Today at 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern, Apple will hold an event on its campus in Cupertino, California. This is a much smaller venue than the one used last month for the iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / Apple Watch announcement, so obviously Apple sees this as a less significant event. Apple hasn’t said what it will announce, but for the reasons I noted last week, we will surely see a new iPad and iPad mini today, and I also expect to see a number of Mac announcements.
Last month, I reviewed the Maglus, an aluminum stylus created by ApplyDea that is larger than a normal stylus, flat on the sides and has built-in magnets. I liked it. It’s a too thick to be my preferred stylus for daily use, but it makes a nice alternative stylus for all of the reasons that I pointed out in that review. I noted in the review that you can buy replacement tips for the stylus, not only the original rubber tip but also a microfibre tip. The manufacturer subsequently sent me a free sample of the microfibre tip so that I could try it out, and I’ve been experimenting with it for a few weeks. For anyone who owns a Maglus, I recommend that you spend the $11.99 to get the microfibre tip so that you have even more versatility with your Maglus stylus.
To replace tip on the Maglus, you pull on the silver metal band. I find that it is easier if you first use your fingernails to separate the metal band from the aluminum body, but then once you get it out a little bit you can pull it off. Then just push in the replacement tip. In the following picture, the normal rubber stylus is on the left and the microfibre tip is on the right.
So how does it work? Most styluses have a rubber tip, which provides good friction against an iPad screen. A microfiber (or microfibre) tip typically has less friction, so it glides against the screen more quickly, although sometimes you have to press down a little harder for the iPad to sense it. I found that unlike most microfiber styuses, I didn’t have to press down any harder with the Maglus microfibre tip to get my iPad to sense it. Perhaps this is because the tip is larger, or perhaps this is because the Maglus is a little heavier than other styluses. So the microfibre replacement tip gives the stylus a softer, more slippery feel.
Like the original tip, this microfibre tip is larger than the tips on many other styluses. (See my original review for a picture of the Maglus compared to other styluses.) And that is the main reason that the Maglus is not my preferred stylus. I use a stylus primarily to take notes, and I prefer a smaller tip for that. Having said that, if I am annotating or highlighting a case in PDF format that I downloaded from Westlaw, the larger tip doesn’t bother me at all and is actually sort of nice. So I recognize that there is no one best size for an iPad stylus tip.
If I had to choose just one tip for the Maglus, overall I prefer the original one. But it is nice that having this microfibre tip means that you can easily change the feel of the Maglus stylus whenever you are in the mood for something new, or whenever you are doing some task with the stylus for which you prefer being able to move the stylus against the screen more quickly.
Finally, I’ll note that since the time I posted my review of the Maglus last month, the company came out with new colors. You can now get the original size in silver, black or blue on Amazon. And if you want the smaller Maglus mini, you can now get it in silver or pink.
You can get replacement tips for the original Maglus tip on Amazon or directly from ApplyDea. Right now it looks like you can only get the microfibre tip directly from ApplyDea, but I’m told that the following link will work on Amazon very soon if you prefer to buy from Amazon.
I have a tip today that can help you avoid getting sanctioned by a judge when your iPhone rings in court, even though you flipped the switch to mute it, because it is ringing through your iPad. But first, some background.
A neat feature in iOS 8 for folks who own both an iPhone and an iPad is Continuity, technology that lets you use an iPhone and iPad (and a Mac) almost interchangeably. For example, one part of Continuity is Handoff, a technology that lets you pass documents from one device to another. As I noted in my post on email improvements in iOS 8, you can start an email on your iPhone but then decide to finish it up on the iPad where you might have a Bluetooth keyboard attached. Or you can start reading a webpage on your iPhone, but then decide to continue reading it on your iPad’s larger screen. You can use Handoff with Mail, Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Maps, Messages, Reminders Calendar, Contacts and even some third party apps.
Another cool Continuity feature is that you can answer your iPhone from an iPad or a Mac. Imagine that you are on your couch using your iPad while your iPhone is in a different room and a call comes in to your iPhone. In iOS 8, you can answer the call on the iPad that is in your hand, without having to get that iPhone. And once the next version of the Mac OS is released — and I’m sure we will learn that date this Thursday — you will also be able to answer calls on your Mac. I’ve used this feature on my iPad a few times, and it is very useful. You can even make a call from your iPad; just tap the phone icon next to a phone number in the Contacts app, and your iPad will work as an extension of your iPhone. To use this feature, your iPhone and iPad must be using the same Apple ID account.
But the point of this post is not to praise the virtues of Continuity, but instead to provide a warning so that you don’t have the same problem that I did this past Friday. I was in a meeting and my iPhone was in my pocket, but before the meeting started I had flipped the switch on the side to mute the iPhone. During the meeting, I received a phone call, and because my iPhone was on mute it just vibrated in my pocket, without bothering anyone else in the meeting. But then a second later, my iPad also started ringing, which caught me by surprise. It was just a meeting at my law firm with other partners, so it wasn’t too embarrassing, but all I could think of was what if this had happened when I was in court?
Here are two ways to stop this from happening to you. First, you can turn off this feature of Continuity completely, although it is not very obvious how you do so. Go to the Settings app on your iPhone, but don’t go to Phone, where you might expect this to be located, but instead go to FaceTime. Then turn off iPhone Cellular Calls.
Alternatively, you can keep the feature enabled on your iPhone, but go to the Settings app on your iPad, tap FaceTime, and turn off iPhone Cellular Calls just on your iPad. That way, you can use the feature with your iPhone and your Mac, but not with that iPad.
A second solution is to keep the feature enabled, but remember to mute your iPad at the same time that you mute your iPhone. You may be able to mute your iPad simply by flipping the switch on the side of your iPad, just like you can on the iPhone. But note that you can control in settings whether the switch on the iPad acts as a mute switch or locks the rotation. I keep my switch set on Lock Rotation, so I cannot use the switch to mute my iPad.
But there is another way to mute, even if the switch is used to lock rotation. If you swipe up from the bottom of your screen to bring up the Control Center, there is a row of five icons in the middle, starting with Airplane Mode. If the physical switch on your iPad is being used for the lock rotation function, then the last of those five icons will let you quickly turn mute on or off. (If your physical switch is being used for mute, then that fifth icon toggles the lock rotation function.) Note that you can mute your iPad from the lock screen; you don’t have to be actually using your iPad to mute it.
Two final notes. First, note that Continuity only works for phone calls if your iPhone and iPad are on the same WiFi network. If you are in a meeting, court, etc. and your devices are not connected to WiFi, then you won’t have to worry about your iPad ringing unexpectedly, even if you forgot to mute it. But remember that iOS devices remember WiFi networks, so after you connect to WiFi the first time in a location, your iPad might do it automatically in the future without you even realizing that it happened.
Second, be aware that if you have an older iPad in your house that you are no longer using yourself — perhaps it has become an iPad for your kids — and if that iPad is also using your same Apple ID, that iPad will ring as well unless you go to the Settings app and disable iPhone Cellular Calls on that iPad. Last thing that you want is for your six-year-old to answer a call that was intended for you.
Using Continuity for phone calls is useful enough that I’ll probably keep it turned on. But hopefully after my experience this past Friday, I’ll remember that I now have two devices to mute when silence is required, not just one. And hopefully you can learn from my mistake.
[UPDATE 10/20/14: Utah attorney Peter Summerill points out another good solution: turn on Do Not Disturb.]
Have you been waiting to update your iPhone (or iPad) to iOS 8 because you don’t have 5 GB free, which is required for an over-the-air update? Remember that you can always plug your device into a computer running iTunes and update that way, even if you don’t have 5 GB free. Apple provides info for doing so on this page. And if you feel like your device doesn’t have as much free space as it should, there was an interesting article by John Moltz that I linked to in August in which he describes how he was able to get a lot more space on an iPhone by restoring it. I encourage you to update to iOS 8; there are tons of cool new features, and many apps are starting to require iOS 8. And now, the news of note from the past week:
For attorneys trying to decide between the big iPhone 6 and the bigger iPhone 6 Plus, I think that the iPhone 6 is the best size for most folks, especially folks who are upgrading from a prior iPhone. California attorney David Sparks opted for the iPhone 6 Plus anyway just to experience the large size, but as he writes on his MacSparky blog, after about a week he returned to the Apple Store to exchange it for an iPhone 6.
The 1Password app for iPhone became vastly easier to use under iOS 8 becasue you could use your fingerprint to open the app instead of typing your (hopefully long!) master password every time you start the app. This week, the app was updated to version 5.1 to reduce even more the number of times you need to type your master password — now just after a device restart or when Touch ID authentication fails. This post on the 1Password blog provides more details. Hopefully we will soon have an iPad with TouchID so that 1Password will be just as convenient on that device. One other security improvement in version 5.1 is that third party keyboards can no longer be used within 1Password unless you specifically enable them in the Advanced Settings. I’m not (yet) aware of any third party keyboard being guilty of key logging, but better safe than sorry.
If you type a word and then quickly want to capitalize the first letter or capitalize all of the letters, John-Michael Bond of TUAW offers a quick tip for doing so using the new iOS 8 predictive text feature. Note that for the all caps feature to work, you need to have Enable Caps Lock turned on in Settings -> General -> Keyboard. (I only rarely type words in all caps, so I typically keep that turned off.)
Transporter, a prior sponsor of iPhone J.D., provided a great free upgrade this week. The device now automatically saves prior versions of your documents so if something gets messed up, you can turn back the clock. And it saves virtually unlimited prior versions, limited only by the size of your Transporter hard drive. Click here for more information. I haven’t had to use it yet, but going forward I feel even safer working with documents on my Transporter knowing that the feature now exists.
Jony Ive of Apple was interviewed yesterday at a Vanity Fair event. Steve Kovach of Business Insider was there, and wrote this article. One of the things that Ive talked about was designing the iPhone. For example, Ive said: “Years ago we made prototypes with bigger screens. They were interesting features having a bigger screen, but the end result was a lousy product because they were clunky like a lot of competitors’ phones are still. Years ago we realized this is going to be important that we have larger screens but we need to do a lot of things to make it a compelling product.”
Do you want to get a new Lightning cable for your iPhone or iPad, either a 1 m length like the one that came with it or a shorter or longer version? Nick Guy of The Wirecutter looked at all the options and recommends the best ones to get.
And finally, I had a fun app on my iPhone 5 and 5s called Cycloramic. You set your iPhone on its edge on a flat table, and it uses the iPhone’s vibration motor to spin your iPhone automatically and create a panorama. It’s a one-trick pony, but it’s a fun trick so I used it occasionally with friends and it always got a laugh, in addition to creating an interesting picture or video. Soon after I got my iPhone 6, it occurred to me that with the curved edges, there was no way that the app would work. And yet the very clever folks behind the app figured out a way to use it with the iPhone 6, just using one of the items that comes in the box with a new iPhone. (It reminds me of the famous scene from the movie Apollo 13: “We got to find a way to make this, fit into the hole for this, using nothing but that.“) I couldn’t help but reward the developer’s ingenuity, so I bought new $1.99 iPhone 6-version of the app. And I can confirm that it does work. Here is a video that shows how:
Yesterday, Apple announced to select members of the press that Apple is hosting a special event on its campus in Cupertino, CA on October 16th. The invitation doesn’t state what Apple will announce, but I’m sure we will see a new iPad. Apple typically comes out with at least one new iPad model a year and they have yet to release a 2014 model. And in both 2012 and 2013, Apple announced new iPad models in October: the fourth generation iPad and the iPad mini on October 23, 2012, and the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display on October 23, 2013. So I feel quite certain that we will see something new on the iPad front a week from today. I hope that Apple also announces new Macs because I’m ready to replace the iMac I use at home, and I’ve been waiting for a new model to be released before doing so.
Apple tries to be cryptic (and sometimes even clever) when it teases new product announcements. When it sent invitations for the iPhone 6 announcement last month it simply said “Wish we could say more.” The invitation for last year’s announcement of the iPad Air simply said “We still have a lot to cover.” The invitation for next week’s event says “It’s been way too long.” Who knows what that might mean. Jason Snell of Six Colors says: “Let the Kremlinology begin! Is it a winking admission that the press was just in Cupertino for an Apple event last month? Is it a promise of updates to the Mac mini, which hasn’t been touched since 2012? Is it a high-school reunion?”
My one prediction that I do feel quite sure of is that Apple will announce an iPad that supports Touch ID (the fingerprint sensor). After using Touch ID on my iPhone for so many months now, I can’t even count the number of times I have placed my finger on my iPad’s home button waiting for it to use my fingerprint to unlock, only to sigh at myself once I realize that I need to enter a passcode. I suspect that the smart engineers at Apple have made the same mistake, making them want to add this feature to the iPad.
I doubt that it is possible to count all of the different styluses available for the iPad, but broadly speaking, they can be divided into two categories. First, you have the newer, active styluses that have a very fine tip, such as the Adonit Jot Script with its 1.9 mm tip, but require a battery. Second, you have the more traditional styluses that have a larger tip, typically around 6 mm but anywhere from 4 to 8 mm. Active styluses have awesome tips that resemble a pen but have drawbacks: you need to keep them powered, which means replacing batteries or charging them; they are thicker and thus feel more like holding a Sharpie than holding a pen; and they often have trouble drawing a straight diagonal line, instead producing something that is more wavy or even jagged. I still love and use active styluses all of the time, but I am just as likely to opt for a non-active stylus so that I don’t have to worry about those drawbacks. And when I do reach for a traditional stylus, one of the all-time best is the first generation version of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo. I gave it a favorable review in 2012, I have been happy using it for years, and I cannot even count the number of attorneys and others I have told me over the years that it is their favorite stylus. You can still buy it on Amazon; the part number is CS110K (where the “K” indicates the color — K for black, B for blue, etc.).
Wacom came out with a second generation Bamboo Stylus duo in 2013 (part number CS150K, with the last letter again indicating a color), which you can still get on Amazon. I did not try that version myself, but I heard that it was lighter and had a smaller tip. The original Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo weighs 0.85 oz and had a 6 mm tip. I understand that the second generation weighed 0.6 ounces and had a 5 mm tip.
All three generations have a similar look, are approximately the same length, and all have the same feature of a cap on the end that you can remove to reveal a normal pen. You can place the cap on the pen end while you are using the stylus, and vice versa. Here are promotional pictures of the first generation (top), second generation (middle) and the new third generation (bottom):
Wacom sent me a free sample of the new third generation model soon after it was released, and I have been trying it out for the last few weeks. Here are my thoughts.
Size and Weight
What do you want first, the good news or the bad news? Let’s start with the bad news. The one thing that I like the least about this third generation of the stylus is that I think it is too light. The original Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo that I have been using for years weighs 0.85 oz., and as noted above the 2013 second generation weighed 0.6 oz. This third generation weighs only 0.49 oz, and it really feels substantially lighter. For many items — such as iPhones and iPads — it is a good thing to have new generations that are lighter. But at some point, a product simply gets too light and can even feel cheap because of its low weight. When I go back and forth between my first generation and this third generation, I always prefer the weight of the first generation. The lightweight third generation feels more hollow, more like a cheap pen instead of a quality writing instrument.
Here is the first generation (top) and third generation (bottom):
It occurs to me that perhaps I am being unfair in preferring a slightly heavier stylus. After all, my current favorite pen — the Zebra Sarasa Push Clip Gel Ink Pen 0.7 mm (available at Amazon or JetPen) — weighs far less at almost 0.4 oz, and I’ve never felt that it was too light. I suppose that I have a different expectation for a plastic pen than I do for an iPad stylus.
As for the other dimensions of the third generation stylus, it has essentially the same great length as the previous generations and the size and aluminum barrel feels good in your hand, very much like a pen. I’ve also grown to really like the hexagonal barrel and the knurled collar on the Hand Stylus, but the Bamboo Stylus duo also feels nice, and the one that I prefer changes from day to day.
If the weight difference was the only difference, then I wouldn’t be a fan of the new version of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo. However…
Tip
After starting with the negative, let me move on to the best part of this stylus: the tip (or to use the more technical term, the nib). The size remains at the same 6 mm as the first generation Bamboo Stylus duo, and slightly larger than the second generation’s 5 mm tip.
In general, a smaller stylus tip is better. A lot of cheap styluses have an 8 mm tip, and I’ve long thought that the original Wacom Bamboo Stylus 6 mm tip worked better. Having said that, I didn’t notice much of a size advantage when I compared the Hand Stylus with a 4 mm tip to the original Bamboo Stylus duo (although I do really like the Hand Stylus). But to the extent that a 6 mm tip could possibly be a disadvantage compared to a 5 mm or 4 mm tip, Wacom more than makes up for it with the improvements to this tip.
Unlike the previous generations of the Bamboo Stylus which had a rubber tip, this third generation has a carbon fiber covering on a rubber tip. The carbon fiber makes a huge difference. Here is the first generation tip (left) and third generation tip (right), and if you look closely at the third generation tip (click the picture to enlarge it) you can sort of see that the tip has a carbon fiber covering on it:
I’ve previously used styluses with tightly woven conductive fibers on the tip, such as the BoxWave EverTouch Capacitive Stylus. Those tips provide less friction, meaning that they are smoother against the surface of your iPad, which feels nice, but you typically have to press harder for the iPad to sense the stylus. Somehow, Wacom has managed to get the best of both worlds with the tip — it feels better against the screen than the rubber styluses used on so many other styluses, including the previous generations of the Bamboo Stylus, and yet I don’t find that I have to press down any harder to use it. The Wacom website calls this a “unique and responsive carbon fiber nib” and I agree with that description.
I cannot yet comment on how the carbon fiber tip holds up over time. I used the tip on my original Bamboo Stylus for about two years before I needed to replace it, which I thought was excellent considering how much I used it, and I didn’t mind replacing it because replacements are cheap (three nibs for under $5). I’ve seen other folks suggest that mesh-style tips need to be replaced more often, and I’ll just have to see how this carbon fiber tip does, but even if I need to replace it once a year, that wouldn’t bother me since the new nibs are cheap.
Etc.
Other than the difference in weight and the improved tip, the other changes are quite minor. You cannot remove the clip on the third generation Bamboo Stylus duo like you could on the first generation (and I believe the second generation) models, but that doesn’t bother me in the least because I don’t see a good reason to remove the clip. Not only does the clip make it easier to put the stylus in a shirt pocket or other compartment, the clip stops the stylus from rolling around on a desk.
The third generation comes in different colors — blue, gray, green, orange, pink, silver — but no longer comes in black.
The pen side of the stylus works the same as the pen on my first generation Bamboo Stylus duo. It’s nothing special, especially for someone like me who prefers the larger, darker ink that you get from a gel pen, but it means that you can just carry your stylus with you but you also have a pen in case you need it. Even if you don’t think that you need a pen, I’ve always told folks to get the duo version of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus because it is a little longer (130 mm) than the two other versions of the Bamboo stylus that don’t have a pen — the Bamboo Stylus alpha is 122 mm and the Bamboo Stylus solo is 126.8 mm — and I think it is better to have a stylus that is over 5 inches (over 127 mm) because it feels better in your hand and more like a real pen.
Conclusion
I wish that this stylus was heavier to give it a more substantial feel in your hand. But other than that, this is a fantastic stylus. The carbon fiber tip works and feels better than any other non-active stylus that I’ve ever used, but otherwise the stylus keeps the same length, circumference, clip and ballpoint pen that made the prior generations of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo such a big hit. And after several weeks of going back and forth between my first generation with a weight that I prefer and this third generation with the tip that I prefer, I’m going to stick with this third generation of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo going forward because I like the tip so much. I’ve used this stylus to take notes in meetings, to jot things down in a deposition, to navigate my iPad screen when I felt like a change of pace from using my finger, and to highlight and annotate cases that I downloaded from Westlaw, and it has always worked really well.
Of course, one of the reasons that there are so many styluses on the market is that lots of folks have different preferences. I generally like the reviews on The Wirecutter, and I see that they recently concluded that the Pogo Stylus (which I reviewed earlier this year) is their favorite, with two models of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus in second and third place. Note, however, that it appears that The Wirecutter was looking at the second generation version, so we’ll have to see if they update their review after trying out the third generation with the improved tip.
If you are in the market for an iPad stylus, the third generation Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo should definitely be on your list to consider. It is a really great stylus, even if it is not as heavy as I would like.
This past week, many people have asked me about the Apple Watch and whether lawyers will want to get one. I think it is premature to talk about that because we don’t yet know all that the Apple Watch will do. We will have to at least wait until the Spring of 2015 when version 1.0 of the Apple Watch is introduced. I remember that when the iPad came out in early 2010, many lawyers were not sure if it would be useful, and there were certainly no legal-specific apps. Obviously, a lot has changed since then in the world of iPad. While it is far too early to know everything that the Apple Watch will do, here is a scenario I’ve been thinking about. Imagine being in a trial wearing an Apple Watch. Your associate is sitting in the back of the room and is also wearing one. Suddenly, he needs to send you a message — perhaps your opponent is about to put up a demonstrative that you need to object to before the jury sees it. The associate taps out a pattern on his Apple Watch, and without anyone else in the courtroom realizing it, you feel the taps on your arm and understand what it means. You object in time, the judge sustains your objection, and the jury isn’t prejudiced by the improper demonstrative. With possibilities like this, I’m definitely intrigued. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Indiana University health law professor Nicolas Terry sent me a tip this week on integrating the Wunderlist app into Safari in iOS 8 to save links, and gave me permission to share it with iPhone J.D. readers. He explains: “I blog, I tweet, I write boring law review articles. For all I use links. Many of these I discover while on my iPad or iPhone. For years I have emailed these to myself. Then, when back at a Mac I add to a blog draft or to a folder, etc., and delete the email. Sometimes I accidentally erase the email or let it sink down my inbox… And it’s cumbersome. Enter iOS 8. I already use a great list/reminder app called Wunderlist (which I recommend highly even without the following tweak). It syncs between all my iOS and Mac devices and has a really nice interface. Open Safari, find a link you want to keep and click on the Send To (arrow in a box) command. You’ll see the usual array of cloud, print, mail, etc. Click on More…, and you will see a list of other apps that could be used. Click the Wunderlist slider to green (this is the only time you will need to). Now, create some list buckets in Wunderlist, like Blog later, Tweet later, potential wife gifts, etc. Now from your browser you can simply add a reference to the bucket of your choice.”
Joanna Stern has been the personal technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal since December of 2013, and I find myself enjoying her reviews more and more. Her articles are well-written, and they are frequently accompanied by a clever video. This week, Stern reviewed some of the new software keyboards for the iPhone, and it is an informative and entertaining review.
And finally, here is a really fun music video by Brunettes Shoot Blonds of their song Knock Knock which uses a whole bunch of iPhones and iPads in a fascinating way. Worth watching. (via David Sparks)
