Month: April 2012

Two years ago I reviewed a hardware product from Elgato called the EyeTV One.  You hook it up to your computer and attach an antenna to it to watch or record over-the-air HDTV on your computer.  I described how you could use the product with the $4.99 EyeTV app on an iPhone to either watch live or recorded TV on your iPhone (by streaming it from your computer) or by exporting the video to a format that works on the iPhone.  I thought it was a neat and useful product.

I am writing today to update that review because as nice as that product is for the iPhone, it is amazing for the iPad, especially the new third generation iPad.  Watching video on an iPhone works fine, although obviously the screen is rather small.  In contrast, the iPad is great for watching video, and when you combine an iPad with EyeTV, you get something really special.

First, you get the ability to stream live (or recorded) TV on your iPad.  I’ve used the EyeTV app on my iPad to watch TV in an airport (the ones that have free WiFi) when traveling.  When I was in Florida for about a month last year to try a case, I used this combination to watch live Saints football games being aired in New Orleans, even when the local TV station in Florida wasn’t showing the game.  Hook up your iPad to a projector, and you have a wide-screen TV that shows what you could have been watching at home, no matter where you are.

Everything that I just described works with the iPad 2.  But with the new third generation iPad, I’ve found that I am loving EyeTV even more for a second reason:  it provides the best viewing experience that I have ever seen on a portable device.

The third generation iPad with its retina display can show 1080p video.  You can certainly purchase TV shows in 1080p from the iTunes Store, and they look very nice on the iPad.  (Note that you need to go to the iTunes Preferences and then click on “Store” to tell iTunes to get the 1080p version instead of 720p; there is a difference in quality, as Iljitsch van Beijnum noted last month in this article for Ars Technica.)  A 1080p show from iTunes can look amazing.  But with the EyeTV, you can record raw, uncompressed, over-the-air HDTV on your computer, and then you can export that to a 1080p file that has compression but looks better than what you get from iTunes.  You sync EyeTV-created videos to your iPad the same way that you would do so if you downloaded a show from iTunes, and EyeTV adds all of the info you need like show title, series title, a description of the episode in the comments, etc. 

The resulting video quality on the iPad is jaw-droppingly gorgeous.  My home TV is a large 57″ screen, and when connected to my Blu-ray disc player, the image quality can be stunning.  But when you pack all of those pixels into a smaller screen the size of the iPad and you hold that screen a normal viewing distance away from your face, the iPad screen looks even better than a 57″ HDTV.  If I am watching a show with others, the TV is the best option of course, but if I am just watching a show by myself, I’d rather watch an EyeTV-created 1080p video on my third generation iPad than watch the same program on my big screen TV.  I never thought I’d say that when I first tried out EyeTV with just an iPhone two years ago.

Note that you pay a price in file size.  On the iTunes store, a 1080p one-hour TV show doesn’t have commercials and is about 42 minutes long with a file size of about 1.7GB.  So if the commercials had not been stripped out, a 60 minute show would have been around 2.4GB.  When you record an over-the-air hour long TV show on your computer using the EyeTV One hardware, the file size on your computer is about 8GB.  When you export that to a 1080p file using the EyeTV software (using standard H.264 compression that can be read by your iPad), the file size is about 4.5GB.  All of this math means that when you download a 1080p TV show from iTunes, you get a file that doesn’t have commercials; when you instead use EyeTV to create the TV shows, you end up with a file that contains commercials (unless you take the time to use the EyeTV software to manually remove the commercials) and that is way more than twice as large.  You really need to have a 32GB or a 64GB version of the iPad to have the space to carry a bunch of 4.5GB TV shows around.

But boy is it worth it.  I tried to take some screen shots on my iPad to add to this post, but a still image really just doesn’t do justice to the video quality.  Suffice it to say that the video just looks more amazing than anything that you have ever seen before.  The video quality is so good that I sometimes find myself not paying attention to the story in the TV show because I can’t help thinking about how amazing the picture looks.

Note that the EyeTV One that I reviewed two years ago isn’t sold by Elgato anymore, but you can still buy it on Amazon for $85.  Elgato is now just selling the EyeTV Hybrid, which you can get for $130 on Amazon.  That model adds more features, such as the ability to view and record unscrambled cable in addition to over-the-air HDTV.  I haven’t tried the Hybrid, but my guess is that the HDTV that a cable company gives you is noticeably compressed compared to a raw over-the-air HDTV signal that you pick up using antenna.  The EyeTV Hybrid also (currently) includes two years of the TV Guide service, which normally costs $20 a year and is something that you definitely want so that you can easily find upcoming programs and set your EyeTV to record (much like you would using a DVR).  I suppose if you take the $40 TV Guide feature into account, the two $85 EyeTV One and the $130 EyeTV Hybrid end up costing about the same.

Note that depending upon where you live, buildings around you, etc., over-the-air HDTV may not always be perfect.  In my house, the EyeTV tuner can get a great NBC, FOX and ABC signal, but every once in a while I have trouble with CBS, and I can never get the PBS channel to display.  When you download a show from iTunes, you know it is going to work.

I realize that EyeTV is not the best solution for everyone.  First, you have to buy the hardware, which as noted is going to cost you over $100.  You also need an antenna to pick up the over-the-air signal, such as this $30 model from Terk.  So altogether you are spending around $150, which could have paid for around 50 $2.99 episodes on iTunes (but if you record a few full seasons with 26 episodes each on EyeTV you may come out ahead on cost.)  And then there are a few more steps to get a show.  On iTunes, you just click a button to download an HDTV version of a TV show.  With EyeTV, you set the software to record when the program is aired, then you export it to a file to your desktop, then you drag that file to iTunes to add it to your library — not a big deal, but more than the one-step download of iTunes. 

But if you do go the EyeTV route, you are gain the ability to watch a TV show on your iPad in the best quality possible.  Whether you end up watching on your sofa, in your bed, or on an airplane, your eyes are in for a treat.  Plus you get the ability to use the EyeTV app to stream live TV from your computer, which comes in handy at times.  The EyeTV hardware is an amazing accessory to a third generation iPad, albeit an accessory that connects to your computer and not to the iPad itself.  If you like to watch TV shows on your iPad, this is definitely an option to consider.

Click here for EyeTV One on Amazon ($84.95)

Click here for EyeTV Hybrid on Amazon ($128.99)

Click here for the EyeTV app ($4.99): 

Today is the start of one of my favorite times of the year in New Orleans: Jazz Fest.  The event combines great music, great food, a great art market, and lots of good times.  Whether you make it to New Orleans for Jazz Fest or some other occasion, you should check out the free Ultimate Insider’s Guide iPad app from the local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, for some great tips on making the most of your time in the Big Easy, not to mention some great photography.  Click here for New Orleans: The Ultimate Insider’s Guide to the Crescent City (free):    And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Evan Koblentz writes for Law Technology News that Lexis has introduced e-book software for law libraries.  You can check out an electronic copy of a book and read it on your iPad.  Interesting.
• Sam Glover of Lawyerist.com provides advice regarding the ethics of storing client information on cloud services like Dropbox.
• The Your ABA newsletter provides security advice for iPhone users, based on the ABA TECHSHOW presentation by attorneys Sharon D. Nelson and Tom Mighell.
• Speaking of security, did your iPhone start asking you to provide security details?  Lex Friedman of Macworld explains why Apple started doing this.
• Attorney Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge compares the iPhoto app on an iPad to sophisticated photo editing software on a computer.  The iPad does surprisingly well.
• Minnesota lawyer Francis Rojas provides tips for getting the most out of your iPad in an article in Minnesota Lawyer.
• Mobile Apps for Law is a website that catalogs legal apps.  You have to pay $50 a year to use the website, but they asked me to announce that they just started providing a free RSS feed to recommend law-related apps.
• As I noted earlier this week, Apple sold a huge number of iPhones during the past quarter.  John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes that the iPhone not only accounted for 75% of all AT&T smartphones sold last quarter, but also accounted for over half of all phones sold by AT&T.  Employees at AT&T stores must sometimes feel like they work for an Apple Store.
• Does it seem like you are getting more spam text messages on your iPhone?  It seems that way to me.  Glenn Fleishman explains in TidBITS how you can easily report the spam to AT&T on your iPhone.
• Allyson Kazmuch of iMore provides some interesting details on the origin of Siri from Dag Kittlaus, one of the co-founders.
• PDFpen, which I reviewed last month, has been updated to add, among other things, support for folders.
• If you are looking for an iPad case that contains a keyboard, Dan Frakes of Macworld has a favorable review of the $99 Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover.  It looks like an interesting device, a cross between the Apple Smart Cover and a Bluetooth keyboard.
• And finally, although this is technically not an iPhone or iPad story, it is a reminder of how important it is to be careful in this world of electronic communications.  Rob Cooper of the UK Daily Mail reports that when the human resources department at the company Aviva Investors intended to send an e-mail to one person explaining the procedures now that the person had been fired, HR instead sent the e-mail to all 1,300 employees of the company worldwide.  The error was discovered and the e-mail was “recalled” (often a useless step anyway) but even that took almost a half an hour, and you have to wonder if some folks started their day by thinking that they had been fired.  Oops.  This is probably as good a time as any to provide you with this important iPhone public service announcement for replying to most of your e-mails:

I’m attending the PLAC conference today and tomorrow.  I’m sure it will be a great opportunity to get some tips on defending products liability cases.  If  you are also attending and you want to meet up and talk about anything related to the iPhone or iPad, track me down.  I brought a bunch of extra MOBiLE CLOTHs with me if you want one to spiffy up your iOS device.

Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2012 fiscal second quarter (which ran from January 1, 2012 to March 31, 2012) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. This is often the second best quarter of the year for Apple (the best quarter being the first fiscal quarter containing the holiday sales season) and this year it was also the second best quarter in Apple history.  Apple announced sales of $39.2 billion and a profit of $11.6 billion.  If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the announcement conference call from iTunes, or you can read a rough transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha.  Apple’s official press release is here.  But if you just want the highlights of the call that might of be of interest to iPhone and iPad users, then you are in the right place.

• Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones last quarter.  In the prior quarter (one that broke all records), Apple sold 37 million iPhones.  But the 35.1 million sold this past quarter were easily the #2 quarter ever for iPhone sales.  The next highest quarter was April to June of 2011 when Apple sold 20 million iPhones.
• Apple sold 11.8 million iPads last quarter.  Apple had sold 15.4 million iPads during the prior holiday quarter, and the 11.8 number is similar to the 11.1 million iPads that had been sold July to September of 2011. 
• Why is buying iPads?  Apple noted that a lot of these sales were to schools.  I’ve seen this first-hand; my son is in Kingergarten and the students at his school use an iPad lab.  Apple also saw an uptick in iPad sales to business and government.  Tim Cook explained the broad market for iPad sales:  “The incredible thing about these are that they span across many verticals, through government, through education, and many different functions within the enterprise.  It’s absolutely the most broad-based product I have ever seen in my whole career in terms of adoption rate into the enterprise.”
• 94% of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying the iPad.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook notes that now that Apple is also selling a $399 iPad (the iPad 2 model) in addition to the third generation models starting at $499, Apple is starting to satisfy some demand for a lesser priced iPad, such as from the more price-conscious education sector. 
• When asked to compare the iPad to Microsoft’s strategy of putting Windows on a tablet as opposed to separating a computer operating system from a tablet operating system, Tim Cook stated:  “I think … anything can be forced to converge, but the problem is that products are about trade-offs, and you begin to make trade-offs to the point where, what you have left at the end of the day doesn’t please anyone.  You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user. … Now having said that, I also believe that there is a very good market for the MacBook Air, and we continue to innovate in that product.  But I do think that it appeals to someone that has a little bit different requirements.  And you wouldn’t want to put these things together because you wind up compromising in both and not pleasing either user.  Some people will prefer to own both, and that’s great, too, but I think to make the compromises of convergence, we’re not going to that party.  Others might.  Others might from a defensive point of view, particularly.  But we’re going to play in both.”
• It was interesting to hear Tim Cook compare the incredible growth in iPad sales to other popular Apple products of years past.  He noted that as of this last quarter, “which was just 2 years after we shipped the initial iPad, we sold 67 million.  And to put that into context, it took us 24 years to sell that many Macs and 5 years for that many iPods and over 3 years for that many iPhones.  And we were extremely happy with the trajectory on all of those products.  So, I think, iPad, it’s a profound prproduct, the breadth of it is incredible, and the appeal of it is universal.  And so I could not be happier with being in the market, and the level at which we’re innovating in both the product and the ecosystem here is incredible.”
• The App Store now has more than 600,000 apps.  Three months ago, Apple announced that there were over 550,000 apps.  Over 200,000 of those apps are specifically for the iPad, an increase from 170,000 three months ago.
• What does Tim Cook think about litigation?  “You know, I’ve always hated litigation, and I continue to hate it.”  As a litigator, I’m feeling a little bummed after hearing that.  Cook goes on to explain that he’s talking about IP litigation.  “We just want people to invent their own stuff.  And so if we could get to some kind of arrangement where we could be assured that’s the case and a fair settlement on the stuff that’s occurred, I would highly prefer to settle versus battle.  But the key thing is that it’s very important that Apple not become the developer for the world.  We need people to invent their own stuff.”

For the last two years, I have used an iPhone car mount in my car (first the Kensington LiquidAUX and then the Kensington AssistOne).  I can’t imagine driving without using a device like this.  Because my car lacks built-in Bluetooth, the $99 AssistOne is a great option for me. If you just want a window mount, you can buy something simple such as the $19.99 Griffin Window Mount.  Earlier this year, Griffin released an enhanced version of that device called the AirCurve Window Mount, and they sent me a free review unit of this $39.99 device which combines a car mount with an acoustic amplifier.

The AirCurve Window Mount comes with four parts.  You get a mount that holds an iPhone 4 or 4S.  You get an arm that attaches to the mount.  Then you get to ways to attach the device to your car:  a mounting base that sticks to your dash, and a clear plastic base that clings to a window using static electricity.

I didn’t try the mounting base because I didn’t want to attach anything sticky to my dashboard, but I did try the removable clear plastic base on my windshield and it seemed to work well.  Just clean your window and then press down the base and remove all bubbles.  This creates a connection that seemed quite sturdy to me.  (I did see, however, that one reviewer on Amazon complained that he had trouble getting the base to stay on his window.)  Then you simply slide the arm into the base and attach the mount.

There is enough space in the bottom of the unit that you can attach an iPhone connector.  Thus, if you have an iPhone charger that connects to your car’s power outlet, you can charge the iPhone while it is in the mount.

What makes the AirCurve Window Mount different from other devices that hold an iPhone in a car is the AirCurve has a small hole near the speaker on the button of the iPhone which leads to a larger hollow area behind where the mount holds your iPhone and then to the large opening along the right side of the mount.  This space works sort of like a horn and is an acoustic amplifier. 

Thus, if you are listening to something on your iPhone without using an external speaker (such as Bluetooth to connect to your car’s stereo system), it will sound louder when your iPhone is in the AirCurve Window Mount.  Griffin says it will be up to 25 decibels louder.  To my ear, it sounded almost twice as loud.  The iPhone in the AirCurve Window Mount with the volume turned just slightly more than halfway sounded just as loud as the iPhone outside of the unit sounded with the volume at its maximum.  And if you turn the volume all the way up when the iPhone is in the AirCurve Window Mount, the sound is almost too loud, especially if you are listening the music where the sound becomes distorted.  Thus, when you use this device, podcasts, spoken words or a phone call sound louder and better, and music sounds louder although still not nearly as good as when you are using your car’s stereo.

When my iPhone phone was in handsfree speaker mode, the sound of my voice didn’t seem any different when I was speaking with the iPhone out of this device versus when I spoke and the iPhone was in this device.  In other words, when used with the phone, the other person will sound louder to you, but you shouldn’t sound any different to the other person.

My only complaint with this device is the adjustable arm is not very long.  I’m used to the very long arm on the Kensington AssistOne, which places the iPhone just over the dash in my car and makes it easy to connect cables.  Here are the two units side by side so you can see the difference, just in case this is significant to you:

If you want a way to mount your iPhone in your car but you don’t want to connect to your car’s stereo, the Griffin AirCurve Window Mount is a clever solution that gives you the option of making your iPhone even louder.  As Nigel Tufnel might say, this device lets you turn your iPhone up to eleven.

Click here to get the Griffin AirCurve Window Mount on Amazon ($39.98).

When I was at ABA TECHSHOW a few weeks ago, several people told me that PDF Expert from Readdle was their favorite tool for editing and annotating PDF documents on the iPad.  My co-presenter Brett Burney even included PDF Expert in this year’s edition of 60 Apps in 60 Minutes.  Readdle sent me a free review copy of the app and I’ve been using it for the last few weeks.  PDF Expert is a sophisticated app for working with PDFs on the iPad.  It is the same caliber of app as PDFpen, which I reviewed last month, in that it has lots of powerful tools.

Note that there are separate versions of PDF Expert for the iPhone and iPad.  Each costs $9.99.  I have only reviewed the version for the iPad.

There are lots of ways to get a file into PDF Expert.  Of course you can use the standard “Open in…” menu.  You can also connect to a large variety of servers, including Dropbox.  Like GoodReader, you can even choose to sync folders.  You can also connect to PDF expert from a computer on the same Wi-Fi network and transfer files that way.  And despite its name, PDF Expert can handle many file types beyond PDF include MS Word and images.

PDF Expert has a number of ways for displaying files that are contained in the app.  A grid view shows you icons with document previews for many file types including PDF, or you can select a list view.  You can sort by name, date or size.

Once you select a document, you can tap once in the middle of the document to view it full screen, or tap again to see menu items.  The second menu items is a clock.  Tapping it brings up a useful list of recently accessed files, saving you a trip back to your list of all documents. 

Tapping the grid button shows you all pages in a document.  From there, you can insert a blank page, rearrange pages, copy or delete pages and export pages to a new document.

The edit tool includes many of the common annotation tools, including adding boxes, ovals, arrows, etc.  For readable text, the app does a great job with highlighting.  For nonreadable text, the app includes a highlight tool, but unfortunately like so many other apps it makes the text that you highlight harder to read.  (PDFpen is one of the few apps to handle this correctly.)

PDF Expert aso includes a nice tool for signing documents.  You can use the full screen of the iPad to create your signature, then you can save the signature for future use.  You can only store one signature in the app, but every time you insert a signature you are given the option of either using your stored signature or adding a “Customer Signature” — in other words, let somebody else sign without saving that signature to a clipboard for future use.

You can add two types of stamps.  First you can add a picture from your Photos library.  Second, you can add a text stamp.  You can edit the words in the text stamp as well as the color, but all of the text stamps basically look the same.  The app also comes with some built-in stamps, most of which are simply text stamps, but there are a few others as well such as check marks, Xs, and tabs showing you where to sign.

The app lets you view a list of PDF bookmarks, an outline, and annotations, and you can tap on entries to jump to particular instances.  When you are done, you can export a file via e-mail or by using the “Open in…” menu.  If you enable syncing with a server such as Dropbox, you can export files that way too.

Having seen all that PDF Expert can do, I now understand why I met so many enthuiastic users at ABA TECHSHOW.  This app can handle most of the tasks that you would want for a PDF editor on the iPad.  Having said that, I can’t help but compare this app to PDFpen, and while each app can do things that the other cannot (or that the other does differently), I prefer most of the choices in PDFpen.  For example, as mentioned above, PEFpen does a much better job highlighting a document that does not have readable text.  PDFpen has a more sophisticated Library system for storing and adding objects to documents, whereas PDF Expert is limited to the text stamps and a few others (although you can also add a picture from your photos library).  PDF Expert has the ability to sync with a server such as Dropbox, a feature that PDFpen lacks (PDFpen lets you get a file from Dropbox but only syncs with iCloud), but I prefer to use GoodReader for my Dropbox syncing so that feature is less important to me than it would be to others.  For these and other reasons that are mostly a matter of personal preference, I suspect that I will use PDFpen more than PDF Expert, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t used PDF Expert quite a bit lately, and not just because I’ve been preparing a review.

For attorneys looking to spend $10 on an excellent app for handling PDF files on an iPad, PDF Expert and PDFpen are both great options.  Hopefully my reviews of both apps will help you to decide which app is best for you.

Click here to get PDF Expert for iPad ($9.99): 

Another week, another set of stories of interest to iPhone and iPad users.  Without further ado, here is this week’s In the News:

• Texas Assistant Attorney General Frank King writes about using an iPad at trial for the Texas Bar Journal.
• Attorney Sam Glover of Lawyerist wrote an article for Law Practice Magazine recommending iPad apps for productivity.
• New York attorney Michael Zussman wrote an article for The Federal Lawyer about advice for IP lawyers based on Steve Jobs.  A copy of the article is hosted on his website.
• North Carolina attorney Andrew Nettleman explains how he uses his iPad in a post for Tablet Legal.
• Attorney Matthew Hickey writes about using GoodReader to organize your case files in this article on The Sociable Lawyer Blog.
• Virginia attorney Rob Dean writes about using PDF Expert to sign pleadings.
• Giles Turnbull of Cult of Mac also writes about PDF Expert.
• Andy Ihnatko writes for Macworld UK that his laptop computer has become essentially a desktop computer and his iPad has become his portable computer.  I couldn’t agree more.
• Dallas attorney Tom Mighell writes about the limitations of the “Open in…” menu on the iPhone and iPad.  I couldn’t agree more that Apple needs to fix this soon.
• Mighell also explained what to do when an app crashes.
• Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer recommends 31 apps for lawyers.
• Horace Dediu of Asymco writes that Apple Stores have 17 times the performance of the average retailer.  In terms of sales per square foot, Apple Stores are twice as efficient as the #2 company, Tiffany & Co.
• Mark Sullivan of PC World tested for four major phone carriers in various cities across the U.S. and found that T-Mobile has the fastest 3G downloads and AT&T has the fastest 4G downloads.  I do have some questions about this study, however,  T-Mobile did well because it uses HSPA+ in many cities for its 3G.  In New Orleans, however, this study ranked AT&T as having the slowest 4G, but New Orleans doesn’t have LTE yet.  What AT&T calls “4G” in New Orleans is (for now) the same HSPA+ that T-Mobile has in many cities.  I only know about this issue for the New Orleans data because I live here; there may be similar problems with how the study ranked other cities.  Nevertheless, this is still an interesting report.
• Looking for a text editor for your iPad?  There are over 50 of them, and Brett Terpstra compares them all.  (via Daring Fireball.)
• Looking to buy an iPhone right now?  Steve Kovach of Business Insider offers some advice.
• Michael Rose of TUAW writes about the new Connect service from QuickOffice and the Box OneCloud services, alternatives to using DropBox to sync files to you iOS devices.
• Roy Furchgott of the New York Times reviews the Element Case, a half-pound iPhone dock.
• Chris Mascer of MacNewsWorld reviews Printer Pro, an app that helps you print from an iPad.
• And finally, do you love to use your iPhone but hate that people keep trying to shoot it?  Well then you’ll want to spend $650 on the new bulletproof iPhone case from Japanese firm Marudai.  (via the Daily Mail.)

My father is an architect and can easily draw wonderful pictures.  When I was a Freshman in High School, I thought that I might want to become an architect too, so I signed up when my school offered an architecture course as an art elective.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that I have no skills as an artist, and now instead of using a drafting table I draft briefs.  Perhaps if I had a different skill set, this site would be iPhone AIA instead of iPhone J.D.

Thanks to a wonderful new app called Paper from FiftyThree, however, I can now pretend that I actually have some skills as an artist.  Drawing apps for the iPad are nothing new.  Indeed, just yesterday you heard me talk about Noteshelf, Note Taker HD and Notes Plus, three apps that let you draw on virtual paper with virtual pens and markers.  But there is something really special about this Paper app.  It only includes a few simple drawing tools, but they are so brilliant that they make it easy to create wonderful drawings on an iPad — especially if you are using a stylus, but you can use the app with just your fingers if you want.

When you start the app you are presented with a series of journals, each of which contains multiple pages.  When you create a new journal, you can give it a name and either choose one of the 11 included covers or create your own cover with a photo in your Photos app.

Tap a journal to see the pages within, presented in a fan-like fashion.  Pick a page with a prior drawing, tap an empty page to get a blank canvas, or tap the plus button to create a new blank page in the journal.

Swipe up from the bottom to see the six drawing tools.  The app itself is free and includes the eraser and the fountain pen. For a $7.99 in app purchase you can buy the other four drawing tools (or buy them individually for $1.99 each).  I wasn’t long after I downloaded the app that I decided that I was going to want to purchase all four of the tools, but let me start by talking about the free tool, the fountain pen, because it is simply amazing.  I’ve never seen a drawing tool like this on the iPad before.  The tool draws a dark line, the thickness of which changes based on the speed of your movement.  It really does create the illusion that you have written something with a fountain pen, and I encourage you to download the app right now just to play around with this fun and free tool.

The other amazing tool in Paper is the Color tool.  As you draw with this tool, you get beautiful strokes that appear to have been created by watercolor.  Watercolor is a fun way to add color because it masks your lack of talent.  Watercolor is never really supposed to be “perfect” and instead is just intended to create a sense of color.  It doesn’t much matter if you stay within the lines and there is no need to fill to the edges.

The app also includes a Sketch tool (like a nice lead pencil), an Outline tool (a marker) and a Write tool (a pen).  For each of the tools you can select one of nine colors that complement each other very well.

Swipe down on the tools palate to make them go away and use the entire iPad screen for your drawing.  To bring the tools back, just swipe up from the bottom of your iPad screen.

Instead of an undo button, the app introduces a gesture that FiftyThree calls Rewind.  Place two fingers on the screen and then move your hand in a counter-clockwise circle to undo strokes one at a time, or move clockwise to bring them back.  The gesture is simple, intuitive, and actually fun enough to make you almost want to make mistakes that you have to undo.

What is interesting about this app is what it doesn’t do.  You only get the nine preset colors, so you cannot select another color (except that if you use the Color tool you can blend different watercolors).  You cannot zoom in to be more precise in your drawing.  You cannot make the canvas any larger than the iPad screen itself, although if you have a third generation iPad the app uses the full Retina screen of 2048 x 1536 pixels.  The creators of the app say that many of these ideas are under consideration, but their goal was to encourage creativity without getting people bogged down in so many options that they don’t know where to start.  I do hope that the app adds more features in the future, but I understand the dilemma; you don’t want the app to become confusing and bloated.  As Steve Jobs famously said:  “I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.”

After you are done with your masterpiece, you can swipe to browse between pages in your journal.  You can share a page by sending it to your Photos library, by e-mailing it, or by posting it to Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr.  As you can see on this page, lots of folks have made some truly amazing pictures using Paper.  Or you can stay right here and see the streetcar picture that I created after spending five minutes channelling my inner Bob Ross:

Try not to laugh too much at my streetcar, and I promise to think twice before exhibiting any more of my artwork here on iPhone J.D.  But even if I’m not going to impress anyone other than perhaps my two young kids, I find it really enjoyable to make quick sketches and pictures with this app.  The next time that I’m having a brain freeze while trying to draft a compelling argument in a brief, I can see myself spending a few minutes playing around with this app to get my creative juices flowing again.  And whenever I have a need to quickly sketch a simple diagram, this will be the first app I open on my iPad.

Paper is a beautifully designed and executed app.  The sophisticated fountain pen and watercolor tools let you pretend that you have some artistic talent even if you really don’t.  And even if you are just trying to quickly sketch something, you’ll get a lot more enjoyment using this app then writing on the back of that cocktail napkin.

Click here to get Paper (free; but in-app purchase for additional pens): 

I enjoy using a stylus to take notes on my iPad, but I realize that it is not for everyone, and often it is not even for me.  When I have to take notes at my fastest, such as when I am in trial or a hearing or taking a deposition, I stick with a pen and a legal pad.  But when I can can take notes at a less feverish pace, such as during a meting or when I am just monitoring a hearing or a trial, it is nice to use just a single device—the iPad—to store my documents, take notes, check e-mail, etc. 

There are quite a few apps you can use to take notes with an iPad, and my favorite one is Note Taker HD because it is so powerful, although the interface is confusing.  Earlier this year, I reviewed Notes Plus, a powerful app that I really like; my main complaint is that app lags in keeping up with your stylus.  Los Angeles attorney Robin Meadow posted a comment to that review stating that he uses Noteshelf and that: “I find it very easy to use and very responsive for pure note-taking — it feels just as fast as ink on paper.”   This wasn’t the first time I’ve heard praise for Noteshelf, so I asked the developer for a free review copy and I’ve been trying out the app for a few weeks.  It’s a great app.  [UPDATE 4/18/12:  Meadow posted a long comment to this post that is worth reading.]

To take notes, you first choose an existing, or create a new, cover for your notebook and then select the default page type for the notebook.  There lots of covers and pages includes, and you can visit the in-app store to purchase even more.  If you are looking to mimic a legal pad, the app comes with several relevant paper choices such as “Legal Pad,” “Ruled Paper” and “Wide Ruled Paper.”

The paper you are seeing in the following screens is the Wide Ruled Paper.  The paper fits entirely on the screen when you are in portrait mode.  In landscape mode, the paper width stays the same, and the area on the right is used to scroll up and down.  You cannot pinch to zoom in and out of the page; the size of what you write remains constant at all tmes (except for the zoom box, discussed below).

If you want, you can write directly on the screen. One minor complaint that I have about this app is that the pen stroke seems somewhat more fuzzy in this app than in other note-taking apps.  (Click on one of the screenshot images on this page to get a better sense of what it looks like.)  I suppose this is just an issue of personal preference and some may prefer the softer look of the virtual ink.

To write more precisely, the app includes the feature that I consider essential to any serious note-taking app:  a small window at the bottom that enlarges a portion of the screen so that you can write larger at the bottom and have it shrunk on the page.

I think that the implementation of this feature is poorer in Noteshelf than in Note Take HD or Notes Plus.  For example, in those two app the gray area where you can cause the line to advance is on the left, so you get to decide when to move your stylus to that area and have the window advance.  In Noteshelf, the gray window is at the right so there is automatic advance until you reach the very end, whether that is convenient or not.  Note, however, that you can also manually tap the arrows to advance the window.  Also, the zoomed text is far more blurry in Noteshelf than in Note Taker HD or in Notes Plus. The instruction manual acknowledges this, stating:  “As the zoom panel shows the page bigger than its original size, it is slightly blurred.  This blurry effect increases as you increase the zoom factor.”  Perhaps this is just a tradeoff for speed. [UPDATE 4/18/12:  I agree with Robin Meadow’s suggestion in his comment that this blurriness is caused mostly by the app not being compatible with the retina display on my third generation iPad.  I just tried the app on my iPad 2 and most (although not all) of the blurriness goes away.  I could live with what it look like on the iPad 2, but on the new iPad this is a problem that will hopefully be fixed soon.]  Meadow was right about this app doing a great job of keeping up with the stylus, perhaps even ever so slightly better than Note Taker HD.  But the zoom box area in Note Taker HD is not blurry at all, and I prefer that even if it comes with a very slight tradeoff in speed.

You can change your pen width and color using beautiful windows that pop-up when you tap a tool.  Similarly, when you select an eraser, instead of just having one eraser tool with an adjustable size, the app shows you graphical representations of three different sizes.  Nice touches like this make this app a joy to use.

If you have the need to change the paper type, you can easily do so, either for the current page or for subsequent pages.  In other words, you don’t have to have the same background for all pages in a notebook, so you can have a lined page for notes, followed by a blank page for a picture, followed by a grid page for a more precise drawing, etc.  Unlike Note Taker HD and Notes Plus, the app doesn’t have a built-in feature for creating perfect shapes and lines.  You can, however, insert pictures from the Photos library.  You can also insert Emoji symbols like smiley faces, hearts or a football, although that’s unlikely to be a feature you will find useful when taking notes in court or in a meeting.

Noteshelf has many other features too.  For example, in addition to writing on the paper you can also insert typed words.  The app can search for those typed words across notepads, and you can even add tags to notepads to make them easier to find later.  You can export one or more pages as either pictures or a PDF file, and you can e-mail it, print it, or send it to your Dropbox or Evernote account.

Noteshelf doesn’t have all of the features of Note Taker HD (which can do almost too much) or Notes Plus (which can convert handwriting to text, turn a circle or square you draw into a perfect circle or square, etc.).  It also seems to use a smaller piece of virtual paper than those other apps; the paper doesn’t seem as large as a legal pad so I seem to get far fewer words per page than with Note Taker HD or Notes Plus. 

On the other hand, Noteshelf does have more features than some of the simple note-taking apps, many of which don’t even let you zoom in on a portion of the screen to draw in a smaller window at the bottom.  Most importantly, if your goal is simply to write or draw on lots of different kinds of paper, Noteshelf handles that core task just fine.  And finally, as you can see, Noteshelf has a beautiful design, the best that I’ve ever seen on a note-taking app for the iPad.  

I consider Noteshelf to be a perfect mid-range entry in the world of iPad note-taking apps.  It does a lot more than the simple apps that are only useful for jotting down a quick number as opposed to taking notes in court.  Noteshelf is definitely good enough to be a true legal pad replacement.  It lacks many features in other more advanced apps, but those may well be features that you’ll never want to use anyway.  By including just enough features, and by packaging it all into a beautiful design that is fun to use, Noteshelf is sure to be a favorite note-taking app on the iPad for many, striking the perfect balance between features and simplicity.  I still find myself going back to Note Taker HD for most of my note-taking, in part because I appreciate the extra features notwithstanding the confusing interface and in part becuase I prefer the way tha the digital ink looks in Note Taker HD, but I suspect that I’ll still come back to Noteshelf from time to time because it is such a nice app.

Click here or Noteshelf ($5.99): 

There are times when you want a simple cover for an iPhone or iPad to provide just some basic protection against scratches.  The iShine is an inexpensive cloth sleeve in which you can slide an iPad or an iPhone with a drawstring at one end to cinch it closed. The manufacturer sent me a free review sample about a month ago and I’ve been using it off and on since then.  The cloth itself is made of soft microfiber, which means that when it isn’t carrying your device, you can use it to clean you screen. 

The iPad version of the iShine will hold any model of the iPad, from the original iPad to the new third generation iPad.  There is enough space to hold an iPad even when an Apple Smart Cover is connected, but the iShine is even more useful if there is nothing on the iPad screen because then the microfiber cloth will lightly rub against the screen and clean it while it is covered.

The iPhone version of the iShine holds any model iPhone or iPod touch.  There seems to be enough space to fit an iPhone even if it is inside of a case as long as the case itself isn’t too big.  Again, however, you get more out of the iShine if the iPhone is in there by itself being polished and cleaned by the iShine.

I most recently used the iShine over Easter weekend when my family traveled on a plane to visit my wife’s relatives.  Now that I have a third generation iPad, I let my son use my older iPad 2 on the plane, and I was looking for something simple to cover the iPad 2 and give it some simple protection before I placed it with a bunch of other items in my knapsack.  The iShine was perfect for the job.

If you are looking for simple protection for an iPhone or iPad, the iShine is a great option.  It is inexpensive, and in addition to covering your device it cleans the screen.

Click here to get iShine for iPad ($12.95) from Amazon.

Click here to get iShine for iPhone ($5.95) from Amazon.