iPhone J.D.

In the news

It's almost Halloween!  The kids at my house are dressing up as Batman and a bumble bee this year, and it looks like we will have some great weather in New Orleans.  I hope it is a good weekend for you wherever you live.  Here is my collection of interesting iPhone stories from this week:

• Earlier this week, I wrote that Apple has once again delayed the white iPhone 4.  John Gruber wrote a hillarious story about the mysterious white iPhone 4.
• As I've written in the past, LogMeIn Ignition is one of my favorite iPhone apps.  It allows you to use an iPhone to remotely control a Mac or a PC, and it is a great way to quickly do something on your computer when you are out of the office.  Ashlee Vance of the New York Times wrote a great profile on Michael Simon, the creator of LogMeIn.
• If you are curious about Microsoft's answer to the iPhone — Windows Phone 7 — I can recommend two well-written and informative reviews.  First, David Pogue wrote a great review for the New York Times.  Second, Andy Ihnatko wrote a great review for the Chicago Sun Times.  The consensus of these and other reviews is that Microsoft created a very innovative product, but one which has a lot of shortcomings in this first version.  Of course, the same was true of the iPhone when it was first released in 2007.  As Pogue notes, it may be called Windows Phone 7, but this is clearly a 1.0 release.  Nevertheless, over time, Microsoft will improve the product and maybe a future version will be a credible alternative to the iPhone.
• Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times writes about travel apps.
• Peter Rojas of gdgt wrote an interesting article on why HP bought Palm.
• Bryan Chaffin of the Mac Observor writes about a spy thriller movie called Goldilocks shot entirely using an iPhone.  You can view the movie on YouTube or via an iPhone app.
• Whitson Gordon of Macworld explains how to create a shortcut on your Mac that makes it faster to make a Facetime call with someone.
• If you use Safari to read your GMail on your iPhone, you may have noticed an improvement to the interface this week.  As Bryan Wolfe of AppAdvice writes, the floating toolbar has been replaced by a fixed toolbar.  I find that this works much better.
• Bryan Wolfe also writes about a developer of free apps for the iPhone that is bringing in over $500,000 a month thanks to ads in apps.
• Josh Ong of AppleInsider writes about the increasing interest in selling iPads to businesses.
• Tim Chaten of AppAdvice writes about an update to Pastebot (which I reviewed here) that allows the app to run in the background, making the app much more useful.
• For those who really love the Angry Birds game, Greg Kumparak of MobileChrunch writes that plush toys will be available to purchase for Christmas.
• In case you were curious, Alexander Mooney of CNN reports that former president George Bush loves his iPad, especially the Wall Street Journal and Scrabble apps.
• And finally, this time last year I wrote about Reko Rivera and John Savio of Tampa, Florida who dressed up as what they called guyPhones.  Savio is back this year with a new version — the guyPhone 4 — and it ... well ... I'll just let the video speak for itself.  Happy Halloween!

Review: Calvetica Calendar -- alternative, fast calendar for the iPhone

I use the Calendar app on the iPhone all the time, but sometimes I find it a little cumbersome.  For example, adding an event requires several steps:  tap the plus sign, tap Title, enter the title, tap Done, Tap the time/date, enter the time/date, etc. etc.  And if you want to go back to a date many months or years in the past, you need a lot of patience.  Calvetica Calendar by Myterious Trousers, LLC is an alternative calendar for the iPhone.  As the name implies, it uses a different font — Helvetica — and it has a modern look to it.  But the real value of this app is that it gives you an alternative, often faster way to add and view events.  And because it uses the same calendar database, you can go back and forth between using this app and the built-in Calendar app.

[UPDATE:  Many have posted comments asking whether Calvetica works with Exchange, GMail, MobileMe mail, etc.  The answer is yes.  Any events that show up in your regular built-in Calendar app will also show up in Calvetica.  And any events that you add or edit in Calvetica are added to the same date database, and thus will be synced back.]

The main view of the app shows you a single month.  Dots indicate the number of events on each day.  If you use different calendars on your iPhone (I don't) the dots can be in a different color corresponding to each calendar.

One thing that I love about the calendar is that it is so fast to jump to another date.  You can easily tap on another month to jump right there.  Or you can swipe across the year to easily change years.  In the iPhone's built-in Calendar app, you have to go backwards (or forwards) one month at a time, so it takes forever to go back a few years.  In Calvetica, it just takes a few swipes and then you are there, making it easy for me to see what I was doing on a specific date several years ago.

Tap on a date and you are brought to the day view.  There are three ways to look at a date, which are toggled by the three icons at the bottom left of the day view screen.  One view shows you just the events on a day.  Another view shows you every single hour of the day from midnight to midnight.

  

But the middle of the three calendar options is the one I use the most, a view which shows you the day starting and ending at a time that you set in the Settings.  (I use 8am to 12pm.)

From the day view, it is very fast to add an entry.  Just tap next to an hour and start typing.  The default is for each entry to be an hour (a duration that you can change in the Settings).  Thus, adding an event is as simple as a single tap on an hour, typing in the event title, and then tapping done.  This is much faster than adding an event in the regular Calendar app.

If you don't want an event to start on the hour, just tap and hold on the hour and a pop-up window comes up for you to select the start time.  Note also in this next screen that there are colored dots next to each event; if you use multiple calendars and want to turn on the feature, you can have different colored dots appear next to events depending upon the calendar that corresponds to each event.  You can turn off the colored dots if you don't want them (which is my default setting).

To add an alarm to an event, just tap the alarm clark at the end of the entry.  The clock will change color to red when an alarm is set.  To edit an event that is already created, just tap on it once and you can edit the details:

  

You can also swipe your finger across an event to see a red line, from which you can tap the trash can to delete the event or tap the arrows to move the event to an earlier or later time.  The icon with a box and a check mark is used if you use multiple calendars.

 

Finally, you can turn your iPhone sideways and see a view of all of the events for the week, which is handy.

I don't know anything about the developers of this app, but they clearly have a sense of humor (as you can see from the description of the app on the iTunes App Store) and I like that they have a page on their website called "planvetica" where they tell you what features they are working on.

I am a big fan of the Calvetica app.  I purchased it after hearing good reviews on some podcasts that I listen to, and I'm glad that I did.  I still use the built-in Calendar app most of the time, but I often find myself using Calvetica when I know that it will be more efficient.  It has quickly become one of those apps that I can't imagine not having on my iPhone. 

If you want to try before you buy, there is also a free version called Calvetica Calendar - Narrow (a cute play on the font name theme).  The free version lacks some of the features of the full version such as multiple calendars, advanced options for recurring events, the three multiple views on the single day view, etc.  The free version can give you a taste of what the app is all about, but I suspect you'll just want to spend the three bucks on the full version of the app.

Click here for Calvetica Calendar ($2.99): 

Click here for Calvetica Calendar - Narrow (free): 

White iPhone 4 delayed again

The Ford Model T was introduced in 1908, and by 1918, half of all of the cars sold in America were Model T's.   As Henry Ford wrote in his biography:  "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."  The quote was a bit of an exaggeration because in some years the Model T was offered in other colors, but for the most part, Model T's were black.  Apparently, the same is true of the iPhone 4.

When the iPhone 4 was introduced on June 7, Apple announced that, just like the iPhone 3GS, it would be available in black or white.  The black models were available on June 24, and the white models were supposed to be available in July.  Then in late July, Apple announced:  "White models of Apple's new iPhone 4 have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year."  Yesterday, Apple announced another delay to Reuters, stating that the white iPhone 4 will not be available until Spring of 2011.  Apple spokesman Trudy Muller told Reuters:  "We're sorry to disappoint customers waiting for the white iPhone again."

Even though Apple has been unable to produce a white model in sufficient quantities to sell them to the general public, and even though Apple suffered through bad publicity for the iPhone 4 antenna, iPhone 4 sales have been spectacular as demonstrated by the sales figures Apple announced last week.  But I know that there have been a few people waiting for a white iPhone 4, and in light of this latest announcement, the time has definitely come to either get a black iPhone 4 now, or decide to wait until 2011.  And I suppose that anyone waiting until Spring of 2011 will seriously consider just waiting until Summer of 2011 to get next year's new iPhone model.

 

iPhone security flaw gives anyone access to Phone app

I have long recommended that all iPhone owners enable the passcode lock feature.  That way, if someone gets unauthorized access to your iPhone, that person cannot use the iPhone without your secret code.  At least, that is how it is supposed to work.

Unfortunately, a few days ago, a poster on a MacRumors forum described a security flaw that allows anyone to get limited access to your phone even if the passcode lock is enabled.  When you swipe to unlock an iPhone and then see the "Enter Passcode" screen you can tap the Emergency Call button to make an emergency call.  (That way, anyone can use your phone to dial 911.)  But instead, enter any other number (or you can even enter ###), tap the green phone button, and then immediately — right as the phone starts to dial — press the lock button on the top of the iPhone.  You will then jump into the Phone app on the iPhone, which means that you can view the call history on the phone, use the phone to call anyone that you want, look at (and even modify) the Phone favorites, etc. 

And it doesn't stop there.  You can also select a contact, tap "Share Contact," and send an e-mail from the iPhone.  You can also tap on the blue arrow next to any recent call, tap "Share Contact," choose MMS, tap the phone icon, tap Choose Existing, and then see all of the photos stored on the iPhone.  And as Ross Miller of Engadget notes, you can also "hold down the menu button to access voice control and play some locally-stored tunes while you're at it."  Thus, this security flaw exposes your phone, your contacts, your photographs, and the ability to send an e-mail from your phone.  Lovely.

You can try this out on your own iPhone to see how it works, as long as you are running iOS 4.  Apparently the flaw doesn't exist in iOS 3.  When you are done, it can be a little tricky to get things back to normal, but one solution I found is to dial any phone number, and then hang up.  That will get you back to the "Enter Passcode" screen.

I always question whether I should mention security flaws here because the last thing that I want to do is help "bad guys" figure out how to cause mischief.  But this one has already gotten a lot of publicity over the last few days, so at this point I just want to make sure that iPhone owners know about it so that they can be extra careful with their iPhones until a fix comes out.  John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes that it appears to already be fixed in the latest beta version of iOS 4.2, which comes out in November, but for the next few days or weeks, this may be something that we have to live with.

[UPDATE:  Sure enough, iOS 4.2 will be the solution.  Brian Chen of Wired got Apple to respond on the record on this issue, and an Apple spokeman said:  "We’re aware of this issue and we will deliver a fix to customers as part of the iOS 4.2 software update in November."]

Review: EvidPredicates -- cheatsheet on courtroom evidentiary foundations

Earlier this year, I reviewed Coutroom Objections, an app by Texas attorney Anthony Shorter that can be used to assist a litigator (especially a new litigator) make objections at trial.  Shorter recently released a second app called EvidPredicates which provides litigators with a cheatsheet for making sure that they have laid the correct foundation for introducing evidence at trial.  Most seasoned litigators will already know this stuff, but for the new courtroom advocate, in can be helpful to have a reminder of testimony you need to elicit from a witness to lay the foundation for moving to admit a writing, photograph, etc.

When you start the app, the top of the screen contains a scroll wheel from which you can see the key applicable rules such Best Evidence Rule, Business Records, Authentication, etc.  Select a rule to get a quick definition at the bottom.

  

At the bottom there are two other buttons.  One button brings you to an orange screen that lays out the basic foundation rules for any type of evidence.

The other button brings you to a page containing specific scenarios in which you will want to lay a foundation for admitting evidence, such as authenticating handwriting, using computer animations, etc.

  

I have three gripes with this app.  First, I found the interface cluttered and a little confusing.  Indeed, I don't see the point in always displaying a list at the top, which gives you only half a screen to list the information that the user of this app will want to see.  Second, the information provided in this app is pretty basic.  Third, the app doesn't indicate the source of the rules.  I presume this is following the Federal Rules of Evidence, but be aware that the rules of evidence do vary somewhat from state to state (although, to be fair, I suspect that most of the content of this app would apply in any American jurisdiction).

Notwithstanding these gripes, I can definitely see a young litigator blanking out on what is necessary to lay the foundation to admit an exhibit.  Having this app on an iPhone can provide a quick crutch.  Indeed, even if you only have a need for this app one time, that will be enough to justify the cost.  Thus, I can see young litigators getting this app now just so that it is on their iPhone if and when they ever need it in court.

Click here for EvidPredicates ($2.99): 

In the news

I appologize for the infrequent posts this week.  I was traveling quite a bit and didn't have much time to post.  Indeed, I actually wrote my first post this week on my iPhone while I was on a plane from Atlanta to Miami.  It was nice that the iPhone gave me the power to do that, but frankly for that many words, it would have been much easier if I had been carrying a Bluetooth keyboard.  I'll have to think about getting one.  Anyway, here are the iPhone stories from the past week that I wanted to share today:

• Horace Dediu followed up on Apple's latest quarterly earnings report by noting that 60% of Apple's sales are from products that did not even exist three years ago.  Wow.
• Earlier this week, I noted that Steve Jobs disputes the notion that Android is open and the iPhone is closed.  It sounds as if Jobs was directly responding to this New York Times article by Miguel Helft.
• Katherine Levy of MediaWeek notes that there is a new iPhone magazine about to launch in the UK called Tap!
• I've previously mentioned the great Workdays app by attorney Dan Friedlander which lets you easily calculate dates.  The app is only a buck, but if even that is too rich for your blood, there is now a free ad-supported version.  The iAd that appears at the bottom of the screen takes up one of the three areas to display sequential date calculations, so in the free version you only get two such spaces whereas the paid version gives you three, but sequential date calculations is an advanced feature that you may not use very often anyway.  Click here for Workdays ($0.99):  .  Click here for Workdays Free (free): 
• If you practice governmental relations in Louisiana, check out the free Louisiana Legislative Guide web app by going to this address on your iPhone:  www.mobilelgs.com.  In a few months, a 2011 edition will be available for purchase as an iPhone app.  (Thanks to California commercial litigator Greg Charles, who used to practice law in Louisiana, for the link.)
• I recently wrote about how much I love the iPhone game Angry Birds.  This week, the developer released a special Halloween edition of the game for the iPhone and the iPad.  You can read this Macworld article by David Dahlquist to get more info, but let's face it, all that you need to know is that it is more Angry Birds fun.  If you like the standard version of the game, this is definitely worth getting.  I immediately bought it and have been having fun blowing up pigs and pumpkins.  Click here for Angry Birds Halloween [for iPhone] ($0.99):  .  Click here for Angry Birds Halloween HD [for iPad] ($1.99): 
• And finally, what happens when four guys from Brooklyn get on a subway with their iPhones?  If the four guys are the band Atomic Tom, you get this performance.  Alan of Art of the iPhone has all of the details on the performance, which has already been viewed more than 2 million times on YouTube.

Apple brings the iPhone back to the Mac

Yesterday, Steve Jobs hosted an event at Apple's campus called "Back to the Mac."  It was obvious that the event would include a preview of Mac OS X 10.7, code named "Lion," and I had assumed that the title "Back to the Mac" just meant that after all of the attention that Apple has been paying to the iPhone and iPad, it was time to refocus attention on Mac hardware and software.  In part that was true, and Steve Jobs did emphasize yesterday that even though iPhone/iPad etc. get a lot of attention nowadays, fully a third of Apple's revenue still comes from the Mac.

But it turned out that there was another meaning to "Back to the Mac."  Jobs explained that Apple took the Mac's OS X operating system to create the iOS operating system used by the iPhone and iPad, and now Apple's plan for the next version of OS X is to take some of what was learned in developing the iOS and bring it back to OS X.  As Jobs stated:

What is the big idea, what is the philosophy behind Mac OS X Lion?  Well, that's where "Back to the Mac" comes from.  What we've done is we started with Mac OS X and we created from it a version called iOS, which we used in the iPhone.  And we invented some new things, and we've perfected it over the last several years, and it's now used in the iPad as well.  Well what we'd like to do is — we're inspired by some of those innovations in the iPad and the iPhone — we'd like to bring them back to the Mac.  And so that is what Lion is about.  Mac OS X meets the iPad.

Thus, the new version of Mac OS X, due in Summer of 2011, will include, among other things, the following features that debuted on the iPhone and iPad:

• Multi-Touch gestures.  On a notebook, you can use the trackpad.  On a desktop, you can either use the touch sensitive Magic Mouse that Apple ships with its new Macs, or you can use the Apple Magic Trackpad that the company introduced earlier this year.
• App Store.  Over 7 billion apps have been downloaded for the iPhone and iPad in the current App Store.  Apple is planning to introduce a Mac App Store that will include one-click downloads, both free and paid apps, automatic app installation and updates, and the ability to use downloaded apps on all of your personal Macs.  Unlike the other features Jobs debuted yesterday that will come out in Summer of 2011, the Mac App Store will actually be introduced by January of 2011 and will work with the current version of Mac OS X.
• App home screens.  On the iPhone, all of your apps are listed on the home screens.  Apple will bring this same idea to Mac OS X by adding a feature called Launchpad.  When brought up, your computer screen fills with app icons (and folders containing app icons) and you just click an icon to launch an app.
• Full screen apps.  Apps on the iPhone and iPad generally don't devote screen real estate to menus and only show one app at a time.  Thus, the entire screen is devoted to using the app.  Apple plans to bring this idea to programs on the Mac.  For example, yesterday released a new version of iPhoto that has a full screen mode.
• Auto save.  Everyone knows the agony of having a computer crash when it has been a while since you saved your work, so Apple has plans to integrate auto save throughout the next version of Mac OS X.
• Apps resume when launched.  Presumably this will make it faster to get back to your work.

The idea of applying the iPhone back to the Mac is not just limited to software.  Apple also introduced a new laptop computer yesterday, the new MacBook Air, that takes what Apple learned about making small and powerful iPhone and iPad devices and applies it to an impossibly thin but full featured laptop computer.

Like the iPhone and iPad, the new MacBook Air will turn on instantly, uses flash storage instead of a hard drive, and is thin and light.  And like the iPad, the new MacBook Air has great battery life.  It comes in two models, 11 inch and 13 inch, and starts at $999.

Finally, Jobs debuted a feature that most iPhone 4 users have been requesting since the iPhone 4 was launched earlier this year — the ability to use FaceTime to talk to a computer.  The new FaceTime program for the Mac allows an iPhone 4 owner to video chat with a person using a Mac and vice versa.  Right now the program is only in the beta stages, but it seems to work fine in my tests.  Hopefully Apple will bring the program to Windows as well.

I figured that Apple would introduce something yesterday that would be useful to iPhone owners, such as the new FaceTime program for the Mac.  I didn't expect Apple to so obviously seek to incorporate iPhone technology into the Mac software and hardware.  Although I have to use a PC at work, I've been a Mac user at home for over 20 years, and I am excited at the prospect of seeing some of what I love about the iPhone become a reason that I love my Mac even more.

Apple 2010 fiscal fourth quarter -- the iPhone angle

On Monday, Apple released the results for it's 2010 fiscal fourth quarter and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. As has often been the case since 2007, the iPhone dominated the discussion. But in a rare surprise, Steve Jobs decided to participate in the call himself.  (I believe that the last time that Jobs participated in one of these calls was two years ago in October of 2008, shortly before I started iPhone J.D.)  Why did Jobs appear, considering that Jobs will also be speaking on Wednesday at Apple's "Back to the Mac" event?  Perhaps Jobs wants to concentrate on the Mac on Wednesday so by participating yesterday he could say what he wanted to get off his chest about the iPhone and iPad. The only explanation offered by Jobs himself was that he couldn't help stopping by for Apple first $20 billion quarter.  Whatever the reason, these calls are always more interesting when Jobs is there.

If you want to hear the full call yourself, you can download it from iTunes or you can read the transcript provided by Seeking Alpha.  You can also read Apple's press release here.  Here are the iPhone-related highlights of the call:

• Apple had its best quarter in the history of the company with $23.3 billion in revenue.
• There are over 300,000 apps in the App Store.
• Apple sold a record 14.1 million iPhones.  The previous record, set during the first few months of calendar year 2010, was 8.75 million iPhones, so Apple beat its previous record by over 5 million iPhones.  And Apple reported considerable backlog so it could have sold even more if it could have kept up with demand.
• Many of those are sales to law firms and other companies.  Apple reported that a record number of companies are using the iPhone, including around 85% of Fortune 500 companies.
• To provide some perspective, Apple reported 91% growth in iPhone sales during a quarter when overall smartphone sales were up 64%.
• To provide even more perspective, RIM sold 12.1 million BlackBerries during the same quarter, and Jobs noted that he doesn't see RIM ever catching up to Apple's lead.
• Jobs noted that the real competition to the iPhone is Android, and while Google claims that Android is better because it is "open," Jobs said that is false. The real difference is fragmented versus integrated. Android is fragmented and apps that are written for one device won't always work on other devices which discourages app developers. With the integrated iPhone, where Apple makes the hardware and the software and there are only one or two supported versions of the iOS at one time, developers have more opportunities for sales and there is less confusion for the consumer.
• Jobs also compared Apple to Nokia:  "Our goal is to make the best devices in the world. It's not to be the biggest.  As you know, Nokia is the biggest, and we admire them for being able to ship the number of handsets that they do. But we don't aspire to be like them. They are good at being like them. We want to be like us, and we want to make the best ones. ... Nokia makes $50 handsets, and we don't know how to make a great smartphone for $50. We're not smart enough to figure that one out yet, but believe me I'll let you know, when we do."
• Jobs also discussed other iOS devices.  The iPad had an amazing quarter as well with 4.188 million sold, a total of 7.4 million sold to date. Looking ahead to the competition on the horizon, Jobs noted that a few other companies plan to release tablets with 7 inch screens (versus the 10 inch screen on the iPad), but Apple believes that is too small. When people want a smaller screen they opt for a smartphone. (I agree with this 100%.). Jobs also noted that there are already over 35,000 apps designed for the iPad, which makes it even harder for competitors to catch up.
• Speaking of the iPad, Jobs noted that while Apple hasn't been pushing business sales, business customers are buying the iPad in droves. (This is certainly happening in the legal arena.)  Jobs stated:  "We haven't pushed it real hard in business, and it's being grabbed out of our hands. And I talk to people everyday in all kinds of businesses that are using iPads, all the way from Boards of Directors that are shipping iPads around instead of board books, down to nurses and doctors in hospitals and other large and small businesses."
• The Apple TV (which runs a version of the iOS) has had amazing initial sales, with over 250,000 sold so far. Jobs noted that when iOS 4.2 comes out next month with the new AirPlay feature that let's you play iPhone video on an Apple TV, the Apple TV will become an even better product. (Again, I agree, and I cannot wait to see what becomes of this feature.)

So in short, it was a record quarter for Apple as a whole, and a record quarter for the iPhone.  Surely at some point Apple will hit a peak, but for now sales just keep getting better and better.

In the news

Amidst all of the speculation over whether the iPhone is coming to Verizon in 2011, yesterday Verizon announced that it will be selling an iOS device starting October 28.  No, not the iPhone, but the Wi-Fi version of the iPad bundled with a Verizon MiFi 2200 mobile hotspot.  (Click here for report from Eric Slivka of MacRumors.com.)  Upside: you can also use the hotspot with your computer, your iPhone, etc. Downside: you have one more thing you need to remember to carry around and charge.  The bundled prices are the same as the prices of the 3G versions of the iPad.  Verizon will also just sell you just an iPad if you don't want a MiFi or already own one.  You need a monthly contract for the MiFi to work on Verizon, and Verizon will offer a monthly 1GB data plan priced at $20 (or $35 for 3GB, $50 for 5GB).  AT&T stores will also start selling the iPad on the 28th (both the Wi-Fi versions and the 3G versions), and their iPad data plans remain $15 a month for 250MB or $25 a month for 2GB.  But the big news here is that there is now officially a relationship between Apple and Verizon:  another sign that the iPhone may be coming to Verizon in the near future.  Other news of the week:

• If Verizon is going to have the iPhone, Spencer Ante of the Wall Street Journal writes that Verizon's experience with Android has prepared the company to handle the heavy data traffic that would come with the iPhone.
• Bryan Wolfe of AppAdvice writes about the latest update to the Amazon iPhone app.  The app has long had the ability to take a picture of a book and then tell you how much the book costs on Amazon with the option to order it.  Now the app adds the ability to scan a barcode and show you the price.  Sounds like a great way to save some money — and really annoy the local store where you are scanning barcodes.
• Apple's stock price rose to over $300 this week for the first time in the history of the company, as reported at TUAW and elsewhere.  AAPL started this year at $200.
• Apple announced yesterday that it is holding a "Back to the Mac" event on Wednesday, October 20.  Presumably the focus will be the next version of the Mac operating system, version 10.7 "Lion".  I hope we also see an update to the iLife apps, and perhaps some part of the announcements will relate to iPhone owners, such as adding FaceTime to iChat.  For an insightful and humorous take on the upcoming announcement, read this column by Andy Ihnatko.
• Sam's Club will soon be selling the iPhone and iPad, according to Charles Starrett of iLounge.  No word yet on whether you need to buy a case of them at a time.
• If you set a 9am appointment when you are in the Central Time Zone, do you want it to automaticaly shift to 10am while you are in the Eastern Time Zone?  David Pogue of the New York Times explains the Time Zone Support feature of the iPhone Calendar.
• Eric Slivka of MacRumors.com writes that Apple now has a registered trademark on the phrase "There's an app for that."
• And finally, how many times do you find your self wondering which yacht to purchase and wishing that there was a way that your iPhone could help?  Well now, there's an app for tha.... um, can I say that anymore without paying Apple?  Rather than say anything, I'll just let this video from Sunseeker explain it for me:

Bloomberg Game Changers: Steve Jobs

Bloomberg television has a series called Bloomberg Game Changers that profiles "today's most influential leaders in technology, finance, politics and culture."  The first episode was a profile of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and you can view it online here.  I watched it earlier this week, and it was pretty good.

Tonight, the second episode of the series profiles Steve Jobs.  According to a report by Dave Caolo of TUAW, it features interviews from many significant players in Apple history including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, former Apple CEO John Scully, tech columnist Robert X. Cringley and former Apple Chief Evangelist Guy Kawasaki.

The show appears at 8 Central / 9 Eastern tonight.  If you use DirecTV like I do, it is channel 353.  You can use the free DirecTV app to set your DVR.  Here is a preview of the show:

Google Mobile app adds Google Goggles

The Google Mobile app was the very first iPhone app that I reviewed on iPhone J.D. back in 2008.  That app includes the useful feature of letting you use your voice to dictate your search terms and then have a search run.  Very fast, very effective. 

The latest update to Google Mobile adds the very cool Google Goggles feature.  Take a picture of an object, and then Google does a pretty good job of figuring out what the object is and runs a search based on the picture.  It works best with distinctive objects such as a landmark, a book cover, an ISBN number, a wine label, a DVD cover, etc.  It can also read text. 

Google put together this great video to show you how it works and why you would find this feature useful. 

In my tests, when the feature works, it works really great.  Google Mobile is free, so if you don't already have it, get it now so that you can try out this cool new feature. 

Click here for Google Mobile (free): 

Windows Phone 7

When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, with its unique touch input method and beautifully designed interface, Apple revolutionized the cell phone industry.  The first year's model had some shortcomings, but by 2008 when the iPhone 3G added features such as third party applications and integration with Microsoft Exchange, there was nothing else close.

In January of 2009, I was really impressed when Palm introduced the Palm Pre.  But for whatever reason, that phone has not found many buyers.  I can only think of two people I know who use a Palm Pre, and one of them works for HP (the company that now owns Palm).  Since then, Google's Android operating system has come on strong, and RIM has at least tried to add some improvements to the BlackBerry.

But I've really been waiting to see what Microsoft would add to this space.  Microsoft has a history of devoting a lot of resources to new products and, eventually, getting it right.  The first version may have some shortcomings, but give the company time and subsequent versions get better and better.  (See, e.g., Windows, Internet Explorer, XBox, etc.)

We've seen sneak peaks for a while now, but yesterday Microsoft officially unveiled Windows Phone 7, the company's next generation smartphone.  From the demos that I have seen and the reviews that I have read, it looks like Microsoft has a credible product here.  The interface is unique for a smartphone (although it clearly has roots in the Zune, Microsoft's ill-fated answer to the iPod) and much like Android, there are several different manufacturers offering different takes on the operating system. 

Will this end up like the Palm Pre (or the Zune) — a lot of splash at first, but few sales?  I don't think so.  Some people ask whether Windows Phone 7 will "beat" the iPhone.  I don't think that is possible any time soon — Apple has such a head start with third party apps, the iTunes/iPod music environment, and Apple's expertise in user interface design — but I also don't think that is right question.  I just hope that Microsoft has a viable alternative to the iPhone so that we have competition and innovation.

If you want to get a sense of what the Windows Phone 7 interface looks like, check out this page on the Microsoft website.  Also, for a good perspective on the new smartphone operating system, I recommend this article by Harry McCracken in Technologizer.  And Nick Bilton of the New York Times has a good overview on yesterday's announcements.

New Take Control books for the iPhone

I'm a big fan of the Take Control series of electronic books, published by Adam and Tonya Engst, the folks who run the excellent and long-running Macintosh newsletter TidBITS.  Take Control books are published electronically as PDF files, which means that there is very little delay between when the book is finished and when it is published.  They include full color photographs, useful sidebar descriptions of concepts discussed in the main text, and lots of hyperlinks to make it easy to jump to one part of a book that is referenced in another part of a book.

Over the last few weeks, several new iPhone-related Take Control books were released.  I was given free copies for review purposes, and I enjoyed reading them.  Here are the product descriptions for these three books:

Take Control of iPhone Basics, iOS 4 Edition ($10.00)

Learn core iPhone skills with former Apple writer Karen G. Anderson, who helps you decide which iPhone and accessories to buy, understand power management, set everything up nicely (including transferring data from a computer), find your way around, and use the apps effectively.

Take Control of Mail on the iPhone and iPod touch, iOS 4 Edition ($10.00)

Need real-world advice about using the Mail app on your iPhone or iPod touch? Email expert Joe Kissell explains how to devise an effective mobile strategy, plus how to configure accounts and the best ways to receive, send, read, and file your email. You'll also find troubleshooting help.

Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ ($10.00)

Find answers to all your iTunes questions! In this FAQ-style ebook, iTunes expert Kirk McElhearn explains importing, tagging, organizing, playing, sharing, and more so you can get the most out of your audio, video, and book collections in iTunes 10. You'll also learn the best way for you to transfer media to your iPad, iPhone, or iPod.

The first book, Take Control of iPhone Basics, is my favorite of the three.  If you (or someone you know) is new to the iPhone, this is a fabulous resource that will get someone up to speed. And it is updated for the latest iOS 4, unlike the physical books on the shelf of any bookstore right now.  If you are an advanced iPhone user, you will get less out of the book, although I did run across quite a few useful tips that I either never knew or that I had forgotten about.

If you use the links below to purchase any of these books, a small percentage of the sale goes to iPhone J.D. to help offset the cost of running this site.

Click here for Take Control of iPhone Basics, iOS 4 Edition

Click here for Take Control of Mail on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch

Click here for Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ

In the news

It can be fun to speculate on what is coming in the future, and I do that from time to time, but I try to stay away from reporting rumors on iPhone J.D. because they are so often very wrong.  And if there is one topic that has been the topic of non-stop rumors since the iPhone was first released in 2007, it is the topic of the iPhone coming to Verizon.  As Jenna Wortham of the New York Times wrote yesterday, "By now, the rumors of a Verizon iPhone are as common (and tired) as Lindsay Lohan’s repeated stints in jail."  Nevertheless, one of the top questions that I am asked by people thinking about buying an iPhone is whether the iPhone will come to Verizon in the near future, so I know that there is great interest in getting hard facts on this topic.  That is why I reported last month that AT&T is taking steps that indicate that AT&T thinks that the iPhone is about to come to Verizon.  And that's why I decided to mention today that the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the iPhone will be on Verizon in the first quarter of 2011.  The WSJ report is based on unnamed sources, but that paper has a good reputation for vetting stories so there may well be something to this one.  [UPDATE:  The New York Times is now reporting the same thing.]  And now for the other iPhone news of note this week:

• Since I'm talking about stories based on anonymous sources today anyway, I might as well report on this one as well.  Ryan Block of GDGT reports that he has been told by Apple insiders that the glass on the iPhone 4 is especially prone to scratching and then breaking when slipped into a tight case.  In other words, you think that you are protecting your iPhone by using a case, and instead the case causes it to break.  It will be interesting to see what comes of this story.
• Ryan Block's partner at GDGT, Peter Rojas, wrote an interesting article on how Apple was smart to let AT&T provide the network for the iPhone instead of Apple starting its own phone network.
• The free Netflix iPhone app recently added a video out feature.  Thus, you can stream a Netflix movie or TV show to your iPhone, plug your iPhone into your TV, and then watch streaming video on your big screen TV.  The iPhone acts as your set top box.  Of course, for this to work, you need the cable that connects your iPhone to a TV.  Apple has a $50 option, but Alan at Art of the iPhone describes some of the cheaper options.  Keep in mind, though, that instead of spending upwards of $50 on cables, you can spend $100 on an Apple TV, and when iOS 4.2 comes out next month you are supposed to be able to wirelessly stream from your iPhone to the Apple TV — plus get all of the other advantages of an Apple TV. 
• Speaking of the Apple TV, Jesse David Hollington of iLounge describes 15 lesser known features.
• Harry McCracken writes for Time about the differences between the iPhone and phones that use Google's Android operating system.
• Actor Tony Curtis died recently, and Oskar Garcia writes for MSNBC that Curtis loved his iPhone so much that he asked to be burried with it.
• Jeff Gamet writes for the Mac Observer that AT&T will be adding cell phone coverage to New York City's underground subway stations.
• Logan Kugler of Computerworld recommends 10 iPhone apps for business collaboration.
• And finally, New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson shared this video with me showing off one of the most bizarre iPhone chargers that I could possibly imagine.  I'm still trying to decide whether I should tell Svenson "thank you" or "yuck" for sharing this one with me.  So I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you don't care for this one, direct all hate mail to Svenson.  (Via Boing Boing.)

iPhone ad touts Retina display

I love my iPhone 4, and perhaps my favorite new feature is the high pixel density, a feature that Apple calls the Retina display.  It vastly improves the iPhone experience whether you are reading text, looking at a picture, surfing the Internet or playing a game.  Apple unveiled a new commercial for the iPhone 4 this week which touts the benefits of the display.  Here it is:

Father and son launch iPhone into space

As I think back to all of the fun things that my father and I did together when I was a kid, numerous Cub Scout activities come to mind such as the Pinewood Derby, but one particular favorite was launching model rockets.  I remember wishing that there was a way that my rocket could go all the way up into space.

Fast forward about 30 years and Luke Geissbühler of Brooklyn, NY, who works by day as a Director of Photography on films, worked with his seven year old son Max — and other friends in a group he founded called the Brooklyn Space Program — to launch a homemade spacecraft all the way into the upper stratosphere.  The contraption he built would need to be able to survive 100 mph winds, extreme cold temperatures, and a drop from 19 miles high at over 150 mph.  It took eight months to design, but less than $500 to build.  And it worked.  I realize that this is the little boy in me talking, but oh-my-goodness what an an amazing father-son project!

How did he build it?  He used a weather balloon to lift his 1.5 lb. spacecraft and a parachute to help it fall back to Earth.  The spacecraft carried a GoPro Hero HD camera to record the flight.  To keep track of the flight, he put inside the spacecraft an old iPhone 3G (that already had a cracked screen, donated by a friend) running the GPS Tracker app.  [Click here for GPS Tracker (free):  ]  The GPS Tracker app sends information such as latitude, longitude, speed, and a timestamp every five seconds to the free InstaMapper website.  Thus, during the flight, Geissbühler just had to view a page on the InstaMapper website to continuously monitor the iPhone as it ascended and descended and to locate the iPhone after it landed (in a tree).  (Actually, the GPS could only pick up satellites below 50,000 feet, so for the second half of the flight he had to do some complex modeling to estimate the coordinates).

If it looks like something you might want to try, click here to learn of Geissbühler's plans to put together a how-to book.  Click here for a New York Daily News story with quotes from Geissbühler.  And best of all, here is the video:

Review: BARBRI iPhone app -- study for the bar exam on your iPhone

In June of this year, 16 years after I graduated from law school and took the Louisiana bar exam, I decided to take the Florida bar exam to help a client with some cases in the Sunshine State.  I wanted to take a bar review course, but I wasn't going to be able to attend live lectures in Florida, so I decided to enroll in BARBRI and use the BARBRI iPhone app.  The BARBRI course is $3,245, and for an extra $295 you can purchase BARBRI Mobile.  (If you don't own an iOS device, the company will loan you an iPod touch in exchange for a $200 refundable deposit.)  Note that the app itself is a free download from the App Store, but except for one feature noted below, you can't use the app unless you have paid for the BARBRI Mobile option as a part of your BARBRI course.

I found the app to be very useful, and I thought it would be interesting to write about the experience here, not only for anyone out there who is contemplating taking a bar exam (I know that a lot of law students read iPhone J.D.), but also for any attorneys who have been out of law school for a while and are curious about how technology has changed the way that people can study for a bar exam.

1. Lectures

BARBRI is known for having good lecturers, and for the most part I was very happy with the people who taught the course, especially people who taught the six multistate bar exam (MBE) subjects.  To watch a lecture on your iPhone, you select the lectures button at the bottom and you will see the available courses.  Each lecture is broken up into one hour segments, so for example to learn Constitutional Law there are 3 one-hour segments for Con Law I and 3 one-hour segments for Con Law II.

The lectures are not located in the app itself;  you download each lecture from within the app, either in video or audio format.  I downloaded all of mine in video format, even though sometimes I would not pay attention to the screen and just listen using my headphones.  After you have heard a lecture, it makes sense to delete it from your iPhone to save space, but you can keep it there if you think that you may want to listen to part of it again, or you can redownload a lecture that you have already heard.  Here is Prof. David Epstein of S.M.U. (an excellent lecturer) teaching Contracts and Sales on my iPhone:

Watching the video on the iPhone works exactly like watching any other video.  I found it useful that you could watch a lecture but easily pause if you need to take a break or easily go back if you want to listen to something again — things that you could not do if you were sitting in a classroom.  And obviously, unlike a classroom lecture, you can watch these lectures at your own pace, at whatever time or place that you want.

Listening to the BARBRI lectures on my iPhone worked great.  I would typically prop up my iPhone on a table and plug it in to my external speakers (I have a Bose SoundDock Portable) and sit at the table with the handouts and follow along with a lecture, but sometimes I would slip the iPhone into my shirt pocket and just listen to a lecture on my iPhone.  Only rarely was it necessary to see the teachers — very few used a board or other visuals — but I usually found it more engaging to watch a person while they spoke.

2. Practice Questions

When you enroll in BARBRI, you receive well over a dozen books, many of which contain practice questions and practice tests.  Because the actual MBE is a written test, it makes sense to take many of your practice exams using paper just to get into the habit of using a pencil, but I found it very useful to also do practice questions on the iPhone. You choose to answer questions by subject either with or without a timer, or you can take a 30 minute practice exam with questions in a mixed order from all three subjects.

When you are taking test questions the iPhone displays the question in the top half of the screen (you often need to scroll to see all of the question) and the four possible answers in the bottom half of the screen, and you simply tap the one that you think is correct.  Instantly, you will see whether you got the question right or wrong, the right answer has an explanation of why it is right, and every wrong answer has an explanation of why it is wrong.  (If you take a 30 minute practice exam, you wait until the end to see the answers.)  When you are reviewing an answer that you know you are going to want to look at again, tap the "Review" switch at the top right to on.  That way, over time, you can build up a set of questions that you have previously indicated you want to revisit, a good way to re-test yourself on the topics that you difficulty with on first pass.  For me, this system worked really well.  It was a fast-paced way to do practice questions, immediatley learn the right answer, and then, later on, go back to the questions that gave me trouble the first time.

  

The explanations of why answers are right or wrong include hyperlinks (the letters CMR) to an outline of the entire subject (the Conviser condensed outline).  I found this very helpful because you can quickly see the correct answer and then remind yourself of the principle of law and how it fits in to the body of law as a whole.

  

The app keeps track of how many you got right or wrong for all of the questions that you tried within each subject matter.  If you are doing well enough to pass the MBE, you see a green indicator for a subject.  If not, you see red.  Here is what my statistics looked like early on in my studying, at a time when you can see that I had much more studying to do, especially in Property.  (Rule Against Perpetuities -- arrggh!!!)

The statistics go even deeper.  In addition to telling you your overall percentage in a subject, the app can also show you how you are doing on the sub-topics within each major subject to help point you to the parts of the outline that require more attention.  Additionally, if you are feeling competitive, you can even see how you are doing compared to all of the other people doing the practice questions, with results updated every night.

  

3. Mini Reviews

I mentioned before that within answers to questions you can see links to outlines of each subject area.  You can also tap the Mini Reviews button at the bottom of the screen at any time to review the Conviser condensed outline for each of the MBE subjects.

4. BARBRI Challenge

Finally, the app includes a "game" called the BARBRI Challenge.  Anyone can download the BARBRI app for free and play the game, even people not enrolled in BARBRI.  You register and tell the app which law school you attend (or attended), and then the app gives you 10 random questions across all subject matters and gives you 15 minutes to answer.  Read the question and tap an answer, and the app plays a buzzer sound if you got the answer wrong or a ding if you got the answer right and then brings you to the next question.  (Unlike the main test questions within the app, in this game the app does not tell you why an answer is right or wrong.)  Once you answer all of the questions you see your score. You can take as many tests as you want and over time you can see how you rank against other players, how your school ranks against other schools, and leaderboards with the top usernames from your law school and the top usernames from all law schools.

  

I think it is nice that BARBRI tried to take the gruelling task of studying for the bar exam and turn it into something competitive and, arguably, fun.

[UPDATE 10/7/10:  BARBRI updated this app to support iPhone 4 multitasking.]

Conclusion

There is nothing enjoyable about studying for a bar exam, but if you have to do it, the BARBRI iPhone app is very useful.  It makes it easy to attend classes on your own schedule, it provides you with a way to do practice questions no matter where you go, and it includes other useful features such as an electronic version of the Conviser mini-outlines and the BARBRI Challenge game.  The app doesn't take the place of the books — for example, the test questions in the app are just for the MBE so you still need the books for state-specific topics — but it is a useful supplement. 

Considering how expensive BARBRI costs, it is a shame that they don't just give you the iPhone app for free.  BARBRI also has a computer program called StudySmart that is similar to the iPhone app and I am fairly certain that it does not cost extra; I didn't use it so I cannot say much about it.

I suppose that the proof is in the pudding, and in my case, using this app helped me to get scores on the MBE and Florida-specific portions of the bar exam that were well in excess of what was necessary to pass the bar.  Would I have done as well without the iPhone app?  Who knows ... and I never want to have to find out!

Click here for BARBRI (free): 

Easy way to print from your iPhone

Maryland attorney Charles Jannace passed along to me an intersting tip that I wanted to share here.  If you use DropBox, Amit Agarwal explained on his Digital Inspiration blog that you can configure a DropBox folder on your computer so that whenever a file appears in that folder, the computer prints the file.  Thus, on your iPhone, you can simply save a file to a DropBox folder (which a huge number of apps can do) and your computer will instantly print the file.  Neat trick.

Next month, Apple will release iOS 4.2, and it will give iPhones (and iPads and iPod touch devices) a built-in ability to print.  AppleInsider provides a sneak peak of this function, but note that the AppleInsider article is based on a beta version of iOS 4.2 so this feature could change before the final version is released in a few weeks.

In the news

Apple started shipping the new version of the Apple TV this week.  The reveiws have been very positive, although people want more conent; right now, you can only rent TV shows from Fox, ABC, and the BBC.  I mention the Apple TV here because once iOS 4.2 comes out next month with the new AirPlay feature, the door will be opened to taking content on your iPhone and sending it to a large screen TV with an Apple TV attached.  As third party developers start to use AirPlay, I think that the Apple TV has the potential to be an awesome iPhone accessory, and at only $99 the price is right.  If you want more information, I recommend that you read the reviews by Macworld, Engadget, PC Magazine and iLounge.

•  David Pogue of the New York Times posted an updated review of Line2, an iPhone app that gives you a second phone line with unlimited text messages for only $10 a month.
• David Pogue also reviews Square, a free hardware add-on that turns your iPhone in into a device that accepts credit cards, making it easier for you to accept payments from others.
• Josh Barrett of Tablet Legal reviews Good Reader 3.0 for the iPad.  The app now supports PDF annotations.
• TiPb writes about getting a broken iPhone replaced at an Apple Store for free even for out-of-warranty problems.  Bottom line:  if something is wrong with your iPhone, even if it was your fault, it is worth it to visit an Apple Store and have a polite chat with the Genius Bar.  There is a chance they will replace your unit even if they are under no obligation to do so.
• Looking for an expensive iPhone accessory?  Then check out the new Bose VideoWave, a 46 inch flat screen TV with 16 Bose speakers integrated into the TV and an integrated iPhone dock, all for only $5,350.  iPodNN has the details.
• Notwithstanding signs that a Verizon iPhone may be coming soon, Kevin Maney of Appolicious believes that we are better off without a Verizon iPhone to give a leg up to iPhone competitors.
• David Sparks of MacSparky reviews (and loves) the Ristretto bag to carry an iPad and a bluetooth keyboard.
• If you grew up watching Mr. Bill on Saturday Night Live, then you might want to check out the new $1 Mr. Bill game for the iPhone.  David Dahlquist of Macworld posts a review.
• And finally, Brian Chen of Macworld writes about a hack for the iPad that allows you to run Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 on the iPad.  I cannot even begin to count all of the reasons that this is just not right, and yet, like a car accident on the side of the road, you really can't help looking, can you?  Here is the video: