Today is the start of WWDC, Apple’s developer conference in San Francisco. Most of the conference is confidential, but the event always starts with a public keynote that provides details on what Apple has planned for the future. Apple CEO Tim Cook will give the keynote presentation today at 10:00 a.m. Pacific / 1:00 p.m. Eastern. I am sure that there will be many announcements that relate to the iPhone and iPad, such as a preview of the next operating system, iOS 7. Indeed, this will be the first major update to iOS since Jony Ive — the designer responsible for Apple’s hardware — has also been placed in charge of the look of Apple software. I suspect that we will see Apple announce a different look for the iOS, design changes that improve how the iPhone and iPad work. There are also rumors that Apple will announce a streaming music service.
If you want to
follow the event as it happens today, there are a number of websites
offering live coverage. Based on their coverage of prior events, I
suspect that these will be some of the best (click to jump to their page
with live coverage):
Many of us let our kids play with our iPads, and it is always amazing to see how quickly young kids figure out how to use these devices. When used in moderation, I consider using the iPad a good thing for kids, but I do sometimes wonder how using an iPad might influence a child’s development. Hanna Rosin wrote a great feature for The Atlantic entitled The Touch-Screen Generation to explore this topic. It’s a great read. I’m not surprised to see that Rosin has a way with words. When I was a high school debater, Rosin and her partner David Coleman debated for Stuyvesant High School in New York. They were one of the smartest and best teams in the country and one of the toughest opponents that my partner and I ever faced. And now, the news of note from the past week:
St. Louis attorney Dennis Kennedy and Larry Port, CEO of Rocket Matter, gave a presentation on iPhone apps at the ABA’s 2013 Spring Law Practice Management Section meeting. The presentation was titled “Planet of the Apps” and the amusing slides that went along with their presentation are available here.
Jim Calloway of the Oklahoma Bar Association told me that iPhone J.D. readers might appreciate this list of 40 “secret” iPhone tips and shortcuts from Kevin Whipps of AppStorm. The list is over a year old, but there are some good tips that might be new to you.
Florida attorney Mitch Robiner created Stick Texting, an app that lets you add funny animations to your text messages. He recently released a new, rated 17+ version called Stick Texting – The College Series. This YouTube video shows off some of the new animations. Click here to get Stick Texting – The College Series ($0.99):
That reminds me: Jean MacDonald of Smile — maker of the PDFpen apps for iPhone and iPad — founded App Camp For Girls, a summer camp for girls age 12 to 14 to
teach them how to write iPhone apps. The goal is to try to do something about the
small number of women who write software; this year there is just one camp, but in the future they hope to expand around the country. Sounds great to me, and you
The iMore website recently started a Hall of Fame section honoring apps that are more than 5 years old and have earned their place in iPhone history.
Joanna Stern of ABC News previews August, a device due out later this year that will let you lock and unlock your door using an iPhone. You can even send someone a virtual key that stops working whenever you want, making it unnecessary to leave a spare key under the door mat.
And finally, if you are worried that using an iPhone to make phone calls makes you too modern, Pyle Audio offers the PRT55I, the Authentic Classical Themed Home Telephone System. The device resembles an old-fashioned rotary phone with a wood base and brushed copper parts and can be used with both your landline and an iPhone. The list price is $164.99, but you can get it for only $68.26 on Amazon.
One of my most-used accessories for the iPhone and iPad is my MOBiLE CLOTH. This micro material weave cloth is by far the best cleaning cloth that I’ve ever used, and I always keep one on my desk, in my briefcase, in my study at home, etc. so that I can quickly and completely remove the smudges on my iPhone or iPad. It is nice to have a clean iPhone and iPad screen, not just for yourself but especially if you are showing off something on your device to a client. A MOBiLE CLOTH also works great to clean smudges off of a pair of glasses, a camera lens, and similar surfaces. I’ve reviewed them in the past (1/11/11, 5/31/11, and 2/13/12), and I mention them again today because for a limited time you can get a 25% discount plus free shipping on custom packages, and on any other order over $20.
They come in two sizes — a Classic 9″ x 9″ size that is a great size to keep on your desk and a Nano 4″ x 4″ that is smaller and easier to carry around. Sometimes I think of the big one as being for the iPad and the smaller one as being for the iPhone, but in reality I use both sizes with all of my devices. The prices vary based upon what you order, but they start at $9.99 for a pack of two and then get cheaper per cloth if you order more.
As I noted last year, my law firm has also taken advantage of the promotional and custom services offered by the company so that we can give out MOBiLE CLOTHs with our law firm logo on it. Clients always appreciate receiving them, so you might want to check out those services for your own firm. Unless you consider your firm a competitor to my law firm, in which case I encourage you to not do any innovative marketing at all.
John Hartigan, the founder of MOBiLE CLOTH, tells me that in the early days of his company, many of his initial sales were to iPhone J.D. readers who learned about the MOBiLE CLOTH after I posted my first review back in January of 2011. So as a thank you to iPhone J.D. readers, and for a limited time, MOBiLE CLOTH is offering a 25% discount plus free shipping on all of its custom/promotional packages (a cloth with a custom logo) and a 25% discount plus free shipping on all regular orders over $20. Hartigan tells me that the free shipping is in the continental US only, other restrictions may apply, and the offer expires on Friday, July 5. To take advantage of the offer, add items to your cart, click on the cart icon, and then type IPHONEJD in the Coupon Code field.
If you haven’t tried out a MOBiLE CLOTH yet, I encourage you to take advantage of this discount to check it out yourself. These cloths work really well, and they are a great way to keep your iPad and iPhone looking great.
Click here to order custom MOBiLE CLOTHs printed with a logo that you provide.
I am pleased to welcome Clio as a sponsor of iPhone J.D. Clio offers web-based practice management, time & billing and client collaboration services (including document management) for small and mid-sized law firms. When you use Clio, your important client data is securely accessible anywhere that you have Internet access. Of course that means that you and everyone in your law firm can use a PC or a Mac. But even on an iPhone, you can log in to the Clio mobile interface.
You can use the Clio mobile interface to do virtually everything you can on a computer — tracking time, tasks, expenses, documents, etc.
The few tasks that you cannot do from the mobile interface (such as creating a new matter) are the tasks that you are unlikely to want to do on the road. But even then, if you really needed to you can switch to the full desktop view of Clio from the mobile version and do anything you could do at your desktop.
You can also connect your Clio Calendar to the Calendar app on the iPhone with just a few simple steps. You can also sync your Clio calendar and Contacts to your iPhone via Google. And you can also use Clio Sync for Outlook to access your Clio calendar, contacts and tasks with Microsoft Outlook, even if you are offline. Plus, you can sync your iPhone/iPad with Outlook so that Clio is synchronized with both Outlook and your iPhone/iPad. Clio also offers e-mail integration so that you can easily associate an e-mail (using Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird or Gmail) directly with a matter.
If you have been thinking about trying cloud-based practice management, Clio offers a free 30 day trial so it is easy to find out if Clio will work for you and your law firm.
