iPhone J.D.

In the news

The annual D Conference, sponsored by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal, took place this week, which was an excuse for many tech companies to debut new and upcoming products, and there was much other iPhone news this week.  Here are a few of the highlights that caught my attention, plus I answer the burning question of "Where's the beef?" (and the turkey) inside of Apple:

• South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens, who authors The Mac Lawyer, has long been a fan of Daylite, a Mac program that can be used for case management.  (See some of his discussions here: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5)  He's not alone; I often hear Mac-using attorneys rave about that product.  Macworld has a review of the new companion iPhone app, Daylite Touch, which it says is "so rich and useful, it makes a compelling argument for jumping on the Daylite bandwagon."
• Google previewed an upcoming product it is calling Wave, which allows web browsers to have live chats in which each word is transmitted as it is typed, character by character (instead of the "person X is typing" messages that you typically get with instant messaging) to speed up messaging, plus Wave allows live editing of documents by multiple people at the same time, and even includes real time translation.  Google says that Wave will work on iPhones.  Get more information from Engadget and CNET.
• Maryland attorney Lou Pettey pointed me to this funny Dilbert cartoon from March, joking that his wife has referred to his iPhone as his "girlfriend" for a few months now.  Since my wife is an iPhone-using attorney who has been known to read this blog, I'd like to take this opportunity to emphasize that she is "way better" than my iPhone.  Although the iPhone does have some really cool apps ... um, I better move on to the next story before I get into trouble.

• Speaking of my wonderful wife, she shared this New York Times article with me about the etiquette of using a smartphone at the dinner table.  I presume that the article is interesting, but I only skimmed it because I was using my iPhone at the time.
• Keeping an eye on the upcoming competition to the iPhone, Jon Rubenstein and Roger McNamee of Palm previewed the upcoming Palm Pre at the D Conference.  It appears that the Pre will sync with iTunes and iPhoto, just like the iPhone.  I wonder whether Apple will try to block that.  I used the 1.0 version of iTunes on my Mac before there was an iPod; back then, iTunes synced with any MP3 player, and I used a Rio 600 that held about 15 songs at a time (and I am amazed to find a current Amazon link to it: Rio 600 32 MB Digital Audio Player), but it has been a long time since Apple allowed iTunes to sync with any new non-Apple MP3 players.  Engadget has good coverage of the Pre announcements and I particularly enjoyed this photograph of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak sleeping through a portion of the Palm presentation.
• Apple's retail stores are already fantastic, but over a third of them are about to be improved.  The definitive website on Apple Stores -- ifoAppleStore -- discusses a USA Today article which reveals that Apple will remodel 100 of its current 252 stores to display more computers and increase the size of the Genius Bar by 50% to accommodate more customers.  I have always had very positive experiences with the Genius Bar whenever I have had trouble with a Mac or an iPod.
• And finally, there was a brief time yesterday when you could type menu.apple.com into the Safari web browser on an iPhone and, for a brief second, see Apple's web app for the cafeterias at each of five Apple campuses before the webpage pushed you over to www.apple.com (presumably after realizing that you were not accessing the webpage from within Apple's employee network).  Macworld noticed it, as did I after I saw this tweet from Scott Kleinberg's iPTIB Twitter account.  The Apple cafeterias are called Caffè Macs.  I ate at the Caffè Macs on Apple's main Cupertino, CA campus a few years ago, and it was delightful -- good food, nice tables where you could eat either inside or outside, and on the day I was there, I could look two tables over and see Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive eating lunch together.  (You can learn more about the cafeteria in this MacLife article.)  There are reports that Steve Jobs (who has been on medical leave) returned to Apple's Cupertino campus this week, but since he is a vegan, he must have missed the daily specials, the roast turkey and the roast beef.  I presume they were delicious, but I will post updates as I get more news on this breaking story.  Here are a few screenshots from my iPhone if you want to see what you missed during yesterday's rare peek inside of Apple:

   

AT&T to double 3G network speed

Confirming rumors from last month, AT&T announced yesterday that it is doubling the speed of its 3G network from the current theoretical maximum of 3.6 Mbps to 7.2 Mbps.  The roll out will start this year and finish in 2011.

New hardware will be required to take advantage of this 7.2 Mpbs network, and perhaps this is a feature that will be included in the next version of the iPhone that many believe will be introduced on June 8th at Apple's WWDC conference.  iLounge is suggesting that the next iPhone might come in two versions -- a normal 3G version, and an enhanced 3G version that can take advantage of the 7.2 Mpbs networks.

AT&T also says that the existing 3G network will also be improved by "nearly doubling the wireless spectrum dedicated to 3G in most metropolitan areas to deliver stronger in-building reception and more overall network capacity."  Better in-building reception would be a welcome improvement.

Note that these 3.6 and 7.2 numbers are theoretical peaks.  As AT&T cheerfully admits in the same press release:  "Typical real-world downlink and uplink speeds experienced by customers with upgraded 3G will be less than the theoretical peak and will vary based on a number of factors, including location, device, and overall traffic on the local network at a given time."  I have never seen anything close to 3.6 Mbps on my iPhone using 3G.  On Wi-Fi I can get around 3 Mbps but on the AT&T 3G network I'm usually at around 1 Mbps.  Nevertheless, if doubling the theoretical maximum were to mean that Wi-Fi speeds become possible on an iPhone using 3G, that would be very impressive.

AT&T also said that its 7.2 Mpbs 3G is just a stepping stone to even greater speeds using the even faster 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) network, which will be deployed starting in 2011.  LTE has a potential speed of 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps, and even if the real world results are far less, we are talking about serious broadband speeds.

Interestingly, LTE is also in Verizon's future.  Both Jim Dalrymple (formerly of Macworld, now with CNET) and Om Malik of Gigaom have suggested that AT&T is working hard to improve its network to convince Apple to keep the iPhone exclusively with AT&T instead of opening it up to Verizon.  The iPhone has brought a staggering number of new customers to AT&T.  For example, a few months ago, AT&T released quarterly results stating that it had gained 2.1 million new customers and 1.9 million new iPhone accounts, 40% of which were new to AT&T, leading one tech commentator to joke that when it comes to AT&T's profits, "Thank God for vitamin i, eh?"  But Verizon currently has a reputation for having a better network, and there have been rumors that Verizon is using its plan to shift to LTE more quickly than AT&T to lure Apple to bring the iPhone to AT&T.  As discussed during this week's MacBreak Weekly podcast (show notes here), there are a ton of people who aren't using an iPhone because they want to stick with Verizon because of the better network, and Apple would sell a huge number of iPhones if they were available on Verizon.  Indeed, many with a choice would pick a Verizon iPhone over an AT&T iPhone because of the Verizon network.

Regardless of why AT&T is doing it, it is nice to see AT&T improving its network, and I look forward to someday having an iPhone that can take advantage of these new speeds.

Review: Bento -- sophisticated database for the iPhone

Bento 2 is a $50 powerful but easy to use database for the Mac.  It doesn't have all of the features of a professional database program like its big brother FileMaker Pro.  For example, Bento is designed for a single user, not to be shared and updated by multiple users in an organization.  But if you use a Mac and you need to create a database to keep track of just about anything for yourself, Bento 2 is a great fit.  It is designed to look like iTunes, and is just as easy to use.

A few weeks ago, I noted that FileMaker released a Bento app for the iPhone.  I have been trying out this $4.99 app for the last week, and I am impressed.  When used in connection with Bento 2 for the Mac, the Bento app is a fantastic companion that allows you to keep all of your databases with you wherever you go.  As a stand-alone app, Bento for iPhone is still very powerful but is limited by the inherent limitations of entering a lot of data directly on the iPhone.

When you open Bento, you see each of your databases.  The default view is a "cover flow" view in which you can flick back and forth between databases.  Alternatively, you can view a list of your databases.

   

If you use Bento on a Mac, tap the Sync button to synchronize databases with a computer on the same Wi-Fi network as your iPhone.  The first time you do so, you will need to enter a four-digit passcode on the Mac from the iPhone app to confirm that you want to pair -- a process very similar to Bluetooth pairing or pairing an AppleTV with iTunes.  From then on, the iPhone app and your computer can sync files with just a simple tap.

The sync works great.  Virtually all of the fields are carried over to the iPhone, including any fields that contain pictures.  (See here for a list of fields not synced, such as iCal events, automatic counter fields, and movies over 10 MB.)  For example, I use Bento 2 on my Mac at home to keep track of boxes of items that I store in my attic, a database with over 200 records, each of which contains eight fields including a description of the items, the box number, category (such as "Christmas" or "Baby Items") and the general location in my attic.  I used to be limited to using that database when I was at my computer, but now with the Bento iPhone app, I can access it from anywhere -- including, for example, when I am in my attic and I am trying to figure out what is in a sealed box.  

You can browse through the items in your database by looking at a list that shows the contents of two fields, and you can choose which fields are displayed and how the fields are sorted.  In my Attic Items database, for example, I chose to display the fields containing the Items and the Box Number.  You can also search for items in a particular database, or you can even search across all of your Bento databases.

   

Tap on an entry and you can see all of the fields.  For fields containing a picture, a thumbnail is displayed which you can tap to see a larger picture.  Unfortunately, you cannot rotate the screen to see the picture in a larger landscape view, nor can you pinch to zoom:  

   

Adding new records is as simple as tapping a + and entering information in one or more fields.  Likewise, it is simple to edit field entries in a previously-created record.  You can add to a picture field either by adding a picture already on your iPhone or by taking a new picture with the iPhone.

You can also create a new database from within the Bento app.  Indeed, if you don't have a Mac running Bento 2, then this is the only way to use the app.  When you tap the "New Library" button you can create either a blank database or can start with a pre-designed template and then edit it.  Templates are included for the following: Projects, Contacts, To Do Items, Recipes, Diet Log, Events, Files, Inventory, Event Planning, Time Billing, Home Inventory, Expenses, Exercise Log, Vehicle Maintenance, Classes, Digital Media, Student List, Membership List, Products for Sale, Equipment, Issue Tracking, Items Sold, Customer, Donations, and Notes.  I named each one of those templates because those are excellent examples of the types of databases that it would be handy to keep on your iPhone.  While some of these templates are business-related, such as Time Billing and Expenses, I must admit that for a long time I thought of Bento on the Mac as primarily something for home use.  But as I noted a few weeks ago, San Francisco attorney Grace Suarez tells me that she uses Bento 2 for work.  She has been interviewed on her use of Bento in her law practice, and her blog includes posts on using Bento in a law practice such as this post on using Bento to manage clients.  Thus, while all attorneys could find Bento a useful way to keep track of items in their personal lives, attorneys may find Bento useful for tracking business items, especially if they have a solo practice.

The Bento app also, by default, includes a database called Address Book.  This database contains all of the contents of the Contacts on your iPhone and is always synced with the latest info.  This can be useful if you would like to create fields that are associated with your Contacts but are not included in the Contacts app.  For example, if you want to keep track of which mailings you have sent to different people, additional pictures associated with different people, etc., you can create those fields in the Bento Address Book database.  I currently do something similar in the Contacts database itself by just using the notes field for each person to enter additional info that I want to associate with a person, but the Bento approach is more organized.  The Bento app also plays nice with other built-in iPhone apps, including Safari, Mail and Maps. 

If you use Bento 2 on a Mac, then I strongly recommend that you spend $4.99 for the Bento iPhone app.  It is a wonderful companion to Bento 2 and it reminds me, once again, how much my iPhone allows me to easily manage important information in my life and keep it always within reach.  I see room for improvements in an update.  For example, the app occasionally crashed on me (although I never lost any data so it was just a minor inconvenience) and the app was sometimes slow to respond.  Also, while you can change the order in which fields are displayed, you cannot change the size or layout of the fields.  It would be nice to have the ability to have a picture field take up a larger portion of the screen, have one field stretch across two lines, have two other fields share the same line, etc.  But even this 1.0 version of the app is very useful and functional.  If you use Bento 2, you will love this app.

If you don't use Bento 2 -- for example, if you use a PC instead of a Mac -- then you will have to spend a little more time to decide whether the Bento app is right for you.  I say so for two reasons.  First, while Bento is a jack of all trades, you might prefer a dedicated app that is specially designed for the task at hand.  For example,  instead of using Bento to track billable hours, you may be more happy with one of the many time tracking apps for the iPhone which have a layout customized for the task.  There are also a large number of dedicated "To Do Items" apps that you might prefer.  Having said that, the advantage of a true database app like Bento is that you can customize the fields to your heart's content.  Not that any of us lawyers are control freaks.  If you want to set up a database on your iPhone with complete control over the fields but you want something easy to start using quickly, then Bento would be a good choice even if you don't use Bento 2 on a Mac.

Second, while the Bento iPhone app is powerful enough to create a large and sophisticated database, doing so on an iPhone is inherently more cumbersome then using a computer with a large screen and keyboard.  If you don't currently use any database program on your computer and if you use a Mac, then consider getting both Bento 2 and the Bento app.  But if you already use another database program on your computer, such as Microsoft Access or FileMaker Pro, you should check out apps such as HanDBase Database Manager, FMTouch and Database Viewer Plus that sync with those other programs (but which I have not yet tried).  Moreover, if use a Mac and want to track your books, DVDs, CDs or videogames, then you might be better off with the gorgeously designed Delicious Library program on your computer along with the companion iPhone app which will be released shortly.

Kudos to FileMaker for creating a great companion to Bento 2.  I now want to create even more useful databases on my Mac with the knowledge that I can always keep the databases with me on my iPhone.

Click here to get Bento ($4.99):  

 

New Yorker cover created on iPhone with Brushes app

The art on the cover of the June 1, 2009 The New Yorker magazine was created by artist Jorge Colombo using a $4.99 app on his iPhone.  The New York Times and countless iPhone sites reported on this over the long Memorial Day weekend, but the story is too cool for me to resist also mentioning it here.  Here is the cover he created:

Jorge Colombo is a Portuguese-born artist who has lived in the U.S. since 1989 and who currently lives in New York City.  He has worked as an illustrator, a graphics designer, a photographer, and more recently as a videographer creating a series of artistic digital shorts (many of which can be viewed here).  A few months ago, he bought an iPhone and the Brushes app, a sophisticated drawing app that allows one to use any color, realistic brushes, and extreme zooming, making it possible to create beautiful artwork using nothing more than the iPhone.  [UPDATE 5/28/09:  The New York Times has an interesting follow-up article about the developer of Brushes, who notes that The New Yorker's cover boosted his sales from 60-70 copies a day to 2,700 this past Monday, a total of around 40,000 copies to date.]  Colombo created a number of New York street scenes, and he tells the Times that it is easy to paint using the iPhone because he doesn't have to carry around pens, brushes and paper, plus he avoids the attention that typical artists attract; people just assume he is reading e-mails.  Another advantage, which Colombo mentioned to the New Yorker, is that he can draw at night without needing a flashlight or a miner's hat.  Click here for a page on his website showing many of his fantastic New York street scenes (four of which are available for purchase on the 20x200 website).  The New Yorker cover only took him about an hour to create while standing outside of Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum on 42nd Street at Times Square.

A lot of people have created some great art using the Brushes app on their iPhone.  Click here for a Flickr group where thousands of these pictures have been uploaded, many of which I rather enjoyed viewing, such as these: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.  That last one was created by Steve Sprang, the author of Brushes.

One great feature of the Brushes app is that it records all of your actions when painting.  You can then use the free Brushes Viewer program on a Mac to replay the creation of the painting.  Click here to see a video on The New Yorker's website which shows how the art on the cover was created, stroke by stroke.  I often find myself looking at great art and wondering "how did he do that."  With this feature, you can actually see how the art was created -- although frankly, instead of demystifying, the video only makes me more amazed at Colombo's talent.  And apparently The New Yorker agrees; not only is Colombo's art on the current print magazine cover, but they decided to feature a new drawing by Colombo each week on newyorker.com.  

Great art is great art regardless of the medium used to create it, but you have to admit that it is pretty cool that Jorge Colombo and others have created really great art just using an iPhone.

Click here to get Brushes ($4.99):  

In the news

The closer we get to June, the more rumors we hear on what will be in the next iPhone.  Faster?  A compass?  Video recording?  An OLED display?  A glowing Apple logo?  We are now getting close enough to the expected announcement date that some of the more respected websites are discussing what might be included in the next iPhone.  I still recommend viewing all of this with a high degree of skepticism, but if you want to read the rumors, Engadget rounds up some of them and John Gruber of the website Daring Fireball has made his predictions.  Switching from rumors and speculation to "real" news, here are some of the iPhone-related stories that caught my attention this week:

• Apple continues to reject apps for baffling reasons.  First, Forbes has an interesting story on an app developer who tried to release an app based on the First Family's new dog, but ran into trouble because Apple wouldn't allow animations of Barack and Michelle Obama and because Apple didn't like an advertisement that the app developer was making a charitable contribution.  Second, and far worse, Jason Snell notes on Twitter (and John Gruber notes on Daring Fireball) that Apple has rejected Eucalyptus, an app that allows you to find and download classic public domain books from the well-established Project Gutenberg.  According to the developer, Apple claimed that the app contained obscene content, but the app itself contained no such content.  Instead, Apple was objecting to the possibility that a person could use the app to enter a search on Project Gutenberg for the public domain text of the Kama Sutra.  Of course, this is just silly.  I can already use Safari on my iPhone to access the Guterberg page and view the exact same content.  And as the developer points out,  you can use the Kindle app to read the same book on the iPhone.  I can use Twitter clients to follow people who say lots of obscene things in their tweets.  And I can only imagine what some people are putting on Facebook pages that you can access using the Facebook app.  I can understand Apple making mistakes here and there -- the company must be overloaded with app submissions -- but there have been enough of these stories reported that it does make you wonder what the heck is going on.  [UPDATE 5/24/09:  The developer reports that Apple realized its mistake and accepted Eucalyptus.]
• To shift from rejected apps to the apps that Apple loves, we've all seen Apple's "There's an app for that" ads which feature varied third party apps for the iPhone.  The iPhone Download Blog reports that there is now a section on the iTunes App Store called "iPhone Apps from the TV Ads" that compiles all of the featured apps in one place. 
• AppleInsider discusses a new report by market research firm Gartner which concludes that Apple's share of the global smartphone market has doubled since last year to over 10%.  This puts Apple in third place; Nokia leads with over 40% of the market, and Blackberry maker RIM has about 20%.
• Harry McCracken reports on his Technologizer site that Amazon has updated its iPhone Kindle app.  You can now read a book in landscape mode, change the color scheme, pinch to zoom in on pictures, and tap to advance to the next page (which saves your finger from the stress of swiping though page after page).  One new feature of this app that I wish other apps would include is the ability to lock the screen orientation, useful if you are reading with the iPhone tilted and don't want the image to turn 90 degrees.
• Engadget reports that the Palm Pre, which has the potential to be a worthy iPhone competitor, will launch on June 6 for $199.  That's just two days before Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which will kick off at 10am Pacific on June 8 with a keynote address by Apple's Phil Schiller.  We don't know what Schiller will reveal on June 8, but many speculate that this will be Apple's announcement of the next generation of the iPhone, although it wouldn't surprise me if the device is not actually available for sale until July.
• In addition to Apple's new iPhone, we might get cheaper iPhone plans from AT&T according to a Reuters report.  Ralph de la Vega, the head of AT&T's mobility and consumer business, said earlier this week that AT&T is considering offering cheaper data service plans with limited Web surfing.  Right now, the cheapest iPhone plan is $70 a month, but you get unlimited data.  I personally have no interest in a plan with limited data because I use the data portion of my plan far more than the talk minutes, but a discounted plan could be nice for those who don't stream video or make other demanding uses of online data with their iPhone.

DataViz says Documents to Go for iPhone is submitted

DataViz reported on its Twitter stream and on its Facebook page that Documents to Go was submitted to Apple's iTunes App Store for approval and should be available in a few days.  As I've posted here and here and here, we don't know much yet about the features, but presumably the app will allow you to view Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on an iPhone and edit Word documents and perhaps also Excel and PowerPoint documents.

The price has not been revealed yet, although the company says on its Facebook page:

Due to the nature of the app store and competition, can't share price info until its in the store ... I hope you understand ... All I can say is I think you'll be quite happy with the price point.

And in response to a qustion on Facebook of whether there will be a discount for people who used Documents to Go on another platform such as Palm, the company says:  "Its priced so well you won't need a discount!"

I've been very happy with QuickOffice on the iPhone, although that app still needs some work, such as the addition of autocorrect, underline and footnotes.  I'm very curious to see how Documents to Go stacks up to QuickOffice on the iPhone.

Having said that, I actually feel bad for both companies because these are both products that cry out for a copy and paste function that works across the iPhone so that you can copy from a webpage into a Word document, from a Word document into an e-mail, etc.  This feature won't be available until iPhone Software 3.0 comes out this summer, but I understand that both companies felt the pressure to release their apps now.  It would also be great to be able to take a Word or Excel document that is attached to an e-mail and open it up in QuickOffice or Documents to Go.  Again, that just isn't possible with the current iPhone operating system.

Wolfram|Alpha on the iPhone

Since 1988, Wolfram Research has been selling Mathematica, a high-end computational software product that is used by scientists and mathematicians and sells for about $2,500.  For the last five years, Stephen Wolfram and his team have been looking at using the complicated math that can be done with Mathematica to answer questions by computing connections based on existing data.  A few days ago, this research culminated with the unveiling of the Wolfram|Alpha website.

Wolfram|Alpha is not a search engine.  When you run a search on a site like Google, Google tries to find your search terms on other web pages.  Thus, a search engine works best when you are trying to find information that someone else has already addressed on a web page.  For example, do a search for "iPhone lawyer" on Google and you will find this website and others that address the use of iPhones by lawyers.  If you have a question that someone else has already answered on a page of a website, then you should use a search engine to try to find that website page.

When you run a search on Wolfram|Alpha, the site does not link you to other websites.  Instead, it tries to compute an objective answer for you by accessing a vast database of data and then it displays that answer using organized tables, graphs, charts and/or pictures.  Type in "What is the weather in New Orleans" and Wolfram|Alpha will report the current New Orleans weather and the historical weather in New Orleans.  Type "number of lawyers" and the website will tell you that just over 500,000 people in the U.S. are lawyers, 1 in 242 people, with a median wage of $106,100.  Type "father's mother's sister's son" and the website will inform you that you are talking about your first cousin once removed, give you a helpful family tree graph, and tell you that your blood relationship fraction is 3.125%.

Wolfram|Alpha is interesting when it makes connections between sets of data that you might not otherwise think of.  A good example is the website's ability to analyze a name.  If I type as a search term "Jeffrey," I will see a graph showing me that the number of people born that were named Jeffrey started to rise around 1940, peaked around 1969 (which just happens to be the year in which I was born) and then has declined since then.  Then, the site takes a look at mortality rates for people born in the years that people named Jeffrey were born and computes that there are almost a million Jeffreys currently alive, 1 in 256 people, with a large number of us in our late 30s to early 50s.  Enter your own name in Wolfram|Alpha to see your own statistics.

I'm just scratching the surface of what Wolfram|Alpha can do, and I encourage you to check out this page to get more examples of interesting searches that you can run.  You can also click here for an excellent video description of the website.  I also enjoyed listening to the last 30 minutes of the latest This Week In Tech podcast which includes an interview of Stephen Wolfram by Leo Laporte.  And Gina Trapani at Lifehacker has a nice post with good examples of Wolfram|Alpha search terms.

So what does all of this have to do with the iPhone?  Like many of you, I often find myself using my iPhone to quickly get answers, whether I am looking up a name in my Contacts, finding a place on a map, or running search terms on Google.  Wolfram|Alpha provides another way to use an iPhone to quickly find answers.  Just go to the Wolfram|Alpha website on your iPhone and you will see an iPhone-formatted screen  UPDATE 12/3/09:  According to App Advice, Wolfram|Alpha no longer has a specially formatted iPhone screen.  Instead, when you access the website from an iPhone, you are encouraged to buy the $50 app to get an iPhone interface.  You can still use the website on an iPhone, but you lose the nice screen.  On the left is what is used to look like, and on the right is what it looks like now when you access the screen from an iPhone:

 

Type in some search terms and let Wolfram|Alpha quickly do its thing.  The search result screens are not specifically formatted for the iPhone screen, but they are easy enough to view in landscape mode and easy to read by scrolling back and forth in portrait mode. 

I can imagine being in a deposition and learning that the witness had five drinks in two hours.  Was he too drunk to drive?  Run the search "BAC 5 drinks, 2 hours, male, 180lb" and you will learn that his blood alcohol content was 0.11%, and assuming a legal driving limit of 0.08%, the witness should have waited at least three and a half hours before driving.

Wolfram|Alpha is new, so many search terms don't give you useful answers, but you'll only waste a few seconds giving it a try.  When this website works, it works well, and I'm sure it will only get better over time.  Thus, I recommend that you keep this website in mind when you are searching for information, whether at your desk or using your iPhone.

Top Ten iPhone Apps for Lawyers (Above the Law)

Above the Law (ATL) is a website that accurately describes itself as a "legal tabloid."  A large number of the posts relate to law firm gossip, but the site tackles just about anything of interest to lawyers at large law firms.  It was voted the top news website on the 2008 ABA Journal Blawg 100.

Yesterday, ATL Associate Editor Kashmir Hill asked me to name the top ten iPhone apps for lawyers, a topic that has been covered before on this website.  My response led to this post on the ATL website.  The ABA Journal picked up on the story here, adding a note that the number of iPhone-using attorneys has soared in the latest ABA Technology Survey.

Here are some additional thoughts on the ten great third party apps that I mentioned in the ATL post:

1. QuickOffice.  My full thoughts on QuickOffice are in these posts:  1, 2 and 3.  I don't have much more to add except to note that the app works very well, and I especially like the new ability to have the app show up as a virtual hard drive on my Mac or PC so I can drag and drop documents.  Of course, I am still very curious to see what DataViz's Documents To Go will look like, which DataViz says is due "early to mid May" and which I presume means very soon.
2. Cliff Maier reference apps. I've posted about these apps here:  1, 2, 3 and 4.  I continue to use these great apps all of the time.
3. DaysFrom. I also like DateCalcPro, but most of the time I find myself using DaysFrom to calculate days, for the reasons I previously posted here.
4. Wikipanion. My review is here.
5. Google Mobile App. My review is here.
6. Various weather apps. I like The Weather Channel and AccuWeather apps, but I really love the version of the Weather Underground website that is formatted for the iPhone web browser.  Just go to i.wund.com using Safari on your iPhone.  Even better, once you are there, enter your zip code to see your local weather and then hit the + sign in Safari to "Add to Home Screen."  That will give you an icon that you can easily tap to get your latest local weather.  One nice new feature is an iPhone version of the "Interactive Wundermap" which I can only describe as sort of a cross between a weather radar and the Google Maps app.  (Click here to see the Interactive Wundermap on a computer.)  You can double-tap to zoom in and easily pan and scan on an iPhone to see the weather conditions.  Very impressive stuff.
7. Twitterific. My first Twitter client on the iPhone was the 1.0 version of Twitterific.  But that app had limitations, and the free TwitterFon app (which I mentioned here) soon became my favorite Twitter client.  Earlier this month,  The Iconfactory released Twitterific 2.0, and wow, what a difference a 2.0 makes.  This app includes tons of advanced features, has a great interface, and is really a joy to use.  I'm currently using the free version, and it is now my favorite iPhone Twitter app.  It has ads, but the ads are unobtrusive, and for only $3.99 you can get a version without ads.  If you use Twitter, I strongly encourage you to check it out.  Click here to get Twitterific (free): 
8. Facebook. I haven't posted a review of this app (although I mentioned it here) but this is a really useful app.  If you use Facebook, you have no excuse not to get this free app.
9. Black's Law Dictionary.  My review is here.  There have been some minor tweaks and bug fixes since I posted my review. One large change (that I noted in my review was going to happen soon) is that if you now try to go to Westlaw on your iPhone by going to www.westlaw.com, you are redirected to wireless.westlaw.com.  I understand the thinking here; wireless.westlaw.com is certainly much faster.  Even so, I prefer the full Westlaw on my iPhone, and if you do too, you now need to go to web2.westlaw.com to get the "real" Westlaw on your iPhone.
10. NetNewsWire. I don't believe that I've mentioned this app before, but it is a great, free RSS reader on the iPhone.  Click here to get NetNewsWire (free):

Thanks to ATL and the ABA Journal for these two posts and for recognizing the growing number of attorneys using iPhones.

Use your iPhone as a remote for Keynote or PowerPoint (Macworld)

If you use a Mac to give presentations using either Keynote or PowerPoint, you'll want to check out two articles by Rob Griffiths of Macworld about iPhone apps that allow you to use your iPhone as a remote control for your presentation.  A few months ago, he reviewed three apps that you can use to control Keynote:  Keynote Remote, Stage Hand and TapNext Lite.  And then a few days ago, he reviewed Point Remote, which works with either PowerPoint or Keynote.  I haven't had a reason to use these apps myself so I can't offer my own reviews yet, but if you use a Mac when you give presentations, you'll want to read these two reviews.

On a personal note, it has now been six months since I started this blog (November 17, 2008), and my favorite part has been hearing from readers.  Most of you who e-mail me or post comments are lawyers (although certainly not all), and I really enjoy hearing about how different people use their iPhones.  Please keep your e-mails and comments coming!  I'm positive that the next six months will be incredibly exciting for iPhone users, with the upcoming iPhone Software 3.0, the next hardware version of the iPhone, new third party hardware that will work with the iPhone, and the millions of new iPhone apps that will be released. 

In the news

Here are some news stories and other items of interest that have caught my attention this week. 

• Here is what happens if your iPhone gets too hot.
• Lifehacker points out that the NBC website does a great job of streaming TV shows to your iPhone.  It's nice to be able to watch shows like The Office and 30 Rock for free.
• Adam Alexander is the author of the powerful DateCalcPro, which I reviewed here.  He has a new $1.99 app called TextMinder which you can use to send yourself text reminders.  Just enter some text and let the app know what time and date you want the reminder, and the app sends you a text message at the right time.  I do something similar just using the Calendar app and alarms, but if you find it more useful to get text messages as reminders, you'll want to check out this app.  Click here to get TextMinder ($1.99): 
• The online Kindle Store is now formatted for the iPhone.  Thus, you can access the store using Safari on your iPhone, buy a book (or get one of the many free selections), and then read it on your iPhone using the free Kindle app.  iLounge makes the interesting observation that once the iPhone 3.0 software comes out, an app such as Amazon's Kindle app could allow in-app purchases, but then Apple would get 30% of the cut.  By using an iPhone-formatted website, Amazon doesn't have to share with Apple.
• AppleInsider reports that Apple now allows you to buy an iPhone 3G directly through the online Apple Store.  It would appear that they are clearing out inventory in anticipation of the next version of the iPhone, which I expect will be announced in June.]
• Ralph Koster has a cute post (that I saw mentioned on Boing Boing) on why being born in 1971 was the perfect time to be born a geek.  I was born just slightly before that, in 1969, and I have to agree with a lot of what Ralph says.  We saw Star Wars in the theater (and at a great age to see it), we "got an 8-bit computer at exactly the age when boys get obsessive about details, and I spent days PEEKing and POKEing and typing in listings from magazines and learning how computers actually worked," we learned how to use libraries for research, we saw the dawn of the Internet, etc.  It's a fun read.  I remember that when I started law school in 1991, Georgetown made the Internet available for students, but I decided not to sign up because I thought that this "Internet" thing might be too much of a distraction from studying.  Today, I can't imagine a law student *NOT* using the Internet as an essential part of his or her studies, although of course the Internet back then was nothing like what it is now.

And finally, on a personal note, last night I had a great dinner at the fabulous New Orleans restaurant Dick and Jenny's with two of my favorite legal technology bloggers, Ben Stevens of The Mac Lawyer and Ernest Svenson of Ernie the Attorney.  If you don't already have their blogs in your bookmarks or your RSS news reader, I recommend that you do so.  Along with many other great topics, they both occasionally discuss using iPhones in their law practices.

Review: Internal Revenue Code by LawToGo.net -- the tax code on your iPhone

If you are a tax attorney who would like to have the Internal Revenue Code on your iPhone, you now have two choices.  I've frequently discussed Cliff Maier's apps, and Cliff recently added IRC (Tax Code) ($14.99) to his growing reference app library.  But a great alternative is an app from LawToGo.net called Internal Revenue Code (Tax Code) 2009 that sells for $13.99.

I'm not a tax attorney so I haven't given this a real world trial nor can I comment on the content.  The app's website says that this app is up to date as of December 31, 2008, and says that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will be included in the next (free) update.  Nevertheless, from what I can tell, the app seems quite solid.  You can use the app many different ways.  First, you can just browse through sections, tapping to drill down to a specific section. 

   

Additionally, you can search for a particular section.  You can search for words, including AND search, OR search, and /n (within a certain number of words) search.  Search terms are clearly highlighted in yellow in the search results.

   

If you know the particular section that you are looking for, you can also use the Search by Section No. feature.  For example, like many Americans, I've recently been thinking quite a bit about my dwindling 401K.  If I want to read Section 401(k) itself while I drown my sorrows, I can jump right to Section 401 and then scroll down to (k).

   

The app includes lots of additional features.  You can use the arrows to browse back and forth through sections.  You can e-mail a section of the tax code, you can add a section that you use frequently to your Bookmarks, and you can turn your iPhone screen on its side to view everything a little bit larger in landscape mode. 

If you want to see this app in action before you buy it, there is a video overview on the LawToGo website.  The developer has done a nice job with this app.  I am sure that any tax attorney would find it very useful, and for the rest of us, it may serve as a useful sleep aid.

Click here to get LawToGo.net's Internal Revenue Code ($13.99): 

iPhone = PC?

Back in January, I discussed an upcoming Sling app for the iPhone.  Sling Media makes products that allow you to watch your home TV or DVR in another location by streaming the audio and video over the Internet.  Connect a Slingbox (different models range from $180 to $300) to your home entertainment system (Cable, Tivo, DVR, etc.) and then you can watch live or recorded TV using a laptop anyplace else in the world as long as you have an Internet connection.  You can sit in your hotel room in the West Coast and watch your local news or sports being shown on your TV on the East Coast.  At the beginning of this year, Sling was previewing an iPhone app that allows you to use a Sling device to take anything on your TV and watch it anyplace else in the world on your iPhone screen.  It is a neat idea, and I wondered why it took so long for the app to appear in iTunes.

Apparently part of the answer has to do with negotiations with AT&T.  The app was finally released today for $30, but there is an important restriction imposed by AT&T:  you can only use it to stream your TV signal over Wi-Fi.  No use over 3G.  I suppose I can understand AT&T's concern about the Sling app using a lot of bandwidth, but is this really a unique concern?  After all, only a small number of people own a Sling device whereas tons of people stream video to an iPhone from YouTube and hundreds of other websites throughout the day.  Why single out Sling?  AT&T's answer is that the Sling app violates its data plan Terms and Conditions.

Well let's read the contract.  The Terms and Conditions, available here, include this language (emphasis added):

While most common uses for Intranet browsing, email and intranet access are permitted by your data plan, there are certain uses that cause extreme network capacity issues and interference with the network and are therefore prohibited.  Examples of prohibited uses include, without limitation, the following ... (vii) software or other devices that maintain continuous active Internet connections when a computer's connection would otherwise be idle or any "keep alive" functions, unless they adhere to AT&T's data retry requirements, which may be changed from time to time. This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services, redirecting television signals for viewing on Personal Computers, web broadcasting, and/or for the operation of servers, telemetry devices and/or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition devices is prohibited.

So AT&T says that you can't use the 3G service to redirect a TV signal to a PC.  Okay, but that has nothing to do with the iPhone, right?

Wrong, says AT&T.  In a statement reprinted at Engadget, AT&T says:  "Applications like [the Sling app], which redirect a TV signal to a personal computer, are specifically prohibited under our terms of service. We consider smartphones like the iPhone to be personal computers in that they have the same hardware and software attributes as PCs."  Note that you can use other smartphones from AT&T to watch Sling TV such as the Blackberry Bold, the Pantech Duo, the HTC Fuse and the Palm Treo 700p.  It's just the iPhone -- unlike all of those other devices -- that AT&T considers to be a PC because of its hardware and software. [UPDATE:  There is an excellent CNET article with more information on this story, and AppleInsider has an in depth review of the app.]

I'll be the first to agree with AT&T that the iPhone is in a class by itself and is far more powerful than those other smartphones.  But I find it curious that AT&T sees the need to equate an iPhone with a PC to justify restrictions.  It should be said, however, that AT&T's decision to limit the Sling app to Wi-Fi might make sense on a practical level.  Jason Snell at Macworld has used a prerelease version of the Sling app on an iPhone which had no restrictions, and he says that when using 3G the "quality was severely degraded and there were numerous hiccups in the connection, requiring long pauses for rebuffering."  

To avoid any speculation, let me say this loud and clear:  this site will never, ever, be renamed PC J.D.

Click here to get SlingPlayer Mobile ($29.99): 

Review: Thomson Reuters News Pro -- Reuters news on your iPhone

There are already several great news apps on the iPhone -- the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today, to name a few.  But there is always room for another good app, and Thomson Reuters has just released a great one, News Pro. 

Reuters has always provided top notch news content, especially for business and international news, and of course that great content is available in this app.  There are a large number of news categories from which you can choose:  Top News, U.S. News, Politics, World News, Business, Markets, Deals, Science, Technology, Internet News, Health, Sports, Entertainment, Film, Television, Music, People and the always amusing Oddly Enough.

   

The content alone would make this a nice app.  But what makes the app really stand out are the extras.  Many news stories come with small pictures which you can tap to enlarge and there are a number of short video stories.  You can also browse the news by looking at picture thumbnails.  You can also get up to date information on the market equity indexes and 18 different currency exchange rates.  And you can look up information on individual stocks, including not just the share price information but also the latest news about the company, background on the company including address, officers and directors (including salaries), phone numbers (which you can tap to call), etc.  And the interactive stock chart works well and is interesting to use.  The stocks portion of this app is a compelling alternative to the Stocks app that comes with the iPhone.

   

There is room for improvement in this 1.0 app.  For example, there is no way to search the current news, change the font size, or e-mail a news story.  Nevertheless, Thomson Reuters has done a great job with this app, and if you ever use your iPhone to keep up with the news -- especially international or business news -- you will want to download this free app.

Click here to get Thomson Reuters News Pro (free): 

Review: Lawyer QuickQuotes -- quotes from famous lawyers

Attogear has created a series of apps that it calls the QuickQuotes series.  Each app costs $0.99 (although there are some free ones) and features quotes either relating to a topic (love, motivational, wisdom, computer geek), from a famous person (Lincoln, Einstein, Leno, Obama) or by people in a profession (cartoonist, dancer, coach, comedian, photographer).  The Attogear website lists almost 70 QuckQuotes apps, although a good number of those are not yet in iTunes and are said to be coming soon.  One of the profession versions of the QuickQuotes apps is Lawyer QuickQuotes.

The QuickQuotes app design is very nice.  Each quote appears on a single screen.  (The font size adjusts to accommodate the length of the quote.)  You can browse through quotes, bookmark your favorites, search, shake for a random quote, e-mail a quote, change the background wallpaper, and change the font.  The app does a great job of handling the content.

My problem with this app is the content.  I'm sure that in the history of lawyers, there are many who have said something interesting.  At least, I hope so.  And many of the lawyers quoted in this app are fascinating people.  Examples include Lloyd Cutler, Edward Hall, Samuel Dash, Ralph Nader, Kenneth Starr, Peter Benenson, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Stephen Carter and Elliot Richardson.  Unfortunately, as I went through many (but not all) of the almost 700 lawyer quotes in this app, I didn't find myself all that inspired or, in most cases, even all that interested.  There were also quite a few that sounded like they could be interesting, but only if one understands the context -- which this app doesn't provide.  For example, here are two (of a huge number) that left me baffled:

  

What research is Newdow talking about?  A quick Wikipedia search reminded me that Newdow is the attorney and minister who filed lawsuits to seek to have "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" removed from coins and currency.  The quote relates to his motivation to file the "In God We Trust" lawsuit.  As for the quote from the famous First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams, it appears to come from this interview in which Abrams revealed his motivation for including a discussion of Supreme Court practitioner strategy in his book Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment.  I've worked with Floyd Abrams in the past and he has a lot of fascinating things to say, but this particular quote, even after I knew the context, didn't strike me as one of them.

I don't mean to imply that there was nothing interesting.  These two were intriguing enough:

   

But it actually took me a while to find those two when I was looking for interesting quotes to note in this review.

So should you get this app?  Perhaps some of you will find these 700 quotes a lot more interesting that I did, but I won't be keeping this app on my iPhone.  Having said that, the app design is very nice and I am interested to try others with different content.  For example, from the preview on the website, I might enjoy this one with Steve Jobs quotes once it becomes available in iTunes.

Click here to get Attogear's Lawyer QuickQuotes ($0.99): 

In the news

Here are some of the iPhone news stories that I have been reading this week.

• Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal reviews Quickoffice for iPhone.  His impression is similar to mine; he likes it, but thinks it needs a little more polish.
• Ars Technica reports (as do many others) that the FTC is investigating whether Apple and Google are breaking antitrust laws because two people serve on the boards of both companies (Google's CEO Eric Schmidt and Genentech's CEO Arthur Levinson).  As an attorney, I understand why FTC is doing this.  But as an iPhone user, I'm happy for Apple and Google to be very buddy-buddy.  Frankly, in today's tech world, so many companies are competitors in some areas and partners in other areas that it is difficult to draw the antitrust lines.
• Apple says that you can get 5 hours of talk time or Internet use with an iPhone.  Want to really increase that battery life?  Then check out the new HyperMac external batteries.  They were designed for the Apple MacBook family of laptop computers, but they also can provide power for an iPhone via a USB port.  The MBP-060 model can provide you with over 70 hours of non-stop talk or Internet use on your iPhone, for only $200.  Or you can splurge and get the MBP-222 with over 260 iPhone hours for only $500.  Just think, never again will you have to worry about running out of battery power while you watch a movie or play a game on your iPhone during a transatlantic flight -- even if you have 25 of them in a row.
• iPhone Central reveals the ultimate doormat for an iPhone fan.  Good luck getting your spouse to agree to this one.
• And finally, Planet-iPhones reports that Apple is telling developers of apps previously rejected for having inappropriate content that they should resubmit the apps once iPhone Software 3.0 is released, which will reportedly include parental control settings for app downloads so that mature content can be downloaded.  The iPhone Blog has a screen shot of what the parental controls will look like in the 3.0 software.  So if all of the current iPhone fart apps aren't enough to satisfy you, just wait until you see what you can download this summer.

Review: AT&T myWireless Mobile -- manage your account from your iPhone

AT&T just released a free app called AT&T myWireless Mobile that allows you to view information about your AT&T account and manage your account from your iPhone.  It is a very useful app, and frankly I'm surprised that it has taken AT&T this long to release something like this.

Before you can use the app, you must first establish a myWireless account on the AT&T website if you don't already have one.  The same password that you setup on the website provides account access on your iPhone.  From the main screen of the app, you can choose to see information on your phone bill, see information about your monthly usage, and manage features on the iPhone.  When you are using the app, those three options appear at the bottom of each screen.

   

From the Bill Summary screen, you can find out how much you last paid, how much is due, and even view a PDF of your full bill.  There is also a button (not shown on the below screen picture) that allows you to pay your bill by credit card or by a withdrawal from your checking or savings account:

   

On the Usage screen, you can view the number of minutes used in your current cycle, either for any individual phone on your plan for for the "Group" (all phones on your plan).  You can also view individual data usage (text messages and MB of Internet use) for each phone.  Looking at this screen, I am reminded that one of these days I need to tell AT&T that I spell my first name "Jeffrey":

    

Finally, on the Features screen, you can see all of the different plans that are available for the iPhone and checkmarks to indicate which plan you have.  You can tap to get more information on each plan, including the cost and the terms and conditions, and the app even gives you the ability to add plan features from the iPhone itself.  You can see below that I've pasted three screens together so that you can see the many different features listed as you scroll through this screen:

This is very handy app.  It takes a little longer than it seems it should for each screen to download data, but even with that slight delay it is much faster to manage an account using this app on an iPhone than it is to access the AT&T website on a computer (or for that matter using Safari on your iPhone).  And the app is free, so you really have no reason not to get it. 

Click here to get AT&T myWireless Mobile: 

Bento for iPhone released

Bento is the little brother of FileMaker Pro, a lightweight but easy to use $50 database program for the Mac with a design clearly inspired by iTunes.  The relationship between FileMaker Pro and Bento is not unlike Final Cut Pro for professional movie makers versus iMovie for consumers.

Bento has just released Bento for iPhone, a $4.99 iPhone app that brings an easy to use database program to the iPhone.  It comes with 25 pre-designed database templates, or you can make your own.  The app works with the built-in iPhone apps including Contacts, Mail, Google Maps and Safari.  For example, this video from Ryan Rosenberg, FileMaker's VP Marketing & Services, shows you how you can use Bento on the iPhone to track additional information about your contacts, integrating with the information in the Contacts app:

I suspect that Bento on the iPhone would be most useful if you are also using Bento 2 on a Mac because you can sync databases between the two.  I wasn't sure how many attorneys use Bento 2 in a law practice; it would really work best for a solo attorney, or at least an attorney who wants to work on his or her own, because Bento doesn't allow multiple users to access the same database (unlike sophisticated databases such as FileMaker Pro or Microsoft Access).  But then New Orleans attorney Kris Wilson alerted me to the ElectricLawyer blog run by San Francisco attorney Grace Suarez.  Grace has been interviewed about her use of Bento 2 in her law practice, and her blog includes lots of posts about using Bento in a law practice such as this post on using Bento to manage clients and this general aricle on using Bento in a law firm.

If I get chance to spend some time with Bento for iPhone, I'll post a review.  In the meantime, if you are an attorney who already uses Bento 2 on your Mac, then I suspect you will want to get Bento for iPhone immediately to keep your databases with you at all times.

Click here to get Bento for iPhone ($4.99): 

Review: Quickword -- edit Word files on your iPhone

About two weeks ago, I reviewed Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite, an app that allows you to edit Word and Excel files on your iPhone.  My review focused on the Word capabilities of the app, not only because I had already reviewed the previously-available spreadsheet abilities, but also because I know that while attorneys do use spreadsheets on occasion, we spend most of our time working with Word documents. 

If you don't want to spend $19.99 for both the Word and Excel features of Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite, the company has now released Quickword, an app that contains the Word capabilities of Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite for only $12.99.  I really like the way that Quickoffice, and now Quickword, handles Word files on an iPhone, so I encourage you to check out this app if you want to go beyond the iPhone's built in ability to only read Word files or if you want a good app for storing documents on your iPhone and easily transferring documents between your computer and an iPhone.

Quickword has some shortcomings right now.  As I noted before, it doesn't currently handle footnotes or underlining, although it handles italics.  When I first tested the app, it had some quirks with the CAP LOCK key, but as I noted a few days ago, that has already been fixed in an update.  Another current shortcoming is the absence of the iPhone's built-in text correction abilities -- the key feature that makes a virtual keyboard on the iPhone work well.  However, the company informs me that autocorrect will be added in the next update to Quickoffice and Quickword, due perhaps as soon as later this month. 

Another upcoming feature is support for more Word file formats.  The app can currently view and edit Word 97 through 2003 files, but only view Word 2007 (.docx) files.  An upcoming update will handle editing of .docx files.  As an aside, is anyone out there even using the .docx format?  We are well into 2009 and I think only a single attorney has ever e-mailed me a file in that 2007 format.

If you can't decide whether to buy Quickword or spring for the full Quickoffice app, you could buy Quickword now and update later.  The company tells me that they will offer an upgrade option once the iPhone 3.0 Software is released this summer.  As I have previously discussed, the next version of the iPhone OS will allow you to make purchases from within an app.  The company plans to use that upcoming feature to include the ability to pay an upgrade fee within the Quickword app to upgrade the app to all of the features of Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite.

Now that it is May, I want to remind readers that Quickoffice will soon have some competition in this space.  Any day now, DataViz will be releasing Documents to Go for the iPhone.  There are preview screenshots on DataViz's Facebook page, and I can already see that the DocsToGo iPhone app will have some advantages over the current version of Quickword such as, for example, the ability to handle underline. 

But right now, Quickoffice is the only game in town.  As Quickword currently exists, it is a wonderful and easy way to get Word files on and off of your iPhone, view the files on your iPhone and, in a pinch, edit Word files and then send them to someone else.  With the planned updates, the app will become even more useful.

Click here to get Quickoffice ($12.99): 

Review: Law in a Flash iPhone apps -- law school study aids

If you are a law student reading this website, final exams have likely just started for you (and I'm glad to be a part of your study break).  If you are looking for a last minute study aid, you might want to check out the Law in a Flash apps for the iPhone.  Study cards from Law in a Flash have been around for a long time.  I remember using them in law school in the early 1990s.  With these apps, you get all of the information on the cards in an iPhone app.

To give you an idea of what they look like, here are some screenshots from the Civil Procedure I set.

   

You can work with cards from a specific category or from all categories at once.  You can go through the cards in order or shuffle them.  For each card you have a question (such as a fact pattern) on one side, and an answer on the other.

   

You can add your own notes to a card or bookmark a card if you want to return to it later.  The app also includes Quick Review cards which contain the key information that you most need to know for your exam.  Here is an example on what to look for in jurisdiction fact patterns:

   

The Law in a Flash iPhone apps typically cost $39.99 (which is about the same cost as the physical cards), but the apps are 25% off through May 17, 2009, which for just about all of them is $29.99.  (The one exception is the Professional Responsibility app which now costs $44.99.)  The currently available subjects are:

• Civil Procedure I
• Civil Procedure II
• Constitutional Law I (National and State Powers)
• Constitutional Law II (Individual Rights)
• Contracts
• Corporations
• Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Evidence
• Future Interests
• Professional Responsibility
• Real Property
• Torts
• Wills & Trusts

Good luck on your exams!

In the news

One of the biggest items of "news" this week in the world of iPhones has been gossip about Apple talking to Verizon about the iPhone.  I don't think that there is much real news here.  Verizon has a motive to leak a story that it is talking to Apple just so that current Verizon customers have a reason to stick with Verizon in the hopes that the iPhone is coming soon.  Apple has a motive to leak a story that the iPhone might go to Verizon to try to gain leverage in its negotiations with AT&T.  And Apple would be silly to not always consider its options and talk to other carriers.  So perhaps Apple really is talking to Verizon about the iPhone, but that doesn't mean that it is going to happen.  It may well just be posturing.  Ultimately, I predict that the iPhone will stay exclusive to AT&T for at least another year or two.  But this is just my guess, and nobody really knows what is going on. 

Here are some other iPhone news stories that caught my attention this week:

• iPodNN notes that The Missing Sync 2.0 for iPhone is out and it allows two-way sync of notes, tasks and various documents between your iPhone and your computer.  Sounds useful. 
• Macworld reports (as do many others) that Amazon has purchased the makers of Stanza, a great iPhone e-book reader.   Amazon is certainly doing its part to keep the e-book space interesting, and it is nice to know that even though you can now buy everything from groceries to electronics to clothes on Amazon, they are still thinking of what started it all -- books.
• RIM copied Apple and created an app store for the Blackberry.  I'm happy that my Blackberry-using friends can experience an app store, but how does it compare to Apple's app store?  Not too well, according to this report by Kelly Talcott in the New York Law Journal, who calls it "cumbersome to use."  But hey, at least they finally have something.
• If you want to watch video on your iPhone, you may want to find a way to prop it up.  I've previously noted a virtually free way to do this using a paperclip or a dollar bill, but if you want to shell out the big bucks and spend $5, Macworld reviews Crabble, an iPhone stand that fits in your wallet.
• Do you love your iPhone?  Yes, apparently, you do.  TechCrunch reports that J.D. Power -- not to be confused with the powerful website iPhone J.D. -- has released the results of its Consumer Smartphone Satisfaction Study, and the clear winner is the iPhone.  
• And finally, the New York Times says that people use iPhones primarily for personal use, not business.  TechCrunch says that this is rubbish, and I agree.  Sure, iPhone users spend a lot of time using their iPhones for personal use such as music, video and games, but that is just because there are so many fun things you can do with your iPhone in addition to business.  If I had to use a Blackberry, I'm sure that 90% to 100% of my use would be for business because, well, what else am I supposed to do with it besides check e-mail?  Please don't make me use that horrible web browser.  But with an iPhone, you can get all of your work done with it just like you would on another smart phone, plus you can spend additional time with it for personal enjoyment.  Frankly, I think that this is the reason that many iPhone users wish for more iPhone battery life.  It's not that the iPhone battery is worse than other smartphones; it's that you use the iPhone so much more than you would other smartphones.