Month: March 2010

Apple started accepting sales for the iPad this past Friday, and at the same time updated some of the pages on its website concerning the iPad.  One interesting update was to add this page on the Apple website containing this picture:

 

Before this past Friday, Apple had not previously mentioned a “screen rotation lock” button the the iPad, and I presume that this witch was not on the sample iPads that selected journalists were shown back when the iPad was first announced — if it had been, people would have written about it.  [UPDATE: iPhone Alley reports that this switch was on demo units, but Apple previously called this the Mute switch, just like we have on the iPhone.  Now the function has been changed to a screen rotation lock switch.]

For iPad enthusiasts, it is exciting to see Apple adding new features to the iPad that were not previously discussed.  Macword’s Dan Moren wrote this helpful article to describe some of the features only recently learned from the new pages on the Apple website.

As an iPhone user, what interests me most about the iPad is that it may provide evidence of what Apple is planning to bring to the next version of the iPhone, which I presume Apple will introduce this June as the company has in the past.  I would love to see a screen rotation lock added to the iPhone.  At least once a week I find myself using my iPhone in a bed, while lounging in a chair, or in some other location where I must be tilting the iPhone as I look at it because the iPhone suddenly thinks that I want to switch from portrait to landscape mode (or vice versa) and the rotation changes.  Ugh!  Whenever it happens, I find myself wishing there was some way to tell the iPhone not to rotate the screen.

Of course, the iPhone is much smaller than the iPad, leaving much less space for buttons and switches, and thus I can see Apple deciding to include this as a software feature accessible in Settings instead of a hardware button on the side.  Plus, a software update would be helpful for all current iPhone owners, whereas a hardware button would require a new purchase.  On the other hand, pressing a switch to stop screen rotation is much faster than having to dig into the Settings app.  However it is done, I just hope that Apple adds this feature.

I see a few other newly discovered features in the iPad that might also be nice on the iPhone.  One example is the advanced data consumption information and warnings so that you know how much 3G data you have consumed.  If you are in the U.S. on an unlimited data plan, this information is not all that important, but if you travel abroad and purchase one of AT&T’s international roaming plans, you’ll want to place very close attention to the amount of data you are using because the charges if you go over are very high. 

Another example is that the iPad has a separate app for Videos, whereas on the iPhone your videos are part of the iPod.  The iPad has an iPod app too, to play both music and music videos, but it appears that if you want to play a movie or TV show you use the separate Videos app.  A separate Videos app would also make sense on the iPhone.

Since the iPhone was released in 2007, Apple has essentially only sold one model at a time.  Sure, some units had more RAM than others, and there were different colors, and Apple continued to sell some older units at the same time as the newer units, but there were never truly different, equally new models at the same time.  With the iPad, Apple will for the first time be selling two, current generation iPhone OS-using devices at the same time.  It will interesting to see which new features on one pop up on the other.

My post on Wednesday about the Blue Marble default iPhone wallpaper has resulted in record traffic to iPhone J.D. thanks to John Gruber, who linked to the post on his great Daring Fireball site, and tons of folks who mentioned the post on Facebook and Twitter.  For example, Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, noted in this tweet that the Blue Marble is his wallpaper on both his iPhone and his computers.  Likewise, I’ve had the Blue Marble set as my iPhone wallpaper for the last week.  It really is an amazing image that makes me think about how small the Earth really is (not to mention how cool it would be to be an astronaut).  I mention all of this today because if you enjoyed the original post, you’ll want to go back and read the very interesting comments, especially the ones at the end by Kevin Purcell of Seattle who added some great links to other fantastic photographs of Earth from space.  And now, on to the iPhone news of note from the past week:

• Adam Engst of TidBITS wrote an excellent review of the WeatherBug Elite app.  I’ve had the free version of WeatherBug for a long time now.  I always considered it one of the best iPhone weather apps, along with AccuWeather and The Weather Channel.  (I also like the Weather Underground website which is formatted for the iPhone.)  But I didn’t realize all that the WeatherBug app can do until I read this review, which prompted me to spend the dollar to get the “Elite” version which doesn’t have ads.  The ads do get in the way of the maps and charts, so if you decide to get WeatherBug after you read the TidBITS review, I recommend that you spring for the Elite version.  Click here to get WeatherBug Elite ($0.99): 

  

• Nicholas Bonsack of Macworld writes about a Stanford survey on iPhone addiction.  Hey, I could quit the iPhone anytime I want, I just … ahem … oh who am I kidding, yes I’m addicted.
• Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times writes about mobile apps that outperform websites.
• Court Days is a great date calculator app by Dan Friedlander that only costs $0.99.  I reviewed the first version last year, and now the app is about to be updated to version 2.0.  The new version isn’t in the App Store yet, but you can read about it on the LawOnMyPhone website.  [UPDATE 3/14/10:  The update is now available in the App Store.]  There are some great additions, including the ability to add custom court holidays. 
• The West Virginia Record writes about Charleston, WV attorney Robert Bailey who wrote iPhone apps containing the rules of procedure for West Virginia state and federal courts.
• If you are looking for a way to stream video from your computer to your iPhone, even video that is in a format that the iPhone normally wouldn’t be able to play, Gizmodo has a review of an app called Air Video.  I’ve tried it and it works great.  Click here to get Air Video ($2.99): 

  

• 

  I purchased one or two Emanuel study guides when I was in law school.  For anyone out there planning to take the Multistate Bar Exam, Emanuel now has six iPhone apps to help you prepare.  Each one costs $12.99, and the subjects covered are (these are links to the App Store):  Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Property and Torts.
• Apple makes iPhone app developers agree to keep the terms of Apple’s developer agreement confidential, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation noticed that NASA is an iPhone developer, so the EFF submitted a FOIA request to NASA to get the agreement, and then posted it on its website.  Interesting strategy.  If you want to know more about the agreement, click here.  Frankly, a lot of what EFF highlights is also contained in Apple’s App Store Terms and Conditions, which are available to the public on Apple’s website and which I analyzed in my post last year entitled “No refunds and no nukes:  a look at the Apple iPhone App Store Terms and Conditions.”
• I always enjoy reading about how lawyers use their iPhones.  Rick Georges writes on his FutureLawyer site about all of the things that he does with his Droid phone, and since the items on his list are all things that you can also do with an iPhone, I thought some of you might enjoy reading his article.
• Putting aside the fact that AT&T still doesn’t allow tethering on the iPhone, I’ve wondered whether you could tether an iPhone to an iPad, making it unnecessary to buy the more expansive version of the iPad and 3G monthly service.  As Engadget notes, Steve Jobs apparently says no.
• And finally, Doritos sponsored a contest for people to come up with a video that would go viral, and one group produced a cute one that mocks Apple’s video on the upcoming iPad.  You can read more on Mashable and you can view it right here:

Ever since iPhone Software 3.0, we’ve had the ability to copy text and pictures from one app and paste into another app.  But what if you want to store the copied text or photo so that you can use it again later?  Pastebot is a useful app from Tapbots that addresses this need.  Tapbots gave me a free review copy of the $2.99 app, and I really like it.

When you launch the app, it takes whatever you last copied and adds it to the top of a list of clippings.  If you want to take something that you have already saved into Pastebot and copy it to the iPhone clipboard, just tap it once and a blue dot will appear to the right of the clipping, indicating that it is now loaded into memory and you can go to another app and paste it.  You can store up to 99 clippings in the main portion of the app, plus you can create folders to hold up to 99 clippings each so you can essentially hold as many clippings as you want.

If that was all that Pastebot did, it would be a useful app that I would recommend.  But that is just the beginning.  Tap on the arrow to the right of any clipping and you see a large screen containing the text.  From there, you can easily edit the text in the clipping, add a title for the clipping, or see some statistics about the clipping such as the date of the clipping, the number of characters and the number of words.  Even more impressive, if you tap the icon at the bottom left, you can select a filter to do things like convert the text to lowercase or uppercase, find and replace within the text, and even translate to a different language (a feature just added in the 1.1 update on February 23, 2010).

If the clipping is a picture, Pastebot will tell you the dimensions in pixels, and the picture filters give you some basic picture editing functions such as adjusting brightness or saturation or converting to black and white or sepia tones.

Indeed, you don’t have to even bring up the full page version of a clipping to get at most of the functions.  When you tap once on a clipping, in addition to setting the blue dot and copying the clipping into memory, a mini-dashboard pops up below the clipping from which you can access filters and other functions.

While the main feature of Pastebot is to copy and paste into the iPhone’s clipboard, you can also press a button to send a clipping directly to e-mail, to save a picture to the iPhone Photos app, or to send text to Google to perform a search in Safari.  The 1.1 update to Pastebot added the ability to duplicate clippings, useful if you want to make changes to a clipping but also keep the original.

The app also works with a free Mac application that will allow you to wirelessly send clips from a Mac to Pastebot and vice versa.  I haven’t had a reason to try this yet — for me, the main value of the app just comes from using it on an iPhone — but I’m glad to know that the function is there if I want to use it in the future.  If this feature is of interest to you, you’ll want to read this great post by Shawn Blanc which talks about the different file types that can be shared using Pastebot.

Perhaps best of all, Tapbots give you form, not just function.  If you have ever used the other two apps sold by Tapbots, Convertbot or Weightbot,
you know that Tapbots makes beautiful apps.  The panels on each screen slide gracefully and make satisfying noises.  It is really a joy to use any
of the Tapbots apps; I use Convertbot all the time, not just because it is useful to make conversions, but also because it is, frankly, fun to use.  In the last week that I’ve been testing Pastebot, I’m finding that is equally true for this app.

What’s not to love?  The only big negative for me is that the app doesn’t handle all of the types of items that you can copy and paste on the iPhone.  For example, you can copy portions of a webpage in Safari including both pictures and text and paste that into an e-mail, but you cannot paste that into Pastebot.  Similarly, you can copy rich text from one e-mail (containing bold, italics, etc.) and paste it into another e-mail, but you cannot use Pastebot as a go-between.  Why not?  According to Ars Technica, Apple doesn’t currently allow third party apps to use these features.  Darn.  Hopefully Apple will change this in the future because it would be a welcome addition to Pastebot.

Pastebot is useful app that is a joy to use.  If you use copy and paste on your iPhone and want to get more sophisticated features, you won’t regret buying this great app.

Click here for Pastebot ($2.99): 

One of the default pictures included with the iPhone is a beautiful image of the Earth as seen from space.  Unless you weren’t paying attention, you saw this picture when you first purchased your iPhone, and you can still view it by going to Settings –> Wallpaper –> Wallpaper; it is the second image provided by Apple.  Here is what it looks like as a wallpaper on an iPhone:

 

If you have ever wondered where this photograph came from, a recent post from Gizmodo sheds some light on the subject, although to get the full story you need to go to some more sources, including this page from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland.  Here is a short version.

First, a little history.  One of the most famous pictures of the Earth was taken on December 7, 1972 from a distance of about 18,000 miles out by the crew of Apollo 17 who were fortunate enough to have the sun directly behind them so that the Earth was fully illuminated.  One of the astronauts, Eugene Cernan, quipped when the picture was taken:  “I know we’re not the first to discover this — but we’d like to confirm, from the crew of America, that the world is round.”  The image was called Blue Marble and is one of the most widely distributed photographs in existence:

 

[UPDATE 12/11/2013:  You can view the original Blue Marble 1972 picture on the NASA website here, with many different versions available.]

In 2000, climatologist Reto Stöckli was working with the NASA Earth Observatory team and decided to update that famous picture.  By compiling satellite data and images taken over several months, he created an artificially colored image that he also called Blue Marble:

 

Then in 2002, Stöckli worked with Rob Simmon of the NASA Earth Observatory and others to update that image and create a so called “true-color image” that was based on data which closely reflects the full spectrum range of visual perception.  In other words, this is what the Earth might really look like if you were in space.  This image, called Blue Marble 2002, was the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date.  To be clear, this is not a single snapshot of Earth, but instead is a composite of months of satellite-based observations.  Most of the data came from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) which flew on a satellite over 400 miles above the Earth, so much closer than the 18,000 miles out of the Apollo 17 astronauts.  Here is Blue Marble 2002:

You can download the full size, 2048 x 2048 pixel, version of Blue Marble 2002 from the Flickr page for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.  You can also view this animation of the Earth spinning created from the same images.  NASA released the Blue Marble 2002 image to the public, and that was the image that Apple decided to use on the iPhone. 

Although the Gizmodo article cited above says that this is this is the highest resolution image of the earth, that is actually no longer true.  Stöckli, Simmon and the rest of the gang got the band back together to work on a project called Blue Marble: Next Generation (BMNG).  Using MODIS data from 2004, the BMNG team created this image in 2005:

 The full size version of Blue Marble 2005 is 4096 x 4096 pixels, so it is four times the size of the 2002 image used by Apple on the iPhone.  You can download full versions of all of the images mentioned above — the 1972 Apollo 17 image and the Blue Marble versions dated 2000, 2002 and 2005 — on this page from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science.  [UPDATE 12/11/2013:  That page doesn’t work anymore, but there are other links to these photos above.]  You can also get more information on all of the different versions of Blue Marble on Wikipedia.  

Although Blue Marble 2005 is the more recent and more detailed version, in my opinion the 2002 version is the most beautiful of all of them, although of course the original 1972 version is also wonderful because it is “real” and not a composite.  I suppose that someone at Apple felt the same way since the 2002 version is the one included with the iPhone.  If you changed your iPhone’s default wallpaper then you probably won’t see this image on your iPhone again unless you have a serious crash and the iPhone returns to a default state and commands you to connect your iPhone to a computer running iTunes.  If that does happen to you and you find yourself starting to panic, perhaps you can distract yourself by thinking of all of the time and care that went into creating the beautiful image of Earth on your iPhone screen.

[UPDATE 1/26/12:  NASA has now released Blue Marble 2012, an even higher definition (8000 x 8000) view of Earth created by combining several images taken by a NASA satellite on January 4, 2012.  Looks like it is time for Apple to update the iPhone wallpaper!]

[UPDATE 5/23/16: In February of 2015, NASA launched the U.S. Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) (Wikipedia link), a satellite which stays in the correct position to always see the sunlit side of the Earth.  The camera on DSCOVR is called the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), and it takes a picture about once every two hours.  Thus, we now have 12 new Blue Marble-style pictures of the Earth every single day.  The first released set of images were taken on July 6, 2015, and you can see all of the pictures on NASA’s website here.  Some of them are particularly amazing, such as this series of pictures (and video) of the moon passing between EPIC and the Earth, taken July 16, 2015.  It is fascinating to me that an image that originally was breathtaking in its uniqueness back in 1972 is now literally an everyday occurrence.]

About a year ago, I posted a survey of the time tracking apps that existed at that time.  Many of those apps have been improved greatly over the last year and several new apps have been released.  I myself have never felt a need to track my time or expenses on my iPhone, so I don’t have any first hand experience with these apps, but I do try to keep tabs on what is out there because people ask me about them from time to time.

One question I have received quite a few times is whether there is an iPhone time tracking app that syncs with Timeslips, a popular Windows product used by many law firms.  This past Friday, a new iPhone app was released that tracks time and expenses and it is the first app that syncs with Timeslips.  The app is called iSlips.  In addition to syncing with Timeslips, this looks like a very capable iPhone app in its own right.  Here is a video provided by the developer which provides an overview of the app:

At $49.99, this is one of the more expensive time and expense billing apps for the iPhone, but it looks like an app that might fit a need for many attorneys so I wanted to mention it here.  If you try this app, I would love to hear how it works for you, including how well you find that it integrates with Timeslips.

[UPDATE 3/18/10:  Click here for more info on this app.]

Click here for iSlips ($49.99): 

Are you thinking about getting an iPad?  Late last week, Apple announced on its website that the iPad will be available to purchase starting Saturday, April 3, 2010.  And starting this Friday, March 12, you can pre-order an iPad from the Apple Online Store or you can go to any Apple Retail Store and reserve an iPad that you can pick up on April 3, 2010.  If I’ve learned anything from the launches of the different models of the iPhone, it is that supplies will be limited on the first day, so if you want to starting using your iPad on April 3, you should make plans to give Apple your $499 (or more) early this Friday.

Last night was the Oscars (I guess technically it was called the 82nd Annual Academy Awards) and Steve Jobs was in attendance.  I’m sure that he was thrilled to see that his other company, Pixar, won the Oscar for Animated Feature Film for its latest movie, Up.  (What a wonderful film, from its amazing first ten minutes to the beauty and humor throughout the movie.)  But by not being at home, Jobs missed the chance to see the first televised commercial for the iPad.  Hopefully he has a DVR. 

If you also missed it too (or just want to see it again), you can view the ad here on Apple’s website, or here is a version from YouTube:

I presume that one reason for running the ad was to publicize the April 3 availability date.  But this was also Apple’s first chance to show the public at large what the iPad is all about.  In the ad, Apple chose to show off the following built-in apps: Safari (displaying the New York Times and Facebook websites), Photos, Videos, iPod, Calendar, Maps and Mail.  The ad also shows off two of the apps developed by Apple that you can download from the App Store:  Pages, which costs $9.99, and iBooks, which is free.

This isn’t the first time that Apple has used the Oscars to show off the iPhone operating system.  On February 26, 2007, Apple ran an ad for the original iPhone during the Oscars.  It was a great commercial, one which served not only to whet the public’s appetite for the first iPhone but also as an homage to many great actors.  Here it is from YouTube:

It is incredible when you think how far Apple has come with the iPhone operating system over the last three years.

I didn’t buy the original iPhone when it first came out, although I was mighty tempted to do so.  Likewise, I don’t plan to buy an iPad on April 3, 2010, but let’s be honest, we all know that I’ll get one at some point.  It’s just a question of when.  Maybe, like the iPhone, I’ll wait until the second model comes out.  Or maybe not.  I suspect that many of you are having similar thoughts.

For all of you who are planning to attend ABA TECHSHOW later this month, let’s get dinner!  On Thursday and Friday nights during the conference, there will be several “Taste of the ABA TECHSHOW” dinners.  These Dutch-treat dinners provide attendees with the opportunity to meet and network with speakers and other attendees with similar interests.  Mark your calendar for Thursday, March 25 because that night, Ernie Svenson, who was recently profiled on InsideLegal, and I will host a dinner for iPhone-using attorneys.  I believe that the location will be Tutto Italiano Ristorante, but this may change.  You’ll be able to sign up once you get to the conference.  This will be one of those rare times when it is not considered rude to use your iPhone during dinner!  I hope to see you there. 

Also, one quick programming note.  I know that some of you never use Twitter at all, others are occasional users, and a few of you rely on Twitter to get all of your news.  If you fall in the second or third category, I have been tweeting for a while now at @jeffrichardson if you want to follow me.  I don’t post very often so I won’t overload your feed, but when I do run across something timely or when I have a major new post on iPhone J.D., I’ll put a quick tweet on @jeffrichardson.  But if you fall in the third category and you like to use Twitter to see what is new, this week I’ve started using the @iphonejd Twitter account to automatically post the title and a link for every new post on iPhone J.D.  Feel free to follow that account if you want to get notice of every single new post shortly after it appears. 

And now, on to the iPhone-related news of note from this past week:

• Attorney Finis Price compares the screen on an iPhone with the screen on the Google Nexus One on his TechnoEsq site.  The Nexus One has a higher resolution 800 x 480 OLED display, compared to the iPhone’s 480 x 320 LCD display, but Price shows that the iPhone still does better with photos because the Nexus One display only displays 16-bit color.
• AppAdvice reports that Apple has decided to pull all Wi-Fi tracker apps from the App Store.  I’ve have one called WiFi Track that I use occasionally and that I have recommended in the past, but I suppose I cannot recommend it anymore because it is no longer available on the App Store.
• AppAdvice also reports on the RedEye Mini, a $49 device that plugs in to the headphone jack on your iPhone and turns it in to a Universal Remote.
• Well that didn’t take long.  When I discussed Quickoffice and Documents to Go by DataViz on February 11, 2010, I noted that Quickoffice had just added support for some of the cloud document storage services such as Google Docs, and then I added in an update the next day that DataViz had announced plans to catch up by adding Google Docs support soon.  Documents to Go was updated yesterday, so now either app can access documents on Google Docs.  Click here for Documents to Go Premium ($14.99): 

  

• Fortune just released their annual list of the world’s most admired companies, and Apple is #1 in 2010.  Dan Moren of Macworld points out that this is the third year in the row that Apple has taken top honors.
• Apple filed suit against HTC alleging that its smartphones running the Google Android operating system or the Windows Mobile operating system infringe on 20 iPhone patents.  Engadget has this page with general information and this page analyzing the 20 patents at issue.  John Gruber writes extensively on his opposition to the lawsuit here, stating “Whatever benefit in the market Apple hopes to achieve by this suit to
  
  me seems likely to be worth far less than the loss of good will and
  
  prestige Apple will suffer if they vigorously pursue this case (let
  
  alone if they initiate more such suits).”
• Kim Komando writes for USA Today about apps that let you turn your iPhone into a powerful mobile office.
• And finally, did you ever notice that Apple always found ways to make the iPod smaller and smaller over time, from the original generation to the nano to the shuffle, but with the iPhone OS Apple went from the small iPhone to the larger iPad?  The French site BeGeek takes a humorous look at what this might mean for the future of iPhone OS devices.  (Link via AppAdvice.)  Here is what they, ahem, predict:

In October of 2009, I described a free website by Loyola (New Orleans) Law School Professor Dane Ciolino, an expert on legal ethics, called Louisiana Legal Ethics.  The portion of that website containing the latest Louisiana Rules of Professional Conduct is now available in a free iPhone app.  While the content comes from Prof. Ciolino, the iPhone app was put together by New Orleans attorney Matt Miller, who wrote the Louisiana Civil Code and Code of Civil Procedure apps that I also reviewed this past October.

The app allows you to browse the rules in two ways.  First, you can view them grouped by Article.  Second, you can just see a full list of the rules.  I find it faster to use the second method, especially because you can quickly run your finger along the right side to jump to the part of the rules that you need.

Another way to get at the rules is to run a search.  All rules containing the word will appear.  Unfortunately, the word is not highlighted when you read the rule so you will just have to hunt for it.  The final way to get to a rule is to tap the Bookmarks button to see the rules that you have previously saved as a bookmark.

 

When you view a rule, you get three things.  First, you get the full text of the rule.  Second, you get background and historical information on the rule provided by Prof. Ciolino.  Finally, you get the ABA official comments to the model rule on which the Louisiana rule is based.  If you find that you refer to a rule a lot, you can add it to your list of bookmarks by tapping a button at the top right.  (The button does not appear if you have already added a rule to your list of bookmarks.)

If you are a Louisiana lawyer, you are likely to find this free app very useful.  I’ve only had the app a few days and I’ve already used it several times.  It is nice that Prof. Ciolino’s website is nicely formatted for the iPhone and includes extra features like the latest legal ethics news, but this dedicated app is even faster when you just want the rules.

Click here to get Louisiana Legal Ethics (free): 

I listen to my iPhone in my car all the time — mostly podcasts, other times music, occasionally an audio book, and sometimes while using a GPS navigation app at the same time — but I’ve been in the market for a new car kit.  I had been using the Griffin AutoPilot, a device which I liked because it charged the iPhone, provided audio out, and even had a button on top of the part that plugs into the cigarette lighter / auxilary port that could be used to play/pause, FF and RW.  Unfortunately, after about 18 months of use, the button stopped working, and I had really grown to like the button feature.  After looking at all of the current replacement options, I decided to purchase a Kensington LiquidAUX Auciliary Car Kit with Remote, and my verdict after two weeks of use is that I really like it.  You can buy it from Kensington for $59.99, but this link will give you the Amazon price which is currently $45.84.  (Note that Amazon links on iPhone J.D. include an affiliate code that won’t cost you anything but Amazon provides iPhone J.D. with a small referral fee if you buy something.)

The basic features are the ones that you find in any car kit.  You plug one end in to your cigarette lighter / auxilary port and the other end has a standard iPhone dock connector.  It provides power to the iPhone and also acts as an audio out.  A cord comes out of the plug that plugs in to your auxiliary audio input on your car stereo.  I actually don’t have an auxiliary audio input in my car, so instead I use a cassette tape adapter and I use cheap ($5.00) 3.5mm Stereo Coupler to connect the two cords.

What makes the LiquidAUX special is that it comes with a small wireless remote.  The remote has four buttons: play/pause at the top, rewind on the left, fast forward on the right and shuffle at the bottom.  The remote comes with a case in which it sits.  The case includes a velcro strap that is designed to be wrapped around your steering wheel like this:

(By the way, you can click any of the pictures in this post to see larger versions.)  You can attach the remote anywhere on your steering wheel, and the remote easily pops out of the case and can be turned 180º so that the play/pause button is at the top no matter which side of the steering wheel the case is on.

The remote works great and makes it very easy to start, stop and change music on your iPhone while you are driving without having to look at the iPhone screen.  In fact, you don’t even need to look at the remote to use it because the buttons are raised.  Thus, you can feel where you need to press without taking your eyes off of the road.  I found that I actually didn’t like the remote on my steering wheel because as I turned my wheel and felt the wheel slide under my hand, I didn’t like the slight bump of the case for the remote.  But I quickly found a great solution for the layout of my car:  I placed the remote around the emergency break right next to my seat.  That actually places the remote at a perfect position for my right hand and I can easily find and use the remote without needing to look at it at all.  So here is the setup in my car:

You might not mind the remote case on your steering wheel, but in case you do, consider whether you have an optimal alternative location in your car like I do.  Wherever you place it, the remote is really the best part of this product.  By the way, in the above picture, my iPhone is upside down (but it also works right side up because there is a notch for the cord) inside of a Griffin iSqueez, a product that is unfortunately now discontinued.  If you can still find one, it does a nice job of holding an iPod or iPhone in place in a car’s cup holder as long as you don’t use a case.  (With a case, the iPhone is too big for the iSqueez.)

Here are some additional details that might be of interest to you.  The wireless remote uses the 2.4GHz spectrum.  When your car power turns off, the device goes off as well so that it doesn’t drain your car battery.  Unlike some car chargers, this one won’t pop up the warning every time you connect it that “This accessory is not made to work with iPhone” which is nice.  When your car power turns on, the device turns on, and then you can press the play button on the remote to resume playback.  It works with the original iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, and because the cord plugs into the iPhone dock connector port, it works with most cases (assuming that your case has an opening for the dock connector).  [UPDATE 7/5/10:  I’ve been using the Kensington LiquidAUX Auxiliary Car Kit with my iPhone 4 and it works fine.]  The plug has a short cord to go to your audio auxiliary port, but the unit comes with a four foot audio extension cable in case your car’s cigarette lighter / power port is far away from your audio auxiliary port.

I have a slight concern about the iPhone dock connection because you can easily pull the cord out of your iPhone.  For now, the connection is snug enough that this isn’t a problem, but I do wonder whether in the future a slight pull on the cord might result in the cord popping out of my iPhone.  I’ll just have to see how it holds up.

Kensington makes some other models in the LiquidAUX line that I did not try.  a “Deluxe” model costs $20 more than the version I bought and has a sturdy arm that comes out of the power plug with the dock on the top that your iPhone fits into.  There were some mixed reviews on Amazon about how well the arm works.  There is also a Bluetooth model for $40 more than the model I purchased which doesn’t need a physical connection to the iPhone at all — music streams from your iPhone to the LiquidAUX using Bluetooth A2DP — but that model doesn’t charge the iPhone while in the car.

I’ve used the Kensington LiquidAUX both on short trips around town and on long road trips while using MotionX GPS Drive and listenin
g to an Audible audio book and all of my experiences with this product have been positive.  The remote works great and is so convenient to have at my fingertips.  The price (at Amazon) was right, the device powers my iPhone, the sound quality is good through my car stereo, and the remote works great.  If you are in the market for an auxiliary car kit for your iPhone, this one is worth a look.

Click here for the Kensington LiquidAUX Auxiliary Car Kit with Remote from Amazon ($45.84).

I am a huge fan of Nuance’s Dragon Dictation, the free iPhone app that lets you speak a few sentences to your iPhone and have them quickly transcribed for an e-mail, text, etc.  The app works great, and when it makes mistakes they are very easy to correct.  The Nuance technology is also used in Siri, another useful app that I recently reviewed.  Dragon products have been available for the computer for a long time now and even come in special editions for lawyers and doctors.  I’ve been wondering whether Nuance would use its special knowledge of legal and medical terms to improve the iPhone app.  We now know that the answer to half of that question is yes.

This week, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is holding its annual conference and exhibition in Atlanta.  One of the exhibitors is Nuance, and yesterday Nuance announced a new line of Dragon Dictation iPhone products for people in the medical field, all of which are discussed here on the Nuance website.

First, Dragon Medical Mobile Search is an app that will let you use your voice to search for medical information on sites such as MedScape, MedLine, Epocrates and Google.  That app should be available by April 30th.  Second, Dragon Medical Mobile Dictation is a version of the iPhone Dragon Dictation app that understands medical terms.  Thus, doctors can use it to dictate their medical notes.  Third, Dragon Medical Mobile Recorder will record longer dictation, send it to the Nuance website, and have the transcription sent back to the doctor as a “high quality draft document” for the clinician to “review and sign-off.”  That last service requires a subscription to Nuance’s transcription services.

Additionally, Nuance announced a Dragon Medial Mobile SDK that third parties can use to add Dragon Medical Dictation technology directly into their medical iPhone apps.

Nuance has not yet announced a price for its medical apps.

Why am I writing about this?  I don’t think that I have a huge audience of doctors who read iPhone J.D., except perhaps for my brother (hi, Kevin!) but if you look at the Nuance press release and replace the word “medical” with the word “legal,” you can easily imagine some great new Dragon Dictation apps for lawyers.  We know that Nuance has a lot of experience understanding words spoken by lawyers and translating those words into written legalese, so it seems like a natural product for Nuance to develop.  I see that Nuance will have a booth at the ABA TECHSHOW in just a few weeks, so you know what my first question will be when I visit with the folks from Nuance.

As much as I love Dragon Dictation on the iPhone, I should note that I am not a fan of the same product on my computer.  I have tested the Dragon Naturally Speaking several times over the years, and I find it cumbersome to have to wear a special headset to dictate my briefs.  I also get frustrated by the accuracy because even though it is almost 100%, those few errors always seem to take me a long time to fix, plus fixing them disrupts my writing process.  As someone who can type fairly quickly and has always avoided dictation in favor of just typing everything myself, using Dragon on a computer just slows me down.  On the iPhone, however, I can speak and fix any mistakes faster than I can type on the virtual keyboard, and I say that as someone who actually does pretty well typing on the iPhone keyboard.  Having the ability to dictate sentences that include legal terms, legal cites, etc. on my iPhone when I am away from a computer would be very useful.

I have no inside knowledge about whether Nuance is developing anything for lawyers who use iPhones, but with yesterday’s announcement of the Dragon  Medical Mobile suite of apps, I am now crossing my fingers that this is something that we see soon.  In the meantime, lawyers who work on medical malpractice cases, medical paralegals, and other lawyers who frequently deal with medical terms might find something useful these latest announcements from Nuance.