In the news

I reviewed the iPad Air earlier this week, and I continue to be impressed by this product.  Because it is so light, I find myself using my iPad more than ever, and I love how fast everything works.  A number of others folks posted iPad Air reviews this week, and if you are trying to decide whether an iPad Air is right for you, the best ones that I have seen this week are Jason Snell’s review for Macworld, Andrew Cunningham’s review for Ars Technica and attorney Jeremy Horwitz’s review for iLounge.  And now, the rest of the news of note from this past week:

• An article in The Australian discusses a successful appeal by attorney Charlie Young resulting in a first-of-its-kind opinion from the Supreme Court of Queensland, Australia, in which the Court upheld the validity of a will typed in the Notes app of an iPhone shortly before the man ended his life.
• West Palm Beach attorney Christopher Hopkins recently gave a presentation on about 50 apps that are useful for Florida attorneys.  You can see the apps he discussed by clicking here (PDF file) to view his slides.  Hopkins also published an article (PDF file) with tips for using iOS 7.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote a persuasive editorial for the Wall Street Journal this week on the importance of workplace equality.
• Ever wondered why Apple was named Apple, why Google was named Google, why Sony was named Sony, etc.?  Evan Dashevsky of TechHive provides all the answers in this article.
• Macworld has started posting a great series of reviews on apps created by Apple that were updated significantly for iOS7.  Apps reviewed so far include Pages, Keynote and iPhoto.
• Earlier this year, I discussed the Transporter (here, here and here), a device I started using because the company sponsored iPhone J.D.  Since then, I’ve continued to use the product quite a bit.  It provides many of the advantages of Dropbox without any of the security concerns because you own and have possession of the hard drive on which your files are located.  Steven Sande of TUAW discusses a related, new product from the same company called Transporter Sync.  It is cheaper (only $100) and you add your own storage, either a USB hard drive or even a thumb drive.  If you are interested in any of the Transporter products, the company was nice enough to give iPhone J.D. readers a 10% discount off of any model purchased at at filetransporterstore.com when you use the offer code iphonejd.
• This time last week, I linked to two reviews of Fantastical 2, a fantastic app for working with your calendar.  This week I saw another great review of the app by Federico Viticci of MacStories.
• Wired has a fascinating excerpt from an upcoming book by Fred Vogelstein called Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution.  In the excerpt, Vogelstein describes the origin of the iPad.  It’s a great read.
• And finally, if you love grilling as much as you love your iPhone, then you’ll love the new iGrillmini, a $39.99 device coming out soon that will let you monitor the temperature of your meat from your iPhone.  The gadget comes from iDevices, the same company that makes the iShower, a Bluetooth speaker I reviewed earlier this year that lets you listen to music from your iPhone while you take a shower.  So this company has already figured out how to connect an iPhone to a wet shower and a hot BBQ pit.  Makes you wonder what they will connect the iPhone to next.