Because you are reading this website, chances are you have already decided to make the iPhone your smartphone of choice, but many attorneys are currently trying to decide whether to get an iPhone or some other device running operating systems such as Android, BlackBerry, Palm Pre and Windows Mobile 7. BlackBerry was long the traditional platform of choice for attorneys, but those looking to upgrade seem to be largely moving to the iPhone or Android. Why choose one over the other?
That is the topic of the latest Lawyer2Lawyer podcast, the excellent, flagship podcast on the Legal Talk Network. The hosts are attorneys Bob Ambrogi (a Boston attorney who publishes the LawSites blog) and J. Craig Williams (an attorney in the Irvine, CA office of the Sedgwick law firm who publishes the May it Please the Court blog). Ambrogi and Williams invited me to "defend" the iPhone and St. Petersburg, FL attorney Rick Georges of the great FutureLawyer blog to "defend" the Android operating system. Georges and I are passionate about our platforms of choice so the podcast got a little heated (and I fear that Ambrogi and Williams had trouble getting a word in at times!), but it was a great discussion. Unfortunately, we only scratched the surface; there was so much more that we could have mentioned with more time, but this is just a 30 minute podcast.
Even if you are not trying to decide between iPhone and Android, you will enjoy listening to this podcast. It is always interesting to learn about the technology that other attorneys love to use. For example, Georges brags about the fast, new LTE network on his Android phone — although he doesn't like how much it reduces battery life. Tim Cook of Apple has suggested that the first generation LTE chips are not desirable because they consume too much battery life and require a very large phone to fit a large antenna. But better chips will come along, and I look forward to seeing LTE come to the iPhone when the technology is ready.
If you want to listen to the podcast using your web browser (including Safari on the iPad), you can click here for the page on the Lawyer2Lawyer website devoted to the episode entitled Battle of the Smartphones: iPhone v. Android. Or you can download this episode of Lawyer2Lawyer (and subscribe to Lawyer2Lawyer) for free on iTunes by clicking here: 
By the way, if this topic interests you, then I would love to see you at the ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago in a few weeks. On April 13th, I'll be on the panel for the presentation entitled 2001 Smartphone Shootout, where we will discuss the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.
