One of the things that I most love about the iPhone is that it gives you so much power when you are away from the office. But last week, in my review of the ZeroTap app, I mentioned that there are some things that I prefer to do on my iPhone even while I am sitting at my desk. Oxford, Mississippi attorney Tom Freeland who runs the great NMissCommentor site, posted a comment asking about other iPhone apps that I use at my desk even though I have a computer in front of me that is presumably much faster than the iPhone and with a much bigger screen. This is a great question and is a topic that frequently comes up when I talk to people about the iPhone.
Many built-in iPhone apps are stripped down version of desktop programs, such as Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Maps, etc. At first glance, you might think that there is no reason to use the limited iPhone version when there is a computer nearby, and often this is correct. But sometimes I have a bunch of windows open on my screen and I don't want to disrupt my work flow. When I hear a beep telling me that I have a new e-mail, it is often easier to just pick up my iPhone and read the message there without disrupting my screen. For the same reason, I may pick up my iPhone to glance at my calendar, even though I could do the same thing by switching to Outlook. In this way, my iPhone acts sort of like a second computer monitor, a way to get information without disturbing the layout of my main monitor.
Additionally, there are many third party apps that do their job so well that I find it easier to use that app than to use (or find) the desktop equivalent. A few good examples:
- DaysFrom — if I need to calculate dates, nothing on the desktop works as fast as DaysFrom on the iPhone.
- FRCP, La. Civil Code and other rule and statutory compilations — I have soft cover paper versions of rules, codal provisions, etc. and sometimes I like to browse through the pages, but other times I want to do a word search which is much faster using a dedicated iPhone app then working through an index. Also, rules and laws that I view often are set as bookmarks in those apps so I can quickly jump to them. (To be fair, I often put a flag on the page of the paper book which also works very quickly.) And I love that if I want to put the text in a brief, these apps include a way to send the text in an e-mail to myself which I can then copy and paste into my brief.
- Twitterrific and Facebook — I find it faster and easier to use the Twitter and Facebook social networking services on the iPhone with these great apps then to use the desktop versions. I still access both services in a web browser on my computer from time to time, but most of the time I just use my iPhone regardless of whether a computer is nearby.
- Weather — when I want a quick look at the weather forecast, it is faster to just pick up my iPhone and glance at one of the weather apps I use such as The Weather Channel, AccuWeather, or Weather Underground (which is a web app, not a full app).
- Quickoffice — I have lots of tidbits of information stored in Quickoffice. I could use the iPhone's built in Notes app, but I like it that Quickoffice has an option to require a password when launching. That way, even if my son uses my iPhone without me watching, I don't need to worry about him getting into my list of frequent flier numbers and changing a number.
- NotifyMe — I love this little app for sending myself a reminder in the future. There are ways I could do the same thing on a computer, such as making an event in my Outlook calendar and adding an alarm to it, but them I clutter up my calendar with things like "remember to do such-and-such." Plus, it fast and easy to just use NotifyMe.
- Black's Law Dictionary — there is a version of Black's that you can install on a computer, but I don't own it. I do own a hard cover bound edition, but it sits on my shelf and collects dust. I don't use Black's very often, but when I do, it is much more convenient to just use it on the iPhone. I'll sometimes use it in conjunction with doing Westlaw searches on my computer; looking up some basic legal concepts in the Black's app sometimes helps me to think about better ways to formulate my search terms.
- DirecTV — sometimes someone will mention a TV show to me, or I'll see a reference to it online, and I want to set my DirectTV DVR to record the program. One can do this on the DirecTV website, but it is faster to just use the iPhone app.
