iPhone J.D.

Review: GorillaMobile Yogi for iPad by Joby -- iPad stand that works in countless configurations

I have long been a fan of the GorrillaPod, a portable tripod with legs made of rubberized balls on joints that can be twisted into almost any configuration.  I have an older version of the SLR-Zoom model that I carry with me when I travel on vacation.  You can stand it on a table or chair to steady a camera for taking a photograph, or better yet you can use the flexible legs to wrap it around virtually any surface.  That one device, along with an inexpensive remote for my Nikon camera, makes it easy to take group pictures when I am also in the picture. 

When I saw that Joby, the company that makes the GorillaPod, had come out with an iPad stand with the same flexible legs, I was intrigued.  The version for the iPad is called the GorillaMobile Yogi for iPad.  Joby sent me a free review unit and I have been using it for the last few weeks.  This is a great product that I would recommend to anyone looking for a good way to prop up an iPad at an angle.

The product itself consists of a thin white plastic and gray rubber cover that slips around the back and the sides of the iPad.  It is easy to put on and take off, and the case is nice enough that you might want to keep it on your iPad even when you are not using the Yogi's legs.  Clips are built-in to two of the sides of the back, giving you two different locations to connect the legs.

Once attached, you can prop up your iPad in either portrait or landscape position.  The flexible legs can be adjusted countless ways so that you can achieve any angle that you want for the iPad.  And yet the legs are also strong enough that you can easily tap and even type on the screen when it is in a position without the stand changing positions.  It is the perfect balance of flexibility and strength.

Because you can twist the legs around, you could even use the Yogi to grip around an object.  You could wrap the legs around the back of a chair or treadmill or other object in front of you if you wanted the iPad in that position.  I also find it easy to position the flexible legs when I want to prop up the iPad on my body while I am sitting or laying back.  Here is a video from Joby showing off many of the Yogi's positions, with a person in the background doing yoga just to drive home the flexible nature of the product:

The manual that comes with the Yogi suggests several poses and gives them interesting names.  As Scott Stein of Cnet remarked, the manual contains "a number of positions, ranging in inspiration from Yoga poses to ones that border on the Kama Sutra."

The Yogi doesn't add that much weight to the 1.5 pound iPad; the case and the legs together weigh just over 8 oz.  Thus, you can also adjust the legs into some comfortable position and use the Yogi to hold the iPad in your hand, achieving many of the advantages of the FreeOneHand iPad holder that I recently reviewed and that I enjoy using.

It is also easy to travel with the Yogi because the legs come right off, so you can make them straight and tuck them into a corner of a suitcase or briefcase, and then either leave the case on the iPad to give it a little protection on the sides and back or store the thin case along with your legal pads and paperwork.

I have tried several other devices that are designed to prop your iPad at an angle for easier viewing, but most of them just have one or a few preset angles.  I love that with the Yogi you get any angle you want, plus the legs let you prop up the iPad on a flat or an uneven surface.  If you are looking for a good stand for your iPad to prop it up when you are actively using it or when the iPad is just sitting on your desk, displaying a movie or pictures, the GorillaMobile Yogi is a great choice.  And because the ball joint design of the legs makes it possible to wrap the Yogi around other objects, I'm sure that you will come up with lots of creative uses for the Yogi even when you are away from your desk.

Click here to get the GorillaMobile Yogi for iPad from Amazon ($49.95)

In the news

Yesterday, there were several announcements from Apple, including a new line of MacBook Pro computers, a preview of the next Mac OS, and the 1.0 version of FaceTime for the Mac.  The Mac version of FaceTime is a useful way to use an iPhone 4 to conduct a videochat with someone who has a Mac; I used it when I was on the road last week to say good night to my kids from hundreds of miles away.  But what struck me the most about yesterday's announcements is that a brand new MacBook Pro — the best-selling computer that Apple makes — is nothing more than news that Apple wants to get out of the way before the iPad announcement next week.  As John Gruber remarked:  "new developer preview of Lion, new FaceTime app for Mac, and an all-new lineup of MacBook Pros — and none of these things warranted a spot in next week’s event."  I suspect that next Wednesday's iPad announcement will include some big news.  But before we get too excited about the news of next week, let's look at some of the iPhone-related news of note from this past week:

• Legal consultant Ed Scanlan of Total Attorneys was recently the victim of a mugging.  The thieves took his money and his iPhone, but then Scanlan used the Find my iPhone feature to trace the criminals for the cops.  Frank Main of the Chicago Sun Times tells the rest of the story.
• David Martin of Cult of Mac shares a similar story from Texas.  A woman's iPhone was stolen, so she used her iPad to track down the criminals.
• John Marellaro of The Mac Observer writes that once you have an iPad, you find that you no longer want to use certain apps on the iPhone because they work so much better on the iPad.  I've noticed this myself.
• Peter Ha explains in an article in The Daily why he is giving up his BlackBerry for an iPhone.
• John Edwards writes an article for Law Technology News in which he predicts better input solutions for mobile devices in the future.  We'll see.
• David Pogue of the New York Times wrote an interesting article about whether it is okay to let your child (in his case, a six year old) use your iPad.
• College Humor has a funny Angry Birds Public Service Announcement (PSA) to encourage you to save the birds and pigs.  Worth watching.
• And finally, if you cannot wait until next week to see what Apple has in store for the new iPad, here's a guy who is ready to show you now:

Next generation iPad to be announced Wednesday, March 2

On January 27, 2010, Apple announced the original iPad, and it went on sale in April of 2010.  Yesterday, Apple alerted the press that will announce the next generation of the iPad at 10:00 Pacific on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at an invitation-only event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.  There are tons of rumors on the features of the new iPad — lighter? thinner? camera for FaceTime? — and we'll finally get the official word next week.

There is a picture on the invitation of a calendar with the top corner peeled back to reveal an iPad.  The text on the iniviation reads:  "Come see what 2011 will be the year of."  I look forward to learning what Apple has planned for the 2.0 version of the iPad and when it will be available for sale.  [UPDATE:  Macworld has a good list of 11 features that the magazine's editors would like to see in a future iPad.]

Review: Court Days Pro -- calculate dates on your iPhone using sophisticated rules

Attorneys frequently have to calculate dates to determine the deadlines for trial court pleadings, appellate briefs, contractual obligations, etc.  Almost two years ago I reviewed a $0.99 app called Court Days from attorney Dan Friedlander (who runs the website Law on my Phone) which gives you the ability to calculate dates even when you need to exclude legal holidays such as weekends and holidays.

Last night, Friedlander released an advanced version of that app called Court Days Pro.  Court Days Pro is the first rules-based legal calendering app for the iPhone.  This means that the app is designed to take one event (the trigger event) and then calculate one or more other deadlines based on that trigger event.  You simply set up each of your rules once, and then you can use them again and again in the future.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is by an example.  Appellate practice in Louisiana state court is a big part of my law practice.  The deadline for filing a notice of appeal in Louisiana state court is computed based on a trigger date of when the clerk of court mails a notice of the trial court's judgment.  Once that happens, parties have 7 court days (excluding weekends and holidays) to file post-trial motions such as a motion for new trial of motion for JNOV.  Assuming that no such motions are filed, the deadline for a suspensive appeal (an appeal that suspends the execution of the judgment) is 30 days later, and the deadline for a devolutive appeal (an appeal that doesn't suspend the execution of judgment, something a defendant will rarely use but plaintiffs often use when they lose at trial because there is no judgment on which one can execute anyway) is 60 days later.  You set up rules by giving the app a trigger date and then other dates that come after it.  So in this example, my trigger date is the date on which the clerk of court mails a notice of the trial court's judgment.  Then my first resulting date is 7 court days later (i.e. days on which the court is open, excluding weekends and holidays).  To set up this date, I just tell the app to take the trigger date and add 7 court days to it:

Next, I set up my second result item, the deadline for a suspensive appeal.  Three calculations are required to figure out this date.  First, I have to count the 7 court day deadline to file post-trial motions.  Second, I have to add 30 calendar days (including weekends and holidays) to that 7 court day deadline.  Finally, if that 30th day falls on a weekend or a holiday, Louisiana law advances the deadline to the next court day.  On this screen you can see that I have told the app to perform all three of those calculations:

I performed the third calculation by selecting "cal fwd."  The other choices include "cal" which would apply if the 30th day were the deadline even if it falls on a holiday.  The "cal bk" choice would have given me the last court day that falls just before the 30th day when the 30th day falls on a holiday.

I then set up a similar rule for a devolutive appeal.  Everything is the same as a suspensive appeal, except that the second calculation is 60 days instead of 30 days.  Once I have all of those entered, I can see that my rule looks like this:

It obviously takes a little time and thought to set up your rule, but then once you have done it, it will be in the app forever.  So now, I can always use my rule to perform a calculation without my needing to do any math at all.  Let's say for example that I want to see what my appeal deadlines would be if I get a notice of judgment mailed on March 1, 2011.  All I need to do is select the first date (3/1/11) and the app instantly shows me the deadlines:

  

You can see in the prior image that for each deadline, you are also shown the number of days from today based on a calendar and based on the court (non-weekend, non-holiday) days.  How does the app know the holidays?  The app comes pre-populated with the federal court holidays.  You can then modify that list to add your local holidays.  For example, you can see on the following image that I told the app that Tuesday, March 8, 2011 is a court holiday in Louisiana (Mardi Gras), and as you can see in the prior image, the app took the Mardi Gras holiday into account when counting the 7 court days for post-trial motions and then using that date to calculate the two appeal deadlines.

You can set up as many rules as you want.  For example, here is another rule that I set up that calculates several appeal dates in Louisiana state court such as an Appellant's Original Brief, an Appellee Brief, and a Reply Brief:

  

I had to fudge a little in this rule because technically the reply brief is due 10 days after the Appellee Brief is filed, but there is no way to tell this app to calculate a resulting date based upon the previously computed date; everything has to come from the trigger date.  Thus, in my rule, I just told the app to count 55 days from the date that the record is lodged, which in the example shown in the above images is actually a little early.  Nevertheless, the app can give me a sense of how all of the deadlines will work out.  Perhaps in a future update Friedlander will add the ability to make rules even more sophisticated to account for situations like this one.

Note that in these two examples I created my own rules, but the app comes with a number of sample deadlines based on the California Code of Civil Procedure.  If you don't practice law in California, you can delete those entries, but I left them in when I created this image just to give you a sense of some of what is there, along with my two Louisiana appellate rules that I created:

This is a universal app, so you can also use it on an iPad and the app is formatted for the iPad's larger screen.  Frankly, though, the app works just fine on an iPhone and I don't think that you gain much with the iPad screen.

Calculating dates may seem simple because it is just math, but it is very easy to make a mistake when you do so, and I know several examples of attorneys missing appeal deadlines, resulting in prejudice to their client and a malpractice lawsuit for the attorney.  You may know of some of these examples yourself.  An app like Court Days Pro is incredibly useful because after you take the time to carefully set up a rule-based calculation just once, in the future you can just give the app a start date and have the app do all of the hard work for you, making it easier to calculate dates for your clients (note to mention avoid malpractice lawsuits based on miscalculating dates).  There is a slight learning curve to using this app — just as there is a slight learning curve to figuring out how dates are calculated based on the federal and state rules of procedure – but once you get over that learning curve, this is an incredibly useful app that I encourage every lawyer to consider buying.  Note that the app will cost $3.99 starting next week, but if you buy it this week you can pay the introductory price of $2.99, so save yourself a buck and buy it today.

Click here to get Court Days Pro ($2.99 this week, then $3.99): 

Review: The American Lawyer -- read Am Law on your iPhone and iPad

Like many iPad owners, I find myself wishing that I could covert all of my paper periodical subscriptions into iPad subscriptions.  I enjoy reading magazines on a bright iPad screen, and I like having a large collection of reading materials on my iPad rather that carrying around a bunch of magazines when I travel.  Thus, I am always happy to learn that another good magazine is now available in a digital version.

Most lawyers are familiar with The American Lawyer (often just called "Am Law"), a monthly magazine covering the business of law firms.  Am Law has a free iPhone and iPad app, and it is excellent.  (Disclosure:  The American Lawyer is part of the Law.com network and iPhone J.D. is an affiliate of the Law.com network — which mostly just means that I include that banner at the right that shows you headlines from recent Law.com stories and I receive some revenue from the ad that appears below that banner.  Am Law didn't ask me to write this review; I just find that I'm really enjoying the app.)

On the iPhone, you can use the Am Law app to view the current and last few recent editions.  Tap on the cover of the magazine to see the contents.

  

You can tap the View button to browse through the pages of the magazine.  You can bring up a pop-up window at the bottom showing thumbnails of the pages so that you can easily jump to another page.  It is nice to see every full page of the magazine, but unfortunately even at the maximum zoom it is difficult to read the small text on an iPhone screen.

  

Fortunately, you are not limited to reading just a scan of the page.  You can also tap on articles in the index and read a text version of articles, with controls that let you increase or decrease the font size.  You an also easily search that full text to find all articles in recent editions that contain a word.

  

You also tap the News & Views button to see the latest articles from the Am Law website.

Am Law is very nicely implemented on the iPhone, but where it really shines is on the iPad where the app is designed to take full advantage of the iPad screen.  I have no problems reading articles in the full page view, and it is easy to swipe through the pages of the magazine to read each issue.

You can also turn your iPad sideways to view two pages at a time:

The content of Am Law has always been great, but I must admit that it has been a long time since I subscribed to the paper magazine.  Instead, I prefer to read Am Law articles online.  Now that there is a free digital version of the magazine, I find myself reading the magazine again, sometimes on my iPhone but mostly on my iPad.  I'm sure that Am Law likes this because I am once again looking at the ads, and frankly I don't mind the ads in a niche magazine like Am Law or Macworld because the ads are likely to be targeted to my areas of interest anyway.  I only have one real complaint with this app; I wish that the scans of each page were of a higher resolution and I wish that you could zoom in even more.  Nevertheless, if you are a lawyer with any interest in the business of practicing law, I encourage you to download this app for your iPhone and iPad.

Click here to get The American Lawyer (free): 

Ihnatko's quest for an Apple wristwatch

No post here at iPhone J.D. today, but if you are looking for something good to read, check out this great article by Andy Ihnatko posted at Macworld.com yesterday in which the Chicago Sun-Times tech columnist thinks about how fun it would be if Apple let its engineers go crazy and make something — anything — that is neat (regardless of how functional it is) so long as it costs under $50.  I'd probably buy it.

In the news

It was a relatively quiet week in iPhone and iPad news.  We learned more details on Apple's plans for allowing subscriptions within apps, people continue to write articles geared at the new Verizon iPhone users, and there were a few good articles this week of particular interest to attorneys using iPhones:

• Attorney Dan Friedlander writes for TechnoLawyer about how lawyers can develop Enterprise Apps for the iPhone.  That article appeared in the free TechnoLawyer BigLaw newsletter a month ago, but it is now available on the TechnoLawyer website for those who don't subscribe.
• Christina Koch, a paralegal at Inserra & Kelley, writes for Atkinson-Baker's website about the use of the iPad by lawyers and paralegals.
• Similarly, John Paczkowski of All Things D writes about how more and more businesses are embracing the iPad.
• We got a sneak peek at iPhone and iPad subscriptions with the recent debut of The Daily, but this week Apple officially announced its policies for subscriptions.  David Chartier of Macworld posts an analysis.  I know that there are pros and cons for publishers, but I hope that there is widespread support becasue I love the idea of subscribing to periodicals on my iPad.
• Jenna Wortham of the New York Times explains how the Shazam iPhone app can identify songs so well.
• Trial and legal tech consultant Ted Brooks posted an extensive review of Exhibit A, an iPad app that can be used for trial presentation.
• Ted Brooks also reviewed the Litigator iPad app in an article that appears in Law Technology News.
• Om Malik of GigaOm gave up on the iPhone a while ago because of his problems with getting good AT&T coverage in New York in San Francisco, but he now has a Verizon iPhone and says that he is "in love again."
• Sam Grobart of the New York Times suggets apps for new Verizon iPhone users.  (I posted my list on Monday.)
• Feel like giving up on your law practice and getting a job at Apple?  Or just interested in how Apple employees end up there?  James Holland writes for ElectricPig about how to get a job at Apple.  Based on what I have heard, this article is actually pretty accurate.
• To help the new Verizon iPhone users, the New York Times has a short video with tips for new iPhone users on topics such as double-clicking the Home button, creating folders for apps, etc.
• Following up on the recent release of the Google Translate app, Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times writes about other translation apps.
• And finally, iPhone J.D. wasn't the only website to recently top a million page views.  The Apple parody site Scoopertino also did so this week, and wrote this  funny post.  If you like to laugh, I encourage you to read that site regularly for funny articles like this recent one on the App Store Express, the fastest way to give Apple your money.  And for more info on that site, I wrote about the guys behind Scoopertino in this post.

Thanks a million!

When I first started iPhone J.D., I wasn't sure how much interest there would be in a specialized website of this sort.  Back in 2008, most attorneys used BlackBerries, but even so there wasn't any website focused on attorneys using BlackBerries, nor were there websites devoted to teachers using Treos, insurance agents using iPods, etc.  I remember thinking that it was amazing when I first saw over 200 visitors to the website in a single day.

Over time, readership has increased and this website now sees thousands of visitors a day. As a result, at some point during the day today (most likely right around lunch time), this website will cross over the threshold of 1 million page views.

I try to keep being self-referential to a minimum on this website, but I see a greater significance in a niche site like this one crossing the 1 million page view threshold.  Even though iPhone J.D. gets a huge number of non-attorney visitors (everyone is welcome!), I believe that the increase in traffic here reflects a growing number of attorneys using iPhones and iPads ... a fact that will hopefully translate into even more development of apps and hardware accessories that are helpful for attorneys and other professionals using the iOS.

To all of you who have visited iPhone J.D. since it debuted in November of 2008, thanks a million!

Dinner in Chicago on April 11, 2011

If you will be in Chicago for ABA TECHSHOW this year, I am hosting one of the Taste of Techshow dinners along with Josh Barrett of Tablet Legal.  At the dinner, I'm sure that we will discuss all things iPhone and iPad, share stories, and have a lot of laughs.  The dinner will be on April 11, 2011 at 8:15pm at Tutto Italiano, an Italian restaurant. 

I am writing about this today to alert you to a change.  In past years, you signed up for these dinners during the conference itself.  This year, however, you need to sign up beforehand by following the instructions on this webpage.  I'm sure that many of the dinners on April 11 and 12 will fill up quickly, so sign up now if you plan to be in Chicago.  I hope to see many of you at the dinner, or at least at the conference, in April.

The iPhone as a boarding pass

It has been over two years since I wrote about using the iPhone as a boarding pass, but I never had the opportunity to try it myself until yesterday.  I had a Delta flight, and when checking in online, I saw that I was offered the option to obtain an eBoarding Pass in addition (or instead of) a printed boarding pass.  I played it safe and chose both options.

Here is what Delta says on its website about using an eBoarding Pass:

What is an eBoarding Pass?

Now, when you're departing from certain airports, you can go completely paperless by having an eBoarding Pass sent directly to your Web-enabled mobile device. It's the fastest, most convenient way to check in.

Here's how it works:

• While you're checking in online, choose the eBoarding Pass option—instead of the normal paper boarding pass.

• When you've completed the check-in process, instead of printing your boarding pass, your eBoarding Pass, flight information and barcode will be sent directly to your mobile device.

• Once you're at the airport, if you're checking bags, you can save time by using Curbside Check-in or one of our Baggage Drops.

• When you reach security, an agent will check your ID and scan the eBoarding Pass on your mobile device.

• Then you can head straight to your departure gate and show your eBoarding Pass to the gate agent when it’s time to board.

The list of airports at which you can use an eBoarding Pass is contained on this page on the Delta website.  It includes my hometown of New Orleans and airports in other cites like Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York (LGA) and Seattle but doesn't yet include major airports such as San Francisco (SFO), the other big New York-area airports (JFK and EWR) and Dallas (DFW).

When I selected the option for an eBoarding Pass, I received an e-mail with a link to a webpage.  When I clicked the link, I was brought to a page containing a QR Code to show to the appropriate agents.  I don't know if this contains personal information, so I added some black bar redactions to these images:

  

It worked great.  When I got to the security check-in, I saw a device on the front of the podium where the TSA agent was standing.  He told me to scan the code on my iPhone, and I saw my name appear on a small display on his side of the podium, which he compared to my driver's license.  When it was time to board the plane, the gate agent simply directed me to scan the front of my iPhone on the same machine she was using to scan paper boarding passes.  Nobody acted as if I was doing anything unusual, even though it was a new experience for me.

Many years ago, I managed to lose "real" paper tickets before an international flight.  The only solution was for me to buy another set of tickets for me and my wife, and then the airline said that once nobody showed up using my original tickets, I would receive a refund on my credit card.  The refund did eventually show up, but I was a little nervous about it until that refund appeared on my statement.  Nowadays, for most flights, we are long past the age of "real" paper tickets that you need to worry about losing; we all just use electronic tickets that can be reprinted at any time on a computer or at the airport.  Even so, it is nice to have the option to use an eBoarding Pass without dealing with any paper at all.  It worked so well for me yesterday that I will always use this option again in the future when I can.

Advice for attorneys with new Verizon iPhones

Tons of Verizon customers who have been waiting a long time are now getting their first iPhone.  I know that many of these folks are attorneys based on what friends are telling me and the e-mails that I have been receiving. Indeed, if you practice law in the states of North or South Dakota, Montana or Wyoming, the New York Times recently noted that you have been unable to use an iPhone until now because of the lack of AT&T in those states.  If you are just now finding this website because you yourself are a new "iPhone J.D." here is some information for getting the most out of your new iPhone.

iPhone Tips and Shortcuts

There are a lot of shortcuts that will help you use your iPhone more efficiently.  Some of them are shortcuts that you might know from a prior smartphone, such as tapping the spacebar twice to add a period for the end of a sentence and capitalizing the next word that you type.  There are shortcuts for typing a comma with only one stroke (press and hold the 123 button and then without lifting your finger, slide your finger over to the comma and then release), for quickly scrolling back up to the top of the screen (tap once on the status bar at the top of the screen, where the time is displayed), and for zooming in and out with even more precision (hold one finger down on the page and then just move the other finger back and forth to zoom in and out).  You can find those three shortcuts and a lot more in the following posts:

1. My favorite iPhone shortcuts:  11/24/08
2. More iPhone Shortcuts:  12/12/08
3. Tips on iPhone Software 3.0:  6/23/09
4. More iPhone 3.0 tips and shortcuts:  7/6/09
5. Create an Apple folder:  6/30/10
6. Vanity mirror:  7/1/10
7. Create a folder with a color Emoji icon:  7/5/10
8. How many apps do you have?:  11/15/10
9. Zoom:  12/14/10
10. Invite out-of-town relatives to the party:  1/18/11

Best Apps for Attorneys

One of the best parts of the iPhone is that you can add third-party apps to do all sorts of useful things.  With over 350,000 apps in the App Store, it can be difficult to know where to start — especially since new apps come out every day.  In March of 2010 at the ABA TECHSHOW, Reid Trautz and I picked 60 great apps that every lawyer should consider installing on his or her iPhone.  Click here to see that list.  Even though it is a year old, virtually every app on that list is still useful today (and indeed, many of those apps have been updated with new features that make them even more valuable).  Josh Barrett of Tablet Legal is joining me and Reid in two months to present the 2011 version of that presentation.  We just finished our rough draft of the list of apps, and it is going to be another great list.  If you cannot join us in Chicago for this year's TECHSHOW, I'll post the list here afterwards.  By the way, here is a similar list from ABA TECHSHOW 2009, but that list is starting to show its age.

But before you go ahead and download 60 apps recommended in 2010, and another 60 apps downloaded in 2009, let me highlight a few apps that I suggest you download right away:

• Dragon Dictation.  This free app will let you talk to your iPhone and have what you say automatically turned into text.  If you used an Android phone before the iPhone, you will remember that is a built-in feature for those phones.  On the iPhone, you need a third-party app to do it, but it is very useful and free.  I reviewed the app at the end of 2009, and it works even better today.
• Documents to Go.  Attorneys receive and send a ton of Microsoft Word documents, so it is helpful to have an app that makes it easy to edit those documents.  There are three leading apps for the iPhone that do the job right now — Documents to Go, Quickoffice and Office2 — but for a while now only Documents to Go supports footnotes (which I consider a crucial feature for any litigator).  If you own an iPad too, the same app also works great on the iPad.  (Quickoffice makes you buy a separate iPad app.)  I've talked about Documents to Go many times in the past, including:  o:  6/22/09, 6/25/09, 8/4/09, 8/17/09, 12/31/09, 2/11/10, 9/8/10.  The premium version of Documents to Go has all of the bells and whistles and costs $14.99.
• A date calculator.  If you often find yourself trying to figure out what date is a certain number of days before or after another even to calculate a due date for a brief, a discovery deadline, etc., a date calculator can be very handy.  The one that I use the most is a simple one called DaysFrom that only costs $0.99 (my review is here), but you should also consider an app called Court Days.  I reviewed Court Days in July of 2009, but the developer (attorney Dan Friedlander) recently announced on his website that an app called Court Days Pro is coming soon for the iPhone and iPad.  I'll post a full review when that app is available.  Go ahead and get DaysFrom now — it's only a buck — but keep in mind that in just a short while you might also want to also get Court Days Pro.
• GateGuru.  If you travel by plane a lot, get this free app to maximize your efficiency at the airport.  My review is here.
• Fastcase.  This free app lets you search for and view any case or statute in the U.S.  It is a must have for any attorney with an iPhone.  My review is here.
• LogMeIn Ignition.  This is one of the must valuable apps on my iPhone and iPad, and depending upon how you work, it may be for you as well.  The app gives you remote access to a PC or Mac so that even when you are out of the office, you can access that file sitting on your desktop and use the full features of any program (such as Outlook) when there is no other way to get a task done on an iPhone.  My review is here.
• Chase.  It seems that most financial institutions have an iPhone app, so download one for whatever bank you use.  If you are a Chase customer like I am, the Chase app offers the amazingly useful ability to deposit a check on your iPhone.  When you get a check, just use this app to scan both sides and then presto, the check is deposited and you can toss the check in a drawer just in case you ever need it in the future.  (You won't.)  Saves you lots of unnecessary trips to the nearest Chase branch.  My review is here.
• Flahlight.  The iPhone 4 has an LED light on the back that works as a flash when taking a picture.  But when it is dark, it is useful to turn that light on to use your iPhone as a flashlight.  It sounds silly to use something that costs hundreds of dollars as a flashlight, but let's face it — your iPhone will always be with you, and that fancy Maglite flashlight will be stuck in a drawer somewhere.  I use a free app called LED Light for iPhone 4 Free.  There are tons of other apps that do the same thing, so feel free to shop around if you want, or just get the free one that I reviewed here.

I'm only scratching the surface here, and before long you will also be using your iPhone as a legal dictionary, a GPS unit, and a substitute for that string around your finger, but that list will get you started.

What was that again?

If you come across someone using an iPhone-related word that doesn't make any sense to you, the website TiPb has come up with a useful dictionary of iPhone-related terms.  Additionally, it might be helpful to come here to iPhone J.D., go to the search box at the top right of every page, and enter the word to see what I have said about it in the past.

And so much more...

Once you get up to speed with your new iPhone, you'll be looking for even more that you can do, hardware attachments, etc.  Browse through the index of my past posts to get ideas for even more that you can do with your new iPhone, and I'd love for you to become a regular iPhone J.D. reader.  If you are not the sort of person who remembers to keep up with websites, you can click here to have iPhone J.D. delivered to you via e-mail every morning for free.  And when you figure out something neat that you can do with your iPhone that helps your law practice, send me an e-mail (see Contact Me at the top left of this page) and I'd love to share what you have learned with others.

Congratulations on being a new iPhone owner!

In the news

The Verizon iPhone started to make its way into customers' hands this week, elected officials are using and abusing iPads, and the Vatican speaks up on an iPhone app, all in this week's edition of In the News:

• Lexis Advance is the next generation of LexisNexis, that company's answer to Westlaw Next.  Lexis Advance is currently only available to solo practitioners, but Lexis is adding new features and working out the kinks and at some point Lexis Advance will be available to all Lexis users.  Attorney Robert Ambrogi reports that Lexis Advance now has an iPhone app.  You can get more information here.  Hopefully it is better than the current Lexis app, which I consider a disappointment.
• Josh Barrett of Tablet Legal reviews TrialPad, an iPad app that can be used for courtroom presentations.
• Michael Grothaus of TUAW reports that the British House of Lords will soon allow the use of iPads during debates.
• As noted in that article and reported by the International Business Times, members of parliament in Italy are allowed to use iPads, and one of them was recently photographed using it to access an escort website.  I'm just glad that we don't have any elected officials in the U.S. doing similarly dumb things on the Internet and getting caught.
• If you need to go to confession after some of the dumb things that you did on (or off) the Internet, there was lots of news this week about Confession, a $1.99 app for Catholics that aids you in the confessional, helping you with what to say and providing the words for prayers.  Tim Stevens of Engadget reported on the app, saying that it was approved by the Church because it was developed with the Catholic Church.  Then some news outlets started to report that the Vatican condemned the app, but I don't think that is actually true.  Dan Gilgoff of CNN reports that the Vatican simply does not condone making a confession via an iPhone or any other electronic device, but that is not what this app does; instead, it just helps you to prepare for confession with a real priest, which is appropriate.  Click here for Confession ($1.99): 
• Attorney and King & Spalding librarian Greg Lambert of the 3 Geeks and a Law Blog reviews Whistle Phone, an app that allows you to turn an iPad or an iPod touch into a phone.  Click here for Whistle Phone (free): 
• Attorney David Sparks of MacSparky explains that using the iPad has caused him to realize that he prefers to write in a plain text format in an article he titles:  The Joy of Text.
• Peter Ha of the new iPad-only newspaper The Daily reports on an interview with Ge Wang, an app developer with Smule, about the great potential for creating content with the iPad.
• Speaking of The Daily, if you have an iPad, I hope that you are taking advantage of this two week period of time when you can subscribe to The Daily for free.  Art of the iPhone posted a comprehensive review of the app.  I am still trying to decide whether I will pay the dollar a week to subscribe when the free trial ends.  On the one hand, the content is usually rather shallow, although every once in a while you see an article with some depth.  Also, this is not an up-to-the-minute news sources, like the New York Times website or CNN.  On the other hand, if you just think of it as a daily magazine with a broad view of the news of the day, and accept that it is just as likely to have a fluff story that you might find in People or Us Weekly, then it isn't too bad.  I like that you can just swipe right to left to quickly browse thorugh every story in every issue, making it easy to skip over the stories that are of no interest.  One curious omission:  Why doesn't a publication that is so tightly integrated with the newest technology have a dedicated technology news section?  I'll mostly likely subscribe to The Daily for at least a while, just to see if it is something that I continue to read and to see what improvements are made to the app, but I'll continue to turn to sources like The New York Times for the rest of the story.
• Thomas Ricker of Engadget reports that German researchers have discovered a way to decrypt passwords from n iPhone's keychain such as your GMail password or your corporate VPN password.  So if you plan on losing your iPhone someplace, make sure that you are far away from the Fraunhofer Institute Secure Information Technology (Fraunhofer SIT).
• Anyone who wants a Verizon iPhone can now buy one, although if you are a current Verizon subscriber not yet eligible for an upgrade, you cannot take advantage of the subsidized $200/$300 price.  Matt Peckham of PC World explains that for some, it is actually cheaper to end your Verizon contract and pay cancellation charges to get the best price on a Verizon iPhone.
• The Ronald Reagan library added 250 iPod touches as tour guides, according to Kelly Hodgkins of TUAW.
• If you enjoy being a lawyer so much that you also want to play one on your iPhone, JC Fletcher of Joystiq reports that the game Phoenix Wright is on sale right now for $0.99, along with many other iPhone games from Capcom, Sega and Namco.
• And finally, if you have an iPhone, chances are before long your spouse and kids will want one too.  How do you manage charging all of those iPhones?  Parat Solutions has the product for you — the PARASYNC which can charge 20 iPhones at once from a single iTunes library for the low price of $980.  (via iPhone Download Blog)

Review: Kensington BlackBelt -- protection band for iPad

The iPad weighs just enough and is just slick enough that if you are walking around carrying it, or just sitting down and reading on it, there is a real danger of it slipping out of your hand.  Thus, I am always interested in devices that make the iPad more secure in your hand.  I recently reviewed a product called FreeOneHand that adds a nub to the back of your iPad to make it easier to hold, and I consider that product to be a good solution to the problem.  Kensington recently sent me a free review unit of a new product called the BlackBelt.  This product, which sells for $39.99 from Kensington (or only $32.00 on Amazon), is sort of like an Apple iPhone Bumper for the iPad, and I thought that it might be another good solution to the problem of an iPad slipping out of your hands.

The BlackBelt is simply a thick silicone rubber rectangle that fits around the iPad.  Unlike the Apple iPhone Bumper which is reinforced with plastic and thus is fairly sturdy, this is completely flexible.  Placing it around an iPad is extremely easy.

There are holes cut on the sides for the iPhone buttons, except that for the power button at the top of the iPad, there is instead just a rubber button that allows you to easily press the iPad button through the rubber.

The Kensington website says that the "Kensington BlackBelt™ protects the edges and cushions your iPad while offering a secure grip for handling in any iPad orientation."  It certainly does provide some cushion to the edge of the iPad, so I suppose if you hit the edge of an iPad with the BlackBelt on it, there would be added protection.  But if you drop an iPad, I doubt that this product would provide very much protection with the entire screen and back exposed.

What I really expected was for this product to provide a "secure grip for handling" the iPad.  It does to some extent, but not as much as I had hoped.  The rubber on the BlackBelt is actually somewhat slippery — less so than a naked iPad, but still slippery enough that it is still fairly easy for an iPad wearing the BlackBelt to slip out of my hand.

I'm usually a big fan of Kensington products.  I love the Kensginton AssistOne in my car just as much today as I did when I reviewed it several months ago.  And the PowerLift battery / stand that I recently reviewed is a useful gadget.  The BlackBelt does make it somewhat more pleasent to hold an iPad in your hands because it is soft and it has some give, so I'm sure that some people will like this product.  But because it is more slippery than I had hoped, I wouldn't feel comfortable relying on this device while I walk around a courtroom holding an iPad, and thus I cannot recommend the BlackBelt.

Click here to get the Kensginton BlackBelt from Amazon ($32.00).

Review: Google Translate for iPhone -- you speak one language, the app speaks it back in another language

This app is amazing.  Okay, now that I have that off my chest, let me explain what I am talking about.  The new Google Translate app for the iPhone, released yesterday, allows you to enter text in one language — you can type it, or easier still, just speak the words out loud — and then in about a second the app displays your words in a different language — and with one touch can speak those words out loud.  For example, make sure your the app is in English to French mode, press one button in the app, say to your iPhone "where is the train station," and then a second later your iPhone displays "où est la gare" and you can tap one button to have that spoken in French so that the person in Paris can hear and understand you and point in a direction.  You could even press one button to switch the translation from French to English, have the other person speak the answer in French, and then you can see the answer in English.  You need to have Internet access for this app to work, but I can imagine being in a foreign country in a Wi-Fi spot and using this app to communicate back and forth with someone even though neither one of us speak the language of the other.  And you get all of this for the price of free.  Amazing.

Here is a little more detail on how the app works.  When you launch the app you will see two languages displayed at the top (if you have used the app before, they are the last two languages that you used).  The "from" language is on the left, the "go" language is on the right.  You can quickly swap those by tapping the arrows between the listed languages. Just below that, there is a text box.  You can either tap in the box and type some words, or you can tap the microphone button just to the right of the box and speak.  If you choose to speak to the app, the app notices when you stop speaking for a second and then starts to process your words.  The app will only let you talk for about five seconds or so, long enough to say a short to medium length sentence.

  

After only a second or so, the app will then display the translated text in the language that you selected.  For 24 languages — Arabic, Chinese (both simplified and traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish — the app will display a speaker icon to the right of the words.  Tap that icon to have the app speak the phrase in a very authentic-sounding voice.  Google says that the voices are speech synthesized, but they sound quite authentic to my ear.  Note that the text-to-speech translation is limited to 100 characters, another reason that this app works best for shorter sentences. For an additional 34 languages — such as Azerbaijani, Hebrew, Irish, Swahili, Thai and Vietnamese — the app will display the text but does not offer to speak the text.

  

For many languages that do not use the Roman (Latin) alphabet used in America, Europe and elsewhere, just below the translated text the app will display a romanized version of the text, the idea being that if you try to pronounce those letters, you will roughly pronounce the words.  For example, in the Russian example picture above, the first word displayed is "Простите."  If you are not familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet used in Russia, you won't know how to say that, but romanization gives you a hint, telling you for example that a "П" in Russian sounds like a "P" in English, a "р" in Russian sounds like an "r" in English, etc.

Be aware that the translation is quite literal and thus even a "perfect" translation might not get the result that you want.  For example, in the above pictures, you can see that the text that I said in English was "where is the bathroom."  But note that in many other countries such as France and Russia, the "bathroom" is the place that you take a bath, whereas the "toilet" is the place that you take care of other important bodily functions.  So to get a more precise translation, you would need to know to ask "where is the toilet" like this:

  

Another very useful feature is a full screen mode that lets you enlarge the translated text.  Tap the box with the four arrows in it and the app will show, in large type and in landscape mode, the translated text.  If you are in a noisy area, the other person may not be able to hear your iPhone very well, but someone can easily see the words on an iPhone in this mode.

There are a few more features in the app.  You can tap the star next to a translation to add it to a list of saved translations.  One good reason to save a translation that you can use it someplace even if you don't have a network connection.  Thus, in your hotel using Wi-Fi, you can say some phrases that you plan to use and get translations, and then when you are out and about in a foreign country and not using a data plan, you can still use the translations you prepared ahead of time.  If you tapped the speaker icon when you had that Internet connection, the audio file is saved in the app and can be used later when you do not have a data connection.  Even if you don't add a star to a translation, tapping the Home button at the bottom left will always show you a list of your most recent translations.  (In the Settings, you can clear that history if you want.)

This app is incredible right now, but I cannot wait to see what comes next.  For example, although this app is new to the iPhone, a similar app has been available for Google's Android operating system for over a year.  The Android version of the app currently has in beta a feature called conversation mode.  Google describes it as follows:

In conversation mode, simply press the microphone for your language and start speaking. Google Translate will translate your speech and read the translation out loud. Your conversation partner can then respond in their language, and you’ll hear the translation spoken back to you. Because this technology is still in alpha, factors like regional accents, background noise or rapid speech may make it difficult to understand what you’re saying. Even with these caveats, we’re excited about the future promise of this technology to be able to help people connect across languages.

This conversation mode currently only works for English and Spanish, but it gives a sneak peak of what could be coming soon to the iPhone app.

Note that this is currently just an iPhone app.  It runs on an iPad, but is not optimized for the iPad's screen.  Having said that, I can still see an advantage of using this app on an iPad (in 2x mode) because of its large screen.  Speak a sentence, tap the full screen button, and then you can hold up your iPad like a huge sign making it easy for the non-English speaker to see the translation even from far away.

It has been possible to use the Google Translate website with the iPhone for a while now, and the website was even nicely formatted for the iPhone screen, but the "web app" version of Google translate couldn't hear what you said nor could it speak translations out loud, plus it lacked the other features like full screen mode.  This new Google Translate app brings translation on the iPhone to a new level.  If you think that you ever might encounter someone who does not speak English, I urge you to get this app immediately.

Click here to get Google Translate (free): 

Review: Internal Revenue Code & Treasury Regulations 2011 from Law ToGo -- tax law on your iPhone or iPad

Two years ago I reviewed an app from Law ToGo that contains the Internal Revenue Code.  The developer has now released new apps for the iPhone and iPad (different apps) that contain the latest text of both the Internal Revenue Code and the Treasury Regulations in a single app.  I don't practice tax law, but the developer was kind enough to send me two free copies for review, so I gave one of the copies to my colleague David Wolf who practices public finance law and uses the Tax Code and Regs all the time.  Wolf and I agree that these look like useful apps for any attorney for whom tax law is a part of his or her practice.

When you launch the app, the you are instantly given the choice to use either the Code or the Regs.  Once you select a body of law, you are then brought to the search screen where you can enter a number of a specific prevision.

  

Use the wheels to enter a specific number and press the Search button to jump to that section.  For example, Wolf frequently helps clients draft various types of debt instruments such as bonds, so he often uses Section 149:

 

If you don't know the specific number, you can also do a full text search.  For example, I did a full text search for "volunteer fire department" and saw the two key sections.  Tap on a provision to see the full text with your terms highlighted.  Searches of the Code are pretty quick.  Wolf tells me that some of his searches in the Treasury Regulations took 20 seconds.  (The app warns you that the process might take a while and give you a progress indicator so that you can estimate how much time you have left for the search to complete.)

  

In the screens that I have shown above, you see menu bars at the top and bottom.  Using the buttons at the bottom, you can tap the left or right arrow to browse through the sections, you can tap the four arrows pointing out to increase the font size (or get the opposite result by tapping the button with four arrows pointing in), you can press the plus sign to add a section to a list o bookmarks, and the envelope lets you e-mail the text of a section.  However, if you don't press any buttons for a few seconds, the menu bars disappear so that you can see more of the statute at one time:

  

If you just want to browse through headings, you can tap the Code button to see the outline of the Code.

If you use an iPad, there is also an iPad version of this app.  Unfortunately, there is not a single universal app; you need to buy another app for the iPad.  It works the same way as the iPhone app, you just have more space to see more of the text at one time.  By the way, the iPhone and iPad apps can both be used in either portrait or landscape mode.

Unlike some other apps that contain legal statutes, these apps lack hyperlinks.  Those would make the app more useful, but Wolf told me that this might be difficult for an app like this because a typical cross-reference in this area law might be "as described in paragraph (b)(3)(ii) of this section" rather than "as described in Section 149(e)."

Note that there are a few other apps in the App Store which contain the tax code, but I cannot tell how up to date they are (and people have posted reviews on many of them complaining that they have not been updated).  The developer of this app says in the app description that this app will be updated throughout 2011, noting:

This upgrade will provide you with all of the 2011 updates as they become available to us. We expect there will be three updates to the Internal Revenue Code and one update to the Treasury Regulations in 2011. The initial version will start with the February 2, 2010 version of the IRC and April 2009 version of the Treasury Regulations.

Should you get this app?  Wolf told me that when is sitting at his desk, he is still more likely to use the paper books just because that is what he is used to doing, but when away from his desk it is very useful to have this extensive body of law readily available on an iPhone that is always with him without having to lug around the books.  You can find this same law on the Internet for free, but it is much more convenient to use an app like this that has everything in one place, formatted for the iPhone or iPad screen and easy to search and bookmark, and ready to use even if you don't have an internet connection.  At $25 and $35, these are some of the more expensive apps that you might purchase, but if the tax code is a part of your practice, I suspect that it would be very useful to have one or both of these apps on your iPhone and/or iPad.

Click here to get Internal Revenue Code & Treasury Regulations 2011 for iPhone ($24.99): 

Click here to get Internal Revenue Code & Treasury Regulations 2011 for iPad ($34.99): 

Apple's presence felt at Super Bowl XLV

For those of us here in New Orleans, last year's Super Bowl will always be considered the best Super Bowl ever.  Yesterday for Super Bowl XLV, I wasn't particularly interested in either of the teams playing, so like many others I mostly watched for the ads — which in my opinion were just so-so.  Apple did not purchase an ad yesterday, but it was interesting to see that the iPhone and iPad still had a presence.

As I'm sure that you know, many credit Apple for helping to cement the Super Bowl as the most important venue for running commercials because Apple ran its famous 1984 commercial during Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984.  Many still consider that commercial — the introduction of the Macintosh computer — to be the best commercial ever made.  I'm sure that most of you reading this have seen it before, but here it is again:

Although Apple did not run a commercial yesterday, its presence was felt several times.  First, Motorola ran a commercial called "Empower the People" to promote its upcoming Xoom, an Android 3.0 based tablet computer that will compete with the iPad.  The commercial is an obvious homage to Apple's famous 1984 commercial, except that the ad tries to portray Apple users as undifferentiated drones.  (It is interesting that Apple's white earphones are so iconic that simply showing someone with white cords hanging from their ears instantly identifies them as an iPod/iPhone/iPad user.)  I don't have a direct link to the commercial, but you can see it here on YouTube where Ad Blitz is showing all of the Super Bowl XLV commercials.  Here is the Motorola commercial:

Then there was the new iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, which ran an ad during the Super Bowl.  I don't think that I've ever seen a commercial on TV for an iPhone or iPad app before (except for the Apple ads that promote several apps at a time) and I certainly have never seen an app advertised in the Super Bowl before.  Between the $3 million that The Daily reportedly spent to run this ad and the other money that is behind this app, it is obvious that Rupert Murdoch expects The Daily to be a big deal.  (I have mixed emotions about The Daily myself; the stories don't have a lot of depth and it is slow to load, but I am holding out hope that it will improve over time.)  Here is The Daily commercial:

Then there was Verizon's ad for the new Verizon iPhone, in which they brought back their "can you hear me now" guy:

And finally, there was the commercial for the upcoming animated movie Rio.  At first blush, the commercial just seems like a normal ad for a movie.  Here is that ad:

But if you pause the ad at the 28 second mark, you see this for just a fraction of a second:

Look on that wooden box on the right and you see this:

That is a hint telling you to play level 13-12 in the hit iPhone and iPad game Angry Birds — one of the few games that I love so much that I actually reviewed it on iPhone J.D., even though this is certainly not a game review website.  (Level 13-12 is one of several new levels recently added to the game in a free update.)  I did some digging on the Internet and learned that you can unlock a golden egg on Level 13-12 by doing the following.  Your first bird is a yellow bird; do whatever you want with him.  For your second bird, the white bird, pull the slingshot the wrong direction so that he is headed BEHIND the spot where the birds line up:

Then release and just after he passes the other birds, tap your finger to drop an egg:

That will cause Golden Egg to appear which unlocks a new level in the game:

To activate that new level, go to the Golden Egg screen in the game, where you will see a special egg that is shaped like a football instead of the normal egg shape:

Tap the football to play the special level:

Once you beat the level, you will see a globe with an arrow pointing to a Rio icon.  Tap that arrow:

The app then opens up Safari and you are brought to a special webpage on which you can sign up to win a trip to Rio de Janeiro to see the world premiere of the movie:

While the football game itself was nothing special as far as I was concerned, I enjoyed seeing the references in the Super Bowl to Apple products in these four different ads, and I enjoyed playing the new level of Angry Birds on my iPhone.  Having said that, next year, I'd rather just see the Saints in the Super Bowl again.

In the news

There is no question about the biggest iPhone story of the week — it's the iPhone on Verizon.  I know many lawyers who have told me that they have been waiting a long time to get a Verizon iPhone and now are excited to finally be able to do so.  I am sure that we will soon see reports of phenomenal sales.  Here are the iPhone stories of note from this past week:

• As I thought might be the case, pre-ordering an iPhone from Verizon wasn't easy and its website got overloaded, as reported by Jenna Wortham of the New York Times.
• Nevertheless, Josh Ong of AppleInsider reports that both Verizon and Apple ran out of their pre-sale stock last night.  Verizon confirms this on its website.
• For those lucky enough to make a pre-order yesterday, David Quilty of TUAW reports that the Verizon iPhone are apparently already shipping with delivery expected later today.
• Apple better make some more of the Verizon iPhones fast.  Josh Ong of AppleInsider reports that according to one study, over half of Verizon's current Android and Blackberry users are likely to switch to the Verizon iPhone.
• Apple gave a number of tech journalists a Verizon iPhone to try out last week, and the early reviews are coming in.  They are pretty consistent.  The Verizon iPhone 4 is essentially identical an AT&T iPhone 4.  The main improvement is that, in most areas, there are fewer dead spots on Verizon so it is easier to make and receive calls and not have them drop, plus the calls often sound better, although of course this varies from location to location and there are still some spots with better AT&T coverage than Verizon coverage.  On the other hand, the data on the Verizon iPhone is slower, and in some cases much slower, than data on the AT&T iPhone.  The other difference is that you cannot use data while you are making a phone call on Verizon, so you can't send an e-mail or check a website while you are on the phone.  If you want to read some of the notable reviews, I recommend...
• David Pogue's review for the New York Times
• John Gruber's review on Daring Fireball
• MG Siegler's review for TechCrunch
• Josh Topolsky's review for Engadget
• Jason Snell's review for Macworld
• For now, only the Verizon iPhone has the Mobile Hotspot feature, but according to Dan Moren of Macworld, this feature is coming to AT&T on Feburary 13.  You have to be using AT&T's $25/month 2GB plan (which means giving up, potentially forever, your $30/month unlimited plan if you have one), and for an extra $20/month you get the Mobile Hospot feature plus an additional 2GB (4GB total). 
• Lonely Planet makes travel guides for the iPhone that normally cost about $5.99 per city.  But to give travel inspiration to those trapped inside with the winter weather right now, a number of the guides are now free.  However, this deal ends at 9pm Eastern tonight, so act quickly.  You can currently get free apps for my home town of New Orleans or other great cities including Boston, Chicago, Fort Myers, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, New York, San Fancisco, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver and Washington, D.C.  (Those are all App Store links.)  I've gone through the New Orleans guide, and it is quite good; hopefully the other city guides are just as helpful.  (Thanks to Jason Bergmann for the tip.)
• Joe Wilcox of Beta News points out that ten years ago in 2001, Apple made some investments and decisions that had major importance for the company:  (1) Apple launched iTunes in January, (2) Apple launched Mac OS X in March (which of course is the basis for the iOS), (3) Apple opened the first two Apple Stores in May, and (4) the first iPod debuted in October.  All four of those events ten years ago played a critical role in the iPhone being what it is today.
• The top two operating systems on the global Internet are of course Windows and Mac, but iOS is now #3.  According to Vlad Savov of Engadget, iOS's 2.05% share ie enough to put it ahead of Linux, Java, Android, etc.
• Alan Cohen wrote a great article for Law Technology News about how lawyers are demanding devices like the iPhone and iPad and this is causing law firms to find a way to support these devices.
• Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is apparently a big fan of the iPad, and shortly before she was shot in Tucson, she talked to Elizabeth Saab of the new iPad-centric newspaper The Daily about how she uses the iPad.  You can see the video report here, and this is a link on the web so you don't need to use the iPad app to read the story and watch the video.  It's worth watching.
• As we prepare for the Super Bowl, it is a good time to remember the famous 1984 Apple commercial.  Steve Hayden of AdWeek wrote a good article on the commercial.
• Ben Brooks of The Brooks Reviews explains why the iPad is a great tool to take to meetings.  He makes some good points.
• Chad Garrett of TiPb compares iWork and Documents to Go on the iPad.
• Ted Brooks reviews Jury Duty, a $39.99 iPad app that can be used to assist with jury selection.
• And finally, if you are looking to do something unique with your iPhone while it sits on your desk, a company called Apps-and-More has designed a cardboard cuckoo clock and other faceplates that work with an iPhone app to display the time.  The cost is $13.20, and you can see everything about how the app works in three YouTube videos.  The first and second ones provide the setup info, and here is the third one that shows the final product in use.  Silly, tacky, but sort of fun:

The Daily -- first example of subscription apps for iOS

Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch and Apple VP Eddy Cue (the guy who runs iTunes and the App Store) announced the new iPad-only daily newspaper called The Daily.  It has a ton of content and lots of pictures, and has a New York Post and USA Today sort of feel to it.  Many stories can be viewed in either portrait or landscape mode, but some stories only show a large picture in landscape mode with an icon at the bottom left telling you that you need to turn your iPad to see the story.

If you want a more comprehensive review of the app, I recommend these articles:

• Hands-On With the Daily for iPad by Darrell Etherington of GigaOM.
• First thoughts on The Daily by Jim Dalrymple of The Loop
• First look:  'The Daily' for iPad promises in-depth, interactive news by Neil Hughes of AppleInsider
• Another look at The Daily by Dave Caolo of TUAW
• News Corp. lauches The Daily news magazine for iPad by Philip Michaels of Macworld
• News Corporation Introduces The Daily, a Digital-Only Newspaper by Jeremy Peters and Brian Stelter of The New York Times

Interesting tidbit from that New York Times article for people like me who grew up loving Superman:  Murdoch originally wanted to call the new publication "The Daily Planet," but DC Comics would not agree to grant the rights to use the name.

There is little reason for me to discuss The Daily itself because if you own an iPad, just go ahead and download it yourself and see what you think.  For the next two weeks, The Daily is free (thanks to a sponsorship by Verizon).  After that, it will cost $0.99 a week or $39.99 a year to subscribe, with subscriptions taking place through iTunes.  I haven't decided yet whether I will subscribe to The Daily after the free period has ended.

It is the subscription model itself that I find most interesting.  I love reading news on my iPad, and I would love it if all of my print magazine subscriptions suddenly turned into iPad-only subscriptions so that I would always have my magazines with me when I travel or just find a few minutes to read.  The good news is that the subscription model used by The Daily will be available for other publications, so I hope that in the future we will see lots of subscription options for the iPad.  The bad news for publishers is that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is now requiring that any publisher who sells content — both books and subscriptions — must sell that content as an in-app purchase, which means that Apple keeps 30% of the sale.  Some of that is used to pay for the credit card processing fee, so the publisher does realize some savings by having Apple handle the transaction, but my suspicion is that this will reduce per-book or per-issue profits for publishers.  If the publisher sees a huge increase in sales by being on the iPad, I suppose it is worth it.  But if not, this could result in higher prices for consumers who want to consume the content on the iPad.

It is still way to early to tell how all of this will sort out, but I'm optimistic that we will soon live in a world in which I no longer have to pay for publications to be printed and mailed or delivered to me and instead I can just pay to have the latest issues instantly appear on my iPad and/or iPhone, all in a format that really take advantage of the iPad/iPhone and the iOS. 

Finally, I like this quote from Rupert Murdoch yesterday, talking about Steve Jobs and the promising future of the iPad:  "Here we have the man who invented the personal computer, then the laptop.  He’s now destroying them.  That is an amazing life."

Click here for The Daily (free for two weeks; then $0.99/day, $39.99/year): 

Prospective Verizon iPhone owners, start your engines...

If you are a Verizon customer who has been waiting for the iPhone to come to Verizon before joining the rest of us iPhone users, your time has come.  Or, at least, it will tonight.  The Verizon website says that early tomorrow morning, at Midnight Pacific / 3am eastern, you can finally place an order for a Verizon iPhone 4 to be available for pickup on or after February 10.  In the past, when AT&T has started to allow pre-orders of a new model of the iPhone, the phone lines and websites have been jammed on Day 1, making it very difficult to place an order that will make it possible to receive the phone on the first day of availability.  It will be interesting to see how Verizon handles what might be a huge influx in traffic.  Perhaps by opening up the lines in the middle of the night, Verizon hopes to limit somewhat the people trying to be first in line.

Having said that, as I noted in my original post on the Verizon iPhone, you should consider whether you want a few more months.  I suspect that the 2011 version of the iPhone will be available on both AT&T and Verizon in July or perhaps the end of June.  If you are a power user who is likely to appreciate having all of the latest cool features, I'd probably wait.  If you are just a normal smartphone user who is frustrated with whatever Verizon phone that you are using now and aren't the sort of person who seeks to exploit every possible feature of your gadgets, go ahead and order now.  The iPhone 4 is a great phone; I love mine, and I'm sure that you will love yours.

Review: FreeOneHand -- hold your iPad comfortably with one hand

I love reading documents on my iPad.  Having said that, the combination of the weight of 1.5 pounds (1.6 if you have a 3G model like I do) and the need to pinch the sides to stop it from slipping out of my hands means that I experience hand fatigue after holding the iPad for a while.  Sometimes I find that I can get a better grip on my iPad when it is in its case, but that also adds to the bulk and the weight.  I hope that the next model of the iPad is even lighter, but even with a lighter model there is not an ideal way to hold the iPad for long periods of time.

[UPDATE 5/23/2012:  This review is of the original FreeOneHand as used with the first generation iPad.  There is a second generation FreeOneHand that works with the iPad 2 and the third generation iPad, and my review of the new FreeOneHand is here.]

FreeOneHand is an iPad accessory that aims to solve this problem, and it does it very well.  The company sent me a free sample for review purposes, and I have been using for the last few weeks.  The product has a sort of flexible, rubbery, plastic feel to it.  The website for the product says that it is "constructed of flexible and resilient elastomers that snugly fit the edges of the iPad. FreeOneHand’s elastomer construction provides an excellent combination of lightweight properties, rigidity to function as a stand, tackiness to protect the iPad from falls by gripping almost any surface, and a rubber-like softness for comfort during use."  That description seems about right to me.

To use the FreeOneHand, you simply slip the four corners around the corners of your iPad.  This takes only seconds to do.  Once attached, you can easily hold your iPad with just one hand by using the knob and the holes.  I find myself using the device three different ways.  Sometimes I slip the knob between my second and third finger.  Sometimes I slip my fingers into the holes underneath the knob.  Here are pictures showing those two methods:

  

But the pose that I use the most is to put my thumb through one of the bottom holes and then grip the knob, much like you would grip a door knob:

In any of these poses, you can hold the iPad up for a long period of time before your hand gets tired — much longer than would be possible without the FreeOneHand.  I frequently find myself reading PDF versions of legal opinions using the GoodReader app with the FreeOneHand in my left hand and a BoxWave stylus in my right hand, which I use to highlight important passages in the opinions.  To be fair, after using the FreeOneHand for a very long period of time, I often find that it too can become uncomfortable — which usually leads me to just shift my grip position, which helps for a while.  The point is not that FreeOneHand lets you effortlessly hold your iPad forever, but instead that it allows you to hold the iPad with a single hand for much longer than you could without the FreeOneHand.

The FreeOneHand's hold on the iPad is very secure so you don't have to worry about dropping the iPad.  I hear lawyers talk about using an iPad in a courtroom, but I can't imagine walking around holding an iPad instead of a legal pad or document because it is so easy to imagine the iPad slipping through my fingers and crashing to the ground.  But with a FreeOneHand attached, I have no hesitation walking around with an iPad in one hand.

Even if I am just sitting in a chair or sitting up in bed, the FreeOneHand makes it much easier to hold an iPad.  (It is equally easily to hold an iPad in a landscape or a portrait position with the FreeOneHand.)  Here are two pictures from the FreeOneHand website showing these sorts of positions:

Here is another picture from the FreeOneHand website.  I'm not sure what this couple is looking at on their iPad as they are wearing their PJs, but they certainly seem to be enjoying themselves:

The FreeOneHand also props up the iPad at an angle when it is sitting on a desk.  This puts the iPad at a nice viewing angle for reading or watching a video.  The knob slips on a table too much for me to type on the iPad while it is at this angle, but the website shows people doing this, so perhaps with a different table surface you will experience better results.  But to be honest, if I were just looking to put my iPad at an angle, there are other products I would use that provide multiple different angles.  The unique advantage of the FreeOneHand it to let you easily hold an iPad with one hand.

If you want to see a video of the FreeOneHand in action, this post on the AppAdvice website has a video of use of the device taken at CES.  Also, here is a promotional video that the manufacturer put on YouTube:

This post on the Tech Bucket Blog also includes picture of the FreeOneHand taken at CES, including a picture of a belt clip (presumably an accessory currently in development) that can be used to carry an iPad on your belt.  I encourage any iPhone J.D. reader to please slap some sense into me if you ever see me walking around town with an iPad on my belt.

The FreeOneHand comes in six different colors and can be purchased on the FreeOneHand website for $39.94 with free shipping.  Having said that, I see distributors selling it through Amazon for up to half that price with $4.49 shipping.

If you ever find yourself wishing that there was an easier way to hold an iPad with one hand for an extended period of time, I think that you will really like this product.  It has certainly made it much easier for me to use my iPad in my office and at home.