Rumors of Microsoft Office coming to the iPad have been around forever, but Tom Warren of The Verge got a company spokesperson to say this week that “Office will work across Windows Phone, iOS and Android.” The rumor is that the app will provide basic viewing functions for free, but to edit files you will have to subscribe to Office 365, which appears to currently cost $6 a month. I’m glad to see some confirmation that this is coming — it sounds like early next year — and my hope is that Microsoft produces something that is really useful for lawyers looking to work with MS Word files while they are away from a computer. We’ll see. I’m still catching up from my vacation, but here are a few other recent news items that caught my attention:
Florida attorneys Christopher Hopkins and Spencer Kuvin recently gave a presentation to the Palm Beach County Bar that discussed using an iPhone and iPad in a law practice. Click the last word in that post to view their slides in PDF format, which includes the apps that they discussed.
New York attorney Nikki Black recommends pre-trial iPad apps for attorneys.
I started using an iPad mini three days ago. It is still too early for me to reach a judgment on it, but I do like that it is so light and easy to hold. Some of the notable iPad mini reviews that I have seen this week including this one by Dan Frakes of Macworld and this one by attorney Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge.
I wrote a pre-review of the iPad mini Smart Cover, which was severely limited by the fact that I still didn’t yet have my iPad mini at the time. Lex Friedman of Macworld reviews the new Smart Cover, and I agree with him that I don’t like it as much as the Smart Cover for the full-size iPad, mainly because it only had two folds instead of three, making it impossible to fold the cover in half and hold it behind the iPad mini.
And finally, if you have been using Apple products for as long as I have — the first Apple product I purchased with my own money was a Mac Plus when I was in college — then you’ll want to check out the Padintosh Case for the iPad from ThinkGeek. For only $25, the latest and greatest Apple technology can look just like the first Apple product to revolutionize human interfaces.
[UPDATE: This post is now somewhat out of date. However, I wrote an updated review of Disney World apps on March 12, 2014, and further updated that post on January 21, 2015] Sorry that it has been somewhat quiet on iPhone J.D. for the past week, but my wife and I took our son (age 7) and daughter (age 5) to Disney World for their first time. It was an amazing trip, although I’m still tired from five days of walking around. Although I’ve been to Disney World before, one thing that was new this time was the ability to use an iPhone app to enhance the trip. There are a lot of these apps in the App Store, but I had difficulty finding good, recent reviews to help me select the best one. So for any of you who plan to head there yourself, here are the apps that I found the most useful during our trip.
Before talking about specific apps, there were three features that I found most useful for any Disney World app. First, it was useful to have a good map that is clear and easy to understand and that can quickly show you where you are located on the map. It is so useful to be able to take your iPhone out of your pocket, tap the app icon, tap the location services arrow to find yourself on the map, and then instantly understand where you are located so you can figure out the best way to get to the next attraction, restaurant, etc. A map on the iPhone is must easier to use than a paper map because the iPhone quickly shows you your current location in the park.
Second, it was useful to have an indication of wait times so you can decide, for example, whether it makes more sense to head left towards Splash Mountain or head right towards Space Mountain. These apps not only tell you the current wait time, but also tell you the window for a Fast Pass. With the aid of the app, I could quickly decide that I didn’t want to wait in line for 30 minutes for Space Mountain when I could instead get a Fast Pass for Space Mountain that would work in 45 minutes and I could use that 45 minutes of time to go to another attraction in the vicinity that had no wait, and then after that use the Fast Pass lane (which was usually only about a 5 minute line) and pass up all of the people waiting in the 45 minute line.
Third, it was useful to get information on restaurants to decide where to eat.
Disney Mobile Magic
Disney Mobile Magic is the official Disney Parks app. It is free, and since it is the app that Disney itself offers, it is worth getting. The app provides you with a wealth of useful information about each of the parks. The app gives you a map, and can even show you where you are located on the map. If you use an iPhone 5, however, the app is not optimized for the screen. I also don’t like that the map is covered with unidentified purple balloons, and you must click each one individually to figure out which attraction it is indicating. But when you do tap, you can get some very basic information on the ride and information on the current wait for the ride and the time for the next Fast Pass.
The app also includes information on restaurants at each of the parks and even information on each of the Disney-owned resorts.
The best part of the official Disney app is that it offered the most accurate information on ride wait times and Fast Pass wait times. Otherwise, however, I preferred to use two other apps.
Disney World Maps
Disney World Maps by VersaEdge Software, LLC was the most useful app during my trip to Disney World. When you launch the app, you are instantly presented with an easy-to-read, full screen map that even takes advantage of the longer screen on the iPhone 5. Attractions are clearly labeled in red along with the current wait time. Restaurants are clearly indicated in green. Bathrooms are clearly marked — essential information when you are with young children. I found this map much more useful than the map in the Disney Mobile Magic app. Dotted lines show the path of the frequent parades. And you can simply press the location services arrow at the bottom left to have the app instantly show you where you are on the map.
Tap on any attraction, restaurant, etc. to get more information. Almost every time, I found the descriptions in this app to be more useful than the descriptions in the official Disney app.
As noted above, the main advantage of the Disney app is that is had more accurate current wait times for rides — the same time that is posted outside of every attraction at Disney World. This makes sense; they must be using official Disney sources to get this data. The Disney World Maps app, on the other hand, relies on crowd-sourcing to get wait times — other people using the app who recently indicated the current wait times. If nobody has submitted a wait time in a while, then the app gives you old data. But I was surprised how often this app did provide accurate information. Moreover, this app allows you to see a list of the most recent wait times that were submitted, which often lets you see trends of when the ride was more busy and when it became less busy. And it is super-easy to submit the wait times that you see when you get in a line, so I often found myself submitting recent wait times just to help the cause.
There is a free version of this app so you can try before you buy. My only gripe with the free version is that it shows ads at the bottom of the screen. The ads are a little distracting, but even worse the placement of the ad made it harder to press the location services arrow. After about a day of using the free version of the app, it was easy to decide to spend $2.99 for the paid version with no ads. Here is the free version on the left and th paid version on the right:
Disney World Dining
VersaEdge Software sells another useful app called Disney World Dining. Although the free Disney Mobile Magic app gives you basic information on dining, the $1.99 Disney World Dining app provides much more information on each restaurant, including virtually every single item on the menu, making it easy to decide which restaurant to visit, and also making it easy to decide what you are going to get once you get there.
For example, we had a character lunch in Magic Kingdom at a restaurant called The Crystal Palace. The free Disney Mobile Magic app gives you only the most basic information about the items available at the buffet:
On the other hand, the Disney World Dining app gives you information about the restaurant (including the characters who will visit your table at the restaurant) and virtually every single item on the menu, or in this case since it was a buffet, available at the buffet.
The menu information wasn’t always perfect, but it was certainly good enough.
Note that VersaEdge also sells an app called Disney World Magic Guide that appears to combine both the Disney World Maps app and the Disney World Dining app into a single app for $4.99. I preferred having two distinct apps so that I could launch the Disney World Maps app and instantly see a map without having to navigate through menus to get there.
Disney World Wait Times, Dining and Maps Free by UndercoverTourist.com
The most useful apps for me were the two VersaEdge apps and the Disney Mobile Magic apps, there was one more app I downloaded that is worth mentioning: Disney World Wait Times, Dining and Maps Free by UndercoverTourist.com. The map is not as easy to read as the one in the VersaEdge app, although it does provide more information at a glance than the Disney Mobile Magic app, and the restaurant information is not as good as any of the apps mentioned above. But the app does include nice descriptions of rides and restaurants, and when I was looking for additional information about something, I often found this app very useful. The app was not useful enough for me to purchase the $3.99 version that doesn’t have ads, but the free version was a helpful complement to the above apps.
If you find yourself headed to The Most Magical Place on Earth at some point in the future, don’t forget your iPhone, and grab these apps to have an even better experience.
Click here for Disney Mobile Magic (free):
Click here for Disney World Maps by VersaEdge Software ($2.99):
Click here for Disney World Maps Free by VersaEdge Software (free):
Click here for Disney World Dining by VersaEdge Software ($1.99):
Click here for Disney World Wait Times, Dining and Maps Free by UndercoverTourist.com (free):
Thank you once again to Rocket Matter for sponsoring iPhone J.D. in November. Rocket Matter sells legal practice management software for small to mid-size firms. The software is online, so you can use it on a PC or a Mac to track your time and manage your clients and matters.
Last month I told you a little about the new Rocket Matter app for iPhone. This month, I want to mention a free ebook that Rocket Matter is offering to all attorneys, even those who don’t use Rocket Matter. Attorney Michael Moore, who is the CFO and VP of Business Affairs for Rocket Matter, wrote Ridiculously Remarkable Legal Billing: How Better Billing Practices Improve Your Law Firm and Your Life. This book is in PDF format, and is only 60 pages with a font that is large and easy-to-read on your iPad. It only took me about 15 minutes to read the book, but it is full of helpful tips for any attorney in private practice — i.e., any attorney who bills clients. The book starts with reminders on the importance of billing timely, something that all of us know in our hearts even if we don’t always practice what we preach, and then offers great tips on improving billing practices.
Some of the tips offered in the book I have heard before in other seminars I have attended, such as the Pomodoro Technique, but other tips on capturing time were new to me. I must admit that I have often been a victim of what Moore calls “timesheet sudoku” — the (often unsuccessful) attempt to recreate a day when you failed to keep track of your time contemporaneously.
So for some free, good tips on improving your billing practices, click here to get the ebook. You can learn more about Rocket Matter at their website, and don’t forget that you can download the free Rocket Matter iPhone app on the App Store:
From time to time, attorneys who read iPhone J.D. write to tell me how they are using their iPhone or iPad in their practice. I love to read these stories, and with permission I like to share them here on iPhone J.D., but it occurs to me that I haven’t done so since I wrote about Iowa attorney Megan Erickson back in May of 2011. Thus, I was happy to hear from personal injury attorney Zane Cagle of the Cagle Law Firm in St. Louis, Missouri who shared the following with me about how he uses his iPad. Stories like this always make me think about additional things that I can do with my own iPhone and iPad, so hopefully you will also enjoy reading this. Take it away, Zane Cagle:
– – – – –
Modern
technology has changed the way businesses operate and law firms are no exception.
This is especially true at The Cagle Law Firm where both I and many of my colleagues
use iPads on a daily basis for numerous tasks.
Leveraging technology allows us to stay in constant communication with
our clients, the courts, other law firms, and internally. Whereas the desktop changed the corporate landscape
and laptops brought freedom – the iPad takes the technology revolution to a
whole new level.
When I meet with clients it is
important to have an understanding of exactly where their case is, the law
surrounding it, and the steps forward.
Meeting in someone’s home as I often do means that I typically do not
have instant access to law libraries, factual information, or the current court
records. I can call my legal secretaries
and paralegals to assist by looking things up or bringing in files but that
requires taking time away from the client to speak with another staff member.
In addition, our staff members tend to work more traditional business hours
while it is not uncommon for me to meet with clients at all hours of the day.
Having an iPad gives me a way to access necessary information day and night,
seven days a week.
I also use my iPad for client acquisition. Cell phones have become advanced enough to search the web and store contacts fairly easily but I have found that using an iPad allows almost the same portability as a cell phone but with many more options for providing potential clients with useful information as well as storing detailed contact information. While an iPad probably isn’t the best thing to write lengthy briefs it can be used to take notes during initial meetings. I use it with a note keeping and sharing application called Evernote which allows me to sync information entered into my iPad with my cellphone, laptop, and desk top computer as well as share it with my colleagues.
I often use Google Earth and other similar applications with my iPad to increase the
quality of service that I can provide to my clients. When meeting with clients
in their homes I can use these tools to help the client discuss and reference
exact locations and circumstances of their accident. I often use the iPad
camera as well, but perhaps not as often as I could be. I have used it in meetings with clients and
at the scene of an incident to document injuries and other images relevant to
the case. The camera can also function as a scanner with DocScanner which allows us to scan needed documents and file the
originals away. This ensures that I will have all relevant documents at all
times and that the originals will remain safe. Again, this feature works great
with Evernote which I use to attach a photo or a scanned document to client
notes and organize, store, and share these with the necessary parties.
I use the iPad in all steps of my
process and this includes the trial itself. Rather than carrying in several
heavy boxes of documents we can use the above method to quickly scan, save, and
access all necessary paperwork instead of carrying in several heavy boxes full
of documents. Exhibits such as jury
instructions can be easily altered after rulings when in the past, this meant
crossing out words or running to the printer to have items reprinted. Revising
on the iPad and then projecting onto a wall or other surface is much more
convenient and eco-friendly. Exhibits for trial are easily saved and
transported to the court through the iPad which makes preparing for trial less
like an office move!
Using an iPad has definitely helped me
become more efficient and organized in my practice and it allows me to better
serve my clients. For those of us at the firm who currently use them I don’t
think we will be giving them up anytime soon, and those who are not will most
likely be getting one in the near future.
– – – – –
Thanks, Zane!
If you are interested in letting other iPhone J.D. readers know how you use your iPhone and/or iPad in your law practice, just let me know. My contact information is on the left of this website. I’d love to hear from you!
