Month: October 2013

Today is Halloween, otherwise known as All Hallows’ Eve.  Of course, for iPad enthusiasts, today is also All iPads’ Eve, the day before the brand new iPad Air goes on sale.  I presume that all iPhone J.D. readers are dressing up as their favorite iOS-related characters tonight, so feel free to post links to your costumes in the comments.  Now that Siri has a male voice in iOS 7, I’ll be dressing up as Siri on a black iPhone.

What?  That’s not too geeky, is it?

Happy Halloween!

 

The new iPad Air goes on sale this Friday.  Last week, Apple loaned iPad Airs to a few journalists who were allowed to post their reviews starting last night.  The reviews are universally positive.  Everyone seems to agree that iPad Air is not just lighter than previous models, it is light enough to make a real difference in every-day usage.  It is also the fastest iOS device to date (just a sliver faster than the iPhone 5s), and has incredible all-day long battery life.  Here are all of the reviews that I have seen so far, along with some quotes to give you a sense of the new features of the iPad Air.

• John Gruber of Daring Fireball:  “For those whose software needs are such that they can truly go iOS-only,
  
  the new iPad Air is a compelling option as an alternative to a Mac or
  
  PC laptop. Even if you pack along a hardware keyboard peripheral, you
  
  can easily stay under 2 pounds total weight with an iPad Air as a travel
  
  computer. The iPad Air makes an iPad 3/4 feel heavy; it makes an
  
  11-inch MacBook Air feel like an anchor.”
• Jim Dalrymple
  
  of The Loop:  “It’s very hard to describe how good the iPad Air feels
  
  in your hand without actually picking one up. It’s kind of like the
  
  first time you saw a Retina display for the first time—shock.  The other
  
  thing you will quickly notice is that while the screen size of the iPad
  
  Air is the same as the previous generation, the Air is actually a
  
  smaller device. The height is the same, but the width is considerably
  
  narrower.”
• Tim Stevens of CNET:  “If you found yourself tuning out the last few generations of iPad thanks
  
  to their extreme familiarity, it’s time to get yourself dialed back in.
  
  The iPad Air is worth getting excited about. Though it brings no new
  
  functionality to the table, and we can’t help being disappointed about
  
  the lack of Touch ID, the performance increase and solid battery life
  
  show that progress is still being made on the inside. It’s the new
  
  exterior design, however, that really impresses. The iPad Air is thinner
  
  than any tablet this size deserves to be, and lighter, too. The old
  
  iPad always felt surprisingly hefty. This one, compellingly lithe.”
• David Pogue, who is currently in-between jobs:  “The thing is, making the iPad smaller, lighter, and faster without sacrificing battery life or beauty is a tremendous achievement.  This isn’t a device that sits or hangs in one place its whole life. It’s not a microwave or a TV. You have to hold this thing while you’re using it, and carry it around when you’re not. So size and weight matter a lot.”
• Walt Mossberg of All Things D:  “I’ve been testing the iPad Air for about a week and found it a pleasure to use. This new iPad isn’t a radical rethinking of what a tablet can be, but it’s a major improvement on a successful product. It is the best tablet I’ve ever reviewed. … The battery performance of the iPad Air simply blew me away. In my tough
  
  tablet battery test, where I disable automatic screen dimming and other
  
  power-saving features, and combine video playback from the device’s
  
  memory with leaving Wi-Fi on and email working at normal settings, the
  
  iPad has almost always met its claims and beat competitors by a wide
  
  margin.”
• Ed Baig of USA Today:  “As it happens, though, this latest full-size Apple tablet is the most tempting iPad yet, better than its already best of breed predecessors, superior still to each and every rival big screen slate that I’ve tested. Apple dominates the tablet apps ecosystem. Its tablet remains the easiest to use.”
• Brad Molen of Engadget:  “Simply put, the iPad Air is the most comfortable 10-inch tablet we’ve ever used.”
• Vincent Nguyen of SlashGear:  “It makes more of a difference than you might
  
  imagine. While you see plenty of full-sized iPads out in the wild, the
  
  majority of larger tablets spend their time indoors. With the iPad Air,
  
  however, we found ourselves far more likely to drop it into our bag than
  
  before, replacing the iPad mini and other 7- to 8-inch tablets as our
  
  go-to device for mobility purposes.”
• Clayton Morris of Fox News:  “It’s hard to believe Apple managed to shave nearly a half-pound off last year’s fourth-generation iPad while still maintaining exceptional battery life, which in my all-day usage rarely dropped below 30 percent.”
• Harry McCracken of Time:  “Still, whether it’s a record-holder or not, the iPad Air is such a featherweight that it changes the experience of using Apple’s tablet. (I tried a unit provided by Apple with built-in Verizon 4G LTE, adding .05 of a pound to the package; no, I didn’t notice it.)  To steal the phrase that Jeff Bezos used to describe Amazon’s original Kindle e-reader, you want a tablet to disappear in your hands. And there’s so much less of the Air that it comes closer to doing that than any previous full-sized iPad, letting you focus on the app you’re using rather than the device you’re holding. You can even support it in one hand, at least for a bit, without giving yourself a sore wrist. It’s just plain more approachable.”
• Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch:  “It’s a difference that you feel, all numbers and measurements aside. The
  
  iPad Air is much, much more comfortable to hold than the iPad 4th-gen
  
  it replaces; This isn’t strictly a one-handed device, but it’s as close
  
  as you can get with a tablet that still has a gorgeous, expansive
  
  9.7-inch Retina Display.”
• Stuart Miles of Pocket-Lint:  “The Air goes on and on for what seems like forever — especially if you
  
  turn off the 4G. Even though the battery is physically smaller this time
  
  around, performance savings within iOS 7 — Apple’s installed as
  
  standard mobile operating system — and the new processors really does
  
  mean you’ll see the same 10 hours of life per charge.”
• Damon Darlin of the New York Times:  “A tablet, especially this iPad, is a delight to use and will bring you
  
  more hours of enjoyment than any other electronic device I know of.”
• Rich Jaroslovsky of Bloomberg:  “I actually grew impatient trying to exhaust the battery in
  
  my tests; you should get a lot more than a full day of normal
  
  use on a charge.”
• Matt Warman of The Telegraph:  “I’ve had one
  
  for a week or so and it’s the first full-size iPad I’ve ever thrown into my
  
  bag without thinking about the (28 per cent lighter) weight. It’s totally
  
  replaced the iPad Mini for me, which previously was the model I’d take out
  
  and about.”
• Ben Bajarin of Techpinions:  “The new iPad Air is so light you have to feel it to believe it.  The iPad Mini weighs .69 pounds and the iPad Air weighs 1 pound. But when you hold them at the same time, the weight difference feels negligible. The iPad Air distributes its weight in a way that holding it and using it feels about as light as the iPad Mini.  The iPad Air is easily the best designed iPad yet.”
• Anand Lal Shimpi of AnandTech:  “The iPad was never light enough for me to comfortably hold in my hands, suspended above my face while lying in bed or on the couch for long periods of time. The iPad 2 got close, but the 3rd and 4th generation iPads reset the scale completely. That’s actually one reason why I liked the iPad mini and Nexus 7 so much, they were far more comfortable to hold.  The iPad Air gets incredibly close. Sans case, the iPad Air is light enough that I can comfortably hold it above me (with two hands) for a while without my wrists getting tired. I still prefer propping the iPad up against something but I think 1 pound may be the crossover point for me personally.”
• Anick Jesdanun of AP:  “Apple says it has been working on this engineering feat on the side for years, even as it released bulkier models. To make the Air 20 percent thinner, Apple shrunk just about every layer: the front glass, the touch sensor, the display, the battery and the aluminum back. Apple says it kept the device durable without unnecessary materials.  It’s not until you hold the old and the new side by side that you feel and appreciate the difference.”
• Luke Peters of T3:  “Pitching the iPad Air against its
  
  competitors is quite easy – it’s the best looking, premium, and
  
  app-happy tablet on the market. The cosmetic design changes are an
  
  unequivocal improvement, and the weight reduction proves a genuine
  
  benefit for everyday use.”

Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2013 fiscal fourth
quarter (which ran from June 30, 2013 to September 28, 2013) and held a
call with analysts to discuss the results.  This is typically a
transitional quarter for Apple considering that so many sales take place
in the October to December quarter that contains holiday sales.  That was especially true this year because there were no new iPads for sale last quarter and the new iPhones did not go on sale until September 20, 2013 — enough to capture some of the early sales, but most new iPhone sales will occur in the 2014 fiscal fourth quarter that began on September 29, 2013.  Nevertheless, it was yet another profitable quarter for Apple, with
Apple announcing quarterly revenue of $37.5 billion. $1.5 billion more than the same quarter last year, and
quarterly net
profit of $7.5 billion, down slightly from the $8.2 billion in profit this time
last year.  If you want to get all of the nitty gritty
details, you can download the audio from the announcement conference
call from iTunes, or you can read a rough transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha.  Apple’s official press release is here.  Here are the things said on the call yesterday that I think would be of interest to iPhone and iPad users:

• Apple sold 33.8 million iPhones, which is pretty impressive considering
  
  that, as noted above, the new iPhones didn’t come out until the very end of the fiscal quarter. 
  
  That’s the largest number of iPhones that Apple has ever sold in a
  
  fiscal fourth quarter.  Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said:  “Phone sales were ahead of our expectations and grew stronger year-over-year in each of our geographic segments.”  Put the numbers together, and Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple sold 150 million iPhones in fiscal 2013.  By
  
  my count, as of September 28, 2013, Apple had sold over 421
  
  million iPhones.
• Oppenheimer noted that a lot of folks are using iPhones to get work done.  He said:  “iPhone continues to be a key productivity tool for organizations around
  
  the world, aided by apps from the App Store as well as those
  
  custom built for internal use.  In fact, nearly 35,000 companies
  
  representing millions of employees worldwide are building custom apps
  
  that address specific workflow improvements for their iPhones and iPad
  
  users.”
• Cook said that only a little over 50% of the global handset market is currently using a smartphone.  He said that currently the smartphone market is about 1 billion units worldwide, and by 2017 Apple sees that number at 1.7 billion.  Thus, there is room to sell more iPhones in the future to new users, not to mention the upgrades to current users.
• Cook noted that the new technology in the iPhone 5s — including the 64 bit processor and the fingerprint sensor — is just the “front end of a long road map.”  So Apple has big things in store for this technology in the future.  Good to know.
• Apple sold 14.1 million iPads in the fiscal quarter.  That’s roughly the same as the 14 million sold this time last year, but I’m sure that many folks (like me) were waiting for the new iPads to go on sale this Friday.  Cook said that Apple sold 71 million iPads in fiscal year 2013.  By my count, that means that as of September 28, 2013, Apple had sold over 169 million iPads.

• Cook said that the worldwide tablet market is about 225 billion units this year and will increase to over 400 million in 2017.  So once again, there is a lot of room for growth in sales to new users, not to mention the upgrades to current owners.  As Cook said:  “We continue to view the tablet market as huge.  We see it as a large opportunity for us. … I think it’s going to be an iPad Christmas.  But we’ll see, we’ll report the numbers back to you in January, how we did, but we are pretty confident.”
• Oppenheimer said that over 60 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store, and Apple has paid over $13 billion to app developers — half of that in just the last year.
• Oppenheimer noted that Apple currently has $146.8 billion in cash and securities.  Good to know that the company a little set aside for a rainy day.  Or for that matter, a rainy decade.
• When will Apple come out with something new, such as a rumored iWatch or other wearable accessory?  Six months ago, Cook announced that Apple was working on some “exciting new product categories.”  When asked about this yesterday, Cook was vague (no surprise), but did confirm that something new is coming:  “In terms of new product categories, specifically, if you look at the
  
  skills that Apple has from hardware, software and services, and [an]
  
  incredible app ecosystem, these set of things are very, very unique.  I
  
  think no one has a set of skills like this.  And we obviously believe that
  
  we can use our skills in building other great products that are in
  
  categories that represent areas where we do not participate today.  So
  
  we’re pretty confident about that.”  Similarly, in the prepared remarks that Cook read at the start of the call, he said:  “We continue to be very confident in Apple’s future and we see
  
  significant opportunities ahead of us and both current product
  
  categories and new ones.”
• What do the iPhone and iPad mean to Apple as a whole?  They are incredibly important.  As noted by Macworld, iPhones accounted for 52% of Apple’s revenue this quarter and iPads accounted for another 17%, so that’s 69% of Apple’s total revenue.  And that’s before you even start counting App Store sales and other iOS-related revenue.  Apple still makes money selling Macs and to a much lesser extent iPods, but Apple is far more of an iPhone/iPad company than a Mac company.

With the recent updates to the iPad and iPad mini,
the two devices are now arguably peers, which can make it hard to decide — if you are looking to upgrade your iPad,
which one should you get?  California attorney David Sparks gives his perspective on his MacSparky website, and ultimately he is thinking of getting both of them.  New York attorney and TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante describes the new iPads and offers this good advice:  get an iPad Air if you prefer to type in landscape orientation, and get the iPad mini if you prefer to type in portrait orientation.  MG Siegler of TechCrunch had a chance to try out the new iPads, and offers this perspective on them.  I’ve decided to get an iPad Air when it comes out on November 1st, and in a way I’m glad that Apple won’t start selling the new iPad mini until late November because that way I won’t be tempted to buy both when I am in the store.

• Miami attorney Al Saikali discusses on his Data Security Law Journal website a $3 million settlement of a lawsuit filed against a defendant after two unencrypted laptops containing personal information of 1.2 million customers were stolen from the defendant’s office.  An extreme example, but a healthy reminder of the need to keep an eye on your mobile devices — and to use passwords on them.
• Rulebook is a great app for downloading and viewing bodies of law and other legal resources so that you always have them with you.  For example I use The Bluebook in Rulebook several times a month.  Starting today, Rulebook is offering Free Rule Book Friday.  Follow the Rulebook @rulebookapp Twitter account to learn each Friday morning which book is free.
• Last month, I wrote an article for the TechnoLawyer SmallLaw newsletter on helpful but hidden iOS 7 features.  Hopefully, you already subscribe to that free newsletter — even lawyers at large law firms will find some great articles in that newsletter — but just in case you missed it, you can now read my article on the TechnoLawyer website.
• Tampa attorney Katie Floyd discusses the new 2.0 version of the Transporter app.
• Marlisse Silver Sweeney of Law Technology News discusses Li-Fi, a new wireless protocol that uses light bulbs.  Interesting.
• Apple released iOS 7.0.3 on October 22.  Serenity Caldwell of Macworld describes what is new, including fixes to some annoying bugs.
• Horace Dediu of Asymco did some interesting number crunching.  If you count computers, tablets and smartphones all as “computing devices,” then Microsoft’s share of computing devices went from 90% in 2008 to 32% in 2013.  The change has more to do with Android than iOS, but it is still an interesting perspective.
• If I receive a text message while I am driving, I will often ask Siri to read it to me, and then I will sometimes dictate a short reply.  But according to a recent study discussed by David Pogue for Scientific American, hands-free texting can be just as dangerous as picking up your iPhone to write a text.  It is just one study with only 43 subjects, but it does make you think.  Let’s be careful out there.
• I really liked iAnnotate version 2 when I reviewed it a few months ago.  This week, the app was updated to version 3.0.  It has a new look for iOS 7 and adds a few new features such as the ability to copy and paste annotations, share using AirDrop and speak the text in a document.  I recommended the app when it cost $9.99, but from now until October 30, 2013, the app is on sale for only $2.99.  If you want to annotate PDF files on your iPad, this is a good one.  Click here to get iAnnotate: 
• If you want to communicate with people using the BlackBerry BBM system, you can now do so.  This week, BlackBerry released a free BBM app for the iPhone.
• If you like the new ringtones in iOS 7, you likely have musician Adam Young to thank, according to an article by Scott Buscemi of 9to5Mac.
• Before every Apple event, I can’t help but spend some time trying to determine if there is anything to decipher in the picture on the invitation.  Jacob Kastrenakes of The Verge has an interesting look at the last ten years of Apple invitations and what they meant.
• Apple has a great new commercial for the iPad Air.  When I first watched it, I knew that the voice was familiar but I couldn’t place it.  John Browlee of Cult of Mac reveals that it is Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad.
• Tweetbot is my favorite iPhone and iPad client for Twitter.  It was updated to version yesterday.  It’s a new app, $2.99 for now and will eventually cost $4.99.  It has an entirely new look for iOS 7 that is attractive and fun, but retains all of the cool features of the prior app and adds some new ones like background tweet refreshes.  Click here for Tweetbot 3 ($2.99): 
• Nathan Ingraham of The Verge reports that Microsoft released a Remote Desktop app for iOS that lets you control a Windows PC from an iPhone or iPad.
• Scoopertino reveals the iPhone 5p.
• And finally, app developers David McKinney and Stuart Hall came up with a clever and free app called Flipcase that works with the new iPhone 5c and the case sold by Apple for the iPhone 5c.  The below video shows how it works, and now I can’t stop thinking “pretty sneaky, sis.”

How do you improve a product that is already great?  One approach is to add new features.  For example, Apple improved upon the iPhone 4 by adding Siri to the iPhone 4s, then added a larger screen to the iPhone 5, and then added the fingerprint scanner in the iPhone 5s.  New features are nice because they stick out; they provide an easy answer to the question “why should I upgrade?”  Another approach is to simply make the overall experience better — an approach that lacks a sound bite, but can result in a product that is far more delightful.  For example, the iPhone 3G (my first iPhone) was fantastic, but often demanded your patience.  The iPhone 3Gs enhanced the iPhone 3G by making everything faster and more responsive.  The device felt the same, except that it was more pleasant to use.

Yesterday, Apple used both approaches, one with each of the members of the iPad family.  The 2013 iPad mini has lots of improvements but a single marquee feature: a Retina display.  The 2013 full-size iPad doesn’t have a bold new feature, but instead seeks to provide a better overall user experience.  Both new iPads will be available in November — the iPad Air on November 1, and the iPad mini later that month.

The iPad Air

I love using my full-size iPad (I use the third generation iPad), but if I were to complain, my first complaint would be the weight.  My law practice is about as paperless as it can be, so I am constantly working with documents on my iPad — whether it be an opposing party’s brief, a case I downloaded from Westlaw, or a transcript that I am annotating in the Transcript Pad app.  My iPad is far lighter than a computer and is easier to hold than a binder full of paper, but my hand does suffer some fatigue after holding an iPad up for a long period of time.  Indeed, the weight of my iPad is often a reason that I reach for my iPad mini, but while the iPad mini is great for many tasks, reading documents is far better on the larger (and retina) screen of a full-sized iPad.

Thus, I’m thrilled to see that the new iPad is lighter — 1 pound versus the 1.3 pounds of a third generation iPad and the 1.4 pounds of the fourth generation iPad.  To emphasize that it weighs less, Apple came up with a new name for the product:  the iPad Air, a nod to Apple’s successful MacBook Air computer.  It achieves that reduced weight not only by being thinner then the prior model (7.5 mm versus 9 mm) but also by having a much smaller bezel around the screen.  Apple says that as a result, “we were able to drop close to a quarter of the volume of the previous-generation iPad.”

How noticeable is the difference in weight?  I’ll need to try it myself to reach my own conclusion, but the initial reports from the folks who were at Apple’s presentation yesterday and got to try one out are that it makes a big difference.  I frequently see people saying that the iPad Air feels more like the old iPad mini than like the old iPad.  For example, David Pierce of The Verge writes that the iPad Air “deserves a new name: it feels completely different than the
full-sized iPad once did. Apple’s clearly trying to turn the iPad Air
into a full-size device you’re willing to take outside your home, and
based on our first impressions we’d happily throw one in our backpacks
today.”  MG Siegler of Google Ventures says:  “The iPad Air is incredibly thin and light. Feels far more like the mini than previous iPads.”  Brian Heater of Engadget writes:  “And while the new tablet is, in fact, around 20 percent slimmer than its
predecessor, it’s not immediately apparently until you put the iPad up
against its older sibling. What is apparent, however, is the weight.”

My other complaint about my third generation iPad is that it doesn’t feel zippy, especially compared to the iPhone 5 and 5s.  I decided against upgrading to the fourth generation iPad that came out a year ago even though that model was faster, but I’m definitely looking forward to the new speed of the iPad Air.  The iPad Air uses the same A7 chip in the iPhone 5s, and as a result, Apple says that it is considerably faster than prior iPads, up to twice as fas as the fourth generation iPad.

I’ve never had a complaint with the Wi-Fi speed on my iPad, but any time that you can download a large file or even load a page in Safari faster, that is good.  The iPad includes two Wi-Fi antennas and can use both of them at the same time using something called MIMO (multiple input multiple output) which Apple says will result in up to twice the 802.11n Wi-Fi performance.

I’m also happy to see that the new iPad Air has dual microphones to do a better job hearing you, which should make Siri work even better.  I frequently dictate emails on my iPad.

Put all of this together — smaller overall device but the same screen size, lighter and faster without sacrificing battery life, faster Wi-Fi uploads and downloads — and the end result seems to me to be a device that does everything that the prior iPad did but is much more enjoyable to use.  The iPad is an important part of my law practice, and I look forward to upgrading so that every time I use the iPad, I have a better overall experience.

The iPad mini with Retina display

The iPad mini is a great device because it is small and easy to hold and carry.  You can even sometimes put it in a pocket, depending upon the size of the pocket on your jacket or your pants.  But the one major drawback was the lack of a Retina display.  Ever since the iPhone 4 was introduced in 2010, we’ve all seen how text and graphics look so much better when you have smaller dots on the screen.  Having words look so crisp that they could have been in a high quality magazine makes the reading experience so much better.  For those of us who are attorneys and thus are constantly reading words, that makes a difference.  Moving from my iPhone screen to my iPad mini screen is often jarring because the screen simply doesn’t look as nice. 

The solution seemed simple and obvious – add a Retina screen to the iPad mini — but of course nobody wanted to sacrifice the other advantages of the iPad mini such as the small size and long battery life.  The 2013 version of the iPad mini adds a Retina display, and instead of the original iPad mini’s 1024 by 768 pixels, we now get 2048 by 1536 pixels in a screen of the same size.  This makes the iPad mini the sharpest iPad ever because it has the same number of pixels as a full-size iPad, but the pixels are as small as those on the beautiful screen of the iPhone 5.  Fortunately, Apple was able to keep the battery life the same as the original iPad mini, although Apple did have to make some slight compromises on the size — the new iPad mini is the same height and width, but it is slightly thicker, 7.5 mm versus 7.2 mm, and about an ounce heavier.  (The weight varies depending upon whether you get the lighter Wi-Fi only version or the heavier version with built-in 3G LTE.)

The new iPad mini is also faster.  Last year’s iPad mini used the A5 processor, the same one that Apple used in the iPad 2 released in 2011.  The new iPad mini uses the same A7 chip as the iPad Air and the iPhone 5s.  Apple says that this will be up to four times as fast as the 2012 iPad mini.  Also, and like the iPad Air, the new iPad mini has two Wi-Fi antennas with MIMO support and dual microphones.

Although I own both a full-size iPad and an iPad mini, most people choose just one.  If forced to pick just one, I’d opt for the larger screen.  But I know of many attorneys who value portability and weight over a larger screen, and for them, the new iPad mini with Retina display sounds like the answer to a lot of prayers.  As Tampa attorney Katie Floyd tweeted yesterday:  “Retina…and sold.”

Wrap Up

I’ll admit that I have so quickly gotten used to the fingerprint scanner
on my iPhone 5s that I had hoped to see it added to the iPad as well. 
Perhaps we will have to wait another year for that feature.  Regardless, there is still a lot that lawyers will love in the 2013 versions of the iPads.  I myself am really looking forward to the overall better experience that the iPad Air will offer, and I plan to get one.  I probably won’t get a new iPad mini this year, but I know that many attorneys will consider an iPad mini with a Retina screen to be the perfect device.

Today at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern, Apple will introduce the 2013
versions of the iPad and iPad mini, and I’m sure will also have lots of other iOS and Mac announcements.  For example, there will likely be updates to Apple’s GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto, Pages, Numbers and Keynotes app because for a short while this past Sunday, Apple’s website showed new icons for the apps and new information on the GarageBand app having in-app purchases.

At some point this morning, Apple might announce that there will be a live video stream of the event.  That happened last year. [UPDATE:  The Apple Events channel on Apple TV now says that there will be a live video stream.] [UPDATE #2: Apple’s web page now says that you can watch on an Apple TV, on a Mac, or on an iPhone or iPad.]  Otherwise, if you want to learn about the announcements in real time, you can follow along on one or more websites providing live blogs.  Here are the ones that I expect to provide some of the best live coverage, along with direct links to their live blogs:

• Macworld.  Jason Snell and Dan Moren are perhaps the best live-bloggers in the world for Apple announcements.
• The Verge. 
  
  Joshua Topolsky typically live blogs Apple announcements for The Verge, although it was Dieter Bohn who covered the iPhone 5s announcement last month, and his coverage was excellent.
• Engadget.  I’m not sure who will do this one, but the Engadget folks typically do a good job.
• Ars Technica.  I believe that Andrew Cunningham will provide the Ars live blog this year.  He did a good job with the iPhone 5s live blog next month.

Finally, if you miss the event during the day, I expect that Apple will post a video of the event later tonight.

There are reports suggesting that almost three-quarters of iPhone users may have already upgraded to iOS 7.  If you are one of the many who have made the switch, I suspect that you found the transition jarring for the first few days because everything looks so different, but once you get used to the change there is no denying that iOS 7 is far better than iOS 6.  Even so, I’ve been surprised at the number of attorneys (and others) who have told me that even after they get used to the rest of iOS 7 they still don’t like the smaller and thinner font size used.  Frankly, I feel the same way.  The new font used in iOS 7 — a version of Helvetica Neue — is beautiful, but if you don’t have perfect eyesight, it can be harder to see because Apple chose a version of Helvetica Neue that does not have much weight.  (Click here for a comprehensive look at Helvetica Neue and its different weights from Rani Molla of GigaOm.)  Fortunately, there are two things that you can do in iOS 7 to increase the text size and make everything more legible — even if, perhaps, not quite as pretty.  I’ve made both of these changes on my own iPhone and I prefer it this way.

Both of these changes can be made in the Settings app under General, and they are located in menus that are right next to each other:  Text Size and Accessibility.

Text Size

The first thing that you can adjust to make things easier to read is the text size.  Tap General and then tap Text Size and you will see a slider that you can drag to make the standard text size larger or smaller.  As you do so, the text at the top will adjust to give you a preview.

 

Here is an example of an email, first using the standard setting, and second using the largest Text Size setting.

 

Changes that you make to the Text Size work in most of the apps designed by Apple.  They will also work in third party apps that are designed to support the iOS Dynamic Type feature.

Accessibility – Bold

Even at larger sizes, the font used in iOS 7 is still somewhat hard to read because it is so thin — not only in text in email messages, but everyone else.  Each letter in iOS 7 has less weight than it did in iOS 6 and prior iPhone/iPad operating systems.  If you want to adjust that, tap on the Accessibility menu under General and look for the Bold Text option.  When you turn it on, you are warned that you need to restart your device for the change to take effect.  Once you do so, however, the change is quite noticeable.  For example, here is the Accessibility menu, first as it looks before Bold Text is turned on, and second as it looks after Bold Text is turned on and then an iPhone is reset.

 

Here is a comparision of an email with Bold Text turned off, and then with Bold Text turned on.

 

The bold option also makes a difference on your home screen.  The following two images show my home screen with Bold Text turned off, followed by Bold Text turned on.

 

And I could go on.  Suffice it to say that when you turn on Bold Text, the change is reflected in numerous places on your iPhone.

Combinations

The two changes shown above can be combined.  You can make the default Text Size larger, plus you can turn on bold text.  For example:

There is also an option to supersize text.  First, increase the Text Size as noted above.  Second, go to General -> Accessibility -> Larger Type and adjust the text size even more.  At the highest setting (shown bel0w), the text is so large that it is likely to be useful only to those with serious vision impairments.  But even if you don’t supersize text to the maximum possible size, you might find that a small adjustment is perfect for you.

 

You can make all of the adjustments noted above on the iPad as well.  I prefer Bold Text on my iPhone, but for whatever reason it doesn’t look right on my iPad, so I only increase the text size on my iPad. 

If you take the time to try out different adjustments and figure out what is right for you, you’ll find it easier to read text on your iPhone and iPad with iOS 7.

This week, Apple announced that it is hiring Angela Ahrendts to be a Senior VP in charge of retail and online stores.  Ahrendts is currently the CEO of Burberry and is credited with turning that company around.  At first blush, the CEO of a fashion and clothing company might seem like an odd fit for Apple, but the more I read about Ahrendts this week, the more impressed I am by her.  For example, Lauren Indvik of Mashable wrote an interesting article about her background, and I recommend the video embedded in that article (or click here to see it) in which Ahrendts talks about how she is using technology at Burberry.  Ahrendts looks to be an amazing addition to the executive team at Apple, and who knows, could eventually be the successor to Tim Cook as Apple’s CEO. 

• Want to learn about some of the best iPhone and iPad apps for lawyers to use?  Clio (a current sponsor of iPhone J.D.) is hosting a free webinar on Tuesday, Oct. 22 at 11 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern.  Joshua Lenon of Clio and I will talk about mobile device security, apps, and making the best use of an iPhone and iPad in the practice of law.  The session has been scheduled for a long time now, but by coincidence it will be right after (or at the end of) the big iPad announcement on Tuesday, so I’m sure we’ll have something to say about that as well.  Click here to get more information and to register.
• SCOTUSblog — in my opinion, the best resource for news and analysis related to the U.S. Supreme Court — released an iPhone app this week.
• Jesse Londin of Law Technology News reviews some apps that you can use to get keep track of Congress.
• Angela Hunt of Law Technology News reviews a new privacy filter from 3M made for the iPad screen.
• Lester Victor Marks writes for AppleInsider about a presentation by the cofounder of AuthenTec, the company Apple purchased to create the fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 5s. 
• Rob LeFebvre of Cult of Mac has some good tips for using Siri to navigate to specific parts of the Settings app.
• For a fascinating perspective on the recent Steve Jobs movie, John Vink (a former longtime Apple employee) talks with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and early Apple employees Daniel Kottke and Andy Hertzfeld  about the real events that inspired that movie.  Click here for the video.
• There are lots of great Bluetooth speakers for the iPhone, but the Jawbone Jambox was one of the first to make a big splash.  David Pogue of the New York Times reviews the new Jambox Mini.
• And finally, if you think that the one big drawback of the iPhone or iPad is that it just isn’t furry enough, your prayers are now answered.  This week, CalypsoCrystal announced the new Fury line of cases for the iPhone and iPad, including the $790 London for the iPhone and the $1290 Paris, pictured below, for the iPad.

Yesterday, Apple announced that it will make an announcement at an event on Tuesday, Oct. 22.  Apple did not say what it would announce, but it is widely expected that this is the date on which Apple will reveal the 2013 models of the iPad and iPad mini.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple also used this event to make other iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac announcements (such as more information on the next version of OS X for the Mac and the upcoming and newly designed Mac Pro).

The invitation sent to select members of the press says that the event will take place on Tuesday, October 22, at 10 Pacific at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.  That is a bigger venue than the Town Hall that Apple used last month for the new iPhone announcement; if Apple is inviting more people, maybe that means that Apple has more interesting products to show off. 

The invitation features a picture of the top of the Apple logo and many falling leaves, the same shape as the leaf on the top of the Apple logo, and the phrase “We still have a lot to cover.”  Here is the image, as reported by Macworld:

Last month, when Apple announced the Sept. 10 iPhone announcement, the invitation said “This should brighten everyone’s day.”  It now appears that was a reference to the colors on the new iPhone 5c, and perhaps also the new gold color for the iPhone 5s, and perhaps also the new Apple cases for both phones.  The falling leaves that provide “cover” in this announcement could just mean that this is a Fall announcement, but is it also a clue to what Apple will announce next week?  It won’t surprise me if the new full-size iPad announced next week retains the same size screen but has smaller bezels, which means a smaller overall iPad, which requires a new Apple Smart Cover … and perhaps that is what the word “cover” refers to in this invitation?  For more speculation on what Apple might announce, check out this article by Neil Hughes of AppleInsider.

In May of 2013, Apple CEO Tim Cook was called to testify before Congress about Apple’s tax strategies, including the use of offshore subsidiaries to avoid bringing profits on non-U.S. sales back into the U.S. where they would be subject to high taxes.  That led to an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which ultimately found Apple’s disclosures to be sufficient.  But I’m not Kelly “Taxgirl” Phillips Erb so I’m not about to comment on tax law.  Instead, I mention the congressional testimony because after Sen. John McCain asked Tim Cook a number of questions about taxes, he had one last question for the Apple CEO:

McCain: I’m out of time, but why the hell do I have to keep updating the apps on my iPhone? Why can’t you fix that?

Cook: We’re looking to do better all the time.

Sure enough, when iOS 7 came out last month, one of the included features was the ability to update apps automatically.  Just goes to show you that some things can get accomplished in Congress.

It looks to me as if the feature is turned on by default, but I’ve seen mixed reports of this on the Internet with some people saying that they have to turn it on manually.  You can check for yourself by going to your Settings app and then tapping on iTunes & App Store.  Swipe to the bottom of the screen and you will see the following options.  Make sure that Automatic Downloads is turned on for “Updates” — which means app updates.

Note that between “Music” and “Books” there is also an option for automatic download of Apps.  That does something different.  If you download an app on your iPhone and your iPad has that switch turned on, then your iPad will also download the app.  That is a handy feature if you want all of your apps to automatically appear on all of your devices, but that’s not what I’m talking about today.

With automatic app updates turned on, you no longer need to worry about using an app that is out-of-date.  When a developer releases an update to an app, you will get the update without having to do anything.  By default, updates only take place when you are connected to Wi-Fi, but if you don’t mind eating up the data portion of your cellphone plan, you can turn on “Use Cellular Data” at the bottom of that screen and app updates will occur even when your device is not connected to Wi-Fi.  As you can see from the above screen, I leave that option turned on, but that is mainly because I want to be able to use iTunes Radio when I am in my car and not in a Wi-Fi zone, which is controlled by the same switch.  Nevertheless, the switch also gives me app updates even when I’m not in a Wi-Fi zone.  I haven’t yet encountered a situation in which having “Use Cellular Data” turned on has eaten up a lot of my data, but I am usually connected to Wi-Fi, and I rarely get anywhere close to my 4 GB per month AT&T data cap, so I have data to spare.  If you have a smaller plan and/or you find that you are regularly using up your monthly data allotment, consider turning off the “Use Cellular Data” option.

Automatic app updates are great when one of your apps is updated to fix a bug.  When an app is updated to add more features, that can also be great, but at the same time it can be confusing if you don’t know that the new features were added.  For that reason, I encourage you to open the App Store app from time to time and tap the “Updates” button at the bottom right.  When you do so, you will see any new apps that have not yet been updated on your device, followed by a list of each of your recent updates organized by date.  For each update, you can tap the words “What’s New” to see a description of the update,  including any new features that you might want to try out.  If there is an app that you use often, you’ll want to tap What’s New to find out what is new.

 

I have heard some people say that they prefer to keep the automatic app update option turned off because they fear that it drains battery life.  I suppose that could be true in some situations, but note that iOS 7 tries to be smart about when it allows activity like this take place, often waiting until your iPhone or iPad is being charged and is not otherwise being used.  As the Apple website says:  “Intelligently scheduled updates: iOS schedules updates during power-efficient times.  Like when your device is on and connected to Wi-Fi.  So your battery isn’t drained unnecessarily.”  My app updates often take place overnight when I’m sleeping and my iPhone is charging.

The other argument that I have heard against automatic app updates it that there might be times when you don’t want the latest version of the app, such as if there is a bug in the new version.  Of course that is possible, but in my experience it is far more likely that the update fixes a bug in a prior version of the app.  I view this as a situation in which the risks of doing nothing far outweigh the risks of taking action.  Almost all of the time, you are better off with an app update.  Unless you plan to take the time to extensively research the pros and cons of every app update before you allow it, I think you are far better off with automatic app updates turned on.

Whether you use this option or not, my hope is that you keep in mind that the option is there.  If you turn off automatic updates, don’t forget to manually update your apps from time to time just like you did in iOS 6.  If you turn on automatic updates, don’t forget to check every once in a while to learn about new features.