There is a KickStarter campaign seeking to raise $100,000 to produce a documentary called App: The Human Story that will discuss the impact of the availability of apps for mobile devices. It’s an interesting idea, and caused me to think about the impact that Apple’s App Store — which turned six years old yesterday — has had on installing software. Software for computers has, of course, been around for years, but most folks rarely saw the need to buy much additional software; they would buy Microsoft Office and the other basics, and then were pretty much done. But now with the iPhone/iPad and the App Store, I see people downloading new apps all of the time, making their devices so much more powerful as they add functionality (and so much more fun as they add games). I suspect that most iPhone J.D. readers have rarely purchased computer software but download iPhone and iPad apps all of the time. And now, the recent news of note:
- St. Louis attorney Todd Hendrickson describes his successful use of the TrialPad iPad app during a two-week trial in a post on Lawyerist.
- You can download a free TrialPad 4 Quick Start Guide through the iBookstore by clicking here.
- Ben Stevens of The Mac Lawyer notes that the Scanner Pro app, normally $6.99, is on sale for $2.99. Ben names it his “go to” scanner app. I reviewed in in 2012, and it is still my favorite scanner app.
- Boston attorney Martha Sperry describes the options for reviewing transcripts on an iPad on the Solo Practice University blog. I use, and really like, the TranscriptPad app.
- John Edwards of Law Technology News provides tips for handling notifications on the iPhone.
- Raw Ward, an appellate lawyer in the New Orleans office of my law firm (Adams and Reese), notes that the U.S. Fifth Circuit has a new website that uses dynamic design to work well on mobile devices.
- Every year in December, the ABA Journal publishes its list of the top 100 law blogs (blawgs). The ABA is starting to decide which 100 blawgs to include in this year’s list and is asking for your help in the form of “Amici” submissions. Click on this link if you want to tell the ABA Journal editors about one or more websites aimed at legal professionals that you enjoy, whether it be iPhone J.D. or any other blog. The deadline for submissions is August 8, 2014.
- Looking for an external Bluetooth speaker for your iPhone? David Pierce of The Verge looked at the market and concluded that the Logitech Ultimate Ears BOOM was the best. You can get it on Amazon for $179.99.
- Dave Johnson of Macworld looks surveys the hardware options for adding an external lens to your iPhone.
- Transporter is a past sponsor of iPhone J.D., and I talked about the product in this post. I use the product virtually every single day as a way to share secure files between my computers, iPhone and iPad without having to worry about the security implications of cloud services like Dropbox. I mention it now because I see that if you buy a Transporter today from the manufacturer and use the code 500FREE when you checkout, you can get a 1TB Transporter for the 500GB price, a $50 savings.
- I’ve never before noticed that the Trapper Keepers and the Apple II computers that I used when I was younger used the same font, but look at that.
- For those keeping track at home, this is the 250th edition of In the news. Time flies.
- And finally, Apple loves to put together nice videos, and they recently posted a good two minute video showing the thousands of Apple employees and their families who marched in the San Francisco Pride Parade on June 29, 2014. The cards you see folks handing out were $1 iTunes cards. The video is below, or you can click here. The song is A Sky Full Of Stars by Coldplay (click here to buy on iTunes).