The big news late last week was, of course, iPhone software 4.0, so I did not post an "In the news" segment this past Friday. Thus, today is a special Monday version of the latest iPhone-related news that has caught my eye.
- Palm Beach, Florida lawyer Christopher Hopkins wrote a free app containing the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct, plus the Southern
District guidelines and local bar rules for Broward/Fort
Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach. Click here for CLaw — Florida Rules of Professional Conduct (free):
- Today, Adobe is releasing Flash Professional CS5, software used to write Flash apps. One of the marquee features of this new version was supposed to be the ability to write an iPhone app using Flash, but late last week Apple prohibited this in its developer rules. John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote an interesting article speculating on why Apple was doing this, and according to Engadget, Steve Jobs himself seems to like what Gruber said.
- There are lots of different iPhone GPS apps out there to assist you when driving, and Engadget recently tested and rated some of the more popular ones. Note that they did not test MotionX GPS Drive, the one that I have been using.
- Dan Moren of Macworld reports that actor Justin Long says that the "Get a Mac" ads that he does with John Hodgman may be over.
Did you ever notice that all of the official Apple pictures of the iPhone display the time 9:42 and the official iPad pictures display 9:41? Have you ever wondered why? iPhone developer Jon Manning ran into Apple Senior VP Scott Forstall at an Apple Store on iPad launch day and asked him. To get the thrilling answer, read Manning's blog entry, and then read Harry McCracken's article on Technologizer for the rest of the story.
- I always enjoy reading stories of people using MobileMe to track down a stolen iPhone, and C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle has a new one. Unfortunately, he also reports that iPhone crime is very frequent in San Francisco, and he quotes San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Brian Buckelew as saying: "Probably half the robberies in the city are iPhones. Some days there are three iPhone robberies on the court calendar.''
- Last year, I reviewed Gogo, a Wi-Fi service that you can use with your iPhone on many airplanes. If you travel often, you may be interested in this Electronista article which notes that you can now get a $35 per month unlimited plan that works on all Gogo flights, even services offered on different airlines.
- Marco Tabini of Macworld reports that the iPhone was easily the winner of the 2010 J.D. Power smarphone satisfaction survey.
- The Week has created a list of "The 10 Stupidest Apple Apps Ever."
- The iPad continues to dominate the news, and here are a few iPad stories that I think are worth reading. First. TUAW reports that someone placed an iPad for sale on eBay for $5,000 with the provision that the seller would personally deliver the iPad to any international airport in the world on April 3, the day that the iPad came out. Apparently the offer appealed to someone who doesn't live in the U.S. but wanted an iPad on Day 1, as the eBay listing shows that the item was sold for $5,000. The TUAW article also reports that someone else in the UK reportedly spent $5,500 for an iPad.
- Dan Frakes of Macworld has an excellent post on how the iPad works with existing accessories that were made for the iPhone or iPod.
- Attorney David Shulman writes about the use of the iPad by lawyers.
- iPad Notebook is a blog about the iPad by lawyer Justin Kahn.
- Dr. Joel Topf speculates that the iPad may be the "next great thing" that Steve Jobs first spoke about in 1996.
- PC World stress tested the iPad and found it to be rather strong. You can damage it by dropping it or getting it wet, but not by scratching it. "Its well-coated screen is literally scratch-proof: We couldn’t produce any scratches on the display even when we tried to etch it with a nail; you definitely won’t need to buy one of those stick-on screen protectors. The glass did start showing signs of physical damage after a couple of drops onto concrete. But even in those extreme circumstances, the screen cracked only after we dropped the iPad face-down onto the pavement."
- Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times describes some of the best iPad apps.
- John Gruber of Daring Fireball has an excellent review of the iPad.
- And finally, Blendtec answers the question, will the iPad blend:
