I took a deposition yesterday in which the witness had produced thousands of pages of documents. In the past, that would have meant lugging tons lots of boxes and binders to the deposition. Instead, I just put everything on my iPad. I used Apple's Numbers app to read some Excel files. The PDF files went in to my Dropbox account, and while it took over an hour to sync almost 2 GB of data to GoodReader, everything worked great once it was there. Searching for a term in a 2900 page PDF file was slower in GoodReader than it would have been with a laptop computer, but it was fast enough for what I needed during the deposition. It worked great, and reminded me (once again) of why the iPad is such a great litigation tool. And now, for the news of note from the past week:
- Speaking of depositions, a California attorney asked me yesterday if I had any experience with using an iPad for a realtime deposition transcript during a deposition. I have not, and frankly I'm not sure that I would use this because I'd rather use my iPad for accessing pleadings, exhibits, etc. during a deposition. (Unless I brought a second iPad?) The website for the court reporter company Gramann Reporting, Ltd. mentions this feature, but it's not clear to me if they have a dedicated app or are just sending the realtime transcript to a web browser. If any of you know anything more about relatime on the iPad, I'd love to hear about it.
- The Lexis Advance app for the iPad (which I reviewed in February) was updated this week to support client-matter requirements. In the past you could use the app without entering a client or matter number, even if your law firm required these codes when accessing Lexis Advance on the web; now thy are required in the iPad app as well.
- When I need to access the full version of Microsoft Office on my iPad (for example, to view or add redline edits), I usually use the LogMeIn app to connect to my office computer or the Citrix app to connect to a virtual computer on my law firm's network, but if neither of those options are available to you, you might consider the apps CloudOn and OnLive Desktop. I'm still trying these out myself, but Harry McCracken of Time wrote a helpful article comparing what these apps can do.
- Speaking of OnLive Dekstop, Paul McDougall notes that Microsoft has recently given OnLive permission to do what it does, except that now the app uses Windows Server 2008 instead of Windows 7, which makes it somewhat less useful.
- Joel Mathis of Macworld reviews Notes Plus, a powerful app for taking notes on an iPad. I reviewed Notes Plus earlier this year.
- Philip Michaels of Macworld reviews SlideShark, a free app to view PowerPoint presentations on your iPad. It sounds like an interesting app, but I recommend that you just pay Apple the $10 for its excellent Keynote app.
- Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal praises voice dictation on the iPhone 4S and Android devices. I'm a huge fan of using my voice, instead of my fingers, to draft e-mails on my iPhone 4S and my third generation iPad.
- Ellis Hamburger of The Verge reviews iPad styluses. It's a great, comprehensive review and includes a fantastic video showing all of the devices being used. Definitely worth a look if you are trying to pick a stylus for your iPad.
- Quickoffice is a nice app for reading Microsoft Office documents on the iPhone or iPad. It was updated this week to add the ability to edit PowerPoint 2007-2010 files.
- Greg Buckles of eDiscoveryJournal discusses the discoverability of information on mobile phones.
- King & Spalding law librarian Greg Lambert of the 3 Geeks and a Law Blog makes the case for sticking with his first generation iPad. He makes some interesting arguments, but I'm sure there are iPhone J.D. readers at K&S with a third generation iPad, and I encourage one of you to loan your device to Lambert for a few minutes; I suspect he'll change his mind.
- Kevin Tofel of GigaOm runs through the multi-finger gestures on the iPad. I'm a big fan of the four-finger swipe left / right.
- Attorney Neil Squillante, publisher of the TechnoLawyer newsletters, writes about some unique iPad stands that don't take up desk space.
- Connecticut attorney Adrian Baron of The Nutmeg Lawyer discusses using a Netzero device as a hotspot for his iPad.
- The iPhoto app on the iPad is incredibly powerful, but because it has so many cool features, it takes some time to learn how to use it. Leah Yamshon of Macworld writes about the different brushes in the app.
- Better yet, California attorney Katie Floyd of the Mac Power Users podcast recently wrote about SCOTutor for iPhoto on iOS, a $0.99 app that contains a 50 minute video by Don McAlister of ScreenCastsOnline that walks you through all of the features in iPhoto. I purchased this app this past weekend and I learned a ton from it. It was definitely worth a buck. Click here for SCOtutor for iPhoto on iOS ($0.99):
- And finally, Rob Schmitz of Marketplace was recently given permission by Apple to take a look inside of the Foxconn factory in Shanghai, China that produces the iPad. This short video gives you an interesting insight into how your iPad was made:
