008 and 2009, while physical book sales slowed, according to the Association of American Publishers.

However, for the ultimate in iLifestyles, you need to sell off any property you own as well. London writer Paul Carr, 30, sold his flat in East Dulwich and now lives out of hotels, with just a laptop and a few clothes. Currently working in San Francisco, he says the experience has been incredibly liberating - and financially beneficial. "If you take into account the mortgage, council tax and all the other bills such as broadband and a travelcard, it is massively affordable," Carr says.

"Of course, anyone can stay in a Fawlty Towers hotel really cheaply but using online sites to get good deals means I can stay in boutique hotels for less than the price of the monthly mortgage payments on my flat - even though London is the hardest city to find cheap hotels in."

Carr says that after selling his flat in 2008, he has now adapted to life in hotels. "It's really addictive and I can't see myself going back. I've got my life in hand luggage now, and I can pack and be out in five minutes.

"I had a storage room for a year but now I just have a shoebox of mementos at my parents' place. Even when I go home for Christmas, my parents are hoteliers, so I end up in a hotel then. All I need is a WiFi connection."

Technology has been the key to Carr's move. "All I have is a laptop, and I have virtually nothing on it," he says. "I use Google Mail and Google Documents for work, last.fm and Spotify for music, and lovefilm or netflix for video."

However, Carr admits that the biggest problem with his lifestyle is how he interacts with his friends.

"You do have to be a certain type of person to do this but, oddly, I now actually see much more of my friends - it's easy to not bother when you're living in the same city, but every time we're in the same city now, we meet up.

"It's incredibly easy to live the iLife.I'd really recommend everyone give it a go."

Aids to living the i-life

Webmail
By using a web-based email service such as Gmail or Hotmail you can access your email from anywhere. If you have a separate work email address, simply forward all mail to your webmail account so you can see everything in one place, and keep a copy in "the cloud".

Spotify
Don't worry about losing your MP3 files - simply stream everything to your computer or phone through Spotify.

Last.fm
If you prefer the radio, Last.fm is a brilliant cloud equivalent and learns what music you like - it can warn you when your favourite band is playing live.

Google Documents
The perfect cloud replacement for your word processor, spreadsheet and other office essentials, this offers the same features stored on Google's servers - it also means you'll never leave a vital document at home, as you can access Google documents from any machine.

Dropbox
The online file locker lets you to access files from anywhere. It's like having your own internet-connected hard drive.

Lovefilm
You can pay to stream films online. Also try blinkbox and skyplayer.

Online TV
All major channels have online services to view their programmes. With tvcatch up.com it's even possible to watch most UK channels live on your computer.