Month: October 2013

When I talk about the increase in lawyers using iPads, I’ll admit that I typically picture an attorney who is representing a client.  This week, I was reminded that the iPad is increasingly popular among judges as well.  I gave a presentation on Tuesday on using the iPad to a large number of judges at a conference sponsored by the Louisiana Judicial College, and I was surprised and impressed by the number of Louisiana judges who are already using iPads.  One appellate judge showed me how he organizes all of the briefs in all of his cases so that he can work on an opinion in any case at any time without needing to worry about carrying around a bunch of paper, and he had a great system — similar to what I would see myself using if I were a judge.  Also this week, an appellate attorney at my law firm, Ray Ward, attended the annual Appellate Advocacy Seminar put on by the Bar Association of the Fifth Federal Circuit, and as he explains in this fascinating post on his Louisiana Civil Appeals blog, most U.S. Fifth Circuit judges read briefs on their iPads.  They even use a special program to automatically add hyperlinks to briefs so that the judges can tap any citaiton and read the opinion on Westlaw or Lexis.  The U.S. Fifth Circuit will soon add hyperlinks for record citations.  It is great to hear about so many judges doing so much with their iPads, and I suspect that more effective use of technology is resulting in better judicial opinions.  And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:

• Utah attorney Pete Summerill explains how you can use the $1.99 iCab app to e-file from an iPad on his MacLitigator website.
• California attorney Scott Grossberg gives tips for using Dropbox on an iPad in your law practice.
• The folks at Tiger Team Inc. asked me to announce that their new app Public Record allows you to search the Criminal, Infractions and Civil data of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts on an iOS device.  The app is free, but you pay for each search.  You can get more information on their website.
• The folks at Legal Newsance asked me to announce that you can use their free iPhone app to access curated legal news, federal and state research tools, CLE programs and job openings.  You can get more information on their website.
• Patent agent Elliott Mason asked me to announce his new app BillablePlan, an app that you can use to track your billable hours.  You can get more information on the app’s Facebook page.
• You can use the iPhone Reminders app to identify an item that you need to buy at the store and then configure that item to remind you to get it when your iPhone senses that you are at that store — a neat trick, but it does take time to add location-based reminders for each item on your list.  Dr. Drang has a good suggestion for adding generic store-based reminders.  Neat idea.
• If you travel internationally with your iPhone, you’ll want to read this article by David Pogue of the New York Times explaining that T-Mobile subscribers can travel to 115 different countries and get unlimited and free international data and texts plus calls for only 20 cents a minute.  This is far, far cheaper than what AT&T, Verizon and Sprint charge.
• Paul Goldberger wrote a fascinating article for Vanity Fair based on his interview of Apple design guru Jonathan Ive and his recent collaboration with designer Marc Newson.
• Apple now has a page on its website with useful iPhone 5s tips and tricks, most of which are simply iOS 7 tips and tricks so check it out even if you don’t have a new iPhone 5s.
• Apple updated and changed the Siri voice in iOS 7, but Jessica Ravitz of CNN interviews Susan Bennett, who provided the voice for the original Siri.  Watch the video that goes along with the story to listen to Bennett use her Siri voice.
• It is pretty rare for me to review a game on iPhone J.D., but I made an exception back in 2009 when Dragon’s Lair was first released for the iPhone.  If you played video arcade games in the 1980s like I did, then you likely put a lot of quarters into this game that was like no other, with amazing cartoon graphics.  The Dragon’s Lair app released by EA back in 2009 is no longer available, but to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Dragon’s Lair, you can now get a new High Definition version of the game for the iPhone.  The app is huge — 1 GB, which is about five times the size of the app released in 2009 — but the graphics look amazing and take advantage of the larger screen on an iPhone 5 or 5s.  “Lead on, adventurer.  Your quest awaits!”  Click here to get Dragon’s Lair 30th Anniversary ($4.99):
• And yes, I did waste invest 30 minutes last night to save Princess Daphne:

• John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote an insightful article on what makes Apple successful notwithstanding the arguments that Apple will fail.
• If you are in the mood to be cruel, Alex Heath of Cult of Mac shows you how to prank your friends in the iMessage app.
• Photographer Jim Richardson (no relation) of National Geographic shows that you can take some pretty amazing pictures with an iPhone 5s.
• If you want a gold iPhone 5s, they are still pretty rare, so you need to
  
  be patient and persistent.  Or you can just pay $10,000 to buy one on
  
  eBay, as noted in this story by Bryan Chaffin of The Mac Observer.
• And finally, it might be a while before it is easy to buy a gold iPhone 5s, but in just a few weeks you will be able to buy the iKettle, the world’s first Wi-Fi enabled kettle, which lets you use your iPhone to boil water.  You can get it for the low price of $159.59 (with free delivery in the UK!).  (via iMore)

I always feel like a kid in a candy store whenever I look at the MobileFun.com website.  The company sells a huge number of iPhone and iPad accessories — chargers, docks, automobile kits, cases, you name it.  I still love the DODOcase HARDcover for iPad mini that I reviewed early this year.  MobileFun recently sent me a free review unit of the iT7x Premium Wireless Bluetooth Headphones and I’ve been testing them for the past month.  I’ve been a happy user of Apple’s $80 ($60 on Amazon) in-Ear Headphones for over four years now, so I’m very used to having a pair of white cords dangling out of my ears, and I wasn’t sure how much of an advantage it would be to use wireless headphones.  But soon after I started usig the iT7x, I realized that wireless headphones are both useful and fun.  If you listen to just about any audio from your iPhone or iPad — music, audiobooks, podcasts, movies — you’ll enjoy using this product.

Before talking about the product, a brief word about the packaging.  Apple is famous for creating an amazing unboxing experience.  It only takes a few minutes to open a box containing an iPhone or an iPad, and after you do so you may never look at the box again, but the care and attention that goes into the packaging signals to you from the outset that you are about to use a premium product.  I won’t ruin the surprise by posting pictures of the iT7x packaging, but suffice it to say that it is delightful.  If you decide to give this as a gift, your recipient will appreciate the quality even before first pairing the headphone with an iPhone.

The iT7x is an over-the-ear style headphone, which means that it isn’t small.  Frankly, the last time that I regularly used this style of headphone, it had a curly black cord and I connected it to the amplifier in my room to listen to my record player as a child in the 1970s.  I was happy to discover that the iT7x is quite comfortable to wear.  The cushioned speakers surround each of your ears, the padded headband feels good, and you can adjust the size to ensure the best fit whether you have a small or a big head.  (Yes, I realize I’m setting myself up for a joke there.)

The Bluetooth pairing is simple.  Just hold down the large button on the side of the right ear speaker for a few seconds as you turn on the unit until a blue light flashes, then pair using the Settings app on the iPhone or iPad.  You will then start to hear all audio through the iT7x.

And the audio sounds quite good.  Nice highs and lows, and decent thumps from the bass that are enjoyable without being overpowering.  My music sounded beautiful and the audio portion of videos sounded great.  (I’m currently catching up on Breaking Bad; I’m in the middle of Season 4, so no spoilers in the Comments please!)  I only have two minor complaints about the sound.  First, when no sound is playing (such as between songs) I can hear a slight hiss in the background.  It’s not unpleasant, but it is noticeable.  Second, about 10 seconds after you pause or stop audio on your iPhone/iPad, the iT7x enters into standby mode, after which you no longer hear that slight hiss or any other sound — and as it goes into standby mode you hear a slightly startling pop sound that I did find somewhat annoying.  But those complaints are minor, and overall I was very satisfied with the sound on the iT7x.

There are controls on the side of the right speaker that make it largely unnecessary to touch your iPhone or iPad.  There are buttons to increase the volume, decrease the volume, skip to the next track and go back.  If you hold down the next track button the music will speed up but there doesn’t seem to be a way to return the speed to normal, which seems like a bug either with the iT7x or iOS 7.  You can tap the large power button in the middle to trigger Siri, making it easy to tell your iPhone to call someone, ask Siri the current time, etc.  One obvious omission — there is no play/pause button.  Instead, there is a mute button that stops the sound as long as you hold it down, useful if you want to talk to someone for a few seconds (sound keeps playing on your iPhone but you just don’t hear it), but I’d find it more useful for that to be a play/pause button.  You can press the large button and tell Siri to “pause music” but that’s not as fast as pressing a pause button.

I mentioned that you can tell Siri to call someone.  The iT7x includes a built-in microphone.  It is invisible — there is no boom mic coming out of the side or anything like that — but in my tests it worked well for making phone calls with the iT7x, and as noted, it lets you give instructions to Siri.

You charge the iT7x with a cable that plugs into USB on one side and plugs into the bottom of the right speaker on the other side.  A charged iT7x lasts for about five hours.  The iT7x also comes with a cord so that you can plug it in to a headphone jack if you want to do so, although that obviously defeats the purpose of a wireless headphone.

You can fold up the iT7x to make it a little more portable for travel,
which works well if you are putting them in a suitcase but I still found
them a little large for a briefcase.

The iT7 Audio line is part of British company Bluechipworld and is named for Ian Taylor, who Wikipedia tells me is a retired English soccer player best known for playing for the Aston Villa Football Club in Birmingham.  With that background, it comes as no surprise that one target market for this product is folks who are working out or otherwise involved in physical activity where wires can get in the way.  I prefer to use my Nike Plus enabled iPod Nano when I run so I didn’t test that use of the iT7x, but I found many other great uses for wireless headphones.  When I was cutting the grass or doing other yard work, or doing other chores around the house, it was great to be able to slip my iPhone in my pocket and wear the iT7x without any risk of a headphone cord getting caught up in whatever I am doing.  When I watched those Breaking Bad episodes on my iPad at night, it was nice to not have to worry about a cord dangling down across the iPad screen.  (And even though the headphones were plenty loud enough for me, they are designed to make very little noise for others so there was no risk of waking my wife in bed.)

I see on the Bluechipworld website that the company makes other iT7 products, such as the newer iT7x2 (which comes in different colors and can go longer between charges, but I don’t believe is for sale in America yet), plus the website says that the iT7i and iT7Pro are “coming soon” with other features.  But I’ve been very happy with the iT7x.  Other than the minor inconvenience of no play/pause button (which also appears to be missing on the iT7x2), these headphones have worked well and have shown me how useful and fun it is to have wireless, great-sounding audio.

Click here to get the iT7x from MobileFun.com ($200.99).

A few months ago, Microsoft released a version of Microsoft Office for the iPhone.  That app lacks many of the important features of Office on the PC or Mac, but the app does let you read and modify a Microsoft Word document without losing any of the formatting in the document, which is sometimes all that you want to do on a mobile device.  The app itself is free, but you can only use it if you pay $10 a month or $100 a year to subscribe to Office 365, which also gets you the current version of Microsoft Office for the PC or Mac.  My review of Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone is here. 

However, what I and most other attorneys want is a full-featured version of Microsoft Office — especially Microsoft Word — that works on an iPad.  Yesterday, at a Gartner event in Florida, Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer announced that Microsoft is working on a version of Microsoft Office for the iPad, and said that it will be released when Microsoft finishes working on a touch interface to Microsoft Office which will also be incorporated into the Windows version of Office.  Tom Warren of The Verge has details in this article. 

I’m thrilled to see some official confirmation from the top executive that this app is coming, but that doesn’t mean that it is coming soon.  A Microsoft spokesman told The Verge in November of 2012 that Office was coming to iOS, and it was seven months before we saw that limited version of Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone that I mentioned above.  And back in December of 2011, Matt Hickey of the now defunct publication The Daily reported a rumor that Microsoft was “actively working” on Microsoft Office for the iPad.  Moreover, even when Microsoft does eventually release Office for the iPad, it will be interesting to see whether it includes sophisticated but important features such as track changes and styles.

In the meantime, my current favorite app for working with Microsoft Word documents on the iPad is Documents to Go by Dataviz.  It does a nice job of showing footnotes, track changes redline edits and comments in a Word document.  If I need to create redline edits in a Microsoft Word document, I think that Apple’s Pages app is currently the best solution, but unfortunately when you convert a document from Word format to Pages format and then back to Word format some of the formatting can sometimes get lost.  I also like Quickoffice, an app that was recently purchased by Google and as a result is now a free app.  Quickoffice can show and create redline edits, but unfortunately it doesn’t show footnotes, which is usually a deal-breaker for me because I always have footnotes in my legal documents.  Office² is also a good word processor for the iPad, although sometimes I have problems with the app crashing when I work with larger briefs.

My hope is that we do not have to wait long to see Microsoft Office on the iPad, and I also hope that it is a full-featured app, unlike the app recently released for the iPhone.  There are lots of reasons that it is in Microsoft’s own interests to release such an app, as noted here and here by California attorney David Sparks.  Indeed, while Microsoft surely prefers that you run the desktop version of Word on a PC and the portable version of Word on a Microsoft Surface tablet, Microsoft has been selling Word for Macintosh since 1985, so there is nothing unusual about Microsoft selling Word and the other Office applications on an Apple platform. 

In the meantime, here are links to download the apps I mentioned above:

Click here to get Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone (free, with subscription): 

Click here to get Documents to Go Standard by Dataviz ($9.99): 

Click here to get Pages by Apple ($9.99): 

Click here to get Quickoffice (free): 

Click here to get Office² HD ($7.99): 

It is finally starting to get easier to buy the new iPhone 5s.  If you are still on the fence about whether to get one, here are two more good reviews to read.  First, Rene Ritchie of iMore wrote an extensive, comprehensive review of the iPhone 5s.  Second, I enjoyed reading the review of the iPhone 5s by Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times.  Finally, if you are on the fence about upgrading and you have reached the end of your two year contract, New York attorney and TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante explains that you are wasting money if you don’t get a new phone.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• San Francisco attorney Marcia Hofmann considers the Fifth Amendment implications of the new fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5s in an article for Wired.  Interesting.
• The next time that you need to make an important decision, did you know that you can ask Siri to flip a coin for you?  California attorney David Sparks figured that out based on a post by David Chartier.
• Jordan Redavid, a law student at the University of Miami School of Law, asked me to announce that he wrote an iPad app to aid in jury selection called, appropriately enough, Jury Selection.  The app is free to use for 10 days so you can try it out; after that it costs $19.99 for unlimited use.  Click here to get Jury Selection (free): 
• North Carolina attorney Brian Focht of The Cyber Advocate reviews the Jury Selection app.
• Vicki Voisin, Kathy Miller and Karen Trumpower discuss top apps for paralegals on the latest edition of The Paralegal Voice podcast.
• In our work and personal lives, we are all dealing with information overload.  How do you keep track of everything?  My tips for doing so with an iPhone or iPad are in a recent article that I wrote that was published in the TechnoLawyer SmallLaw newsletter.  If you missed it, that article is now online.
• If your company uses the Good service to provide greater security for your iPad, this week Good added support for a version of the iAnnotate app that I recently reviewed and really like.  Sean Doherty of Law Technology News has the details.
• Are you having trouble sending iMessage text messages with iOS 7?  It has worked fine for me, but I’ve seen reports of others having trouble.  The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is aware of the problem “that affects a fraction of a percent of our iMessage users” and is working on a solution.
• If you upgraded to iOS 7 and only see the first names of people in the Mail and Messages app, that is because your iPhone/iPad has the Short Name preference turned on.  Allyson Kazmucha of iMore explains how to turn it off.
• And finally, I’ve linked in the past to videos from magician Simon Pierro who does really fun things with his iPad, but here is another one, apparently from 2011, that I just saw.  It isn’t in English, but you won’t have any trouble understanding what is going on, and it is amusing:

Whether it is music, an audiobook, a podcast, audio from a movie or a game or any other audio coming from an iPhone or iPad, the quality of audio is much, much better when coming from a nice external speaker instead of the small built-in speaker on those devices.  In January of 2013, I reviewed the dockBoss air, a great device that adds Bluetooth to an older speaker with a 30-pin connector designed to work with the iPod and the pre-iPhone 5 versions of the iPhone.  I love that product because it lets me use my new iPhone (or iPad) with my Bose SoundDock Portable speaker, a great portable speaker that has a 30-pin connector.  Indeed, even if my iPhone 5s could physically connect to the Bose SoundDock, I prefer to have a wireless connection so that I can keep the iPhone close to me to use it and to control the audio.

Last month, CableJive improved the dockBoss air, and the company sent me a free review unit to test it out.  The improvements are really nice, enough to justify this second look at the product.  Before I go on, however, you might want to start by reading my review from earlier this year because almost everything that I said back then applies to the new version of the dockBoss air.  Today, I will focus on what is improved.

Better sound.  CableJive says that the new version offers clearer audio, and in my tests this was definitely true.  I will admit that I never noticed a real problem with the last version of the dockBoss air, but comparing the two, I can tell that there was a slight hiss in the background with the old dockBoss air — most noticeable between songs or during a quiet portion of music.  I don’t hear any hiss at all with the new dockBoss air.  I’m not sure what CableJive did to achieve this, but it is a very nice improvement in sound quality. 

CableJive also says that you get more volume with the new version.  Both versions were more than loud enough for me, but if volume makes a difference to you, then that’s another advantage of this version.

Easier pairing.  With the prior version of the dockBoss air, you had to enter a code — 0000 — every time you paired your iPhone to the device.  The new version eliminates that requirement.  Just select the dockBoss air in your Bluetooth preference, and the devices connect.  If you leave the room and get far enough away to be out of range and lose a connection, the connection occurs automatically when you get back in range. 

Sometimes the pairing is almost too good.  Earlier this week, I was upstairs in my house listening to a podcast on my iPhone when suddenly I couldn’t hear anything.  Upon looking at my iPhone screen I saw that the iPhone had found the dockBoss air located downstairs, connected, and was playing my podcast through the speaker that was so far away that I couldn’t even hear it.  It was easy enough to change the audio output back to my iPhone, but I’m surprised that the Bluetooth connection even worked that far away.

Remote control.  My BoseSoundDock has a remote control with eight buttons:  Off, play/pause, volume up, volume down, next song, previous song, next playlist and previous playlist.  With the prior dockBoss air, the buttons that controlled the Bose itself worked fine (off, volume up, volume down) but no controls were passed through to the iPhone.  With the new dockBoss air, play/pause, next song and previous song are all transmitted via Bluetooth to your iPhone. (There is no support for the next playlist or previous playlist buttons — which, by the way, are buttons that I have never wanted to use anyway.)

If you keep your iPhone in your pocket when you are listening to a speaker, you really don’t need a remote control because you can control everything from your iPhone.  But there are also times when you want to keep your iPhone someplace close to your speaker — for example, you may want to be able to walk outside or far away but not have a connection lost between your iPhone and the speaker, which is annoying to anyone else listening — and in those circumstances it is useful to have the remote in your pocket instead of the iPhone.

Other changes.  The old version of the dockBoss air didn’t make any sounds to provide feedback for what it was doing.  The new version includes pleasant sounds as indicators of activity.  There is a short series of tones when you first connect the device to your speaker, there is another one when you connect via Bluetooth, and another one when you disconnect.  I like those short audio cues just so that I know that everything is working.  Physically, the newer version is slightly larger than the older version, and on the back it says “8.13” to signify that the new version came out in August of 2013.  In the following pictures, the new model is the one on the right:

CableJive refers to this model as V2, which I suppose means version 2, of the dockBoss air, but I think that this is actually the third version.  As I noted in my prior review, the original dockBoss air had trouble working with some Bose speakers (including mine) but a revised version fixed that problem.  But whether this is the second or third version, just make sure you buy the model that is advertised as having better sound, easier pairing and support for remotes and you’ll be sure that you are getting the right model.

The dockBoss air was already a really useful product, one which gives new life to older speakers with 30-pin connectors — great news for those who previously spent hundreds of dollars on a nice speaker.  The improvements in this new version of the dockBoss air make it an ever better product.  Indeed, if you can find an older iPod/iPhone speaker on sale now that companies are starting to come out with speakers with Lightning connectors and built-in Bluetooth, it might even be a better deal to get a discounted older speaker and a dockBoss air instead of a more expensive newer speaker.  I’m including both an Amazon link and a CableJive link below; the Amazon description says that it is this newer version (“New model as of August 28th, 2013.”) so you should be safe buying it from Amazon.

Click here to get the dockBoss air from CableJive ($34.95).

Click here to get the dockBoss air from CableJive via Amazon ($34.95)

It is always useful to have an external battery just in case your iPhone or iPad is running low, but many external batteries are large and heavy.  Sara Austin, an attorney in York, PA, recently told me about a small, $40 charger that she purchased called the Halo Pocket Charger 2200.  It is only 4 inches long and 3/4 inch in diameter.  It has a 2,200 mAh battery and comes with a USB charging cable, a carrying pouch, and three interchangeable adapter tips:  30-pin, mini USB, and micro USB.  The 30-pin connector is designed to work with older iPhones and iPads.  The Halo Pocket Charger 2200’s cord doesn’t come with a Lightning adapter tip so you cannot use the included cord with a newer iPhone or iPad, but there is a standard USB plug on the side of the Halo Pocket Charger so you can use the Lightning-to-USB cable that came with your device to charge.  Or, this seems to me to be a perfect use for a tiny USB to Lightning cord such as the iBoltz XS that I reviewed yesterday.

Sara Austin (pictured at right) gave me permission to share here on iPhone J.D. what she wrote to me about the Halo Pocket Charger 2200 on so that others could learn about this compact charger.  I appreciate her doing so because it sounds like a useful product, and but for her reaching out to me, I’m not sure that I would have known about it.

– – – – –

I ordered the Halo Pocket Charger 2200 [from the manufacturer, Halo2Cloud.com].  Timely delivery.  The site says it’s smaller (or as small as) a tube of mascara. As you can see from the picture below, that is not really true.  It is not as tall but definitely wider (which can make a difference if it needs to fit into a slim space).   

The Halo Pocket Charger 2200 arrived fully charged with a double-tipped USB cord and several adapter plugs and a small carrying bag.  It took my iPhone 5 about 1:20 to go from 28% to 84% and used about 1/2 the Halo charge.  Pretty good!  In another test, it charged my iPad 2 from 66% to 84% in 2:11 and took 1/2 the Halo’s charge.

Then, with the Halo Pocket Charger 2200 plugged into my PC, it took about 5 hours to recharge the Halo Pocket Charger 2200 from 1/2 to full.  Not bad, because someone will usually then be using the newly-recharged product while the Halo can recharge.  The cord even allows the Halo to be recharging while another item (iPhone, iPad, etc) is also charging from the Halo, although you will need to use a 30 pin to Lightning adapter to do so with the latest models of the iPhone and iPad.

The product comes in black, silver, purple or pink leopard.  I like the purple so I don’t confuse it with anything else.  [Jeff notes:  here is a picture of the pink leopard version from the Halo website; I certainly wouldn’t confuse that color with anything else in my briefcase.]

My verdict at this early stage: thumbs up.  The Halo Pocket Charger 2200 will be handy and is a good value for the cost.

– – – – –

Although Sara Austin purchased the Pocket Charger 2200, which costs $40, I see that the company also sells a Pocket Charger 2800 for $50.  That model is the same physical size but includes a larger 2800 mAh batter to give you a little bit more power.

Thanks for sharing your review, Sara!

Click here to get the Halo Pocket Charger 2200 from the manufacturer ($40.00).