The big iPhone-related news of this week was the iPad, and the anticipation is growing for the big launch tomorrow. But the news wasn’t all iPad, and here are some of the iPhone-related items of interest that caught my attention over the last few days.
- Earlier this week, I posted a list of the apps discussed during the 60 Apps in 60 Minutes presentation that Reid Trautz and I gave at ABA TECHSHOW. Rachel M. Zahorsky of the ABA Journal (who you may know from Twitter as LawScribbler) wrote this article on our presentation, giving more info on a few of those apps. By the way, I met a ton of great people who work for the ABA Journal at TECHSHOW, including editor and publisher Ed Adams (Twitter), Molly McDonough (Twitter), Sarah Randag (BlawgWhisperer on Twitter), the person who anonymously posts on Twitter as ABAesq (who told me that he/she may reveal himself/herself soon), and many others. I included the Twitter handles because all of those people are worth following.
- Speaking of the ABA Journal, its most recent (and very unscientific) online poll asked what smartphone lawyers carry. The results show that 27% use an iPhone, right behind 34% who use a Blackberry.
- Writers for The Chicago Lawyer were also in attendance at the 60 Apps in
60 Minutes presentation. They — I’m not sure whether it was Paul Zelewsky or David
Glynn — posted this
article identifying a few of their favorite apps for lawyers from
the over 60 we discussed in our presentation. - Ben Stevens, my co-presenter at my other TECHSHOW presentation last week, posted some interesting reflections
on TECHSHOW. - The U.S. Army is talking to Apple about using iPhones.
- Brad Stone of the New York Times writes about Tony Fadell, one of the key creators of the original iPod, who severed most of his formal ties with Apple in 2008 and has now officially ended his remaining consulting relationship with Apple. Thanks, Tony, for all that you have done.
- Ryan Ray of iPhone Nuts discusses iPhone apps that are useful for students.
- I have never jailbroken my iPhone and have no plans to do so. Thus, I won’t be able to use this app, but as a former Treo 650 user I can’t help but be amused at an app for jailbroken iPhones from StyleTap that emulates a Palm on an iPhone, as reported by Josh Topolsky of Engadget. Every useful program that I ever ran on my Treo 650 exists in a better form on the iPhone, so I don’t see much use here, but it does bring back memories.
- Ross Rubin of Engadget discusses Zosh, a useful app that I reviewed this past December.
- Do you use Quickoffice? (My most recent review is here.) Would you like to win $250? If you go to this thread on the Quickoffice Facebook page and post a story of how Quickoffice helped you to accomplish an important business or personal task, you have a chance to win a $250 iTunes gift card or a $250 Visa gift card (your choice). That money would be useful to help you pay for a new iPad or to save for the next version of the iPhone.
- And for the record, as I told folks at TECHSHOW last week, my prediction is that the next iPhone will be announced this June and will be called iPhone HD, based on nothing more than my guess that we will see an HD camera in the next iPhone, just like you now see in the tiny Flip MinoHD.
- Yukari Iwatani Kane, Ting-I Tsai and Niraj Sheth of the Wall Street Journal wrote an interesting article on the iPhone and AT&T. First, they predict that the iPhone is coming to other carriers this year. That’s possible, but I won’t believe that rumor until I see it. Whether you believe that rumor or not, there are lots of other interesting tidbits in the article such as “According to comScore Inc., AT&T has over 43% of all U.S. smart-phone customers, compared with 23% for Verizon” and “For several quarters, AT&T’s growth has come almost single-handedly from the iPhone.”
- Niraj Sheth of the Wall Street Journal also reports on AT&T’s efforts to improve its network to deal with iPhone users. The article notes: “In mid-December, AT&T executives set up a 100-day plan to
dramatically improve the company’s network in densely-populated cities,
according to people familiar with the plan. Since then, AT&T has
added new network spectrum to better handle traffic, repositioned
antennas to improve reception in office towers and wired more
neighborhood cell towers with faster connections.” And he reports that it is not just AT&T making changes; Apple has been as well: “Apple rejiggered how its phones communicate with AT&T’s towers. As
a result, the phones now put less of a load on the network for such
simple tasks as finding the closest tower or checking for available
text messages.” - If you subscribe to MobileMe, you will be happy to learn that Apple updated the iPhone MobileMe Gallery app this week to make it easier to see your friends’ pictures, as noted by Serenity Caldwell of Macworld.
- The iPhone may not have the most powerful camera in the world, but it can still take some pretty powerful pictures as demonstrated by Associated Press photographer David Guttenfelder’s pictures of Afghanistan. (Link via Daring Fireball)
- And finally, a company called Jailbreak Collective is selling iPhone app magnets. The website says that they are currently sold out but will have new shipments in late April. They cost $12.99 and allow you to make your refrigerator look like your iPhone. They also sell a cute app T-shirt, but the magnets are my favorite. (Link via iPhone Savior)
