This week, Apple announced a new version of the full-sized iPad 4. Starting Tuesday, February 5, you will be able to buy a fourth generation iPad with 128 GB of storage, twice as much as the 64 GB that had been the max. You pay an extra $100 for the extra memory, so the WiFi only model goes for $799, and for an additional $130 you can purchase the version with 3G/4G. I can't imagine that many lawyers would need that much space unless they need to carry a ton of video. John Brownlee of Cult of Mac notes that you can fit "up to 64 hours of 1080p HD video, enough music to listen to for almost 40 days straight, over two thousand games and almost six thousand apps, and enough photos to open your own Getty." And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:
- South Carolina attorney Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer wrote a great article explaining how to use an iPad and the fantastic TrialPad app during a high stakes class litigation hearing.
- Florida attorney Katie Floyd discusses using her iPhone and the Fitbit One to exercise.
- Similarly, New Jersey attorney Victor Medina talks about using his iPhone and a Jawbone Up Band to exercise in this article for Small Firm Innovation.
- St. Louis attorney Dennis Kennedy discusses using folders on an iPhone or iPad to manage your apps in this article for ABA Journal
- I absolutely, positively, do not recommend that any attorney jailbreak their iPhone because of the security risks, not the mention the risk that you will damage your iPhone. Having said that, some people want to do it anyway, and the legality of doing so has become more murky. Attorney Mitch Stoltz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation discusses the issue.
- I previously reviewed Picture it Settled Lite, a free app by San Antonio mediator Don Philbin that can help you during mediations. Philbin has analyzed all of the data from the use of that app to come up with a computer program called Picture it Settled that can help predict when and where a case will settled based upon the empirical data. I haven't tried it, but it sounds interesting.
- Texas Tech Pulse interviews Alex Torry, developer of the PushLegal app that I reviewed a few months ago.
- Utah attorney Peter Summerill of MacLitigator reviewed Trial Notebook, an iPad app from TabLit.
- Arsenio Cantu Garza, the Director of Information of the Supreme Court of the State of Tamaulipas, Mexico, asked me to announce that his office developed a free app called e-Justitia. It allows Spanish-speaking attorneys to manage clients and matters, schedule hearings, manage file expenses, and more. If you practice law in Mexico or Latin America, this may be of interest to you. Click here for e-Justitia (free):
- Ashton Kutcher and Josh Gad, stars of the upcoming movie jOBS, discussed the film at the Macworld/iWorld conference yesterday. Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica has a report.
- I recently reviewed 1Password, a powerful app for storing your passwords, and I really love it. For a limited time to celebrate Macworld/iWorld, the app is 50% off, so this is a great time to get it if you don't have it yet. I myself wish I had started using it long ago. The iPhone/iPad app is currently $8.99 instead of $17.99: The Mac version of the app is currently $24.99 instead of $49.99:
- Another Find my iPhone success story: there was an armed robbery in San Francisco and thieves stole a number of items, including an iPhone, and then jumped in a getaway car. The victims found a police officer with an iPad, he used Find my iPhone to track the car. This led to a high-speed chase, but eventually the criminals were caught. Todd Lappin of Bernalwood has the story. (via Cult of Mac)
- Speaking of police officers and iPhones, this tweet from the Dallas Police Department made me chuckle: "Our apologies for the fruit Ninja tweet sent earlier. One of our kids played the game on our iPhone and unknowingly tweeted their score."
- Alan Henry of Life Hacker reviews iPad cases that contain keyboards.
- Joel Mathis of Macworld writes that people love using the iPad mini as a business tool. I certainly do.
- This week I reviewed the dockBoss air, a method of adding Bluetooth to a speaker. You can also use Apple's AirPlay to add wireless support to a speaker. Jessee Hollington of iLounge discusses and compares these two methods. I find AirPlay over WiFi to be less reliable in my house ... the music can drop out. But if you have less WiFi interference in your own house, you may get better results with AirPlay than I do.
- And finally, a guy looking for a unique way to propose to his girlfriend this past Christmas (who thought she might get an iPad) put an engagement ring in the iPad box. But to go the extra mile and make the box the right weight when it held a ring instead of an iPad, he machine cut a slab of aluminum to make a one-of-a-kind ring holder. Here are three of the pictures, but to see the full set from "robbie92835" a/k/a "rad_rob" on Reddit, click here and here. According to this thread on Reddit, she said yes ... and of course, he also gave her the iPad.