In the news

There was no In the news post last week because I was on a family vacation at the beach and also because I instead wanted to report on the new numbers from the ABA on iPhone and iPad use by attorneys.  (By the way, while at the beach, I used the DryCASE on my iPhone 4S and took some great videos while my kids and I were enjoying the waves in the Gulf of Mexico.  Being able to record videos without worrying about the iPhone getting wet was a lot of fun.)  So anyway, I now have two weeks of iPhone and iPad news to catch up on, and here are the highlights:

• Apple is currently suing Samsung, alleging that Samsung improperly copied the iPhone when creating Samsung’s phones.  The discovery process has revealed some interesting photographs of early prototypes of the iPhone and iPad.  Click here and here to see some of the most interesting ones, as collected by The Verge.
• Similarly, Yoni Heisler of NetworkWorld shows what may be the earliest picture of an iPad prototype.
• Virginia attorney Rob Dean of WalkingOffice describes using TrialPad on his iPad in a trial.
• Evan Koblentz of Law Technology News reports that lawyers are moving from the BlackBerry to the iPhone, providing anecdotal support for the ABA’s recent tech survey numbers.
• California attorney David Sparks and Florida attorney Katie Floyd discuss their favorite tools for getting work done on their iPads in Episode 94 of the Mac Power Users podcast.
• The WestlawNext app was recently updated to support folder sharing, West km integration, retina graphics, improved fonts, and more.
• Lexis also unveiled a major update to the Lexis Advance website and the Lexis Advance app, as noted in this press release.  South Carolina attorney Justin Kahn writes about the new features of the iPad app on his iPad Notebook website.
• Massachusetts lawyer Robert Ambrogi of LawSites reviews the new Merriam-Webster legal dictionary app.  It costs $25, about half the price of the Black’s Law Dictionary app.
• New York attorney Niki Black recommends iPad resources for attorneys.
• Cops seize an iPhone from a drug dealer and them impersonate the owner in text messages to lead to the arrests of others.  Legal?  Yes, according to this report from Timothy Lee for ArsTechnica.
• Hopefully you know that I write a monthly column for BigLaw about the iPad and iPhone.  (You can subscribe for free.)  A few of my old columns are now posted on the TechnoLawyer website, including this article from a few weeks ago about enhancements to the next iPhone/iPad operating system, iOS 6, that attorneys who travel will really appreciate.
• Speaking of attorneys who travel, Kit Eaton of the New York Times recommends apps to use at an airport.
• It starting to look like the next version of the iPhone will be coming out in October, but if you can’t wait, Alex Heath of Cult of Mac reports that you can currently save $100 on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S if you buy through Radio Shack.
• Apple wasn’t the only company to report financial results this week.  AT&T reported as well, and I see from their press release that 3.7 of the 5.1 smartphones that the company sold last quarter were iPhones — almost 73%.
• Jacqui Cheng of ArsTechnica reviews four iPad writing apps.
• If you like to read a lot of magazines, Harry McCracken of Time reports on a new iPad app called Next Issue that lets you pay one price for a bunch of magazines such as Time, The New Yorker, Bon Appetit, Esquire, Fortune, People, Golf, Vogue, Wired, and more.
• Serenity Caldwell of Macworld reports that you can now search Google on an iPhone or iPad by drawing on your screen.
• Jeff Darlington of NFL.com explores how the iPad is being used by NFL players and coaches.
• And finally, I’m not sure what I think about Apple using celebrities in its latest iPhone commercials, but I have to admit that the one that came out this past week showing Martin Scorsese using Siri made me laugh.  Trivia for movie buffs: the license plate on the cab is 3S96, the same one on the taxi driven by Robert DeNiro’s character in the 1976 Scorsese film Taxi Driver.  (Credit to Buster Heine of Cult of Mac for noticing that.)