Have you been watching the Olympics? I’m not as fanatical as some of my friends, but I have been recording the show on my iMac using an Elgato EyeTV and I have enjoyed watching many of the events. I have also been particularly impressed by how sharp the HD video looks on my computer screen using the EyeTV.
But a picture does not have to be razor sharp to be amazing. Exhibit A for this argument is the work of Dan Chung, a photojournalist for The Guardian, a British national daily newspaper. He has been taking pictures at the Olympics with his iPhone 4S using the $4.99 Snapseed app (Link: ). The iPhone 4S lacks an optical zoom, but he has gotten around that by holding his iPhone up to a pair of Canon binoculars. And the results have been amazing.
Note that for some of the pictures he is using other equipment with his iPhone 4S, such as the iPro Lens System by Schneider which can cost up to $299, depending upon which lenses you purchase. But other photographs were taken with the iPhone alone, with no extra equipment.
Click here to see Dan Chung’s pictures. And make sure you click on that link again later this week because Chung continues to add more fantastic photographs throughout the day.
It just goes to show you that if you use an iPhone 4S, you already own the same equipment used by Olympic-caliber professional photographers.
My search for the best stylus for taking handwritten notes on an iPad has caused me to try out lots of different stylues. Some styluses have special features that make them best for certain tasks, but my overall favorite has been the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo because of its comfortable small tip and the weight and feel of the stylus. But no stylus has a smaller tip than the unique Jot Pro stylus by Adonit. Adonit sent me a free review sample and I’ve been testing it extensively over the last week.
The unique feature of this stylus is the tip. It has a very fine point on it, about the same size as a pen. That would be far too small for the iPad to sense — the iPad is made to sense something the size of a fingertip — so the Jot Pro tip is connected with a ball to a disc that touches the screen. The disc is clear so you can see exactly where it is touching the screen.
To prevent damage to the disc when you are not using the stylus, the Jot Pro comes with a cap that twists on the top. When you are using the stylus, you can twist it to attach it to the back.
The stylus feel great in your hand. This is clearly a high-quality product. It has a good weight. It has a rubber grip that makes the stylus comfortable to use and gives you a bit more control over the stylus. (Adonit also sells the regular “Jot” stylus without the rubber grip, but I think most would prefer spending a few more bucks for the grip.)
The Jot Pro will attach to the magnet in the iPad 2 and the third generation iPad. This is not just because the Jot Pro is made of metal, but also because there is a magnet inside of the Jot Pro. (That’s the other difference between the Jot Pro and the Jot.)
The Jot Pro has a great length, just over 5.5 inches. Here it is compared to the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo (in the middle) and the original Bamboo Stylus (bottom):
My only complaint about the body of the Jot Pro is that I wish it had a clip to make it easier to attach it to a pocket.
You can get the Jot Pro in four colors: Gun Metal (shown above), Silver, Turquoise and Red.
But the real question is whether the unique tip makes this a better stylus, so I have been going back and forth between the Jot Pro and the Bamboo to consider the pros and cons of each. Let’s start with the good news. The Jot Pro really does create the illusion that you are writing with a pen instead of a stylus. The see-through disc allows you to be very precise on where you place the tip.
But there are some negatives. First, this is a very noisy stylus. Every time you pick up the stylus and put it down again on the screen (which I do all the time because I print when I take notes instead of using cursive) you hear a tap when the plastic disc hits the screen. I like to take notes in meetings, in court, or other environments where there are other people around. The Jot Pro is too noisy for me to feel comfortable using in any environment when there are other people near me.
[UPDATE: Two people have now written comments to this post stating that they don’t find the noise to be a problem. This caused me to wonder if I was the only one to notice this, so I did some research to follow up. On the one hand, several other reviewers have noted the noise:
iMore: “It’s also noisy when tapping or swiping, which can be distracting in a quiet setting.”
Android Central: “As quiet as the Bamboo is, the Jot Pro is loud – making a clicking sound as the stylus touches the screen.”
The Verge: “In fact, the Jot Pro makes an audible tap on the screen whenever you press it down to the screen to write. It sounds almost like if you were to tap your fingernail on the iPad’s screen.”
Judith Leist: “Second, it’s noisy. While soft tips cushion the sound, the Adonit Jot Pro’s hard tip does not. So if you’re doing a lot of small actions, you’re literally tapping out a drum beat.”
GadgetMac: “The second drawback I found is that the plastic tip makes a sound when it comes in contact with the iPad’s glass screen. Maybe I’m just used to the silent rubbery stylus tip, but I think Adonit should at least add a thin layer of dampening coating to minimize that “tick” sound each time you tap a certain spot on your touch screen.”
MyGreatPhone: “It does give the feel of metal against glass though, makes an audible tapping sound and can feel a bit scratchy.”
On the other hand, while I did not find any reviews that claimed that the Jot Pro was quiet, several sites have posted very favorable reviews of the Jot Pro without saying anything about the noise at all, which I presume means that it was not a problem for them. For example: GDGT, The Gadgeteer, PC Advisor, TechRadar, TUAW. And even some of the reviews that noted the noise concluded by giving the Jot Pro a high recommendation. For example, the review at The Verge concludes: “If you’re serious about writing on your iPad, the Adonit Jot Pro is the clear choice…” This range of opinions is something for you to keep in mind when deciding whether to purchase the Jot Pro.]
Second, the Jot Pro is somewhat less responsive than other styluses when you need to tap once, such as to tap a button on the screen to select a feature in an app. I often found myself having to tap twice or more to get a response. This is less of a problem when you are writing, especially if you write in cursive. But if you are looking for a stylus to use to tap icons, this is the wrong stylus.
Third, there is more friction on the screen than with a traditional stylus. I suppose some might see this as a plus, but I found it far more enjoyable to use the soft tip of the Bamboo Stylus which easily glides across the screen than to use the Jot Pro.
Finally, because the disc is made of a plastic, it is harder than the tip on a traditional stylus. This made me wonder if the disc could scratch the iPad screen. I certainly never saw any evidence of this in my tests, but if there were dust on your iPad screen and you placed the disc on top of the dust, might that scratch the screen? There is a long page in the forum on the Adonit website discussing the risk of scratching with a few people complaining of damage but others seeing no issue. Adonit recommends using a screen protector, which I don’t use on my iPad because I don’t like the way that they feel on my screen.
I’m very impressed by the Jot Pro. This is a high-quality product with a distinguishing feature that makes it stand out from the crowd. For some tasks, I can see the Jot Pro being the best choice. The Adonit website shows many artists sitting by themselves in a studio (where noise is not an issue) using the Jot Pro. I’m sure that many will find that the precise tip makes it an excellent choice for that task. I can also see an engineer or an architect preferring a tip like this for certain drafting activities on an iPad. But for taking notes in a meeting using an app such as GoodNotes (which remains my favorite note taking app), I prefer the Bamboo Stylus.
The MSRP for the Jot Pro is $29.99, which is $10 more than the MSRP for the original Jot (which lacks the grip and magnet). Adonit also sells a shorter Jot Mini with an MSRP of $21.99. But you can get the Jot Pro for much cheaper on Amazon using the link below.
Are you ready for a new iPhone? Apple comes out with a new model every year, and considering that the 2011 model was announced on October 4, 2011 and went on sale on October 14, 2011, I thought that we might see the 2012 model announced in early October this year. But this past Monday, Rene Ritchie of iMore posted a rumor that the next iPhone would announced on Wednesday, September 12 and would go on sale on Friday, September 21. Then Jim Dalrymple of the Loop — who has a great track record for predicting things like this based on his sources at Apple — confirmed this rumor, as did the Wall Street Journal affiliate AllThingsD, Bloomberg, The Verge, the New York Times, and then Reuters. That’s a lot of publications with good track records and good sources confirming the same rumor, so if you are wondering when you can get a new iPhone, now you have a likely date. Here’s the rest of the news of note:
Ritchie asserts that along with the new iPhone we will also see a new, smaller version of the iPad, something that many people are calling the iPad mini. This one also has a lot of rumors behind it, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see that announced on September 12th as well.
New York attorney Niki Black writes about the new ABA statistics on lawyers using iPads and recommends resources and apps for iPad-using lawyers.
Attorney Jeff John Roberts reports for PaidContent about a recent federal court ruling that Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson is protected by the reporter shield privilege and doesn’t have disclose his notes for use in a class action suit about alleged e-book price-fixing.
We know that many iPhone games are insanely popular, but how much money can a developer of iPhone business apps make? Readdle — developer of the Scanner Pro app I mentioned yesterday — reveals that if you sell one of the 200 top grossing apps on the App Store you make over $75,000 a month, and there are over a dozen productivity apps in that list.
Alan of Art of the iPhone has a good list of 10 useful tweaks to your iPad that you can make in the Settings app.
David Pogue also wrote an article for Scientific American in which he discusses Siri.
Here’s one more David Pogue story: his iPhone was stolen on an Amtrak train this week, but he was able to use the Find My iPhone feature to help the police in Prince George’s County, Maryland recover it. Unlike most of us, however, he had the ability to tap into his 1.4 million Twitter followers to get some help.
Bryan Chaffin of The Mac Observer reviews Projectbook, a new notebook and task management app for the iPad that also lets you keep all of your documents in one place.
Apple recently paid $356 million to buy a company called AuthenTec. Among other things, AuthenTec makes fingerprint sensors, which of course has fueled speculation that Apple wants to add this technology to the iPhone. Steven Davidoff of the New York Times discusses the acquisition.
Ken Segall was the author of Apple’s famous Think Different ad campaign when he worked ag Apple’s advertising agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day. (Segall is also behind the always funny Scoopertino site.) He has a new book out called Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success. One great story that he apparenly left out out his book has to do with the voiceover for the Think Different ad. Richard Dreyfuss spoke on the final version, and Segall considered having Steve Jobs read the script which would have made sense to me. But in a post on his blog, Segall reveals that another person brought in to record a voiceover for possible use in that commercial was none other than Phyllis Diller. Read his post to find out why that turned out to be an even worse idea than you might imagine.
And finally, when I reviewed the WhaleTail earlier this week, I mentioned that some might think it strange to see the tail of a whale connected to your iPad, especially if you are in court or a serious meeting. But for those who want to push the envelope even more, Florida attorney Rick Georges shows us the iDuck Stand. Read his post for more information, but this picture may well speak for itself. When you are ready to make your purchase, get $19.90 in your hand and click here to get it from KON store.
Scanner Pro is an app that I have been meaning to check out for a long time because several lawyers have told me that it is their favorite app for using an iPhone to scan documents. I just bought the app last night and I can see why so many people love it. Normally I like to wait a week or more before I write a review of an app to have ample time to try it out, but I am posting this review today because Readdle is celebrating its fifth birthday right now by discounting its apps. If you buy Readdle apps before the end of the day on August 2, there is a huge discount: $1.99 instead of the normal price of $6.99. And all of the other Readdle apps are on sale too, so for example you can get PDF Expert (which I reviewed three months ago) for only $4.99 instead of the normal $9.99.
Scanner Pro lets you scan a document and then converts it into a PDF file. I presume that you can use any iPhone or the third generation iPad to take the picture, but to get the best quality picture you’re going to want to use an iPhone 4S with its improved 8 megapixel camera, and that’s what I used for my tests. It works best if you place the document against a darker background. Alternatively, if you already have an image of a document on your iPhone, you can use an image that you already have.
After you get a picture of the document, the app automatically tries to straighten the image. In my tests, it often does a great job on its own. However, if you want to tweak it, the app has fantastic tools for doing so. Just drag each of the four blue dots to a corner of the page. Of course, you cannot see what is under your finger as you are doing so, so the app helpfully provides a zoomed image to the side so that you can move the blue dot to just the right place. After you are finished adjusting all four sides (or after you are satisfied with what the app did on its own), click the Next button.
Next, the app automatically adjusts the black text and the white background of the page to make the text on the page as sharp as possible. In my tests, what the app did automatically was great, but if you want to adjust the contrast or the brightness, tap the top left button to do so. And if you need to rotate the image, the button at the top right lets you do that.
After you tap save, you are finished with the first page of your scan. If the document has multiple pages, just go through the prior steps again to add more pages.
Once you have all of the pages, there are a few things you can do. The button at the bottom left lets you send the scanned document as a PDF attached to an e-mail. The button at the bottom right gives you many more options including print, fax (for a fee), upload to services such as Google Docs, or open the PDF file in another app on your iPhone.
But you might not need to choose any of those options because of two built-in cloud storage options that are very helpful. First, if you use the Dropbox service, you have the option to have the app automatically upload every scan to a folder called “ScannerPro” in your Dropbox. (This also works with Evernote.) I love this option because it lets you take a scan, do the quick adjustments, and then you are done. The document will be in your Dropbox folder on your computer (and on your iPhone, iPad, etc.) whenever you need to access it. So for example, you can scan receipts when you are on a trip and then they will automatically go to your Dropbox folder so that they are all waiting for you on your computer when your trip is done.
Second, you can use iCloud to automatically share documents with Scanner Pro on your iPad. (This is a universal app, so you can just pay for it once and then use it on both your iPhone and your iPad.) This lets you use the better camera on the iPhone 4S to scan a document, but then use the larger screen on your iPad to review the document.
As you can see from that picture of the iPad app, the scans are kept in the app itself. Thus, even if you don’t send your scans to Dropbox or someplace else, you can always go back to the Scanner Pro app to review your scans. You can also create folders to hold multiple documents.
The quality of the scan is quite good. It is not as good as you would get with a real, stand-alone scanner, but it is more than good enough to read and share a document. I created a sample document and then used Scanner Pro on my iPhone 4S to scan it, and here is a link to the PDF file that the app created if you want to see the results for yourself.
Note that Scanner Pro only creates an image of a document; it does not OCR the document to make the text searchable.
If you want to use your iPhone or iPad to turn paper into PDF, Scanner Pro is a great way to do it. Although it takes a few steps create the PDF, each of these steps works very well and is very fast.
Click here to get Scanner Pro ($6.99, or $1.99 today only):
Thank you to GoodCase Apps for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month. New York attorney John Upton started GoodCase Apps and created the $14.99 app CaseManager for iPad so that attorneys can have access to the key information about their cases in one place. The app provides a central location to store all of the key information that you need. You can add documents to the app to carry around the key pleadings, contracts, etc. You can add contact information, calendar entries and tasks that are unique to each case. The app even includes a Facts section so that you can track the key events in the timeline of a case and can help you track your time and expenses. All of the information is stored in the app itself, so you can access your information even when you don’t have an Internet connection. The following screenshots give you a sense of how the app works, and as you can see the app uses large, bold fonts to make everything easy to see:
). The iPhone 4S lacks an optical zoom, but he has gotten around that by holding his iPhone up to a pair of Canon binoculars. And the results have been amazing.
