iPhone J.D.

In the news

I've heard from a lot of iPhone J.D. readers who purchased an iPhone 5 and are really enjoying the device.  Apple announced earlier this week that it sold over 5 million iPhone 5 devices last weekend, and I'm sure it has sold a ton more since then.  Even after a week of use, I am still finding the speed, the size, and the lightness almost unbelievable.  I also notice that I've been coming up with reasons to do things using the iPhone 5 instead of my iPad or computer just because using the device is such a nice experience.  What a great product.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Cheryl Niemeier, the law librarian at Bose McKinney & Evans, recommends iPhone apps for lawyers.  (via Third Apple)
• California attorney David Sparks calls AppleCare+the "$100 invisible iPhone case" because if you purchase the service within the first 30 days of buying an iPhone, Apple will replace your phone if you wreck it on two occasions (although there is also a $49 fee with each replacement).  I did purchase AppleCare with my iPhone 4, figuring that it was a new design so there could be issues.  I did have a problem with the button on my iPhone 4 and Apple replaced it for free; I'm not sure if that was because of AppleCare.  Otherwise I have not purchased AppleCare for any of my iPhones, and I'm not sure if I will do it for my new iPhone 5, but I am thinking about it.
• New York attorney and TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante discusses the TrialWorks Mobile App, a litigation practice management app.
• One Apple accessory that I have always enjoyed using with an iPhone is a dock.  Apple gave them away with the first iPhone and sold them for every model since, but they do not seem to be offered for the iPhone 5.  9 to 5 Mac reports that a person sent Apple VP of Marketing Phil Schiller a question about the dock, and Schiller responded in an email that Apple does not plan to make one for the iPhone 5.  And of course, they do not appear on the Apple Store website.  On the other hand, Apple has said that they plan to sell a Lightning connector to VGA cord and that isn't on the Apple website yet either, and AppleInsider reports that that the official iPhone 5 user guide references an Apple-made dock.  It could just be part of the iPhone 4S user guide that Apple forgot to update correctly, or maybe there is hope yet for an Apple-branded dock for those of us who use them.  We'll see.
• Now that the iPhone 5 is out, we are seeing many more reviews.  A few of them are really good and worth reading if you want to learn more about the iPhone 5 — either because you are thinking of buying one, or you just bought one and you want to learn more about the features.  Attorney Jeremy Horwitz wrote a great review for iLounge.  Rene Ritchie up in Montreal wrote a great review for iMore.  Jason Snell wrote a great review for Macworld.  And I also like this review by John Brownlee of Cult of Mac.
• Bryan Gardiner of Wired wrote an in-depth article on the ultrathin, ultrastrong Gorilla Glass used on the iPhone 5.
• James Galbraith of Macworld reports that the battery in the iPhone 5 lasts almost as long as the battery in the iPhone 4 and 4S.
• iFixYouri did a drop test and concluded that the iPhone 5 is the most durable iPhone yet, thanks to the new Gorilla Glass and the light design.
• David Car of BrainYardNews explains how NASA astronauts are using iPads to train for asteroid exploration.
• Eric Slivka of MacRumors reports on a study from Opower that concludes that the electricity cost to fully charge an iPhone 5 once a day for a year is just $0.41.  That's up three cents from the iPhone 4.
• I use a Bose SoundDock Portable to play music in my living room, but of course the 30-pin dock connector won't work with the iPhone 5.  I've ordered one of the Apple connectors due to ship next month which may be a solution, but I also see in an article by Agam Shah for IDG News Service that Bose is "working to add iPhone 5 compatibility to its popular SoundDock speaker dock, which will become available later this year, a Bose spokeswoman said."  That's good news.
• Using iOS 6 on an iPad?  Geoffrey Goetz of GigaOm has 10 tips for you.
• Erica Sadun of TUAW compiled a good list of what you can say to Siri in iOS 6.
• I really like Apple's new Maps app, but it is clearly a 1.0 product.  The 3D renderings are amazing, and the turn-by-turn directions are usually very good, but it needs more information on places (Points of Interest).  Others, however, are more negative on Maps.  David Pogue of the New York Times wrote a negative review of Maps.  John Paczkowski of All Things D explains the business reasons behind Apple releasing a new Maps app based on its own data instead of Google data.  And while Google's Motorola subsidiary has been running ads making fun of an address in New York that an Android phone can find but not an iPhone 5, Daniel Eran Dilger of AppleInsider explains that it is actually a misleading address that was picked to produce what looks like a wrong result.  [UPDATE:  Apple's CEO Tim Cook issued a public statement this morning on the Maps app.]
• Another week, another Find My iPhone to the rescue story.  According to an AP article in USA Today, a Nevada man left his iPad on an airplane, but then used Find My iPhone to trace it to the house of the flight attendant on the plane.  She told the police that she had planned to turn it in, but the police saw that she had already started putting her personal information on the iPad, so she was arrested and the iPad was returned.  (via the Jonathan Turley blog, which has a picture of the flight attendant.)
• And finally, just a month ago I linked to a concept design for a manual-style typewriter that works with the iPad.  Here is a more elegant solution, a USB typewriter for the computer or iPad.  Too funny, and this one is not just a concept video; you can buy a kit to convert your old typewriter for $74.

Review: Congress.gov -- free legislative information formatted for the iPhone screen

Attorney Andrew Weber, the Legislative Information Systems Manager the Law Library of Congress, recently sent me a note to announce the debut this month of Congress.gov, a free public site for accessing legislative information.  The new site will eventually replace the THOMAS system which has served as the official database for legislative information since 1995.  Because Congress.gov is based on a new infrastructure, it is much more powerful than THOMAS.  For example, you can now search across all content in the system at once.

You can use Congress.gov from virtually any device, but I'm mentioning the site today because it looks especially nice on an iPhone, a result of the website being designed to dynamically fit the size of the screen that you are using.  This change was intentional; improving mobile access was one of the goals of the new Congress.gov site.  For example, on a computer it looks like this:

On an iPhone 5 in landscape mode, the site adjusts itself to look like this:

And on an iPhone 5 in portrait mode, it looks like this.  The second picture shows what you see when you tap the small "menu" button at the top left to show the menu choices that are two small to fit across the screen in this view:

 

You can easily see the dynamic resizing in action on your computer if you go to Congress.gov and drag the corner of your window to make it smaller.

You can access a wealth of legislative information at Congress.gov, including the text of bills, bill summary and status, and profiles of Members of Congress.  The Congressional Record will be added soon, but note that the Library of Congress already has a free app that lets you view the CR on an iPhone or iPad.

 

If you want a more traditional look, Congress.gov lets you view PDF versions of bills and laws:

Easy to access, public information about congressional activity is of course essential if you are a governmental relations lawyer, but it is also important for the rest of us too.  Kudos to Andrew Weber and the rest of the tech-savvy folks at the Library of Congress for working to keep the legislative process open so that U.S. citizens have the opportunity to be informed.

Click here to access Congress.gov (free).

Review: Rulebook + The Bluebook -- a uniform system of citation on the iPhone and iPad

Earlier this year, I reviewed Rulebook, a free app by Utah attorney Greg Hoole that lets you purchase bodies of statutory law and rules so that you can access them on your iPhone and iPad.  I was impressed with the app because it includes all of the features that you would want for such an app (browse, search, bookmark, highlight, annotate), plus at least one innovative feature — the ability to save your notes and highlighting even when the rule itself is updated.  My only somewhat negative comment about the app was that I wanted to see more content, because at the time the app only offered the major federal rules (Appellate, Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure and Evidence) plus the state and local rules for California, New York, Texas and Utah.

Some content from others states has been added over the last few months (Arizona, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio), but the exciting new content added last month is the addition of The Bluebook.  Yes, The Bluebook, the arguably authoritative guide to legal citation for over 80 years, a joint venture from the fine folks behind the law reviews of Harvard, Columbia, U. Penn. and Yale, now in its 19th edition.  (Fun fact:  the first fourteen editions were simply called "A Uniform System of Citation," and it was not until the fifteenth edition released in 1991 — when I started law school — that "The Bluebook" was added to the title.)  I've been working with a review copy of The Bluebook for the last few weeks, and I'm impressed.

If you went to law school, I don't need to tell you what is in The Bluebook.  Suffice it to say that all of the content is here, the entire text of The Bluebook including all of the Bluepages, all of the rules, and all of the tables.  But in a great app like Rulebook, it is easier than ever to use the Bluebook.

In the iPad version, you see a list of rules on the left.  Simply tap a rule to see the text of The Bluebook on the right.  When there is a reference to another part of The Bluebook, you can simply tap the hyperlink to jump right there.  And any references to external websites will launch the website in Safari when you tap them.

You can also add bookmarks.  For example, I try to follow Bluebook format when I abbreviate case names, so my paper version of The Bluebook contains a Post-It Note for Table T6.  In the app, I can simply add T6 to my list of bookmarks.

Instead of simply browsing the rules or using the Bookmarks feature to find something, you can access the Index.  Just scroll down to the bottom of the list on the left, select the first letter, and then tap an entry to jump to the section of The Bluebook.

You also perform a full text search, something that is not possible with the paper version.  So, for example, let's say that I want to cite the treatise that we all simply call "Wright & Miller," which I remember is an example somewhere in The Bluebook.  I can do a search for "Wright" and just tap on the first result (Section B8.1 from the Bluepages) to see the correct citation format for a brief:

You can also do more complicated AND/OR searches by selecting whether you want to search for an exact phrase, all words, or any word. 

Note that some parts of The Bluebook will not show up in a full text search.  For example, the entries in Table T6 (shown above) are a static graphic.  Thus, I cannot do a search for "Maritime" to find the part of T6 that says to use "Mar."

You can also use all of the formatting functions that Rulebook offers for other content.  So if you want to read The Bluebook in 19 point Marker Felt, have at it.  I won't judge you for it, although I cannot speak for the editors of the Harvard Law Review.

The above images are all from the iPad version of The Bluebook, but it works on the iPhone as well.  The format is adjusted for the smaller iPhone screen, but all of the content is there.

 

Because of the unique way that Rulebook handles content updates, the content of The Bluebook can be updated without you losing your annotations.  For example, the current 19th edition was released 2010, but it has been updated twice since then.  Greg Hoole tells me that any future updates to the 19th edition will be included free of charge.  I presume that the 20th edition of The Bluebook will be released around 2015 (they appear to be on a five year release cycle right now); whenever it does come out, Hoole tells me that will be a separate charge.

Speaking of cost, you pay for virtually all content in the Rulebook app, and The Bluebook costs $39.99.  To put this price in perspective, the paper version of The Bluebook costs $34 but that doesn't include updates, search, hyperlinks, etc.  There is also an online subscription version of The Bluebook that costs $32 for one year or $50 for three years.  I'm told that when you purchase The Bluebook on one iOS device (such as an iPad) you will also be able to use it on your other iOS devices as well (such as your iPhone) but I wasn't able to confirm that with my review copy.

Working with The Bluebook reminds me a lot of the Black's Law Dictionary app.  I reviewed that $54.99 app two years ago, but I continue to use it today mainly just because it is always with me.  I would never think to carry a hard copy of Black's Law Dictionary to court, but there have been times when I've wanted to use the right words to explain something in a hearing so I've pulled my iPhone out of my pocket and looked up the definition of a legal term to help me come up with the right way to say something.  A paper copy of The Bluebook is smaller and lighter, but unless you are in law school and working on a law review article, you are unlikely to ever carry it around ... but you might find yourself at home one night working on a brief and wondering how to cite a blog post, and then you might find instant access to Rule 18.2.2 using the device on you desk or in your pocket very useful.

I suppose I should point out that I don't always follow the citation formats in The Bluebook.  For example, we have some citation customs here in Louisiana that are different.  (I know ... big surprise to learn that things are different in Louisiana, the only state based on the French Civil Code instead of English common law.)  But I appreciate having access to The Bluebook as a reference guide, and now that it is on my iPad and iPhone, access is easier than ever.

If you are a litigator, in academia, or citations are otherwise a part of your law practice, then you may appreciate seeing The Bluebook available for the iPhone and iPad as much as I do.  And I'm especially happy to see it part of a well-designed app like Rulebook.

Click here to get Rulebook (free): 

(You can then purchase The Bluebook by tapping the Library icon at the bottom left and selecting "Style Manuals")

My experience with the iPhone 5

After the iPhone 5 was announced, I discussed the reasons that I thought that lawyers would love it.  I received my iPhone 5 on Friday and I've using it extensively over the weekend.  Here are some additional thoughts that I have after using this outstanding device.

Size and weight.  Every review of the iPhone 5 notes that it is thinner and lighter, but boy is it noticeable.  I usually wear a shirt with a front pocket and I've been keeping devices there since I first got a Palm III in 1998.  Over these last 14 years, the devices that I have kept in that pocket have, for the most part, gotten thinner and lighter every year, but I can't remember a change as noticeable as this one before.  It's not even that my iPhone 4S was that heavy, it's just that the iPhone 5 is first device I've used that crosses the threshold over to being barely noticeable in my pocket.  Additionally, the weight feels great in the hand, not at all heavy but with a premium feel.  I've heard some people wonder why Apple is always working so hard to make devices thinner and lighter, but after a weekend with the iPhone 5, I now understand why this is worth pursuing.

Longer screen.  As you know, the width of the iPhone 5 remains unchanged from earlier models, but the screen is longer.  In daily use, this is an amazing improvement.  The iPhone 5 feels just as good in your hand, but you can now see more.  When I look at a list of emails, a list of tweets, a list in the Settings app, or any other list on the iPhone 5, I really notice that I can see so much more.  It's like being seated in coach on an airplane and then being notified that you have been upgraded and you can move up to First Class.  Suddenly you have that extra space to stretch out, you don't feel cramped by the seat in front of you, and you find that you can be even more productive.  It's really nice.

Plus, the extra length means that you have an extra row on each of your Home Screens.  If you are like me, then your first Home Screen is prime real estate — the Boardwalk and Park Place of apps.  Whenever a really good app comes along that I want to add to my first home screen, I have to make a difficult decision of what gets bumped back.  Two apps enter the ring; only one survives.  It can be a bloody process.  But now suddenly I have four more spots on my first home screen.  After using an iPhone all of these years, this is a major change, and I'm still deciding how to distribute the riches.

4G LTE speed.  I figured that fast 4G LTE service would make a difference, and that's why I wrote about it before we even knew for sure that it would be a feature in the iPhone 5.  But now that I've spent a weekend with it ... WOW.  I have the AT&T version of the iPhone 5, and here in New Orleans, LTE is unbelievably fast.  As a point of comparison, at my home I have the most expensive cable modem service that Cox sells in this market.  On my computer (using a wired connection), I usually see download speeds in the 20 Mbps to 35 Mbps range, which I consider quite fast.  The speed of WiFi in my house depends upon where I am located.  If am very close to my WiFi router (an Airport Extreme Base Station), I can get speeds of 25 Mbps to 30 Mbps on an iPhone 5 or an iPhone 4S, and as I move to other spots in my house the speed drops to around 10 Mbps.

But if I turn off WiFi on the iPhone 5 and rely on AT&T LTE, the speeds are higher.  I have been running speed tests all weekend using the free Speedtest.net Mobile Speed Test app () and the FCC Mobile Broadband Test app ().  I usually see speeds in the 20-35 Mbps range, but very often, at least 25% of the time, I am seeing speeds in the 40-50 Mbps range.  Yesterday afternoon, I attended the Saints football game at the Superdome, and while the game itself was a painful experience, the LTE speeds were impressive.  That was a confined area with 70,000 other people in one spot, and presumably at least some of them were using AT&T LTE, but I still got consistent results in the 30-40 Mbps range.  And late Saturday night, and again last night, I saw speeds over 50 Mbps:

 

I have never before seen download speeds this fast on any device.  The speeds are fast enough to make me wish I could use LTE all the time and just ignore WiFi.  Of course, if I did so, I'm sure that I would exceed my AT&T monthly data cap. 

These are just numbers.  What does 4G LTE on the iPhone 5 mean in real life?  It means that webpages load incredibly quickly.  Large attachments download with virtually no delay.  When network speed is critical for an app (for example, LogMeIn), these apps work brilliantly over LTE.  When I need to access a large PDF file in my Dropbox, it just pops up after a few seconds.  It's a big deal, and it means that the iPhone always has a fast connection without needing to worry about whether I am using WiFi or not. 

LTE might be slower in your city than it is here in the Crescent City.  (If you have an iPhone 5 and you have run speed tests in your city, feel free to comment on this post and share your speeds; I'd love to see them.).  And perhaps over time as more people use LTE services we will all see speed decline.  But for now, I'm finding that unlike every prior iPhone, I actually get faster network speeds if I turn off WiFi — which seems completely backwards to me.

Camera.  I've noticed two big differences in the Camera app.  First, because the iPhone 5 is so much faster than previous iPhones, you can take pictures much more quickly.  I stated in my prior post that "the iPhone is now 40% faster when taking photographs, making it easier to take a large number of pictures in a row — just like a fashion photographer."  I've definitely noticed this.

Second, if you are in an area with low light, the camera works much better.  Sure, low light pictures can be grainy, but on prior iPhones a low light picture can just look black.  Now, I actually get a usable picture.  For example, here are two photographs.  I took the first photograph with my iPhone 4S in a room with the light dimmed.  For the second picture, I put my iPhone 5 in the extra same spot and didn't change the lights at all.  The difference is astonishing. 

Each of the above pictures is reduced to 500 pixels wide.  If you click on each one, you can see a version that is 1000 pixels wide. I reduced the size from the normal 3,264 pixel width in the interest of your bandwidth, but I did not otherwise manipulate the images in any way.  And note that when I did try to manipulate both pictures in Photoshop, I was able to make the iPhone 4S picture look better but still not as good as the original iPhone 5 picture, whereas I could use Photoshop to get the iPhone 5 picture even better than what you see above.

If you are outside during the day, none of this will matter.  But how often have you tried to take a picture with the iPhone in the evening or inside only to discover that there simply isn't enough light to create a usable picture?  With the iPhone 5, you have a much better chance of getting a picture that captures the memory.

iPhone speed.  I've already mentioned how the faster chip in the iPhone 5 lets you take pictures faster.  Everything else on the iPhone 5 is faster as well.  I expect to see speed with each new iPhone so I can't say that this change was unexpected, but that doesn't mean that it isn't appreciated.

Battery.  The iPhone 5 battery lasts all day long, even when I am using it a lot, which has been the case this weekend.  The same was true for my iPhone 4S, but with the increased speed and larger screen to power, it is nice to see that the battery life is still very good.  This is especially important right now because the iPhone 5 has the new Lightning connector, and I currently only have the cord that came with the iPhone 5 to charge it.  With my iPhone 4S, I have charging cords and docks in multiple locations in my house and also in my car.  I ordered some adapters so that I can still use those cables to charge the iPhone 5, but they are still on backorder from Apple.com so for now I'm going to need to rely on that battery holding up on its own.

So in summary, the iPhone 5 is incredible.  I never used the original iPhone that came out in 2007, but I've used every one since then:  the iPhone 3G, the 3GS, the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S, and now the iPhone 5.  The iPhone 5 upgrade seems more significant to me than any prior upgrade.  Before this weekend, I would have said that the iPhone 4 was the biggest upgrade.  The iPhone 4 added the amazing retina screen, a great new thinner design, a better camera, and was faster.  But the iPhone 5 seems like an even more significant change.  The longer screen is fantastic just like the retina display was fantastic at the time.  The overall speed increase (faster chip, fast 4G LTE) is much more noticeable than every prior speed increase I've experienced — although I'm told that the iPhone 3G was a major network speed increase over the original iPhone which could only use the slow Edge network.  And as I noted above, the iPhone 5 is not just lighter but is noticeably lighter, enough to really make a difference.  The other changes such as the amazing design, the improved camera, etc. are just icing on the cake.

I purchased an iPhone 4S last year so I am not yet eligible to pay the subsidized price to upgrade to an iPhone 5.  (For what it's worth, I opted for the black 64GB model.)  If you want the latest and greatest but you are also not yet eligible, perhaps you can take advantage of the approach that I used.  Unlike me, my wife was eligible for an upgrade.  (She uses an iPhone 4 — although I'll soon move her over to my 4S.)  AT&T had no problem with me ordering an iPhone 5 using her phone number, and then once I had the device in my hand, before I activated it, I called AT&T.  On the phone they were able to transfer the device to my phone number, and a few minutes later my iPhone 4S stopped getting an AT&T signal and the iPhone 5 started working.  It was very easy; the only annoying part was having to wait on hold with AT&T for 20 minutes before I was connected to a representative.  By the way, AT&T calls this a "cross upgrade," so you know what to ask for when you talk to the AT&T representative to do this.

The iPhone 5 is the best iPhone yet.  Of course that is true; every new iPhone is always the best iPhone yet.  This year, however, the improvements are more substantial than in prior years.  Using an iPhone 5 this weekend has been really delightful, and no matter what model iPhone you are using now, you are going to be very happy whenever you make the upgrade.

In the news

Today is the day that the iPhone 5 goes on sale.  If you stayed up late or woke up very early last Friday, you may have been lucky enough to preorder from the first batch, in which case your shiny new iPhone 5 will be delivered to you today by UPS or FedEx.  A number of iPhone 5 devices will also be sold in stores today, but if you are not already in line by the time you are reading this, it may be too late to get one today.  Demand for the iPhone 5 has been incredible.  Back in June of 2010, Apple was delighted to announce that it had taken over 600,000 preorders for the iPhone 4 in the first 24 hours.  In October of 2011, Apple announced that it had taken over one million preorders for the iPhone 4S in the first 24 hours.  This year, Apple announced over two million preorders for the iPhone 5 in the first 24 hours.  As you can imagine, the iPhone 5, along with the new iOS 6, dominated the news of note from this past week:

• Speaking of the lines for the iPhone 5, editorial cartoonist Walt Handelsman of Newsday offered this amusing take.
• New York attorney Neil Squillante of TechnoLawyer wrote an interesting analysis of Apple and Google's rise to prominence at the expensive of Microsoft and what this means in the legal industry.
• If you want to try to get an iPhone 5 over the next few days, Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times offers advice for doing so.
• One of the nice new features in the iPhone 5 is support for 4G LTE, but of course you must be in a city that offers that service to take advantage of LTE.  Last week I identified the cities with AT&T, Verizon and Sprint LTE, and that list has already become outdated.  Chris Parsons of iMore identifies eight cities that just gained AT&T LTE service and wrote a similar post with new Verizon LTE cities.
• Glenn Flesighman of TechHive explains LTE.
• Now that people are spending more time with iOS 6, we are learning a lot more about what it can do.  Two good and comprehensive reviews of iOS 6 were written by Dan Moren of Macworld and Rene Ritchie of iMore.
• Chad Williams wrote this interesting post on less well known iOS 6 features.
• Similarly, Jessee Hollington of iLounge explores secrets and features of iOS 6.
• The 16 people on Apple's design team are responsible for some of the best looking technology in the world.  Sam Oliver of AppleInsider reports that all of them traveled to London to receive an award for being the best design studio of the last 50 years.
• Daniel Eran Dilger of AppleInsider reminds us that you can use the new panorama feature in the Camera app to take long vertical pictures, and his article has some interesting examples.
• Nick Heath of TechRepublic reports that the iPhone is now as secure as the BlackBerry.  That's good to hear, but I've been listening to BlackBerry advocates say for years that the iPhone is lacking in security, and yet I'm not aware of even one example of a lawyer having confidential information breached because the lawyer used an iPhone instead of a BlackBerry.  And I'm sure it isn't for lack of effort — just think of the notoriety that a bad guy could get for doing so.  We all need to exercise common sense when it comes to smartphone security, but I'm much more worried about leaving a briefcase with confidential papers in a cab or on a plane.
• I recently talked about why lawyers will love the iPhone 5.  Jason Hiner of TechRepublic similarly reports on why business professionals will love the iPhone 5.  As you can imagine, there is a lot of overlap in the reasons.
• Here's a similar story: Tony Bradley of PCWorld on how the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 can benefit business users.
• iFixIt shows us what the inside of an iPhone 5 looks like and has all sorts of geeky details about the electronics and components used.  For example, iFixIt reports that the new home button "sports an integrated metal support bracket, which we hope will greatly strengthen the oft-used switch."  I've heard of people having problems with the home buton on previous models of the iPhone.
• Are you planning to use your iPhone while you travel abroad?  Darren Murph of Engadget recommends a service called iPhoneTrip that lets you rent a SIM before you leave the U.S. that will work while you are abroad.  Prices vary from $5.99/day for only 50MB of data to $14.99/day for a generous 500MB.
• I've reviewed a bunch of styluses for iPhone J.D., and my current favorite is the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo.  Dan Sung of Pocket-Lint reviews the new Wacom Bamboo Stylus pocket, a tiny version of the stylus that shrinks to fit in a pocket.  I've never had a problem with the size of the "duo" version, but if you have, this may be of interest.
• Biam Beam of Macworld reviews Twist, an app that can automatically send text messages to people to let you know how close you are to arriving at your next meeting.  I haven't used the app and frankly I'm not sure that it is something that I would ever want to use, but California attorney David Sparks says that he has come to rely upon the app, so maybe there is something there.
• Christopher Breen of Macworld has an interesting article on the evolution of the iPhone since 2007.
• The iPhone 5 come with new earphones that Apple calls the EarPods.  Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times likes them and offers this review.  The other reviews that I have seen seem to all agree that they are an improvement over the former earphones that came free with an iPhone, but everyone also agrees that if you want to pay more you can get nicer ones from third parties.  Still, it is nice to see an improvement in the default "free" option.
• Christopher Seward of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that two armed robbers were caught last week thanks to Find My iPhone.
• And finally, I've written before about the amusing fake iPhone videos from JLE.  Here is their latest funny video, the Banned iPhone 5 Promo:

iOS 6 available today, plus first iPhone 5 reviews

Today is a big day in the world of iPhone.  First, today is the day that the new iOS 6 will be available for download.  [UPDATE:  It is now available as of Noon Central time.]  Click here for my initial thoughts from a few months ago on why iOS 6 will be great for lawyers.  Once I have installed it and have had time to kick the tires myself, I'll provide you with my follow-up thoughts and tips.

Second, we now are now seeing reviews of the new iPhone 5 from a select group of journalists who received a review unit from Apple last week.  As a whole, the reviews are better than any review that I have ever seen for any previous model of the iPhone:

• Ed Baig of USA Today:  "I've been testing iPhone 5 for a week and want one, too. ... People have always had lofty expectations for the iPhone 5, especially as the competition stiffens. In delivering a fast, attractive, LTE-capable and larger-screen handset, Apple has met those expectations with a gem."
• Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal / All Things D:  "On balance, I still consider the iPhone the best smartphone on the market, especially with its staggering 700,000 third-party apps and a wealth of available content. ... I found the new iPhone screen much easier to hold and manipulate than its larger rivals and preferred it. In my view, Apple’s approach makes the phone far more comfortable to use, especially one-handed."
• David Pogue of The New York Times:  "This iPhone is so light, tall and flat, it’s well on its way to becoming a bookmark. ...nearly every feature has been upgraded, with a focus on what counts: screen, sound, camera, speed."
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball:  "I don’t know how else to convey the niceness of this thing. This iPhone 5 review unit is the single nicest object in my possession. I own things that cost and remain worth more (e.g. my car). But I own nothing this nice. It sounds hyperbolic to put it that way, but I offer this observation with no exaggeration."
• Tim Stevens of Engadget:  "Two times faster? Twice the graphics performance? Better battery life? Actually, yes. The iPhone 5 over-delivers on all those promises. ...the iPhone 5 absolutely shines. Pick your benchmark and you'll find Apple's thin new weapon sitting at or near the top. ... This is without a doubt the best iPhone yet. This is a hallmark of design. This is the one you've been waiting for."
• MG Siegler of TechCrunch:  "You’re going to want this phone. ... I really do believe this is the best iPhone upgrade that Apple has done yet (besting the iPhone-to-iPhone 3G jump and the iPhone 3GS-to-iPhone 4 jump). As such, it’s the best version of the iPhone yet. By far."
• Jim Dalrymple of The Loop:  "That has been my takeaway from the design of the iPhone 5 — small design changes that make for big user experience improvements. It’s important to remember that while the changes on the outside may be small to the naked eye, the changes on the inside are huge. Every major component of the iPhone has been changed in one way or another."
• Scott Stein of CNet:  "The more important audio improvement comes in the way of a third microphone, which aims to improve voice quality and, in particular, speakerphone quality, adding improved noise cancellation. In my tests, it was a definitive success: callers I reached via speakerphone noticed a crisper, clearer call on the iPhone 5 versus on the iPhone 4S.  I didn't experience any dropped calls over my time testing in the New York area, and based on responses from callers on the other end, it looks like call quality is generally improved via better microphone tech."
• Vincent Nguyen of SlashGear:  "Apple has addressed the bigger-screen debate with a solution that doesn’t undermine key usability promises, delivered LTE without destroying battery life, and wrapped it up in a design that’s both comfortably familiar and crisply revitalized."
• Harry McCracken of Time:  "People who have owned non-Apple LTE phones for eons can mock the delayed arrival of the technology on the iPhone all they want; Apple didn’t wait until now out of lethargy. Instead, it bided its time until it could introduce LTE without killing the battery. (With some early Android LTE phones, you could practically watch the battery gauge dwindle away as you stared at it.)"
• Rich Jaroslovky of Bloomberg:  "But if [LTE is] in your area, you’ll find the iPhone 5 roaringly fast -- far zippier than any previous iPhone at downloading Web pages, uploading photos, installing apps and doing pretty much anything that requires an Internet connection. My AT&T test unit routinely registered download speeds 5 to 20 times faster than a 4S running over the slower network that AT&T confusingly labels '4G.'"
• Stuart Miles of Pocket-Lint (UK):  "It's the same iPhone, but it's completely different. That's the main takeaway point for the iPhone 5's design. It's something you can't really appreciate until you get up close and personal with the new phone, but when you do, wow, you'll really notice that difference. ... This really is product design at its finest."
• Shane Richmond of The Telegraph (UK):  "The iPhone 5 is a marvellous piece of design, arguably the most beautiful object Apple has ever produced."
• Luke Peters of T3 (UK):  "The main benefit is that you can just see more. Web pages are longer, movies are wider, though many we found from iTunes and YouTube still have to be stretched or cropped to fill the screen, the photo viewing area is bigger (just) and Apple’s own, optimised apps make good use of the extra space."
• Peter Nowak of CBC (Canada):  "The weight difference is very pronounced. At 112 grams, it’s 20 per cent lighter than the 4S, but when holding both at the same time, it’s easy to think the difference is even greater. The iPhone 5 is amazingly light and slightly thinner, too, mainly because its main shell is now aluminum, rather than a big chunk of glass."

If you take the time to read those reviews, you'll see that Luke Peters of T3 was the only one who was nonplussed.  Everyone else was extremely impressed with the iPhone 5.

For those of us who preordered an iPhone 5, we'll be able to draw our own conclusions in around 48 hours.

60 Apps in 60 Minutes for Judges

Last week, I teamed up with Judge Dan Hinde from Harris County, TX (269th Civil Court) to give a presentation at the Texas Center for the Judiciary's Annual Conference.  We did a "60 Apps in 60 Minutes" session recommending apps that might be of interest to Texas judges, but most of the apps that we discussed would be of interest to others as well so I thought it might be useful to share the list on iPhone J.D.  Here are the apps that we recommended:

1. Judicial Education Conference [the conference app]
2. GoodReader
3. Dropbox
4. Adobe Reader
5. PDFpen
6. PDF Expert
7. Documents to Go
8. WordPerfect Viewer
9. Office² HD
10. Free WiFi Finder
11. Picture it Settled Lite
12. GoodNotes
13. NotesPlus
14. SoundHound
15. Reminders [built in to the iPhone/iPad]
16. Texas Monthly BBQ Finder
17. Open Table
18. Launch Center Pro
19. LogMeIn
20. Groups
21. The Weather Channel
22. Hurricane HD
23. NOAA Hi-Def Radar
24. Dark Sky
25. Pastebot
26. Scanner Pro
27. RedLaser
28. ABBYY Business Card Reader
29. CardMunch
30. GateGuru
31. Hipmunk
32. WestlawNext
33. Lexis Advance HD
34. Fastcase
35. Black’s Law Dictionary
36. Barron's Law Dictionary
37. Texas Bar Legal
38. TDCLA
39. Rulebook
40. Book of Jargon
41. Congress / Congress+ / CongressPro
42. Atomic Web Browser
43. Chase Mobile
44. Eye Glasses
45. Dragon Dictation
46. Digits
47. Netflix
48. DaysFrom
49. Court Days Pro
50. Find My iPhone
51. Tweetbot
52. Keynote
53. Keynote Remote
54. iPhoto
55. Photoshop Touch
56. Pro HDR
57. AutoStitch Panorama
58. Google Translate
59. Calvetica
60. Facebook
61. Skype

After our presentation, Judge Charles Stephens from New Braunfels, TX shared with me an interesting way that he uses his iPad.  He has an account with eFax, which gives him a fax number that sends PDF versions of FAXs to his email.  When officers need warrants signed after hours, they can fax the warrant to his eFax number, he can then review the warrant on his iPad, if it is appropriate he can sign and date it using one of the iPad PDF programs, and then he can e-mail the signed document back to eFax so that the officer receives a signed fax and can execute the warrant.  It's nice to know that an iPad can help the cause of justice, even after hours.

[UPDATE:  After reading the last paragraph, Judge Steve Rosen from the Seattle Municipal Court wrote me to say that he does something similar, but he cuts out the fax portion.  He writes:  "At 3 am (or whenever), if an officer needs a warrant, she emails a .pdf of the warrant to my work email.  She then calls my cell phone to wake me up.  Using my iPad, I then log in to my work email and review the search warrant application.  If I agree to issue the warrant, I use an app called Sign-N-Send to annotate the warrant, cross out parts I don’t agree with if necessary, and then sign it.  I then email it back to the officer.  Using this system, our officers get very fast turnaround on warrants (there is no delay for sending and receiving faxes), and I never even have to get out of bed."]

In the news

At 12:01 a.m. Pacific / 3:01 a.m. Eastern today, Apple, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint started taking orders for the new iPhone 5.  Orders placed early enough should be shipped a week from today, but last year it only took 24 hours to sell out of the first batch, with subsequent orders taking a week or two to ship.  If you want to be an earlier adopter, stop reading this now and place your order.  [UPDATE:  As of around 9am Eastern this morning, Apple sold out of its initial supply and began quoting a two week wait for delivery.  (via iMore)  Carriers such as AT&T and Verizon still have some left but I epxect them to run out quickly too.]  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Susan Decker and Adam Santariano of Bloomberg write an interesting profile of Noreen Krall, Apple's Chief Litigation Counsel who is responsible for Apple's recent successful patent lawsuit against Samsung.
• I know of some law firms that require their attorneys to use Good software on their iPad for security reasons.  With this software, instead of using the standard Mail app, the attorneys use a special Good mail app that is quarantined from the rest of the iPad.  This is good for security, but it means that it is difficult to use other apps on your iPad with attachments to emails.  GoodReader just released GoodReader for Good, an app that lets you use GoodReader (my favorite iPad app for reviewing documents) within the Good environment.  Joel Mathis of Macworld provides details on this app.
• If you are trying to decide between AT&T, Verizon and Sprint for the new iPhone, Dan Seifer reminds us that you cannot talk and use data at the same time on Verizon and Sprint, but you can on AT&T.  You cannot use voice and 4G LTE at the same time on any network, but on AT&T you can use voice and 3G (including the faster variants of 3G that AT&T calls 4G) at the same time.
• Macworld posted one of its "what you need to know" features on the iPhone 5, and this one is packed with details that I haven't seen before.  For example, if you want to export video using a cable on the iPhone 5, you need an HDMI and VGA connector that works with the new Lightning adapter — but Apple is still working on those and they won't be available for perhaps a few months.  For now, your only option for getting video out is AirPlay (wireless) sharing.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote a great "first look" article on the iPhone 5, plus a great analysis of the Apple announcement in general.
• Dan Moren of Macworld reports that Apple has unveiled support for Notes and Reminders on iCloud.com.  In my initial tests last night, it worked well with Reminders, but some of the Notes on my iPhone don't appear on iCloud.com yet.
• Dan Frakes of Macworld writes about the new Lightning connector on the iPhone 5 and what it means for you.
• A couple in San Francisco recently hired a professional photographer, Kim Thomas, to photograph their wedding, but instructed Thomas to only use her iPhone.  Thomas shows some of the results on her website.  There are actually some great photos there, but I can't say that I would recommend that other engaged couples go this route.
• And finally, for those looking for yet another accessory for their iPhone, how about a T-Shirt?  CuteCircuit has come up with a prototype for something they call tshirtOS, a T-shirt that contains 1,024 ultrathin RGB LEDs, and the video is amusing.  (via SlashGear)

Why lawyers will love the iPhone 5

Yesterday, Apple unveiled the new iPhone 5, which (in the U.S. and many other countries) can be pre-ordered starting this Friday, September 14 and will be in stores starting Friday, September 21.  The price is the same as the iPhone 4S that it replaces:  $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB and $399 for 64GB.  Except perhaps for the screen size, there is no single, new hardware feature that really stands out with the iPhone 5.  Instead, Apple has tried to enhance every part of the iPhone, and the combination of these major and minor enhancements adds up to a much better 2012 model of the iPhone.

I watched the video of Apple's presentation last night and I've read initial reviews from lots of people who were there and who had a chance to try out the iPhone 5 yesterday.  Here are the key features of the iPhone 5 and the reason that I think that lawyers will love this new device.

Design

Apple has come out with a new iPhone every year since it first debuted in 2007 so the iPhone 5 is the sixth model, but it is not the sixth design.  The original 2007 iPhone had one design, the iPhone 3G in 2008 and 3GS in 2009 had a second design with rounded corners, and the iPhone 4 in 2010 and iPhone 4S in 2011 had a third design that was thinner and more squared off on the sides.  The iPhone 5 is thus the fourth design for the iPhone, the first update since June of 2010, and it is a really nice design.

The most noticeable new feature is that the screen is now taller.  The iPhone width stays the same at around 2.3", which Apple considers the best size for your hand.  I've tried some of the larger Android phones, and while a large screen can be nice, the larger width does seem awkward to hold.  Thus, I'm glad that Apple kept the width the same.  The height is now 4.87", up somewhat from 4.54 on the the iPhone 4 and 4S. With that slight increase in height, and by devoting more of the front of the iPhone to the screen (shrinking the bezels at the top and the bottom), the iPhone 5 has a 4" screen instead of the prior 3.5" increase (using traditional diagonal measurements).  Instead of 640 x 960 pixels, the iPhone 5 has 640 x 1136 pixels.

The extra pixels allow for one extra row on the home screen: six rows with 24 apps instead of five rows with 20 apps.  It also allows apps to present more information at one time — more emails without having to scroll in the Mail app, a view of all five days in the work week when the Calendar app is in landscape view instead of just three days — and for some apps will mean that there is now space for additional options.

These new dimensions are also roughly 16x9, so watching a movie that is in widescreen format should be even more enjoyable on the iPhone 5.  And while I prefer to type with my thumbs with the iPhone in portrait mode, if you are one of those people who prefer turning the iPhone to landscape mode to type with larger keys, you'll like the even larger keys that you get with the extra 176 pixels.

All of Apple's apps are, of course, updated for the taller screen.  Third-party apps will need to be updated to take advantage of the increased screen real estate, but those that are not yet updated will simply have black bars on the top and bottom (or the two sides in landscape mode) so they will look the same that they looked on an iPhone 4 or 4S.

The iPhone 5 keeps the all-glass front that has been on every iPhone model. But unlike the all-glass back on the iPhone 4 and 4S, the iPhone 5 has aluminum on both the sides and most of the back.  (There are small glass bands at the top and bottom of the back to let the antennas get a better signal.)  On the black version of the iPhone 5, the aluminum has a black slate color; on the white iPhone 5 the aluminum has a bright silver color.

The iPhone 5 is thinner than previous models:  7.6mm versus 9.3mm.  The main way that Apple was able to do this is that instead of having one layer for the touch sensor and one layer for the screen, Apple has figured out how to combine those two layers.  This not only makes the phone thinner, but also makes the image sharper and reduces glare in sunlight. Vincent Nhuyen of SlashGear says:  "We loved the Retina Display in the iPhone 4/4S, but the iPhone 5 trumps both: it looks somehow crisper and cleaner, and it’s bright, even under the lights of Apple’s demo area. The anti-glare coating certainly helps there."

Even though the iPhone is taller, because it is thinner it is also lighter, 112 grams instead of 140 grams.

The weight difference may not sound like much, but reports from people who were able to handle the iPhone 5 yesterday are that the weight difference is quite noticeable — in part because the iPhone is taller, so that weight is distributed across a wider area, which makes the whole thing seem even lighter. As Joshua Topolsky of The Verge states:  "The 7.6mm, 112-gram chassis is incredibly sleek, and exceptionally light... it feels almost too light in the hand. This isn't just in comparison to the relatively heavy iPhone 4S — sure, the iPhone 5 may not be the thinnest phone out there as Apple claims — but this feels incredibly light against smartphones in general."  Similarly, Andy Ihnatko reported on MacBreak Weekly:  "It is much, much thinner in hand than it looks in any video or photo that you might get.  It feels noticeably lighter than my iPhone 4S."  Thus, the iPhone 5 is not just technically thinner and lighter, but also it really feels thinner and lighter.

Apple emphasized yesterday that it uses very exacting manufacturing processes to produce a high-quality phone.  This is good to hear, but it is nothing new; the iPhone has always felt like a more premium phone than most any other smartphone on the market.  For example, for the iPhone 5, Apple disclosed that before the front glass is attached to the aluminum back, Apple first uses two high-powered cameras to take a picture of each back housing so that it can pick one of 725 different cuts of the front to get the best possible fit.  As Darren Murph of Engadget states:  "there's no doubting the premium fit and finish when you clutch one of these things."

There are a few other changes to the design.  For example, the front-facing camera is now centered at the top so you will no longer have to hold the iPhone slightly to the side for your face to be centered in the screen during a FaceTime videochat.  The headphone jack is now on the bottom instead of the top. 

All in all, it looks like Apple has come up with a fantastic design.  Ryan Block of GDGT joked on Twitter:  "Great. Use the iPhone 5 for ten minutes and now my iPhone 4S feels tiny, fat, and ugly. And that’s how they get me every time."  I wouldn't be surprised if this 2012 design remains the same for the 2013 version of the iPhone too, just like the last two designs lasted for two years each.

Ultrafast Wireless Technology

A lot of what lawyers do with the iPhone involves sending and receiving data such as large email attachments, websites and PDF documents.  Thus, I'm excited to see two improvements to the iPhone's wireless technology.

First, the iPhone 5 supports 4G LTE with up to 100 Mbps theoretical capacity.  I discussed this feature on Tuesday.

Second, Wi-Fi can be faster with the iPhone 5 because it supports the 5 GHz flavor of 802.11n (and 801.11a if that makes a difference to you) in addition to the 802.11b/g/n that the iPhone 4/4s support.

Faster

The iPhone 5 uses a new chip that Apple calls the A6.  Thanks to the faster CPU and graphics, Apple says that the iPhone 5 will feel twice as fast when you are launching apps, saving images, viewing attachments, etc.  Joshua Topolsky of The Verge said after using the iPhone 5 yesterday that "the device is noticeably faster than the iPhone 4S."  The iPhone 4S is no slouch, but the less time that you spend waiting on your device, the more time you can spend getting your work done — plus you have less frustration associated with waiting.

Improved Camera

Like the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 5 has an 8 megapixel camera and takes pictures with an f/2.4 aperture.  But the iPhone 5 camera now does a better job taking pictures in low light, up to two F-stops greater in low light.  And improved optics make your pictures even sharper. 

Perhaps more important, the iPhone is now 40% faster when taking photographs, making it easier to take a large number of pictures in a row — just like a fashion photographer.  Vincent Nhuyen of SlashGear says that "there’s no shutter lag or app delay that we can see, and the whole thing – together with the camera shortcut on the iOS lockscreen – makes an even stronger case for replacing your dedicated point-and-shoot."

If you are taking video with an iPhone, the camera now has better stabilization.  And Apple says that you can even take photographs while you are recording video; I'll be interested to see how that works in practice. 

If you like to use FaceTime, the camera on on the front now uses 720p instead of VGA, so you should look much better.

The iPhone 5 Camera app also lets you take panorama shots.  David Pogue of the New York Times says:  "I took only two panorama shots in my limited time with the iPhone 5, but they came out crazy good."  This may just be a feature of iOS 6, so perhaps older iPhones will gain the panorama feature as well.

Better Audio

The iPhone 5 does a better job of getting audio in and out of your iPhone.

First, the iPhone 5 features three microphones:  one on the bottom, one on the front, and one on the back.  The multiple microphones provide better audio for telephone calls, better noise cancellation, and better voice recognition for Siri.

The iPhone 5 also reportedly has better speaker quality. 

Third, the iPhone 5 comes with a new type of earphone that Apple calls the EarPods.  The shape is supposed to be a comfortable fit for a broad range of ears, and the acoustics are enhanced.

Jason Snell of Macworld says that he didn't use the EarPods for long enough to judge whether they are more comfortable, but that they "sound a whole lot better than the old Apple earbuds did."  And David Pogue of the New York Times noted that the new EarPods seem to do a better job of staying in his ears.

The EarPods come with a storage and carrying case:

Finally, the iPhone 5 can take advantage of something called Wideband Audio which uses more frequency to make your voice sound more natural on a phone call.  However, carriers need to provide special support for Wideband Audio, and as of now, none of the U.S. carriers have announced plans to do so.

Battery

You might imagine that these new features would cause a loss in battery life.  That was the problem with the original 4G LTE phones; battery life was horrible.  But the iPhone 5 actually has slightly more battery life than previous models, such as 8 hours on 4G LTE or 3G, versus 6 hours on 3G with the iPhone 4S and 10 hours on Wi-Fi, versus 9 hours of Wi-Fi on the iPhone 4S.

The new "Lightning" Connector

Up until now, the iPhone has always had a 30-pin connector on the bottom.  That connector first debuted with the iPod back in 2003.  The iPhone 5 replaces the 30-pin connector with the new Lightning connector.

The Lightning connector is much smaller, so it helps the iPhone 5 to be smaller and lighter.  It is reversible so you can plug it in either way; there is no "right side up" as there is with the 30-pin connector and most other cable connectors.  And the Lightning connector is supposed to be more durable.  David Pogue of the New York Times says that the Lightning connector "clicks nicely into place, but it can be yanked out quickly."  That sounds good.

iPhone accessory makers can be expected to add the new Lightning connector to their products just as soon as they can.  But what about all of your existing accessories that still use the 30-pin connector?  You'll have to use an adapter.  Apple sells a $29 version that is just an adapter and a $39 version that includes a six inch cord between the 30-pin connector and the Lightning connector if you are also looking for a small extension.

iOS 6

The iPhone 5 comes with iOS 6 installed.  (Current iPhones can upgrade to iOS 6 starting Wednesday, September 19.)  I don't mean to shortchange this because the fantastic iOS software is one of the main advantages of the iPhone.  But Apple previewed iOS 6 this past June and announced virtually no new features yesterday, so take a look at this post to see all of the reasons that I think that lawyers will really like iOS 6.

Other Announcements

Apple made a few more announcements that might be of interest to lawyers using an iPhone.

Apple said that there are now over 700,000 apps in the App Store.  250,000 of them are tailored for the iPad.  And here is an interesting statistic:  90% of iOS apps are downloaded by at least one person every month, and the average person has over 100 apps on their iPhone or iPad.  So it's not like everyone is just downloading the same thing.

Apple also announced that it has sold over 400 million iOS devices as of June of 2012.  And that reminds me, I suppose I should mention that Apple also updated the iPod touch yesterday to include many (but not all) of the new features in the iPhone 5.  So if you are looking for an iPhone without the phone, the new iPod touch may be just the ticket.

Finally, for those looking to get an iPhone who don't want the latest and greatest, Apple will now sell the iPhone 4S (16 GB) for $99 and the iPhone 4 (8 GB) for free when purchased with a contract.

The Bottom Line

It comes as no surprise that the next version of the iPhone is even better, but with the larger screen, increased speed, and thinner and lighter design, I'm much more excited about the new iPhone this year than I was for the iPhone 4S last year.  And that is saying something because the iPhone 4S has been a great phone.

Thus, I am excited to pre-order my iPhone 5 this Friday, and I'm sure that many other lawyers will be doing the same.  I usually buy my iPhones directly from AT&T, and as of Wednesday night AT&T has yet to announce how it is handling pre-orders, but I'm sure we'll hear more about that very soon.  You'll also be able to pre-order on the Apple website.

New iPhone to be announced today

Today at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern, Apple will introduce the 2012 version of the iPhone at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.  Because of the "5" in the shadow of the picture on the invitation, I presume that this new model will be called the iPhone 5, but we'll find out in a few hours.

The theater will be full of members of the press, and many of the people who are attending plan to live-blog the event as it happens.  Here are direct links to the live coverage at some of the sites that I expect to provide the best live coverage:

• Macworld.  Jason Snell and Dan Moren are perhaps the best live-bloggers in the world for Apple announcements.
• GDGT.  Ryan Block has a great track record of providing excellent live coverage of events.
• The Verge.  Joshua Topolsky will handle the live blog for The Verge, a relatively new website that has quickly became one of the very best sources of tech news.
• Engadget.  I believe that Tim Stevens is covering the event.
• Ars Technica.  Jacqui Cheng will be posting live updates.

Apple usually posts a video of the event later on in the day, so you should be able to watch it on Wednesday night.  I look forward to finding out what Apple has to announce, and I'm sure I'll be posting my thoughts on Thursday.

Are you ready for 4G LTE on the iPhone?

Apple will announce the next version of the iPhone tomorrow, which may be called the iPhone 5.  Only Apple knows what features the new iPhone will have, but my hope is that it will include access to the fast 4G LTE network in addition to the 3G network supported by current iPhones.  Earlier this year, Apple added 4G LTE to the iPad, so it makes sense to me that this feature will be extended to the iPhone tomorrow.  Additionally, the Wall Street Journal has reported that the new iPhone will include 4G LTE, and their reporters typically have good sources for Apple information.

We'll have to see how fast 4G LTE on the new iPhone will be, but on other smartphones 4G LTE can be up to ten times faster than 3G, so this feature on the new iPhone should make it considerably faster to surf the web, download music, stream video, etc. even when Wi-Fi is not available.  If you are at your home, office, etc. where Wi-Fi is available, Wi-Fi will typically be about twice as fast as 4G LTE, but this can vary based on many circumstances so there will be times when 4G LTE is actually faster than Wi-Fi.

But even if the new iPhone supports 4G LTE, is 4G LTE available where you live?  The answer varies based upon the carrier that you use.  Here in the U.S., the iPhone is available on three carriers, and they all offer 4G LTE, but not in all cities.

AT&T currently has 4G LTE in 60 markets:

1. Akron, OH
2. Anchorage, AK
3. Athens, GA
4. Atlanta, GA
5. Autin, TX
6. Bakersifield, CA
7. Baltimore, MD
8. Baton Rouge, LA
9. Bloomington, IN
10. Boston, MA
11. Bridgeport, CT
12. Buffalo, NY
13. Burlington, NC
14. Byan-College Station, TX
15. Canton, OH
16. Chapel Hill, NC
17. Charlotte, NC
18. Chicago, IL
19. Cleveland, OH
20. Corpus Christi, TX
21. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
22. Fayettevile-Springsdale-Rogers, AR
23. Fort Lauderdale, FL
24. Gainesville, GA
25. Greensboro-Winston-Salem, NC
26. Houston, TX
27. Indianapolis, IN
28. Jacksonville, FL
29. Kansas City, MO
30. Lafayette, IN
31. Las Vegas, NV
32. Lawrenceburg, TN
33. Los Angeles, CA
34. Miami, FL
35. Modesto, CA
36. Muncie, IN
37. Naples, FL
38. Nashville, TN
39. New Orleans, LA  [yeah for me!]
40. New York, NY
41. Oakland, CA
42. Oklahoma City, OK
43. Omaha, NE
44. Orlando, FL
45. Phoenix, AZ
46. Raleigh-Durham, NC
47. San Antonio, TX
48. San Diego, CA
49. San Francisco, CA
50. San Jose, CA
51. San Juan, Puerto Rico
52. Sarasota-Bradenton, FL
53. St. Louis, MO
54. Syracuse, NY
55. Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL
56. Waco TX
57. Washington, DC
58. West Palm Beach, FL
59. Wichita, KA
60. Worcester, MA

AT&T will add 4G LTE to the following cities by the end of 2012:

1. Albany, NY
2. Albuquerque, NM
3. Allentown, PA
4. Birmingham, AL
5. Boise, ID
6. Boulder, CO
7. Cincinnati, OH
8. Charleston, SC
9. Columbia, SC
10. Columbus, OH
11. Denver, CO
12. Detroit, MI
13. El Paso, TX
14. Fayetteville, NC
15. Fort Myers, FL
16. Gary, IN
17. Grand Rapids, MI
18. Green Bay, WI
19. Harrisburg, PA
20. Hartford, CT
21. Honolulu, HI
22. Knoxville, TN
23. Lancaster, PA
24. Little Rock, AR
25. Louisville, KY
26. Memphis, TN
27. Milwaukee, WI
28. Minneapolis-Saint Paul, MN
29. Nashua, NH
30. New Haven, CT
31. Philadelphia, PA
32. Pittsburgh, PA
33. Portland, ME
34. Providence, RI
35. Reading, PA
36. Rochester, NY
37. Sacramento, CA
38. Salinas-Seaside-Monterey, CA
39. Seattle, WA
40. Springfield, MA
41. Toledo, OH
42. Tucson, AZ
43. Tulsa, OK
44. Wilkes-Barre, PA
45. Wilmington, DE

Verizon has a much larger 4G LTE coverage with 371 cities.  That's too many markets to list here, but here is a map from the Verizon website with red dots on the cities that have 4G LTE, and you can click here to check the Verizon website to determine your city is on the list.

If you use an iPhone with Sprint, 4G LTE coverage is currently available in these 18 cities:

1. Atlanta, GA
2. Athens, GA
3. Baltimore, MD
4. Calhoun, GA
5. Carrollton, GA
6. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
7. Gainesville, GA
8. Granbury-Hood County, TX
9. Houston, TX
10. Huntsville, TX
11. Kansas City, MO / Kansas City, KS
12. Manhattan-Junction City, KS
13. Newnan, GA
14. Rome, GA
15. San Antonio, TX
16. Sedalia, MO
17. St. Joseph, MO
    
18. Waco, TX
    

Sprint says that in the "coming months" (who knows if that means before the end of 2012 or not) 4G LTE will come to 100 additional cities.  Click here for a page on the Sprint website that lists those cities.

In the news

There was no In the news last week because my house had no electricity due to Hurricane Isaac, so in today's issue I'm pointing out some interesting articles I've seen over the last two weeks.  Of course, the biggest news right now is that in just a few days, on September 12, Apple is going to announce the new iPhone, and presumably will also release iOS 6.  As we wait to learn more about that big news, here are the other news items of note:

• Rocket Matter is a cloud-based legal billing and law practice management solution for small and medium larger firms, and I know many attorneys who use and love the service.  This week, Rocket Matter announced a new iPhone app, so attorneys who use the service while on-the-go no longer need to use a more cumbersome web-based interface.  The app looks really nice.
• San Francisco attorney Deanne Katz of FindLaw recommends external keyboards for the iPad.  My favorite combination is the Apple Wireless Keyboard with the Incase Origami Workstation.
• Saul Elbein of the New York Times reports that Paris, Texas Judge Bill Harris decided a complicated and controversial oil pipeline condemnation suit by sending a 15-word ruling from his iPhone.
• California attorney Morgan Smith explains his verdict calculator for iPad and gives you a link so that you can download it yourself.  It requires Apple's Numbers app.
• iOS 6 will have a lot of great new features for iPhones and iPads when it comes out (presumably next week).  One change is that the Maps app will no longer use information from Google Maps and instead will use Apple's own map information.  This means that we will no longer have Google Street View, but we will have Flyover, which uses detailed 3D models.  Daniel Eran Dilger of RoughlyDrafted Magazine has a great explanation of what will be new in Maps.
• David Pogue of the New York Times recommends apps that let your iPhone act like a walkie talkie to send quick voice messages to another person instead of text messages.
• Joe Kissell of Macworld recommends apps to edit Microsoft Excel files on the iPad.  I usually use Appple's Numbers app to do this.
• Dan Miller of Macworld discusses three cloud-based solutions for running Microsoft Office on an iPad.
• Jeff Gamet of The Mac Observer reports that Delta Airlines is providing 4,500 iPads to airport restaurants so that diners can order meals using the iPads, and then use them to check news, weather, etc.  I'd much rather use my own iPad when I travel, but I'll be interested to see what becomes of this.
• Speaking of flying, I wish that I could use my iPhone or iPad during takeoff and lasting — not to talk on the phone, but just to use the device.  Todd Shields of Bloomberg reports that the FAA is now studying letting people do that.
• Reporter Harry McCracken of Time explains whey the iPad is his favorite computer and what he uses to do most of his work.
• Katherine Boehret of the Wall Street Journal / All Things D has a good list of iPhone tips and tricks.
• TeleNav, a company which provides GPS navigation software, conducted a national survey and learned that 83% of iPhone users believe that other iPhone users make the best romantic partners, and 33% of respondents would rather give up sex for a week than give up their mobile phone.
• If you are around my age, then chances are you remember using an Atari 2600 in the early 1980s, and you know that some of the best games were made by Activision — the first third-party publisher of video games for consoles.  Last week, Activation released a free app called Activision Anthology that lets you play some of those great 2600 games on an iPhone or iPad.  You need to buy the classic games (like Pitfall) in the app, but it comes with one free game, and it was one of my favorite games when I was a kid:  Kaboom!  Using a finger to play the game doesn't seem right — that game was the best ever use of a paddle controller — but it is fun to see the sights and sounds of a great game from 1981.  (I wonder what ever happened to my Activision Bucket Brigade patch?)  Click here for Activision Anthology (free): 
• And finally, while you are playing those video games from the early 1980s, why not also blow the dust off the box containing your old cassette tapes and convert them to MP3 files that your iPhone can play?  Later this month, Hammacher Schlemer will start selling the Cassette to iPod Convertor, an $80 device that turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a cassette player and recorder.  I think I still have some cassette tapes stuffed into a box somewhere around here, but I can only imagine how disappointing the sound quality would be if I tried to play them today.  You may make better use of your $80 by just purchasing those songs from iTunes.  Nevertheless, this device does look amusing:

New iPhone to be revealed on Sept. 12

Yesterday, Apple announced that it will make an announcement on September 12th.  Apple didn't actually say what the announcement is for — the invitation to select journalists simply states "It's almost here" —  but we all know that it will be the new iPhone.  The invitation includes this picture:

The "12" surely corresponds to September 12, and the shadow shows the number five.  That could simply refer to the fifth anniversary of the iPhone (which debuted in 2007), but I think it more likely means that the next iPhone will be called the iPhone 5.

We'll find out next week what the new iPhone will include, but Macworld has a good summary of the current best guesses, including fast LTE connectivity, a bigger 16x9 display, a smaller dock connector, and an improved camera.

The announcement will occur at 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern on September 12 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.

Isaac update

Thanks to all of you who sent kind notes over the last week.  Hurricane Isaac was "only" a Category 1, but it was slow-moving and packed a real punch for the City of New Orleans and especially for some surrounding areas such as Braithwaite.  Being without power for four or more days caused all sorts of issues, but fortunately most of New Orleans now has electricity again.  I did learn every trick there is for squeezing the most battery life out of an iPhone while you are simultaneously making extensive use of it to get news and to communicate using an overloaded 3G network  — multiple backup batteries, brightness turned way down, shutting down the phone between uses, etc.

Now it is time to get back to work.  Give me a few days to catch up and I'll get iPhone J.D. running again.