It has now been five years since Steve Jobs first introduced the world to the iPad on January 27, 2010. I was definitely intrigued when the product debuted, but at the time even I wasn't sure whether an iPad would prove useful for me; my first post on the iPad was actually devoted to what the debut of the iPad might mean for the iPhone. It wasn't until later in 2010 that I started to use my own iPad. Today, five years later, the iPad has become a central part of my law practice, plus something that I love to use at home. And today's iPad Air is infinitely better than the first generation iPad. I wonder what the iPad will be like five years from now, in 2020? And now, the news of note from the past week:
- St. Louis attorney Dennis Kennedy considers some of the must-have apps for lawyers in an article for ABA Journal.
- The App Store just started a sale on many productivity apps and there are some great ones current discounted, such as Fantastical ($2 instead of $5) and GoodNotes ($3 instead of $7). California attorney David Sparks points out some of his favorites that are now on sale
- Apple released iOS 8.1.3 this week. I installed it on both my iPhone and iPad, and it works great. It fixed a problem that I had been having on my iPad where I tried to swipe with four or five fingers to switch apps and it wasn't working, unless I went into Settings and turned off Multitasking Gestures and then turned the on again. It also fixes other bugs and makes it so that your device doesn't need quite as much free space to install future updates.
- In connection with the five year anniversary of the iPad, Jason Snell of Six Colors looks back on the name of the iPad.
- After making waves in 2014 by releasing Word for iPad, and then Word for iPhone, this week Microsoft released a version of Outlook for the iPad and iPhone. I'll have a full review of Outlook next week after I have tried it out some more, but I can already tell you that there are some parts of it — like the way it works with attachments — that are great.
- The Super Bowl is this weekend, and Jordan Kahn of 9to5Mac has advice on how you can watch it on your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Mac.
- According to a test run by iClarified, the speaker on the iPhone has gotten louder over the years with new releases, and the iPhone 6 currently has the loudest speaker, about 10 dBA louder than the second generation iPhone. According to this page, a 10 decibel level increase sounds about twice as loud.
- Looking to use your iPhone or iPad while outside in the cold winter weather? Clifford Agocs of The Wirecutter recommends the best touchscreen winter gloves.
- Serenity Caldwell of iMore explains how to upload and edit photos that you take with a DSLR camera on your iPad. I've done this many times using Apple's Lighting to SD card reader and a photo editing app.
- Rene Ritchie of iMore suggests interesting things that you can ask Siri.
- If you are looking for a very small and portable battery for your iPhone 6, note that I added a short update to the end of the review I wrote a year ago of the Powerocks Super Magicstick. You can currently get one on Amazon for around $15, although the price seems to vary from day to day.
- I enjoyed reading this article by Megan Chovanec, a college freshman, about how the garage at her grandmother's house just happens to also be the birthplace of Apple.
- According to an article by Megan Geuss and Jonathan Gitlin of Ars Technica, the iPhone helped to cause the SkyMall catalog to go into bankruptcy.
- And finally, this week Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the Apple Watch will start selling in April. One of its features is the ability to swap out watch bands. With that in mind, I was fascinated to see that Leatherman is developing Tread, a $150 watch band in which each link contains tools, such as Allen wrenches, screwdrivers, box wrenches and even a bottle opener — a total of 25 tools. Will we see Tread or something like it for the Apple Watch? My guess is yes. Here is a video that shows what it can do, or you can read more on the product page: (via The Loop)
