iPhone J.D.

Mac Power Users #571 -- iPhone, iPad, Macs+PCs, touching up photos, home automation, and more

I was thrilled and honored to be the guest on the latest episode of the Mac Power Users podcast.  California attorney David Sparks and Stephen Hackett, an expert on all of Apple's products, host one of the very best podcasts for anyone looking to do more with their Apple technology. 

In this episode, we discussed a broad range of topics:  some of the best apps for the iPhone, tips for getting work done with your iPad, iPad apps to touch up photographs, how to be productive when you use both a PC and a Mac, home automation products that work with Apple's HomeKit technology, and a bunch of other useful services including Apple's new Fitness+ service and CarPlay.  If a friend was to ask me to sit down with them and describe everything cool that I'm doing with technology, the conversation that we would have would be very close to the conversation that I had with David and Stephen on this episode.  And although this podcast is called "Mac" Power Users, and we did discuss some Mac technology, we spent far more time discussing iPad and iPhone topics — so even if your primary computer is a PC instead of a Mac, you will feel right at home listening to this episode.  I think that this episode came out really well, and I encourage you to check it out.

You can listen to the podcast in a web browser by going to this page, but my favorite way to listen to a podcast is on an iPhone.  You can do so using Apple's own Podcasts app, Overcast (my favorite podcast app), or virtually any other podcast app using these links:

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In the news

I am a big fan of the Apps in Law podcast, hosted by Brett Burney.  Brett always finds interesting attorneys to interview about (typically) just one app that they use in their law practice.  In the most recent episode, Brett interviews Illinois attorney Chuck Armbruster, who recommends an app that does something I've been wanting for a while.  The app is called OCR Scanner with LEADTOOLS SDK, and while the name is a mouthfull, it has a great function:  it performs an OCR on a PDF file.  There are many apps that will convert an image to a PDF file, including OCR, but those apps won't help you if your file is already in PDF format.  For example, if opposing counsel sends you a PDF file and you just want to do a quick OCR so that you can search the text and highlight using an app like PDF Expert, you can run the document through OCR Scanner with LEADTOOLS SDK and then send the document to another app like PDF Expert to read and annotate it.  The app is free, and although I've just started trying it out, it seems to work well.  For more details, listen to that episode.  It amazes me that there are not more apps like this in the App Store, and it also seems like a feature that should be built-in to premium PDF apps for the iPad, just like it is built-in to many PDF programs for the computer.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories discusses the HomePod Mini, including its ability to work with Thread-compatible smart devices — something that I didn't know about before reading his article.
• Jason Cipriani and Sarah Mitroff of CNet share tips for using a HomePod Mini.
• I'm a fan of Apple's new Fitness+ service, for the reasons that I explained in my recent review.  But this is just a 1.0 product and there is definitely room for improvement.  Dan Moren of Six Colors offers suggestions for how Apple could improve the Fitness+ service, and I would love to see many of the features he describes added in a future update.
• Over on Macworld, Moren shares some thoughts about what Apple might be planning with the augmented reality technology that it has been working on for years.
• If you subscribe to Apple TV+, you can watch the shows on your Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, or in the Apple TV app on a Mac.  But you can also stream to any browser by going to tv.apple.com, and Apple updated and improved that website this week.
• Brent Dirks of AppAdvice reviews Phone Buddy, an Apple Watch app that alerts you if your iPhone is not nearby, to try prevent you from leaving it somewhere by accident.
• Nick Guy of Wirecutter recommends some cases for the iPad Pro.
• The Find My app on your iPhone can be used to locate a person or an Apple device.  But Apple is obviously looking to expand this to other items.  When you are using Safari on your iPhone, type this into the address bar (or just click this link) — findmy://items — and Safari will ask if you want to open the Find My app.  Say yes, and you will see a hidden page in the app explaining that the app can be used to track everyday items like keys, a backpack, or a bike.  There is even an option to identify an item that you found but which does not belong to you.  Given that at least part of this item tracking feature is now a part of the Find My app (albeit hidden) perhaps it won't be long before Apple starts to ship its long-rumored AirTags devices and Apple opens up the Find My app to third-party developers.
• Juli Clover of MacRumors points out some of the interesting Apple-related accessories unveiled at the (virtual) CES convention this week.
• And finally, if you are interested in hearing how noise cancellation works on the new AirPods Max, Faruk Korkmaz of iPhonedo put together a fascinating video that you need to listen to while wearing a pair of headphones.  Using some interesting technology, he gives you a good sense of how they work.  It's a really interesting video, and worth checking out even if you have no intention of purchasing an AirPods Max just because it does neat things with audio.

Microsoft Word for iPad adds full trackpad and mouse support

Apple added preliminary iPad mouse support in 2019, and I found it to be very useful, but also somewhat frustrating because it seemed so limited with the cursor merely mimicking your finger without working like a mouse attached to a computer.  On March 24, 2020, Apple added fantastic mouse and trackpad support to the iPad when it released iPad OS 13.4.  For the first time, the iPad had true cursor support, like a computer.  And in fact, it was even better than a computer because the cursor could change its shape and function depending upon what your cursor was over.  The only drawback was that individual apps needed to add support for these advanced features, so it still felt somewhat incomplete.  But to be honest, there was really only one app for which I really wanted to see this advanced mouse and trackpad support:  Microsoft Word. 

On October 26, 2020, Microsoft announced that full support was coming "within a couple weeks."  Well, I guess everything took longer in 2020, but yesterday the Microsoft Word for iPad app was finally updated to add full trackpad and mouse support.  And I have good news:  it works great.

Connect a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (or trackpad) to your iPad, and you are ready to go.  When you move your cursor around the text portion of a Microsoft Word document, the cursor changes to an I-beam, much like you would see when using Microsoft Word on a computer.

I find that using a mouse in Microsoft Word on the iPad is an easier, faster, and more precise way to select text as compared to using your finger.  It works exactly the way that you would expect it to work.

When you move your cursor over one of the tools at the top, the shape of the cursor changes to indicate what will be selected if you click when your cursor is at that spot.  For example, if you hover your cursor over a tab, it changes to the shape of the entire tab:

If you hover your cursor over a formatting tool, such as the "B" that formats text in bold, your cursor changes to the shape of that tool:

If you own Apple's Magic Keyboard for iPad, which has a built-in trackpad, that device plus your iPad give you an incredibly powerful portable word processor for working with Word documents.  But even if you don't want to spend $290 for that device (or $330 for the larger version for the 12.9" iPad Pro), you can use any Bluetooth keyboard and any Bluetooth mouse with an iPad.  Or, if you have an iPad Pro, and if you have a USB-C hub that has a USB port on it — I use the HyperDrive 6-in-1 USB-C Hub (my review), but you can also use something less expensive such as this $19 adapter from Apple or this $8.50 adapter from Amazon Basics — you can even plug in any wired mouse to the iPad.  And surely you have one of those around somewhere.  I even hooked up a wired Kensington trackball to my iPad Pro and it worked great with this new version of Word.  If you have an iPad with a Lightning port, you can connect a USB device by using a Lightning-to-USB adapter such as this one.

Whether you use a trackpad or a mouse, wireless or corded, the Microsoft Word app on the iPad is now significantly better as a result of this update.  I wish that it had come sooner — I definitely would have taken advantage of this when I was working from home every day during the pandemic in 2020 — but it is here now, and it works really well.

Review: Solo Loop band for Apple Watch

I love that it is so easy to give an Apple Watch a new look simply by changing the band.  After using an Apple Watch for over five years — since it first went on sale — I've had lots of opportunities to try out lots of different bands sold by Apple.  The very first watch band I ever purchased, the Classic Buckle, is actually my least favorite of all that I own.  But thanks to a Christmas gift from my wife, I now have a new band that makes the list as one of my all-time favorites:  the Solo Loop, which Apple first introduced on September 16, 2020.

The Solo Loop is the most simple band that Apple makes.  There are no clasps.  It only comes in solid colors.  Each version of the band is just a single size.  It doesn't have any fancy features. 

While the design is simple, this is also perhaps the most complicated Apple Watch band to purchase.  That is because you have to pick a specific size, from size 1 to 9 for the 40mm Apple Watch and from size 4 to 12 for the 44mm Apple Watch.  The Apple website lets you download a printable guide that helps you to determine the correct size, and also includes instructions for how to measure your wrist with measuring tape or a ruler.  Or you can visit an Apple Store and have a specialist help you find the correct size, but that option is obviously more limited during the pandemic.

Another option for determining the correct size — or a good way to double-check that you picked the right measurement — is to figure out what hole you use on an Apple Sport Band and then follow John Gruber's instructions for translating that to a Solo Loop size.

Once you determine your size, you get to pick a color.  There are currently ten colors to choose from:  Northern Blue, Plum, Deep Navy, Kumquat, Ginger, Cyprus Green, Pink Citrus, White, Black, and Red.

My wife picked out Cypress Green for me, and it looks great.  It is a very dark green — almost black, depending upon the light.

Simply slide each end of the Solo Loop band into the Apple Watch, and it is ready to use.

The Solo Loop stretches, almost like a rubber band, so to put it on you just slip your wrist in, expanding the band in the process.  And then it surrounds your wrist.

The back of the Solo Loop has a slight indented well, which helps the Solo Loop to feel even thinner.

There are a number of things that I really like about the Solo Loop band.

First, it is by far the thinnest and lightest Apple Watch band that I have ever tried.  That's a nice feature in a band.

Second, it is by far the most secure Apple Watch band I've ever used.  Because there is no clasp, there is zero chance that you will catch it on something and have the Apple Watch band open up and fall off of your wrist.  That almost happened to me a few times with the large size of the Sport Band, although the XL size of the Sport Band solved that for me.  But even so, I love how secure this feels on my wrist.  It is not going anywhere.  If I was going to go swimming with my Apple Watch, this is the band that I would want to use to make sure that the band doesn't come off without me noticing it.  And if you want to do a vigorous run outside and you don't want any chance that your Apple Watch will become disconnected and fall off, this is the band for you.

Third, this band is made of silicone, so it is super easy to clean.  I wouldn't want to wear some of my other bands if I knew that my hands were going to get dirty, but I don't see that ever being a problem for the Solo Loop.

Fourth, I like that this band holds your Apple Watch in place.  It is not going to slide up and down your wrist.  It makes your Apple Watch feel like it just becomes a part of you.

So let's talk about comfort.  The most comfortable band for the Apple Watch that I've ever used is the Sport Loop with its double-layer nylon weave.  As I noted in my review, that one is like the yoga pants version of the Apple Watch, and it is perfect for when you are stuck at home during a pandemic — not that you would in any way feel embarrassed wearing it in public.  The Solo Loop is not soft like the Sport Loop, but it is still incredibly comfortable.  I think that this is a result of it being so thin, light, and seamless, but it also helps that it so perfectly conforms to the shape of your wrist.  I consider this one of the most comfortable watch bands I own, although the Sport Loop still holds the #1 spot for comfort.

One downside of the Solo Loop is that if you sweat while you are wearing it (for example, when you are working out), the sweat can get trapped under the band because the silicone does not breathe.  It's the same issue that you can have with the Sport Band, but it is a little more pronounced because the Solo Loop is a little tighter against your wrist than the Sport Band.  I only notice it when I remove the Solo Loop at the end of the day, and I certainly don't notice it every time, but it is something to consider.

Overall, I really like this band.  It is comfortable, thin, light, durable, and secure.  If those features appeal to you, I encourage you to try this band out.  At $49, it is one of the cheapest bands that Apple sells.  I'm glad to have this band, and I use it often.

In the news

After enduring what seemed like decades waiting for 2020 to end, it has been disheartening to see 2021 begin with record COVID-19 numbers and a U.S. president inciting insurrection while refusing to acknowledge the decision of American voters.  As to the latter, Apple CEO Tim Cook remarked Wednesday night:  "Today marks a sad and shameful chapter in our nation’s history. Those responsible for this insurrection should be held to account, and we must complete the transition to President-elect Biden’s administration. It’s especially when they are challenged that our ideals matter most."  Well said.  And now, for some respite from those troubling news headlines, here is some of the other recent news of note:

• Jason Snell of Six Colors reviews and compares the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max.
• Jason Cross of Macworld reviews Apple's AirPods Max.
• In a recent press release, Apple noted that customers spent $1.8 billion in the App Store the week between Christmas and New Year's.  That press release also includes many other interesting facts and figures from the past year.
• Chance Miller of 9to5 notes that, according to one report, nine of the top ten smartphones activated on Christmas day were different models of the iPhone.
• Michael Potuck of 9to5Msac explains how you can use a 3D printer to make your own version of Apple's $129 MagSafe Duo charger.
• Have you ever used the service Gazelle to get some cash for an older Apple device?  Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that the service is about to shut down.  Fortunately, Apple itself now offers a similar service for many used Apple products.
  
• Karissa Bell of Engadget reports that the MTA system in New York now supports contactless payments at all subway stations and bus lines in all five boroughs.  So you can simply tap your iPhone or Apple Watch and then go through the turnstile, without having to worry about a MetroCard.
• Here is a smart home device that I had not seen, or even thought of, before.  Bradley Chambers of 9to5Mac reports that you can now get the VOCOlinc Flowerbud, which is an essential oil diffuser that works with Apple’s HomeKit technology.
• If you want a sensor to add to your HomeKit setup, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of The Wirecutter recommends some of the best HomeKit sensors.  One of them that she recommends is the Eve Degree.  I’ve been using an Eve Degree since I posted a review in 2018, and it still works very well for me, making it easy to get the weather conditions in my own backyard.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball talks about the different USB-C chargers sold by Apple that may look the same but do not work the same.  It’s all very confusing.
• Adi Robertson and Mitchell Clark of The Verge report that Apple removed from the App Store an app called Vybe Together that was used to promote secret in-person parties that violated pandemic rules on social distancing.
• Ben Sandofsky does a great job of describing, in much detail, how Apple’s new ProRAW image format works on the newest iPhones and when you might want to use it.
• Jared Newman of Fast Company identifies some of the best new apps of 2020, some of which are iPhone apps.
• And finally, the iPad Air that Apple introduced just a few months ago is so close to an iPad Pro that I find it hard to recommend an iPad Pro to anyone right now — unless they really want the larger 12.9" screen (which I love).  But Apple obviously knows this, and it makes me think that the next version of the iPad Pro must have some impressive new features that will really set it apart from the iPad Air.  Rene Ritchie does a good job in this video of discussing some of the things that Apple could add to the 2021 version of the iPad Pro to make it noticeably better than the iPad Air:

Review: Apple Fitness+ -- excellent workout program for your Apple Watch

I realize it is a little cliché for my first post of a new year to be about a fitness program.  Nevertheless, I've been using Apple's new Fitness+ service ever since it debuted on December 14, 2020, and after doing 17 of the workouts over the last three weeks, I have used this new service enough to write this review.  My bottom line:  this service is excellent.  Fitness+ does a great job of using your Apple Watch to help you to improve your fitness.

What you need

The minimum requirements for using Fitness+ are an Apple Watch and an iPhone, but I think you will enjoy many of the workouts more if you use a larger screen such as an iPad or an Apple TV.  The Fitness+ service is built-in to the Fitness app on the iPhone and Apple TV.  If you use an iPad, you currently need to download the Fitness app from the App Store.

Some of the workout programs either require or allow you to use extra equipment.  For example, you need a treadmill, an indoor bike, or a rowing machine to use the Treadmill, Cycling, and Rowing programs.  For the Strength and High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) programs, many workouts encourage you to use dumbbells, but they are not required, and for some of those programs they are not used at all.  For other workouts like Yoga and Dance, you don't need any extra equipment, although you might want a yoga mat if you have a hard floor.

For the next few months, you can try the Fitness+ service for free.  Everyone with an Apple Watch can use it free for one month.  If you buy a new Apple Watch, you currently get three free months.  And if you purchase a new Apple Watch from Best Buy, you can currently get six months for free.

If you decide to keep using the service after the free trial, the Fitness+ service costs $9.99/month, or you can save by paying $79.99 for a year.  You can share the service with up to six family members.  I get the Fitness+ service as a part of paying $29.95/month for the Apple One Premier plan, which includes Fitness+, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and 2TB of iCloud storage.  If you use lots of Apple services, the Apple One Premier is a good deal.  I was already subscribed to the Apple Music family plan, 2 TB of iCloud storage, Apple TV+, and Apple Arcade, and paying for those services individually would cost $35/month, so I saved $5/month by selecting this bundle while also getting access to Fitness+ and News+ for no additional charge.

Selecting a program

Fitness+ currently offers eight types of workouts:  HIIT, Strength, Yoga, Dance, Core, Cycling, Treadmill, Rowing.  There is also a ninth option, called Mindful Cooldown; I'm not sure that I would call it a "workout," but it is definitely helpful for fitness.  Each Mindful Cooldown session features guided stretching and meditation exercises.  That one is especially useful as a way to stretch and relax after another workout.  The classes last from 5 to 45 minutes.

Once you select a type of workout on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV, you can select a specific workout program.  You can filter all of the available programs by length, trainer, or type of music.  New workouts are released every Monday.

At first, I picked out my workouts based on the type of music that I liked, but I soon discovered that the music genre does not matter much to me.  Even when I used a workout with a genre that is not normally my cup of tea, I found that the instructors did a great job of selecting music that fit with the particular workout.

I've now done workouts with nine of the 21 different trainers, and they have all been excellent ... not that I'm surprised that Apple hired some of the very best trainers.  They do a great job of talking to you throughout the workout to guide you through what you are doing, what you may be feeling (such as the part of your body that you are stretching), and what is coming next.  They also do an excellent job offering encouragement at just the right time, causing me to push myself harder than I would have on my own.

All of the workouts offer descriptions and short video previews so that you can decide whether you are interested in a specific program.  You can also see a playlist of the music used in the workout if that makes a difference to you (and if you really like the playlist, you can open it in Apple Music if you subscribe to that service). 

Many of the workouts that I did were treadmill workouts.  For those, you can select whether you want to run or walk.

The Fitnesss+ app also includes a section called Workouts to Get Started, which are specially designed for folks who are new to, or just want an introduction to, a particular type of exercise.  For example, if you are new to yoga, you can do a 10-minute beginner session with the trainer Dustin, and after that, you can move on to a 20-minute beginner session with trainer Molly, and then move on to the regular yoga workouts.

Once you have selected the workout that you want to do, your iPhone or iPad or Apple TV will establish a connection with your Apple Watch.  Once that happens, you tap a big button on your Apple Watch or on the screen you are using to begin the workout.

Doing a workout

In most of the workouts that I tried, the trainer began by leading you through a few stretching exercises and explaining what you would be doing in the workout, and then the session begins.  There are typically three trainers on the screen at one time.  The trainer in the center is the one who does virtually all of the talking, the one who guides you through the program.  The trainer on the left does a modified, more simple, version of the same workout.  For example, in the Treadmill workout, the primary trainer will run but the trainer on the left will walk.  In one Strength workout that I did, the primary trainer used dumbbells but the trainer on the left did not.  The trainer on the right does a modified, more complex, version of the same workout. 

Note that in the Mindful Cooldown sessions, there is just a single trainer.  Also, there is just a single trainer in the beginner workouts.

In all of the workouts that I did, the primary trainer did an excellent job of coaching to all levels.  For example, in a treadmill workout, the trainer will tell you which incline percentage to use based on whether you are walking or running.  Also, in treadmill workouts, the trainer will help you at the beginning to find your "easy" pace and your "base" pace and then will guide you through increasing speeds by using subjective words describing how much you should be pushing yourself, and then will tell you to return to the base or easy pace.  As a result, I very much felt like each treadmill workout was tailored to me, even though the trainer was speaking to a wide range of skill levels.

But my favorite part of these workouts – and a key thing that makes Fitness+ different from the workout videos that you can find for free on YouTube or that you can pay for from other services — is the integration of the Apple Watch.  In the past, when I have used a treadmill, I've always found it a little awkward to have to raise my wrist to look at my statistics, and if I wanted to look at how I was doing with closing my circles it is even more awkward to have to switch screens on the watch while I am walking or running.  But with Fitness+, everything that you need to see is right there on the screen.

At the top left, you can see either the elapsed time or the time remaining in the workout.  (You can adjust the Metrics to set this option before you start a workout.)  Either way, you will also see a yellow circle that gives you a graphical representation of how much longer you have to go in the workout.  For treadmill workouts, you will next see your elapsed distance (estimated from your Apple Watch, not from your treadmill).  Next, you see your heart rate.  I really loved seeing this live information because it helped me to determine how much more I wanted to push myself.  Finally, you see the number of calories that you have burned so far during the workout.  At the top right, you see how you are doing on your activity rings, and you are rewarded with a short animation if you close your rings during the workout.

For HIIT, treadmill, cycling, and rowing workouts, you can also optionally choose to display a Burn Bar below the other numbers on the top left.  This gives you a sense of how you are doing versus other people who have done the same workout, based on the past two minutes.  It adds a bit of competition (albeit anonymous competition) that might help to encourage you to push yourself harder.

The trainer doesn't change what he or she is saying during the workout based on your specific numbers.  I suppose Apple could add something like this in the future, although I'm not sure how useful it would be.  However, the trainer will sometimes direct you to focus on one of the metrics, and when that happens, the specific metric with your data will often become more prominent.  For example, if the trainer encourages you to focus on your heart beat, the other metrics on the top left will disappear for a few seconds and the display will instead focus on your current heart rate (while also showing your low and high during that workout).

Also, in many classes, the trainer will encourage you to push yourself for a limited period of time, such as keeping up a high pace for 60 seconds.  Whenever this happens, a countdown timer will show up on the top left above the other numbers.  This is a great way to encourage you to push yourself with the knowledge that the end of that intense segment is getting closer.

Subtitles are available if you want to turn them on.

When the next song starts playing during a workout, the title and artist are briefly displayed at the top right of the screen.

When you are done with your workout, you can see a summary of the workout either on your screen or on your Apple Watch with all sorts of statistics such as the total time, calories, and average heart rate.  And if you used the Burn Bar, you will see how you did compared to all of the other people who did the same workout.

 

If you want to go straight to a Mindful Cooldown session after a workout, there is a button to make it easy to jump right there.

The Fitness app also keeps track of all of your workouts, so it is easy to see all of the workouts that you have done in the past.

Additionally, when you are looking at all of the available workouts in the Fitness+ section of the Fitness app, a checkmark is placed in the corner of every workout that you have already completed.  Thus, it is easy to select a workout that you haven't done yet.

What I love

I love getting all of the metrics that I want right there on the same screen that I am watching during a workout.  It makes the service much more engaging.  And it is infinitely better than having to look at your wrist while you are working out.  It is also nice that you don't have to stop the workout on your Apple Watch at the end of the workout — that happens automatically.  They may sound silly, but when I'm sweaty and tired after a workout, it is sometimes a pain to have to tap and swipe to end, and it is always a pain when I forget to end the workout only to have my watch tap me a few minutes later to ask if I'm done.  There are none of those concerns with Fitness+.

I also love that the quality of each video is amazing.  And the streaming quality is also excellent:  crisp images with no compression artifacts.  If you watched any of the Apple keynotes that were done during the pandemic in 2020, you know how good Apple is with streaming video.  

I've been especially happy with the trainers in the videos.  They do an excellent job of explaining the workout as it is occurring, and the tips that they offer are very helpful.   And it is smart to show three trainers at once geared at different skill levels.  I like that I can look at either the middle or left trainer to see what I should be doing.  (No, I am not nearly good enough to ever keep up with the trainer on the right.)  And seeing three trainers also feels like you are part of a team, especially after you have done multiple workouts and you start to recognize the trainers on the left or right from other workouts that you did when they were the lead trainer. 

I also love that Fitness+ gives you a high-quality workout at home.  Of course, that is especially nice during this pandemic when going to a gym is unsafe and probably prohibited your area.  But even if I could go to a gym right now, the time, cost, and inconvenience would be a deterrent for me.  Plus, there is the intimidation of being in a public setting.  But with Fitness+, I was happy to try out some Dance workout videos, secure in the knowledge that nobody — not even the trainer — could see what a poor job I did following most of the moves.  I realize that this is nothing new; people have been Sweatin' to the Oldies with Richard Simmons on VHS tapes and doing similar programs since at least the 1980s.  But this formula has been around for a while because it works, and Apple has definitely put a very polished and high-tech spin on at-home workouts.

If you like a particular workout session, you can save it to your favorites to make it easier to do it again.  For some workouts, like the Dance workouts, I can definitely understand the value in repeating them.  But I like the fact that there are lots of different workouts, with new ones added each week so that there is always something fresh to experience.

What I don't love

I've only experienced one problem with the Fitness+ service, something that I think is some sort of bug.  Although Fitness+ always worked great with my iPad, I found that if I used Fitness+ on my Apple TV (I have the "Apple TV HD" model, which was introduced in 2015) while I was also using my AirPods Pro, the Apple TV would sometimes lose the connection to the Apple Watch shortly after I started a workout.  A few minutes later, the workout would end because of that lost connection.  To be precise, this happened to me during two of six workouts that I did while wearing my AirPods Pro.  I think that this problem may have something to do with using my AirPods because, so far, I have never experienced the problem when I was just using my normal TV speakers with the Apple TV, only if I was using my AirPods Pro.  Is the Apple TV having trouble communicating via Bluetooth with two devices at once — my Apple Watch and my AirPods Pro?  Hopefully, this is a bug that Apple will soon fix.

Conclusion

I mentioned above that because I already pay for the Apple One Premier service, it felt sort of like I was getting Fitness+ for free.  But after using this service for the past few weeks, I now see that this is a service that I would pay for separately even if it was not already part of my Apple One bundle.  Fitness+ is that good. 

And the service is still in its first month.  Over time, there will certainly be more workouts to choose from.  And because Apple is a technology company, perhaps we will see other improvements to how the service works with your Apple devices.

If you own an Apple Watch and you are interested in personal fitness, I encourage you to take advantage of the free trial and give Fitness+ a chance so that you can discover whether you like it as much as I do.

Review: Foam Masters Hybrid Silicone-Memory Foam Ear Tips for AirPods Pro -- comfortable replacement tips that fit

I've been using Apple's AirPods Pro for almost a full year, and they are one of my all-time favorite Apple products.  I use them every single day to listen to music, listen to podcasts, participate in videoconferences, and conduct phone calls, and I love doing so.  And that really says something about this product because I love them even though I've had two problems.  First, I started to hear some weird crackling noises with them — a problem that Apple appears to have now fixed.  Second, when I use the silicone tips that Apple includes with AirPods Pro, they AirPods don't stay in my ears very well. 

As a solution to that second problem, I added added some memory foam to to the silicone tips in early 2020.  I explained the process for doing so in this post, and that made a huge difference in getting the tips to stay in my ears.  But over the course of this year, I've had to replace the memory foam once or twice as it has fallen apart, and that has been a bit of a pain.

A few weeks ago, California attorney David Sparks mentioned on the 2020 Holiday Gift Guide episode of the Mac Power Users podcast that there are now vendors who do a good job of combining memory foam with silicone, and he recommended a product by Foam Masters called the Hybrid Silicone-Memory Foam Ear Tips.  They are only $15.99 on Amazon, and the product listing says that there is a 30-day money-back guarantee, so I figured that I had nothing to lose by trying them out.  I'm glad that I did because I find these even more comfortable than the ones that I created for myself, and they come ready-to-use with no assembly required.

Apple gives you three sizes of tips when you purchase AirPods Pro, and Foam Masters does the same thing.  Thus, when you purchase this product, you will get the tip size that works best for you no matter what size you prefer.  They come with a small clear plastic case that you can use to store any tips that you are not using.

You connect these tips the same way that you connect the Apple tips:  just push them on.  When you connect Apple's tips, you feel a slight little click.  I didn't feel that same slight click when I connected the Foam Master tips, which made me concerned that they were not connecting correctly.  Indeed, there were two different occasions when I removed the AirPod from my right ear and the tip became unattached and stayed in my ear.  Ugh.  I reached out to Foam Masters to ask about getting a replacement, and the company quickly wrote back to say:

I totally understand what you mean.  I can send you replacements, but I know exactly how to solve this problem.  The ear tip just needs to be pressed in harder for a nice secure fit.  Can you try using a toothpick to clean any possible debris around the bracket on the AirPods Pro itself?  And THEN connect the ear tip to the AirPods Pro.

I followed these instructions, and it turns out that there was debris around my AirPod bracket — ear wax can be sort of gross — and I was able to get it off using a toothpick, using the magnification feature on my iPhone so that I could make sure that all of the debris was gone.  And sure enough, this was a perfect solution for this problem.

The overall size of the replacement tips are the same size as Apple's tips.  Thus, even with the large size attached, my AirPods Pro were still a perfect fit for the charging case.

Note that if you don't want the silicone on the tips, Foam Master also sells a version of its tips with just the memory foam.  I didn't try those because I prefer the feel of the silicone that you get with the hybrid model, plus the silicone cover makes the tips more resistant to sweat.  Perhaps that is the same reason that Apple decided to include silicone tips with the AirPods Pro, not memory foam.

Thanks to this inexpensive product, my AirPods Pro fit and feel better than ever.  I've used them when sitting down, when walking around, and when using my treadmill and getting sweaty (thanks to Apple's new Fitness+ service).  No matter how active I am, the AirPods stay in my ears and sound great.

If the tips that Apple includes with AirPods Pro already are already perfect for your ears, then perhaps you don't need to change anything.  And I'm a little jealous of you.  But if you have ever wished that your AirPods Pro fit and/or stayed in better, I encourage you to to check out these replacement tips and see what you think.  Hopefully you will work just as well for you as they do for me.

Click here to get Foam Masters Hybrid Silicone-Memory Foam Ear Tips for AirPods Pro from Amazon ($15.99).

In the news

This is the final In the news for 2020, and given everything we have gone through this year, I — like pretty much everyone else — am very much looking forward to the future.  But of course, there are always folks thinking about, and looking forward to, what the future may hold.  A few days ago, an iPhone J.D. reader shared an article with me from the April 11, 1953 edition of The Tacoma New Tribune in which Mark Sullivan, the president of Pacific Telephone & Telegraph, made this bold, and very accurate, prediction:  "In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today.  It probably will require no dial or equivalent, and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk."  I was curious if this was real, but it is confirmed by Snopes and has been discussed elsewhere in the past, such as this article by Jason Kottke.  I'm impressed that someone could look at the rotary telephone of the 1950s and foresee the iPhone.  As I glance at my iPhone 12 Pro, I honestly have no idea what phones will look like and do 67 years from now, but I hope that it won't be called the iPhone 79 Pro.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• New York attorney Nicole Black recommends holiday gifts for lawyers working remotely on the MyCase blog. 
• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reviews the Level Touch, a HomeKit-compatible smart lock that looks like a normal lock.
• This week, Apple added cardio fitness notifications to the Apple Watch.  Alex Guyot of MacStories explains what that means and how you turn it on.
• Photographer Erin Brooks shows off the advantages of the camera on the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
• Apple released iOS 14.3 this week, and one of the new features is support for the ProRAW format for the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max.  Photographer Austin Mann does a great job of explaining and showing what you can do with ProRAW that you couldn't do before.
• Juli Clover of MacRumors explains another new feature iOS 14.3:  you can ask your iPhone what hundreds of animals, musical instruments, and other items sound like.  This amused my kids, for a few minutes at least.
• Another new feature of iOS 14.3 is support for Apple Fitness+.  Todd Haselton of CNBC wrote a good review of the Fitness+ service.  I started using it this week, and so far I'm very impressed. 
• Apple CEO Tim Cook discusses using Apple technology for health and fitness — and just for being outdoors — in a good interview on an episode of the Outside podcast.
• Apple updated its map of Canada, and Justin O'Beirne does a great job showing examples of what has changed.
• MacStories named the winners of its MacStories Selects 2020, recognizing the best apps of the year.  There are some great apps on that list.
• Clare Duffy and Shannon Liao of CNN decided to figure out how much you would have to spend if you want to get the best versions of all of Apple's current products.  The figure they came up with is about $80,000, but about $70,000 of that was devoted to a desktop and laptop computer.  So if you don't need a new computer, just think of all of the money you can save.
• And finally, this week Marques Brownlee had an opportunity to ask Barack Obama a question about how he and his team embraced technology, and it is a pretty fascinating video Q&A:

Review: Paperless Field Guide by David Sparks -- digitize the paper in your life

California attorney David Sparks converted his law practice from paper to paperless long before many other attorneys did so, and along the way, he discovered lots of tips and tricks for making the transition.  He compiled all of his advice into an ebook called Paperless, which I reviewed back in 2012.  It was a great resource, and I know that many lawyers found it valuable.

David has moved away from producing electronic books and instead he now produces a series of what he calls electronic field guides, which are videos devoted to a topic broken down into lots of sections and chapters.  I prefer watching one of David's video field guides over reading a book because he shares his screen, shows you what he is doing, and explains to you what he is doing as he is doing it.  It is very easy to follow along.  In the past, I've written about his iPhone Field Guide and his Photos Field Guide.

David has now returned to Paperless (the first book he ever self-published) and has released a new version of his Paperless Field Guide, this time as a video field guide.  Of course, using mobile technology in a paperless practice is very different today than it was in 2012.  The 2020 version is full of fantastic tips for reducing the paper in your life and going digital with the aid of an iPhone, iPad, and/or Mac.  David shared a free preview of it with me, and it is excellent.  If you want some tips for reducing the paper in your life, this is a fantastic resource that I am sure that you would find very valuable.

The video course includes 95 videos with nearly seven hours of content.  David includes tips on converting paper to digital and then storing, editing, and sharing your digital documents.  Although not written specifically for lawyers, he does include examples from his law practice. 

The content is great, but I am equally impressed with how it is all presented.  The video production quality is top-notch.  Each video also includes a fantastic (optional) closed captioning system, which not only shows the words he is saying at the bottom of the screen but also lets you see all of the words in the video and jump to a specific part of the video.  Plus, the full text of each lesson is presented below the video.  This means that you can select a topic, skim the text of it, and then decide which topics you want to watch. 

You can watch the videos on pretty much any device, but I liked watching it on my computer so that I can use my iPad at the same time to try out what David was describing.  As you complete each segment of the course, a check mark indicates that you have completed a section.  That way, you can feel free to jump around without losing track of what you haven't seen yet. 

One section of the course gives you the option to download a PDF file containing all of the text in the course, broken down by chapter and section.  So if you wanted to read an ebook, much like the 2012 version, you could do so.  He also provides an ePub version that works on an electronic reader device.  You miss out on a lot by reading instead of watching the course, but the PDF document makes it easy to search across the course to find out what section you want to go watch.

The normal price of the Paperless Field Guide is $29, but for a limited time you can take advantage of a $24 introductory price.  If you want a helping hand for reducing the paper in your life and for making the most of documents once they are in a PDF format, this is a great resource.  And kudos to David for creating his best field guide yet.

Click here for the Paperless Field Guide by David Sparks.

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This article won the TechnoLawyer Pick of the Week award on December 29, 2020.  The editors of TechnoLawyer, a free weekly email newsletter for lawyers and law office administrators, give this award to one article every week that they feel is a must-read for this audience.

[Sponsor] Scanner Pro by Readdle — scan documents with your iPhone (or iPad)

A scanning app is essential for any attorney using an iPhone and/or iPad.  By converting a physical document into a digital form, you can read it on a back lit screen and zoom in to see the fine print, annotate it, share it, store it, etc.  Back in 2012, I tried out the scanner app sold by Readdle called Scanner Pro after I heard so many other lawyers rave about the app, and I was very impressed.  Although I’ve tried out other scanning apps, Scanner Pro has been my go-to app for many years because it works so incredibly well.  I use the app extensively in my law practice, but I use it frequently in my personal life as well.  For example, whenever I get a product that has a manual, I scan the manual and put it into a special folder on my home computer.  If I ever need the manual again, I know exactly where to look.  And during the pandemic, my wife has used Scanner Pro to digitize all of the recipes that she clipped and saved from magazines and other sources — in some cases, back in the 1980s.

Because this app is so useful to me, when Readdle signed up to sponsor iPhone J.D. this month, I was the one who asked to make its Scanner Pro app the focus of this month's post.  It just so turns out that this is a great month to mention the app because it was updated to version 8 on December 10, 2020.  (I described the last big update, version 7, back in 2016.).

Here is why I find this app so useful, along with information on what is new in version 8.  Note that I focus on the iPhone in this post because that is how I always use this app, but you can also use this app on an iPad.

Scanning

One of the things that I have always loved about Scanner Pro is how incredibly easy it is to turn a physical document into a digital scanned document.  When you open the app, the app jumps right into scanning mode so you can immediately capture an image of the first page of the document.  This makes it fast to start scanning.  (You can turn off the Start with Camera feature in the Advanced Settings portion of the app, but I would never want to do so.)  If you are already working in the app, you can start scanning by tapping the large plus sign at the bottom right corner of the app.

Hold your iPhone over the first page your document, and as soon as the app recognizes the four edges of the document, it will take the picture.  You can turn off the Auto-Capture mode to put the app in manual mode, where you have to tap a button to take a picture, but it is much more convenient to keep Auto-Capture turned on.  

Once the first page of a document is imaged, the app is ready to scan the second page and does so as soon as it sees the four corners.  Then you can move on to the third page, etc.  This process works well and is very fast.  By simply letting the app take a look at each page of a document, the app scans the pages into a single PDF file.  No need for you to tap any buttons between each page being scanned.

The quality of a scan created by Scanner Pro is excellent.  Of course, you get best results if you scan a good version of a document when it has high-contrast around the edges (the document is against a surface with a different color) and the light is good.  For example, a typical white letter-size sheet of paper is easy to scan against the darker background of a wooden table with overhead lights.  But I’ve also had good luck with documents that are less than pristine.  If a document is in very poor shape, such as crumbled up or folded, then I find that a flat-bed scanner works better because it can help to flatten the document.  However, it is pretty rare for me to work with documents like that, so for virtually all of my other scanning needs, Scanner Pro works great.

Everything that I just wrote assumes that you are using an iPhone's camera to scan a physical document.  However, you can also tap the photos icon at the bottom right of the scan screen to instead select an image on your camera roll and scan that image to create a PDF document.

Editing a scan

Once all of the pages have been scanned, tap the thumbnail of the document at the bottom right to work with the document.  Using icons at the top of the screen you can see each page of the document and select specific pages to act upon them, plus you can use other features like add annotations to the document, set a password, or delete.  But I rarely use those options and instead I find the five tools at the bottom to be the most useful.

Add - this lets you add one or more pages to the document.  If I have a poor quality document, I will sometimes scan just the first page, make sure that I am satisfied with the results, and then go back and add the additional pages.

Search - this lets you search for text within the document.  The app will tell you which pages of the document contain the word, and then when you view that page, you can see the word highlighted on the page.

 
Share - use this option to share the document.

Edit - tap this button to edit the scan.  You can rotate the document, adjust each of the four corners of the document if the app didn’t do so correctly (which sometimes happens when you place a white document on a white table), change the document size (such as letter, legal, A4, etc.), change the color of the scan (color document, black and white document, photo, grayscale), adjust the brightness or contrast, and turn automatic warp correction on or off.  The app does such a good job that I often don’t need to enter the edit mode (except to change my mind about whether I want a color or black and white scan), but it is nice to have this much control.

Note that you can also set the document to color/black and white/etc. when you are in the scan mode, which saves you the trouble of later adjusting this in the edit mode.

Text - this is a new feature in version 8.  Tap this button and the app will show you just the text that is in the document, without any of the formatting.  Scanner Pro performs an OCR on every document that you scan, and that is how it knows which words are on each page of a document.  The quality of the OCR depends upon the original that you are scanning.  In my law practice, where I am often working with black text on a white page, Scanner Pro does a great job with OCR, except that sometimes it gets confused when there is something like a clerk of court stamp on top of typed words.  For other documents, the quality of the OCR depends upon the source, but even a document with the plain text of only most of the words is easier to work with than a document with none of the text recognized.  

In the Text mode, you can copy all or some of the text and share the text elsewhere.  For example, you can scan a contract and then copy a paragraph of that document to paste that text into a block quote section of a brief you are drafting in Microsoft Word.

Languages

Although I typically scan documents written in English, Scanner Pro is smart enough to detect a large number of languages.  If you have the Latin-based languages option turned on, the app will automatically recognize English, Catalan, Danish, German, Dutch, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Latin, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Filipino, and Turkish.  

If you have Latin-based languages turned off, the app will recognize Czech, Chinese (Sim), Chinese (Tra), Greek, Estonian, Croatian, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, and Ukrainian.

Saving

Another feature that makes Scanner Pro work so well for me is that you can control how files are automatically saved after they are scanned, such as automatically uploading to a Dropbox folder.  Scanned files are also accessible within the Scanner Pro app itself, where you can sort them, organize them into folders, and display them either as large or small icons.  The options for organizing and browsing your files within the app improved quite a bit with the update to version 8.

By default, the files are saved with a filename in the format of YYYY-MM-DD Scan, with numbers added after the word "Scan" as needed.  That’s very convenient for me because I simply change the word "Scan" to a title that I want to use, change the date if necessary, and then the filename is in the format that I prefer.

Scanner Pro also has a sophisticated Workflow feature.  You can use this to change how files are named, automate what happens when you scan a file, etc.

Price

For the prior versions of Scanner Pro, you paid when you downloaded the app.  Version 8 changes that.  Now, you can download the app for free to give you a chance to try it out, but some of the advanced features are disabled.  For example, OCR is disabled in the free version, and a Scanner Pro watermark is added when you share a file.  To unlock all of the features in the free version, the app now uses a $19.99/year subscription.

What if you paid for the app in the past — perhaps as long as eight years ago like me?  You can update your app to version 8 and take advantage of all of the current version 8 features without paying anything more.  And Readdle says that you can continue to use those current features for as long as you want.  However, in the future, Readdle plans to add additional features to the app, and you will need to upgrade to a subscription if you want to take advantage of those additional features when they are added.  It is nice that Readdle is so generous to its long-time users.  At the same time, I look forward to seeing what Readdle has planned for future updates.

Here is what Readdle’s Chief Product Officer and co-founder Alex Tyagulsky said about upcoming features for Scanner Pro:

We’ve invested heavily into exploring how recent advancements in AI and machine learning, as well as new APIs and services from the likes of Google and Microsoft, can be harnessed within Scanner Pro to help make life easier for the people who use it. The first fruit of this work is already live in the form of a new shadow removal algorithm. But that’s just the beginning —  improved border detection, automatic document categorization, and tagging are just around the corner, while new neural network-based OCR for Latin languages is being rolled out today.

Conclusion

Scanner Pro is a fantastic app.  The app gives you a fast and convenient way to use the device that is already in my pocket to turn a physical document into a PDF document, with OCR performed and saved in the location that that you designate.  The app has been around for so long that it already has a robust feature set, and the app should only get better now that Readdle is announcing plans to add new features in the future.  Thank you to Readdle for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month and for giving me an excuse to talk about an app that is incredibly useful to lawyers and anyone else who works with documents.

Click here to get Scanner Pro (free with subscription available):