The new Apple Music service starts today. And because there is a three month free trial, that means that all iPhone users are getting free music. It all starts at 8am Pacific / 11am Eastern today, when Apple will make the iOS 8.4 update available. Update your iPhone (or iPad), and then you will see a new version of the Music app, including tens of millions of songs that you can listen to, for free. There is really no reason for you to not check it out, and I plan to do so. Here are the details.
Features
With the new Music app and the Apple Music service, you get basically three things.
Streaming music. First, you can stream any song in the Apple Music catalog. If someone mentions a song or an album to you, or if you suddenly find yourself thinking about that song that you remember from your youth, or if you hear about some new artist and want to find out what all of the buzz is about, you can just play the song. You don’t have to first buy the track(s) from iTunes. And even if you cannot think of something to listen to, the new Music app will make recommendations tailored for you, based on the songs that you already have.
Siri is also smarter with the new Music app. You can now ask Siri to play the top songs from 1987. Or if you like a song that you are listening to, tell Siri to play more music like this. Or say things like, after this song, play Cheeseburger in Paradise.
It’s not the entire iTunes catalog; some artists don’t make some of their songs available for streaming. But Apple says that it has tens of millions of songs, so you’ll have quite a few choices.
What if you want to listen to music that you already own, which is already in iTunes on your computer or already on your iPhone? Well that works too. Apple scans your library and makes a copy of anything it doesn’t already have so that it can stream it to you. For example, The Beatles are not currently on any streaming services, Apple Music included, but if you already own Beatles songs, you’ll be able to play them along with the music that you stream on Apple Music. So feel free to make a playlist that includes both Lady Gaga and The Beatles; Apple won’t judge you. (And yes, this part of Apple Music is identical to the current iTunes Match service for which Apple has been charging $25; it looks like you can cancel your iTunes Match subscription if you will be using Apple Music.)
And even though this is a streaming music service, you can listen to music offline, such as when you are on a plane. I’m not yet sure how this works; you might have to press a button or add a song to a playlist to tell the Music app to download it for you.
Radio. Second, Apple Music includes live, 24/7 streaming radio. The flagship station is called Beats 1. It features the DJs Zane Lowe (formerly of BBC1) who will work out of Los Angeles, Ebro Darden (formerly of WQHT) who will work out of New York, and Julie Adenuga who will work out of London. And apparently many celebrities and others (such as Elton John) will have shows too.
In addition to Beats 1, there are also other “stations” that feature music without a DJ. This part sounds similar to the current iTunes Radio. And Apple Music also retains the feature where you can choose a song and Apple Music creates a radio station based on that one song that you like. In the past, though, you had a limited number of times that you could skip songs every hour with those stations; with Apple Music, you can skip as many times as you want, assuming that you are a paid customer or you are in the free trial period. (For folks who decide not to pay for Apple Music after the three month trial, you go back to the old system of a limited number of skips.)
Connect. Finally, Apple Music introduces a service called Connect. It provides a way to interact with artists. You can hear exclusive music, read posts by the artists, comment on those posts, etc.
Cost
The first three months are free. If you like the service, you can subscribe for $9.99 a month. Better yet, for $14.99 a month, you can get the family plan that works with up to six people. Just turn on iCloud Family Sharing, a service that Apple had already been offering which lets you share media that you own with others in your family.
If you already buy a lot of music, paying $10 a month for an all-you-can-eat plan sounds pretty good, especially considering that you can let your entire family use the plan for only $15 a month. But keep in mind that if you decide to stop paying for Apple Music in a year, you’ll no longer have access to those songs — as opposed to music that you buy on iTunes that you can continue to listen to essentially forever.
Conclusion
If you want more details, Serenity Caldwell of iMore put together a very comprehensive FAQ on Apple Music. But in light of the generous three month trial subscription that we all get starting today, my advice is just to try it out and see what you think. That’s what I plan to do.
The radio and Connect features don’t hold a lot of interest for me right now, but I’ll check them out, and who knows, maybe they will appeal to me. It is the streaming music part of Apple Music that appeals to me the most right now. I’ll try it, and if it seems worthwhile, I’ll start paying for the service in October. If not, I’ll just go back to buying music one song, or one album, at a time.
Whatever you decide to do come October, enjoy your Summer of Free Music, courtesy of Apple Music.
A family law attorney wrote me this week to say that she is looking for a way to take text messages between her client and the adverse party and present them in a format that looks good at trial — something better than just a series of screen shots. I told her that I have heard of attorneys using the Stitch It! app for this purpose, an app that aligns screenshots to produce what looks like one long screenshot. But perhaps some of you have a better way to make iPhone text messages look good at trial, and if you do, please post a comment to this post or send me an email. And now, the news of note from the past week:
California attorney William Ha decided to give up the practice of law and write iOS apps instead. Zach Abramowitz of Above the Law interviewed Ha to find out how and why.
California attorney David Sparks explains why he loves using his Apple Watch for walking directions. I agree 100% with that post. Although you can use the Map app on an iPhone for this purpose, when you walk around a city looking down at your iPhone as you walk, you stand out way too much. Having your watch give you silent taps to indicate which way you need to turn is so much better, and safer — not only to avoid looking like a target, but also so that you can pay attention to where you are walking and don’t bump into a person, a pole, etc.
The 1Password app — a fantastic password manager — is a free app, but there is normally a $9.99 in-app purchase to get all of the features. But there is currently a sale so you can pay only $4.99 in-app to get all of the pro features.
Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal reviews the new Nest Cam, a high-resolution camera that you place in your house so that you can monitor your house from your iPhone wherever you are.
John Moltz of A Very Nice Website reports that if you have a foreign language keyboard in use on your iPhone, then your Apple Watch will give you foreign language default replies to text messages.
And finally, for those of you who remember using System 7 on a Mac in the 1990s, developer Nick Lee figured out a way to get it running on an Apple Watch. Useful? Not at all. Cool? You bet! Here is the video:
Thank you to GoodCase Apps, publisher of the CaseManager apps for the iPad and iPhone, for sponsoring iPhone J.D. CaseManager was created by New York civil rights attorney John Upton as a fast and inexpensive solution for sole practitioners and attorneys with small firms who want to use mobile devices to manage their law practice. The app has a great interface, which I showed off in my September, 2014 post, and you can use the app to keep track of the key information in your cases: events, tasks, contacts, time and expenses, plus the facts, notes and documents unique to each case.
You’ve also been able use CaseManager on a PC for a while now, and this week CaseManager added a Mac version. So now you can work with your data on both your mobile device and your work computer, regardless of whether you use Mac or PC. (Also, I know that some iPhone J.D. readers use an iPad and an Android phone, and for you there is also an Android version of CaseManager.)
Click here to get more information on CaseManager. The iPhone and iPad apps are only $20, and the PC and Mac versions are only $40, so you can be up and running for less than the cost of a single billable hour.
Click here to get CaseManager for iPhone ($19.99):
There has been a lot of talk of the new features coming in iOS 9 later this year, but there is another new technology that Apple enabled this month: HomeKit. HomeKit is essentially an interpreter that lets your iPhone or iPad understand and talk to your home automation devices. When you use compatible hardware, you can use your iPhone to do things like turn lights on and off, or dim them. Better yet, you can simply use Siri. Tell your iPhone to turn on the lights in the kitchen, or dim the lights in the dining room to 40%, and it just works.
Only a few manufacturers currently have HomeKit compatible hardware. One such company is Lutron, with its Lutron Caséta Wireless product line. I had previously purchased a Lutron dimmer that I installed into my TV room when it was renovated earlier this year, and for months I’ve been using it either as a normal dimmer (controlling it by pressing the buttons on my wall) or with a small remote control. When HomeKit came online earlier this month, I purchased a second dimmer for my living room and a Smart Bridge, a key piece of hardware that uses HomeKit to serve as an interface between your wireless devices and your iPhone. Everything has been working quite well for me. Here are more details on the components, and how they all work together.
Lutron Caséta Wireless Dimmer
The component that I had purchased earlier this year is the wireless dimmer, which you can buy for about $60 on Amazon. The dimmer looks like many other modern dimmers, mostly flat buttons that you put in a wall plate. If you already have an old dimmer in a room, installing this unit is incredibly simple. Believe me, I have minimum skills when it comes to electricity, and even I had no trouble. Just turn off the breaker so that there is no power in the room, unscrew the old unit using a screwdriver, disconnect some wires from the old unit and connect the new Lutron unit, and use a screwdriver to put everything back.
The end result looks modern, and is easy to use. Buttons at the top and bottom are used to get 100% light or to turn the light off, and the two triangle shape buttons in the middle are used to dim the lights.
In my TV room, I installed the dimmer next to a normal (non-wireless) switch, all of which was in a standard size double wall plate.
The $60 version comes with a small remote control that you can use from anywhere in the room to control the lights.
You can buy the dimmers in different colors. I used a white one in my TV room, but I purchased an ivory model on Amazon ($55 without a remote control) for my living room. It didn’t come with a wall plate, but it was easy to purchase a plastic ivory wall plate at Home Depot for 79¢. (You can also buy the Lutron Caséta dimmers at Home Depot.)
Lutron Plug-In Dimmer
I haven’t tried this product myself, but I see that you can also purchase a plug-in style dimmer that works with lamps for about $55. It plugs into a wall outlet and has two plugs, one on each side, so you can plug in two lamps and control them wirelessly (simultaneously) the same way that you would control built-in lights using an in-wall dimmer.
Lutron Caséta Wireless Smart Bridge
Now that you have your dimmers, the second piece that you need is the Smart Bridge. This is a tiny box that connects to your home network, talks to your Lutron dimmers, and passes instructions back and forth from the dimmers to the iPhone app. Note that you need to actually plug in an Ethernet cord to the Smart Bridge, so you’ll likely put it in the same room that has your router. I use an AirPort Extreme in my house (which I described in this post earlier this year) and it has three Ethernet out ports, so I used one of those three ports to connect the Smart Bridge. (The Smart Bridge doesn’t have to be in the same room as your lights.)
Note that there are two versions of this Smart Bridge and you need to use the right one. For about a year now, Lutron has sold the L-BDG-WH, and it is still sold on Amazon with no indication that it is an old product. The new version, the one that came out this month and works with Apple HomeKit, is the L-BDG2-WH, which costs $120 on Amazon.
One complaint that I have about the Smart Bridge is that there is a thin white light that goes around the device. It serves as a visual indicator that the unit is turned on, but I wish that there were a way to turn the light off.
Lutron app
Once you have your dimmer(s) and your Smart Bridge, you can download the free Lutron App for Caséta Wireless. It is an iPhone app, although like any iPhone app you can run it on your iPad in iPhone compatibility mode if you want to do so.
When you first run the app it connects to your Smart Bridge (you enter a serial number) and then you configure all of your lights. That’s a one-time chore. On subsequent launches of the iPhone app, the first screen of the app shows you the current status of your lights. (And the status of your shades, if you also install Lutron shades that you can control to go up and down; I didn’t try them.) You can tap the icon for any light and control it — on, off, dim, etc.
You don’t have to be in the same room to turn the lights on and off. Indeed, you don’t even have to be in the same house. I was looking at the app while sitting in my office one afternoon and turned off the lights in my TV room just to see what would happen and turned them back on again. Sure enough, my wife texted me a few seconds later because my kids were wondering why the lights went off, then on again, while they were watching Scooby Doo. So from anywhere in the world, you can use your iPhone to see if your lights are on or off, and control them.
You can also create schedules. For example, you can have your lights automatically turn on — either 100% or at a specific dimness level — at a certain time of day. You can program one or more lights to go on at sunset and turn off at sunrise. If you want to have lights go on when you are not home as sort of a crude way to deter burglars, this app can do that.
You can also create scenes, sort of like a macro for your lights. For example, if you always want the lights in your TV room to be set to 20% when you watch a movie, you can create a scene called Movie Mode. Just tap that buttons to set the lights accordingly.
You can also use geofencing with the app, which means control your app based on where you are located. (Well, where your iPhone is located, but presumably your iPhone is the same place that you are.) For example, for the last week, I’ve had the lights in my living room configured so that they come on automatically when I come home. That way, even if I come home late at night, there is always a light on in the first floor of my house so that I don’t fumble around in the dark.
The Lutron app also has an Apple Watch app, although for now it is pretty basic — which is not the fault of Lutron, but instead a result of Apple not yet allowing native apps, plus limited HomeKit integration on the Apple Watch. More features are coming in watchOS 2.0 later this year. For now, you can launch the app on your Apple Watch and then see whether lights are on or off. Four bars give you a rough indication of the level of dimness. You can tap on the icons to turn lights on or off, or to dim them.
Hopefully we will see a native Lutron app with more features later this year, such as the ability to use the Digital Crown to dim lights more precisely.
Siri
All of these features are useful, but by far my favorite feature is the Siri integration. Indeed, I suspect that most consider this a hallmark feature of the new HomeKit. Rather than taking the time to launch the Lutron app on my iPhone and find the right button, I can just start Siri and tell my iPhone what to do.
To set this up, you name your rooms and/or zones in your house (such as Upstairs and Downstairs). I selected the names TV (for my TV room) and Downstairs (for my living room, located in the middle of the first floor of my house). I simply hold down the button on my iPhone and tell Siri “Turn on downstairs light” and it comes on at 100%. Or I can say “Set TV light 25” and the light is dimmed to 25%. Or, when it is time to go to bed, I can leave my living room lights on until I get to my steps (so that I don’t trip on anything as I walk through a dark house) and then as I am walking up the stairs I can tell Siri to “turn off all lights,” which turns off both the lights in my TV room and the lights in my living room.
It would be even faster and more convenient if I could use Siri on my Apple Watch to control lights. That way, I could just lift my wrist and say “Hey Siri, turn on the lights.” That feature doesn’t work now, but I believe is coming in watchOS 2.0 in a few months.
Siri is simply the fastest way to control your connected HomeKit lights. And it is also the most fun; you feel like you are living in the future when your lights respond to your voice. Once Siri for HomeKit comes to the Apple Watch later this year, it wouldn’t surprise me if I never use the iPhone app again, instead just talking to my watch to control my lights.
Etc.
I know that I am just scratching the surface of what HomeKit can do. As noted above, you can use the Lutron app to control not only lights but also window shades. I see that the app also works with certain smart thermostats made by Nest and Honeywell. I suppose that means that you could talk to Siri to make it colder or hotter in your house.
You can grant access to another iPhone user, useful if both you and your spouse want to be able to wirelessly control the lights from your iPhones (or Apple Watch).
Lutron also sells starter kits, so you can get a single box with the Smart Bridge, remote controls, dimmers, etc. Here is one on Amazon for $226 that contains two in-wall dimmers and other accessories, which is cheaper than buying the components individually.
Finally, there is a rumor that Apple is close to releasing a new model of the Apple TV. Whenever Apple does so, I’m sure that it will have some sort of HomeKit integration built-in. I don’t think that the Apple TV would replace the need for a Smart Bridge, but I’m not sure how the Apple TV will fit in. If you are interested in this technology but not in a hurry to buy anything, you might consider waiting until later this year to see if Apple releases a new Apple TV and how it works with other wireless devices such as Lutron dimmers.
[UPDATE: I see that Geoffrey Fowler of the Wall Street Journal also reviewed HomeKit today. He had less success using Siri than I did, and I’m not sure why. Every once in a while I have to give Siri a command twice, but almost all of the time it works for me well, and quickly, on the first try. And I’ve been using it every day for several weeks now.
Fowler also states that you need to use an Apple TV to control your lights when you are not at home:
Regardless of your particular appliances, you’ll need one other piece of hardware: a $69 Apple TV. It serves as a secure bridge from your iPhone back into the house—by way of Apple’s encrypted computers—when you’re away from your home Wi-Fi network. (The Apple TV won’t be required when Apple integrates HomeKit with iCloud in iOS 9 this fall.)
I do own an Apple TV, so perhaps it is serving as a bridge without me knowing it.
Fowler also points out that Apple baked a lot of security into HomeKit so that a hacker cannot take control of the lights in your house. That is a big advantage of HomeKit that I should have mentioned.
And while Fowler’s article notes that he has troubles with HomeKit today, he still thinks that it is going to get better in the future and is a good thing for consumers:
There’s reason to believe Apple can get things right, and plenty to like in what Apple has laid out. I agree with Apple that voice commands should play an important role around the house. And HomeKit has the right structure to make devices from lots of different makers play well together. In my tests, HomeKit got this deceptively hard function right: With the Insteon+ app, I could create scenes around my house that combined Insteon and Lutron devices.
Clearly, these are early days for HomeKit, but I think it has a promising future.]
Conclusion
The Lutron app works well for controlling lights in your house, either manually or automatically based upon the time of day or your location. But it is the Siri integration that really makes you feel like you are living in the future. Later this year, with software updates and potentially with a new Apple TV, I suspect that all of this will work even better. But even in its current generation, I’ve found the Lutron Caséta devices to be very useful, and also quite fun.
Click here to get Lutron App for Caséta Wireless (free):
This week, Lauren Sherman wrote an article for Elle explaining why she recommends getting an Apple Watch. (And yes, this is the first time that I’ve linked to an article in Elle on iPhone J.D.) I particularly enjoyed this line: “The Apple Watch represents the future, so why not start enjoying the future now?” I enjoy using my Apple Watch because of what it can already do today, but it is obvious that this current generation of hardware and software is just a tease of what is to come in the future. For some, this is a reason to wait for the next model, and I totally understand that. The 2.0 version of anything will be better than the 1.0 version. Of course, using that logic, you would wait for the 3.0, then the 4.0, etc. Suffice it to say that as much as I enjoy using my Apple Watch today, it is also fun getting what seems like a sneak peak of the future. And now, the news of note from the past week:
New York attorney Nicole Black discusses some of her new favorite iPhone apps in an article for The Daily Record.
Kentucky attorney Hiram Ely tells me that he used to enjoy using a dual dock when he and his wife both used iPhones with 30 pin connectors, but he has been having trouble finding a good dual dock that works with iPhones with Lightning connectors. And I don’t think that I have seen one either, something that charges to iPhones side-by-side. If you have any recommendations, please post a comment to this post.
Brent Zaniewski of iMore discusses the five smart hubs on the market that you can use with HomeKit, which means that you can control lights and other items in your house using your iPhone and Apple Watch. I’m currently having very good results with the Lutron Caseta Wireless Smart Bridge, and I plan to write a post on it soon.
One of the new features being added to the Apple Watch in a software update later this year is support for third party complications. I think that this is huge. So does Macworld contributor Michael Simon, who explains that it is an even bigger deal than native watch apps. I agree.
Jim Dalrymple of The Loop explains in two posts (1, 2) how he used an iPhone app, and more recently his Apple Watch, to lose 40 pounds. His first post also serves as an overall review of the Apple Watch.
Bryan Wolfe of AppAdvice explains the difference between iTunes Match and Apple’s new music service. I’m still waiting to learn whether Apple Music subscribers would have any reason to also subscribe to iTunes Match. It doesn’t seem to me that there would be any reason to pay for both, but I wish Apple would clarify this.
And finally, I came across this picture posted by Simon Sugar on Twitter, and it made me smile. As he describes the picture: “How to sell a chalkboard. #marketing.”
Password security has been in the news again this week, and I’m using this as an opportunity to remind all iPhone J.D. readers — especially all of us attorneys with a duty a protect confidential attorney-client information — that we ought to be using complex, different passwords. I think that the best way to manage them is with password manager software such as 1Password, which happens to be on sale right now. More on that in a minute, but first let’s discuss some of the recent stories.
One of the recent news stories (here is one from Michael Schmidt in the New York Times) is that employees of the St. Louis Cardinals are being investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department for hacking into the internal network used by the Houston Astros to store confidential information evaluating players. The allegation is that after Jeff Luhnow left the Cardinals to join the Astros, Cardinals employees researched all of the passwords that Luhnow had ever used on a Cardinals network, and then tried those same passwords to access the Astros network. One of the passwords worked, and once they were in, they got access to lots of confidential information that could be used to help the Cardinals and hurt the Astros.
Another story being reported (here is one from Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post) is that hackers working for China accessed the U.S. Office of Personnel Management computers to get information such as Social Security numbers and job assignments for around four million current and former federal employees. The information could theoretically be used to the disadvantage of one of those folks, or this article notes, this information my help a hacker send a fake e-mail purporting to be from a colleague at work to convince someone to click a link or take other action that could lead to further problems.
The reality of our world is that hacks and attempted hacks are going to happen. Perhaps they will be initiated by folks living in other countries, perhaps even sponsored by those countries. Perhaps they will be attacks targeted against you or your company, initiated by a business competitor or someone who knows who you are. What you need to do is take reasonable steps to protect yourself.
One thing that you need to do is use different passwords for every service. We are constantly hearing about hackers gaining access to databases at retail companies, and if a hacker gets the password that you use a BigStoreCo, they can try to use that same password at your bank, Amazon.com, your law firm, etc. If you use the same password (or simple variants on the same password) at multiple sites, then when the password to one of your accounts is obtained, essentially all of your accounts have been hacked.
Second, in addition to using different passwords, you need to use complex passwords that are long and hard to guess. Just using your kid’s names isn’t enough. Folks who know you, or know of you, can figure out those names easily enough if they want to target an attack on you. And while hackers in foreign countries may not know you personally, they are going to run every single name in the Baby Name Book (and the dictionary) when they try to hack accounts.
Those two tips sound simple enough, but the problem with using unique, complex passwords for every site is that they are impossible for you to remember, not to mention difficult to type. That’s why I recommend using password management software. The one that I use is 1Password, and I’ve written about it before (1, 2, 3). The first advantage of password management software is that it can easily create random, complex passwords that are different for every website. For example, I’m going to ask 1Password to generate one right now, and here it is: rFidnonEKjpRN7jFVy4r. No hacker is going to be able to happen upon that password by trying out all of the words in a dictionary or baby name book, and that 20-character long password would be incredibly difficult to guess. And even if that is the password that I use at BigStoreCo and someone somehow gets access to customer information, that won’t be the same password that I use for my law firm email or other institutions, so the bad guys can’t use that password elsewhere.
The second advantage of using password management software is that it can automatically enter my passwords — on my PC at work, my Mac at home, my iPhone and my iPad. Thus, I don’t need to remember that the password was rFidnonJKjpRN7jFVy4r. I just need to remember a single central password that I use with 1Password, a password that I never use on any online site or anywhere else so nobody knows it but me. And for my devices that have a fingerprint sensor such as my iPhone 6 and my iPad Air 2, I can often just use my fingerprint to confirm that I am me and unlock 1Password, and have my unique and complex password entered, without my even having to even type in my single central password. (I do have to retype the password every time I restart my iPhone or iPad.)
At this point, you might be saying, isn’t it dangerous putting all of my passwords in one app that a bad guy could access? And this is a reasonable question. Just this week, hackers were able to breach the password database used by LastPass, another password management service. But as security expert Glenn Fleishman of Macworld explained, the silver lining is that because of security measures that LastPass had in place before the hack, it is unlikely that hackers will be able to do anything with what they got as long as users respond to the security alert issued by LastPass and change their master password. For what it’s worth, one of the things that has always appealed to me about 1Password over LastPass is that the company that runs 1Password doesn’t even have a central database of master passwords like LastPass does, so a hacker cannot simply target 1Password like they did with LastPass.
But whether you use 1Password or LastPass or a similar, reputable, service, the point is that you are trusting your passwords to software that is specifically designed to make your passwords accessible to you and only you. The companies that make these products treat security incredibly seriously and update their security measures all of the time. Nothing is perfect, but putting different, complex passwords in 1Password is infinitely more secure than using the same, simple password on all sites that you visit. Plus it is more secure than writing your passwords on a sticky note or in a notebook that could be viewed by anyone who walks by your desk, or using a password that could be guessed by someone who knows (or can guess) basic details about you such as the names of your kids, spouse, pets, etc.
As I was finishing up this post, I see that New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson just wrote about this same issue a few hours ago on his PaperlessChase.com website. I’m not the only attorney with security on his mind this week. If what I wrote above doesn’t convince you to consider using a password manager, read Ernie’s post and see if that convinces you.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll tell you now that when you first start using a password manager, it is a pain. You need to enter all of your current passwords for all of your services, and update all of the passwords that are repeated or simple (which could be most of them). Also, you need to learn how the software works. 1Password is not complicated, but of course anything new has a learning curve.
But if you are reading this post, then by definition I know that you are more than smart enough to figure it all out. And then once you get up and running, you will see all of the advantages. Your passwords will be much more secure, which is becoming a necessity in today’s world. Also, these password managers make it much easier and faster to enter your username and password when you visit a website that requires one. So in the long run, you may even save time. Also, apps like 1Password can give you a secure place to store other confidential information on your iPhone and iPad such as Social Security numbers. Plus, you can use the secure notes function to jot down personal private information (such as medical information) or information relating to your job or your clients in a place on your iPad that someone else won’t be able to access even if you are letting them use your iPad.
If you decide to use 1Password, you need to get both the iOS app for your iPhone/iPad and the software for your computer (Mac, or PC, or a combo that has both). The iOS software for your iPhone/iPad is free, but you will want to pay $9.99 (an in-app purchase) to unlock all of full features of the app. The version for your Mac or PC normally costs $50 (or $70 for both), but the company is having a 9th Anniversary Sale right now with a 30% discount.
But whatever password manager you use, please consider using something. You don’t want the next hacker article in the news to have anything to do with you.
Click here to get 1Password for iOS (free, but $9.99 to unlock all features):
One of the earliest reviews of an iPhone accessory that I posted on iPhone J.D. was my review of the iPhone 3G Dock back in 2008. When explaining why I liked that dock, I said: “First, it gives me a specific place to keep my iPhone when I am working at my desk so that it is always in that same convenient location when I need to reach for it. Second, it keeps my iPhone charged while it is sitting in the dock.” Since 2008, I’ve continued to appreciate having a dock for my iPhone on my desk at work for those same two reasons. Unfortunately, because Apple’s docks have been custom molded to fit specific iPhone models, they wouldn’t work when your iPhone was in a case, and they also would become obsolete when you bought a new iPhone with a different design. The iPhone 3G Dock also worked with the iPhone 3GS that came out in 2009, but then I had to purchase a new dock in 2010 when I upgraded to the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 dock worked with the iPhone 4 and 4S, but in 2012 when Apple released the iPhone 5 with a different design, I needed another dock. For whatever reason, Apple didn’t release a new dock in 2012, and the old ones did not work with the iPhone 5 not only because the shape was different but also because the iPhone 5 used the new Lightning connector. A year later in 2013, after Apple released the iPhone 5S, it released yet another dock, one that worked with the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5S.
When the iPhone 6 came out in 2014, it used yet another design — indeed, the entire iPhone was larger than prior models — so I could no longer use the dock that I had used with my iPhone 5S. And when Apple didn’t release a dock for the iPhone 6 in 2014, I thought that we might have to wait another year, much like we did when the iPhone 5 came out. We did have to wait, but it wasn’t a full year. Last month (May of 2015), Apple released its newest dock called the iPhone Lightning Dock. It costs $39. I bought one, and I’ve been using it at my desk at work for the last few weeks.
Like the prior Apple dock models, this latest dock has a rubbery bottom so that it doesn’t move around on your desk, but there is nothing sticky about the bottom so when you want to move it around, you can easily do so. Also like the prior models, there is a connector in the back where you plug in a charging cord, plus there is an audio out port in the back, useful if you want to plug in headphones or an external speaker while your iPhone is in the dock.
There is one major difference between this dock and the prior models. This newest dock is not molded to the shape of the bottom of the iPhone. Instead, the Lightning connector is strong enough that it can hold up the weight of an iPhone. And because the Lightning connector is raised somewhat, you can even use this dock when your iPhone is in certain cases, such as the iPhone leather case made by Apple that I use (which I reviewed last year).
This new design for the dock is a big improvement. Not only does it mean that you can use this dock with some iPhone cases, but it also means that the dock might continue to work with future iPhones even if Apple changes the design. Indeed, I was able to place my iPad Air 2 in this dock and it worked. I strongly do not recommend that you do this; it wasn’t very stable and could have easily fell over with a large iPad on it. But I tried it just to prove that the dock could work with different sized devices that also have a Lightning port. I don’t have an iPhone 6 Plus to try with this dock, but I’m sure that it works just fine.
Many years ago, Apple made what it called a Universal Dock. It worked with different models of the iPod and iPhone by using plastic adapters. You used the right size adapter for your device, and that adapter made your device fit with the dock. It was nice to have that flexibility, but I far prefer this latest design. It is much sleeker and allows for a smaller dock.
I’ve been very happy with this dock. I like having a central place to put my iPhone on my desk. The dock props up the iPhone at a nice angle so that I can easily see the screen if I need to use the iPhone while in the dock or just want to glance at an alert. And of course I like that my iPhone charges while it is in the dock.
While the dock does a nice job of holding the iPhone very steady, it is very easy to remove the iPhone from the dock. I’ve seen other reviews that say that you need to use two hands — one to hold the dock and one to pull the iPhone off. But I find that I can easily remove the iPhone from the dock with just one hand. I grip the iPhone with my thumb and third finger, and then I push against the top of the dock with my pinkie finger and it lifts right out.
It is also very easy to pull the Lightning cable out of the back of this dock. I mention this because I frequently remove the cable so that I can plug it in to my iPad to charge it while it is on my desk, and then when I’m done I plug it back in to this dock. Even when I don’t have a Lightning charger cord connected to this dock, I still like to keep my iPhone in it just so that I always know where my iPhone is located (and don’t have to worry about it getting buried under papers), plus I like how the dock props the iPhone at a nice angle.
This next picture shows my new dock with all of the prior models. The top row has the iPhone 3G dock and the Universal Dock, and the second row has the iPhone 4 dock, the iPhone 5 dock, and the new dock that works with the iPhone 6.
Hopefully I won’t need to add to that collection for some time. The new design of this dock should allow it to work with many future models of the iPhone.
There are other companies that make iPhone docks, some of which prop the iPhone higher in the air such as the Twelve South HiRise. But I’ve always preferred the minimalist design of Apple’s docks, and this latest dock is the shortest and sleekest one yet. If you like the idea of having a central place to keep your iPhone on your desk, and you like having your iPhone propped up at an angle so that you can easily see the screen, and you like keeping your iPhone charged while at your desk, then you are likely to enjoy using this dock as much as I do.
I listen to a lot of podcasts — when I am driving to and from work, when I am working out, when I am doing tasks such as cutting the grass or washing dishes, etc. One of my favorite podcasts is Mac Power Users. That podcast is aimed at a general audience of folks who use Apple products, but the co-hosts are both attorneys: California attorney David Sparks and Florida attorney Katie Floyd. They were nice enough to invite me to be a guest on their latest episode to discuss the Apple Watch, and I had a great time talking with them and participating in one of my favorite podcasts. We recorded the podcast last Saturday, and I was happy to learn that some of the features we discussed wanting (such as third party complications and the ability to respond to an email on the Apple Watch) are indeed coming in just a few months, as announced by Apple during its WWDC conference a few days ago. If you’d like to listen, here is the webpage for that episode, or you can download Episode 261 in your podcast app of choice. (I use and recommend Overcast.) The full episode is 105 minutes, but I’m on for just the first half hour. And now, the news of note from the past week:
In addition to co-hosting Mac Power Users, David Sparks also runs the MacSparky website, and this week he shared some of his thoughts on the upcoming iOS 9 which Apple announced at WWDC this week.
One of the iOS 9 features that I am most excited about are the new multitasking features coming to the iPad Air 2, such as running two apps at the same time, side-by-side. Federico Viticci of MacStories, who uses an iPad as his primary computing device, is excited about those features too and shares his initial thoughts on the announcements.
Serenity Caldwell of iMore posted a list of 18 features in iOS 9 that you may have missed. I see that the URL is “http://www.imore.com/17-features-ios-9-you-may-have-missed-during-keynote” so it looks like she originally planned to discuss just 17 features and then realized that she also missed one.
Juli Clover of MacRumors reports on an interesting new feature in the upcoming iOS 9. Apple already has a technology it calls Continuity, which allows you to answer a phone call not only from your iPhone but also from a computer, iPad or Apple Watch as long as it is on the same Wi-Fi network. But in iOS 9, this feature will work even if you are not using the same Wi-Fi network. Thus, if you leave your iPhone at home, you will be able to make and receive calls using your work computer that is on the Wi-Fi at your office. The article doesn’t say whether it also works using an iPad or an Apple Watch on a different Wi-Fi network. And also note that it appears that this new feature only works if your cellular carrier supports Cellular Continuity, which currently only T-Mobile supports. I have more questions than answers at this point on how all of this works, but the idea sounds very useful.
Buster Hein of Cult of Mac reports that the cool iOS 9 feature that Apple showed off at WWDC on an iPad — the ability to use two fingers to turn the keyboard into a trackpad to move the cursor — will also work on an iPhone. I was wondering about that.
As noted by Brent Dirks of AppAdvice, Apple also announced this week that iOS 8.4 will be released on June 30. It fixes some bugs, but the big new feature is support for the Apple Music streaming service that Apple announced at WWDC this week. For $9.99 a month, or $14.99 for up to six family members, you can listen to just about any song that you want on your iPhone, iPad or computer.
Vanessa Freidman, the chief fashion critic with the New York Times, tried using an Apple Watch for six weeks but decided that it wasn’t for her. As she describes in her New York Times article Why I’m Breaking Up With the Apple Watch, she didn’t like that other people would notice it and ask her about it, she felt weird using the watch, she preferred to exercise based on how she was feeling and not based on numbers and digital encouragement, and she didn’t find the watch functions useful (except that she liked how the watch would tap her wrist when her kids were calling). My own opinion is almost exactly the opposite — which won’t surprise any of you who would consider me to be pretty much the exact opposite of a New York Times fashion critic — but it was interesting to read an articulate explanation of why the Apple Watch is not for some people.
If you have some iTunes purchases planned, 9to5Mac notes that you can currently get $100 worth of gift cards for only $70 via eBay.
I suspect that many of you have seen — in person or in pictures — the iconic Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, the glass cube at the corner of Central Park. It is in front of FAO Schwarz, the place where Tom Hanks danced on a big keyboard, and the oldest toy store in the U.S. Or at least, it has been up until now; FAO Schwarz is closing down, and the Apple Store is using this as an opportunity to renovate the Fifth Avenue store. As reported by Nick Jesdanun and Barbara Ortutay of AP, Apple will use the FAO Schwarz space as a temporary store while it renovates. No word yet on whether Apple will let you dance on its keyboards.
Apple acknowledged this week that it has vehicles driving around the world collecting data and taking pictures to improve the Apple Maps app. Indeed, Apple now even has a webpage posting where the vehicles will be next. So if you are in Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, New York, London or a number of other cities during the next few weeks, be sure to wave when the Apple car drives by to take your picture.
And finally, just before Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage for the WWDC keynote this week, Apple showed the audience (filled mostly with app developers) a funny video – starring Saturday Night Live alum Bill Hader, Danny Pudi from Community, and Matt Walsh from Veep – the premise being that Hader is directing a dress rehearsal for the opening number of WWDC. Apple posted the video to YouTube yesterday, and it is worth watching to see a lot of popular apps brought to life in a humorous way:
One of the most useful apps in my litigation practice is TranscriptPad. It is nice to be able to annotate a deposition as I read it with different issue codes, and then later create a report for all of the depositions in a case so that I can determine the key testimony from each witness on the key issues in the case. It helps me to remember the important testimony when many months have passed since I took and/or first read the deposition, and it is incredibly useful when I am drafting a motion for summary judgment or preparing for trial and I need to have easy access to the most relevant testimony.
However, I used to have a gripe with the app. Once you create a report, there is no direct way to open the PDF version of the report in another app. You can upload the report to cloud storage (such as Dropbox, Transporter, Box, Citrix ShareFile) and then get the report from storage and open it in another app. Or you can email the report to yourself, and then open the email and then open the attachment in another app. But those methods involve extra steps that seem unnecessary. And if you are on a plane or somewhere else that you do not have Internet access, those options won’t work at all.
I shared my gripe with Ian O’Flaherty, the creator of TranscriptPad, and he explained to me that there are technical reasons that it does not make sense to add this option directly to the app, but he suggested a workaround using the Workflow app. I tweaked his suggested workflow somewhat, and came up with something that has been working great for me for many weeks now. Hopefully many of you will also find this tip useful.
As I said, you need the Workflow app to do this. The app is normally $4.99 but is currently on sale for $2.99. The sale is to celebrate the fact that, earlier this week, Apple honored the app with an Apple Design Award, as reported by TechCrunch. The fact that the app was one of the few to win this award demonstrates that this is a great app that you might want to own anyway. (And I highly recommend California attorney David Spark’s Workflow Video Field Guide to learn how to get the most out of this app; my review is here.)
There are two simple steps to this workflow. First, use the command to make a PDF. Second, use the command to open the PDF that you just created in GoodReader. (GoodReader is my app of choice for reading and annotating PDF files, but if you have another favorite app, just identify it instead.) And that’s it. It will take you less than a minute to create this workflow. Here is what it looks like in the Workflow app:
To use the workflow after you make it, create a report in TranscriptPad and then tap the Share button at the top right (the square with the arrow pointing up). This is where you would normally save the report to a cloud service or email the report, but thanks to this workflow you no longer need that step. Instead, just tap the Run Workflow button.
The very first time that you use a workflow, you may need to scroll to the end of the bottom line, tap More, and turn on Run Workflow, but you’ll never have to do that step again. For every subsequent time, the next step is simply to tap the Run Workflow button.
Then tap the name of the report that you created, which in my case I called TranscriptPad Report.
That’s it. Almost instantly, your report opens up in GoodReader (or your PDF reader of choice).
So in other words, after tapping the Share button, you simply tap two buttons and you are done. Even if you have Internet access, this workflow is far, far faster than emailing the file to yourself and then opening up the file from that email, or saving the file to a cloud service and then getting the file out of that cloud service and into GoodReader.
I’ve known Ian O’Flaherty for many years, and his company has been a sponsor of iPhone J.D., so you might think that it was no surprise that he so quickly responded to my question and came up with a solution. But from what I have heard from many other users of his TranscriptPad and TrialPad apps, he is just as helpful when other attorneys reach out to him. Thanks to Ian for suggesting this workflow to solve my problem, and thanks also for creating, and supporting the users of, these great apps.
Click here to get TranscriptPad ($89.99):
Click here to get Workflow ($2.99):
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This article won the LitigationWorld Pick of the Week award. The editors of LitigationWorld, a free weekly email newsletter for litigators and others who work in litigation, give this award to one article every week that they feel is a must-read for this audience.
During the keynote address yesterday at WWDC (Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference), CEO Tim Cook and other Apple executives had lots of announcements that relate to the Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Today, I focus just on the announcements that concern iOS 9, the operating system for the iPhone and iPad that Apple will release as a free upgrade this Fall — my guess is September of 2015, but we’ll see. Apple may be holding back some new features so that there are still some surprises later this year, but based on what Apple showed off yesterday, lawyers and other professionals who use an iPhone and iPad to get work done will find lots to love in iOS 9. Here are the new features that jumped out at me.
Multiple windows on the iPad
If you have a newer iPad, you will be able to be much more productive with new features for using multiple windows at the same time. First, you can swipe from the right side so that a Slide-Over window covers the right edge of your current window. In that window, you can temporarily access another app without leaving the app in which you are currently working. So just like you can now swipe up from the bottom of the screen on an iPad to launch the Control Center, in iOS 9 you can swipe in from the right to launch another app that temporarily covers up the right part of the screen of your current app. This should make it much easier to quickly get some information from another app.
Second, you can enable a Split View so that you run two apps side-by-side at the same time. For example, you can look up information in Safari while you are simultaneously writing something in another app. The split view is resizable, so you can either give two apps 50% of the screen, or have one app have more of the screen while another app has a smaller portion.
I can see it being really useful to use the Microsoft Word app on the right part of my screen while I am looking at a PDF document in GoodReader in the left part of my screen. And Split Screen would be even more useful if Microsoft brings the great Reflow view that is in the iPhone version of Word to the iPad. That way, the text can be larger when Word is only filling up one part of your screen. For attorneys like me who leave the laptop at home and just take an iPad when traveling to a deposition, meeting, etc., tools like this are great for increasing productivity.
Third, a picture-in-picture mode lets you continue to watch a video in a small window while you are using another app. You can move that small video window around your screen (so that it isn’t covering up something that you need to see or tap), and there are controls to play, pause, etc. even while a video is in the small picture-in-picture mode. I’m not sure how useful this is as a productivity feature, but it will certainly be fun.
To take advantage of some of these new features (such as two apps running at the same time), you’ll need to have an iPad Air 2. Thus, you may not be able to use these features with your current iPad, but they will work with your next iPad. And if the rumors are true about Apple releasing an iPad with a larger screen later this year, these features would be even more valuable with the increased screen real estate.
Improvements to the iPad keyboard
When the keyboard is visible in iOS 9, if you touch the keyboard with two fingers instead of one finger, the keyboard dims and turns into a virtual trackpad that you can use to control the cursor. It is similar to how you might use a mouse or trackpad to control a cursor on a PC or a Mac. You can also use this feature to quickly select text. I can’t wait to try this one in person, but it looks like a big boost to productivity once you get used to it.
Also, just above the keyboard, there are now small icons on the left that you can tap to quickly cut, copy and paste. On the right there are small icons that can be used to format text. And these new buttons can be app-specific, so developers can provide the most useful buttons for each specific app.
If you use an external keyboard, there are new keyboard shortcuts. By far the most useful to me will be Command-Tab (or Control-Tab) to switch apps, just like you can do on an PC or Mac.
Improved shift key
Speaking of the keyboard, have you ever looked at the shift key on the iPhone or iPad screen only to find yourself confused whether shift was on or off? It happens to me all of the time, even though I really should know better by now. In iOS 9, the keys on the keyboard change to lower case when shift is off and upper case when shift is on, making it far more obvious which mode you are in. Amen.
6 > 4
You may not like this change at first, but it a security improvement so it is good for you. If you have a newer iPhone or iPad with Touch ID (the fingerprint sensor), in iOS 9 you will be required to use a six digit pin to unlock the device instead of a four digit pin.
The change from four to six numbers means that there are a million different possible passcodes, versus 10,000 with four digits. This should make it harder for a malicious hacker to gain access to your iPhone or iPad without your permission.
Fortunately, you still only have to enter the pin after a restart; otherwise your fingerprint can still serve as your password.
Siri improvements
Siri will be more intelligent in iOS 9. For example, Siri will have more awareness of what you are doing, so that if you are, say, looking at a web page and you tell Siri “remind me of this later,” Siri will know that you want a reminder to go back to that web page. You will also be able to ask Siri to remind you of something when you get into the car. And Siri will do a better job of understanding how you use your device so that it offers more helpful advice. Apple calls the added intelligence in Siri “Proactive Assistant.”
Siri will also look different, more like how Siri looks on the Apple Watch. Also, your device will also quickly vibrate to indicate that Siri has started to listen to you.
Scrubbing photos
It will now be faster to find the photograph that you want because there will be a new scrubber (tiny thumbnails) at the bottom of the screen in the Photos app. This should make it faster to jump to the right picture.
More battery life
Apple says that improvements across iOS should result in your device getting about an hour of additional battery life. Everyone will love that.
One specific and interesting example of saving battery life: an iPhone running iOS 9 will be able to sense when it is face down on a table and, if so, won’t light up when there is an incoming notification.
But what if that isn’t enough? Do you ever find yourself down to just an hour of battery life left on your iPhone or iPad when you know you need it to last longer? iOS 9 gives you the option, in Settings, to turn on a Lower Power Mode. This dims the screen and makes other changes to the device, which should give you about three more hours instead of one. You’ll lose some functionality (new email won’t show up automatically, apps won’t refresh in the background, motion effects and animated wallpapers will turn off, etc.), but when you are running out of power and getting desperate, the tradeoffs will likely be worth it.
Improved Notes app
I sometimes use the built-in Notes app to quickly jot something down, and this will be easier in iOS 9. For example, the Notes app in iOS 9 supports sketching, so you can draw a quick diagram or other shape when necessary. Your notes in iOS 9 can include bullet or numbered lists, checkable lists (useful for a grocery or packing list where you tap an item when it is done), formatted text, images, etc. Apple says that half of all users use the Notes app, so these improvements will help a lot of people.
Another way to search
Ever since iOS 7, you could pull down from the middle of a home screen to search on your iPhone. In iOS 9, this gesture remains, but you can also swipe to the left of your first home screen (the way that search worked in iOS 6) to get not only a search bar but also suggested search items.
Maps improvements
Perhaps the most useful improvement to Maps will be the integration of public transit maps and schedules for buses, trains, subways, etc. The only U.S. cities to support this feature at launch will be New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Baltimore and Washington D.C., plus it will work in cities in other countries such as Berlin, London, Mexico City and Toronto, and will work in a larger number of cities in China. I’ll appreciate this feature whenever I travel to these cities — I especially look forward to trying it in New York — and I’m sure that even more cities will be added in the future. The Transit feature will even understand all of the different entrances/exits in a subway.
Maps also gains the ability to show you certain establishments that are nearby your current location.
Switching to the iPhone
I’ve heard from quite a few attorneys who tell me that they use an iPad, but they also use an Android phone, although they are thinking of making the switch to iPhone. There are lots of advantages to using an iPhone if you use an iPad, such as universal apps that you can buy once and use on both platforms, handoff between iPhone and iPad, and the large number of legal-specific apps on the iPhone that simply don’t exist on Android.
Yesterday, Apple announced a new set of apps for Android and iPhone called Move to iOS. These apps ease the transition from Android to iPhone. The apps move your contacts, message history, photos etc. from your old device to the new device. They download on the iPhone all of the free apps that you used to use on Android, and give you an App Store wishlist for the paid apps that you used on Android and will have to purchase again for the iPhone. These apps also move your DRM-free media such as songs and videos.
Switchers will only need to use this app once, but for that one use I suspect it will be very useful. It has to be much better than the current way of moving everything manually.
And the rest…
Those are the big new features for me, but there are other changes as well. For example, the App Switcher will look different, but I’ll have to try it to see whether I think it is an improvement. A new News app will present information from different sources – newspapers, magazines, websites, etc. — in a single, beautiful interface. (It looks similar to Flipboard, if you have used that app.) Apple Pay will soon support merchant rewards cards.
Apple also is improving the parts of iOS that you don’t see every day, stuff that should make iOS faster and more stable. (This is probably how Apple was able to get more battery life in iOS 9.)
Put it all together, and all of us who use an iPad and iPhone to get work done should find that we can be even more productive with iOS 9, all without getting new hardware. Having said that, you know that around the same time that iOS 9 comes out, Apple will have some tempting new iPads and iPhones as well.
