by cfmullen • Ever since it went on sale, I have been walking around with a pretty bad case of MacBook Air envy. So light, so thin, so cool, and oh so hard to justify buying - especially when you already own an almost brand new PowerBook and iPad. • But as things will happen, my son's six-year-old laptop died while he was writing his senior thesis at Princeton. So, of course, I gave him my MacBook Pro. And at the same time, I gave myself the excuse I needed to buy a MacBook Air. Apple crack. It’s an addiction. You just have to have it. • Just as I was about to skulk out the house and head down to Apple store, my wife staged an intervention. She blocked the front door and handed me a box. • I thought, at first, she had surprised me and bought me a new Air. But the packaging was far too mundane and brown to be from the design mafia at Apple. And besides, there was a Big Z on the outside of the box. • "It won best in show at MacWorld 2011," she said in the most tech savvy, condescending manner possible. "You'll see." • When I opened the box, I found the best accessory ever made for an Apple product (that wasn't designed by Jonathan Ive): the all-in-one ZAGGMate keyboard and iPad case. ZAGGMate’s deftly engineered case is made of the same techno-metal as my iPad. When I put my iPad on top of my new case, it seemed to disappear, morphing into a smooth aluminum rectangle. And, I swore I heard my iPad say, "You complete me." • Besides protecting my iPad in the coolest way possible, the ZAGGMate has turned my amazing iPad into a more amazing iPad. • The ZAGGMate unleashes the true potential of Apple's IOS. Now I can type and write on my iPad as easily and comfortably as I did on my Powerbook. Switching between apps is a breeze and incredibly useful. Plus, I can use all the standard keyboard shortcuts to cut and paste, undo or copy. Not to mention the arrow keys. Zoom-Zoom. • Could I write a novel on my iPad? Yes. But I would need a good idea, a lot of discipline and a gullible publisher. (Also, I would have to manage the files with my iMac.) A big plus to writing with IOS is you don't have to worry about saving your work. I am using iWriter now, but Pages works great, too. So from here on out, I will be writing all my emails and my blog posts on my iPad with ZAGGMate. And I am still able to use all those amazing Apps that make iPad so special and versatile. • So for my needs, dare I say it, I don't really need a MacBook Air. Sorry Steve. • PS: Two days after I wrote this post, Apple came out with the NEW iPad. • After gnashing my teeth and feeling terribly obsolete, I took a deep breath and pulled out my ZAGG and wrote this addendum. So for the 15 million folks who bought the first iPad (and can’t rationalize buying a new one ) check out the ZAGGMate. It’s still awesome.