We all know the importance of reading the fine print. Unfortunately, as we get older, that is sometimes easier said than done. Have you ever found yourself straining to read small, fine print on a page, on a prescription bottle, a menu, a receipt, etc.? Your iPhone can now help you if you have the $3 app from Freeverse called Eye Glasses
The app does one thing but does it well: it acts as a magnifying glass. You can choose 2x, 4x, 6x or 8x magnification. Just hold your iPhone’s camera lens over the small print, and it will appear much larger on the screen.
For example, last week I was trying to use an iTunes Gift Card. You use a coin to scratch the back of the card to reveal a number, but the number was so tiny that even with a bright light, I was having a lot of trouble reading it. Thus, I fired up Eye Glasses, selected 4x magnification, and suddenly I could read the code with no trouble at all:
Here is an example of using the app to read the legal fine print in a software manual. The text is about 5 point type, which is barely legible but very small. Using the Eye Glasses app, even with just the 2x magnification, the text becomes very easy to read.
Although this app will run on any iPhone, you’ll likely be disappointed if you are not using an iPhone 3GS. The 3GS has a better camera and has the ability to auto focus in a macro mode, and that combination is really what lets the Eye Glasses app do its magic on small text.
If you ever have difficulty reading small text, I think you will really like this app. David Pogue of the New York Times raved about this app last week, noting, “As an over-40-year-old, I’ve become addicted to this app. …[T]he 2X and 4X views have saved me more than once.” Me too. It was definitely worth $3.
[UPDATE 12/13/09: Wouldn’t you know that the same day I review this app, it receives its first update. You can read the details here, but in short, the update includes a “new, sleeker frame with capability to rotate between landscape and portrait modes.” Thus, the app now looks slightly different than the pictures I posted above, but it still works great.]
I see a lot of people with iPhones, and it seems that most of them have some sort of protective case. While I understand the desire to protect the iPhone, I love the small and slim size of the iPhone and have no desire to bulk it up, so I have never wanted to use one. Of course, this means that it is possible for the iPhone to get scratched. Small scratches on the back of the iPhone don’t bother me at all (it just adds character) but a scratch on the iPhone’s screen can be really annoying.
And I speak from experience. The glass that Apple uses for the iPhone screen is incredible durable and many times I have felt my keys run across the surface, making me fear for the worst but relieved to discover that the screen held up just fine. But on my prior iPhone (an iPhone 3G) I did somehow get a scratch about a inch long near the top of the screen, and it would always annoy me to see it there. Even with this scratch, my desire to not have a bulky case still stopped me from getting protection for my iPhone 3G, and likewise my current iPhone 3GS has no protection on it. Nevertheless, I am uncertain whether I have been making the right decision.
I was recently contacted by a representative of Invisible Skinz, an authorized dealer for the Invisible Shield product made by ZAGG. He asked if he could send me a free sample of the $25, full body version of the Invisible Shield to do a review here, and at first I politely declined, telling him about how I don’t like products that take away from the iPhone’s clean design. He encouraged me to try it anyway, pointing out that I can always remove it and it leaves no residue on the iPhone if you do so, so I finally agreed. I’m glad that he urged me to do so because this is a very nice product.
When you order the product, you get two very thin (.2 mm) transparent shields, one for the glass on the front of the iPhone and one for the back that wraps around to the sides. You also get a spray bottle that you apply to the shields before placing them on your iPhone to help it stick, and a small squeegee to work out any bubbles that may occur during installation. You can watch a video of the installation here.
When I first tried to apply the shield, I will admit that I was a little nervous and I’m not sure that I did it correctly. The back looked fine, but on the front there were large bubbles under the shield that I couldn’t work out. Here is a picture from my first attempt, which you can click to enlarge:
But Invisible Skinz has a money back guarantee and a lifetime guarantee; just send them a shield that didn’t work and they’ll send you a new one. The second time I tried, it took me less than a minute to apply it and the result looked great. In fact, it was so easy that I’m still not sure what I did wrong the first time. Here is a picture from the second, successful application:
What do you get with the Invisible Shield on your iPhone? First, you get a lot of protection. Even though the shield is small, it seems to hold up very well to attempts to scratch it. Here is what Invisible Skinz says about the protection:
Guaranteed for life, it’s a higher quality than all other transparent
Apple iPhone 3G skins because it was originally a military technology
developed to protect helicopter blades from dirt and debris. It’s the
toughest material of it’s kind, and it will keep your device in
pristine condition for life. In fact, it’s so tough that if anything
ever happens to your invisishield, just send it back to us and we’ll
send you a brand new one for free!
I admit that I didn’t want to put my iPhone through a true torture test, but this video shows what the shield can do:
Second, with the shield on the iPhone, the iPhone has more of a rubbery grip to it. I find that this makes it even more difficult for the iPhone to slip out of my hand, which is good to prevent dropping the iPhone.
I was worried that the shield would have some impact on viewing the iPhone screen. It really doesn’t. The skin is truly transparent. On the other hand, the shield does make the surface of the iPhone feel different. Instead of the nice feel of glass, the surface has more resistance and feels slightly rubbery. Not very much, but just enough to take some getting used to.
Do I recommend this product? Yes, but with some reservations. I actually installed this shield on my (old) iPhone 3G, a unit that no longer has a SIM card in it and which is now essentially an iPod touch. I’ve been using this unit when I travel to put on some long movies that wouldn’t fit on my regular iPhone and I’ve been letting my four year old use this iPhone instead of my 3GS when he wants to play a game. Between throwing the old iPhone in a travel bag and risking damage from my son, I feel so much more secure with the shield on it.
Now I’m trying to decide whether to buy one of these for my iPhone 3GS. There is no question that this product would give me lots of protection and prevent me from getting a scratch on the screen of my 3GS like I did on my 3G. On the other hand, I really like the feel of the glass iPhone screen and I love the ability to easily wipe off smudges thanks to the oleophobic coating. The Invisible Shield actually does a very good job of resisting fingerprints and smudges and any smudges do seem to go away if you wipe the iPhone against your shirt, but it still isn’t quite the same as the glass with the oleophobic coating. So I’m still undecided; I may buy another Invisible Shield for my 3GS, and I may even use just the back portion to give added grip to the back of my iPhone 3GS to guard against dropping it. If I was still using a 3G without the oleophobic coating as my primary iPhone, the scales would tip in favor of getting this product. But with the 3GS, I’m still trying to decide.
Although you can buy an Invisible Shield directly from the manufacturer, ZAGG, the unit that I used came from independent dealer Invisible Skinz. If you want to try out the product yourself, I encourage you to order an Invisible Shield from Invisible Skinz because they have set up a discount for iPhone J.D. readers. Just use the discount code iphonejd20 when you order and you will get a 20% discount. The product costs $14.95 for just a shield to cover the front, or $24.95 for the full body protection of a front and back shield, so with the discount code you can save about $5.00 on the full product.
Every year the American Lawyer ranks the top 200 law firms based on revenue, a list called the Am Law 200. Firms on the list include megafirms with thousands of lawyers such as Skadden, Baker & McKenzie, Latham & Watkins and Jones Day, relatively smaller firms with very high profits per partner such as Wachtell and Cravath, and successful regional law firms such as Lewis and Roca and my firm, Adams and Reese.
The American Lawyer conducts a technology survey of those firms every year. The Am Law Tech Survey 2009 was just released, and I was curious how the iPhone would rank on the list. In 2008, only 5% of the firms reported having attorneys using an iPhone. While that percentage was low, I cannot say that it was surprising. Although the iPhone was released back in 2007, it wasn’t until the iPhone 3G was released in mid-2008 with support for Microsoft Exchange and third party apps that most larger companies, including law firms, started to adopt the iPhone. Thus, at the time that the Am Law Tech Survey 2008 was being conducted, successful law firms were just starting to look at iPhones. The 2008 survey revealed that virtually all of the law firms had attorneys using a Blackberry (98%) while a good number of law firms had attorneys using Windows Mobile (30%) and Palm OS (14%).
The 2009 survey reports a huge jump in iPhone use. Whereas 5% of the Am Law 200 law firms reported attorneys using iPhones in 2008, 55% were supporting iPhone use in 2009. As for other smartphones, virtually all firms continued to support Blackberry (99%) and more firms reported having attorneys using either a Windows Mobile (40%) or Palm OS (26%) phone. New to the list in 2009 were Palm webOS (3%) and Android (1%).
All of the percentages increased from 2008 to 2009, reflecting that the number of attorneys at every law firm using smartphones increased from 2008 to 2009. The rising tide lifted all boats, with Windows Mobile and Palm OS seeing about 10% more users from 2008 to 2009. But the iPhone’s rise from 5% of law firms reporting iPhone use to 55% of the law firms reporting iPhone use is quite dramatic.
I’m sure that at most law firms today, the main smartphone used is a Blackberry. Blackberry’s manufacturer RIM has done a good job of supporting law firms for many years, and for the foreseeable future, I’m sure that we will continue to see virtually 100% of Am Law 200 law firms allowing their lawyers to use Blackberries if they want to do so. But it would be interesting to see the change in the percentage of attorneys using a Blackberry, Windows Mobile or Palm device over time, a statistic not revealed in the Am Law Tech Survey. My guess is that you would see a lot of attorneys abandoning each of those three platforms, and that the primary beneficiary of those switchers would be the iPhone. Indeed, I suspect that such a chart for lawyers would look very similar to this recent chart from ChangeWave Research of smartphone users in general (reported in this CNET article from late October):
Congratulations to Apple for making great inroads into law firms over the past twelve moths. I look forward to seeing how the iPhone fares in the 2010 Am Law Tech survey.
Verizon has a new series of ads that assert that people should get a phone from Verizon instead of AT&T because Verizon’s 3G network provides “5X more 3G coverage.” Small print on the ads states: “Comparison based on square miles covered with 3G. Voice & data services available outside 3G coverage area.” While the ads may talk about AT&T, the ads are clearly taking on the iPhone, which is of course only offered on AT&T in the U.S. (although there have long been rumors that the iPhone will someday come to Verizon; I’ll believe it when I see it).
AT&T isn’t pleased with the ads and has even sued Verizon in the Northern District of Georgia, alleging that the ads violate the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a), and the Georgia False Advertising Act and Deceptive Trade Practices Act. AT&T asserts that notwithstanding the disclaimer, “Verizon is still
conveying the message that AT&T has no coverage in the white or
blank space included in the maps, and thus AT&T customers cannot
use their wireless devices in large portions of the United States.” Of
course, you can use an iPhone even if you don’t have 3G service. (Engadget has a copy of the Complaint available here.)
Verizon’s newest ads in this campaign have Christmas themes. One of them (my favorite) features the Island of Misfit Toys from the classic Rankin/Bass stop motion animation movie Rudolph the Red-Noised Reindeer. Apple itself has paid tribute to the Rankin/Bass holiday movies in many of its Get a Mac ads, and for nostalgia reasons those are actually some of my favorite ads in that long running Apple campaign; the one that Apple ran in 2007 doesn’t appear to be on its website but can be viewed on YouTube here, and the two from 2008 are available on Apple’s website here if you click on the 2008 tab. I hope that another one is planned for this year.
I’ll leave it to the courts to decide whether the Verizon ads are fair, but they are humorous.
All three are set forth below.
Yesterday, I reported that there are now over 100,000 apps on the iPhone. Suffice it to say that there is a heck of a lot that you can do with an iPhone, making it useful throughout the day. With this in mind, I found it interesting that Om Malik reported this week on a study of the increasing number of iPhone addicts, with “addict” defined as someone who uses an iPhone “more than 100 times per month, or more than three times each day of the month.” I haven’t tried to count how many times I pick up my iPhone every day, but considering that sometimes it is three times a minute, I think it is safe to say that I meet that rather lame definition of an iPhone addict. Stop your snickering; I’m sure that the same is true for many of you. So, fellow iPhone addicts, here are the iPhone-related stories that caught my attention this week:
Fortune names Steve Jobs the CEO of the Decade. This related article provides thoughts on Steve Jobs from Andy Grove (Intel), Andrea Jung (Avon; Apple board member), Larry
Ellison (Oracle; friend of Jobs); Marc Andreessen (started Netscape);
Bob Iger (Disney); Ralph de la Vega (AT&T); Jimmy Iovine
(Interscope Records); and Bill Campbell (Quicken; Apple board member).
Speaking of the decade, Mark Kellner of the Washington Times says that the iPhone is not just the gift of the year, it is the gift of the decade.
A while back, I wrote about the history of the “i” in the iPhone. If you are new to iPhone J.D. and missed that article, I think you will enjoy it. We now know a little more about the origin of the “i” thanks to an excellent interview by Cult of Mac with Ken Segall who used to work at Apple’s advertising agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day. He talks about how he coined the term “iMac” even though Jobs hated it at first, and also gives some more background on Jobs that serves as a nice complement to the Fortune articles noted above.
Every year iLounge produces a great, free iPod + iPhone Buyers Guide. This year’s edition is available here.
Erin Geiger Smith recommends on The Business Insider 10 iPhone apps for lawyers, several of which have been reviewed here on iPhone J.D. and which I also like.
It’s not just lawyers using iPhones. The Orlando Sentinel writes about doctors using iPhone apps.
Similarly, David Pogue of the New York Times writes about medical apps for doctors and patients. I wonder when someone will start iPhone M.D.?
Here is a great tip from Dan Moren of Macworld: a way to lock the Photos app in landscape mode so that you can hand someone your iPhone displaying a picture without the screen rotating as you move the iPhone itself.
Michael Mace, who previously worked at Apple and Palm, writes on his Mobile Opportunity blog about which mobile phone apps are making money.
Are you looking to create an iPhone app but don’t know anything about programming? There are companies that will create simple apps for you using templates, and the price is quite reasonable. BusinessWeek reports on Do-it Yourself iPhone Apps. (Thanks to Alan Cohen for the link.)
Here is yet another reason that I have not used a jailbreak utility to hack my iPhone. Engadget reports that a Dutch hacker found a way to locate jail-broken iPhones in the Netherlands and display a message demanding money.
Verizon’s new Droid cellphone, made by Motorola, has been getting
very good reviews and, for some people, appears to be a decent
alternative to the iPhone. Here are three quick reports on the Droid
that compares the iPhone 3GS’s 3 megapixel camera versus the Droid’s 5
megapixel camera that even includes a flash. On specs alone, the Droid
should win, but as these photos show, because you can touch the screen
to adjust the exposure on the iPhone, the iPhone pictures often come
out better. Finally, Ihnatko’s full review of the Droid is here.
For those of you who know what it means to miss New Orleans music, you can now listen to New Orleans music for free with the new WWOZ app. WWOZ is the community radio station in New Orleans run by the folks who bring us the amazing New Orleans Jazz Fest every year. You can listen the the music in the app itself, or there is a button that launches a background stream via Safari so that you can listen to the music in the background while you use other apps on your iPhone. (Thanks to Ray Ward for the link.)
Speaking of music, are you going to the Opera? There’s an app for that. The Opera app from Italian developers Intermundia will give you lots of details on 24 famous operas, including the script in both Italian and English so that you can understand what is being said. The text is white and gray on a black background so that you can use it in the Opera house. I think you’d also need to turn down the brightness to not annoy the other patrons, but I suppose that could work.
And finally, Boing Boing reports on German researchers who created a Dodge minivan that can be remotely operated by an iPhone app. (Thanks to Ernie Svenson for the link.) The app has buttons to accelerate and brake, and rotating the iPhone turns the steering wheel. The app includes a live view from the car so that the iPhone user can see where he is driving. As usual, a video is worth more than 1,000 words, so let’s roll the tape:
Yesterday, Apple announced that there are now over 100,000 apps in the app store
and “well over” two billion iPhone apps have been downloaded, an increase from September 28, 2009 when Apple announced 85,000 apps available and “more than” two billion apps downloaded. A little history to put this in perspective:
7/10/08: App Store opens
7/14/08: 10 million apps sold; 800 apps available (Apple PR)
9/9/08: 100 million apps sold; 3,000 apps available. (Apple PR)
10/22/08: 200 million apps sold; 5,550 apps available (Macworld)
12/5/08: 300 million apps sold; 10,000 apps available (iPhone J.D.)
1/16/09: 500 million apps sold; 15,000 apps available (iPhone J.D.)
3/17/09: 800 million apps sold; 25,000 apps available (Macworld)
4/24/09: 1 billion apps sold; 35,000 apps available (Apple PR)
7/14/09: 1.5 billion apps sold; 65,000 apps available (Apple PR)
What apps do you use the most? Here are some of the apps that I have been using lately, along with a brief description for the ones that I have not reviewed on iPhone J.D.
I personally have seen a huge increase in the number of iPhones in law firms and other companies, and apparently Deutsche Bank research analyst Chris Whitmore has seen the same thing. Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune reports on a research note that Whitmore released to his clients this week in which Whitmore estimates that Apple will have shipped 25 million iPhones by the end of 2009 and that 2 million of those will be to corporate users. He predicts that this will give Apple a 7% share of the enterprise smartphone market in 2009, up from 2% in 2008. Whitmore also estimates that around 6,000 of the almost 100,000 apps in the App Store are enterprise related. Elmer-DeWitt reprints an interesting graph from Whitmore which estimates a large increase in corporate iPhone use next year:
The Deutsche Bank report is consistent with other recent reports. For example, TechNewsWorld recently wrote on reports from Forrester Research and Barclays Capital Research which also predicted a big increase in the use of iPhones in companies. Forrester even predicts that the iPhone share of the enterprise smartphone market will rise to 35% in the next three years.
The increase in corporate iPhone sales is no accident; Apple is actively pursuing the enterprise market. Apple has a web page devoted to iPhone in Business, including this page which profiles numerous companies using iPhones ranging from Kraft to Gannett to even Blue Man Group. (I keep waiting for Apple to add a law firm profile; I hope Apple isn’t waiting for one of us to paint all of our attorneys blue.UPDATE: I stand corrected; as pointed out in the comments, there is a profile of the Sonnenschein law firm.) Also, as I have previously noted,
many of the changes in iPhone Software 3.0 and the iPhone 3GS were
included specifically to address common security requirements of
corporate America. Indeed, as Alan Cohen wrote in an article for AmLaw
that I referenced last month, many corporate IT directors at law firms who previously had hesitations about the iPhone are now supporting iPhone use.
I look forward to all of the new iPhone users at law firms and our clients. The more the merrier.
Bing is the search engine provided by Microsoft, that company's answer to Google and Yahoo. Microsoft has updated the website to optomize it for the iPhone, and so far it looks like the company did a nice job.
Go to www.bing.com on your iPhone and you will be redirected to m.bing.com and given a very clean and simple home screen on which you can type your search:
You can tell Bing your location (by address, zip code, etc.) and store multiple different locations as defaults, such as work and home. With this information provided, Bing will run a local search but also provide you with other tabs to easily run your search on the web, videos, images or news.
When you search the web and click on a link, you will of course see the website, but Bing also offers the option of optimizing the website for the iPhone screen and automatically focusing on the part of the page that you are most likely to want to view. Bing skews some of the images to make them fit on the screen and the result isn't always pretty, but if you are just interested in reading text, this gets the job done. You can also click on the page map icon to see a version of the website divided into sections, and you can tap on a section to change the focus of the optimized view of the website.
Most of the time, I would rather just view a website normally in Safari and then zoom in on the part that I want. But for some troublesome websites that don't format well on the iPhone screen, the option to optimize web pages for the phone might be useful.
Google is a great search engine that works great on the iPhone and is built-in to Safari, and I'm sure that I will still use Google most of the time. But it is nice to see Microsoft taking the time to format Bing for smartphones such as the iPhone. They did a good job, and I can see myself using Bing on the iPhone from time to time.
As we get closer to the end of the year, you are probably concentrating on your CLE hours for 2009, not 2010, but I recommend that you mark your calendar now for next year’s ABA TECHSHOW which will be held March 25 through 27, 2010, in Chicago. This is the premier conference for lawyers interested in technology, sponsored every year by the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA. The panels for 2010 are still being finalized, but I understand that there will be tracks (with multiple sessions each) focused on areas including trial skills, mobility, smart phones, e-discovery, solo and small firms, large firms and corporate counsel, Macintosh, marketing and social networking, finance, and advanced IT. I’m especially thrilled to announce that I will be co-presenting two sessions geared to attorneys using iPhones, a session with Reid Trautz on iPhone apps on Thursday, March 25th that I suspect we will call “60 Apps in 60 Minutes,” and a session with Ben Stevens on using an iPhone in your law practice on Saturday morning, March 27th.
I encourage all of you to think very seriously about going. I had never attended TECHSHOW or any other major legal technology conference before I attended the 2008 TECHSHOW, where I spoke on disaster preparation and recovery (a topic near and dear to all of us attorneys in New Orleans) and also on using a Mac at home when your law firm uses PCs. I also took the time to attend numerous other sessions in 2008, and I learned so much. TECHSHOW is set up so that there are multiple sessions going on at one time, so for each block of time during the day you can choose the topic that most interests you—and with so many compelling sessions, it is often tough to choose, as you can see here. TECHSHOW also features the famous “60 Sites in 60 Minutes” session that is always informative and entertaining. (Click here for some of the previous sites featured in that presentation.)
Besides the content, the other thing that I loved about TECHSHOW was that I met so many great people who I still keep in touch with, including a number of well-known legal bloggers. (I wasn’t blogging myself back in March of 2008; iPhone J.D. started in November of 2008.)
I might not have ever attended in the first place had I not been asked to speak, and I had no idea what I had been missing over the years. So even if you have never attended TECHSHOW or a similar legal technology conference, do yourself a favor and make plans to attend next year. Any lawyer who has enough interest in technology to read iPhone J.D. will love this conference because of the amazing content and the numerous fun opportunities to meet new people. And, because there will be two full sessions on the iPhone, plus I’m sure we will plan a dinner and other opportunities to socialize at TECHSHOW with other iPhone users, it will especially fun for all of us who use an iPhone.
I’ll post more details on TECHSHOW as we get closer, but in the meantime I encourage you to keep up with the TECHSHOW Blog, not just because information about the conference will be posted there, but also because conference speakers contribute content so there will be a lot of substantive information in that blog as we get closer to next March. Indeed, this year some of the best content from previous TECHSHOWs that is still relevant today will be posted to that blog. For those of you who know Quebec attorney Dominic Jaar, who is currently the CEO of Ledjit and who used to be a commercial litigator at Bell Canada’s legal department, Dominic is in charge of the blog this year and I know he will do a great job. If you use an RSS reader, add it to your subscriptions. Additionally, you can follow ABA TECHSHOW on Twitter.
I had to miss the 2009 TECHSHOW because of a schedule conflict, but I am really looking forward to the 2010 conference, especially now that I know that there will be two iPhone sessions. I hope that all of the attorneys who read iPhone J.D. make plans to join me there.
We all know the importance of reading the fine print. Unfortunately, as we get older, that is sometimes easier said than done. Have you ever found yourself straining to read small, fine print on a page, on a prescription bottle, a menu, a receipt, etc.? Your iPhone can now help you if you have the $3 app from Freeverse called Eye Glasses
