iPhone J.D.

Review: HomePod mini -- a speaker and so much more at a great price

In mid-2017, Apple announced the HomePod and started shipping it in early 2018.  According to the reviews, the audio quality is great, but with an introductory price of $349 (it now sells for $299), and with Apple encouraging you to get two or more for multi-room audio or stereo, I considered it too expensive to be worth it for me.  And I get the sense that lots of others felt the same way. 

In late 2020, Apple introduced the HomePod mini, and this one made me pay more attention, although I still wasn't sure if it was for me.  At only $99, the price was far more attractive.  The smaller size meant that the audio was not quite as loud and full as the HomePod but it needed less space.  Although I had not even mentioned to my wife that I was thinking about it, she knows me well and bought me a pair of HomePod minis for Christmas.  I've now been using them for just over two months, and I love them.  If you have been wondering whether these are worth having, my answer is a very strong yes.  Here is why.

Design

The HomePod mini is indeed mini.  At only 3.3” tall and 3.9” wide, it doesn’t take up much space.   The weight is .76 lb. 

The built-in power cord is only about 4’10” so you will want to place it reasonably close to a wall outlet unless you use an extension cord.  But unlike a typical speaker, 360° music comes out of all of the sides of the small round ball, so it doesn’t have to face any particular direction.  The speakers are pointed down so that music bounces off of the surface that is holding the HomePod mini.

The outside of the device is wrapped in an acoustic mesh fabric, and you can choose between white or black.  I haven't seen the white model in person, but the black looks great.

The top of the HomePod mini is typically a black circle.  But when Siri is listening to or responding to a command, that display becomes illuminated with moving colors.

When a HomePod mini is playing music, there is a soft white light in the middle of the black circle.  With that light, you can see the - and + that will allow you to change the volume on the HomePod mini.  (You can also adjust the volume from an iPhone.)

Pass the music

There are a few different ways to get music to start playing on a HomePod mini (including using Siri, which I discuss below), but one of the most interesting (and satisfying) is to pass the music using Handoff.  Start playing a song on your iPhone and then put your iPhone near the top of the HomePod mini.  As you start to do so, you will feel a slight vibration on your iPhone, a signal that the song has passed from your iPhone to the HomePod mini.  At that point, the music stops playing on your iPhone and starts playing on the HomePod mini.

If the HomePod mini is already playing a song, you can also do the reverse, although it works a little differently.  Put your iPhone close to the HomePod mini until you feel the vibration.  At that point, your iPhone screen will show you what is playing on the HomePod mini and will show a button that you can tap to transfer the music back to your iPhone.

You can also send music from an iPhone to a HomePod mini by tapping the AirPlay icon and switching the audio output from the iPhone to the HomePod mini.  Or you can swipe to bring up the Control Center on your iPhone and control a HomePod mini that way.

When my HomePod mini plays music, the Music app on my iPhone will sometimes (although not always) show what is playing on the HomePod mini.  You can tap the AirPlay icon at the bottom of the screen to change which device you are controlling.  This system makes sense, but I will admit that sometimes I get confused about whether my iPhone is controlling the HomePod mini or not.  I'm used to using traditional Bluetooth speakers in which the speaker is always an extension of the iPhone.  The HomePod mini, on the other hand, is taking over control of the music, not just streaming music from the iPhone.  The music actually moves to the HomePod mini.  You and your iPhone can leave the room (and get out of Bluetooth range), or you can even turn your iPhone off, and the song, album, playlist, etc. will continue to play on the HomePod mini.

Music quality

Before the HomePod mini, I used a Bose SoundDock Portable in my living room that I purchased in 2008.  That was a $400 speaker (although I purchased mine at a discount from a Bose outlet) and I was very happy with the sound quality of that Bose device.  While I normally kept it plugged-in, it had a rechargeable battery so you could easily move it to another room or the backyard.  That speaker had a 30-pin connector for an iPod, and after Apple moved the iPhone to a Lightning connector, I added dockBoss air (my review) to turn it into a Bluetooth speaker. 

The HomePod mini is much smaller than my old Bose speaker, but the sound quality is actually a little better.  It is difficult for me to pick the best words to describe an audio experience, but I suppose it is accurate to say that the sound seems fuller?  I would not call it a major improvement, but it is nice that a smaller $99 device sounds as good as a device that used to cost much more.

Stereo

When you have two HomePod minis, you can use the Home app on your iPhone to designate one as a left speaker and one as a right speaker.  That way, you can sit in the middle of two of them and get a stereo experience.  It works very well.  The stereo effect in some songs is more obvious than other songs, but most songs sound richer when you are in the middle of a stereo experience, much like movies in your home sound better when you can take advantage of 5.1 surround-sound speakers.

At first, I thought that I would be using the HomePod minis in the stereo mode all of the time.  But I don't.  There are four reasons for that.  First, with the layout of my living room, I don't have two good places that are close to power outlets. 

Second, I don't find myself sitting in that one middle spot and listening to music very often.  Instead, I often have music playing when I am doing other things in the house, walking around my living room and other rooms.  So I'm not really spending much time in the "sweet spot" to take full advantage of stereo.  This is very different from the TV room in my house, where I have a couch and a TV and 5.1 surround sound speakers and I'm virtually always sitting on the couch in a spot where I can get the full effect from optimal speaker placement. 

Third, just a single HomePod mini, on its own, sounds great.  It may not be stereo, but the sound fills the room.  Apple says that each HomePod mini “creates the full, detailed tones of a much larger speaker,” and I agree with that.  And as a result — to my surprise — I really don’t feel like I am losing that much when I use a single HomePod mini instead of two of them in a stereo pair.  As Apple explains on that webpage:  “An Apple-designed full‑range driver uses an incredibly powerful neodymium magnet to deliver deep bass and crisp high frequencies.  The unique acoustic waveguide directs sound out the bottom of the speaker, creating a 360‑degree audio field for consistent sound no matter where you are in the room.“

If you have good places to put two HomePod minis in a room where you will often be between those locations, then the stereo experience that you get with two HomePod minis will be more enjoyable for you.  For me, stereo isn't worth it for the reasons noted above ... plus, there is a fourth reason that I don't use the HomePod mini stereo mode:  it is far more enjoyable to me to take advantage of the ability to have two speakers in two rooms.

Multiroom audio

The idea of having the same music played in multiple rooms at the same time is nothing new.  For decades, some high-end homes have had speakers in multiple rooms that were wired to a central amplifier.  But when you have multiple HomePods or HomePod minis, you can do something similar without wires.  

You can have different HomePod minis playing different things, or perhaps have one play music while the rest of them are silent.  But the real magic comes when they are all working together to play the same thing.  As you leave one room and enter the next room, the music just moves with you, like you were on a ride at Disney World.  Many people have been fans of Sonos speakers because they offer a similar experience.  In my opinion, multiroom audio in two rooms is a far more enjoyable experience than stereo in a single room.

I can actually do this in three rooms at one time.  Because I have an Apple TV in my TV room, which is connected to a nice set of 5.1 speakers, and because the Apple TV works with AirPlay 2, I can actually have the same music playing on two HomePod minis in two different rooms plus the Apple TV in my TV room.

Portable HomePod mini

I mentioned above that my old Bose speaker has an internal rechargeable battery.  It normally stayed in my living room, but I could also take to the backyard to provide music, perfect for a BBQ.

The HomePod mini is not portable, at least not normally.  It has a cord that is permanently connected to the HomePod mini on one side and the other side has a USB-C connection.  The HomePod mini comes with a 20W USB-C power adapter.  However, you don’t have to use the power adapter that comes with the HomePod mini, although you do need to use a power adapter that provides at least 18W of power.  That led me to wonder:  can I use a portable battery with a USB-C connector that provides 18W output so that I can move my HomePod mini wherever I want?  The answer is yes.  

As I noted in my recent review of the Anker PowerCore 10000 PD Redux, that $39.99 device is not only great for recharging an iPhone or an iPad, but it also works great with a HomePod mini. 

The only real downside is that in this configuration, the cord on the HomePod mini is long and somewhat gets in the way.  It is a shame that the HomePod mini doesn't have a USB-C port on the device so that you can use a USB-C to USB-C cord of any length.

I noted in my review of the Anker PowerCore that I played music for eight hours while using only a fraction of the power in that battery.  As I type this, I’m listening to some Jazz music on a HomePod mini that has been connected to that Anker battery for more than 24 hours.  I haven’t been playing music that whole time, but even so, the four lights on my Anker battery are only at three lights right now.  It looks like this battery can power a HomePod mini for at least two days.  That is more than long enough to use a portable battery to take a HomePod mini outside and use it outside during an afternoon and then into the night.

Indeed, even when I am inside the house — right now, for example, I am typing on my iPad on my dining room table — I often use a HomePod mini connected to this Anker battery.  Sure, there are power outlets in my dining room, but I have to reach behind a table to get to them, which is awkward, plus I would rather have the HomePod mini on the table with to me, not across the room on the table near the outlet.

I would love it if Apple sold a portable version of the HomePod mini.  If so, I would want for at least one of the HomePod minis in my house to be the portable version.  But for now, using a portable battery that was already in my house, I was able to achieve almost the same thing.

Siri

Like many other Apple products, you can use Siri to talk to a HomePod mini.  From a hardware perspective, Siri works better on an HomePod mini than any other Apple product.  I don’t know what Apple has done with the microphone on this thing, but it easily hears me even if I am far away.  Even more impressive, a HomePod mini can be playing loud music, and yet using whatever sophisticated noise cancellation technology it uses, it has no trouble hearing my voice over the music.  You can also trigger Siri by holding down a finger on the top of the HomePod mini for a second or two.

I subscribe to Apple Music, and using Siri to ask the HomePod mini to play a song, album, artist or playlist works very well.  Almost too well.  My 14-year old son quickly discovered that he could tell the HomePod mini to “play fart sounds” and it plays an album on Apple Music called Fart Sound Effects.  And, unlike me, he finds that just as funny the 10th time as it was the first time.  Sigh.  But it is nice that I can be sitting in the living room with my daughter and, when she wants me to listen to a song that she likes, she can just ask Siri on the HomePod mini to play the song, and it happens right away.

While Siri on a HomePod mini will let anyone use their voice to control certain functions such as music (unless you turn that feature off), it is smart enough to recognize different voices for certain actions.  If I tell a HomePod mini to send a message, create a reminder, create a note, or make a phone call, it will do so when it recognizes my voice but will decline to do so when my son or daughter say the same thing.  And if my wife asks Siri to do the same thing, it will recognize her voice and handle that task for her, not for me.  I currently have my HomePod mini configured so that my kids are not given user credentials, but if I did so, then it would recognize their voicesand work for them the way it does for me and my wife.  And you can even require authentication on an iPhone before Siri on a HomePod mini will honor certain requests, such as a request to read a note, reminder, or calendar event.

You can also use Siri on a HomePod to make a phone call.  It will do so by connecting to your iPhone, with the HomePod mini operating as a speakerphone.  

I’ve been particularly impressed with using Siri on a HomePod to control HomeKit devices in my home.  I can already turn the lights in a room on or off by using an Apple Watch or my iPhone, but the better microphone on the HomePod mini is more accurate.  Controlling a HomeKit device using Siri on my Apple Watch is pretty simple, but I do need to raise my wrist to near my mouth, and it sometimes has trouble understanding me.  With a HomePod mini, I just speak out loud into the room.  I don’t need to press a button or take an iPhone out of my pocket or anything like that.  I didn’t expect this to be the case, but using a HomePod mini is now my favorite way to turn HomeKit lights on or off.

When it comes to asking Siri on a HomePod general questions, such as how old is President Obama or what year did Elvis die, it works well.  When I’m talking to my family at the dinner table, Siri often helps us to answer random questions.  I’ve read reviews from other folks who say that the similar feature on an Amazon Echo works even better, providing more sophisticated responses, but I’ve never used an Amazon Echo so I cannot comment on that.  All I can say is that Siri has done a good job with almost all of our requests.

Privacy

Speaking of Amazon Alexa, a HomePod mini is the only listening device that I feel comfortable allowing into my home because of Apple’s commitment to privacy.  Although a HomePod mini is always listening so that it can tell if you say “Hey Siri,” nothing is sent from the device to Apple’s servers until it hears that phrase.  Then, all communications between your HomePod mini and Apple’s server are encrypted, with anonymous IDs used with your requests to protect your identity.  

This is the same way that an iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch work.  Thus, if you already use other Apple devices, adding a HomePod mini to your home doesn’t really change the tech privacy issues that you are already facing.

Moreover, I like the fact that Apple regularly touts its commitment to privacy as a core value.  And Apple doesn’t make money based on using your personal information ... at least, not directly.  (Apple does get a lot of money to use Google as a default search engine in Safari, but you can change that default if you want.)  Companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook, on the other hand, have a core business value of taking advantage of personal information to convince you to buy things, or to sell your information to other companies who want to do so.  That makes me favor a HomePod over an Amazon Echo or a Google Nest Smart Speaker.  To eliminate any privacy risk, I suppose that you need to stay in a room without windows, smart speakers, smartphones, etc.  But my desire is to use technology while keeping the privacy risks to a minimum, and staying within the Apple ecosystem works best for that.

Other features

You can use one or more HomePod minis to work as an intercom — say a message and it will almost instantly be repeated (a recording of your voice) in other rooms.  This article by Juli Clover of MacRumors does a good job of describing Apple’s Intercom feature.

A HomePod mini can act as a HomeKit hub.  This means that you can control and automate accessories in your home even if you are away from home, so long as the HomePod mini is plugged in.  (You can use a modern Apple TV to do the same thing.)

You can use a HomePod mini (or better yet, a pair of them) as a speaker for an Apple TV.  I haven’t tested this feature, but I understand that you need to tell the Apple TV to start using the HomePod minis.  (With a full-size HomePod, the Apple TV can connect automatically, plus the larger and more expensive HomePod can create surround sound.)

The HomePod mini also supports a new smartphone communication standard called Thread.  This is a cross-platform alternative to HomeKit and similar services that allows devices from different companies to communicate with each other using a mesh network.  For now, there are not many devices supporting the Thread protocol.  But it has the support of Apple, Google, and Amazon, and my hope is that we will see widespread adoption of Thread in a few years.  When that happens, the HomePod mini that you buy today will be ready.  If you want to learn more about the Thread protocol and how the HomePod mini supports it, check out this article by Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories.

Conclusion

The HomePod mini has been a pleasant surprise for me.  I had some interest in and curiosity about the product when it was first announced, but I wasn't rushing to buy it.  However, after using two HomePod minis for two months, I like this product far more than I expected because it does so many things to well.  For personal audio, I still use my AirPods Pro more often, especially if I am listening to something like a podcast that nobody else in my house would want to hear.  But for playing music that can be enjoyed by many, the HomePod mini is great.  Plus, it has so many other useful functions, such as asking Siri questions and controlling HomeKit devices.  The HomePod mini was a nice addition to my house.  I encourage you to think about whether you might want to get a pair — or more — for your home.

Click here to get HomePod mini from Apple ($99.99)

In the news

I realize that it was just two weeks ago that I mentioned the now-infamous "I'm not a cat" video and now I'm back to that topic.  However, I just saw this article by Debra Cassens Weiss of ABA Journal about ways that some lawyers or their clients have made poor decisions when attending Zoom hearings, and I'm truly amazed by the examples that she compiled in that post.  I mean, it is great that you can use Zoom with just an iPhone, but I don't think that means that you should celebrate that mobility by participating in a hearing from a bed, from a hair salon, while drinking alcohol, or while wearing a bikini by a pool.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks discusses Apple's recent response to a discovery interrogatory.  Some of the press made fun of Apple's answer, but I agree with David that Apple's response makes good sense.
• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reviews Genius Scan 6.0 and calls it a sophisticated iPhone and iPad scanning app.  He doesn't compare and contrast the app to other scanning apps, and I'm not yet seeing a reason to switch from the Scanner Pro app that I've used for years, but if you are still trying to find a scanner app that works well for you, it looks like Genius Scan is also one that is worth considering.
• Brett Burney of the Apps in Law website reviews TuneIn, an app that lets you listen to radio stations from around the world.  I've used that app in the past when I was driving far from my hometown of New Orleans and I wanted to listen to the radio broadcast of a Saints NFL game.  Speaking of New Orleans, Brett mentions using this app to listen to WWOZ, a fantastic listener-supported radio station in New Orleans that plays fantastic music, and you can use TuneIn to do that, but there is also a WWOZ app in the App Store that does the same thing for free.
• For Apple Watch owners who like to listen to podcasts, the Overcast app was already the best way to use just an Apple Watch and Bluetooth speakers, such as AirPods, to listen to podcasts on the go.  But the Apple Watch app for Overcast was rewritten this week to add many new features, as explained by Parker Ortolani of 9to5Mac.
• Apple had its annual shareholder meeting this week.  That is normally an opportunity for the Apple executives to have to answer a few oddball questions, but since this year's meeting was online and Apple could pre-screen the questions, it was less unpredictable.  Even so, Chance Miller's recap of the shareholder's meeting for 9to5Mac is interesting.
• Ever since MagSafe magnetic wireless charging was introduced to the iPhone 12 line, I've wondered if someone would create a small battery that magnetically attaches to the back of the iPhone so that you can get the benefit of a charging case without the bulk of a charging case.  There is a rumor that Apple is working on such a product that would take advantage of the full 15W charging speed.  But in the meantime, Anker just announced the PowerCore Magnetic 5K, a $39.99 device that does something similar but only charges at 5W.  Ian Carlos Campbell of The Verge describes the device and says that it will be available in just a few days.  This type of device, whether it is made by Apple or Anker, strikes me as something that could be very useful when traveling.  But of course, most of us are not doing that right now.
• Killian Bell of Cult of Mac reviews the new Clear Apple Watch band from Elago, which is only $12.99 on Amazon.  It definitely looks different, and I'm somewhat surprised that this is the first time that I've seen an Apple Watch band that is transparent.
• And finally, here is a new Apple ad for the Sleep app on the Apple Watch Series 6.  I keep thinking that one day I will see the value of wearing an Apple Watch to sleep, but whenever I try it for a while, I find that it doesn't really provide me with much useful information but it does force me to find times during the day to recharge the watch, which can be inconvenient.  But maybe one day this will change.  And in any event, this video is rather trippy:

Review: LIT SUITE -- powerful iPad litigation apps

Although many of the most useful iPad apps for lawyers have broad appeal — I'm thinking of apps like Microsoft Word and Readdle's PDF Expert — there are also some really great apps that are specifically designed for lawyers.  The first such app for the iPad was TrialPad, an app introduced by Lit Software in December 2010, the same year that the iPad itself debuted.  TrialPad made it possible to present evidence to a jury (or other groups of people) from an iPad.  And because the app was both simple to use and powerful, it made it possible for a trial attorney to handle exhibit presentation without needing to hire someone else to handle the exhibits during trial and without needing to ensure that the assistant always understood exactly what the lawyer wanted to show.  Lit Software followed up with other apps over the years, including one of my favorites, TranscriptPad.  I talked about how valuable TranscriptPad is to my law practice in this review from January 18, 2012, and I've now been using the app for almost a decade.  Indeed, I have been using TranscriptPad quite a bit this month as I was preparing a motion for summary judgment.

Like many other apps — again, Microsoft Office is a good example — Lit Software has now moved to a subscription payment model.  The company first announced that this move was coming in a blog post back in 2017 that explained the rationale, and the company provided additional information in 2018 and 2019.  The new pricing model finally debuted earlier this month when the company introduced the LIT SUITE.  With a single yearly LIT SUITE subscription, you get all of the Lit Software apps and all updates to those apps.  The bundle currently includes three apps, but more are coming, and the company gave me permission to discuss one of its upcoming apps in this post — an app called ExhibitsPad, which I haven't seen mentioned in public anywhere else before.  All of the prior Lit Software apps have been updated to new versions with updated interfaces in LIT SUITE.

Here is what you get with the new LIT SUITE:

TrialPad

This is the app that started it all.  I say that not just because it was the first Lit Software app, but also because it was the app that first made me and many other attorneys realize that the iPad was going to be a powerful device specifically for lawyers. 

As I explained in my 2016 review of TrialPad, this app gives you the ability to present evidence to a jury, judge, or other audience.  Simply create a new case in the app and then load in your documents.  The app is designed for your iPad to be connected to an external monitor, either using a cord such as an HDMI cord or by using AirPlay to give a wireless presentation.

What you see on your iPad is different from what the audience sees; you see all of the tools, but the audience just sees the presentation.  TrialPad includes all of the familiar tools for presenting evidence.  You can highlight or redact any part of the document, and you then you can callout a part of a document to emphasize it to the jury or other members of your audience as you explain the significance of this part of the document. 

You can either create annotations on the go, which is nice because you can tell your audience why something is important while you are highlighting it, or you can prepare the annotations beforehand and then tag the annotated version of the document (or a page of the document) as a key document.  That way, the annotations are preserved so that you can quickly bring them up again later without taking the time in front of your audience to create the annotations.

You can also assign custom exhibit stickers documents with automatic sequencing.  In other words, create the exhibit for the first document, and then the app can automatically increment the numbers for subsequent documents.  And you can decide whether to assign the exhibits to each page (something like 1.1, 1.2) or just to each document.

In the latest version of TrialPad, you can now import files from a USB drive or any cloud provider that integrates with the Files app, such as iCloud Drive, Box, Citrix Files, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive.

During the pandemic, not many attorneys are giving presentations to audiences in the same room.  On the other hand, attorneys are doing tons of Zoom presentations, and you can use TrialPad to make professional presentations in remote depositions, hearings, and trials.

You can use other PC software to give trial presentations, but presenting from a PC is more awkward than presenting from an iPad.  You can hold the iPad in your hand and walk around with it, and the screen lies flat instead of an upright laptop screen so the screen doesn’t create a barrier between you at you audience.  Add an Apple Pencil, and you have a fantastic way to create annotations.

TranscriptPad

I know that TrialPad gets much acclaim because audiences are impressed when you create amazing and persuasive presentations, whereas nobody else really knows when you are using deposition transcripts effectively.  Nevertheless, TranscriptPad has always been my favorite Lit Software app because I work with depositions far more frequently than I present evidence at trial.  I first reviewed TranscriptPad in 2012, and I've written about this app many times since then.  When I work with transcripts, I work with TranscriptPad whenever I can.

To use TranscriptPad, you start with the text version of the transcript, sometimes referred to as the ASCII version.  Court reporters typically provide this version along with the PDF versions of a transcript, and if not, you can always ask for it.  Or, if you are given the .ptx version of the Transcript, you can easily export an ASCII text version on a PC.  (I don't know of a way to work with .ptx files on the Mac, but I use a PC in my office.  If you know how to convert from .ptx to text on the Mac, let me know.)  Court reporters typically email the text version to me after a deposition, and then I just use my iPad to open that mail attachment in the TranscriptPad app.

That sends the transcript to an import folder.  TranscriptPad does an excellent job of recognizing the witness's first and last name and the deposition date, but you can adjust those if necessary and then tell the app which case the transcript belongs with (or create a new case). 

Once the transcript is imported, you are ready to read and annotate the transcript. If you tap the AA icon at the top of the screen, you can pick a size and font for the text (I prefer Menlo in the Large font) and decide whether you want the questions to appear in bold to make it easier to distinguish the Qs from the As.  

When you come across a question-and-answer that may be important to your case, tap the line numbers at the beginning and at the end.  This allows you to do many different things.  What I find the most useful is to assign an Issue Code (or, if necessary, create a new one).  For example, if an issue in the case is the statute of limitations (which we call “prescription” in Louisiana; we are a civil law state, not a common law state), I will create an issue code called “Prescription” and I will assign it whenever there is relevant text in the transcript.  Sometimes a line of testimony is relevant to multiple issues in the case, and TranscriptPad allows you to assign multiple issue codes to the same text.  You can also highlight, underline, and redact text.

The real power comes after you have finished reviewing a transcript and you have assigned all of the issue codes.  You can then tap a button to have TranscriptPad create a report, a PDF document that shows all of the text that you assigned to each issue code.  That way, when I am ready to draft my motion for summary judgment on the grounds of prescription, I can easily see all of the testimony that relates to prescription in one place.  This is incredibly valuable and so much better than having to work with the entire transcript to locate the key testimony.  And you can even run reports across all of the witnesses in the case, so you can see what everyone had to say that is relevant to the issue of prescription.

You can also use TranscriptPad to prepare line designations for trial.  Simply use an issue code to mark everything that you will include, create a report for that issue code, and then export to a text file, which you can then load into Microsoft Word or any other app.

Reports are useful to share with other attorneys who don’t have TranscriptPad.  If you export an issue report to PDF, they can quickly review all of the key testimony from a deposition.  You can also export a report to a Microsoft Excel file, which creates different tabs in Excel for each issue code.  That way, the other person can click on a tab in Excel that is of interest to them and then review all of the text.  It is natural to think of Excel as a tool for working with numbers, but Excel can also be a powerful way to work with properly formatted text.

One new feature in TranscriptPad (and the other LIT SUITE apps) is the ability to save a case as a template.  Normally, each case has its own issue codes, and that makes sense because every case is different.  But when cases are similar, the template feature makes it faster to get up and running in the second case.  Let’s say that you have a case that you previously handled called Smith v Acme and now you have a new case called Jones v Acme.  You expect the issues in the two cases to be similar, so you want to take advantage of the issue codes that you spent time creating in the Smith case.  Simply long-press (or, if you are using an external mouse, right-click) on the Smith case and choose Save as Template.  Now, when you  are ready to create the new Jones case, tap the + on the main screen to create a new case and select the Smith v Acme template and give it a new name, Jones v Acme.  This will create a new Jones case that is a duplicate of the Smith case, including all of the transcripts and exhibits from the Smith case.  You can then delete the transcripts and documents from Smith (unless any of them will be used again), but the issue codes will remain.  That way, when you import your transcripts into the Jones case, all of the issue codes from the Smith case are there so you can immediately start assigning them.  

I don't know if I will ever use the template feature.  My issues tend to be different from case to case, and creating issue codes only takes a few seconds so I don't see myself saving much time by using a template instead of creating issue codes from scratch for each new case.  But if templates make sense for one or more of your cases, now you can use them.

The only thing that I don't like about TranscriptPad is that sometimes I cannot use it.  For example, sometimes I find myself working on a case in which the depositions were taken before I got involved with the case and, for whatever reason, all that I have access to is a PDF version of the transcript.  If you don't have access to the ASCII text file, then you cannot use TranscriptPad.  I wish there was a way that TranscriptPad could look at a PDF file and figure out how to turn it into a text file that can be processed by TranscriptPad.  Having said that, I just came across this suggestion in the Help section of the Lit Software website that I plan to try in the future:

If you have a transcript that is only available as a PDF file we recommend importing it into DocReviewPad where you can assign Issue Codes to certain pages of the transcript, and/or add sticky notes that will refer to certain lines of a page.

TranscriptPad is easy to use but incredibly powerful, and it makes me a better litigator.  

DocReviewPad

The DocReviewPad app debuted in 2015, and I reviewed the app in this post.  DocReviewPad is sort of like TranscriptPad for documents. 

You can use DocReviewPad to review documents that you obtained from someone else during discovery.  You can assign issue codes to important documents, and you can highlight, annotate, and attach notes to documents.  The app (optionally) applies Bates numbers to documents as you import them.

You can also use the app for a document production from your own client, marking documents as relevant, privileged, etc. as you review them.  You can also redact portions of documents, when appropriate.  When you are finished, you can export all of the relevant documents, plus create a list of documents for which you will need a privilege log.  

You can also export entire documents, or individual pages, to TrialPad or share documents with other counsel.

ExhibitsPad

Lit Software has additional apps in development, and when they are ready, they will be included as a part of the LIT SUITE subscription.  The company recently told me that one of the new apps is called ExhibitsPad, and then gave me permission to describe it here.

I haven’t even seen a beta version of the app yet, but the idea of the app is that each attorney and each individual juror, judge, or arbitrator has an iPad with the ExhibitsPad app installed.  Admitted exhibits (documents, videos, etc.) can be shown on all of the iPads at the same time.  Jurors, judges, or arbitrators can take the iPad to a deliberation room so that all of the exhibits are easy to view.

Just last week, the folks at Lit Software used a pilot version of this app in a federal bankruptcy trial in Florida.  I'm told that some of the trial participants were in the courtroom (and socially distanced) while others participated in the hybrid trial via Zoom.  When documents were introduced, counsel and the witness could see the document, and then once the document was admitted, it could be shown on a share screen.  

ExhibitsPad sounds like an interesting app, and I look forward to seeing it when it is released.  I imagine that judges and jurors would find it helpful to see a document on the iPad in their hands instead of on a distant screen that might be hard to see.  It seems like you could use the app to have a completely paperless trial, one in which the attorneys can do more with the exhibits, and judges, jurors, or arbitrators can see and understand the exhibits even better.  If you are in a courtroom that has not been configured for the electronic presentation of evidence, ExhibitsPad could be especially useful.

Integration

All of the LIT SUITE apps work well with each other.  For example, you can easily export documents from DocReviewPad into TrialPad for presentation.  You can even create slides of key deposition testimony and send them to TrialPad.

Although the LIT SUITE apps are modern apps that support many of the latest features of iPadOS, I see that they don't currently support the multitasking features of iPadOS.  Having said that, I'm not sure that is really a problem.  For TrialPad and DocReviewPad, I’m not sure that I would ever want to use one of those apps on part of the screen while another app was also on the screen.  Multitasking might be more useful in TranscriptPad; for example, I can imagine having TranscriptPad on the left side of the screen while I work on a Microsoft Word document on the right side of the screen.  However, you can export a TranscriptPad report to a PDF file, and then you use any modern PDF management app that supports multitasking so that you can have your report on one side of the screen while you work on another part of the screen.  That has been sufficient for me for the rare instances in which I have wanted to have transcript testimony on one part of the screen while I ran a different app on another part of the screen.

On the other hand, all of the new apps take full advantage of all of the file-handling features of iPadOS.  That is why you can now import from and export to a large number of different online services as well as external media like a USB thumb drive.  And the new interface of the LIT SUITE apps seems right at home on any modern iPad.

Along with the new versions of the apps, Lit Software also created a series of videos showing you how to use various features of the apps.  The videos are helpful, well-produced, and easy to follow.  They are fantastic resources if you are a new user, but even if you have been using these apps for many years, there is a good chance that you will learn something new from these videos.

Cost and upgrade

You can use any of the new apps for free for seven days.  After that, purchase a subscription to continue using the apps, which gives you access to all of the apps and all upgrades to the apps.  I haven't yet seen an announcement of the full annual subscription price for LIT SUITE, but right now, for a limited time, new customers can take advantage of an early subscriber discount price of $399/year.  Better yet, if you previously purchased any of the Lit Software apps and have them installed on your iPad when you download one of the new LIT SUITE apps, you will also receive a loyalty discount that results in a price of $299/year during the introductory period.

To use LIT SUITE when you previously used one or more of the apps, you need to download new and improved versions of all of the apps.  The older versions of the same apps will still work and you can continue to use them, although they won’t have the new features.  You can export one or more of the case files from the older apps to the new LIT SUITE versions of the apps.  For example, I have dozens of cases in my old version of TranscriptPad, but I only imported into my new TranscriptPad app the few cases that are still active.

If you keep both the old and new versions of the Lit Software apps, you can tell which is which from the app icons.  The old apps have colors (red for TrialPad, blue for TranscriptPad, green for DocReviewPad) that run to the edges of the icon.  The new apps have color in a circle on a white background:

Although I’m currently paying hundreds of dollars a year for lots of different subscriptions that have something to do with my iPad — I detailed most of them in this recent post — LIT SUITE is one of the more expensive subscriptions that I am paying for.  For example, LIT SUITE is a little more expensive than the $240/year that I pay for my AppleOne premium subscription.  But $399/year (or $299 year for current customers) is a very reasonable price for legal software, and it is actually cheaper than some of the other software that I use in my law practice.

The main reason that I favor the subscription model, for this app and many other apps, is that I believe that it provides the developer with a financial incentive and more consistent revenue stream to encourage the development of new features, plus new apps that are part of the suite.

Conclusion

LIT SUITE is a powerful bundle of apps for litigators.  If working with documents and transcripts and/or giving presentations to judges, juries, arbitrators, or other audiences is a part of your law practice, LIT SUITE turns your iPad into a powerful litigation tool.

Click here to get LIT SUITE: 

Review: Anker PowerCore 10000 PD Redux -- USB-C portable charger

Portable chargers with a traditional USB connector are always useful for anyone with an iPhone or iPad.  They are useful when you are away from the home or office, especially when traveling.  And as many in the country (including me) were reminded last week, they are also very useful when you lose power at your home as a result of bad weather.

Nowadays, however, many devices can charge faster with a newer USB-C PD connection, which provides more power and can charge more quickly.  Some devices even require the extra power that you get with USB-C.  Earlier this year, after doing some research on the available portable chargers, I decided to purchase a device made by Anker called the PowerCore 10000 PDF Redux.  After using this product for over a month, I’m incredibly happy with it and I highly recommend it.  It is great for charging an iPhone or iPad, and it has even made my HomePod mini much more enjoyable.

Design

This device is small and portable.  It is just over 4” long, about 2” wide and about 1” tall.  Because of the curved sides, it is easy to hold in a hand.  The device weighs less than 7 ounces, so it adds a little bit of weight to a briefcase or purse, but not very much.  You can definitely walk around with this device in your pocket, if necessary.

The short edge of the device has two ports.  One is a traditional USB port, which can provide up to 12.3 watts of power.  The other is a USB-C PD port, which can provide 18.8 watts of power.  

There is a single button on the top of the device.  Press the button to see how much charge the device has, and between one and four blue lights will turn on.

Charging

The Anker PowerCore 10000 PD Redux charges itself using the USB-C port.  Just connect a USB-C to USB-C cable (one is included) to any USB-C power adapter (which is not included), such as the power adapter that comes with an iPad Pro or the newer iPhone models.  The PowerCore can recharge itself from 0% to 100% in about 3.5 hours.  Anker says that you can also charge using a traditional USB charger, but that it will take 9 hours to charge.  (I didn’t test that.)  When the PowerCore is charging, the blue lights around the button flash, and you can see roughly how much the PowerCore is charged based on how many of the four blue lights are illuminated.

When the PowerCore is fully charged, you can use it to charge other devices using either the USB port or the USB-C port, making it incredibly versatile.  I have found the PowerCore to be particularly useful for charging the following three products:

iPhone charging

Use your own USB-C to Lightning cable (the one that comes with newer iPhones) to use the PowerCore to charge an iPhone.  As the name indicates, it has a 10,000 mAh battery, which means that it will recharge a typical iPhone almost three times.  And because it is USB-C PD charging, it charges my iPhone 12 Pro much faster than a traditional USB-to-Lightning charge.  Nobody likes waiting for an iPhone to charge, especially when you only have a short amount of time to charge.  Thus, the extra charging speed that you get with USB-C on the PowerCore is quite welcome.

Note that you can use the PowerCore to charge two devices at the same time by using both the USB-C port and the USB port, but when you do this, you lose the ability to fast charge on the USB-C port.  Once you are done using both ports, unplug the USB-C cord and plug it in again to go back to the fast charging mode.

iPad Pro charging

With my 12.9" iPad Pro down to almost 0%, this PowerCore was not enough to get back to 100%.  It got me to around 60% or so.  Critically, however, if I started with a full 100% at the beginning of the day and then plugged in to the PowerCore as the power started to go below 50%, that was enough additional charge for me to make it through the end of the day for those days when I was using my iPad extensively during the day without plugging it into a wall outlet.  Using a traditional USB charger with an iPad Pro is sort of a joke; all it really does is slow down somewhat the speed at which your battery goes down.  But with USB-C on this PowerCore, I was able to use my iPad while the battery percentage also increased back up to 100%.

For both an iPhone and an iPad, in the past, I’ve found portable chargers most useful when I am traveling.  I have not traveled during the past year due to the pandemic, but I find that portable chargers are now useful for another reason:  independence.  When I am working at home with my wife and two teenagers in the house, I typically use my iPad with an external keyboard.  That’s how I am typing this post right now.  In the past, I would have to make sure that my iPad (or iPhone) had a sufficient charge before I started to get work done; otherwise, I would need to find a place to work that was close enough to a wall outlet so that I could charge.  But with the Anker PowerCore 10000 PD Redux, it really doesn't matter how much charge my iPad has when I start.  I can find any corner of the house to call my own, or even someplace in the backyard, to get work done.  Whenever I need more power, the PowerCore is there to give it. 

HomePod mini

I’ve been using two HomePod mini speakers since my wife gave them to me as a present for Christmas.  The HomePod mini has a built-in cord, which you cannot remove from the device, with a USB-C connector at the end.  The HomePod mini comes with a 20W power adapter, and at first, it required 20W to power it, but in late 2020, Apple updated the firmware to support 18W charging.  That means that you can now use it with the PowerCore, which provides just over 18W.

The Anker PowerCore 10000 PD Redux does a fantastic job charging the HomePod mini, so much so that it actually transforms the HomePod mini into a new device:  a portable HomePod mini.  I’ll discuss this more in my upcoming review of the HomePod mini, but suffice it to say that I love my HomePod mini much more now that I have the PowerCore.

Using a PowerCore to power a HomePod mini does not seem to take much power.  I once played music for eight hours straight with my HomePod mini plugged into the PowerCore.  When I started, the battery indicator on the PowerCore was at four out of four lights.  When I finished, it was still at four out of four lights.  I guess I could have kept the music playing for much, much longer.

Trickle-Charging Mode

This device shines when it provides a lot of power.  But sometimes, you want to charge something that takes a very small amount of power, like a Bluetooth headphone or a Fitbit.   When a portable battery like the PowerCore senses that not much power is being drawn from it, it may think that it is done charging and it will shut off for safety.

To help with this, Anker includes a Trickle-Charging Mode with this device.  To activate it, press the power button twice or press and hold for two seconds.  This causes the lights around the button to change color from blue to green.  In this mode, this device will output much less power and will know that it is supposed to be doing so.  Thus, you get all of the power that you need to charge something small that doesn’t need much power to begin with.

Conclusion

I’ve been very happy with the PowerCore 10000 PD Redux.  It provides lots of power when I am on-the-go — which one day will mean when traveling, and for now mostly means just finding a place to get work done.  And for my HomePod mini, this charger actually adds a new feature, turning it into a portable speaker that I can bring to the backyard.  Because the this device is so powerful, I think it is perfect to keep in a briefcase or purse so that it is always there if you need it.  And finally, I’ve had very good experiences with the Anker brand in the past, so this is a name that I trust.  

If you are looking for a great, small portable charger for your iPad, your iPhone, or for any other device that can take advantage of USB-C, you should consider the PowerCore 10000 PD Redux.  I'm very glad that I have it.

Click here to get the Anker PowerCore 10000 PD Redux from Amazon ($39.99)

In the news

Yesterday, while I was finishing up a videoconference in my office, my son (who shares my interest in space) texted me to let me know that NASA was about to land its newest rover, named Perseverance, on Mars.  Countless incredibly smart people had to make countless complicated calculations and have everything turn out right ... and it did.  It was an incredibly impressive landing, and I look forward to seeing all of the new science that Perseverance will bring us.  But where would we be now if the United States had devoted even more resources to space, starting in the 1960s?  That's the alternative history explored in the Apple TV+ show For All Mankind.  I absolutely loved the first season of that show.  Season 2 starts today, and I watched the first episode last night when it became available at 11pm Central.  While Season 1 focused on the 1960s and early 1970s, Season 2 jumps forward 10 years and begins in 1983.  Based on the first episode, it looks like this will be a fantastic season with great character stories in the setting of a far more advanced space exploration than we have ever known.  And as someone who was in high school in the 1980s, I look forward to learning about this alternative version of that decade.  There are lots of ways to get Apple TV+ for free if you have new Apple products, so I encourage you to watch the show along with me.  And to help you to bridge the gap between Season 1 and Season 2, you can check out Apple's immersive augmented reality experience in the new app For All Mankind: Time Capsule, which was described by Scott Stein of CNet.  It only takes about 20-30 minutes to get through it, and it does some interesting things with AR.  Plus, it features some great music.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories wrote a glowing review of the Logitech Circle View Doorbell, which works with Apple's relatively new HomeKit Secure Video service.  This means that if you already pay Apple for additional iCloud storage, you can store the last ten days of video, encrypted end-to-end for privacy, without having to pay Logitech for an online video service.
• Before Apple released its Magic Keyboard for iPad, the Brydge Pro+ looked like one of the best options if you wanted a keyboard and trackpad for an iPad.  Unfortunately, when that product came out, the trackpad experience was sub-par.  Fortunately, as reported by Jason Snell of Six Colors, a firmware update has greatly improved the experience, making this product a good, less expensive, alternative to Apple's Magic Keyboard for iPad.
• When Apple releases iOS 14.5 — hopefully in a few weeks? — many folks, like me, will rush to install that update because it allows you to unlock an iPhone even while wearing a mask so long as you are wearing an Apple Watch.  But others will be interested in iOS 14.5 because of the new emoji.  Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia provides a preview of what the new emoji will look like.
• A few months into the pandemic, I reviewed the Adonit Note UVC, and iPad stylus that uses ultraviolet lights as a disinfectant.  Helen Carefoot of the Washington Post writes that UV sanitizers do work, but notes that some experts believe that they may not make much difference in reducing your risk of getting COVID-19.
• Apple doesn't release specific numbers on how many iPhones are sold, but others are happy to come up with their own estimates.  According to one recent estimate, the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the most popular 5G phone in 49 U.S. states, as noted by Stephen Warwick of iMore.  (In the last state, Vermont, the iPhone 12 Pro takes the lead.)  If correct, this would be consistent with a statement made by Apple CFO Luca Maestri a few weeks ago during an earnings call, when he noted that there has been high interest in the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max, and supply has been limited as a result.  I'm a big fan of the Pro model of the iPhone 12 because of the third, telephoto lens, but I would have guessed that the regular iPhone 12 would have been more popular than the iPhone 12 Pro / Pro Max.
• Almost a year ago, I reviewed Microsoft Office for iPhone, a new app that combined Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a single app.  I never really understood why there was an advantage of having a single app.  Working with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents are very different experiences.  Brent Dirks of AppAdvice notes that Microsoft Office now works on the iPad as well.  But until there is a reason to change, I plan to continue using the stand-alone apps.
• Nicole Nguyen of the Wall Street Journal has tips for using an iPad as a laptop replacement.  And note that even if you don't subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, you can still read the articles if you have Apple's News+ service, as I noted in this post. 
• Apple released a one-minute movie on its YouTube channel in France, called Le Peintre ("The Painter"), to demonstrate that a video shot on an iPhone 12 can look just as good as a professionally-shot movie.  Although the short film is in French, you can easily understand what is going on without understanding what they are saying.  (Or, you can turn on English subtitles.)
• And finally, The B1M, which produces a series of videos focused on construction, created an interesting six-minute video focused on how Apple builds its stores:

Happy Mardi Gras!

Today is Mardi Gras, which is typically a huge celebration here in my hometown of New Orleans and the culmination of a season that begins shortly after New Year's Day.  Mardi Gras season means parades, parties, and lots of tourists in town enjoying the food, cocktails, music, and more.  It is called the greatest free show on Earth.  Unfortunately, in 2020, some of the folks who visited New Orleans brought the coronavirus with them, making New Orleans one of the first, early hotspots in the United States for COVID-19.  To guard against that happening again, Mardi Gras is very different this year.  All of the parades were cancelled, all of the big parties were cancelled, and all of the bars in the City of New Orleans have been closed since Friday.  

Saying that the bars are closed in New Orleans is sort of like saying that Disney World is open, but most of the rides are closed.  It is a significant change, especially for visitors.  I was in the French Quarter briefly on Saturday, and it was eerie to see the doors closed on places that virtually never close.  I actually saw more tourists walking around than I would have expected — I guess some folks decided to take a vacation here anyway — but it was a very tiny fraction of what I would have seen on a typical Saturday before Mardi Gras.

If you want to learn more about Mardi Gras and New Orleans in general, I recommend that you check out a new video series that was released to help take the place of this year's traditional Mardi Gras festivities.  The local newspaper in New Orleans (which runs the Nola.com website) and Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World (the Blaine Kern company makes a large number of the floats in the Mardi Gras parades) teamed up to produce a 4.5 hour special called Mardi Gras For All Y’all.  It includes 90 different segments on topics ranging from different parade organizations, New Orleans neighborhoods and architecture, restaurants, the history of Mardi Gras, and lots of amazing local music from bands like The Meters and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.  There are even some interesting segments that have nothing to do with Mardi Gras, such as a look at the historic cemeteries, a local book festival, and movies that are filmed in New Orleans.  I enjoyed watching it, and whether you watch the whole thing or just skim through it and watch the segments that jump out at you, I think you will enjoy it too.  Here are the three parts on YouTube:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Even with the parades cancelled the the bars closed, the spirit of Mardi Gras was still very strong throughout the 2021 season.  For example, we still have King Cakes, and indeed, many of our bakeries could not keep up with the demand this year.  

Moreover, with no decorated parade floats this year, people decided to turn their houses into floats, hiring experienced Mardi Gras artists or tapping into their own talents to decorate the outside of their houses and turn them into themed showpieces.  It is essentially costuming for architecture.  I’ve had great fun walking and driving around town with my family to see some of the thousands of amazing house floats.  At the bottom of this post, I’ve included pictures of a few examples, which I took using my iPhone 12 Pro.

It has been uplifting to see the enthusiasm of folks in New Orleans during this Mardi Gras season.  It reminds me of what I saw in this city after Hurricane Katrina.  Nevertheless, I hope that, in 2022, Mardi Gras can return to its former glory.

For now, I wish you a Happy Mardi Gras wherever you are.  L’aissez les bon temps rouler!

[Sponsor] Nota -- IOLTA software for small law firms

I am pleased to welcome Nota as a new sponsor to iPhone J.D.  Nota is a no-cost IOLTA management solution powered by M&T Bank.  It was built by working directly with solo and small law firms and is designed to help simplify trust account management.

Nota’s cloud-based intuitive design uses real-time information directly from your bank accounts making it seamless for you to adhere to accounting requirements.  Forget using a spreadsheet to track your individual client balances.  All money in and out of your IOLTA account can be assigned to a client, and reconciled down to the penny.

Features include one-click reconciliation reporting, custom transaction alerts and virtual client sub-accounts with smart tagging.

I had a chance to see a comprehensive demo of how Nota works, and I was impressed.  You access Nota by using a web browser on your PC or Mac, and the interface is clean and straightforward.  The service makes it easy to create and manage virtual sub-accounts for each of your matters with no limit to the number of client matters.  Nota closes the loop between your bank account, checkbook, and client ledger to help you to minimize IOLTA management headaches.  After all, you went to law school to be a lawyer — not to be an accountant.

Nota is currently available to attorneys whose offices are located in and who are practicing law in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Florida, and West Virginia and to whom the rules and regulations for IOLTA accounts are applicable.

Click here to learn more about Nota.  Terms and conditions may apply.

In the news

So I might as well begin with the topic that we are all thinking about this week.  The elephant in the room.  Or should I say, the cat in the court.  On Tuesday, Rod Ponton, an attorney representing Presidio County, Texas, appeared via Zoom for a hearing in a civil forfeiture case and had to use his secretary's computer.  But to his surprise, a webcam filter was enabled that made him look like a cat.  Nevertheless, he soldiered on, telling Judge Roy Ferguson of the 394th Judicial District Court that he was "prepared to go forward" while emphasizing "I'm here live.  I'm not a cat."  This video showed up in my Twitter feed countless times this week in countless variations of the video.  I recommend watching this short version from The Star because, after the now-famous clip, you then get to see and hear Rod Ponton and Judge Ferguson provide their insight on what happened.  Technology reporter Geoffrey Fowler of the Washington Post figured out that the cat filter used is one that came with Dell computers back in 2009 and is no longer available.  Although after this week, maybe Dell will bring it back.  I should note that the incident also prompted a story about Ponton's past for which I don't know all of the details.  But what I do know is that any of us could have been the talking cat in that viral video.  Appearing in court via a webcam may seem easy, but there are a million things that can go wrong.  All attorneys need to try hard to prevent the technology snafus that we can control to minimize the risks in the event that there are hiccups that are beyond our control.  And if something happens anyway, hopefully we will see the patience and kindness exhibited by Judge Ferguson.  And now, the other news of note from the past week:

• I enjoyed the latest episode of the Apps in Law podcast, in which Brett Burney interviews Illinois attorney Bryan Sims to discuss the TranscriptPad and Notability apps.
• Burney also posted a review this week, including a fantastic video review, of the Cardhop app that you can use to manage your contacts.
• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reviews the new version of Home+, and HomeKit app that is much more powerful than Apple's Home app.
• Austin Carr and Mark Gurman of Bloomberg Businessweek report on how Tim Cook has been running Apple as CEO.
• Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reports on new studies showing that an Apple Watch can detect changes in heart rate that can be indicative of early signs of COVID-19.
• If you like to use MagSafe wireless charging for your iPhone, the Elago MS1 stand, reviewed by Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac, looks interesting.
• Speaking of wireless charging, Hardy also discusses the new Satechi USB-C Watch Airpods Charger, which is $39 on Amazon.  Plug this small device into a USB-C port and it creates a tray where you can place an Apple Watch to charge it.  Flip it over, and it creates a tray where you can charge an AirPods case.  I love the design of this small device, which works on an iPad or a computer with a USB-C port.  As a practical matter, though, I have some questions.  It seems like it would only work with an iPad when it is flat on a table, and I usually keep mine propped up.  Also, the Apple Watch and AirPods case are not items that I need to charge very often during the day, so I suspect many folks wouldn't use this very often.  Even so, there is something about the design, with different wireless charging on each side, that I find very clever.
• Michael Simon of Macworld explains how Dolly Parton can help you get five months of Apple Music for free.
• I've heard of people who go to sleep wearing AirPods, and that always seemed dangerous to me because it seems like you can lose an AirPod in or behind a bed during the night.  But it never occurred to me that you might wake up like Bradford Gauthier did, experiencing a sore throat and then discovering that you swallowed an AirPod while you were sleeping.  As Gaby Moreno of WWLP reports, an X-Ray confirmed that the AirPod was lodged in his esophagus, resulting in an emergency endoscopy.
• And finally, the Korean acappela group MAYTREE did a fantastic job reproducing iPhone sound effects in this video:

Wireless Emergency Alerts on the iPhone

This past Sunday, a 10-year-old girl in New Iberia, Louisiana, was reported missing.  The Louisiana State Police issued an initial alert, saying that they believed her to be in imminent danger, but they did not have much information to go on.  After some investigation, the police learned that the girl was last seen getting into a car owned by an acquaintance of the girl's family who was driving a gray 2012 Nissan Altima, and the police were given a license plate number.  With either of those pieces of information — a license plate or a specific vehicle description, and here they had both — police can take advantage of the AMBER alert program.  Early Monday morning, an alert was sent to cellphones throughout the State of Louisiana.  The alert was seen by two sanitation workers on a trash route who spotted that very car in a field.  They called the police and used their garbage truck to prevent the car from leaving.  One of them even started a livestream on Facebook.  The police arrived, the driver was arrested, and soon thereafter, the girl was recovered, and she is now safe.  The story was reported on multiple news outlets in Louisiana such as WWL and KATC.

Alerts like this first came to the iPhone in 2013, and I described how the system works in this post from July 16, 2013.  But that was a long time ago, and the system has changed since then, so here is an update on Wireless Emergency Alerts on the iPhone in the United States.

Title VI of PL 109-347 (Oct. 13, 2006) is titled the Warning Alert and Response Network Act, sometimes called the WARN Act.  The WARN Act, in 47 U.S.C. § 1201, gives the FCC the authority to adopt standards for cellphone companies to transmit emergency alerts.  Participation by cellphone companies is voluntary, and if they do participate, the law states that cell phone companies may not impose an additional charge for such alerts.  47 U.S.C. § 1201(b)(2)(C).

Pursuant to the WARN Act, the FCC worked with FEMA to create a program called Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA).  The system was based on the prior Emergency Alert System (EAS), which are the warnings that you have seen and heard for a long time on television and radio when there is a weather or other emergency. 

Alerts are sent to cell towers providing wireless service to a target geographical area, and then all WEA-capable phones using those cell towers receive the alert.  Thus, you will receive an alert if you are in a targeted area even if you are just visiting that area.

WEA currently delivers four types of alerts:

1. Imminent Threat Alerts.  These are alerts issued because of an imminent threat to public safety or life, such as evacuation orders or shelter in place orders due to severe weather, a terrorist threat or a chemical spill.  For example, the National Weather Service notes on this page that it issues alerts for dust storms, extreme wind, flash floods, hurricanes, typhoons, snow squalls, storm surge, tornadoes, and tsunamis.  The way it works is that a pre-authorized national, state or local government agency sends an emergency alert to FEMA, which then sends the alert to the participating cell phone companies, each of which then sends the alert to WEA capable phones in the zone of emergency.

2. Public Safety Alerts.  These alerts contain information about a threat that concerns public safety but is not imminent.  These alerts can also be issued as a follow-up to an imminent threat.

3. AMBER Alerts.  AMBER officially stands for America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response, but that is a backronym as the system was really named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl who was abducted in 1996 while riding her bicycle in Arlington, TX and was subsequently murdered.  The killer was never identified.  The incident, and others like it, led to the AMBER Alert system, a method by which police officers may quickly publicize information when a child age 17 or younger is abducted such as the name and description of the child, a description of the suspected abductor, a description and license plate of the abductor's vehicle, etc.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, as of December 2020, 1,029 children were rescued specifically because of AMBER Alerts.  The original AMBER Alert system was opt-in only, and it sent a text message based on a cellphone owner's predefined geographical location regardless of where a cellphone was actually located when the alert was issued.  That system was retired on December 31, 2012, and was replaced by WEA.

4. Presidential Alerts.  I am not aware of any official standards for when the President will issue a WEA Presidential Alert.  No president has ever issued a Presidential Alert under WEA or similar prior systems (and hopefully, no president will ever have a need to do so).  However, there was a test of the Presidential Alert system on October 3, 2018, at 2:18 Eastern. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some state and local governments have used the WEA system to issue alerts.  For example, an alert used in Pennsylvania last November said:  "In PA, COVID-19 rates are rising, and hospitals could soon be at capacity. Stay home if possible. If you must go out, maintain social distance, wear a mask, wash your hands for 20 seconds. Stay up to date on the spread of COVID in your community so you can protect your loved ones with the COVID Alert PA app."

According to the FCC, since WEA became operational in 2012, the system has been used nearly 56,000 times.  If that seems like too much for you, the WARN Act provides in 47 U.S.C. § 1201(b)(2)(E) that cellphone users may opt-out of all alerts except for Presidential Alerts.  Thus, if you go to the Settings app on your iPhone, then go to Notifications, and then scroll all the way to the bottom, you will see options to opt-out of the first three alerts but not Presidential Alerts.

Although WEA alerts are based on your location, you do not need to have Location Services on the iPhone turned on to receive alerts.  Your iPhone's GPS radio is irrelevant to the WEA system.  As noted above, alerts are issued based upon your location as determined by cell towers.  When the service first launched, alerts would often issue to an entire county (or parish, if you are in Louisiana).  Starting in November 2017, the government required carriers to transmit alerts to a geographic area appropriate for the emergency, even if that was smaller than an entire county.  And starting in December 2019, alerts had to be targeted even more, with providers now required to deliver the alert to the appropriate area with no more than a tenth of a mile of overshoot.

WEA alerts look sort of like text messages, but they are not text messages, so you will receive them even if text messages are not enabled on your iPhone.  WEA capable devices are designed to reject duplicate alerts, so you should receive each alert only once.  However, subsequent alerts may be issued that contain information similar to a prior alert.  You might not receive an alert at all if you are on the phone. 

Now that you know all about the WEA system, you need to decide whether you want to opt-in or opt-out of the system.  An alert can be annoying when it doesn't seem relevant to you.  I sometimes turn mine off when I will be in a courthouse or someplace else where it seems inappropriate to receive alerts.  (And when I am appearing before a judge, I virtually always turn my iPhone off completely.)  But I'm glad that those two sanitation workers in Louisiana had their alerts enabled Monday morning, and you never know when one of these alerts will be critical and timely for you.

In the news

Normally, I don't talk about beta software on iPhone J.D. because you never know whether something is a real feature until software actually ships, but I'm very excited about a new feature that is currently included in the beta version of iOS 14.5 and watchOS 7.4.  As reported by Juli Clover of MacRumors, this new feature lets you use Face ID to unlock your iPhone, even if you have a mask on, as long as you are also wearing an Apple Watch.  Jason Snell of Six Colors reported that he installed the beta and tried out the feature, "and it worked flawlessly."  My understanding of how it works is that if your iPhone recognizes just part of your face (your eyes) it then checks to see if you have an Apple Watch that has remained on your wrist since the last time that you unlocked the Apple Watch (either by entering the passcode on the Apple Watch or by using your iPhone to authenticate your Apple Watch).  If so, the iPhone will unlock your iPhone — but only if you previously enabled this function in Settings.  (And your Apple Watch gives you a notification that it was just used to unlock your iPhone.)  Even though you can use this to unlock your iPhone to see a grocery list, your Messages, your Mail, etc., if you want to use Apple Pay, buy an app, or access protected parts of the Settings app, you will need to show your whole face for Face ID or enter your passcode.  (Of course, you can also just use Apple Pay on the Apple Watch.) I'm glad that Apple is making this an optional feature that you have to consciously turn on, but it is nice to give folks the option during the pandemic to give up a small amount of security in exchange for a big increase in convenience.  Indeed, I find that throughout this pandemic, I am constantly deciding whether to accept a certain amount of risk in exchange for certain conveniences (such as shopping in a grocery store around other people versus using a delivery service, working in my office versus working from home, etc.) so I see this as just another one of those decisions to make, depending upon the circumstances.  There is no way to know for sure when we will see iOS 14.5 released, but my hope is that it will come out this month.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Not that many of us are traveling internationally right now, but I've previously written about the tricky issues that lawyers face when they travel in and out of the United States with a smartphone because of border patrol policies on searching iPhones.  Debra Cassens Weiss of ABA Journal reports on Texas immigration lawyer Adam Malik who is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to challenge this practice after his iPhone was confiscated at the border.  This is a complicated issue, and unfortunately, I don't have any good answers for how attorneys should deal with this risk.
• In an article for USA Today that was trending this week, Kim Komando recommends five apps that you should delete right now.  I agree that you no longer need a special app to scan QR codes (just use the Photos app) or to use a flashlight (that function is now built-in), and it is a personal choice as to whether you want to delete Facebook and/or some of the built-in apps.  But I disagree with her suggestion to delete scanner apps and just use the Notes app instead.  It is nice that you can scan a document in Notes, but you get far more features and can get better results by using a third-party app, such as Scanner Pro.
• Apple Maps has a "Look Around" feature that is similar to Google's Street View but produces better results.  But unfortunately, it is only available in certain cities.  Juli Clover of MacRumors reported that this week the cities of San Diego and Portland were added.  That makes the feature available in 17 U.S. cities, nine cities outside of the U.S., and Southern Canada (including all of Canada's 35 metro areas) according to Justin O'Beirne, who also notes that Apple has been adding new cities about once every four to six weeks.
• Alex Guyot of MacStories reviews version 5 of the CARROT Weather app.
• Apple's own Newsroom shared a story about a man who received an Apple Watch as an anniversary gift and it helped to save his life.
• I am interested in smart home technology, so I often discuss HomeKit-compatible products on iPhone J.D.  In an article for TechHive, Christopher Null wrote a good overview of Apple's HomeKit technology.
• Jason Aten of Inc. interviews David Smith, the developer of the incredibly popular Widgetsmith app.
• And finally, in this video, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal tries to predict features that might be coming to the iPhone based on some new features added to a Samsung phone: