Month: May 2012

I’ve recently updated the tools that I use to take handwritten notes on my iPad.  First, I updated my hardware; I now use the Wacom Bamboo Stylus that I reviewed two days ago.  Second, I updated the software that I use on my iPad.  For a long time I had been using Note Taker HD.  It is a powerful app but has a confusing interface and it lacks one feature that I found in another great app Notes Plus, the ability to see your prior writings in a magnification window (I’ll explain what I mean by that in a moment), but Notes Plus lacked the speed of Note Taker HD.  And then there is Noteshelf, an app that has a beautiful interface but isn’t quite as powerful as those other two.  For a few weeks now I’ve been using another note-taking app called GoodNotes.  GoodNotes is a $3.99 app (the developer sent me a free version to review) that includes the best of all of the features that I loved in Note Taker HD, Notes Plus and Noteshelf.

[For an update to this review, see this post from July 16, 2012.]

Interface

GoodNotes has a nice interface that is easy to use.  You take notes in notebooks (which can contain as many pages as you want).  You can create covers for notebooks if you want.  You can organize notebooks into folders, and you view the notebooks in each folder on a series of shelves that mimics the iBooks interface.

Viewing a Notebook

Once you tap on a notebook, you can view the pages.  Just swipe left and right to move between pages and pinch to zoom.

The button at the top right allows you to take notes on a page using, for example, the pen tool.  The button at the top left shows you the different pages in the notebook and gives you a link to return to the main library. 

From here you can rearrange pages, delete pages, copy and paste pages, export individual pages from a notebook, etc.

Pen, Highlighter and Eraser

You have a choice of three pens.  First, you have a thick highlighter with two different pen sizes and five different colors.  When you highlight text, the text underneath the highlighting stays dark — unlike some apps that make the underlying text hard to read when you add highlighting.  Second, you have a pen with three different tip sizes and ten different colors.  Third, you have an eraser.

Magnified Input Field

All good iPad note-taking apps include a magnified input field so that you can write in a large window at the bottom of the app and have the text appear smaller on the page itself.  This is the only way to get a large number of words on an iPad page because the iPad cannot recognize input that is as small as the tip of a real pen.  Apps like Note Taker HD and Notes Plus notice when you are getting to the end of the magnified input window and let you continue writing in the left portion of the window.  In Note Taker HD, however, it is tough to know exactly where you need to start writing again.  Notes Plus solves this by showing you the text you have already written in that left portion of the magnified window so that you can see exactly where to place the next letter.  GoodNotes works the same way and it works great.  Better yet, the text input is very fast even when in the magnified window mode, just like Note Taker HD, and unlike Notes Plus which I find to have a slight lag.

You can change the magnification in this input field by pinching inside of the magnification window, making it easy to add the small print that some lawyers are famous for.  You can also adjust the side margin so that when you get to the end of one line, you don’t start all the way at the edge of the page.  (In the pictures above, that dotted blue line represents the left margin that I created.)

Select and Move Text

Sometimes you write something, and then you realize that you want to put something else just before it.  Thus, it is nice to be able to select something that you have written and move it around.  GoodNotes has the best feature that I’ve seen for this.  Just tap the selection tool (right next to the eraser) and circle some text.  (If you select any part of a pen stroke, the entire pen stroke is selected, even parts that fall out of the circle.)  Then you simply drag the text to some other location.

Add Typed Text

Sometimes you want to type something on a page instead of writing with a stylus (or your finger).  You can create a text input box by tapping two fingers at the same time on the screen.  Depending upon how far apart your fingers are, that is the size of the text input box.  You can then type using the keyboard, or paste text that you have copied from some other app, or dictate text if you have a third generation iPad.

Import and Annotate Files

You can import files into GoodNotes a number of different ways.  For example, the app lets you import a picture from your Photos library (or take a picture using the iPad’s camera) and then you can use the tools to annotate a photograph.  (Read this post from a year ago to understand why this can be incredibly useful in a deposition.)  In addition to using a picture as your entire page, you can also insert a picture into a page and then resize it to make it take up as much of the page as you want.

You can also use the “Open in…” menu to open a file such as a PDF file from an e-mail.  Or, from within GoodNotes, you can import a file from Dropbox or Box.net.  I have found this to be very handy when a colleague sends me a PDF file and I want to annotate it.  Using the pen and highlighter, I can circle things, draw in the margins, highlight text and then e-mail back the annotated file when I am done.

You can also import a file and then use it as a template for future notebooks.  GoodNotes comes with several notebook templates including a blank page, a page with lines on it, a page with a grid (like graph paper) and even a page with music staffs.  But you can create any other background on your computer and then use it as a basis for a new template.  For example, I thought it might be nice to have lined paper that also had a dotted red line on sides to create a left and right margin, so I took the built-in template with lines (called “Ruled Paper”) and then used a PDF program on my computer to draw two dotted lines.  I sent that file back to GoodNotes and made it my new default template:

Conclusion

GoodNotes does not have every feature of those other apps I mentioned.  For exaple, unlike Notes Plus, it cannot convert handwriting into text or create perfect circles and squares.  In fact, unlike many other apps, GoodNotes cannot insert shapes at all (although the developer says that this is planned for a future release).  But when it comes to the features that I find most useful in other apps when taking notes, GoodNotes has them all, and the app itself is very fast to use.  And while there is always tension between ease of use and features, I find that GoodNotes strikes the right balance, packing a lot of capability into a good looking and relatively intuitive interface. 

If you want to take handwritten notes on your iPad, I highly recommend that you get yourself a stylus and download a copy of GoodNotes.  This is an excellent app that has quickly become one of the most-used apps on my iPad.  If you want to try before you buy, there is a free version of the app that limits you to two notebooks, a limitation that can be removed with a $3.99 in-app purchase.

Click here to get GoodNotes ($3.99):  [removed]

Click here to get GoodNotes Free (free):  [removed]

NOTE:  Those old links no longer work; here is an updated link to the GoodNotes app ($7.99): 

I’ve recently been testing out two styluses that have tips different from all of the other styluses on the market.  Yesterday I reviewed the Wacom Bamboo Stylus, a product that is unique for its smaller tip which allows for more precise drawing on the iPad screen.  Today I’m reviewing a stylus released by BoxWave just a few weeks ago called the EverTouch Capacitive Stylus that has a unique fabric mesh tip.  BoxWave sent me a free review unit of this $15 stylus, and it works great.

The stylus itself is 5″ long, a good length for a stylus and about .25″ longer than the Bamboo Stylus I reviewed yesterday.  The aluminum barrel of the stylus is hollow, which makes the stylus slightly lighter than some other great styluses such as the Bamboo Stylus and the Kensington Virtuoso Touch Screen Stylus (which I reviewed on 3/30/11).  I prefer a slightly heavier stylus, so I don’t like the fact that the EverTouch has a lighter, cheaper feel to it.

I have the silver model, but it also comes in black, orange, red and blue.

The marquee feature of this stylus is the tip, so let’s talk about that.  Unlike most other styluses which have a rubber tip, the EverTouch has a tip constructed of soft but durable tightly woven conductive fibers.  Boxwave calls it FiberMesh^TM and says it is a “breakthrough in stylus technology” that “is precisely engineered with an extremely soft yet durable conductive woven fiber.”  It feels almost like a Q-tip.  This results in a tip that is much smoother than a rubber tip, making the stylus glide across the iPad screen.  It is clear that a lot of thought went into this design, and I really like the way that it feels on the screen.

For writing or drawing, a rubber tip seems to me somewhat more precise — especially the Wacom Bamboo with its smaller tip.  But there is something very appealing about the way that the EverTouch glides across the screen with much less drag than a stylus with a rubber tip.  After you use an EverTouch for a while and then go back to a regular stylus with a rubber tip, you can really feel the difference in friction. 

I mentioned yesterday that while the Bamboo Stylus is fantastic for drawing, the small tip is awkward for other tasks on the iPad such as flicking through screens or pages.  On these tasks, the EverTouch excels because it feels so good against the iPad screen.  And if you are taking notes with the EverTouch, although it seems less precise, the reduced drag does seem to reduce hand fatigue somewhat if you are writing for a long time.

BoxWave claims that another advantage of the woven fiber tip will last much longer than any stylus with a rubber tip.  I can’t comment much on that after just a few weeks, but the tip certainly seems much more durable than soft rubber that can tear or wear down with use.

The EverTouch has a clip on the end and comes with three lanyards.  First, there is a 2″ lanyard that attaches to the headphone jack of the iPad (or iPhone).  Second, there is a 12″ lanyard with an elastic coil that also attaches to the headphone jack. Because of the elastic coil, you could actually use the stylus while it is still attached to your headphone jack, although that seems a little awkward to me.  Third, there is a 2″ lanyard with a ring that can attach to something like a key chain. 

I’ve never really understood the appeal of these sorts of stylus attachments.  Are you really going to let a stylus just dangle from your iPad?  I’d rather just use a standard pen-style clip to put a stylus in a pocket of my shirt or a briefcase.  Having said that, I’ve seen other lawyers use attachments like this with a stylus, so I suppose there is some demand for it. 

If you are looking for an alternative to a stylus with a standard rubber tip, the EverTouch is definitely worth checking out because of the unique and appealing way that the fabric mesh glides across the screen.

Click here to get the BoxWave EverTouch Capactive Stylus on Amazon ($15.00)

I like using a stylus with an iPad to take notes when I am in a meeting or when I am monitoring a hearing or trial in court.  (When I am actually trying a case or arguing a motion at a hearing, I stick with pen and paper, not only because it is faster, but also because I’m likely to be using my iPad to review pleadings or exhibits.)  I’ve reviewed quite a few styluses over the years, including the BoxWave Capacitive iPad Stylus and the Ten One Design Pogo Sketch Stylus (both reviewed on 12/12/10) and the Kensington Virtuoso Touch Screen Stylus and the BoxWave Capacitive Styra (both reviewed on 3/30/11).  Until recently, the Kensington Virtuoso without a pen (reviewed on 8/2/11) was my favorite, but I’ve been trying out two other styluses over the last few weeks and I really like them.  Today I’ll talk about my favorite one, the Wacom Bamboo Stylus for iPad.  It is $29.95 on the Wacom website, and I bought mine on Amazon for $28.25.

The Bamboo Stylus is about a half an inch shorter than the Kensington Virtuoso Touch Screen Stylus so it is not quite as long as a standard ball point pen but it is just barely long enough for my large hands to be comfortable to use.  (I am not a big fan of small styluses that make you feel like you are writing with a golf pencil.)  It has a nice weight to it and feels very nice in the hands.  It feels like a premium stylus.  It has a pen clip which you can remove if you want, but I kept it on because I often store it in my shirt pocket.

I like this stylus because it feels good in my hand, but I really love this stylus because of the tip.  The tip is smaller than any other iPad stylus that I have seen.  For example, here it is compared to the Kensington stylus tip, which is the standard size that I have seen on most other styluses:

That size difference results in a noticeably better writing experience when you are taking notes or when you are using a drawing app such as Paper.  Because the iPad is made for a large finger and not a precise fine point, you never feel like you are using a pen tip when you write on an iPad screen.  However, with the Bamboo Stylus, you really do feel like you can write more precisely than with other styluses.

As you can see, I bought a black one, but it also comes in green, blue, orange, pink and white.  I see that the Wacom website calls this model the “solo” because you can now pay $10 more for a “duo” model that includes a pen.  I can see why some people see 2 in 1 as an advantage, but I prefer to just use a stylus when I need a stylus and then use a regular pen when I need a pen.  [UPDATE 5/30/12:  Here is my review of the Bamboo Stylus duo.]

There are only three bad things that I have ever heard about or experienced with the Bamboo Stylus.  First, it is more expensive that most other styluses.  You can pick up the great Kensington Virtuoso Touch Screen Stylus for only about $16 on Amazon.  But for the extra $12 (on Amazon), you really do get a much better stylus for writing.  It’s worth it.

Second, even though it is great to have a more precise tip when you are writing notes or drawing, I sometimes like to use a stylus when I am using my iPad for normal tasks, such as flicking through screens or reading websites.  I actually find the more precise tip of the Bamboo Stylus less comfortable in those situations; the standard size tip on the Kensington stylus is better for that. 

Finally, I’ve seen some reports on Amazon that the tip on the Bamboo Stylus is more fragile than other tips and can tear.  I’ve only had mine for a few weeks so I haven’t seen this yet, but just to test what I would have to do if this did happen, I purchased some replacement tips on the Wacom website.  The Bamboo Stylus Pen Nib Set costs $4.95, and that gives you three replacement tips.  You have to pay another $5 shipping and handling, so that’s $10 in total that you have to pay — which is about the cost of some other styluses.  It is fairly simple to unscrew the metal end, take off the rubber tip (you need to work at it a little, but then it does come off) and replace the tip.  Who knows if I will ever have to replace mine for real, but the fact that Wacom sells the replacement tips — not to mention the fact that they are often out of stock on the Wacom website — indicates to me that some people do find a need for them.

If you can get over paying almost $30 for a stylus, I think that you will really like the Bamboo Stylus.  The more precise tip makes it easier and faster to take notes on an iPad, and considering that taking notes on an iPad will alway be slower than paper, anything that you can do to make that process faster is a plus.  And then once your notes are on the iPad, you get all of the advantages that come with that, such as the ability to easily e-mail your notes, save them forever without taking up space in a cabinet, and having access to your notes whenever you want them in the future.  The Bamboo Stylus quickly became my favorite iPad stylus.  If you want an excellent, premium stylus for taking notes on your iPad, I suspect that you’ll love the Bamboo Stylus as much as I do.

Click here to get Bamboo Stylus for iPad from Amazon ($28.25).

Click here to get replacement nibs from Amazon ($5)

I am sometimes asked how I find time to publish iPhone J.D.  The best answer is that I am a big fan of the iPhone and iPad, I love trying out new apps and accessories (and learning how to make the most of existing ones), and it is always easier to write about something that really interests you.  Having said that, there are times when I’m so busy at work and at home that I barely have time to post at all, and this past week was definitely one of those.  Thus, while I was sad to read a post yesterday by Portland attorney Josh Barrett announcing that he was shutting down his Tablet Legal website, I definitely understand where he is coming from. 

Tablet Legal became a resource for attorneys using an iPad only days after the original iPad was announced, long before any lawyers had even touched an iPad (except, perhaps, for a few who worked at Apple).  Over the next two years, it grew into a fabulous resource for people like me who use the iPad in the practice of law every day.  I always learned something from Josh’s posts, and I greatly enjoyed giving several iPad-themed presentations with Josh over the years and becoming friends with him in the process.  Thanks, Josh, for helping so many lawyers learn to be much more productive with their iPads, and the best of luck with your new law firm — which, by the way, has a great website.  And now, for the news of the week:

• Josh Barrett’s final Tablet Legal post includes an interesting recommendation that lawyers not clutter their iPads with all of the latest and greatest apps and instead try to concentrate on just the apps most useful to them.  It is good advice, albeit advice that I clearly do not follow given the number of apps on my iPad.
• I’m a big fan of TranscriptPad, an iPad app for reviewing depositions.  A recent update added some great new features, such as the ability to print a PDF of the entire deposition with all of your various annotations (highlight, issue coding, underlining, etc.) either visible or not visible, the ability to send an entire case file to another user (for collaboration), etc.
• Dallas attorney Tom Mighell compares four iPad PDF apps — PDFpen, PDF Expert, iAnnotate PDF and Adobe Reader — on his iPad 4 Lawyers site.
• Another reason I’m proud to be a graduate of  Georgetown University Law Center: the career services department created an online guide that tells you how to pronounce the names of 230 law firms.  Just click on a firm name and hear the correct way to say it.  And yes, it works great on an iPhone or iPad, so you can find out how to say that firm name correctly even when you are on the go.
• Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times recommends several airport-related apps to use when you are traveling.  GateGuru is one that I use all the time, but the others were new to me.
• If you are not in New Orleans this weekend but still want to get a taste of Jazz Fest, I see that YouTube is streaming both live and recorded performances today through Sunday starting at 2:00 Central every day.  Click here for the full schedule and to watch the stream.  There are too many great acts in there to mention them all, but for example: on Sunday you get Kermit Ruffins live at 3:15 Central, a recording of Amanda Shaw from last weekend at 5:10 Central (I saw that performance last weekend, and she was amazing), and the Neville Brothers live at 5:45 Central, plus eight other performances (Jimmy Buffet, Preservation Hall, etc.).
• Looking for a good, thin iPad case?  Alexander George of The Wirecutter reviewed a huge number of them and came up with his recommendations.  His top pick is the Joy Factory SmartSuite3, which looks very nice.
• Horace Dediu of Asymco crunched the numbers and came to the interesting conclusion that during the first quarter of 2012, Apple obtained 73% of all of the profits in the mobile phone market.  Samsung got 26% of the profit, HTC got 1% of the profit, and everyone else selling mobile phones lost money.
• Alex Heath of Cult of Mac reports that at Walmart (although perhaps not all Walmarts), you can now get an iPhone 3GS for 97¢, an iPhone 4 for $34 and an iPhone 4S for $114.  I think it is interesting that you can buy an iPhone for less than the cost of a 99¢ app.
• The Apple humor site Scoopertino announced a new app for filing lawsuits to get rich off of Apple:  LitiGATOR.
• And finally, what do you do if you are a woman who wants to carry an iPhone but you don’t have pockets on your dress and don’t want to carry a purse?  Mariah Gentry and Kyle Bartlow in Seattle have created an answer:  the JoeyBra.  The below picture probably tells you everything that you need to know about this product, but if you want to see the JoeyBra in action, click here for a video.  My wife’s commentary when she saw me posting this:  “Excuse me, ma’am, but I think your bra is ringing.”