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.
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.
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)
Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2015 fiscal first quarter (which ran from September 28, 2014 to December 27, 2014, and did not actually include any days from calendar year 2015) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. This is typically Apple’s best quarter of the year because of holiday sales. It turned out to be Apple’s best fiscal quarter ever, with revenue of $74.6 billion (compared to $57.6 billion this time last year) and record quarterly net profit of $18 billion (compared to $13.1 billion this time last year). Apple also set new a new record for iPhone sales. It was a heck of a quarter for Apple, and according to Greg Kumparak of TechCrunch, it was the most profitable quarter for any company, ever.
If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the announcement conference call from iTunes, or you can read a rough transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha, or Jason Snell of Six Colors prepared an almost verbatim transcript of many parts of the call. Apple’s official press release is here. As always, however, I’m not as concerned about the financial details as I am the statements of Apple executives during the call that are of interest to iPhone and iPad users. Here are the items that stood out to me:
iPhone
During the past quarter, Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones, the most that Apple has ever sold in a fiscal quarter. The previous record was the 2014 fiscal fourth quarter, in which 51 million iPhones sold during the late 2013 holiday buying season. To not just beat that record but to do so by almost another 50% is impressive, and shows an incredible demand for the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. It wasn’t that long ago (fiscal 2011) that Apple sold 72.21 million iPhones in a full year, and now the company is selling more than that in a single quarter.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said that demand for new iPhones has been “staggering, shattering our high expectations, with sales over 74 million units, driven by the unprecedented popularity of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. This volume is hard to comprehend. On average, we sold over 34,000 iPhones every hour, 24 hours a day, every day of the quarter.” Wow.
Apple didn’t reveal the iPhone 6 sales versus iPhone 6 Plus sales, but Cook did say that the iPhone 6 was the most popular phone overall that Apple sold last quarter, although Cook did note that in some parts of the world, the iPhone 6 Plus was far more popular than in other parts of the world.
Obviously Apple sells a lot of iPhones to people who want to upgrade an older iPhone, but Cook said that only a small percentage of current iPhone owners — “a number that’s in the mid-teens or barely in the teens” — have upgraded to an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus as of yet. New iPhone sales were also a big part of the 74.5 million iPhones sold. Cook also noted that after the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launch, there were more people buying an iPhone for the first time than Apple had seen after any other iPhone launch.
Cook said that he sees even more new potential iPhone buyers noting that, “given there are a fair amount of Android units out there, there is also an enormous amount of Android customers that could switch. And I’d also remind you that there is a lot of people that have not yet bought a smartphone. And I know it doesn’t feel like that when you’re sitting in the United States, but from a worldwide point of view, there’s still lots of them.”
By my count, as of December 27, 2014, Apple had sold over 664 million iPhones since they first went on sale in 2007.
As Apple sells more and more iPhones, they become a larger part of Apple’s overall financial success. iPhones accounted for $51.18 billion of Apple’s $74.6 billion in revenue for the quarter, which means that iPhones accounted for almost 69% of Apple’s total revenue last quarter.
Apple introduced Apple Pay a few months ago (the system that lets you pay for items at stores using your iPhone and your fingerprint), and it is off to a strong start. Cook said that around 750 banks and credit unions are now supporting Apple Pay. Cook predicted: “With all of this momentum in the early days, we are more convinced than ever that 2015 will be the year of Apple Pay.”
Cook also mentioned that a company called USA Technologies announced yesterday that it had added Apple Pay support to 200,000 vending machines. I actually used Apple Pay when I didn’t have exact change at a vending machine at a train station in New York over the Christmas holiday, and it worked great. I was really surprised to see the wireless payment logo on a Coke machine, but there it was. I simply put my finger on my iPhone and held it up to the machine, and out popped my beverage. And because of the security built-in to Apple Pay, I didn’t have to worry about some random vending machine having my credit card number:
iPad
While Tim Cook talked about the tremendous iPhone sales, he let Apple CFO Luca Maestri discuss iPad sales, which were down. During the past quarter, Apple sold 21.4 million iPads. Apple had sold 26 million iPads this time last year, and 22.9 million iPads this time two years ago, so iPad sales are not on the same trajectory as iPhone sales.
Cook said that he still thinks that the iPad has a “very bright future,” but part of the reason for the lower sales is that people upgrade an iPad less frequently than they upgrade an iPhone. He said that there are also some people who upgrade from an iPad not to another iPad but instead to an iPhone (which makes sense with the larger iPhone 6 Plus) or to a Mac.
Cook also mentioned the recent partnership with IBM in the enterprise market and other enterprise developments, and noted that with the iPad, “I think we’re really going to change the way people work.”
By my count, as of December 27, 2014, Apple had sold over 258 million iPad since they first went on sale in 2010.
If you put iPhones and iPads together, that is a total of 923 million sold to date. But Apple sells another iOS device too — the iPod touch — and if you add all iOS devices together, Apple crossed over the 1 billion mark this quarter. Cook said: “On November 22nd, we shipped our one billionth iOS device. It was a Space Gray 64GB iPhone 6 Plus, which we’ve saved here at Apple. One billion devices is an almost unfathomable milestone, and we are all incredibly proud to be a part of it.”
Apple Watch
The Apple Watch could one day be the ultimate accessory for the iPhone. Apple previously announced that it would start to ship in early 2015, and yesterday Cook clarified that this means April. Thus, you could be only three months from wearing a new Apple product on your wrist.
I’ve often said that the GoodReader app is the best $5 than an attorney can spend on an iPad, but apparently the word has gotten out. The last few times that I have spoken to a group of attorneys about using iPhones and iPads, more than half of the folks in the room have raised their hands when I asked who is using GoodReader … and I’m sure that quite a few more folks just don’t like raising their hand in a CLE. (I often feel that way too. Why do I even ask questions like that?) But one great feature of GoodReader that I don’t see many people using is the tabs feature, and it was improved in an update yesterday (version 4.9.1) so this is a good time to talk about it.
To start using tabs in GoodReader, you need to turn the feature on. Tap the Settings button at the bottom of the main screen, tap General, and then turn on “File tabs enabled.”
Now, every time you tap a file to view it, instead of replacing the prior file that you had been viewing, the new file will open up in its own tab. Keep selecting documents and you will get even more tabs.
Tabs in GoodReader are useful for the same reason that tabs are useful in other software, such as a web browser. Tabs provide you with a quick way to jump between documents without having to go back and select the document again. If you are comparing two documents, it is much faster to go back and forth between then with tabs. Or if you are reading something like a deposition and you have key exhibits open in other tabs, you can quickly go back and forth between witness testimony and the evidence.
The row of tabs does take up space on the screen, so when you have tabs turned on, more of your document is covered when you tap in the middle of a document to bring up all of the menus. But you can easily tap in the middle of the screen to make all menus go away, including the tabs, so that you only see the document on your iPad screen.
The new feature added yesterday is that you can now open the same document in multiple tabs. That may sound duplicative and unnecessary, but there is a good reason for it; this feature lets you quickly jump between two important parts of the same document. (Or if you have multiple documents in a single PDF file, gives you a quick way to jump between the multiple documents in the same file.)
To activate this feature, tap on the tab of the currently open document. This brings up a menu from which you can duplicate the tab to create a second tab with the same document. (It also gives you the option to delete the file or rename the file, without having to go back to the main screen of the app to do so. The rename file feature is one that I know I will be using often.)
After you tap Duplicate Tab, you will now have two tabs for the same document. Select the second tab and go to some important part of the document, and then you can tap on the first tab again to go back to the other part of the same document.
You can use up to eight tabs at a time. Once you open the ninth document, the oldest tab goes away. This means that another advantage of tabs is that you have quick access to up to the last seven documents that you opened; the tabs feature works like a document history. If you want to rearrange the tabs, just drag one left or right.
The main disadvantage that I notice when using tabs is that as you open more and more documents, you get more and more tabs even when you don’t need them. If it bothers you to have a bunch of tabs open, you need to select them individually to close each tab. But after using the feature for a while, you learn to ignore the tabs when you are not using them, but know that they are there when you need them.
If you use GoodReader but do not yet use the tab feature, I encourage you to try it out. You can always turn off the feature if you don’t like it, but I find that its many advantages make it worth it, especially after yesterday’s update.
And if you don’t yet use GoodReader, it is time for you to raise your hand and get the app. Here is my review from last year when the app was updated to version 4 explaining the many virtues of this useful app.
Click here to get GoodReader ($4.99):
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This article won the BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award. The editors of BlawgWorld, a free weekly email newsletter for lawyers and law firm administrators, give this award to one article every week that they feel is a must-read for this audience.
I’ve long been a fan of using a stylus to take handwritten notes on the iPad. There are a lot of nice styluses on the market, and I’ve tried a ton of them, but in my opinion there is still no one perfect stylus because the iPad just isn’t designed to detect something smaller than a fingertip. Of course, Apple could change this, an there are now rumors that Apple might be creating a stylus for the iPad. Serenity Caldwell of iMore explains why this would make sense, and I would also love to see a stylus designed by Apple to work well with an iPad. And now, the other news of note from this week:
If you listen to podcasts, I strongly encourage you to check out Overcast, a fantastic app that I use every day. California attorney David Sparks explains why he likes the app.
New York attorney and iPhone J.D. reader David Rosen asked me to share that he started a new blog on New York civil procedure called Arguments & Demonstrations. In his latest post, we learn that, according to a recent New York opinion, chimps are not people with legal rights. Those damn dirty apes!
CarPlay is a technology that is just starting to be included in new cars. In theory, it should be the best way to connect your iPhone to your car. In practice, the technology is still pretty new and rough around the edges. Jason Snell of Six Colors explains how it works, and also what doesn’t yet work.
One of the more sophisticated features of iOS 8 is that apps can include action extensions, so that you can use features of one app from within another app. Allyson Kazmucha of iMore rounds of 11 good examples of action extensions on the iPhone.
And finally, what is a device that you use every day and every night? No, not your iPhone, I’m talking about your toothbrush. But don’t you wish that you could get those two critical devices to talk to each other? If that has been keeping you up at night, then you’ll want to learn about the Oral-B Electric Toothbrush with Bluetooth Connectivity, a toothbrush that pairs with your iPhone to make sure that you brush your teeth long enough and in the right way. You can get it on Amazon for only $125. Here is a video from Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal explaining why the Bluetooth in your iPhone and the white teeth in your mouth might work well together:
To take advantage of the recent three-day weekend, my family went to Disney World along with some other members of our extended family. I also went to Disney World in 2014, and after that trip I wrote about all of the useful Disney-related apps that you can use. Just about everything that I wrote in that post remains true today, but here is some additional and updated information that you can use if you have a trip to Disney World in your future. Consider this a pocket part update to my 2014 post. I doubt that very many of you are currently packing your bags to head to Disney World, but remember that this post is here, and come back to it when you do next find yourself headed to the Most Magical Place on Earth, because the most important thing that I can tell you is that an iPhone is an incredibly useful tool while you are at Disney World and will vastly improve your trip. And while I haven’t yet been to Disneyland in California, I suspect that many of these tips work for that park as well (although I’d have to defer to my friend and California attorney David Sparks, who has deep roots in Disneyland).
Wi-Fi
I should have mentioned in that prior post that there is free Wi-Fi throughout all of the Disney parks. The network is called Disney-Guest. For the most part I got a good AT&T signal throughout the parks as well, but I figured that I might as well use free data rather than use up some of my monthly AT&T data allotment. And there were many times that the free Disney Wi-Fi worked better than the AT&T signal, although to be fair there were also a few times when the Wi-Fi felt slow and I got better service with AT&T. It is nice to have the ability to switch back and forth. And if you are using a device without built-in cellular such as certain models of the iPad or an iPod touch, then having free Wi-Fi is fantastic.
Note that whenever you are using a public Wi-Fi network, there is a risk that someone else on the network, with the right tools on their computer, could monitor your unencrypted traffic on the Wi-Fi network. As I’ve discussed in the past, I recommend using VPN when you are any public Wi-Fi network, whether it be a VPN service that you have through your office or a third-party service such as the one provided by Cloak, an app that I reviewed in 2014. I’ve continued to use Cloak since I wrote that review, including throughout my recent trip to Disney World. I love that the service automatically turns itself on when you connect to a public Wi-Fi network without you having to even remember to do so.
Find My Friends
Apple’s free Find My Friends app is a great tool to use when you are with others at a large place like Disney World. Once you add someone as a friend (and they accept the invitation), you can see where they are located and they can see where you are located. So when my son and I are finished riding the roller coaster at Space Mountain, I can quickly see on a map that my wife and daughter are across the Magic Kingdom on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. I can start walking that way and by the time that they are finished with their ride, I am already half-way there. Sometimes the accuracy is pinpoint perfect, and other times not quite as accurate, but in a large place like the Magic Kingdom, it always works well enough for your friends and family to have a general sense of where you are located — whether it be the general area of the same park, or even to show you that your cousin is in EPCOT while you are at the Animal Kingdom. If you ever need privacy, flip a switch to disable the app from sharing your location, and when your trip is over you can delete people from your Find My Friends list.
My Disney Experience — Walt Disney World
Besides services like Wi-Fi and Find My Friends that can be useful most anywhere, there are a number of apps that are specifically designed to assist you during a trip to Disney World. The one app that you need to get is the free official Disney World app, called My Disney Experience.
The main reason that this app is so useful is that it shows you each FastPass that you have — along with anyone else linked to your My Disney Experience account, which can be folks in your immediate family and extended family members and friends. Effective use of a FastPass can be crucial to a successful trip to Disney World. As much as I love many of the fantastic roller coasters that Disney offers, I just cannot see waiting up to two hours for a ride that lasts two minutes. But by using a FastPass, you can walk right past the long and winding line and in just a few minutes find yourself riding the train, mine cart, spaceship, etc.
Not only does the app show you each of your FastPasses, you can also use the app to change your FastPasses while you are in the park. You might want to change a FastPass to accommodate a change in your schedule that you might not have foreseen when you booked the FastPass many weeks ago — perhaps you are spending more time at lunch than you expected. Or, there were times when I saw that a ride didn’t have a long wait in the normal “Standby” line, so I cancelled an upcoming FastPass to use it for another, more popular ride. There are kiosks throughout the park that you can use to change a FastPass, but you need to find them and then wait in line to use them. With this app, you can do it all yourself, no matter where you are, without waiting.
The app also does a great job of showing you the wait times for rides, so that you can decide whether it is worth heading to Fantasyland to ride Peter Pan’s Flight, or if you should avoid that ride for now because the wait is just so long.
I discussed these features in my post last year, but what I didn’t mention is that you need to be careful because sometimes the app doesn’t show you the current wait times but instead shows you the wait times the last time that the app loaded data, which might have been several hours ago. In theory the app should refresh its data automatically, but you can always swipe down to see an indication at the top of when the app last refreshed the wait times. If you notice that you are using old data, I recommend that you force-quit the app. (Press your Home Button twice to see a list of running apps, swipe up on this app to force your iPhone to close it completely, and then launch the app again.) That trick always resulted in me getting current wait times when the app wasn’t refreshing on its own.
As that last tip indicates, one of the frustrating things about this app is that it sometimes has trouble loading data. Everyone once in a while, I would start the app to look at my FastPasses, but they wouldn’t appear. Force-qutting the app usually fixed it, but not always; there was one Saturday morning when I was in Hollywood Studios and I just could not get it to work at all, forcing me to use a FastPass kiosk. But then an hour later, it started working again. I mentioned in my post last year that the app had this problem, and to be fair it worked much better in 2015 then it did in 2014, but it still wasn’t perfect, so be warned.
Disney World Maps
For me, the most useful Disney-centric app besides the official app was an app called Disney World Maps by VersaEdge. I actually moved another app that normally lives at the bottom of my home screen to another page so that I would also have fast access to this app during my trip to Disney World. Launching the app quickly shows you a full screen map of the park and includes a blue dot to show your current location. You can zoom out to get an overall sense of the park, or zoom in to see every specific ride, restaurant, bathroom, etc. Yes, the official Disney app also includes some maps, but it isn’t nearly as fast and useful as this app.
Although the app purports to also show you the current wait times for rides, in my experience these wait times were not as accurate as the ones in the official Disney app. They were usually close enough to give me a sense of what rides were more or less busy, but for more accurate information on wait times you will want to use the official Disney app.
Disney World Dining
Another app that I mentioned last year that I also find very useful is the VersaEdge Disney World Dining app. This app is better than the dining information that you get in the official Disney app for several reasons. First, like the maps app, the dining app is very fast to use, quickly presenting you a list of restaurants organized by the area of the park. Second, this app gives you additional information. For example, the official Disney app will tell you the names of the items on a menu at a restaurant, but this app will also give you descriptions of each item. Here is an example from my 2014 post: the official Disney app (the first picture below) will simply tell you that you the Chicken Breast Provencal is an item on the menu at the new (and popular) Be Our Guest Restaurant in Fantasyland, but the Disney World Dining app (the second picture below) explains that this dish is “Pan-seared and simmered in a rustic blend of Heirloom Tomatoes, Olives, White Wine, and fresh Herbs with Seasonal Vegetables and Roasted Fingerling Potatoes.”
When we were walking through the park and wanted to quickly see what restaurants were nearby and what they offered to eat, this app was incredibly useful.
Use these apps to enhance your next trip to Disney World, and your vacation will be even more enjoyable.
Click here to get Cloak (free):
Click here to get Find My Friends (free):
Click here to get My Disney Experience — Walt Disney World (free):
WestlawNext is one of the most useful law-related apps on my iPad, and I also appreciate WestlawNext being a sponsor of iPhone J.D. Whether it is on the iPad or the computer, WestlawNext is better than the former version of Westlaw in every way. Nevertheless, I still have fond memories of the old Westlaw — not to mention the old WALT terminals that I used to use in law school — so I enjoyed reading this tribute by North Carolina attorney Jim Dedmon on the great Abnormal Use blog. And now, the news of note from the past week:
California attorney David Sparks reports that the iPad productivity apps OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, and OmniPlanner will soon be available for the iPhone.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes that Siri has gotten much better over the last year or so. I’ve noticed the same thing. It does an amazing job at translation, which is so much faster than me typing on my iPhone or iPad keyboard. It also does a great job of answering simple questions or performing simple commands, such as “wake me up at 7am tomorrow” or “remind me to call David when I get to the office.”
California attorney David Sparks also shared his thoughts on Gruber’s post about Siri.
Google updated its useful (and neat!) Google Translate app yesterday in two significant ways. First, the app can now read signs, incorporating technology that Google acquired when it bought an app called Word Lens. Thus, you can point your iPhone at a sign that is in one language, and the sign will appear on your iPhone with the text translated to English. Second, the app adds real-time translations. I haven’t had a chance to try out all of the new features yet, but I look forward to doing so. You can get more information in this post on Google’s official blog.
Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac has some interesting photos of a man with 94 iPhones strapped to his body as he tries to smuggle them from Hong Kong (where they are cheaper) into China. That’s a lot of iPhones.
Joseph Keller of iMore reports that the Je Suis Charlie app was approved for the App Store in record time after a plea to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
I don’t think that I will ever purchase a Selfie Stick (which you use to take a picture of yourself with an iPhone), but after reading this article by Joanna Stern in the Wall Street Journal, I now appreciate that these products are actually more useful than I would have guessed.
Separation from your iPhone can lead to anxiety, according to a study by the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication as reported by Amit Chowdry of Forbes. Or, you could have just asked almost any iPhone owner to learn the same thing without an expensive study.
And finally, as President Obama is preparing for his State of the Union speech, he is previewing some of the topics that he intends to discuss. One of them is seeking to increase affordable high-speed broadband Internet service in America. I mention this today not because of the politics, but instead because I thought it interesting to see the President in this video, casually explaining his goals while he uses an iPad as an aid. I don’t know that this is President Obama’a personal iPad (he usually keeps his in a DODOcase), but I use my iPad like this when I talk to clients and colleagues all the time. I’m always interested to see other lawyers do so too, including the most powerful lawyer in the world.
This week is the big International CES show in Las Vegas, a place where companies show off new consumer technology that they plan to sell this year (although many products are never actually produced). One of the interesting focal points this year is home automation, much of which works with iPhones. For example, the Eve smart home modules are pretty neat and let your iPhone monitor temperature and humidity, and even let you know when a window or door is open. And Incipio introduced some neat products, including a smart outlet that lets you use your iPhone to turn something plugged into an outlet on or off for only $25, or $60 if you want a power strip. And now, the news of note from this past week:
Seattle attorney (and blawg guru) Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog makes the case for attorneys getting the iPhone 6 Plus. I admit that the larger screen can be nice when you are using it, but I cannot get over the fact that — to me at least — the iPhone 6 Plus is simply too big for a pocket.
I mentioned earlier this week that I’ll be presenting 60 Apps in 60 Minutes at ABA TECHSHOW in April. New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson posted two very short clips showing some entertaining moments from last year’s session.
What do developers do with that money? Dave Mark of The Loop tells the story of iPhone developer Joseph Riquelme who used his earnings to pay off his parents’ mortgage — and there is a video of when he did it. Pretty awesome gift!
And finally, one of the interesting products being shown off at CES this week is the Noke (pronounced “no key”), a padlock that unlocks automatically when it senses that your iPhone is nearby. Thus, you don’t have to use a physical key or enter a combination; just click it, and the lock will use Bluetooth to see if an approved iPhone is nearby, and if so, unlock. You can even give others access from their iPhone (including one-time access). It looks like a pretty clever device, and you can pre-order it for $60. Better yet, it is a really neat use of new smartphone technology, much like the Apple Pay system. Here is a video that was prepared a few months ago during a Kickstarter campaign that shows how it works:
From time to time, attorneys who read iPhone J.D. write to tell me how they are using their iPhone or iPad in their practice. I love to read these stories, and with permission I like to share some of them here on iPhone J.D. After I posted earlier this week about Lit Software being a new sponsor of iPhone J.D., I heard from Christopher Abernathy, a family law attorney in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, who told me about how much he loves to use the TrialPad app. We got to talking via email about how he uses his iPad, and I was so fascinated by his response — for example, he uses an iPad as his primary device, not a computer — that I asked if he would write something to share with all iPhone J.D. readers. He was nice enough to say yes, and the result is today’s guest post. So with no further ado, take it away, Christopher:
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Life without technology….. Imagine that!
Try to imagine working today without the advantages of modern technology. It wasn’t so long ago that we relied exclusively on paper documents, paper files, paper note pads and paper calendars. Everything we did was paper-driven. And where was all this paper generated from? It was mass-produced with Dictaphones, typewriters and fax machines. Workers produced reams and reams of paper which were placed in paper storage files and stored in row after row of file cabinets. With the advent of computers, the internet and email came the promise of reducing paper to a bare minimum. However, while offices scurried to purchase computers to accomplish this goal, this technological wonder did nothing to reduce the volume of paper documents. Instead, for all practical purposes, computer technology became nothing short of a back-up system to the archaic paper producing work environment.
I suppose by now you realize I am not a great fan of relying on the use of paper in today’s workplace. And so, a few short years ago, I decided to make a concerted effort to reduce or eliminate the use of paper within my office. The results have been overwhelmingly successful. I now operate a paper-light office and voice an optimistic belief that colleagues and the courts can likewise realize the same benefits I am experiencing in my law practice.
How this was accomplished requires a bit of experience and a brief learning curve. But it entails nothing more than the use of an iPad. For me, the use of an iPad has become an indispensable game-changer. And, while my staff do have personal computers (with a Microsoft operating system), I do not maintain a computer in my office. The iPad is my operational weapon of choice.
I now have no paper files and my office staff does not retain paper documents. Instead, everything is scanned and either emailed to a client (then shredded; which is our preferred method) or mailed directly.
Each evening, in preparation for the following work day, I copy files to a “Court Files” subfolder. A client file is then created and set up in TrialPad. This allows me to create a trial folder which can be expanded and organized over time. For each court appearance, documents are placed into the appropriate client TrialPad folder, organized and annotated. By the time of trial, minimal preparation is required. At the end of each court appearance, the files in Dropbox are deleted, while files in TrialPad remain locally on my iPad.
Within Dropbox, besides a “Court Files” folder, I have an “Incoming Mail”, “Drafts” and a “To Do” folder. The “Incoming Mail” folder allows me to have instant access to my daily mail. Long gone are the days when you have to be in the office to retrieve your mail. As mail and faxes are received, they are scanned into the client file and sent to the client, with a copy being placed into my “Incoming Mail” folder. Once reviewed, it is simply deleted. This allows for an immediate response. Documents I am working on are placed in “Drafts”, revised in Word and emailed back to my staff. I use Microsoft Word to create and revise documents on my iPad because Apples Pages simply doesn’t compare. My “To Do” file speaks for itself.
I am seldom in my office. Instead, I work remotely as frequently as possible. I have taken the adage “do more, bill more and go home earlier” to heart.
I generally communicate with clients via email and/or text, and collaborate with them when creating most documents. When an email is received from a client, I cut and paste the contents into a template I have created in Word (i.e. pleading or letter) and revise it as deemed necessary. This revised document is emailed back to the client for signature or further revision. Once a document has been finalized, it is emailed to my staff, saved and filed. Having templates in Word allows me to create, revise or retrieve documents anywhere or at anytime. This ability to create letters enables me to respond immediately to incoming mail and faxes. I use RingCentral, an internet based fax service which is available as an iPad application, which allows me to see all incoming faxes and send faxes remotely.
The ability to work on anything, anytime and anywhere makes me far more efficient. I am constantly working, and all of this directly benefits my clients. It results in reduced billable hours and allows for expedited turnaround times. Again, these are key benefits to clients.
One of my favorite applications is Evernote. This is a very popular application which has many uses. However, I primarily use it as an invaluable research assistant. Thanks to Evernote, I no longer need to rely on memory. I cut and paste research information into subject folders I have created and include legal research, opposing counsel’s comments or usable information I might come across in articles. This allows me instant access to thousands of pages of research which is easily and readily retrievable. It is available to argue at a moment’s notice and can be pasted into subsequent legal arguments.
I use RealLegal E-Transcript from Thompson Reuters as an alternative to TranscriptPad. While I haven’t used TranscriptPad myself, from what I have read and heard, the applications are fairly similar. The key feature in this program is the ability to search. In E-Transcript, the query term is displayed by page and line and in the context in which it was used. I use E-Transcript because of the format in which my local court reports and stenographers send transcripts. I was unable to use TranscriptPad without a work-around.
To operate remotely, one must have a solid keyboard. I have tried most and believe ClamCase is the best. Most believe I use a MacBook Air, but I prefer ClamCase which provides me with the functionality of a laptop, even though it is an iPad. Basically, I see this as the best of both worlds.
I also use a Livescribe 3 Smartpen in conjunction with my iPad. I have found that taking notes on my iPad is difficult when I am simultaneously using the iPad to conduct research and view documents. The integration is seamless. I can instantly create reminders, and my notes are emailed to my staff and scanned into the client’s file for future reference.
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Thank you so much, Christopher, for sharing with all of us the interesting ways that you use your iPad in your law practice.
If you are willing to share your own experiences using an iPhone or iPad in your law practice with other iPhone J.D. readers, I’d love to hear from you! And in case you missed any of them, here are reports that I previously shared from other attorneys:
This article won the BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award. The editors of BlawgWorld, a free weekly email newsletter for lawyers and law firm administrators, give this award to one article every week that they feel is a must-read for this audience.
I am incredibly honored to welcome Lit Software as a sponsor of iPhone J.D. in 2015. The company makes TrialPad and TranscriptPad, which are two of the very best law-related apps on the iPad. I have extensively reviewed TranscriptPad several times, most recently in November of 2014 when TranscriptPad 2 was released, and I use this app in my practice every week, and sometimes every day. Just yesterday, I used it in connection with two different cases. TranscriptPad is simply the best way to read and annotate deposition transcripts, and I have seen other attorneys buy an iPad simply so that they could use TranscriptPad. The app lets you assign issues to lines of a deposition as you read it and then lets you create useful reports of all of the key testimony in a case on each issue.
Lit Software’s other app is TrialPad, a powerful app for presenting documents and other exhibits. You can use the app at trial to show documents to a jury, plus call out important parts of the document. I haven’t had a chance to use TrialPad at a mediation yet, but one of my partners did last year and said that it worked great and was very helpful. You can also use TrialPad when you are in a meeting with other attorneys or a client to show off documents on an external screen, and even do so wirelessly if you have an Apple TV.
TranscriptPad and TrialPad demonstrate how the iPad can be used as a professional tool. And as powerful as these apps already are, they frequently receive updates which make them even better. I see Ian O’Flaherty, the founder and Chief Software Architect of Lit Software, every year at TECHSHOW, and he is always excited to tell me about new features that are in the works. Speaking of which, Lit Software develops, programs and supports its apps entirely in the USA. If you send an email with a support question, it will most likely be answered quickly and personally by Ian O’Flaherty himself, who is (obviously) an expert on his apps and who has been working with attorneys for years.
I really cannot say enough good things about these apps. If your law practice ever involves working with transcripts, then you owe it to yourself to get TranscriptPad. And if you ever present documents with your iPad, whether it be to a judge or jury or just to other attorneys or clients in a meeting, then TrialPad is an incredibly powerfuly app. If you don’t yet own one or both of the apps, you can buy each of the apps for $89.99 — far less than you would pay for similar software for a computer, plus the fact that you can use these apps on an iPad makes them more portable and thus more valuable. Better yet, Lit Software is now taking advantage of the new App Store bundle feature. This means that you can purchase both apps as a bundle for $159.99. It also means that if you have already purchased one of the apps, you can now pay the difference to get the other app — e.g. if you already paid $89.99 for TrialPad, then it will only cost you $70 to add TranscriptPad to your iPad.
Click here for the Ultimate Litigation Bundle ($159.99):
If you are looking for a great way to get your CLE hours in 2015, my favorite CLE every year is ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago. It is a unique opportunity to learn about legal technology, see some of the latest technology in use, and spend some time with some great people. This year, TECHSHOW will be held April 16 through April 18, and it is once again at the Hilton on Michigan Avenue across from Grant Park.
Back when the iPhone, and then the iPad, were new, there were only a few formal sessions devoted to iOS devices. But nowadays, mobile technology is such a hot topic that there will be tons of sessions at TECHSHOW devoted to these tools. For example, the first day of the conference, there is a full track devoted to the iPad. The iPad track starts out with the session Introducing Your iPad Into Your Law Practice, taught by two attorneys from Columbus, OH: Paul Unger and Joe Bahgat. The next session is iLitigate on the iPad: Essential Litigation Workflows from Beginning to End, taught by Dallas attorney Tom Mighell, New Jersey attorney Jon Lomurro, and the Hon. Herbert Dixon of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
I’ll be teaching both the third and fourth sessions on Thursday, April 16th. At 2pm, I’m teaming up with Bjorn Christianson, an attorney in Manitoba, Canada, for Easy and Effective Presentations from Your iPad. I’ve been using an iPad to give presentations for many years, but this is the first time that I’ve had a chance to talk about it in a formal presentation, and I’m looking forward to it. In the final session of the iPad track at 4pm, I will discuss using Microsoft Word and other Office apps on the iPad.
Ever year since 2009 (except for 2013), TECHSHOW has had a Saturday morning session called 60 Apps in 60 Minutes, and I’ve been a part of every one. It is always a fast-paced and fun chance to learn about great new apps and old favorites that you should consider putting on your iPhone and iPad. This year, my co-presenters are D.C. attorney Reid Trautz (who was a founding member of this panel in 2009 and has done it many times since then) and newcomers Ohio attorney Joe Bahgat and legal tech consultant Adriana Linares, a fun and dynamic speaker who I have presented with at other events but this will be our first time on a panel together at TECHSHOW. [UPDATE: Unfortunately, Reid Trautz had to cancel, but fortunately, his replacement will be Dallas attorney Tom Mighell, who will be a great addition to the panel. Tom has written many books about iOS devices, including iPad Apps in One Hour for Lawyers, and is an all around great-person, as those of you who joined us for the Taste of Techshow dinner that he and I hosted in 2013 can attest.]
There are tons of others sessions that would be of interest to iPhone J.D. readers. There is a full Mobile track on Friday, including a session on wearable technology that could be very timely depending upon when Apple releases the Apple Watch. There are also sessions on going paperless, using Microsoft Office, using the cloud, a track devoted to the Mac, etc. You can see the full schedule here.
But attending the sessions is only part of the reason to go to TECHSHOW. There is also a huge Exhibition Hall where you get to see the latest and greatest legal technology from vendors. Last year, you could barely count all of the booths with something related to the iPhone or iPad.
And perhaps most of all, TECHSHOW can be a great place to meet other folks interested in legal technology. For example, to make it easy to socialize at night, TECHSHOW always has lots of Taste of TECHSHOW dinners on Thursday night and Friday night. Each dinner typically has two hosts (TECHSHOW speakers) plus 10 other attendees who share a large table at a Chicago restaurant and split the bill (although sometimes a vendor will sponsor a dinner and underwrite part of the cost). Each dinner has a topic, but in my experience there is usually minimal time spent discussing the topic, and instead the topic just serves as a way to channel folks with similar interests to a particular dinner. These dinners have always been one of the most fun parts of TECHSHOW, and this year I’m especially excited to be co-hosting a dinner with Florida attorney and Mac Power Users co-host Katie Floyd, who will be attending TECHSHOW for the first time. I’ll post more details about our dinner when we have them.
If this sounds interesting and fun to you, then I hope to see you in Chicago in April!
