Two years ago today, I took a picture of my iPhone sitting on a legal pad (you can see the 17 on the Calendar icon in the image at the top of this website) and started iPhone J.D. with the post "Why I use an iPhone." In the over 500 posts since then, I have reviewed over 200 apps and hardware devices, posted countless tips and tricks on using the iPhone, and given you my thoughts on everything that I think that an attorney (or other professional) using an iPhone would need to know.
The sophomore year of iPhone J.D. was a great one. I spent a lot of time talking about the iPhone 4 and iOS 4, fabulous new products with tons of useful new features. Plus, there were so many interesting third party apps to discuss. While Apple still keeps track of the total number of available apps and publicizes that number from time to time, it is probably easier today to just mimic the Apple advertising line and assume that there is an app for that. And I've shared lots of advice from iPhone J.D. readers as the number of attorneys using iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices seems to be increasing in leaps and bounds. (No, I haven't seen any reliable figures quantifying this, but anecdotally I'm seeing attorneys everywhere using iPhones — and I suspect that you are seeing the same thing.)
Most popular posts. In case you are curious, here are the three most popular posts from the second year of iPhone J.D.:
1. iPhone tip: create and Apple folder and the follow-up post on creating a folder with a color Emoji icon. Over 40,000 different people read that first post and many read the follow up. Folders are one of the best features of iOS 4 on the iPhone, and I'm glad that any day now we will have this function on the iPad.
2. Blue Marble. In terms of page views, this is the second most popular post from the past year, but it is my personal favorite post from the second year of iPhone J.D. Perhaps in part it is because space exploration excites me as much today as it did when I was a child, but mostly it is because I cannot think about that beautiful picture of the Earth without feeling a sense of awe and gaining a new perspective on life and our place in the universe. It is not often that a simple technology blog like this can provoke such profound thoughts.
3. Review: Dragon Dictation — iPhone voice transcription by Dragon NaturallySpeaking. The free Dragon Dictation app for the iPhone is so useful it is magical. Whenever a new iPhone owner asks me to show off some useful apps, I always see their eyes light up when they see how easy this one is to use. Everyone with an iPhone should have this app, and since so many people read that post, hopefully a lot of people do.
Remember that if you want to catch up on the past, all significant posts are indexed at the iPhone J.D. Index link on the top right of every page of this website. If you are new to the iPhone, I encourage you to see what you may have missed. Some of those old posts are just as valuable today as they were way back when, such as the many tips and shortcuts posts.
Visitors to iPhone J.D. As I did this time last year, this seems like a good time to stop talking about me and turn the attention to you. I can do that thanks to the tools provided by Google Analytics. More than 250,000 different people have visited this website over the past year and there have been well over half a million page views.
What do I know about you? Half of the visitors were using Windows, just over 30% were using a Mac, about 15% were using an iPhone, and almost 3% were using an iPad. One visitor used OS/2, an operating system that I didn't think anyone had used since the 1990s (and it's not like a lot of people were using it back then, either) and I find it funny that someone would use an operating system that old to read about the latest and greatest smartphone. As for the browsers, about a third used Safari (which includes all of the iPhone users of course), Firefox and Internet Explorer were at 25% each, and about 10% of visitors used Chrome.
As you may know, I live in New Orleans. If you've visited New Orleans before, you may have heard the popular local phrase "Where Y'at?" The phrase means "what's up" and isn't really a request for your physical location, but I can't say much about what has been going on for visitors to iPhone J.D., so instead let's look at where you are at. Almost 75% of you are in the U.S., but there have been visitors from 201 different countries. Almost 5% of you are in the U.K., and the next most popular countries are Canada, Australia, Sweden and Germany. There was only one visitor this past year from Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, but with a population of only 1,403, that's almost .1% of the total populace, which I suppose is something.
In terms of cities, the Big Apple continues its reign at the top:
New York
- London
- San Francisco
- Washington, D.C.
- Los Angeles
- Chicago
- Atlanta
- Houston
- Dallas
- New Orleans
I appreciate all of my friends here in the Big Easy doing what they can to keep New Orleans on the top ten list, but considering that last year New Orleans was #4, I wonder if the city will even make the list next year.
Feedback. The best part of publishing iPhone J.D. is hearing from readers. I love hearing about how other attorneys use their iPhones, and I try to share that knowledge here when I can. If you ever find that you have a few spare minutes, please send me a note letting me know what you love about your iPhone and how you are using it. And of course if you have any comments or suggestions for this site, I'd love to hear that as well. You can always e-mail me at [email protected], and if you would rather tweet than e-mail, you can contact me at @jeffrichardson. Additionally, although my focus here will always be the iPhone, I'm a new iPad owner as well so I suspect that I will be writing about iPad apps in the next year from time to time. If you have anything iPad-related to share with me, I'd love to hear that as well.
Thanks for a second great year, and I know that the third will be the best one yet!
