In the news is typically the Friday post here on iPhone J.D., but this is probably my last post of this week. If you want more, you'll have to come to Chicago and see me at ABA TECHSHOW.
Even if you cannot make it to Chicago this year, you can still attend the pre-TECHSHOW event that occurs tonight, Ignite Law 2010, because it will be streamed live to the Internet starting at 7:30 Central. Click here for more information.
Here are some of the interesting iPhone-related items that I came across over the last few days.
- As reported by Dan Moren of Macworld, Apple has added the ability to send someone an iPhone app as a gift. Art of the iPhone provides more information on how it works. Still unclear to me: what happens if the person already has the app?
- This time last year, Apple allowed you to buy an iPhone in the U.S. without a two year AT&T contract, although the phone was more expensive and still only worked with AT&T. Presumably it was an effort to clear inventory before the new iPhone 3GS came out in July. Well here we are, one year later, and once again Apple is doing the same thing, as reported by Dan Moren of Macworld. If you want to spend more, $499 to $699, for an iPhone you can get one without an AT&T contract. But again, the only U.S. carrier it will work with is AT&T, so I suspect that few will want to do this.
- Rocket Matter, which sells online time and billing software for law firms that can be accessed from a computer or iPhone, produced a short, fun YouTube video to preview the schwag that they plan to give out at ABA TECHSHOW this week, as well as the schwag that they decided not to provide.
- Harry McCracken of Technologier has used an iPhone for years but recently switched to a Droid for a few weeks to see what Android is all about. Here is his report of the advantages and disadvantages of a Droid versus an iPhone.
- Similarly, the ABA Journal asked attorneys Finis Price and Ryan McKeen to debate the merits of the two phones for lawyers. The result is this article.
- Lex Friedman of Macworld compares Dragon Search and ACTRocket, two search apps for the iPhone.
- Steve Jobs was a critical impetus for a bill pending in California that would require the DMV to ask whether each person with a driver's license wants to become an organ donor. (Currently, a person needs to know to ask to have a sticker put on his license.) AppleInsider reports on and has the video from the press conference by Steve Jobs, Governor Schwarzenegger, and others. It seems like a reasonable bill that should be the law everywhere. It is very rare to see Steve Jobs speak in public outside of an Apple event.
- What is becoming less rare is to hear about Steve Jobs personally responding to e-mails asking about upcoming Apple products and features. When these reports come out, one never knows if they are true, but Michael Grothaus of TUAW rounds up some recent reports on e-mails reportedly sent by Jobs. One that caught my eye was a supposed e-mail from Jobs saying that Apple is adding a universal inbox to Mail on the iPhone.
- Dave Caolo of TUAW writes about iPhone apps that can be used to track packages.
- Matt Newburg of TidBITS reviews Things, a To-Do List program for the Mac that syncs with an iPhone client.
- Art of the iPhone writes about and shows a video of Opera Mini, a web browser for the iPhone that was submitted to Apple for approval. I don't know whether Apple will approve it; there are no other third party browsers on the App Store that don't rely on webkit, the backbone of Safari. If Apple does allow Opera Mini, it would be significant because it would be approval of an app that duplicates a core function of the iPhone. Note that this video shows Opera Mini being many times faster than Safari, but John Gruber writes that the speed increase may noticeable mostly on slower Edge connections; on Wi-Fi the speed advantage may decrease and the rendering is likely to be worse than Safari. We'll see.
- The Wall Street Journal reports that "Apple has seen strong demand" for the iPad and has already pre-sold "hundreds of thousands of units, say people familiar with the matter."
- Most people need to wait until April 3 to get an iPad, but a select few — including Major League Baseball, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times — have one already, according to Brad Stone and Jenna Wortham of the Times who describe the secrecy required by Apple for those who currently have an iPad. Douglas MacMillan of BusinessWeek has a similar report.
- Attorney Dennis Kennedy writes in the ABA Journal about whether the iPad could replace the legal pad for lawyers.
- And finally, here is a fun video showing someone using the icons on an iPhone to create the alphabet. It took 540 icons to do.
