Month: June 2009

Just how fast is the 3G connection on an iPhone, and how much faster will it be with the iPhone 3GS?  Wireless data speed can be a confusing topic, but I don’t know of anyone who is better at explaining it than Glenn Fleishman.  I mentioned Fleishman a few months ago when I discussed Apple’s Airport Extreme base station.  Fleishman’s Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network — an e-book that you can download in PDF format instantly for only $15 — is a great resource for understanding Wi-Fi.

Yesterday, Fleishman wrote a comprehensive and interesting article for Macworld’s iPhone Central titled “iPhone 3G S features 7.2 Mbps, AT&T’s network doesn’t.”  The article discusses the iPhone 3GS’s ability to use a faster 7.2 Mbps HSDPA 3G network and the ins and outs of 3G and its planned successors.  AT&T is still in the process of rolling out 7.2 Mbps, but when it is finished, we should see greatly increased speed when using 3G on an iPhone.

If you are at all interested in data speed on your iPhone, check out Fleishman’s article.  It is packed with technical info, but presented in a fashion that is easy to understand.

When people ask me about my favorite apps for the iPhone, it occurs to me that while a few are legal-specific apps such as copies of rules and statutes and Black’s Law Dictionary, many of the apps most useful to lawyers are the same apps that are useful to others — Mail, Contacts, Maps, Quickoffice, Twitterific, Facebook, various weather apps, etc.  In other words, while lawyers have lots of great iPhone apps to use, not many of them are lawyer-specific.

With WWDC going on this week, a lot of smart iPhone developers are thinking about new apps to create for which there is a demand.  This has got me thinking — what additional apps would it be nice to see in the legal arena?  I’m not the only one having these thoughts.  I recently received an e-mail from Jeff Nosanov, a new lawyer who recently got his J.D. from New York Law School and his LL.M. in Space and Telecommunications Law from the University of Nebraska.  (What an interesting LL.M. to get!)  Although Jeff is a new lawyer, he is also an iPhone programmer, and he told me that he was also wondering about the unmet app needs of iPhone-using attorneys.

I would love to see iPhone apps from some of the major developers of software used by law firms, such as a Westlaw app, an Interwoven Worksite (document management) app…

UPDATE: Just a few hours after this post went up, I see that Interwoven, recently purchased by Autonomy, is releasing an iPhone app for iManage Worksite.  I really look forward to checking this out.  Here is a press release and a demo.  And now, I return you to this regularly scheduled post…

…a client for Elite (time entry and bill mangement), etc., but these are not the sort of apps to be created by developers outside of those companies, unless they are retained by the companies themselves.  What would be a great app for lawyers that an independent developer could create?

Nothing is coming to my mind right now.  For example, I can’t think of any lawyer-specific apps that I used to use on my old Treo 650, and I’ve searched the Internet for lawyer-specific apps for the Blackberry and haven’t found anything that isn’t already available for the iPhone.  But I have the nagging feeling that I am just not thinking of something obvious.  Thus, I’m asking the readers of iPhone J.D. to help me crowdsource this question.  Do you have a good idea for an iPhone app for lawyers?  If so, I would love to hear about it in an e-mail, or better yet post a comment so that others can also see your ideas.  Maybe an enterprising developer will see your request and create an app that can benefit all of us.

Yesterday was Apple’s big keynote at the WWDC conference.  Apple has posted a streaming video here, and the highlights and my thoughts are as follows.

A few numbers

Starting with some of the general iPhone statistics that were announced yesterday, there are now 50,000 iPhone apps in the App Store and over 40 million iPhone and iPod Touch units have been sold.  Over 1 billion apps were downloaded as of April 23, 2009; Apple hasn’t updated the number since then.

iPhone Software 3.0

Many of the details we already knew, but there were a few new tidbits, including the release date — Wednesday, June 17.  You will be able to purchase and download movies, TV shows and audiobooks directly on the iPhone, making it possible to grab a copy of a movie while you are waiting for your plane to board.  You can use tethering to share your iPhone’s 3G data connection with your computer, but AT&T support for tethering isn’t coming until later.  And Safari on the iPhone is faster and better with new features such as autofill.

One nice new feature is Find My iPhone.  If you have Apple’s $100 a year MobileMe (only $68.99 from Amazon) and if you lose your iPhone, you can go to the MobileMe website and see on a map exactly where your iPhone is located.  You can even send a message to your iPhone and have it play a sound, which not only helps the waiter in the restaurant to find your iPhone, it can also help you locate the lost iPhone in your own house by just tracking down the beeps.  And if the iPhone is stolen, you can send a remote wipe to delete all of your data.  Previously, this feature was only available if you were using Exchange; now, anyone with MobileMe can use remote wipe.

Apple also showed off various new third party apps for the iPhone, including a TomTom GPS app with turn-by-turn directions that looks very slick — but no price was announced.

iPhone 3GS

But the big new news was the introduction of the iPhone 3GS, which will be available Friday, June 19.  The new iPhone 3GS looks the same as the prior iPhone, so rather than post a picture of the iPhone 3GS, let’s take a look at the Apple IIgs introduced back in 1986:

The big news about the iPhone 3GS is not the look, but instead the speed.  The “S” stands for speed.  It is way faster than the Apple IIgs, and several times faster than the iPhone 3G when lauching messages, viewing attachments, loading apps, viewing web pages, etc., overall an average of twice as fast.  The new iPhone 3GS will also work on AT&T’s upcoming 7.2 Mbps 3G network.  There is also a much better, 3 megapixel camera with autofocus, manual focus, better low light sensitivity, and macro photo capabilities.  The camera can also be used to capture video, 30 frames per second VGA with auto focus.

The iPhone 3GS also includes slick voice control features.  Just hold down the home button for a second and a voice control interface launches which can be used to not only control the phone (hands free dialing) but also control the iPod.

The iPhone 3GS’s compass can be used to orient a map to the direction that you are facing.  I’ve often used the iPhone map to figure out where I was only to then be confused as to which way I was facing when trying to orient myself on the map.  The compass is a minor, but still useful, addition.

Another new iPhone 3GS feature is hardware encryption of data on the iPhone.  I look forward to learning more about this one, but with more and more sensitive information on your iPhone, better security is always welcome.

And finally, even with all of these new features, the iPhone also features better battery life.  Click here for a video from Apple on the new iPhone 3GS features.

Pricing is a little complicated.  If you are new to AT&T or if your AT&T contract is over, then the price is $199 for a 16 GB version and $299 for a 32 GB version, plus you can get the 2008-09 generation iPhone 8GB for $99 and, while supplies last, the 2008-09 generation iPhone 16 GB for $149.

But if you currently have an iPhone 3G and want a 3GS — which means that, pretty much by definition, you are under a year into your 2 year contract — then the price is more expensive.  If AT&T deems you to be eligible, then you can take advantage of the $199/$299 prices, but I have heard mixed reports about how far you need to be in your contract.  Some are saying 1 year from when you purchased your iPhone 3G (which for earlier adopters is late July), some are saying 18 months.  If you don’t want to wait that long, iPTIB and AppleInsider report that current iPhone 3G customers can still get a 3GS but then have to tack $200 on those prices — $399 for the 16 GB and $499 for the 32 GB version.  Or you can get contract-free versions for $599/$699.

UPDATE:  The pricing is still confusing to me.  An AT&T telephone representative just told me that he had just gotten an update from the company and that there is no $399/$499 price, that the $199/$299 price will not be available to me until I am 23 months into my 24 month contract, and that my only option to upgrade before then is the $599/$699 price.  Other websites have different reports on the upgrade prices, such as these:  1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.  I suspect it will be June 19, if not later, before we really know the cost for upgrades.  (Apple has a webpage to help you decide your eligibility to upgrade on AT&T, but for some reason it isn’t working for me.)  [UPDATE 6/23/09:  My local AT&T store told me today that if you bought an iPhone 3G in July, August or September of 2008 and you spend over $99 a month on your bill, then you can upgrade to a new model for $199/$299.  My bill is over $99, but I have a basic plan and no text messages; it is only more than $99 because both my wife and I are on the same plan.  But that was enough, so I just bought the 32 GB model for $299.]

Thoughts

Today is the start of WWDC, Apple’s developer conference.  At Noon Central today — that is 7am Hawaii, 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, 6pm London, 7pm Paris, 9pm Moscow and 2am (June 9) Tokyo — Apple’s Phil Schiller will give the keynote address, presumably with the help of other Apple employees.  WWDC concerns both the Mac and the iPhone, but I have to believe that the focus will be on the iPhone, as evidenced by one of Apple’s graphics for the event:

So in just a few hours, everything that we think we know about the iPhone will change.  Come here on Tuesday and I’ll give you my thoughts on the highlights.  Today, there is no live video broadcast of the keynote address, but I expect Apple to post a recording via streaming video tonight or tomorrow.  Nevertheless, there are lots of websites that you can follow to get live coverage of Apple’s announcements.  I suspect that these will be the best, and these links should bring you directly to the page with live coverage:

• Engadget
• GDGT
• Macworld
• The Mac Observer
• MacRumors
• Technologizer
• Gizmodo
• iLounge
• Ars Technica
• TUAW (I don’t have a specific link yet)
• CNET

If you want to get your live updates via Twitter, consider following these people:

• @macjournals plans to have live tweets from John C. Welch
• @MacObserverLive will mirror the live event coverage on The Mac Observer website
• @MacRumors will mirror the live event coverage on MacRumors
• @iPTIB plans to have live tweets by Scott Kleinberg

UPDATE:  Jalada posted this in the Comments and it is pretty neat.  Go to http://www.twitterfall.com and click on WWDC in the list of trends on the left (or you can do a search for it if it isn’t listed in trends) and you can see live tweets about WWDC fall down your screen.  It is the same content you would get by running a search on the Twitter website, but in a neat graphical layout.

And finally, if you want to watch live video about the event, it is always fun to watch the streaming video from Leo Laporte at TWIT Live.  I am sure that Leo will be scanning many of the websites I noted above and talking about the WWDC Keynote as it is happening, and I understand that he will be talking with the always entertaining Andy Ihnatko (who is attending the keynote) immediately after the address.

And finally, this morning as we wait for WWDC to start, if you are looking for something good to read that bridges the gap between the Palm Pre excitement of the last week to the iPhone excitement of this week, read this great article by Andy Ihnatko in the Chicago Sun Times.  And if you want to read some possible spoilers instead of just waiting until Noon Central, John Gruber has posted his latest predictions at his Daring Fireball site, and Gruber often gets leaks from inside sources so perhaps he is correct and we’ll be seeing an iPhone 3GS later today.  We’ll see.

I’ve long suspected that June would be a great month for smartphones, and it appears to be off to a strong start.  The Pre comes out tomorrow, and the initial reviews are quite positive.  But more importantly, Monday will be Apple’s WWDC keynote presentation.  Will iPhone Software 3.0 be released?  Will a new iPhone be released?  My hope is that iPhone Software 3.0 will be released next week … perhaps on Monday, or perhaps Apple will announce that it can be downloaded at some point later during the week.  I am also hoping that Apple will show off the next version of the iPhone on Monday, although it wouldn’t surprise me if the new device isn’t actually in stores until July.  As we wait with Christmas Eve-like anticipation of what is around the corner, here are some of the iPhone news stories that caught my attention this week:

• There is a new version of the AP Mobile news app.  The Home Screen discusses the improvements and seems to like the app.  TUAW, on the other hand, despises the new design, calling the app a mess.  The app is free so it will cost you nothing to find out what you think.  Click here to get AP Mobile (free): 

  

• InfoWorld has an article titled “How much work can you do on an iPhone?” that asks whether an iPhone can serve as a laptop replacement.  For me, it often does, although obviously there are also times when you need a real computer.
• TUAW reports on some interesting statistics about how much Internet use occurs on iPhones and other mobile devices.  For example:  “The iPhone has 8% global market share, but accounts for 65% of HTML traffic.”  Not much surprise to me — using the web on other mobile phones is seriously disappointing.
• Have you ever found yourself composing an e-mail on your iPhone while you are walking around?  Macworld reviews Email ‘n Walk, an app that lets you see what is in front of you on the iPhone screen while you are typing an e-mail.  I can’t imagine how anything could possibly go wrong while using this app.
• iLounge has put together a “report card” of 20 iPhone features that people want in the next iPhone.  I don’t like the phrase “report card” because it implies that Apple is supposed to include all 20 features and should be penalized for omitting one or more.  I’m sure that Apple has darn good reasons for selecting the features that are included and those that are omitted.  As Steve Jobs told BusinessWeek five years ago, successful innovation is not just about coming up with good ideas, it is about staying on track:  “But innovation comes
  
  from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30
  
  at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that
  
  shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc
  
  meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out
  
  the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people
  
  think of his idea.  And it comes from
  
  saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track
  
  or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could
  
  enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the
  
  things that are really important.”  But whether it is properly called a “report card” or just a “wish list,” iLounge identifies some interesting possible features.  Macworld’s iPhone Central also rounds up its predictions here.
• And finally, it appears that the days of people needing lawyers are numbered — assuming that they are iPhone owners with a buck in their pocket.  iPhone developer McApps — maker of esteemed iPhone apps such as A Naughty Nurse, Beer Nutrition Facts, Corvette Girls, Crazy State Slogans and Coed Spring Break — has released an iPhone app called Best Legal Tips.  I haven’t tried this app, but the description says:  “Our General Counsel is full of very useful advice that keeps us out of trouble.  He is so useful that we decided to compile his advice into a simple, easy to use app.  Normally to get legal advice you’d have to pay a lawyer at least $300 an hour.
  
  But, with this app, you can get some of the same advice for $0.99.
  
  Kinda makes me think we’re overpaying our attorney.”  Let’s not tell our clients about this, but just between us lawyers, you could click here for Best Legal Tips ($0.99): 

  

Palm’s new smartphone, the Pre, goes on sale this Saturday, but a few reporters have been using test units for the last few weeks and today they are allowed to talk about it.  After reading the reviews, it looks like Palm has done a great job with the Pre.  It incorporates (or I suppose you could say plagiarizes) many of the great features of the iPhone, but at the same time has enough unique features to feel different.  The app store is virtually nonexistent right now and Palm has been slow to give developers the tools that they need to create apps (presumably because Palm is still working out the kinks), but the iPhone didn’t have apps until a year after initial launch.  E-mail doesn’t appear to be quite as sophisticated as the iPhone, but you do get a real keyboard (albeit a tiny one harder to use than a Blackberry) and it does work with Microsoft Exchange.  Web browsing seems just as good as the iPhone.  Battery life is not as good as the iPhone, but you can replace the battery.  The website PreCentral — which is obviously going to be biased in favor of the phone — nevertheless says this in their conclusion, which seems apt to me:

So what’s our verdict on the Palm Pre? Simple: The Palm Pre is a
stellar 1.0 product. Given Palm’s fractured and foible-filled history,
the fact that they were able to pull all this off is nothing short of
amazing. There are faults here and there and I tried not to be shy
about pointing them out, but I attribute nearly all of them to the fact
that is is Palm’s first outing with webOS, their 1.0. Compare the Palm
Pre to the initial release of the iPhone or the initial release of the
T-Mobile G1 and you can safely say that the Pre is in their class and
quite possible at the top of that class. … The
iPhone ushered in a new era of mobile innovation. Many thought Android
would do the same, but as of yet it hasn’t. BlackBerry and Windows
Mobile have improved incrementally but both essentially use the same
basic smartphone ideas that they’ve been running with for years now.
The Pre and webOS are different, they’re genuinely new and genuinely
exciting.

For people who already own an iPhone and have invested in apps, I suspect that very few will see a reason to jump ship and get a Pre.  On the other hand, I can see a lot of Blackberry users who are getting tired of the Blackberry’s limitations giving the Pre a very hard look as a real alternative to the iPhone.  The iPhone has virtually unlimited apps and a huge head start, but the Pre has that real keyboard that many Blackberry users will think that they need.  The Palm Pre will be a robust competitor to the iPhone, and will help push Apple to continue its innovation on the iPhone.  Of course, who knows what Apple has in store for us with the next version of the iPhone due any day now.  One thing is for certain:  it is a very exciting time to be a smartphone user.

Here are the best Palm Pre reviews that I have found:

• New York Times — Nice, reasonable length review from David Pogue, perhaps the best technology writer in the U.S.
• Wall Street Journal — Just as good as the New York Times review
• Engadget — the most comprehensive review of the Palm Pre, written by Joshua Topolsky, who I suspect has had a pre-release version longer than anyone.  (He even showed off the Pre on TV to Jimmy Fallon back in March.)
• PreCentral — good, detailed review

And these are also good:

• USA Today
• PC World
• Gizmodo
• Slashgear
• CNET

Lawyers frequently ask me whether they should get an iPhone or a Blackberry.  They usually know my bias for the iPhone, but are still interested in my reasons for picking the iPhone over the Blackberry, especially considering how common Blackberries are in law firms.  I’ve always thought that I could answer that question better if I could spend a month using both at once to really get deep into the advantages and disadvantages of each.

That is exactly what Galen Gruman, an executive editor at InfoWorld did, and he posted this comprehensive eight-part analysis of the pros and cons.  Any lawyer trying to decide whether to get Blackberry’s flagship product, the Bold, or an iPhone should read this entire article.  Even current iPhone and Blackberry owners should read this article to get a sense of what life is like on the other side.  (Thanks to Ben Stevens and his The Mac Lawyer site for bringing the article to my attention.) 

I won’t summarize the article because I urge you to read the whole thing, but here are some of his observations that caught my attention:

When discussing the ability to handle documents on the two phones, Gruman talks about using Documents to Go on the Blackberry Bold and Quickoffice on the iPhone.  We are still waiting for Documents to Go to show up on the iPhone — DataViz recently said that the app was submitted to Apple, but I have to wonder whether they are now waiting for the iPhone Software 3.0 to come out (any day now) before releasing this app.  I agree with much of what Gruman says about using Quickoffice on the iPhone. 

In fact, just a few days ago, Quickoffice was updated to version 1.2, and the update includes some major new features that would seem to justify more than just a .1 upgrade.  There are two huge improvements to Quickword.  First, the app now includes auto-correction.  Thus, while you are typing in a document, the app will automatically correct typos for you, the same way that the Mail app corrects typos while you are composing an e-mail.  I’ve always considered the iPhone’s auto-correction features to be essential to making the iPhone’s touch keyboard usable.  Second, you can now find text in documents.  This feature is very useful.  Now I can carry briefs, memos, etc. with me and quickly jump to a specific part of the document by doing a quick search.  There are other small new features that are also welcome, such as auto-capitalization, double-tap to create a period, set paragraph alignment, etc., plus there were important updates to Quicksheet such as landscape editing and copy and paste of columns.  Click here to see all of the new features.

On March 17, Apple previewed the next version of the operating system for the iPhone, iPhone Software 3.0.  I’ve previously noted a few of the features that lawyers will love about 3.0 (see also this follow up) but until last night, Apple wasn’t giving any indication of when 3.0 would be here except to say “this summer.” 

Summer may not officially begin until June 21, but last night Apple indicated that 3.0 is almost ready.  Apple updated iTunes to version 8.2, and the release notes say loud and clear:  “iTunes 8.2 now supports iPhone or iPod touch with the iPhone 3.0 Software Update,” as shown on this screen from my computer last night:

I can’t imagine that Apple would tell us that it was updating iTunes to support 3.0 unless 3.0 was right around the corner.  As I’ve noted before, this upcoming Monday June 8 — right around the corner — is the start of Apple’s Mac and iPhone developer conference, WWDC.  This seems like a natural time for Apple to release iPhone Software 3.0, and with the release of iTunes 8.2, it seems all but certain to me that we will see 3.0 next week.

My reaction to this news?  Yeah!!!  Last year’s 2.0 version of the iPhone software completely revolutionized the iPhone, adding third party apps, support for Microsoft Exchange (critical for all of the lawyers who work at law firms that use Exchange), and a ton of other new features.  The 3.0 software will also add major features, and I can’t wait to see all of the new things that our iPhones will be able to do in just a few days.  The already amazing iPhone is about to get a lot more exciting.

Two months ago, I wrote about some of the many issues associated with jurors having iPhones (or other smartphones) in court, including jurors live-tweeting about their jury experiences.  This issue got attention a few days ago thanks to NBC Today Show weatherman Al Roker.  Roker is an avid user of Twitter on his iPhone and he often takes pictures with the iPhone camera and then sends them to his Twitter stream using Twitpic.  If you click here, you will see many of the pictures that he has posted.  Most of them are fun behind the scenes pictures from the set of the Today Show, but sometimes he will take pictures elsewhere, such as these two of the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue near Central Park.

Last Thursday, Roker appeared for jury duty and, while waiting in the jury lounge, decided to upload some pictures taken with his iPhone to Twitter.  Although taking pictures during a trial, especially of jurors, is definitely a no-no, Roker didn’t see anything wrong with posting pictures of the jury lounge, although you could see the faces of some people in there (who presumably had yet to be assigned to a case).  Media outlets such as the New York Post, the New York Daily News and TMZ got wind of the tweets, resulting in some embarassment for Roker.  He removed the pictures from his Twitter stream (although you can still view them on those media sites to which I just linked), but his Twitter stream still contains these posts about the incident:

10:37pm I have jury duty tomorrow. Should be fun. Nighty night

6:11am Well, it’s Thursday and after a few wxcasts, I’m off to Jury duty dowtown. But before i go, here’s TODAY”s Tweather

6:44am I’m going for the free lunch

7:44am hafta be there at 8:45

[Tweets deleted containing pictures]

10:32am So everyone is clear, I am NOT taking pictures in the courtroom. I am in the jury lounge. So folks need to lighten up.

10:32am I’m not breaking
laws…just trying to share the experience of jury duty. One that I
think is important and everyone should take part in

10:34am Therre is something very cool about being here

11:04am And to be clear, no court official told me it was ok to take pictures, just that you couldn’t take pictures in the court room.

11:37am Heading to a courtroom. No pictures

3:01pm Must be a slow
news day. Was stalked by video-razzi from TMZ and the NY POST because I
posted a pic from the jury room on Twitter.

3:06pm Whew. Learned a
lesson. No, I repeat, no court personnel told me it was ok. Going back
into the courtroom, iPhone buried deep in my bag

6:08am Well, citizens of
the United States of Twitterville, it was a fun day yesterday, with
jury duty and twitpicking when I shouldn’t. Now onward

Notwithstanding the mini media frenzy, it seems that what Roker did was fairly innocent.  Had he not been a celebrity with over 20,000 Twitter followers, there would not have been a news story.  But what Roker did with his iPhone is what millions of people do every day — write publicly about what is going on in their daily lives.  Do a Twitter search for “jury duty” and you will see countless other people writing live about their jury service experiences.  And it is impossible to imagine this NOT happening when you have lots of people stuck somewhere with a lot of downtime, away from friends and family, carrying smartphones with the ability to broadcast to the world whatever is on their minds.

Lawyers handling jury trials are wise to think about the implications of their jurors (and potential jurors) having iPhones and similar devices including any impact that may have on their clients getting a fair trial.

By the way, if you use Twitter, feel free to follow me at @jeffrichardson.  I only tweet a few times a week so I won’t flood your Twitter stream with traffic, but I often tweet when a major post goes up on iPhone J.D. or when I run across an item of interest to attorneys using iPhones.