As Apple and iOS app developers continue to focus their efforts on getting ready for iOS 7 later this year, the world of iOS was relatively quiet this week, but there were a few interesting stories that caught my attention:
- New York attorney and TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante reviews the new 2.0 version of NoteSuite, an iPad (and Mac) app for taking, organizing, and searching notes. The app lets you import a Word document and then convert it to PDF so you can annotate it.
- St. Louis attorney Todd Hendrickson discusses whether the iPad or the iPad mini is more valuable in the practice of law in this post on Lawyerist.com. I use both of them extensively and have a different favorite depending upon the task.
- If you need to book a hotel room but you can wait to do so until Noon on the day when you need it, Florida attorney Rick Georges discussess an app called Hotel Tonight on his FutureLawyer site that can get you some good deals.
- South Carolina attorney Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer explains how to give a wireless presentation with an iPad, an Apple TV and a VGA projector.
- Joe Patrice of Above the Law describes a lawsuit filed by a lawyer (on his own behalf) who asserts that Apple's is responsible his ruined marriage because Apple made it possible for him to view pornography using the Safari web browser.
- Microsoft released a version of Outlook for the iPhone and iPad, but it is only for a small group of Outlook users. If your office subscribes to Office 365 and you can already use the Outlook Web App, then the new OWA app for iOS provides a native client. But as Tom Warren of The Verge reports, support for Exchange on-premises is planned for the future.
- Ashton Kutcher, who plays Steve Jobs in a movie being released next month, explained on Quora why he took the part.
- Brad Molen of Engadget reports on new plans offered by AT&T, T-Mobile and (possibly) Verizon that let you pay for an iPhone in monthly installments and get new phones every year. It sounds sort of like leasing a car versus buying a car.
- If you ever need to charge up to five iPads and/or iPhones at the same time, this week Griffin announced the PowerDock 5, a $99 relatively small charging station that provides a place to hold and store up to five devices. We already have four iPads in my house (I have an iPad and an iPad mini; my wife has an iPad; and we have an older iPad 2 that my kids use) and I suspect we are not alone in having many iOS devices in one house.
- Killian Bell of Cult of Mac reports on an Oregon man who was looking at vintage cars on the eBay app on his iPhone and didn't sign out of the app before he let his 14 month old child play with his iPhone. Apparently the child opened the eBay app again and bid on a car, and the man subsequently "won" the auction and became the proud owner of a 1962 Austin Healy Sprite. Oops.
- And finally, I don't play a lot of games on my iPad but I did enjoy playing Angry Birds Star Wars. It mixes the fun Angry Birds concept with sound effects and characters from the original three Star Wars films that I loved as a child. This week, Rovio announced that it will release Star Wars II on September 19. The second version will track the Episode I, II and III movies and works with 30 collectable figures sold by Hasbro. You buy a figure, such as a Chewbacca Angry Bird, and place it on a pod place on top of your iPad's camera to insert the character into the game and play it. Interesting idea. Here is a video showing the upcoming game, and in the meantime, you can currently get the original Angry Birds Star Wars HD (normally $2.99) for free:
