Month: July 2010

I have been using an iPhone 4 for almost two weeks, and the only problem I have had with it was that every once in a while during the first few days — when I was in the middle of doing something else — I would suddenly get an error message on the screen saying “No SIM card installed.”  The error was odd because it never happened when I was actively using the AT&T network, although I’m sure that my iPhone was communicating with AT&T towers in the background.  One of the times that it happened, I snapped a picture of it so that I could post it here:

 

Whenever this happened, if I restarted my iPhone (hold down the button at the top for a few seconds, slide to power off, then press the button at the top to turn the iPhone on again), the iPhone would again see the AT&T network and not display the SIM card message.  Nevertheless, it was annoying to have to restart my iPhone.  At one point, I actually had to restart my brand new iPhone 4 twice during the same day.

I have seen all kinds of advice online regarding what to do in this situation.  Some people suggested returning the iPhone to an AT&T store to get a new SIM card.  Some people have suggested going to Settings –> General –> Reset –> Reset Network Settings.  A third suggestion, and the one that I used, was to use a paperclip to eject the SIM tray on the side of the iPhone 4, take out the SIM card, put it back in again, and then replace the SIM tray.  After doing that, I have now gone over a week since without seeing the error message again … long enough for me to decide to post here that this was a fix that worked for me, at least so far.

I was surprised to see that this is not an issue unique to the iPhone 4.  People have been complaining online for years about seeing the same message on the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 3G.  I had just never heard about it before.  And the problem isn’t even unique to the iPhone; there are lots of posts on the Internet with people making the same complaint about other phones that use SIM cards.

I have also seen a few posts that suggest that the problem is that there is dirt or a smudge on the SIM card.  Thus, if the problem does happen to me again, I’ll try to gently wipe off the SIM card with a lint free cloth before I return it.  Maybe there was a speck of dust on mine and the simple act of removing it and returning it knocked the dust off without me even noticing it.  (And if there were any Whos down in Who-ville on that speck of dust, I apologize for not hearing you.)  (Yes, perhaps I have been reading too many Dr. Seuss books to my kids.)

[UPDATE 8/5/10:  After several weeks of everything being fine, the problem happened to me again last week IN THE MIDDLE OF A PHONE CALL.  The call dropped, and I thought that maybe I just lost a 3G signal — something that doesn’t happen to me very often, but at the time I was in another city and wasn’t paying attention to the strength of the 3G signal in that area.  But then I looked at the iPhone and saw the dreaded No SIM message.  Arggh!  So on Friday, July 30, I visited my local AT&T store, and the helpful salesperson said that the best fix is to replace the SIM card, which he did quickly.  So far I’ve been using this new SIM card for about a week without any problems, but I’m keeping an eye on this.  I’ll keep you posted on my experiences.]

[UPDATE 8/23/10:  See this post.]

Hopefully this problem will never happen to any of you, but if it does, now you know some possible solutions.

I didn’t run across a huge number of iPhone-related news stories this week that I considered worth sharing here, but these struck me as interesting:

• One of the limitations of FaceTime is that it currently only works with Wi-Fi.  However, the Fring app recently added two-way video calling, and it works over 3G.  Click here for Fring (free): 

  

• Miguel Helft of the New York Times reports that Apple banished a developer from the App Store after he somehow accessed the accounts of users and then used those accounts to purchase book apps that the developer was selling on the App Store, resulting in those books shooting to the top of the top seller list in the book category.  Tsk tsk.
• iSmashPhone lists some top iPhone productivity apps.  There are some good ones on that list.
• Minneapolis attorney Randall Ryder opines on the Lawyerist site that lawyers do not need the iPhone 4 because there are problems with reception and because the extra features do not justify the price.  I am waiting to use my iPhone 4 a little longer before I write my review, but let me give you a preview:  Ryder is wrong.
• Ryan Davis of Gizmodo writes an amusing story about leaving his new iPhone 4 on the roof of his car.
• MacYourself describes four good but not-so-obvious features of iOS4:  (1) the screen orientation lock, (2) the ability to display a character count in text messages, (3) using letters in addition to numbers in the password to unlock your iPhone and (4) the ability to detect tracking numbers.
• Tony Bradley of PC World writes about the increasing use of iPads at large companies.
• Earlier this week I wrote about the new Fastcase app.  Unfortunately, the app is still not available in the App Store.  However, 3 Geeks and a Law Blog has some screenshots of the app on an iPad.
• Josh Barrett of Tablet Legal reviews the different word processors available for the iPad and analyzes which ones have the best MS Word compatibility.  Like Barrett, I wish we had a way to handle track changes in an iPhone/iPad app.
• And finally, here is a cute cartoon on what might be a typical reaction to a new iPhone 4 (via Gizmodo):

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

I never thought I would review a flashlight app on this website.  I don’t mean to imply that an iPhone isn’t useful as a flashlight.  For as long as I’ve had an iPhone — and even before that when I had a Palm Treo — I’ve occasionally used the screen of my phone as a flashlight.  For example, if I find myself walking upstairs in the dark at night, I may turn on my iPhone to make sure that there are no children’s toys that I might trip over.  Nevertheless, I’ve always thought that it was a little silly to pay for a flashlight
app considering that most any app will light up your iPhone screen
enough to provide some light in the dark.  If the iPhone doesn’t seem bright enough, just tap an app like Mail or the Calendar that has a lot of white space.

But with the iPhone 4, there is finally a real reason for a flashlight app.  The LED light that provides a flash for the camera provides much more light than the iPhone screen, even if your brightness is turned all the way up.  Thus, having an app that turns on the light quickly can be quite useful.

The iPhone 4 has not been out very long, but we already have a ton of flashlight apps, many of which cost $0.99.  I haven’t tested any of them because there is an app called LED Light for iPhone 4 Free that does the job just fine and, as its title suggests, is free.

The app could not be more simple.  Start the app and you see a button.  Touch the button and the LED light comes on.  At that point, I recommend that you just leave the button in the on position.  Every time you exit the app the LED light goes off, and every time you return to the app the LED light comes back on.

  
 

If for some reason you have the need for a flashing light — a strobe light — just tap the button at the bottom.  A slider comes up so that you can control the speed of the strobe effect.

 

Using the flash for a long period of time surely wears down the battery, but I suspect that when you use an app like this as a flashlight, you are typically just using it for a minute or less.  If you plan to use the app as a strobe light for your next disco party, consider plugging in your iPhone first.

By the way, this is one of the first apps that I’ve used that has Apple’s new iAds in it.  If you are curious to see how an iAd works, that is another reason to download this app.  And I cannot think of a better app for an iAd.  It makes little difference what is on the screen while you are using this app — all that really matters is that the LED light goes on — so why not stick an iAd in there.  It certainly doesn’t get in the way.

[UPDATE:  MacRumors reports that Jason Ting, the developer of LED Light for iPhone 4 Free, made $1,372 from iAds revenue in just the first day that his app was available.  Apparently, giving away a free app can be quite profitable!  To be fair, though, this may just be a lot of people who, like me, saw this app as an opportunity to try out iAds for the first time.  As more and more apps have iAds and thus the novelty to users wears off, revenue to developers may decrease.]

As I noted above, we already have several apps in the App Store that do the same thing.  In fact, before I downloaded this one, I downloaded the free app LED Torch Flashlight and it works very similar to LED Light for iPhone 4 Free except that it lacks the strobe light function.  Even though I doubt I will use that function very often, why not get one that has that feature just in case you want it.  Having said that, I’m sure that we will soon see many more LED flashlight apps for the iPhone 4 adding lots of additional features.  Perhaps we will see one that integrates with Facebook, posting a status update every time you use the app.  “My light is now on.”  “My light is now off.”  Maybe there is some feature to be added to a flashlight app that will actually have some utility, but for now the LED Light for iPhone 4 Free app seems to do everything I would want.  And the price is right.

If you own an iPhone 4, I think that you will find this app useful from time to time.

Click here to get LED Light for iPhone 4 Free (free): 

There are lots of great stories about people finding their lost iPhone by using the Find My iPhone feature available to subscribers of MobileMe — sometimes because the iPhone is stolen, but often just because a person cannot remember where they left it.  As useful as Find my iPhone is, be aware that if you find yourself in a tall building, the feature doesn’t work very well.

For example, my law office is on the 46th floor of One Shell Square.  When it was built in 1972 it was the tallest building in the entire Southeast, and it remains the tallest building in New Orleans.  From my office, I have a great view of the city and the Mississippi River, but that high up I don’t have great AT&T reception (although it is much improved with the iPhone 4).  Here is a view of the Mississippi River and the Warehouse District in New Orleans, taken from my office using an iPhone 4 (click to see the full size, original file):

 

The Find My iPhone feature, like the iPhone Maps app, uses GPS and cell tower triangulation to determine where you are located, but I suspect that it presumes that you are at ground level because whenever I am on the 46th floor of One Shell Square or any other tall office building, I find that Find My iPhone is really off.  For example, here are two recent readings when I was sitting at my desk in my office.  My office building is located where I placed a green rectangle with arrows pointing to it, but my iPhone thinks that I am located many blocks away.  In the first picture (using Maps), it thinks my iPhone is close to where the New Orleans Convention Center is located.  If I didn’t know better, looking at this map I’d think that someone in town for a convention had stolen my iPhone.  In the second picture, taken a different day (using the Find my iPhone app), my iPhone is supposedly on the other side of the Superdome from my office.

  
 

If you subscribe to MobileMe and you lose your iPhone, by all means use Find My iPhone to try to locate it.  But just keep in mind that if you lost your iPhone on the upper floors of a skyscraper, you can’t trust the Find My iPhone map.

Click here to get MobileMe discounted at Amazon for only $89.24 (about $10 off).

Click here to get the Find My iPhone app from Apple (free): 

I’ve raved in the past about Fastcase, a must-have app for any lawyer using an iPhone.  The app allows you to search and access caselaw and statutes on your iPhone, for free.  Up until now, you could use the app on an iPad in expanded screen mode, but today Fastcase is releasing a new version of the app that runs natively on the iPad to take full advantage of the large screen and which also runs even better on the iPhone.  [UPDATE 7/17/10:  The app is finally in the App Store.]

I don’t own an iPad yet, but apps like this push me closer towards getting one.  Ed Walters, the CEO of Fastcase, sent me some images so that I could see what the app looks like on an iPad and gave me permission to share them here.  It looks like this app really shines on the iPad, with a large screen making it easy to read cases and statutes.  Click on any of these pictures for full size views:

  
 

  
 

I see that there is a slider that allows you to increase the font size to make it even easier to read cases.  It is unclear to me whether you can also change font sizes in the iPhone app; the app still isn’t live in the App Store as I type this, so I’ll have to see for myself later today.  I also love that in landscape mode on the iPad, you can see both the list of cases on the left and the case itself on the right:

Obviously, the app preserves the “Save” feature, and that is one of my favorite parts of the Fastcase app.  There are several cases that I find myself referring to frequently, and it is great to be able to essentially carry the cases around with me at all times just by saving the case to the Saved Documents area of Fastcase.

Ed tells me that if you use Fastcase on an iPhone, the changes in the new version are more subtle, things like different page navigation.  It is not yet clear to me whether this version of Fastcase is optimized for iOS 4 to provide, for example, fast app switching; again, I’ll find out later today when the app is out.

As I mentioned last Friday, the American Association of Law Libraries recently named the Fastcase app the best new product of 2009-2010 — high honors considering the other great legal research products to come out recently such as the new version of Westlaw.  The honor is well deserved.  I love having an iPhone with me in court because I know that I can always use Fastcase to pull up any case that I need.  For those with an iPad, you now have that same ability, although with a larger screen that ability is far more compelling.

Click here for Fastcase (free): 

Last week I mentioned that you can use the Glyphboard web app to access 48 special characters, such as an Apple, that you can paste into the title of a folder.  After the article was picked up on Daring Fireball, I got a large number of comments on that post, including some pointing out that you can do a similar trick with Emoji icons.

Emoji is the Japanese word for picture characters, and in Japan, Emoji are incredibly popular for use in text messages and instant messaging.  There are tons of different Emoji images ranging from happy and sad faces to animals to flags to musical instruments, and most Emoji characters are in color.

Emoji has been a part of the iPhone since version 2.2 as an alternative keyboard, but it is typically available only to Japanese iPhone users.  (Indeed, I remember reading way back when that few Japanese customers would consider buying a smartphone that lacked Emoji, so Apple essentially had to add the feature for that market.)  Nevertheless, it is possible for iPhone owners outside of Japan using iOS 4 to enable Emoji just by downloading a free app and restarting your iPhone.  This does not require jailbreaking your iPhone.  Sebastien at the iPhone Download Blog has a great post on how to enable Emoji on your iPhone running iOS 4, so rather than repeat the steps here I’ll just refer you to his article.

Once you have turned on the Emoji keyboard on your iPhone, you can just switch to that keyboard and select a picture character to use in the title of a folder using the same steps that I outlined last week.  In fact, it’s even easier because you don’t have to copy from one location and them paste into a folder name; just enable the Emoji keyboard and directly type any picture that you want.

 

Some pictures look better than others.  For example, I tried to use an umbrella for the folder containing my weather apps, but it didn’t look very good against a dark background.  So instead, I used the sun icon, and that works quite well.

 

I also like using some musical notes for various music-related apps and a color airplane for some travel apps.

I don’t plan to have picture icons for all of my folders, but so far I find that having pictures on a few folders is nice.  Indeed, it seems faster to identify a folder with a unique picture.  I suppose that is because of the old picture-thousand-words phenomenon. 

UPDATE:  I see that Alan at Art of the iPhone has a similar post today, and in his examples he puts an Emoji icon right before the text in the folder name.  That’s another interesting way to do it, so check out Alan’s post to see that approach.

I got my iPhone 4 this week, and many of you did too.  It is still an object of curiosity; I traveled to Miami this week and was stopped by many people who saw me using the iPhone 4 — both friends and strangers — to ask about it.  But I saw that I was not alone, with many other people using iPhone 4’s, and all of them had a story about what they went though to get it (difficulty in pre-ordering, waiting in line to get it, etc.).  Apple announced this past weekend that they sold almost 2 million iPhone 4’s and I suspect that they are well over 3 million by now.  Here is the iPhone news of the week that caught my attention:

• Earlier this week, I talked about the funny and well-designed Scoopertino website.  What I didn’t realize at the time is who is behind that site; check out my update to that post and you may be as surprised as I was.
• West recently updated the Black’s Law Dictionary app (which I reviewed last year) to work better with iOS 4 and the iPhone 4.  West also says that it is working on an update to the Black’s Law Dictionary app, due this Fall, which will include the content of the 9th edition of Black’s Law Dictionary (the current print edition which was released in 2009); the current version of the app contains the contents of the 8th edition of Black’s Law Dictionary (released in 2004).  Click here for Black’s Law Dictionary ($49.99): 

  

• Clayton Morris of Fox News was trying out the camera on his new iPhone 4 when he realized that he was taking pictures of a thief leaving the scene of a crime so he called the police and followed the criminal, and justice was served.
• Michael Johnston of the We Have Communicators podcast lost his iPhone when it slipped out of his pocket while he was on a ride at Six Flags.  Using the Find My iPhone feature, he tracked the iPhone’s location, learned that an employee had stolen it and sold it to someone, and with the help of the police was able to recover his phone, and once again justice was served.  Get the full story on this week’s edition of the podcast.
• Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas was the victim of a theft when someone broke into his house and stole lots of items, including his iPad.  According to KTLA news, Will.i.am used Find My iPhone to tell the police where his stash was located, and even more justice was served.
• James
  
  Galbraith of Macworld tests battery life on the iPhone 4.  In short:  it is better.
• I am a big fan of LogMeIn Ignition, an app that allows you to control a computer from your iPhone.  It is a great way to access your home computer when you are away, connect to a relative’s computer to troubleshoot, etc.  The app was updated for iOS 4 not too long ago, and a second update this week brings fast app switching support so that you can leave the app and come back within a few minutes and stay connected to the computer that you are controlling.  So now you can answer the phone, check an e-mail, or look something up in Safari without having to reconnect to the computer.  It’s a great update to an already great app.  Click here for LogMeIn Ignition ($29.99):

  

• For $9.99 a month, you can get Hulu Plus on your iPhone, allowing you to view a ton of new and old television shows.  Ben Drawbaugh of Engadget has a review.  You can download the app for free to check out some sample content and decide if you want to pay for the service.  Click here for Hulu Plus (free): 

  

• How many apps can you put on an iPhone running iOS 4?  David Pogue of the New York Time investigates.
• Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times discusses using iPhone apps to find restaurants.
• Fastcase is one of my favorite iPhone apps and a must for any lawyer using an iPhone.  The American Association of Law Libraries just named the app the New Product of the Year.  (Link via Robert Ambrogi.)  Click here for Fastcase (free): 

  

• Lawyer Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge reviews the iMovie app for the iPhone 4.  Click here for iMovie ($4.99): 

  

• Jim Dalrymple of The Loop reports that AT&T has upgraded its network in New York City.  About 4% of iPhone J.D. readers are in New York City, and if you are one of them, I’d love to hear whether you are seeing a difference.
• Jeff Gamet of The Mac Observer explains how to put a phone call on hold using an iPhone 4.
• What should you know about the iPhone 4’s improved camera?  Ted Landau of the Mac Observer wants you to know about ten things.
• If you are a current iPhone owner and upgrade to iPhone 4, will your existing iPhone accessories work?  Dan Frakes of Macworld tackles that question.
• And finally, what would it looks like to attach your iPhone 4 to a balloon and set it free?  Apparently, something like this:

Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners is one of the guys primarily responsible for the Palm Pre.  When the Palm Pre debuted, McNamee boasted to Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal that the back of the Palm Pre had a reflective surface that one could use as a mirror, stating:  “Never before has a device like this been designed for a woman.”  He got a lot of grief for that statement, but I suppose there may be times when you need a mirror and all you have with you is your phone.  For those of you contemplating buying a Palm Pre over an iPhone because of that mirror (ahem), rest assured that the iPhone 4 now has you covered.

Apple added the front-facing camera on the iPhone 4 so that you can participate in video chats using the new FaceTime software.  Nevertheless, if you ever find that you have a sudden need for a mirror, you can use that same camera to get a quick look at yourself.  Just launch the Camera app.  The screen will display an image from the camera on the back of the iPhone, but if you tap the button at the top right of the screen the Camera app will switch to the front camera.  Now you can see yourself.  Fix your hair, make sure you don’t have food stuck in your teeth, or heck, just admire yourself if you want to.  Your iPhone won’t judge you.  At least, not yet.  Who knows what Apple has planned for iPhone 5.