As we approach the holidays, I know that a lot of folks are a few weeks away from a new iPhone or iPad. What do you do with your old model after you upgrade? John Edwards of Law Technology News offers a few recommendations. In my family, my wife gets my old iPhone when I upgrade, and her old iPhones get loaded with age-appropriate apps and movies to keep my kids occupied on a plane or a long car ride. We take a similar approach with old iPads, with the oldest ones going to my kids for their occasional use. Nowadays, it seems that the old iPads are used 99% of the time to play Minecraft ... which is actually sort of fun for me too, because after my son and daughter build some elaborate castle or other structure, they then invite me to launch Minecraft on my iPad and join their virtual world to get a tour of their creations. I used to do something similar when I was a kid with my parents, except that instead of using Minecraft on an iPad, I was using Legos, Lincoln Logs, etc. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- California attorney David Sparks created a 2.5 hour video tutorial for OmniFocus — a sophisticated Mac / iPad / iPhone app for managing tasks — called the OmniFocus Video Field Guide. The video costs $9.99, and it is really good. If you are thinking of using OmniFocus, or if you use it and want to get better at it, I recommend that you get it. Sparks wrote an overview of the video here, and there is a 14 minute sample at the bottom of that post that gives you a sense of the high quality of the video.
- I've talked in the past about the Apple in Law Offices survey conducted by Clio. The full results for the 2014 survey are not out yet, but this week Clio released some preliminary results. For example, their survey showed 79.8% of attorneys using iPhones.
- Password security is so important for everyone, but especially for lawyers because of our duties to protect confidential information. Glenn Fleishman of Macworld wrote one of the best articles that I've read in a long time with recommendations for creating and managing passwords. It's a great read.
- Apple is currently appealing a decision in a case brought by the DOJ alleging price fixing on ebooks. Oral arguments are on December 15, and Roger Parloff of Fortune wrote an interesting article about the appeal, with quotes from Apple's Eddy Cue.
- Kara Swisher of re/code writes about the grief that she gets for using the iPhone 6 Plus because it is so large. To be honest, I just don't get the iPhone 6 Plus either — to me it seems too big to hold and carry around, but too small to replace a tablet. But I know that some folks love it, so more power to them.
- If you enjoy reading iPhone J.D., I'd really appreciate it if you voted on ABA Journal's Blawg 100 page. One of the newcomers to the Legal Tech portion of the list, the Electronic Discovery Law blog published by K&L Gates, is currently in the lead with a ton of votes. I realize that K&L Gates is one of the largest law firms in the world, but if enough iPhone J.D. readers vote, perhaps we can get the totals closer. Thanks!
- And finally, if you want to take your Christmas Tree lights (or other lights) to the next level this season, how about using lights that can be controlled from your iPhone via Bluetooth to change their colors? That's what you get with Lumenplay App-Enabled Lights. The starter kit comes with 12 C9 bulbs (the large kind) for $79.99 (on Amazon) but you can add extenders ($44.99 on Amazon for another 12 lights) and control up to 500 lights with your iPhone. Here is a video that shows them off:
