I hope that you had a good Thanksgiving yesterday (or a good Thursday, if you are not in the U.S.). And that means that now we start the holiday buying season. If you are shopping today on Black Friday, hopefully you are getting some good deals. For example, I see that Apple is giving away gift cards with many Apple products if you purchase them today in a store or online, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are lots of great sales today. And now, the recent news of note:
If you still don’t have the TrialPad and TranscriptPad (my review) apps sold by Lit Software, you can now purchase them as a bundle for $159.99, a $20 savings. Better yet, that bundle is on sale on Monday and Tuesday for only $99.99. And even better yet, you can also use the bundle as a way to upgrade, at a discount, to both apps if you currently only have one. For example, if you have TranscriptPad and already paid $89.99 for it, on Monday and Tuesday you’ll be able to complete the bundle and get TrialPad for only an additional $10, an amazing bargain. Click here to get the bundle, but wait until Monday to do so:
With the Apple Watch coming out in a few months, I’m starting to think about the implications of wearable devices. Eleven judges recently gathered at my alma mater, Georgetown University Law Center, discuss some of the implications of this technology, and Mark Gerlach of Law Technology News wrote this report.
One of the speakers at Georgetown was Judge Dixon of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. If you are looking for some year-end CLE credit, Judge Dixon and I are co-presenting an online CLE through ALI called iPad for Litigators on December 15th at 1:00 Eastern.
Suffolk University Law School Professor Andrew Perlman discusses a lawyer’s ethical duty to keep up with technology in an article for The Professional Lawyer. And if you don’t have time to read the full article, Loyola (of New Orleans) Law School Professor Dane Ciolino sums it up here.
Law Technology Today has a post on Finger Moves and Shortcuts on the iPad, which is adapted from Dallas attorney Tom Mighell’s book iPad in One Hour for Lawyers.
You know how the back of your iPhone, and so many other electronic items, has all of the small print? As reported by Julian Hattem of The Hill, this week, President Obama signed the E-Label Act, which means that the FCC information can now be available electronically instead of on the physical surface of the device. I presume that in the future it will just be part of the General information part of the Settings app. But that doesn’t mean that there will be nothing printed on the back of your iPhone; items available for sale in Europe still need (for now) the CE information. But at least that is one less item that Apple needs to put on the back of the phone.
And finally, if you love coffee as much as you love your iPhone, then you may want to check out the Mr. Coffee Smart Wifi-Enabled WeMo 10-Cup Optimal Brew Coffeemaker, a coffee maker that you can control with your iPhone. ($140 on Amazon) Steven Sande of TUAW reviewed it and gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying that “this coffeemaker does a good job of letting you schedule and monitor brewing from your iPhone.”
The ABA Journal keeps track of over 4,000 law-related blogs in its comprehensive Blawg Directory, and for eight years now has compiled a list of 100 favorites at the end of the year. As we prepare for Thanksgiving, I’m thankful to iPhone J.D. readers who nominated this site for this year’s list, and I’m thankful to the editors of ABA Journal for including iPhone J.D. on the list for the sixth year in a row. I was especially honored to see that iPhone J.D. was one of 10 websites named to the 2014 Blawg 100 Hall of Fame.
I love looking at the Blawg 100 list every year because I always discover lots of great websites that are new to me. You can browse an alphabetical list, or you can see the sites organized into categories, making it easy to discover great blogs in whatever area is of interest to you: Criminal Justice, Tort/Consumer, Law Practice Management, Legal Research/Legal Writing, Litigation, Niche, Labor & Employment, For Fun, Profs, Intellectual Property, Careers/Law School, News/Courts and Legal Tech.
From now until December 19, you can cast votes for up to 13 of your favorite websites. You need to give the ABA Journal your email address to vote, but they just use this to make sure that you don’t vote more than once (or, more preceisely, more than 13 times).
You’ll find iPhone J.D. in the Legal Tech category. If you have enoyed reading iPhone J.D. this year, I would really appreciate it if this site received your vote. Just click the below picture to get started … and thanks in advance to everyone who votes!
Apple released iOS 8.1.1 this week. It includes some bug fixes, but I was surprised to see that it also takes up less space. Rene Ritchie of iMore reports that it typically gives iPad owners about a half of gigabyte of additional storage space after the update is installed. If you have been on the fence about upgrading to iOS 8 because you wanted to wait to see if there were any initial bugs to be fixed, I think it is definitely safe to go ahead and upgrade now. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Transporter, a current sponsor of iPhone J.D., recently came out with the Transporter Genesis, a device companies can use to create their own private cloud with with up to 24 TB of data. It’s just like the Transporter that you put on your desk, but it has a lot more capacity and is made for your entire office. California attorney David Sparks of MacSparky briefly discussed the Genesis this week.
I’ve been using my iPad Air 2 for about a month now, and it is a fabulous device. It is easier to hold than any other full-size iPad, it has a great screen, it is incredibly responsive, and I’ve been using the Touch ID a lot more than I thought I would. If you have an older iPad and you are still trying to decide on whether to get an iPad Air 2, this week Jason Snell of Six Colors wrote a very good review of the iPad Air 2.
John Brownlee of Cult of Mac relates a short but very interesting story by former Apple employee Amit Chaudhary that shows how Steve Jobs demanded the best when working on the original iPod.
If you want to see ApplePay on an iPhone 6 in action, Apple Vice President Eddy Cue shows off how it works in a video on this page of Los Angeles station KTLA.
iLounge released its Best of the Year Awards for 2014, with top picks in 25 categories such as speakers, cases, keyboards, games, etc.
If you are looking for an external battery to charge an iPad and iPhone, Liam McCabe of The Wirecutter says that the best battery to get is the Limefuel Blast L60X, which is $29.99 on Amazon. McCabe only looked at batteries that weigh less than 5 ounces, which McCabe thought was the most you can put in a pants pocket without being too uncomfortable. If you don’t mind a longer device that weighs more (8.35 oz.) I recommend the Lumsing Harmonica Style Power Bank which has much more battery capacity (10,400 mAh versus 6,000 mAh).
And finally, another way to avoid having a battery that weighs to much in your pants is to instead let the battery hold up your pants. The XOO Belt is a belt that includes a flexible, rechargeable battery so that you can use your belt to charge your iPhone. It is part of an IndiGogo campaign, and as of early this morning, they were at $34,510 of their $50,000 goal with 28 days to go. It seems strange to me that the video for this product talks about how good it looks but doesn’t really show what it looks like when someone wears it. Seems a tad bulky to me. I guess this is one belt that you definitely need to take off when you go through TSA.
iPhone J.D. turns six years old this week. Seems like it was just yesterday that I wrote the first post on iPhone J.D., explaining why I found the iPhone a valuable tool in a law practice. Back then, almost no attorneys used iPhones (about 5% according to a 2008 Am Law Tech Survey), but now the majority of attorneys in the U.S. use an iPhone (around 60% according to the ABA).
Over the past six years, I’ve written over 1,200 posts on iPhone J.D., including reviews of over 300 apps, reviews of every major iOS device released by Apple (from the iPhone 3GS to the new iPhone 6 and all models of the iPad) and reviews of over 100 accessories. I’ve also tried to provide lots of tips and tricks for getting the most out of your iPhone and iPad, and discussed all of the tech news that I think that you might want to know about if you use an iPhone or iPad.
Through the years, I’ve gotten tons of great feedback from iPhone J.D. readers, ranging from emails to over 2,500 comments on the site, and I’ve been honored to share guests posts by attorneys from around the world who use iPhones and iPads in their law practice. Site traffic has grown steadily every year, and in just a few days, one of you is going to load iPhone J.D. and it will be the 5 millionth page view since the site launched. [UPDATE: At 11:22 Central on Nov. 24th, smeone loaded the home page of iPhone J.D. and was the 5 millionth visitor. If you know who you are, consider yourself the lucky winner of a thumbs up from me!]
Popular posts this year. It’s a tradition on iPhone J.D.’s anniversary (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) to identify the most popular posts from the prior 12 months. Perhaps it reveals something about the topics that iPhone and iPad owners have been thinking about lately. Here are the ten most viewed posts published in the last year:
1. How to view unread emails. This post from December of 2013 was viewed over 30,000 times. Apparently, a lot of you were just as interested as I was in seeing a list of your emails that are still marked unread. I still use this feature all the time, and I suspect that many of you do, too.
2. Review: Adonit Jot Script. I know that a lot of you use a stylus to take notes on your iPad, and Adonit did something new when it created the first active stylus, one which has a small tip. I was very curious to try out this product, and apparently a lot of you were also interested. Having said that, if you are going to get an active stylus with a hard tip today, I think that the new Wacom Bamboo Stylus fineline, which I reviewed earlier this month, is better.
3. Review: GoodReader 4. GoodReader is one of the most useful apps on my iPad, and I hear lots of other attorneys say the same thing, so it is no surprise that so many of you were interested to read about the latest version of the app, especially because it was a new version that you had to pay for again. I see that the app is currently on sale for only $0.99 (until 12/5/2014), so if you don’t already have this app, you should seriously get it right now. Click here to get GoodReader 4 (on sale for $0.99):
4. Review: Microsoft Word. The most eagerly-anticipated iOS app of all time was released during ABA TECHSHOW in April of this year, and it seemed like everyone at TECHSHOW was talking about it. It is a fabulous app, and was recently updated to also run on the iPhone.
5. Review: Reader 7. I had no idea when I reviewed this app in February that Microsoft would release Word for the iPad only two months later. But for two months of 2014, this free app created by an attorney in Germany was the best way to view a Microsoft Word document. I still use the app when I want to use the full screen of my iPad to view a Word document, with no toolbars etc. taking up screen real estate.
6. Review: Cregle ink. This stylus tries to give you all of the advantages of an Adonit Jot Script without the noisy tip.
7. Review: Powerocks Super Magicstick. I still use this charger all the time. I love that it is so small and so easy to toss in a pocket. I even bought one to give my father as one of his birthday presents a few months ago, and he tells me that he likes it too, so I can now attest that there is at least one attorney and one architect who like it.
8. Review: iPin. I haven’t used this since I reviewed it in January of this year, but I still think it is awesome that you can add a laser to an iPhone. Is it necessary? Well that’s another story.
9. Apple improves security in iOS 7.1.2, iCloud.com. I’m surprised to see this post on the list since the security flaw fixed in iOS 7.1.2 was so minor. But as attorneys, I suppose that we all want to improve security when we can.
10. Review: Rechargeable Apex Fine Point Active Stylus. The top 10 list ends with yet another stylus review. This is a good one, too, My main gripe is that I cannot use my standard Micro-USB cords to charge the stylus because they don’t fit, so you have to use the smaller cord that comes with the stylus. That takes away some of the advantage of using a standard Micro-USB connector.
Visitors to iPhone J.D. It’s an annual tradition to use this opportunity to share some information on iPhone J.D. visitors, to the extent that I can figure it out using the tools at my disposal. About 37% of iPhone J.D. readers during the past year accessed this site using an iPhone. About 18% used an iPad. About 26% used Windows, and 13% used a Mac. Almost all of the other visitors (about 4%) used Android, which is higher than I would have expected given the nature of this website, although I suppose that some of the third party accessories that I have reviewed can also be used with an Android device. Or maybe those were Android users thinking about switching to the iPhone/iPad.
For those who have used an iPhone to visit iPhone J.D. since September 19, 2014, which is when the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus went on sale, 18.5% were using a either an iPhone 6 or an iPhone 6 Plus. This suggests that almost one-fifth of iPhone J.D. visitors are early adopters who got a new iPhone soon after it went on sale. Almost as many (17.3%) were using an iPhone 4s or earlier model, so about the same number of you are holding on to an old device. The vast majority of iPhone J.D. visitors, 64.2%, are using an iPhone 5 / iPhone 5s / iPhone 5c. For those of you who did opt for a new iPhone this year, which model did you get? iPhone J.D. visitors have strongly favored the iPhone 6 (as do I): 14.2% used an iPhone 6 versus only 4.3% used an iPhone 6 Plus. That’s a 3-to-1 preference for the iPhone 6 instead of the iPhone 6 Plus, which is consistent with numbers released yesterday by John Gruber of Daring Fireball (whose post inspired me to examine this same statistic for iPhone J.D. visitors).
Almost two-thirds of iPhone J.D. visitors are in the U.S., but the site also gets a huge number of visitors from the U.K., Canada and Australia. As for the top 10 cities for visitors of iPhone J.D., the top five are the exact same as last year, and numbers 5 through 10 are the same five cities as last year, but there was a slight reshuffling, including a higher percentage of folks from Toronto.
New York
London
Los Angeles
Chicago
Sydney
Toronto
Houston
Melbourne
San Francisco
Singapore
Thanks to all of you for reading iPhone J.D. As we enter the seventh year of this website — that’s a lucky number, right? – I hope that we see lots of great new iOS devices, apps and accessories that attorneys find valuable in their practice, and enjoyable when they are off-the-clock.
One of my all-time favorite apps for the iPad is TranscriptPad, an app I reviewed in 2012 and 2013. As a litigator, I frequently take depositions and have to review transcripts of depositions that I and others have taken. For example, I may want to assemble the best testimony to support a motion for summary judgment. In the old days, I highlighted and added Post-It Notes to a paper version of a depositions, but it was a pain to have to deal with large and heavy copies, the Post-It Notes would sometimes come off, and it wasn’t a very efficient way to find testimony that I had previously noted as important because you couldn’t easily see the key testimony on an issue all in one place. But with TranscriptPad, I can review transcripts on my iPad (which is much easier than dealing with all of that paper), I always have every transcript with me, and when I review a transcript I don’t just highlight all key testimony in yellow; instead, I assign issue codes as a I read. When I am done reviewing a deposition, TranscriptPad creates a report for me of each of my issues (e.g. comparative fault, damages, one of my affirmative defenses, etc.) with all of the questions and answers I coded for that issue listed underneath. And I can create a report either from a specific deposition or from all of the depositions in the case. This app greatly reduces the chance that I will miss key testimony that I can use to help win my case. TranscriptPad is one of those few apps that consistently helps me to be a better attorney.
Late last night, litigation consultant Ian O’Flaherty and his team at Lit Software released version 2.0 of TranscriptPad. The app has a new interface and new features, and is a free upgrade for owners of the 1.0 version of the app. I have been using a preview of the app for the last few days to prepare this review, and this is a great update. Here are the significant new features.
Improved Main Menu
The app has a new interface that matches the look of iOS 7 and iOS 8. From the main screen of the app, if you choose a Grid view, you see folders for each of your cases, and a new feature is that you can color-code your folders. For example, you might want all folders for one client to be the same color. The color normally appears as an outline of the folder, but if you tap on a folder to select it, the folder itself also changes to the assigned color. This is a nice way to easily differentiate among your folders.
With a case selected, you can press the email button to send all of the transcripts, including your annotations, to another TranscriptPad user. (Exhibits that you saved in TranscriptPad are not included, which makes sense because, in virtually all cases, including exhibits would make the email too large to send.)
If you tap on a case and hold down your finger, a new popup menu gives you the option to open the case, rename the case, duplicate the case or delete the case. Or you can tap once to select a case and tap again to open it — in other words, a double-tap is a standard way to open a case in TranscriptPad 2.
Easier editing of issue codes
The most powerful feature of TranscriptPad is the ability to create your own case-specific issue codes. When you read a Q and A that is significant, you simply select the first and the last line and then assign an issue code that you create based upon the issues in your case — such as Damages or Comparative Fault or even Part 1RQ56 if a particularly important issue in your case is what each witness has to say about Part 1RQ56. It is now even easier to edit an issue code that you created because the app now puts Edit button at the end of each issue code on the left. Tap Edit and you can rename an issue code, select a new color or delete an issue code.
Improved navigation
It is now easier to navigate within a particular deposition. In addition to the slider that lets you scroll up and down to find a page in the deposition, you can now tap on the Page X of Y indication at the top right of a transcript and enter a specific page number to jump right to that page.
Another useful way to jump to important text is to select an issue code in the list on the left and then tap on a range of lines on the left to jump directly to those questions and answers on the right. In TranscriptPad 2, it is easier to have a sense of where you are because the range of lines on the left is bold when you are looking that range on the right. And as you manually browse through the transcript on the right by moving up or down, the list on the left updates with new lines becoming bold as you get to them.
Speaking of going through pages in a deposition, while I prefer to just flick my finger to scroll up and down, TranscriptPad 2 adds a Page Up and Page Down button. Every time you tap Page Up you are brought to the first line of a page. So tap it three times and you will go the first line of your current page, then the first line of the previous page, then the first line of the page before that. The Page Down button works the same way except that it bring you to the last line on the page.
And speaking of looking at a transcript, version 1 of TranscriptPad gave you a choice of four fonts for the text: Menlo, Courier New, Monaco and Andale Mono. Version 2 keeps those fonts and adds Noto Sans, Noto Serif and Open Sans — plus gives you a preview of what each font looks like by using the font for each font name.
When you are done reviewing a transcript, as before, you can tap the arrow in the top left to go back one level. Version 2 of this app adds a new shortcut. Hold down on the arrow and you see a pop-up menu showing the hierarchy, making it fast to jump up multiple levels or even navigate back the main Cases screen without having to tap back a whole bunch of times.
Better handling of flags
To be honest, I haven’t used the flag feature of TranscriptPad in the past except to test the feature. In my actual cases, when I have wanted to note that something is important, I have just assigned an issue code, or if I want added emphasis, I highlight in yellow or maybe underline. But I understand the advantage of using a flag; in addition to marking text as significant, you can (optionally) write notes on the flag, such as explaining why this testimony matters. If you share your TranscriptPad file data with another person, I can see that being helpful to share your thinking on a certain line of questioning.
In TranscriptPad 2.0, an open flag icon is placed next to text if you didn’t add a note, and a closed flag icon is used if you did add a note. Additionally, in the list on the left, there is a blue dot to indicate when you have a note associated with the flag.
Flags are also more sophisticated in version 2 because you can split them up. For example, if you place a Flag spanning lines 1-10, you can now go back and remove the flag from lines 2-4, which results in two (identical) flags, one for line 1 and another for lines 5-10.
Make your folders stand out
Within each case folder, the app creates different folders associated with different witnesses. You can also add your own folders. If you have a lot of witnesses in a case, it is nice to have a way to make some folders stand out, and now you can do that in TranscriptPad 2. Specifically, you can now add color to each folder (eight color choices) or you can add labels to each folder, including a π for the plaintiff and a ∆ for the defendant.
Support for Transporter and Box
The main way that I get a transcript into TranscriptPad is to go to the email that a court reporter sent me with a plan text (ASCII) version of the transcript attached and open that file in TranscriptPad. Or sometimes I email the file to myself to do the same thing. TranscriptPad has long been able to open files from Dropbox, or add files by connecting your iPad to your computer and using iTunes. Version 2 adds the ability to open files that are stored on your Transporter. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to try this feature yet because there is a small bug on the implementation in version 2.0. Ian tells me that the bug has already been fixed, and Transporter support will be working as soon as Apple approves version 2.0.1, which should be very soon.
Version 2 also adds support for Box (Box.net) and WebDAV. I don’t use either so I didn’t test this support.
I don’t mind using Dropbox to tranfer a bunch of transcripts to TranscriptPad because transcripts are (with rare exception) not confidential; I have no security concerns about storing plain text transcript files on Dropbox. Nevertheless, I am increasingly keeping all of my case file materials on my Transporter, and I know that others prefer to use Box. It is nice to have so many options for getting files into TranscriptPad.
Conclusion
Those are the big new changes, but there others as well, some of which are under-the-hood. And Ian tells me that he has a few more features close to being finished that weren’t ready to put in version 2.0, so I’m sure we will continue to see more TranscriptPad updates in the future. But just focusing the changes that I described above, version 2.0 itself is a big update, and it makes an already fantastic app even more powerful and easier to use and customize. If you own an iPad and you work with transcripts in your law practice, I strongly recommend that you get the TranscriptPad app. Unless you are representing someone on the other side of one of my cases, in which case I would prefer for you to use your old, inefficient, less effective tools like a highlighter and some Post-It Notes that are prone to fall off of your heavy, paper copies of the depositions.
There was no In the news last week because Microsoft released the new version of Word for the iPad and iPhone last Thursday and I wanted to write about it last Friday. I’ve now been using Word on my iPad and iPhone for a week, and it has worked great for me. If you read my post Friday morning (or if you subscribe to iPhone J.D. via email), note that I updated that post mid-Friday to note that while Microsoft is promoting this as an app that lets you review and edit documents for free, it appears that the license for the free version only allows you to “create, edit or save documents for non-commercial purposes.” So presumably lawyers and other professionals are supposed to purchase an Office 365 subscription to use the app — which you might have done anyway for the software on your PC/Mac, unless you are still using an older version of Microsoft Office. With no In the news last week, here are the interesting items of note from the last two weeks:
Washington, D.C. attorney Reid Trautz discusses his use of the iPhone 6 Plus. He likes it, but has some trouble carrying it around because of its size. I’ve heard from a few folks who bought an iPhone 6 Plus but then exchanged it for an iPhone 6, in large part because they found it too big to carry.
In this article for 9to5 Mac, New York attorney Jason Stern discusses the privacy implications of using a password to lock your iPhone, which law enforcement cannot force you to reveal, and using a fingerprint, which you can be compelled to produce. From the standpoint of an attorney complying with the confidentiality rules of the Rules of Professional Conduct, I believe that protecting your confidential information with your fingerprint is more than sufficient, plus it offers convenience, an advantage that you rarely find with other methods of protecting information. It is true that a police officer could force you to use your finger to unlock your iPhone, but they can also force you, with a subpoena, to unlock your office door (or they can break it open themselves) so that they can access items in your law office — although of course you would obviously have many arguments for opposing that.
California attorney David Sparks discusses the HooToo TripMate Elite, a combination external battery and wireless router that can also make the contents of a USB flash drive accessible to iOS devices. Neat idea, and $56 on Amazon.
Good Technology is used by a significant number of businesses and law firms, and the company recently released a report on its users’ app, platform and device preferences (PDF link). Good found that the introduction of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus significantly increased iPhone market share.
This week, AirDesk Solutions introduced AirDesk Presenter, an app that you can use to present evidence in court. It is free for the first 30 days, and then costs $9.99 per month.
I’m thrilled to see the Microsoft Office apps on the iPad and iPhone, but they are not always the best tools for the task. While I mostly use Word for my documents, there are times when Pages is the better tool. I use Excel for my sophisticated spreadsheets, but for simple charts I prefer Numbers. And I always use Keynote instead of PowerPoint. If you are considering the best tool for your task, you might enjoy this article by Allyson Kazmucha of iMore comparing and contrasting Apple’s iWork apps, Microsoft Office apps and Google Docs on the iPad.
In the early 1990s when I was in law school, Apple and Citibank offered a credit card that let you earn points to purchase Apple products. Because my landlord took a credit card to pay rent, I earned enough points to get a free computer when I was a 3L — I believe it was a Performa 450. I see that Apple has once again teamed up with a credit card company, this time Barclaycard Visa, with a similar program. You can get more information in this article by Josh Centers for TidBITS and on this page of the Apple website.
Mandy Oaklander of Time reports that psychology professor Larissa Barber has a name for the urge to keep up with your work-related emails no matter what time of day they come: telepressure. Hello, my name is Jeff, and I’m a telepressureholic.
Suzie Ochs of Macworld discusses CarPlay based on her use of a new CarPlay-complaint Pioneer in-dash unit. There is also a video that shows how it works.
Steve Kovach of Business Insider ranks the top 15 smartphones on the market today. #1 and #2 are the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. Even last year’s iPhone 5s is still #11.
Dan Frakes — formerly of Macworld and now of The Wirecutter — discusses his favorite new features in iOS 8. It’s worth reading the article to make sure that you know about all of these great features.
And finally, if you think that the only thing missing from your iPhone is that you cannot use it to saw a tree branch, cut steak, cut and strip wire, and open a bottle of beer, then you are the perfect customer for the TaskOne G3 iPhone Case. This $89.95 case for the iPhone includes a 2.5″ serrated knife, a 1.8″ sawblade, pliers with wire cutters and 3-6mm Hex screw cutouts, a 5″ ruler, 6 Allen wrenches, dual spoke wrenches, a wire stripper, two flathead screwdrivers, a Phillips screwdriver, a saw-blade mount and a bottle opener. Not surprisingly, the very first question on the product’s website is whether TSA might have a problem with this case when you are at an airport. But there is an answer: “We have made the knife portion of this case removable in seconds with no tools so it can be placed in your checked luggage or left at home on your trip.” This version is for the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s, but you can pre-order the iPhone 6 version at a discounted price of $75.95. The developer, Addison Shelton, used to work at Apple, and he also sells some other interesting iPhone cases, the myTask line, that hold lots of items. My first reaction to the TaskOne was that combining knives and saws with an iPhone is crazy, but then again, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that there is a part of me that wants one. This video shows off the features:
Thank you to Connected Data, maker of the Transporter, for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month. The Transporter is a great tool for attorneys because you get all of the advantages of cloud storage — files that are always accessible from any of your devices, including PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, and even Kindle Fire — while also getting the security of knowing that only you have control over your files, not some third party company that hasn’t signed a confidentiality agreement with you and which uses employees that don’t report to you. Plus, the device itself is incredibly fast and easy to initially setup, and virtually never requires any tinkering for you to maintain the device (although there are lots of advanced tools for doing so if you need to do something).
When you put a file on a Transporter, a copy also exists on your computer, so you have two copies of the file, which can serve as a backup if disaster strikes your computer or your Transporter. You can also buy a second Transporter and keep it in a different location to have a full, automatic, remote backup; if your office catches fire and one Transporter were to be lost, everything would already be and running on the second Transporter. Or if you want to use the Transporter as an external storage device and keep a large file only on the Transporter (and not on your computer), you can store files in the Transporter’s Library folder.
Connected Data has a dedicated page on its website that talks about how attorneys can use a Transporter in their law practice. On that page, you can view videos from attorneys David “MacSparky” Sparks and John Conway describing how they use their Transporters. Or you can watch the videos on YouTube — Sparks, Conway — along with lots of other Transporter videos on the company’s YouTube page. For example, I enjoyed the video with Dr. Michael Laccheo in which that rheumatologist talks about using a Transporter so that he always has access to his patient documents no matter where he is located, while also staying HIPAA-compliant.
In May 0f 2014, I reviewed the Cregle ink, an active stylus with a rubber tip that is essentially silent when you use it. I liked that stylus, but I noted at the end of my review how strange it was strange that Cregle was selling that stylus while they were already telling folks that a new version was planned to come out later this year. Cregle now has a new stylus, and it is called the Cregle ink R. Cregle sent me two free review units a few weeks ago, one of each color: dark gray and snow white. I’ve been trying them out for the last few weeks. Here are my thoughts.
This is not the Cregle ink 2
My post from earlier this year included a chart provided by Cregle that showed the differences between the Cregle ink and the planned Cregle ink 2. I don’t know whether Cregle still plans to make the Cregle ink 2. I see that the Indiegogo campaign for the Cregle ink 2 never reached its funding goal. But to be clear, the Cregle ink R that I am reviewing today is a different stylus than the Cregle ink 2: this one is rechargeable, it has a different shape, it comes in different colors, etc. Here is what the Cregle ink R looks like:
So now that we know what the Cregle ink R is not, let’s talk about what it is.
Rechargeable battery
Active styluses are nice because they have small tips, but to work they require power. So if you decide to get an active stylus, you should decide whether you want a stylus that requires a replaceable battery or one that is rechargeable. I can understand why a battery might appeal to some folks; if your stylus is dead and you want to use it right away, you can always swap in a new battery (if you have one). On the other hand, recharging takes some time. But after using both types of powered styluses throughout this year, I myself prefer a stylus that is rechargeable. Like the Lynktec Rechargeable Apex Fine Point Active Stylus which I reviewed in June, and the Bamboo Stylus fineline that I reviewed last week, the Cregle ink R can be recharged via a Micro-USB cord. Simply unscrew the cap at the back of the pen and plug it in.
I consider this an improvement over the Cregle ink, not only because in general I prefer to recharge rather than use a battery, but also because the Cregle ink requires somewhat hard to find AAAA batteries.
Rubber tip
The rechargeable battery is nice, but the key distinguishing feature of the Cregle ink R is the rubber tip. It works and feels exactly like the rubber tip on the original Cregle ink, and that is a good thing. This tip has two things going for it.
First, like any active stylus, it is a tiny tip. This one is 2.4 mm. That’s slightly larger than the 1.9 mm tip on the Bamboo Stylus fineline and the Adonit Jot Script, but in practice it doesn’t feel any larger. And most importantly, it feels substantially smaller than the 6 mm tip on the Wacom Bamboo stylus duo and even feels substantially smaller than the 4 mm tip on the Hand Stylus (which has the smallest tip that I have seen on a non-active stylus). When you draw a line with a 1.9 to 2.4 mm tip, the line seems to appear exactly where the tip wrote on the iPad screen. It’s almost like the experience of writing with a pen on paper, although of course pen tips are typically less than 1 mm.
Second, unlike the hard tip on the on the Bamboo Stylus fineline and the Adonit Jot Script, the Cregle ink R has a rubber tip that is silent when you touch the iPad screen. I explained in my the review last week of the Bamboo Stylus fineline why I have a problem with hard tips; the slight noise that they make every time that you tap the screen is loud enough to draw attention to oneself, and I don’t like doing that when I am taking notes in a meeting or in court. It’s a shame, because I really like the tip on the Bamboo Stylus fineline and the Adonit Jot Script, and if I am by myself in a room, or if I am in a noisy enough environment where the slight tapping noise doesn’t matter, I still like to use those styluses. But most of the time that I am taking notes, I want to be quiet, so I prefer to use a non-active stylus like the Wacom Bamboo stylus duo or a powered stylus with a rubber tip such as this one or the Lynktec Rechargeable Apex Fine Point Active Stylus which I reviewed in June.
The rubber tip of the Cregle ink R works well. The rubber produces more friction than a hard tip, so you feel like you have to push down a little harder and you feel like you can’t write quite as fast as you can with the hard tip on the Bamboo Stylus fineline and the Adonit Jot Script. But I suppose that is the price that you pay for a tip that is silent when you write on the screen.
Now that I’ve talked about what works well on the Cregle ink R, let’s turn to what I don’t like about this stylus, starting with the lack of a clip.
Lack of a clip
I prefer a stylus that has a clip so that I can hold it securely in a shirt pocket. Unlike the original Cregle ink, the Cregle ink R doesn’t have a clip on the side.
It does have an on/off button on side of the stylus. I mention that because one of the things that I most dislike about the lack of a clip on the Adonit Jot Script is that the stylus is round and can easily roll off a table. The Cregle ink R stops rolling when the button makes contact with the table, so at least the lack of a clip doesn’t cause the Cregle ink R to roll of of a desk.
The white model, and a repeated flaw
Cregle sent me both a gray and a white version of this stylus.
The gray one works great, but the first white one that Cregle sent me was missing an on/off button, which had fallen off in the package before it was sent to me. I alerted Cregle to the problem and the company quickly sent me a replacement, but it also had a broken button. So again I alerted Cregle, and they sent me a third unit … and once again this one had a broken button. I could place the button back in the hole, but after shaking the stylus only a little bit, the button would fall out again.
This is a serious flaw because the button is essential to turn the stylus on and off. You don’t want to lose it. The button on the gray unit seems fine, and I even tried to pull it off myself to see if it was weak but it seems well attached. Nevertheless, at least in this batch of white styluses, the Cregle ink R seems to have a design or construction flaw.
Even if the button had stayed attached on one of those three white models, I still prefer the gray one because the end of the white model glows. There is a tiny blue light near the front of the Cregle ink R that stays on when the stylus is turned on. With the gray model, it just looks like a tiny blue light. But with the white model, the blue light illuminates most of the front of the stylus, presumably because it is covered by white plastic and not a darker plastic. Perhaps some of you will see this as an advantage, a little bling for your stylus. However, I prefer to use a low-key stylus that doesn’t draw attention to itself, so I prefer the gray model.
No Bluetooth
A final drawback of this stylus is that, unlike the Bamboo Stylus fineline and the Adonit Jot Script, the Cregle ink R lacks Bluetooth. That means that there are no apps that can sense when the Cregle is touching the screen instead of your palm or your hand. It also means that the Cregle ink R can’t have any buttons that talk to the iPad. As I noted in my review of the Bamboo Stylus fineline, I really like that you can configure its button to trigger an undo of the last stroke. It is a very quick and easy to fix something as you are writing. Indeed, just this week, GoodNotes (my favorite app for taking notes) added support for the Bamboo Stylus fineline, and I love being able to use the button in that app.
To be clear, the Cregle ink R works fine as a stylus without Bluetooth. You simply don’t get the extended features that you get with other active styluses that do use Bluetooth. If you want to take advantage of the extra features that Bluetooth provides, then this might not be the stylus for you.
Wavy lines
Finally, you should be aware that, like all active styluses, the Cregle ink R has trouble when you make a diagonal line and you move the stylus slowly. The issue is no worse or better with the Cregle ink R than other active styluses; it just seems to come with the territory when you use an active stylus. Here is an example that I included with my review of the Bamboo Stylus fineline, and I include it again here because I saw the exact same results with the Cregle ink R. Draw a diagonal line quickly and all is fine, but draw it more slowly and you get wavy lines:
I have yet to see an active stylus that is better at this than other active styluses, so this is not a reason to pick any one active stylus over another. But it is a reason that you might prefer to use a traditional, non-active stylus with a larger tip versus a powered, active stylus with a tiny tip.
Conclusion
There is a lot to like about the Cregle ink R. Like all active styluses, it has a fine tip that provides an experience that is closer to the feeling of writing with a ballpoint pen. I like that it is rechargeable. And because the Cregle ink R uses a rubber tip, I especially like that it is silent when you use it, a big advantage over many other active styluses. On the other hand, it doesn’t include Bluetooth so it doesn’t give you special features when you use it with apps designed to work with the stylus, it doesn’t have a clip, and at least some of the white versions of the stylus seem to have a problem with the on/off switch.
When I reviewed the original Cregle ink, I ended by talking about the features expected in a Cregle ink 2. Now, I find myself wishing for a Cregle ink R 2 — one which keeps the nice, silent tip and the other features, but which adds Bluetooth and support from popular apps, adds a clip, and which uses a switch or some other on/off mechanism instead of a button that can break off, at least on the white model. As it stands now, you need to decide whether the advantages of the current model outweigh its drawbacks.
Ever since I started publishing iPhone J.D. in November of 2008, the #1 question that lawyers have asked me is: what is the best way to view and edit Word documents on an iPhone? When DataViz released the Documents to Go app in June 0f 2009, it instantly became a must-have app for many attorneys because it did a decent job of working with Word files. In subsequent years we saw many other iPhone apps that could work with iPhone files, but they were always lacking something. In June of 2013, Microsoft released Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone. After I recovered from the initial shock of seeing Microsoft software on an iPhone, I then started to try out the app, and I was incredibly disappointed. The app was clunky, didn’t handle footnotes, couldn’t work with track changes, and amazingly didn’t even work with .doc files (only the newer .docx files). I couldn’t recommend the app to other attorneys, but I did hope that it was a sign of better things to come.
It turns out that it was. In March of 2014, Microsoft released Word for iPad. As I noted in my review, it was a fantastic app that did not have any of the flaws of the Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone app. Microsoft has been improving the app throughout this year, and with each update I wished more and more that Microsoft would release a version of the app that worked on the iPhone so that I could finally delete the disappointing Office Mobile app.
Yesterday, Microsoft did it. Microsoft updated the Word for iPad app. The new name is simply Microsoft Word, and it is now a universal app that works on both iPhones and iPads. I spent last night trying out all of the new features of the new version 1.2 of the app, and Microsoft did a great job. This is an app that should be downloaded by every single lawyer with an iPhone.
Viewing documents
The Word app does a fantastic job of viewing Word documents on an iPhone, both the old .doc format and the new .docx format. In fact, it is even more powerful than Word on an iPad because you have two different ways to view a document. In the default Print Layout view, you see the document as it would appear when printed, with line breaks and page breaks in the correct location. Of course, on a small iPhone screen, this makes the text really hard to read, but it does let you see the overall look of the document. You can pinch to zoom, but when you do so, you only see part of a page at one time.
Second, the app includes a Reflow view, in which the text is larger and the line breaks occur wherever the text ends on your iPhone screen, not where it would end when printed out. You activate this view by tapping the Reflow icon at the top of the screen (the second button from the right). When you are in Reflow view, you can pinch to zoom, and that just changes the number of words that you can see at one time.
The Reflow view works great. Adjust the font size to whatever looks best for your eyes, and then you can review any Word document that someone emails to you.
And because this is the real Microsoft Word, you can view just about anything in a Word file. You can view tables. You can view footnotes when you are in Print Layout view. (In Reflow view, you see the main text of the document and the footnote number, but to read the footnote itself, switch to Print Layout view.) And if someone else has made redline edits to a document or added comments, you can view those as well.
The app also has a nice Find feature. To get to it, tap the three dots at the top right of the screen and then tap Find. When you search for a word, all instances of the word are highlighted in the document. You can tap back and forth arrows to go to each instances. Also, the place where you type your search term tells you the number of instances of that word. Tap the gear icon for advanced features like Find and Replace.
Editing documents
Editing documents works well in the Word app on an iPad with its larger screen. On the iPhone, everything is more cramped, but Microsoft still managed to fit everything in so that if you need to edit a Word document on your iPhone, you can do so. Just hold down your finger on some part of a document to make the cursor appear and the keyboard will come up from the bottom. You can edit in either the Print Layout or the Reflow view.
When you are done editing, tap Done at the top left to make the keyboard go away so that you can use the full iPhone screen to view the documents.
In the iPad version of Word, there are tabs across the top — Home, Insert, Layout, Review, View — that you tap to see a ribbon containing commands. The iPhone version doesn’t show those tabs to save space, but you can get to them by tapping the Ribbon icon, which is the third from the right at the top, the one with the letter A with a pencil on it. Tapping that button brings up one of the ribbons, such as Layout, and you can tap the word Layout to switch to another ribbon.
Underneath the ribbon name is a scrollable list of all of the commands. For example, if you have activated the Premium features in the app (more on that below), you can change to the Review ribbon to turn on Track Changes to create redline edits to a document.
At the top of the screen in both Print Layout and Reflow view, there is an undo button that offers multiple levels of undo. You’ll also find both an undo and a redo button when you bring up the ribbon.
You cannot create or edit Styles in the Word app, but if you are opening a file created on a computer that used Styles, those Styles are still contained in the document on the iPhone and iPad. Also, you can copy text that has formatting applied to it, then select another word (or sentence or paragraph etc.), and then Paste Format to apply the same formatting to the selected text.
The File menu
When you are looking at a document, the second icon brings up a File menu that contains lots of options. You can turn AutoSave on or off. You can Duplicate a file (similar to “Save as…” on a computer). You can even view documents properties and restore earlier versions of a file.
Working with files, including new Dropbox support
If someone emails a Word document to you, it is easy to open it in the Word app. First, hold down for a second or so on the attachment icon at the end of the email. This will bring up a menu that includes a list of apps that you can use to open the file. Tap Open in Word and the Word app will launch so that you can work with the document.
One of the major updates to the Word app yesterday, in addition to iPhone support, is that the app now also supports Dropbox. In my tests yesterday, the works really well. After you give the app permission to access your Dropbox account, you can see all of your files and folders on Dropbox. Tap a Word document to open it in the app and you can view or edit your document. And with the AutoSave feature turned on (the default setting), your changes will be saved to Dropbox as you work.
Thus, the Word app will now let you work with files that you save locally to your iPad or iPhone, documents in your Dropbox, documents in your OneDrive, and documents in your SharePoint if your law firm uses SharePoint. You can also move documents between those different locations; for example, you can take a document saved locally on your iPhone or iPad and then tell Word to move it to your Dropbox folder.
As before, the Word app gives you the option to email a document to someone else. On July 31, 2014, Microsoft added the option to send a file as a PDF file or a Word document. Thus, you now have the ability to use your iPhone or iPad to quickly convert any Word document to a PDF document, which can be useful if you want to share a document with opposing counsel in a format that isn’t easily editable. Also, if your Word document is saved in Dropbox, you can now use the Word app to email someone a link to the file so that they can download the file from Dropbox.
Pricing
As before, the Microsoft Word app is free. Before yesterday, you could use the free app to view a Word document, but if you wanted to edit a document you had to purchase a Microsoft 365 account.
With the new version of the app, when you first start the app you are asked to sign in to your Microsoft account or create a new one. If you instead tap Sign In Later, you can use the app to view documents, but you won’t be able to edit them.
If you select Create an Account, Microsoft then asks for some basic personal information (name, email address, zip code, date of birth, sex, phone number) and then gives you a free Microsoft account. With this free account, you can use the app to both view and edit documents. For many attorneys, this will be sufficient.
[UPDATE 11/7/14: I’m not providing anyone with legal advice on your rights as a user of this app, but if you plan to use this app as a part of your law practice without paying for Office 365, I encourage you to read the License Agreement. You can read it in the App Store on your iOS device by searching for the app and then tapping “License Agreement.” I think it says that anyone can use the app to view a document, but the free license only allows you to “create, edit or save documents for non-commercial purposes.” Something to consider.]
To access the premium features in the Word app, you need to have an Office 365 account, which as I noted in September, currently costs $99 a year. The current Premium features in Word are:
Insert section breaks
Enable columns in page layout
Customize headers and footers for different pages
Change page orientation
Track and review changes
Add custom colors to shapes
Insert and edit WordArt
Add shadows and reflection styles to pictures
Add and modify chart elements
Highlight table cells with custom color shading
I suspect that most attorneys will only care about one of those features: track and review changes. While the free version of the new Word app can view redline edits that someone else has created, if you want to add your own redline edits, or if you want to review (accept or reject) redline changes that someone else made, then you need to have an Office 365 account.
$99 a year is a lot to pay just to have the ability to create and review redline edits on your iPhone or iPad. But of course, you get a lot more than that with an Office 365 account. That $99 gives you the premium features in the Excel and PowerPoint apps on up to five devices, and also gives you the full Office software (Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, etc.) on up to five computers, plus other features, all of which is explained on the Microsoft website.
Conclusion
I am incredibly impressed with Microsoft’s new Word app, and I think that every attorney using an iPhone or iPad should get it. Even if you never plan to edit a Word document on your iPhone, you should get this app just so that you can easily review any Word document that someone else emails to you. The Microsoft Word app is without a doubt the best way to look at a Word document on an iPhone or iPad.
With a free Microsoft account, you can also make edits to a document. And with an Office 365 account — which you may already have if you use the Office software on your computer in your office — you can access all of the premium features including full Track Changes access so that you can create redline edits to a document and can accept or reject someone else’s redline edits.
Longtime iPhone users have been waiting a long time for this moment, but now we finally have an excellent way to work with Word files on an iPhone. If a client or colleague emails a Word document to you while you are out of the office, you can now easily read and edit the document on your iPhone. And if you have your iPad with you, you can take advantage of the larger screen to work with the document. Either way, the Word app lets you do many of the same things that you could do with a document using the full version of Word on a PC or Mac, and perhaps more importantly, the powerful Word app lets you do just about everything that you are ever likely to want to do on a mobile device.
vOnce upon a time, all iPad styluses had rubbery tips about the size of your fingertip. Then then smart folks at Adonit figured out that you could make a stylus with a tiny, 1.9 mm tip, but have the tip emit a signal that is sensed by the iPad as if it is a larger tip touching the screen. The Adonit Jot Script, which came out in late 2013 and which I reviewed in early 2014, was groundbreaking. Other companies followed Adonit’s lead, and nowadays, there are quite a few companies selling active (powered) styluses with tiny tips.
One of the most recent entries in the active stylus market is the Bamboo Stylus fineline by Wacom. Wacom is no Johnny-come-lately in this market; the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo is now on the third generation and has been widely considered one of the very best non-active styluses on the market. And Wacom has been making pen-like inputs for computers since the 1980s. I was interested to see Wacom’s take on an active stylus for the iPad, and after Wacom sent me a free review unit a few weeks ago, I’ve been trying out the Bamboo Stylus fineline quite a bit. Although this stylus suffers from some of the same drawbacks as the Adonit Jot Script, such as the fact that the hard stylus tip makes some noise every time you tap the screen, this is an excellent stylus that seems to me better than the Adonit Jot Script in every single way.
Design
The tip of the Bamboo Stylus fineline is 1.9 mm, the same as the tip on the Adonit Jot Script.
The fine tip is what makes active styluses is so nice. The tip is so tiny that you can see precisely where you are going to write on the screen, and you feel like you are actually writing with a pen. With traditional styluses, you often feel like you are using the thick tip of a crayon.
Like all active styluses, the Bamboo Stylus fineline is thicker than a non-active stylus. I suppose the electronics inside requires some extra space. The Adonit Jot Script has a diameter of 12 mm; the Bamboo Stylus fineline is tapered with a thickness that ranges from 10 mm to 11.9 mm. I only slightly notice the difference in diameter when I immediately go back and forth between the two styluses. In normal use, they both seem to be about the same thickness. The Wacom Bamboo Stylus fineline and the Adonit Jot Script are the same length, except that the Wacom stylus is longer when you put the cap on it.
Speaking of the cap, one aspect of the Adonit Jot Script that I do not like is that it lacks a clip. Not only does this mean that you cannot easily put it in a shirt pocket, it also means that the stylus is perfectly round and easily rolls off of a table. The Bamboo Stylus fineline has a removable cap that offers some protection for the tip — albeit protection that may be unnecessary, as I have never seen any damage to the Adonit Jot Script tip. But more importantly, you can place that cap on the back of the stylus when you are using it, and becuase the cap has a clip on it, the Bamboo Stylus fineline doesn’t roll around.
Bluetooth technology
An active stylus doesn’t need to include Bluetooth technology to work. For example, the Cregle Ink, which I reviewed this past May, doesn’t have Bluetooth. (I have just started to test the next generation Cregle active stylus called the Cregle Ink R; it also doesn’t have Bluetooth, and I’ll be ready to review that stylus in a few weeks.) But if a stylus does have Bluetooth technology, it can have some extra features when you use an app that knows how to talk to the stylus.
For example, with both the Adonit Jot Script and the Bamboo Stylus fineline, if you use an app that is designed to work with the stylus, you can tell the app not to display virtual ink on the screen unless it came from the stylus. Thus, you can use your finger to tap any menu, but if your finger or palm accidentally touches the main part of the screen, the app will just ignore that input; only strokes that you make with the stylus are registered. It’s a neat feature that works well with both styluses.
The Bamboo Stylus fineline takes this a step farther by also including a button near the front of the stylus, located in a spot that is easy and natural to tap with your index finger. Apps can do whatever they want with the button. For example, in Wacom’s own Bamboo Paper app, you can configure the app to Undo every time you tap the button, an incredibly quick and easy way to correct while you are writing. Other apps like the current version of Noteshelf (which I reviewed back in 2012) can also use the button for Undo. In the Bamboo Paper app, you can also make the app switch to the eraser mode as long as you are holding down the button, making it incredibly quick and easy to fix mistakes and then switch right back to the pen mode. That’s a neat trick that I wish that Noteshelf also supported.
The Bamboo Stylus fineline also uses Bluetooth technology to make the stylus pressure sensitive, when you are using an app that is designed to work with the stylus. In the Bamboo Paper app, you can hold down the stylus and make the ink thicker, or apply less pressure to get a thinner line. I don’t use a stylus to draw artistic pictures; I use it to take notes. Thus, for the way that I use a stylus, I don’t see any real advantage to a pressure sensitive stylus, but I suppose that it is nice to have. Here is an example of a line that I drew in which I pressed down harder in the middle of the line:
Right now, there are not many apps that work with the Wacom Bamboo Stylus fineline (you can see a list here), but Wacom is a well-known brand, so I expect that we will see more support in the future. For example, Wacom says that the GoodReader app is adding support, which will be nice since that is the app that I often use to highlight and annotate cases that I download from Westlaw.
[UPDATE 2/18/2015: I just noticed that when you are using this stylus with an app designed to work with it and which has the latest SDK from Wacom, you get an alert when there is a firmware update available for the stylus along with a link to download a free app that updates your stylus. I just updated it, and it seems to be doing a better job with diagonal lines on my iPad Air 2. It is great to see a stylus get better over time.]
Rechargable Battery
Active styluses require power to work. Some active styluses, like the Adonit Jot Script and the Cregle Ink, use a battery. It is a pain to have to carry around an extra battery, but if you run out of power it is simple to just swap out a new one. Other active styluses, like this Bamboo Stylus fineline and Lynktec’s Rechargeable Apex Fine Point Active Stylus which I reviewed in June, are rechargeable.
This is certainly a matter of personal preference, but I prefer to use a rechargeable stylus. It seems somewhat wasteful to me to have to throw out a battery and replace it with a new one, plus I have to remember to carry around a battery. The Bamboo Stylus fineline is rechargeable via an included Micro-USB cord. I already carry around a Micro-USB cord in my briefcase because I use it to charge so many other iPhone and iPad accessories (such as external batteries) so I don’t need to carry around anything extra to charge the Bamboo Stylus fineline.
Recharging is easy. Just pull off the rubber cover at the back end of the stylus and plug it in. Wacom says that the battery lasts for up to 26 hours. I’ve never come close to running the battery all the way down to 0%, so you should be able to use this stylus in an all day long meeting and then just recharge it at night.
One minor complaint that I have with this stylus is that the rubber end pops off pretty easily, which made me afraid that it might one day break off. That hasn’t happened yet, but I do wish that the rubber cap stayed better attached when not charging the stylus.
The disadvantages
There are two major disadvantages of this stylus. The first is a problem that exists with all active styluses. When you draw a diagonal line, the line is wavy if you move your stylus too slowly. For example, in the next image, I made a series of Xs in the GoodNotes app. If I draw the X quickly, it looks fine. If I draw the diagonal lines more slowly, the lines are wavy.
This issue is counter-intuitive. It seems that if I write more slowly, I ought to write more neatly. But with an active stylus and a diagonal line, the opposite is true.
This is a problem that I have seen with every active stylus, and unless Apple changes the iPad hardware to work better with active styluses, I doubt that this problem will go away. It isn’t a major problem for me, but I’ll admit that sometimes I reach for a traditional stylus like the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo instead of an active stylus just because I don’t feel like dealing with this while I am taking notes.
The second problem that I have with both this stylus and the Adonit Jot Script is noise. Because the stylus has a hard tip, and because the iPad has a glass screen, every time that you tap the screen, you hear a tap. I even recorded a video of this noise with the Adonit Jot Script, and I’ll embed it right here because the Bamboo Stylus fineline is just as noisy:
In some environments, the tap tap tap sound on your screen is no big deal. But if I am in a meeting or a deposition or a courtroom or some other relatively quiet environment and I want to use a stylus to take notes on my iPad, this noise virtually always deters me from using a stylus that has a hard tip. And this is really a shame because otherwise, I really like the way that the Wacom Bamboo Stylus (and the Adonit Jot Script) write on the iPad screen. It’s not that the noise is super loud, but it is loud enough to make me self-conscious when using the stylus.
Price
Active styluses are more expensive than traditional styluses. The Adonit Jot Script costs $75. It is nice that the Wacom Bamboo Stylus fineline is cheaper, only $59 on Amazon. This is still a lot of money to spend on a stylus, but at least you save a little money as compared to the Adonit stylus.
Colors
The stylus that Wacom sent me is gray, and that’s probably the color that I would have picked anyway. But if you want more color, the stylus also comes in blue, pink, orange and silver.
Conclusion
If you can get past the issue that a hard tip makes noise when tapped on a glass surface, the Wacom Bamboo Stylus fineline is an excellent stylus. Although more expensive than a traditional stylus, you get the tiny 1.9 mm tip plus extra features that result from Bluetooth, the button and the pressure sensitive tip.
I suspect that anyone looking at this stylus will also be looking at the Adonit Jot Script. Adonit gets the credit for creating this category, but I think that the Wacom Bamboo Stylus fineline is better in every way. You get more features thanks to the button and the pressure sensitive tip (when using compatible apps), it is nice to have a cap for the tip, it is especially nice that the cap includes a clip, and this stylus is even a little cheaper ($59 versus $75). I also consider it an advantage that the Wacom Bamboo Stylus fineline is rechargeable, although I can see how others might prefer to use and replace the AAA battery in the Adonit Jot Script, so you’ll have to decide which you prefer.
New York
