Next week (June 2 – 6) is Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. This is the premier events for folks who develop Mac, iPhone and iPad software, and it is so hard to get a ticket that this year Apple instituted a lottery for tickets. The keynote address is at 10am Pacific time on Monday, June 2, and will be streamed live (but you need a Mac, iPhone, iPad or Apple TV to watch). Apple typically uses this event to preview new software, and sometimes to announce new hardware. Last year at WWDC, Apple previewed iOS 7, and two years ago, Apple previewed iOS 6. I suspect that apple will preview iOS 8 on Monday, and even though the new operating system probably won’t be available until September or October, it will be interesting to learn some of the new features that are coming later this year. And if you believe the rumors, Apple may have some other interesting announcements next week too. We’ll see. But enough looking ahead, here are the news items of note from the past week.
Sam Glover of Lawyerist.com links to an article on The Legal Skills Prof Blog that links to a studies collected by Education Week that show that people tend to skim text when they read it on a screen instead of paper. As Glover notes, considering the increasing number of judges who reads briefs on an iPad, this is something for legal writers to keep in mind. I think that it underscores the need to use an introductory paragraph that quickly gives the gist of your entire argument so that the judge doesn’t miss it in the brief.
Another interesting article in the Legal Skills Prof Blog describes the commencement speech that Apple’s General Counsel, Bruce Sewell, gave at his alma mater George Washington University Law School. I wrote about Sewell when he took the job at Apple back in 2009.
This week, Apple announced that it is buying Beats, which manufactures premium headphones and has a streaming music service. Apple is paying $3 billion, making this by far the largest acquisition in Apple’s history in terms of dollars. I’m sure we will learn more about the acquisition at WWDC on Monday.
Karen Haslam of Macworld UK wrote an a good article on Ken Segall, the man who was responsible for lots of Apple’s ads, but as Segall himself notes, will probably be best remembers as the man who come up with the name “iMac” (which of course led to the name for the iPhone and iPad). Segall is also one of the guys behind the funny site Scoopertino, which I discussed back in 2010.
Speaking of Segall, he recently wrote a good post on his blog about the origins of the Apple Store.
Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch says that he reviews a lot of smartphones and explains why the iPhone is the best.
If you have ever given an iPad or iPhone to a kid, you know that they basically need no instruction and can figure it out in minutes … and give them a week or two and they probably know more than you do. Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac posted a cute video in which today’s kids react to an Apple II. Funny stuff.
And finally, here is a cute video created by Marty Cooper, an animator who has worked at Blue Sky, ReelFX, and Rovio. He has an interesting technique where he draws on a transparency and then holds that up in front of objects in the real world and then takes a picture with his iPhone. By changing the drawings on the transparency and combining all of the pictures taken with his iPhone, much like a stop motion film, Cooper creates animations. He posts many of these animations to his account on Instagram, and he recently combined some of his best animations into a short movie that he calls Aug(De)Mented Reality. In this interview of Cooper on the House/Fire blog, Cooper explains his process and shows off how he does it in some pictures. Here is the Aug(De)Mented Reality video, which is great fun:
I’m always interested in data that reveals the number of lawyers using iPhones and iPads, and there is new, interesting data from TechnoLawyer. TechnoLawyer was created by New York attorney Neil Squillante, and the company publishes a number of free newsletters distributed by email to lawyers and other legal professionals such as LitigationWorld, BigLaw, SmallLaw, BlawgWorld and Fat Friday. I’ve written lots of articles for various TechnoLawyer publications over the years, and if you don’t already subscribe to one or more of the newsletters, you are missing out on some good stuff. Although the newsletters are free, you need to complete a short survey to subscribe. As a result, TechnoLawyer has current data on over 14,000 subscribers, almost 9,000 of which are attorneys. TechnoLawyer used that data to release its first Demographics Report last week, which you can download here.
Survey respondents
Before discussing the results, let’s consider the survey respondents. My understanding is that there are over a million attorneys in the U.S., so even if all of the almost 9,000 TechnoLawyer lawyers were U.S. attorneys, this would still be less than 1% of all U.S. attorneys responding to the survey. (In actuality, 88% of the TechnoLawyer survey respondents work in the U.S.; another 5% work in Canada.) Nevertheless, as statistics go, around 9,000 is a pretty good sample size — especially considering that there is 100% participation because all readers have to complete the survey. For example, every year the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center conducts a survey to gauge the use of legal technology by attorneys in the United States, and while the 2014 numbers are not out yet, the 2013 survey results that I reported on last year were based on 918 completed questionnaires out of 12,500 survey invitations sent out by email.
Moreover, attorneys who are interested enough in technology to subscribe to one or more TechnoLawyer email newsletters are surely more technologically capable than the typical lawyer. That doesn’t mean that every TechnoLawyer reader is a tech expert, and indeed I know that is not the case. Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say that the average TechnoLawyer reader is at least tech-curious and is most likely reasonably tech-savvy.
The report itself characterizes the respondents as legal technology “decision-makers and influencers,” and that seems fair. Two-thirds of survey respondents serve on their law firm’s technology committee, and over four-fifths of survey respondents recommend, make or approve tech purchases at their law firms. You can get lots more information on the respondent population in the report.
(One interesting data point not in the report: Squillante tells me that 97% of the respondents use Windows and 30% use a Mac — which adds up to more than 100% because some attorneys use both. It is no surprise that some attorneys use both; I myself use a PC at work and a Mac at home. But that 30% number for Mac users was higher than I would have expected.)
Overall, I view the TechnoLawyer survey as giving us information on the tech preferences of a population of tech-savvy lawyers. If you are interested in legal technology, this is a good population to study as these are likely to be the trendsetters in the industry.
68% of lawyers use an iPhone
The TechnoLawyer Report states that 50.3% of respondents use an iPhone, 29.4% use an Android smartphone and 14.3% use a BlackBerry. However, just over a third of TechnoLawyer subscribers are not attorneys; they include technology consultants, law firm IT managers, paralegals, etc. Thus, I asked Squillante if he would provide me attorney-specific information that I could share with iPhone J.D. readers and he was kind enough to break down the numbers for me.
The results for attorneys are: 68% iPhone, 37% Android, 13% BlackBerry, 4% Windows Phone, 2% other smartphone, and 5% don’t report using a smartphone at all. This adds up to over 100% because some attorneys have multiple devices, such as a work phone and a personal phone.
These numbers are largely consistent with the other data out there on lawyer smartphone use, except that iPhone and Android use is larger. For example, in the ABA 2013 report that I reported on last year, the percentages were 62% iPhone, 22% Android, 16% BlackBerry, and about 1% Windows Mobile. When the ABA releases its 2014 survey, I suspect that BlackBerry numbers will be lower than the prior year the other categories will be higher. In the Clio survey that I reported on in February of 2014, the percentages were 75% iPhone, 18% Android, and very few BlackBerry or Windows Mobile, but keep in mind that the Clio survey reflects mostly Mac users, who one would suspect to be more likely to use an iPhone.
63% of lawyers use an iPad
The TechnoLawyer Report states that 51.1% of respondents use an iPad, and 14.5% use some other tablet. Once again, Squillante provided me the lawyer-specific percentages, which do not appear in the published report. 63% of lawyers use an iPad and 17% of lawyers use some other tablet. 7% of lawyers use both an iPad and some other tablet (i.e. 57% use only an iPad and 10% use only another tablet). That leaves 26% of respondents who do not (yet) use a tablet.
These numbers were somewhat surprising to me in that there was far more tablet use than I would have expected — 74% of all attorneys. This may be a result of TechnoLawyer readers being more tech-savvy. For example, in the 2013 ABA survey, only 48% of all attorneys reported using a tablet. When the ABA’s 2014 numbers come out, I’m sure we will see even more than 48% of attorneys using a tablet this year, but I’d be surprised if it is was up to 74%.
As for the percentage of tablet-using lawyers who use an iPad, the numbers are essentially consistent with what we have seen before. Of the 74% of TechnoLawyer attorneys who use a tablet, 86% use an iPad. In the last three years of the ABA survey, roughtly 9 out of 10 tablet-using attorneys report that they use an iPad.
It was interesting to learn that 7% of lawyers report using both an iPad and some other tablet operating system. It is unclear whether that means an Android, a Windows tablet, or perhaps even some sort of Kindle tablet. I can see using both a work-issued smartphone and a personal smartphone, and I can even see using multiple iPads (perhaps a full-size iPad and an iPad mini), but I was surprised to see that as many as 7% use two different tablet operating systems. If any of you reading this fall into that category, I’d love to hear why you use two different tablets with two different operating systems.
A big market
The numbers in this 2014 TechnoLawyer survey are interesting enough on their own. However, Squillante tells me that he plans to release reports like this annually, and it will be especially interesting to see how these numbers change over time. We have gotten to the point where almost all attorneys use a smartphone, but I suspect that the number of attorneys using tablets like the iPad is still on the rise.
One thing that is clear in both the TechnoLawyer survey and every other survey that I see: a huge number of attorneys are using iPhones an iPads. For any company in the field of legal technology, this should be a huge incentive to create iOS apps, either as stand-alone apps or as apps that work in connection with the other products sold by the company. And as more law-related iOS apps are released, iPhones and iPads become even more valuable for attorneys.
iPhone J.D. was inaccessible for most of the day this past Monday, as were lots of other great websites that use Typepad as a host. As Typepad’s General Manager explained in a post on Tuesday, the company was once again the victim of a criminal DDoS attack. (You may recall that there was a similar attack last month.) Meanwhile, as Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times reported, this week eBay announced that hackers had breached that website and gained access to the personal information of 145 million customers. And as noted by Kelly Hodgkins, two hackers in the Netherlands and Morocco claimed this week to have found a way to crack the activation lock that is supposed to stop a thief from using a stolen iPhone. The whole mess almost makes you long for the pre-Internet, halcyon days of the 1980s … although as California attorney David Sparks notes, back then it was much harder to solve a Rubik’s cube. And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:
California attorney Scott Grossberg discusses Microsoft Word for iPad.
GOkey is an interesting device on IndieGoGo, mentioned by California attorney David Sparks, that charges an iPhone, connects it to a computer, can help you find your iPhone, and includes Flash memory.
California attorney and FindLaw writer William Peacock writes that 62% of lawyers using smartphones use an iPhone. However, I don’t think that is a new number based on current data. He bases his article on a MyCase infographic, and it appears that the infographic gets its information from my post from July of 2013, which was based upon the annual survey by the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center, which collected its 2013 data earlier in 2013. So I believe that the 62% number is over a year old. My prediction is that the iPhone and Android percentages will be even higher in 2014 and the BlackBerry percentage will be even lower, but that’s just a guess and we’ll have to wait for the 2014 report from the ABA to see what the number looks like this year.
John Edwards of Law Technology News recommends iPhone travel apps. He should have included the iExit app I reviewed earlier this week on that list.
Han-Yi Shaw, who was in charge of the design of the new Microsoft Office apps for iPad, explained the design philosophy of the apps in an article on the Office Blog. For an interesting article on Han-Yi Shaw himself, check out this article by Lance Ulanoff at Mashable.
PDFpen for iPhone and iPad just added Transporter support, letting you import and export to your Transporter directly from the app. In my tests, it works well, and I hope to see more apps add native Transporter support. (Transporter is a current sponsor of iPhone J.D.) My reviews of the PDFpen apps are now two years old, but they are here and here.
If you fly Southwest Airlines, you’ll be interested in this report by Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac about how you can now use the Southwest app on your iPhone as a mobile boarding pass at 28 airports … including New Orleans, for any of you headed to my neck of the woods.
If you have an iPhone 5s or an iPhone 5c, (or an iPad Air or a Retina iPad mini with LTE) and you use Verizon, you’ll be interested to know that you can use Verizon’s new XLTE network to get up to 2x the bandwidth. Derek Kessler of iMore has details. I have yet to see reliable reports on how XLTE works in the real world, but hopefully it will be an improvement for many.
Dan Rubin of the British weekly newspaper The Observer wrote a good article recommending iPhone photography apps. There is an excellent video that accompanies the article and it is worth watching as it shows you what the apps can do.
Lauren Crabbe of Macworld offers some more basic tips for taking pictures with an iPhone.
And finally, if you like the sound of your iPhone ringing, then you are going to love the iPhone Remix by MetroGnome. The video is below, and you can download the song for free here. (via Cult of Mac)
The kids are almost done with school, which means that Summer road trips in the car are just around the corner. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear the refrains of “Are we there yet?” Whether your upcoming long trips on the Interstate are for business or pleasure, it is incredibly useful to know what is at the upcoming exits. Sure, you can read the signs before each exit, but how do you know if it is better to wait one or two more exits to get better food options? The solution is an app called iExit. This free app has been around for some time, but I didn’t know about it until one of my co-presenters sang its praises during the 60 Apps in 60 Minutes session that I was a part of at ABA TECHSHOW earlier this year. I’ve since used it on several road trips, and now I cannot imagine not having it. This is a great, useful app.
The app works best when you are on the Interstate. Obviously, if you are the driver, you need to pay attention to the road so this app works best when used by someone in the passenger seat. Start the app and iExit figures out which Interstate you are on and which direction you are headed, and then it displays a list of the upcoming exits. This main screen gives you lots of information such as the exit number, how far away you are from the exit, and an icons to indicate what is available at each exit. As you get very close to an exit, it starts to fade away, and then when you pass that exit it disappears and the others move up — animation that is both fun and useful.
Tap on an exit to see a list of what is available at the exit, organized by the distance from the exit plus a useful indication of whether you need to turn left or right at the end of the exit to get to the establishment. Tap on an establishment to get more information, or tap the phone icon to call.
One of the options for each establishment is Google Streetview. For some addresses on Interstate exits, Google Streetview is not very useful at all, not showing you the correct location. But other times it works very well, letting you quickly see what the place will look like from the street, which can make it easier to find the place. One quick glance at the first picture below makes it easy to find that McDonalds. And for businesses that have a 3D walk-through of their business available on Google Streetview, you can even get a virtual tour of a place as you decide whether to go there. For example, the second picture below is the inside of a great restaurant in Covington, LA called Dakota.
You can also use the app to search or nearby restaurants. So if you are on the Interstate and have a taste for, say, Chick-Fil-A, you can search for that restaurant and see how far the next one is. Or you can search for a category of establishments, such as restaurants or gas or rest areas.
If you are not yet on the Interstate but instead are just planning ahead, the app includes an option to Plan Your Trip. Select a state and then an Interstate number, and the app will list all of the exits, so you can make decisions before you go on where you want to stop along the way.
Best of all, and as you can tell from the above pictures, iExit does a nice job presenting information, making it quick and easy to see what you need to see.
While on the Interstate, I’ve only used this app on an iPhone, but I see that it is a universal app so it will work on an iPad too — although if you only have a Wi-Fi iPad, it won’t have a GPS to automatically find its location. On an iPad, all of the information is displayed on the left, and right portion of the screen provides you a map.
As I think back on road trips I have taken in the past, I can think of so many times when this app would have been so useful to have. I’ve already found it to be so useful in the last few months, and I’ll never take another road trip without having this app on my iPhone. Neither should you.
For many years, there was no one, best way to review and edit Microsoft Word documents on an iPad, but there were lots of apps that could be used for the task, each with their own strengths and limitations. The landscape changed in March of 2014 when Microsoft introduced the Word for iPad app – a powerful app that can handle almost everything that you would want to do with a Word document on an iPad. Ever since then, I have wondered about the future of the other apps that handle Word documents. Some apps may be abandoned, but my hope is that others will find ways to distinguish themselves from Microsoft’s app.
That’s exactly what has happened with the new Reviewer 7 app. This a new name for an updated version of an app that used to be called Reader 7, and I reviewed it this past February. Reader 7 was created by German attorney Maren Reuter and her husband, who is a software designer, and I thought when I reviewed it that it was one of the very best apps for reading Word files on an iPad. The app’s name was changed because while it is still an excellent viewer, you can now get the app for free and spend $1.99 for the in-app Review Tools upgrade and then the app will let you create redline edits in a Word document.
Review documents in full screen mode
Let me start by discussing what is not new. Before Microsoft Word for iPad was released, I considered Reader 7 the best iPad app for viewing a Word document because Reader 7 preserved all of the document formatting, showing you the document almost exactly the same way that it would look in Word on a computer or when printed out. I now consider it equal to the Word for iPad in terms of a document formatting, and Reviewer 7 offers one main advantage over Word for iPad — an excellent full-screen view mode. Here is a sample memo in the Word for iPad app. I’ve tapped the toolbar to collapse it and devote as much space as possible to the document, but a portion of the top of the screen is still consumed by menus:
Here is the same document using the full screen mode in Reviewer 7. The only menu item on he screen is the x-in-a-circle at the top right that brings the menus back; otherwise all of your iPad screen is devoted to the document. In this example, I can see an extra two lines of text:
So if you want to review a Word document, you don’t want the formatting to be messed up, and you want to view a document in full-screen mode, Reviewer 7 is currently the best option on the iPad. And Reviewer 7 is free if you just want to view documents.
PDF support
Reviewer 7 can also handle PDF documents. I have a million ways to view PDF documents on my iPad, so I don’t need Reviewer 7 to do that. But Reviewer 7 does give you the ability to turn a Word document into a PDF file, which not many other apps can do, and you can do that with the free version of Reviewer 7. So if you want a quick and easy way to convert from Word to PDF, that’s another reason to get Reviewer 7.
Unique editing tools
If you spend $1.99 for the in-app Review Tools upgrade like I did, then you can also create redline edits in a document. And the way that you do this in Reviewer 7 is very different from the document editing in Word for iPad. Start by tapping on a word that you want to change. At the bottom left of the screen, alternative words are suggested. If you want to use one of them, just tap the alternative word and the change is made in redline. In my tests, the suggestions were very good, and tapping a word is a fast and quick way to edit a word.
If you are trying to fix spelling errors, I prefer to edit a document in the Word for iPad app because it puts the squiggly red line under words that it thinks are misspelled, making it easier to find those errors. Reviewer 7 doesn’t give you a clue that a word is misspelled. Nevertheless, this is an interesting way to edit words in a document.
For more extensive edits, tap the Edit button at the bottom right of the screen. This brings up not only a keyboard to type edits but also an enlarged view of the text, making it easy to put the insertion point in exactly the right spot. Again, suggested words show up so you can tap one of them, or you can type your changes on the keyboard. Again, all edits are made in redline. (There is no way to edit a document in Reviewer 7 without making redline edits.)
Undo
All word processors have some sort of undo feature, and most include a multiple undo feature, but typically you don’t know all of the things that you are changing if you, for example, undo three times. Reviewer 7 has a unique approach to the undo function. When you are in the edit mode, tap the Undo button in the middle on the right. This brings up a wheel that you spin with your finger. Each item on the wheel shows an item that you can undo, so if you scroll back three or four items you will be told everything that will be undone on the bottom potion of the wheel and everything that will not be undone at the top portion of the wheel. Thus, you can make a precise choice on how far back you want to undo your edits.
There is a good deal of wasted white space both above and below the wheel which is unfortunate. I’d rather see the app use all of that space to show all edits that you can undo. And like most word processors, you cannot use the Undo button to only undo one specific edit that was five edits earlier without also making the edits that took place after that. This seemed like a missed opportunity for Reviewer 7 to offer a feature that doesn’t exist in Word for iPad and other apps. Nevertheless, even in its current implementation, Reviewer 7 offers a unique approach to the venerable undo function.
Conclusion
As a document viewer, I like Reviewer 7 because of the full screen mode. I recommend that all attorneys download the app for viewing documents because it is free and you never know when you will want a way to devote your entire screen to a Microsoft Word document. Additionally, this app can be very useful as a way to convert from Word to PDF.
As a document editor, I love that Reviewer 7 is trying some new things. So far, I still prefer editing documents in the Word for iPad app, perhaps just because Word for iPad works the same as Word on my computer and that is the approach that I am used to. After all, I’ve been using Word in one form or another since the 1980s. Nevertheless, Reviewer 7 does seem to work well, and it gives you the ability to create redline edits in a Word document for only $1.99 — far, far cheaper than the cost of an Office 365 subscription. I think the Word for iPad app is so good and so useful for attorneys that I still recommend that most attorneys pay for an Office 365 subscription to use the iPad app. However, for anyone who has only the occasional need to create redline edits in a Word document, or who otherwise doesn’t want to pay for Word for iPad, Reviewer 7 is a good alternative at a great price.
Thanks for Maren Reuter for giving us an app that takes a different approach to viewing and editing Word documents. I hope that, notwithstanding the existence of the Microsoft Word for iPad app, we see even more innovative, alternative approaches to Word documents from other app developers.
Click here to get Reviewer 7 (free; $1.99 in-app purchase to edit documents):
I received an email from a Kansas attorney earlier this week asking if I had ever had a problem opening PDF attachments to an email. He told me that a few weeks ago he started to have problems with certain PDF files where the text would be replaced by black lines, would be blank, or there would be other display problems. He sent me some files that exhibited the problem and while I saw it happen once, I could not get it to happen again. However, I see a thread on the Apple Support Communities indicating that a number of people have been having the same problem since iOS 7.1 was introduced in March of 2014. He also told me that he found a workaround — go the bottom of the email message, tap the blue text “Download full message” and then tap the attachment. I haven’t had enough experience with this problem for me to write a full post on it, but just in case some of you out there are not as lucky as I have been and have had trouble reading some PDF attachments, you might want to try that workaround. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Ohio attorney Paul Unger reviews Microsoft’s PowerPoint app for iPad. The title of his article gives away his conclusion: “It’s a Good Start, but Needs Improvement!”
South Carolina attorney Jenny Stevens reviews Aduro’s Rotata iPad mini case, a case with a rotating screen.
California attorney David Sparks notes that iThoughts — a mind mapping app — is updated and is now on sale for only $1.99.
As tweeted by longtime analyze of all things Microsoft Paul Thurrott, Microsoft announced at the recent TechEd Conference that about 27 million people have downloaded the new Office for iPad apps so far. That doesn’t tell you how many folks have also paid to become new subscribers of Office 365 so that they can use all of the features in the new apps, but I suspect that Microsoft has seen quite a few new paying users due to the iPad apps.
I use the app GoodNotes when I take handwritten notes on my iPad. People often ask me if I can search my notes, and while I’ve never really found a need to do so, I can understand how it would be a nice feature. Yesterday, the developer of GoodNotes tweeeted “Handwriting search demo” with the hashtag “#soexcited” and a link to this video. I suppose that means that we will see a GoodNotes upgrade that adds the ability to turn handwriting into text that can be searched, which will be interesting.
Jordon Kahn of 9to5Mac noted that yesterday Apple updated its Podcasts app to add Siri support and improved episode browsing. I listen to a lot of podcasts, but a few weeks ago I stopped using Apple’s Podcasts app to see if there was something else that I might like more. I used Downcast for a few weeks, and earlier this week I started using Castro. I haven’t yet decided whether to stick with one of them, keep trying more apps, or go back to Podcasts, but the Podcasts app will be much more useful now that Siri works with it.
Adam Zeis of iMore notes that in a small but growing number of cities, you can now send a text to 911 in an emergency. I can definitely imagine a situation when you don’t feel safe talking out loud on a phone but you are able to send a text seeking help — but note that if you text, you’ll need to tell 911 where you are located, unlike with a phone call when they can track your location.
Michael Brown of PCWorld explains why you might want to use a travel router when you are on the road and reviews six new devices.
Some people have been talking about the recent rumor that Apple is buying Beats, but as Scoopertino reports, the real news is yet another recent acquisition.
And finally, here is a new video showing off the $300,000 Bentley Mulsanne. I mention it for two reasons — neither of which is that I own one, or am likely to ever own one in my lifetime. First, one of the optional configurations of the car is for the backseat to have “twin electrically-deployed picnic tables with concealed iPad holders, integrated charging and dedicated space for Apple wireless keyboards, Naim Audio, Rear Seat Entertainment System and wi-fi hotspot, providing a supremely comfortable working environment or a world of entertainment at your fingertips.” Second, this entire video was filmed using an iPhone and edited using an iPad in that backseat “electrically-deployed picnic table.” The end of the video gives you a behind-the-scenes look at how it was created. It is all very neat, but the only thing that I could think of while I watched that video is that the only ones who ever sit in the backseat of my car are my son and daughter (age 8 and 6) and I don’t ever see the day when I will give them integrated, backseat, electrically-deployed iPad tables. (via Apple’s Phil Schiller on Twitter)
Courtney Stafford Hickey is a personal injury attorney at The Stafford Firm in Palm Beach County, FL. She recently told me about an iPad app that she uses both in her law practice and to manage her personal life called Circus Ponies NoteBook. I have heard of the note taking software before — it has been available for the Mac for a long time, and just a few days ago the Mac version was updated to version 4.0 — but I have never tried it on either the Mac or the iPad. Hickey was nice enough to write a review of the iPad app and give me permission to share her review with iPhone J.D. readers. Here is what she has to say about the Circus Ponies NoteBook app for the iPad:
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I highly recommend the Circus Ponies NoteBook app for your iPad. You can use it on a Mac as well, but I prefer to use it on my iPad for convenience/mobility reasons both at home and at work. As a lawyer, small business owner, mom, wife and the director of all social activities in my household, it’s helped me stay organized on a number of levels.
My favorite feature is the voice-annotated notes. This allows you to simply lay your iPad down and record every word that is
being said, which can be very helpful in client meetings, oral statements, or simply trying to draft correspondence to clients and opposing counsel in between feeding my 1 year old. Can’t find a pen in your purse and don’t want to take notes in pink crayon – no problem. It makes things much easier when you can record rather than type or handwrite notes, memos, letters and court documents. Furthermore, when at work, I can be hands-free and fully pay attention to what someone is saying rather than concentrating on whether my handwritten scribbles are legible and make sense.
After an early morning of diapers and Mickey Mouse Club House, sometimes client depositions are long and my notes become out of control, unmanageable and illegible. Although I cannot use my voice-annotated feature during these events, I can map out details and diagrams of the things discussed during these proceedings. At a later date, I can quickly access my thoughts and perceptions, which will assist me in formulating my arguments in court. I also use this app to keep a thought map of every detail in an easy to read diagram. I can create flow charts on the go of what I need to remember and also sketch notes on the diagrams if any additional information needs to be added in the future.
Another great thing about the NoteBook app is how easy it is to stay organized with its user-friendly interface. I can customize the way my notes are filed and it allows me to choose how I view them as well. I enjoy the virtual sticky notes to flag different pages if there is a key point I want to refer back to.
In addition, the Multidex feature allows me to tag my notes with certain keywords or phrases that I can then use to search for them. It even keeps a record of when the notes were edited or last viewed so I can quickly open up any of my notes from my current case within just a few seconds. Manically shuffling through a massive stack of papers is (thankfully) not something I have to do anymore and carrying a ton of paperwork in my already overflowing “mom bag” is a thing of the past. Probably the most helpful capability of the NoteBook app with my line of work is the ability to wirelessly sync my notes via Dropbox from my iPad to my computer … in my case, a Mac. I feel relieved knowing I have a backup of all my notes saved in more than one place. It is one less headache (and Tylenol) I have to take every day.
Circus Ponies NoteBook looks exactly like you would imagine a real notebook would look. The iPad app costs $4.99 and the Mac software costs $49.95.
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Thanks to Hickey for taking the time to write about Circus Ponies NoteBook. It sounds like a useful app for taking notes and a useful organizational tool.
Thank you to Connected Data and Drobo, maker of the Transporter, for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month, and for offering a special deal for iPhone J.D. readers.
As you may already know, the Transporter is a way to store your files on a drive that you own and that is available online 24/7. Thus, you can easily access your files from your work and home computers (either PC or Mac) and from an iPhone and an iPad. You technically have two copies of every file that is on a Transporter — the copy on the Transporter’s hard drive, and a local copy saved on your computer’s hard drive. The advantage of working this way is that when you want to use the file, you can do so quickly with the local copy without waiting to get the file over your network. But as you edit the file, the new version is sent to your Transporter’s own hard drive, and is then synced to any other computers set up to work with your Transporter. The system works very similar to Dropbox except that you own and control the hard drive on which your files are saved, so you can be assured that your private files are kept private.
The company sells two versions of the product. The original Transporter is shaped like a cone and contains a hard drive. The cost ranges from $199 for a version with a 500 GB drive to $349 for a version with a 2 TB drive. And that is a one time expense, so there are no monthly charges. Or, if you want to supply your own hard drive, you can get the Transporter Sync for only $99.
Connected Data is offering a special deal this month for iPhone J.D. readers. When you purchase from the Connected Data website, use offer code IJD10 to save 10% off of any Transporter (up to a $35 dollar savings) or IJD20 to save $20 off of the purchase of a Transporter Sync. That means that you can get a Transporter Sync for only $79, spend another $70 on Amazon for a 1 TB drive, and you are all set. Or you can spend a little bit more for the all-in-one Transporter — which frankly looks better in your office, although it works the same way as the Transporter Sync. Either way, you can securely store your files in a way that they are accessible to you anywhere.
Transporters are great for iPhone and iPad owners because you can use the Transporter as a way to expand the space on your iPhone and iPad. You can put thousands of files on a Transporter that would never fit on your iPhone or iPad and then use the Transporter app to access specific files whenever you need them as long as you have a network connection on your iPhone or iPad. Also, once you choose to download a specific file into the Transporter app, it stays there until you delete it so that you can acccess it even when you don’t have a network connection (e.g. on a plane). Whenever you are done with the file, you can delete it to free up the space on your iPhone or iPad, and the app will ask whether you want to just remove it from your device or whether you want to completely delete it from your Transporter hard drive.
Speaking of the free Transporter app, it was recently updated to add a neat feature: the ability to automatically upload to your Transporter any pictures that you take with your iPhone (or iPad). The way it works is pretty neat. You wouldn’t want the app to upload photos every time you take them because you will often be taking pictures out of the office when you are not on Wi-Fi and uploading a lot of pictures would each up your cellular data allotment. So instead, you pick a specific location where you have Wi-Fi — such as your home or office — and when the iPhone (or iPad) senses that you are in that location, it will automatically upload your pictures. This way, when you are at your computer and you want to access pictures that you recently took with your iPhone, they are automatically there waiting for you in a special Transporter folder called Camera Uploads.
But what if you want to upload photos when you are not at that specified location? That’s no problem either. Just tap the gear icon at the bottom of the app and tap Upload Now.
Not only does this feature make it easy to access your iPhone pictures on your computer, it can also serve as a way to backup your photos. Even if you delete the photos on your iPhone, once they are uploaded to the Transporter you will have a backup stored there, until you specifically delete the photos from your Transporter.
Additionally, if you don’t use the iOS Photo Stream function (I don’t), you can now use the Transporter to take a picture on your iPhone, have the picture uploaded to your Transporter, then you can access the picture in the Transporter app on your iPad. That way you can take the picture using the better camera on an iPhone 5s, but you can look at the picture using the larger and nicer screen on an iPad Air.
The Transporter was a useful product on day one, but the company has done a great job of frequently adding new features, making the product even more valuable over time.
I recently reviewed the Adonit Jot Script, the first iPad stylus that had a fine point tip, which works because the stylus also emits a signal that makes an iPad sense something larger making contact with the screen. It is an amazing stylus, but it has some disadvantages such as being noisy and lacking a clip. However, the Jot Script is not the only powered stylus for the iPad. About a week ago, Cregle sent me a free review sample of the Cregle ink, another fine point stylus that uses a battery. It seems like the Cregle ink was specifically designed to address each of the shortcomings of the Adonit Jot Script — although the Cregle ink also lacks some of the advantages of the Jot Script.
Fine tip that is quiet
The main feature of a stylus like this is the fine tip, so I’ll talk about that feature first. The Cregle ink has a very fine tip. It is not quite as small as the tip on the Adonit Jot Script — the Cregle ink tip is 2.4 mm; the Jot Script tip is 1.9 mm — but I didn’t notice that size difference when using the styluses. Both tips are sufficiently small to feel like a pen tip, as opposed to a traditional stylus that has a size closer to a thick marker or a crayon.
The following picture shows the tip of the Jot Script, then the Cregle ink, then the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo (which has a 5 mm tip that is smaller than the 6 mm tip you see on most other styluses).
The small size of the tip on the Cregle ink, like the tip on the Jot Script, provides a completely different sensation when writing on an iPad. I raved about this in my Jot Script review and it is also true for the Cregle ink. You feel like you can be much more precise when you are writing with a tip the small. This is a great tip.
Note that when the Cregle ink first came out, the tip did not work well with the iPhone 5/5s, nor did it work well with the iPad air (which was released very close to when the Cregle ink came to market). Cregle then adjusted the electronics so that the Cregle ink stylus now being sold works great with both the iPad air and the iPhone 5/5s. This does make me wonder whether there will be an issue with either the Cregle ink or the Adonit Jot Script working with future iPads (and iPhones); hopefully that will not be a problem.
Although the size is similar, the Cregle ink has a different feel than the Adonit Jot Script. The tip on the Jot Script is hard, so it feels very smooth against the iPad screen and gives you the sensation of using a ballpoint pen. The tip on the Cregle ink is rubbery so there is more friction when used against the iPad screen. I actually prefer the feel of the Jot Script against the iPad screen; the decrease in friction makes it easier to write more quickly. But the feel of the Cregle ink is not unlike the feel that you get with most standard styluses against an iPad screen, and indeed the Cregle ink is better because the tip is smaller so there is less surface area. So while I give the edge to the Jot Script, both tips are excellent.
After using the Cregle ink for only a week, I have no personal experience with the durability of the tip, but both Cregle and Adonit talk about how long their tips are expected to last. Cregle says that the tip will last for 2 kilometers of writing distance. A replacement tip is included when you buy the Cregle ink, and you can buy a replacement pack of five tips for $3. Adonit says that the Jot Script’s harder tip will last for 120 kilometers of writing distance. So I think it is fair to say that you are likely to need to replace the tip on the Cregle ink from time to time, but you may never need to replace the tip on the Jot Script.
Noise
One of my two main complaints about the Adonit Jot Script is the noise of the harder tip against the iPad screen, especially when you are writing in print instead of script. That led me to actually include a video in my Adonit Jot Script review so that you could hear it for yourself, and longtime readers of iPhone J.D. know that it is pretty rare for me to feel the need to include a video in a review. It isn’t an excessive amount of noise, but it is enough for me to feel self-conscious when I am using the Jot Script around others.
The rubbery tip on the Cregle ink is virtually silent to use, similar to the tip of a (larger) standard stylus. Cregle knows that this is a key advantage of its stylus over the Jot Script, and Cregle says on its website: “No Clicking Noise, No Distraction – Built with specialized rubber pen tip, so you can focus on your work without feeling like you are under attack by angry crickets.” The “angry crickets” comparison is a little over the top, but it is fair to tout this as an advantage. I love that you don’t hear anything when you use the Cregle ink.
Pen clip
It seems odd to focus on something as seemingly minor as the absence of a pen clip on the Adonit Jot Script, but it is a missing feature that really matters. Not only does it mean that it is more awkward to put the Jot Script in a shirt pocket, but it also means that there is nothing to stop the round barrel of the Jot Script from rolling around. Indeed, as I am writing this review, both the Cregle ink and the Jot Script are on my desk, and it is driving me a little batty that the Jot Script keeps rolling around. (There is goes again! Stop that!)
Battery
Both the Cregle ink and the Jot Script are powered by a battery. The Cregle ink uses a AAAA battery, which is smaller than the AAA battery in the Jot Script. That means that the battery doesn’t last as long. Cregle advertises up to 11 hours of continuous writing. Adonit doesn’t advertise battery life for the Jot Script, but it seems like it lasts more than twice as long as the Cregle ink.
Unfortunately, the smaller battery doesn’t result in a thinner stylus. The Cregle Ink is actually slightly fatter than the Jot Script — the Cregle ink has a 12.2 mm diameter; the Jot Script has a diameter of 11.7 — although in practice I didn’t notice a difference in size. Both feel fatter than a normal pen or a thin stylus such as the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo, not so much that they are uncomfortable to use, but enough that you notice it.
Also, a AAAA battery is a little harder to find than a AAA battery, and perhaps as a result is also more expensive. The Cregle ink comes with a replacement AAAA battery, but after only a week of use — albeit more extensive use than normal becuase I have been testing it for this review — the first AAAA battery is already dead.
No Bluetooth
You don’t need to use Bluetooth to use either the Cregle ink or the Adonit Jot Script. But with the Jot Script, if you do have Bluetooth turned on, and if you use an app designed to work with the Jot Script (such as Evernote or GoodNotes), your iPad becomes smart enough to ignore unwanted strokes such as your wrist or hand accidentally touching the screen while you are using the stylus. It is a nice feature, although not an essential one. It also has a drawback in that it is somewhat incompatible with multitasking gestures. I discussed this more extensively in my Adonit Jot Script review.
The Cregle ink doesn’t use Bluetooth at all, so you don’t get any of the special advantages of the Jot Script. But you can also use your multitasking gestures.
Power switch
I don’t like the power switch on the Adonit Jot Script. It is flush with the side of the stylus and is hard to find to turn the stylus on — although the Jot Script turns itself off after a short period of non-use so you’ll rarely need to find and press the button to turn it off.
There is no power button on the Cregle ink, and instead you switch power on and off by turning the back of the stylus (where the clip is located). The Cregle ink has a small blue light to indicate when the stylus is turned on, and you need to remember to untwist the stylus to turn it off. I actually prefer this approach because the Jot Script is so aggressive with power management that it frequently turns itself off prematurely. Having said that, I suspect one of the reasons that I went through a AAAA battery in only a week is that I leave the Cregle ink on much longer.
Other differences
The Cregle ink (35 g) is heavier than the Jot Script (22 g), which I actually consider a slight advantage because it feels a little more substantial in your hand. But I can just as easily see an argument that lighter is better, and frankly, you won’t notice the difference in weight between the two in normal use unless you really think about it and go back and forth between the two. (I was actually surprised to read specifications saying that the Cregle ink weighed over 50% more than the Jot Script because the weight difference didn’t feel that substantial, but I checked it on a scale and those are indeed the weights.)
The Cregle ink is smooth and shiny on the barrel, whereas the Jot Script has a brushed metal look and has ridges near the front of the pen to give you more traction when the stylus is in your hand. Both are clear advantages for the Jot Script. The Cregle ink can slip a little in your hand because it is so smooth, plus it shows fingerprints. The slight ridges on the Jot Script keep that stylus in place.
The Cregle ink is also cheaper than the Adonit Jot Script. The Cregle ink is $49, whereas the Jot Script is $74.99. I suppose that, over the long haul, the price of the Cregle ink goes up somewhat because you will be spending more money to replace the battery and you will eventually need replacement tips, which are five for $3.
Cregle ink 2
Although the Cregle ink that I am reviewing is the current model, Cregle is also working on the Cregle ink 2 and has an IndieGoGo page where you can pre-order the next version, expected to ship in August of 2014. Here are the advertised differences:
The ink 2 uses a AAA battery, which Cregle says provides 19 hours of life versus the 11 hours of the AAAA battery in the ink. That battery will also be easier and cheaper to buy.
The ink 2 uses a more durable rubber tip, expected to last twice as long as the tip on the ink. So that’s 4 kilometers of writing distance instead of 2 kilometers, which I mention mostly because it amuses me to use the word “kilometers” in connection with a pen.
The ink 2 will be lighter, although Cregle isn’t yet saying how much lighter.
The ink 2 has a power switch on the side. On the IndieGoGo website that button looks similar to the button that I don’t like on the Adonit Jot Script, but I’ll reserve judgment on it until I have seen it in real life.
The Cregle ink 2 will ultimately sell for $59, which is $10 more than the $49 Cregle ink, but as of today, you can preorder it now for only $29 if you want it in silver or $38 if you want it in black. (Cregle was selling the first 100 black models for $29, but those are already sold out.)
Here is a chart from the IndieGoGo page comparing the two:
In the world of electronics it is (unfortunately) common to buy a device only to see a new model come out the next month, one that you would have waited for if you had only known what is coming. Because of the IndieGoGo campaign, this is one of those rare instances when you can already see what you will get if you can wait for the second generation model.
Conclusion
I really like the Cregle ink. The fine point tip is fantastic. The Adonit Jot Script tip is even better, but it is also noisier and without a clip it is always rolling around my desk. The Bluetooth features of the Adonit Jot Script are nice, but I don’t miss them that much when I am using the Cregle ink, and I’m happy to not have a need to turn off multitasking gestures with the Cregle ink. On the other hand, battery life isn’t as good with the Cregle ink, and it will take extra effort to use AAAA batteries instead of AAA.
If you want a stylus with a fine tip, with both the Jot Script and the Cregle ink on the market, you can decide which features matter more to you. I currently find myself leaning more towards the Cregle ink because it is so much quieter than the Jot Script and because it has a clip, but it is a really close decision because the Jot Script tip is so smooth and the battery life is better. If the slight noise and lack of clip don’t bother you as much as they bother me, you will probably prefer the Jot Script. Moreover, as much as I like a stylus with a fine tip, I also like to use a stylus with a more narrow barrel for which I never need to worry about running out of power. Thus, I don’t think that the Cregle ink will completely replace my use of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo.
And finally, if you don’t mind waiting until later this year to have one, you should consider the IndieGoGo page for the Cregle Ink 2 to get the better battery life. There are no guarantees on the ship date, so you certainly could have to wait even past August, but the preorder price of $29 sounds like a good deal compared to the $74.99 for the Jot Script.
It has been five months since I wrote my review of the iPad Air. Before the iPad Air I used both a third-generation iPad and a first generation iPad mini. I would use the larger iPad 3 for most of my work because I liked the larger screen, but for more casual iPad use such as reading emails, surfing the Internet, etc. I used the mini because it was so much lighter and easier to hold and carry around. I noted in my review of the iPad Air that it was so much lighter than my iPad 3 that it felt more like an iPad mini than a full-size iPad. As I now look back over the past five months, I realize that I have completely stopped using my iPad mini. The iPad Air is so much lighter than previous generation full-size iPads that I can hold it for long periods of time to read documents without feeling any fatigue. The mini no longer has enough advantages over my full-size iPad to bother using and managing a second device. I mention all of this because every day I see so many lawyers using older iPads — mostly iPad 3s and iPad 2s. If you are a serious enough iPad user to read iPhone J.D. but you are not yet using an iPad Air, you should really consider upgrading. Of course you need to decide whether to do so today or wait; I’m sure that Apple will come out with a second generation iPad Air later this year, probably in October or November, but that is still five to six months away. I don’t think that you will regret making the jump now to an iPad Air, but if you decide to wait, I recommend that you strongly consider upgrading later this year when the next model comes out. The iPad Air is fast, light, has a beautiful screen, and is an important tool in my law practice. And now, the news of note from the past week:
California attorney David Sparks (briefly) reviews Mingle, an app that helps you manage your contacts.
Sparks also created a useful video showing off all of the features of PDFpen Scan+ version 1.3. I reviewed an earlier version of that app last November and concluded that while it had some limitations as a scanner, it did a great job of OCR’ing scanned images. The new version 1.3 is much better — for example, I no longer have any complaints about finding the edges of a document; the engine works much better and the interface is vastly improved. I still slightly prefer the quality of images created by Scanner Pro, but PDFpen Scan+ is quite good. If you use your iPhone (or iPad) to scan documents, you should get PDFpenScan+.
Kurt Eichenweld of Vanity Fair wrote an interesting article on the iPhone legal battles between Apple and Samsung.
David Pogue of Yahoo Tech reviews Adobe Voice, an interesting free app that lets you easily create “explainer videos” – videos where you do a voice over and various pictures, icons and text appear on screen. I haven’t yet thought of exactly how attorneys would best make use of this, but I feel certain that there is something really neat that could be done with this app.
Alyssa Bereznak of Yahoo Tech reviews the latest version of Google Maps for iPhone. There are lots of interesting new features such as driving directions that tell you which lane you should be in.
Jon Seff of Macworld provides advice for saving money on Office 365 — the subscription that lets you use the new Microsoft Office apps for the iPad.
Amazon is by far the #1 online sales company, but Apple — with its App Store, iTunes Store and online Apple Store — is now #2, as noted by Mikey Campbell of AppleInsider.
I often link to stories that describe how a person caught an iPhone thief using the Fine My iPhone feature, but as Ian Lovett of the New York Times reminds us, you should involve law enforcement rather than just showing up at the thief’s doorstep and taking justice into your own hands.
And finally, for anyone who has ever used an iPhone while in the bathroom — and let’s be honest, that is just about every iPhone owner — I present to you the Atech Flash iCarta2 Wireless Bluetooth Stereo Speaker, a $40 toilet paper holder with an included speaker. Yes, it has an old 30-pin connector, but it also has Bluetooth so it will also work with your newer iPhone or iPad. Click here to get it on Amazon. [via iMore]
