Month: September 2015

Ever since the iPhone 3G was released in 2008, Apple has followed a pattern in which the external design of the iPhone changes in one year, and then the following year Apple releases an “s” model with the same design but major new features under the hood.  Thus, we saw the iPhone 3G in 2008 followed by the faster iPhone 3GS in 2009.  The iPhone 4 was released in 2010, and in 2011 the iPhone 4S added Siri.  The iPhone 5 came out in 2012, and then in 2013 the iPhone 5s added Touch ID.  Last year we saw the iPhone 6, and this past Friday Apple started selling the iPhone 6s.  Once again, it is the same design as the prior model plus a major new feature, and this year that new feature is 3D Touch.  It’s a great feature, and for many lawyers could prove to be more useful than Siri or Touch ID.  And of course there are other new features as well.  Here are my thoughts on the new iPhone 6s

 

3D Touch

Back when the iPhone was introduced in 2007, the major new feature was the touchscreen.  Instead of BlackBerry and Palm Treo smartphones that had a small square screen with half of the front devoted to a tiny keyboard, the iPhone innovation was to have a much larger screen that could be touched, and we all learned motions like tap, swipe to scroll, pinch to zoom, etc.  Those features were innovative for a smartphone back in 2007, and were subsequently copied by all other smartphone manufacturers. 

3D Touch is the biggest improvement to interacting with a screen since the iPhone was first introduced in 2007.  And it works great.  Yes, you can still tap just like you could before, such as tap an app icon to open the app.  But now you can also press a little harder on the icon to perform a different function.  It is very easy to know how hard to press because Apple uses haptic feedback, much like the Apple Watch, so that you feel a minor vibration which feels almost like a click.  The name 3D Touch is perfect because it really is like Apple has added a third dimension, giving you the ability to press into a screen in addition to the old tap or swipe left, right, up, or down.

Right now, for the most part, two types of things can happen when you use 3D Touch.  If you press on an app icon, you see a pop-up Quick Action menu with a few common actions.  Instead of tapping on the Messages app icon and then tapping at the top left to see all of your sets of messages and then tapping on Bob’s name so that you can get into your message conversation with Bob, now just press on the app icon and select Bob from the Quick Action menu.  Or press on the Mail icon and select New Message or Search from the Quick Action menu.  Or press on the Camera icon and jump right to recording video.  It’s a little thing that saves you time, and once you get used to it, you’ll really miss not having it on your iPad.  It reminds me of the right click function using a mouse on a computer.

 

Second, in apps that have a list of items (e.g. Mail, Messages, Notes, etc.), you can now press harder on any item in the list to peek at what is in that item.  This function is incredibly useful in the Mail app.  I often find myself trying to find a specific message in my Inbox from a specific person.  I’ll see one email that could be it, tap on that message in the list, then see that particular message take up the entire screen, realize that it isn’t the message I want, so I need to tap the back button at the top left of the screen, go to the next message, and repeat.  I suspect that many of you have done these same steps.  But with 3D Touch, I can instead just press on a message in the list and a floating window appears giving me a peek into the content of the message.  Best of all, when I stop pressing down the preview goes away and I am still looking at the list of messages.  I can then peek at the next one, the next one, etc. until I find the specific message that I want.  When I can see in the preview that I have found the message, I just push down on the preview and the message pops to fill up the screen. 

Another good use — if I receive an email and I want to see what it is about, but I’m not quite ready to act upon the email, I can just press on it in the list to peek.  That shows me a preview of the message, but when I pick up my finger to make the preview disappear, the email status remains unread.  Thus, I know to go back to it later and act upon it.  Or alternatively, if the preview shows me all that I need to know about the email to act upon it, I can swipe up to see common options to apply to the message (Reply, Forward, Mark, Move, etc.).

It takes about 60 seconds to get used to using 3D Touch on a list of emails, and then you’ll want to use the function every time.  It works great.

Although the major two functions of 3D Touch are the Quick Action menu on app icons and the Peek and Pop functions with a preview, that is just the beginning.  3D Touch can also be used in many other ways.  For example, if you are typing on your iPhone screen and you want to go back and change something in a prior sentence, press on the keyboard to have it change into a trackpad on which you can control the cursor and place it in an exact spot in a message.  Nifty and useful.

If you press on the left edge of the screen in any app, the app switch shows up (the same thing that you would see if you double-press the Home button).  If you press on the left edge of the screen and then swipe all the way to the right, you switch to the prior app.  It’s the iPhone’s version of Control-Tab on a PC or Command-Tab on a Mac.

Moreover, app developers can use 3D Touch in all sorts of useful ways within their apps.  In Apple’s Notes app, for example, iOS 9 introduced the ability to write in a Notes message, useful if you want to quickly draw something with your finger.  On the iPhone 6s, the app becomes pressure sensitive to your fingertip, so if you press lightly you get a smaller line and if you press harder you get a darker line.

3D Touch is brand new, so for now you can only use it in Apple’s own apps.  But give it a little bit of time, and I’m sure that clever app developers will find all sorts of useful ways to integrate 3D Touch into the unique functions of their apps.  I suspect that six months from now, I’ll be using 3D Touch in all of the main apps that I use, and as a result I will be much faster and more productive on my iPhone.  (And I’m sure that game developers will have a lot of fun finding ways to take advantage of 3D Touch in games.)

3D Touch is a big deal, one of those great features, like Touch ID, that is simple to use while also providing a lot of power.  And unlike Touch ID, which is just about security and verification, 3D Touch will be useful for numerous apps in countless different ways.  This is the big new feature of the iPhone 6s, and like multi-touch on the original iPhone in 2007, I predict that it will become an integral part of the iPhone experience for many years to come.

Speed

3D Touch may be the biggest new feature in the iPhone 6s, but one of the most noticeable new features in the speed.  The iPhone 6s uses Apple’s new A9 processor, and is the first iPhone with 2 GB of RAM.  (It has been 1 GB of RAM since the iPhone 5 was released in 2012.)  Those two upgrades make everything on the iPhone a lot faster.  Thus, it is more responsive and it is easier to get your work done without waiting for the iPhone to catch up with you.  Every new iPhone is faster than the generation before it, but the jump in speed this year is especially noticeable, and really nice.

Apple also introduced the second generation of Touch ID, which means that the iPhone reads your fingerprint even faster.  Touch ID wasn’t slow on prior models, but now it is virtually instantaneous.  For a silly game, see if you can wake up an iPhone that is asleep by pressing the home button but pull your finger off quickly before the iPhone has read your fingerprint and unlocks the screen.  Can you even do it?  It is possible, but you need to be really, really fast.  And if you are unlocking your iPhone just to look at something on the lock screen, such as the time or date or a notification on the lock screen, you are better of pressing the sleep/wake button on the side of the iPhone where there is no risk of the iPhone recognizing your fingerprint.

Apple also improved Wi-Fi and LTE on the iPhone 6s.  For example, my cable modem typically provides download speeds of around 100 Mbps to my computer, connected to my router via an Ethernet cord.  If I’m in the same room as my Airport Base Station, my iPhone 6 will typically get top download speeds of around 70-75 Mbps.  My iPhone 6s can get over 100 Mbps — wireless Internet that is just as fast as wired.  As I walk farther away in my house the speed decreases, but it remains noticeably faster on the iPhone 6s.

Hey Siri

The iPhone previously had the ability to use the Hey Siri function when it was plugged in to power.  Thus, if you were charging your iPhone, even when the screen was black because it was asleep, you could say “Hey Siri” followed by a command and the iPhone would respond.  Say “Hey Siri what time is it” and the iPhone will speak the current time.  With the iPhone 6s, Apple has moved the Hey Siri function onto the integrated M9 coprocessor, which means that Hey Siri can be turned on all the time — even when your iPhone is not charging — without draining the battery.

When I first heard of the improvement to Hey Siri, my thought was that it was interesting but that I would turn it off immediately.  After all, I don’t want my iPhone performing commands just because someone next to me says “Hey Siri.”  But on the iPhone 6s, the iPhone lets Siri learn your voice before Hey Siri is activated, which means the risk of someone else activating Siri is much lower.

As a test one night, I put my iPhone 6s in the middle of the table, when the screen was dark and it was asleep, and I said “Hey Siri what time is it.”  Siri instantly recognized my voice and told me the time.  Then I asked my wife, my son, and my daughter (who were sitting around the same table) to say the same thing.  Sure enough, Siri ignored them.  My son and daughter then attempted to imitate my voice, again with no success.  Mind you we are talking about a 7 year old girl and a 9 year old boy, so their attempts to imitate my deeper voice were fairly unconvincing, even though they did provide me and my wife with lots of comedy.  Nevertheless, this initial test — unscientific as it may be — led me to decide to keep the Hey Siri function on for a while and see how it works in real life.  It is pretty useful to be able to ask Siri a question without having to first hold down on the home button — especially if my hands are on my computer keyboard because I am writing a brief or typing an email.

Camera

There are four new features when it comes to taking pictures with an iPhone 6s.  First, the front-facing camera is a much better 5-megapixel camera (up from 1.2-megapixel) and the screen of the iPhone can flash to simulate a flash.  I don’t take many selfie pictures, so this doesn’t mean much to me, but I won’t judge if high-quality selfie pictures are important to you.

Second, the new Live Photos feature automatically captures the 1.5 seconds of video before and after you take a picture and saves that as a movie along with the picture itself.  The result is a picture that takes up twice as much space, but you have the ability to 3D Touch in a picture to see what happened just before and just after the picture.  If you have kids or pets, this could be a fun feature — and the feature is especially amusing to my kids since we just finished reading all of the Harry Potter books.

Third, the back camera features a 12-megapixel camera (up from the 8-megapixel iPhone 6).  This can result in slightly better pictures, although in my limited tests so far it hasn’t proven to be a major improvement over the iPhone 6.  Even so, it is nice for the camera to get better every year with every new iPhone.

Fourth, you can now choose to capture video in 4K.  I haven’t decided if I will use this feature.  On the one hand, TVs are so much better today than they were 20 years ago that I’m sure they will be even better 20 years from now, so part of me wants to preserve the highest quality video of my kids so that the quality looks good even in the future when the technology is much improved.  On the other hand, 4K video takes up a lot of space, although I do have the largest iPhone model (128 GB) so I suppose I have room for it. 

I’m glad to have these four new features, especially since I take a lot more pictures and video with my iPhone than with my Nikon DSLR camera, which takes beautiful pictures but is big and heavy and a pain to carry around.  The camera on the iPhone 6 was already pretty darn good, but it is nice to be better.

Other changes

Those are the big changes, but there are some other improvements.  The iPhone body is stronger as a result is the use of a new aluminum casing.  The glass on the face of the iPhone is stronger.  There is a new Rose Gold color, which is like a metallic pink.  (I got the Space Gray model.)

The iPhone 6s is also sightly heavier than the iPhone 6 (143 g/5.0 oz versus 129 g/4.6 oz).  It’s not something I notice unless I put one phone in each hand and actually try to feel the difference; in every day use the weight feels about the same.  Note, however, that I have heard that the weight difference is more noticeable on the iPhone 6s Plus, which is 192 g/6.8 oz versus 172 g/6.1 oz for the iPhone 6 Plus.

The iPhone 6 was the first iPhone that I ever used every day with a case, because the curved sides made it somewhat slippery and I was afraid that I would drop it without a case.  The iPhone 6s feels just as slippery to me, so I guess I’ll be using that case again for another year.

Upgrade experience

This is the seventh year that I have upgraded to a new iPhone.  Some upgrades have been better than others, but this upgrade did not go smoothly for me. 

My typical advice for an iPhone upgrade is to connect your old iPhone to a computer running iTunes and do an encrypted backup.  That way, even your passwords and settings are stored in the backup file.  Then connect the new iPhone to the computer and restore from that same backup file.  This system has worked very well for me in the past.

I knew that this year would be different because I use an Apple Watch, which is designed to work with only a specific iPhone.  I would also have to move it to the new iPhone.

Based on what did and did not work for me, here is what I recommend that you do if you own an Apple Watch and you are upgrading:

1. Launch the Apple Watch app on your old iPhone, tap the first option “Apple Watch,” and select Unpair Apple Watch.  That will backup the contents of your Apple Watch to your old iPhone, and then remove the connection.
2. Connect the old iPhone to a computer and do an encrypted backup.
3. In iTunes on that computer, click on the App section, then click the Updates tab, and click Upgrade All Apps in the bottom right corner.
4. Connect the new iPhone to the computer and follow the instructions to restore from that backup that you just made.
5. Launch the Apple Watch app on your new iPhone, pair it to your Apple Watch, and select to restore the Apple Watch from the backup that you made in Step #1.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do Step #3, and it caused me a lot of problems because some apps were not correctly updated on my new iPhone.  Instead, I saw many apps on the iPhone 6s with dark icons and the word “Waiting…” under each app, as shown here:

I never could figure out how to force those apps to finish updating.  After trying lots of other steps (re-syncing to the computer, signing out of the App Store and signing back in again, tapping on the icon, screaming at the icons, etc.) I ultimately had to delete each affected app from my iPhone and download a fresh new copy from the App Store.  For some apps, that was actually no big deal because the app contained no unique data for me.  For other apps that had some data associated with them, I lost that data when I deleted the app and downloaded a new copy.  (For example, I lost my workflows in the Workflow app and my actions in the Launch Center Pro app, and I had to recreate them.  Fortunately I could consult my old iPhone 6 to to do so.)

Hopefully you won’t have any of these problems when you upgrade.  Perhaps my advice will help.

Conclusion

Apple is now on its ninth iPhone model, and it is still managing to come up with great new features.  The iPhone 6s is a true joy to use.  3D Touch is fantastic, making it faster to get things done on an iPhone, and this feature will become even more useful when third parties embrace it.  Also, the increased speed and the other new features all contribute to the overall experience.  The iPhone 6s is a nice upgrade from last year’s iPhone 6, but if you are using an older model of the iPhone then this will be a huge upgrade for you.

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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.

Apple announced on September 21 that iOS 9 had the fastest adoption rate ever of any version of iOS, with more than 50 percent of devices updated only five days after iOS 9 became available for download.  When you think about how many iPhones and iPads are in use, that is a very impressive number.  On September 23, Apple released a minor update to iOS 9, version 9.0.1, to fix a few minor bugs.  Earlier this week, the iPad mini 4 went on sale, and today, the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus go on sale.  Suffice it to say that there is a lot going on right now in the world of iOS.  And now, the other news of note from the past week: 

• Do you enjoy reading this In the news post every week, and wish that you could have more of something similar?  Florida attorney Katie Floyd has started posting a Week in Review post on Sundays (9/20, 9/13, 9/6).  The format is similar, although her focus is on iOS and Mac, as opposed to the focus here on iOS and attorneys.  The first three installments have been excellent, and I think that most iPhone J.D. readers would enjoy reading them as much as I do.  Check out her KatieFloyd.com website to read them every week.
• Do you want to vote for iPhone J.D. in a contest?  The Expert Institute nominated iPhone J.D. for its list of best legal blogs, and is running a contest to see which blogs get the most votes.  You can click here and then click the Vote button to vote for iPhone J.D.  But for an opposing viewpoint, the 3 Geeks and a Law Blog makes its best — and funniest — argument that you should vote against iPhone J.D. and vote for that blog instead.  Whoever you decide to vote for, no registration is required, so this will take you like two seconds to do.
• North Carolina attorney Brian Focht of The Cyber Advocate interviewed New York attorney Nicole Black to discuss the role that wearable technology, such as the Apple Watch, will have for attorneys.
• Attorney Jeremy Horwitz of 9to5 Mac notes that, based on the early reviews, the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus cameras give high-end DSLR cameras a run for the money.
• For a contrary view, Geoffrey Fowler of the Wall Street Journal opines that while the iPhone 6s Plus camera is the best all-around smartphone camera on the market today, it is not as big an improvement over last year’s iPhone 6 Plus as he would have liked.
• Speaking of that camera, one of the reasons to get the larger iPhone 6s Plus over the iPhone 6s is that the Plus model has optical image stabilization, which can make a big difference when shooting video.  John Gruber of Daring Fireball linked to this video by Giga Tech which shows side-by-side video taken by both new iPhones, and it is easy to see what a difference optical image stabilization makes.  I hope that Apple eventually brings this technology to the small model of the iPhone.
• Microsoft announced on its Office Blog that it introduced a new app called Invite that makes it easier to determine the best time for a meeting that work for all of the attendees.
• Aly Keves of The Daily Dot reports that you can now use the Starbucks app to place an order before you even get to the store, and then skip the line when you get there.
• Jason Snell of Six Colors explains the new Lower Power Mode in iOS 9.
• Rene Ritchie of iMore explains 3D Touch, the new technology in the iPhone 6s that has been getting rave reviews.
• Rene Ritchie also reviews the new iPad mini 4.  It is basically everything that you like about the iPad Air 2, but in a smaller and lighter size.
• Dan Moren of Six Colors discusses how he uses his Apple Watch after five months.  My experience is similar to his.
• Federico Viticci of MacStories reviews Just Press Record, a simple voice recorder for the iPhone that you can be used to record and play audio on the Apple Watch.
• T-Mobile announced this week that it will start selling the Apple Watch, and will let you pay for the Apple Watch Sport in 24 monthly installments with no interest — so only about $15 or $16 a month.
• A high school football player says that his Apple Watch recently saved his life when the heart rate monitor readings prompted him to go to the hospital and discover that he had a life-threatening condition.  Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook heard about this, talked to the guy, and then offered the guy an Apple internship, which is a great stepping stone to getting a job at Apple — sort of like Apple’s version of a summer associate at a law firm.
• Sandy Stachowiak of AppAdvice reviews iTranslate, an app that can translate between languages on the Apple Watch.
• If you use your Apple Watch when you workout and find that you sometimes accidentally tap the screen — it has never happened to me, but I guess it does happen for others — Serenity Caldwell of iMore reports that there is a new option in watchOS 2 that you can use to lock the screen during a workout.
• Roman Loyola of Macworld reports that he temporarily lost his Apple Watch because he uses the last notch on the Sport Band to fit his wrist.  But as he notes, Apple recently started selling a L/XL version of the Sport Band (although only in black or white, not the 16 colors available in the other sizes) which is perfect for larger wrists.  I myself have a larger wrist and use the last notch on my M/L Sport Band, and Loyola’s experience is making me wonder if I should get the larger size band.
• If you watch the Netflix show Orange is the New Black, then you should watch this video produced by Netflix to announce that you can now pay for Netflix via iTunes.  Funny stuff.
• And finally, there is now a two-minute long trailer for the upcoming Steve Jobs movie, which will be in theaters next month.  This is the movie written by Aaron Sorkin and based on the popular book by Walter Isaacson.  The early reviews have been very positive, so my hope is that this will be a good movie.  Here is the new trailer:

The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus go on sale this Friday.  Apple gave review units to a small number of people two weeks ago, and they were allowed to post their reviews starting yesterday.  Thus, if you want to learn more about the 2015 models of the iPhone from folks who have had a chance to try them out, now you can do so.  Some reviews are more interesting than others, and here are the ones that I recommend if you want to read more:

• John Gruber of Daring Fireball explains why the iPhone 6s is a bigger advancement than last year’s iPhone 6 was.
• Christina Warren of Mashable believes that 3D Touch is a game changer, likes the new Live Photos feature, and also likes the new pink color (which Apple calls Rose Gold).
• John Paczkowski of BuzzFeed loves 3D Touch.
• Attorney Nilay Patel of The Verge prefers the iPhone 6s Plus, and likes 3D Touch but thinks that third party developers need to start implementing 3D Touch before it will live up to its potential.
• David Pogue of Yahoo Tech says that the biggest improvements are speed and 3D Touch.
• Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal is disappointed that Apple didn’t improve the battery life, and thinks that Live Photos is the best new feature.

Yesterday, Apple released watchOS 2, the first major software update for the Apple Watch since the watch was first released about five months ago.  With watchOS 2, the Apple Watch feels more complete, with lots of features that seemed to be missing in the past.  For example, you can now use the Apple Watch to reply to an email.  I’ve found it very useful to reply to text messages on the watch, so I suspect that I’ll use this feature quite a bit too.  You have the ability to dictate a reply, but I suspect it will be far more useful to tap one of the default replies.  Apple includes some common useful replies such as “Let me get back to you” and “Got it, thanks” and “Working on this now.”  You also have the ability to create your own default replies. 

But I think that the big new feature in watchOS 2 will be the better support for third party apps.  Because the update just came out yesterday, we’ll have to wait and see how third parties take advantage of the new features.  Third party apps should be faster since they can now run natively on the watch.  Also, I’m really looking forward to seeing third parties take advantage of the opportunity to add their own complications to a watch face.  I’m sure that developers will come up with some creative and useful complications that provide features on the watch face that Apple doesn’t provide.  And if you use your Apple Watch when you workout, third parties will be able to make their own workout apps that can use the same live health sensor data (such as your heart rate) that the built-in Workout app uses, plus you can use those third party apps and still get credit on your Activity circles.

Speaking of working out with an Apple Watch, it is now much faster to start a workout.  Instead of taking the time to find the Workout app, launch it, and then press the correct buttons to start a workout, you can now use Siri both to launch the app and to start the workout.  Just activate Siri on the watch (hold down the Digital Crown for a second) and say something like “Start outdoor run workout” and the workout begins, without you having to press any other buttons.  It’s nice to be able to get right in to your workout without fiddling with the watch.

As someone who uses Apple’s HomeKit technology (I have Lutron Caséta Wireless Dimmers installed in some of the rooms in my house), I’m thrilled that Siri on the Apple Watch can now control HomeKit.  I can just tell my watch to turn on, or dim, lights in different rooms in my house, even if my iPhone is on the other side of the house.  Not only is it useful, but also it feels like magic.

If you want to get more details on everything that is new in watchOS 2, I recommend the review of watchOS 2 that Rene Ritchie of iMore wrote.  Also useful is Apple’s own webpage devoted to watch OS 2, this short overview from Jim Dalrymple of The Loop, and the list of new features compiled by Christian Zibreg of iDownloadBlog.  And here is Serenity Caldwell of iMore’s list of her ten favorite watchOS 2 features.

I’ll warn you that the update process wasn’t as smooth for me as I would have liked.  During my first attempt to update my watch, the process seemed to just hang when my iPhone was at the stage of verifying the update (before putting the new software on the watch).  I had to restart my iPhone and Apple Watch and try again.  Fortunately, the second time worked fine.

There’s lots that is new today in watchOS 2, but perhaps most of all, I’m really excited to see what will be new on the Apple Watch in the coming weeks and months as third party app developers come up with innovative ways to take advantage of the powerful new tools that Apple has given them in watchOS 2.  If you own an Apple Watch, you should upgrade.

There are lots of great new features in the new iOS 9, and for the last few days I’ve been looking at a feature that I think will be really useful for lawyers and their clients:  the new Markup feature in Mail in iOS 9.  This feature gives the Mail app the built-in ability to perform simple annotations on documents, including adding a signature to a document.  Thus, it is now quick and easy to circle some key parts of a document that one of your colleagues or opposing counsel needs to address.  It is also easy for you to emphasize a part of a document for your client to review.  And because it is simple to add a signature in a document, you can sign something that someone else sent you without leaving the Mail app.

Selecting a file to markup

I suspect that this feature will be most useful to me when someone sends me a PDF file and I want to reply with an annotated version of the document.  It is now very easy to do this on an iPad or an iPhone.  (The below pictures are on an iPad.)  Just hold down your finger on the PDF attachment, and look at the bottom row of options.  One of the options on that row is now Markup and Reply; it has an icon that looks like a toolbox.  Tap that icon, and the Mail app will start a reply email (note — in my tests it started a Reply All, not just a Reply to the original sender) with the documents attached and then will open up the attachment so that you can annotate it.

Alternatively, if you already have a PDF attachment to an email that you are working on, just hold down on the document, and in the pop-up menu you will see an option called Markup.  Looks like it is the fourth option.

In this post, I focus on annotating PDF files because we use them so much as lawyers, but note that the Markup feature also works with images.

Annotating the document

The next step is to annotate.  The new Markup feature only includes basic annotation tools.  You cannot highlight, add stamps, etc.  Instead, your options are limited to freehand drawing, typing text or creating a zoom circle.

To start drawing on a document, select the pen tool at the bottom left.  You can then draw anywhere on the document.

You can change the color of the ink by pressing the circle icon, third from the right at the bottom of the screen.  You can change the size of the pen by tapping the icon with the three lines.

If you draw something that looks like a shape (a circle, ellipses, square, rectangle, line, triangle), after you draw you will see an option at the bottom of the screen to leave it the way that you drew it or to change it to a perfect shape.  That option is shown in the prior image, and this next image shows what a corrected shape looks like:

I wish that there was an option to turn a line into an arrow by adding a triangle head to one end of it.  For now, it looks like you need to draw your own arrows.

UPDATE:  Another lawyer at my firm just showed me that you can create arrows.  Just draw something that looks close to an arrow, in a single stroke, and then at the bottom of the screen tap the arrow option to clean it up.  My error was making a line, then lifting my finger, then drawing the triangle on the end of the line with a second stroke.  You instead need to keep your finger on the screen while you are making both the line and the head of the arrow.

When the pen tool is turned on (blue box around the pen icon), you can draw on the screen.  When the pen tool is turned off, you can tap on any annotation that you have made and choose to delete it, edit it or duplicate it.

The second tool is a magnification loupe.  It creates a circle that zooms in on a part of the document.  Both the size of the circle and the magnification of the zoom are adjustable.  This gives you the ability to zoom into a part of the document.

The third tool is the text tool.  It works as you would expect — tap a part of a document and then write some words.  You can adjust the color, and you can also adjust the font by tapping the icon at the bottom right.

Signatures

Markup also makes it fast and easy to add signatures to document.  Just tap the fourth icon at the bottom.  The first time you do so, you will be prompted to enter your signature.

You can then add the signature to your document.  Drag the four corners of the signature to adjust the size, and drag the signature to the right location.

After you enter your signature once, it is stored and shared to your other devices.  Thus, you might want to sign the first time on your iPad, taking advantage of the larger screen and perhaps even using a stylus to create a nice signature, and then you can easily use that same signature in the future on your iPad or iPhone just by tapping on it after you press the signature icon.  You can create and store multiple signatures.

When you are done with all of your annotations, just tap Done.  Then you can send your email with the annotated file attached.

Usefulness of Markup

The Markup feature doesn’t do anything that you cannot already do with third-party apps.  And third-party apps offer more annotation features, such as highlighting.  And many third party apps, such as GoodReader, let you flatten a file before you send it so that the annotations become a more permanent part of the document.  Annotations that you create using the Markup feature can be deleted, edited or moved around by the person to whom you send the annotated document.

Having said that, it is nice to have an option built-in to Mail because it is so much faster to use.  If you just want to quickly circle something in a document, Markup can do it well, and do it fast.

I can also see Markup being useful if you want to send a document to a client and you want them to circle something or sign the document.  Plus, you can send a document to anyone else using an iPhone or iPad and ask them to sign it without needing to worry about whether they have a third party app installed that can perform that function.  They do need to be running iOS 9, which is currently brand new, but eventually most people will be on iOS 9.

Have you updated your iPhone and iPad to iOS 9 yet?  You should.  From everything I have been reading, this is the most problem-free iOS upgrade ever.  The new features are fantastic (some of which are discussed below), you’ll get more battery life, everything is more polished and advanced, and it costs you nothing to upgrade.  Bravo, Apple.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Florida attorney Katie Floyd analyzes whether AppleCare+ for the new iPhone 6s is really worth it.
• In an article for Above the Law, California attorney Jeff Bennion interviews Texas attorney Tom Mighell, author of iPad in One Hour for Lawyers, to talk about how lawyers can make the best use of an iPad.
• Tom Mighell also compares the iPad Pro with the Windows Surface Pro 3.
• New York attorney Nick Squillante of TechnoLawyer discusses the upcoming iPad Pro.
• California attorney David Sparks talks about some of his favorite features in iOS 9.
• Ohio attorney Brett Burney recommends Felt, an iPad app that lets you create handwritten notes that are sent in the U.S. Mail.
• In an article for SuperSite for Windows, Jason Snell discusses 5 new iOS 9 features to get excited about.
• Over on Macworld, Jason Snell explains that, based upon his hands-on experience with the upcoming iPhone 6s, Apple did a great job with the new 3D Touch feature.
• Caitlin McGarry of Macworld discusses the new features of the Mail app in iOS 9.
• watchOS 2.0 was supposed to be released this week, but Apple delayed it for a short time to fix a bug that it found at the last minute.  While you wait to update your Apple Watch, you can read about all of the upcoming new features in Rene Ritchie definitive review of watchOS 2.0 on iMore.
• David Pierce of Wired talks about the development of Apple’s upcoming stylus, the Apple Pencil.
• Apple has cut the price of iCloud storage, which you can use to share documents between an iPhone, iPad and Mac.  iCloud is most useful for me as a way to make all of the photos on my Mac (almost 50,000) also available on my iPhone and iPad, which is great when I want to share that one picture from 13 years ago that I remember.  And of course, iCloud is also a place to store your documents.  Dan Moren of Six Colors describes the new iCloud plans and shows how they compare to Dropbox and other cloud storage services.
• Dan Moren also discusses the new improvements to the Maps app in iOS 9.
• Jeff Benjamin of iDownloadBlog says that one of his favorite features of iOS 9 on the iPad is the new folder layout, which now shows you 16 apps in a folder (up from 9).  I like this change too.
• Greg Kimparak of TechCrunch identifies 15 less obvious features in iOS 9.
• David Pogue of Yahoo Tech reviews the DxO One, a $600 accessory for an iPhone that lets it take SLR-quality photographs.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook was in New York this week, and John Paczkowski of BuzzFeed had the chance to ask him some questions.
• And finally, the reason that Tim Cook was in New York was to be a guest on the new Late Show with Stephen Colbert.  It was a great interview, with Cook and Colbert both at their best.  Definitely worth watching.  Here is the video:

Yesterday, Apple released iOS 9 for the iPhone and iPad.  It is a solid, free upgrade that adds some great new features.  The new Notes app is particularly nice, with support for inserting pictures, creating checklists (great for a packing list), etc.  The split view will help me to be even more productive on my iPad. 

But I’m just as excited about all of the tiny improvements, each of which makes your day-to-day usage of the iPhone and iPad so much better.  For example:

• The keys on the keyboard change to uppercase or lowercase letters depending upon the mode.  Thus, you no longer have to stare at the shift key and try to guess whether it is on or off.  Amen.
• When you hold down the home button on the iPhone to activate Siri, you no longer get an audible beep and instead just get a discreet vibration.
• You can swipe from left to right on your first home screen to perform a search, but that page also gives you helpful shortcuts that Siri thinks that you might want to use, such as recent contacts, apps you are likely to want to launch, etc.  It is a little thing that makes the iPhone faster and easier to use.  I really like it.
• Third parties can now add themselves to that Siri search screen.  For example, I use 1Password to store my passwords.  I can now swipe to the search screen and type “Apple ID” to see an entry for my Apple ID password in the 1Password app.  When I tap it, the 1Password app launches directly to that entry so that I can quickly see my long and complicated password.  Other apps can also add themselves to the search screen.
• The system font on the iPhone used to be Helvetica Neue, but in iOS 9 it changes to an Apple-designed font called San Francisco, the font used on the Apple Watch.  It is a subtle change, but I find it easier to read.

For more information on everything that is new, I have two sets of recommended articles.  First, if you just want a nice short overview of the highlights, I liked these articles:

• Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal:  iOS 9 Review: An Upgrade That Will Save You Time and Battery
• David Pogue of Yahoo Tech: Want to Boost Your iPhone’s Speed and Battery Life? Install iOS 9
• Oscar Raymundo of Macworld:  iOS 9 FAQ: Everything you need to know about Apple’s new mobile OS

Second, if you want to dig deeper, I recommend these longer articles:

• Rene Ritchie of iMore:  The Definitive iOS 9 Review.
• Federico Viticci of MacStories:  iOS 9: The MacStories Review, Created on iPad
• Jason Snell of Six Colors:  iOS 9 in review: iPad productivity
• Serenity Caldwell of iMore:  What’s changed in iOS 9 for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
• Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica:  iOS 9, thoroughly reviewed

Today, Apple will release the latest version of the iPhone and iPad operating system, iOS 9, plus the first major upgrade to the Apple Watch operating system, watchOS 2.0.

[UPDATE:  iOS 9 was released around 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern.  However, Apple is delaying the release of watchOS 2.0; Rene Ritchie of iMore has more details in this article.]

I discussed the major features of iOS 9 in my post three months ago.  Many iPads will get the option to run two apps at the same time, Siri is greatly improved, there is a much better Notes app, better battery life, and lots of other little improvements that will make the overall experience of using an iPhone and iPad much better.

For Apple Watch owners, today will be the first major upgrade.  I think that the biggest two improvements will be native third party apps (which should be much faster and more powerful) and third party complications, so that you can better customize your watch face.  The new Time Travel feature gives you the opportunity to see upcoming events by just turning the Digital Crown.  And there are lots of other improvements:  Siri is improved, you will be able to reply to an email on the watch, the new Nightstand mode is added, etc.  If you want more details, Serenity Caldwell of iMore wrote a good post on what is new in watchOS 2.0.

It’s always nice when the device that you already own gets better.  If you own an iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch, that will happen today.  Apple hasn’t announced what time the updates will go live, but based on what has happened in the past my best guess is around 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern.  Enjoy!

I noted yesterday that I’m curious to find out if the weight of the larger iPad Pro will be a problem.  Jason Snell, the former head of Macworld who now writes at Six Colors, wrote about the weight based on his hands-on time with the iPad Pro, saying:  “The thing that struck me the most about the iPad Pro was how light it feels. It weighs the same as the original iPad, but that pound-and-a-half is spread across its 12-by-8.7-inch body. During the stage presentation, they showed photos of someone casually holding the iPad Pro with one hand. It looked wrong—like a bit of marketing hype, trying to make you think that this iPad that’s so large it’s illustrated with a picture of Jupiter isn’t so huge—but it turned out to be right.”  And Jim Dalrymple of The Loop wrote:  “After using iPad Pro yesterday, I can tell you it’s gorgeous. The screen is outstanding, it’s fast, the battery will last 10 hours, and it’s lightweight.”  That’s good news to me, because if the weight is not a problem, I see the larger size of the iPad Pro as a great feature for lawyers who need to work with documents all day long.  And now, a few other news items of note from the past week:

• Attorney Jeremy Horwitz of 9to5Mac points out 10 lesser-known items about Apple’s new products announced this week.
• Writing over at Macworld, Jason Snell describes his experience with the new Smart Keyboard for the iPad Pro.
• Daniel Eran Dilger of AppleInsider describes his experience with the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil.
• Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica shows off all of the new Apple Watch bands.
• One set of the new Apple Watch bands were created by luxury-goods maker Hermès with assistance from Apple.  Christina Passariello of the Wall Street Journal reports on how these bands came about.
• Microsoft announced, on its Office Blog, that its iOS apps such as Word are being updated for iOS 9.  For example, you will be able to use the Inking function to write handwritten edits on a document.  I do that now, but I have to first convert a Word document to a PDF and open it in a PDF editor to do so.  It will be handy to do it directly within Word.
• Matt Apuzzo, David Sanger and Michael Schmidt of the New York Times report that when the Department of Justice asked Apple to turn over text messages of iPhone owners, Apple’s response was no — because the encryption that Apple uses makes it impossible to do so.  DOJ wants Apple to figure out some way to give the government access, but the article quotes Apple’s CEO’s Tim Cook to describe the problems with this approach:  “If you put a key under the mat for the cops, a burglar can find it, too.  [And if criminals or countries] know there’s a key hidden somewhere, they won’t stop until they find it.”
• Jennifer Reingold of Fortune writes about Angela Ahrendts, the head of Apple retail.
• Dieter Bohn of The Verge reports that BlackBerry is acquiring Good Technology.  That story was like a walk down memory lane for me; before the iPhone existed I used a Palm Treo running Good Technology software for email, and before that, I used a BlackBerry device for email.
• Do you want to watch a movie or a TV show but don’t know the best way to stream it?   In an article for Macworld, J.R. Bookwalter reviews JustWatch, a free website that shows you everywhere that you can stream or download specific titles.
• Rory Appleton of The Fresno Bee reports that a college student in California was shot by a robber — but fortunately he was protected when the bullet hit his iPhone in his pocket.  Who needs Wonder Woman’s bracelets when you have an iPhone.
• One of the Apple employees to show off the new Apple TV at the keynote event this week was Jen Folse, a member of the Apple TV team.  It was her first appearance on stage at an Apple event, and while I noticed in the video stream that her fingernails were painted blue, I didn’t notice until I saw an up-close photograph after the event that she actually had them painted with the graphic that Siri makes when you talk to it in iOS 9, as you can see here and here. Awesome and funny.
• And finally, if you want to sell your current iPhone to help pay for the new iPhone 6s, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal offers some excellent tips in this video:

Yesterday, Apple announced all of its new hardware for the Fall of 2015.  The new Apple TV looks like a lot of fun, and there are new bands and colors for the Apple Watch, but today I want to focus on the new products that lawyers will use to be more productive:  the iPhone 6s (and the iPhone 6s Plus) and the iPad Pro.  The new iPhone looks the same as last year’s model but includes amazing new features on the inside.  The new iPad Pro looks very different from prior models, mostly because it is so large, but also because of two accessories made by Apple to work with the iPad Pro:  a stylus and a keyboard/case.  Here is why I think that lawyers will really love the new iPhone and iPad.

IPHONE 6S AND IPHONE 6S PLUS

The new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus cost the same as last year’s models, so there is no extra charge for the “s” in the name.  You can pre-order them starting in the wee hours of Saturday September 12 at 12:01 am Pacific / 3:01 am Eastern, and they will be available starting Friday, September 25.

3D Touch

The big new feature of the iPhone 6s is 3D Touch.  Apple has taken the Force Touch technology on the Apple Watch (which distinguishes between simply tapping and pushing down harder) and has brought it to the iPhone.  For example, you can still tap on an app’s icon to launch the app, but 3D Touch lets you push down a little harder on the app’s icon to see a pop-up menu of options to do with that app.  This saves you steps.  Instead of launching the app and then selecting an option, you can just jump straight to that option.  For example, instead of tapping the Messages app, you can push harder on the app and jump directly into your conversation with a specific person. 

Apple is also using 3D Touch to introduce something called Peek and Pop.  Peek lets you preview something, and Pop let’s you act upon it.  So if you are looking at a list of emails, a light press on an email lets you Peek to preview the contents, letting you see the email without formally opening the email.  If you want to actually work with the email, press harder to Pop it open.  Today you might tap an email, see what it is about and decide that you want to work with it later, and then mark it as unread and go back to your list.  With 3D Touch, you can quickly Peek at the email and decide whether you want to do something with it or just leave it unread.

You can also use Peek and Pop on items such as a webpage URL (peek at the website before deciding if you want to actually load it in Safari) or an address (see a map preview).

3D Touch adds a certain degree of complexity, but many folks who were able to try it yesterday at the Apple demonstration say that it quickly becomes second nature.  I’m sure that it is very similar to learning the difference between a left-click and a right-click on a computer mouse; the left-click is simple to understand, but once you learn to use the right-click you have a lot more power.

Faster Wi-Fi and LTE

The Wi-Fi on the iPhone 6s adds a feature called MIMO (multiple-input and multiple output).  Most new routers have this, including Apple’s own Airport Extreme, which I reviewed last year.  The end result is that your Wi-Fi can be up to twice as fast.

The iPhone 6s also supports LTE Advanced.  This means that cellular data can be twice as fast, but you have to be using a carrier that supports LTE Advanced, and you must be in a city where it is available.  Over time, however, LTE Advanced will spread to more areas, and the iPhone 6s will be ready for it.

Speed

The brain (the CPU) of the iPhone 6s is 70% faster than the iPhone 6, and the graphics processor (the GPU) is 90% faster.  This means that the iPhone is even more responsive, which is always a good thing. 

It also lets the iPhone do new things such as use the “Hey Siri” function even when the iPhone isn’t plugged in to power.  Your iPhone can just be sitting on your desk and you can ask Siri a question and have it respond.  I look forward to trying this to see how it works in the real world.  Do I have to worry about someone else standing close to me and saying “Hey Siri” and triggering some option, such as placing a phone call?  So the jury’s still out for me on whether I’ll turn that feature on, but I like that the new iPhone 6s is powerful and efficient enough to allow for new features like this.

Camera

The iPhone 6s also features an improved camera on the back (the iSight camera).  It features a 12-megapixel camera (up from the 8-megapixel iPhone 6).  Autofocus is faster and better.  The iPhone 6s can record 4K video (up from 1080p on the iPhone 6). 

The camera on the front (called the FaceTime camera) is also improved.  It is a 5-megapixel camera (up from 1.2-megapixel) and the front of the iPhone can flash white to simulate a flash when you are taking that selfie picture in a bar late at night.

Other features

One of the things that I don’t like about the iPhone 6 is that it has slippery edges.  The iPhone 6 was the first iPhone I’ve used that I feel needs to be in a case to prevent it from slipping out of my fingers.  The iPhone 6s has the same design, so you’ll probably want a case for it too.  But if you are not hiding your iPhone 6s in a case, then you might be interested to learn that in addition to the Silver, Space Gray and Gold colors that last year’s iPhone 6 came in, the iPhone 6s adds the color Rose Gold — sort of a shiny pink.

Touch ID is also improved, so the fingerprint sensor can read your fingerprint even faster.  I suppose that is a good thing, although it is already pretty darn fast on my iPhone 6.

The iPhone 6s also features something called Live Photos — a photo that you can tap to see motion, based on a series of photos.  For those of you with kids, this feature reminds me of the photographs in Harry Potter in which the individuals in photos move around as you look at them.

IPAD PRO

Apple will continue to sell the 2014 iPad Air 2 and the 2013 iPad Air, but if you want a new iPad you need to go either smaller or bigger.  The new iPad mini 4 packs all of the power of last year’s iPad Air 2 into the smaller size of the mini, and starts at $269.

I know that the mini has its fans, but I’ve always considered a larger screen an advantage for getting work done with the iPad, whether I am reading documents or working with exhibits.  Thus, I am particularly introduced in the brand new iPad Pro.  It starts at $799 for a 32 GB version, and costs $949 for a 128 GB version.  (And for another $130, you can get the 128 GB version with built-in 3G LTE.)  It will be available in November, but Apple hasn’t given a specific date.

Larger Screen

The biggest feature of the iPad Pro is that it is big.  The new iPad Pro features a 12.9-inch display.  The iPad Air 2 has a 9.7-inch display.  So whereas the iPad Air 2 is 9.4 inches high and 6.6 inches wide, the new iPad Pro is 12 inches high and 8.68 inches wide.

Another way to get a sense of the size difference it to consider pixels.  The iPad Air 2 has a resolution of 2048 by 1536 (at 264 pixels per inch).  The iPad Pro has the same number of pixels per inch, but has a resolution of 2732 by 2048.  Note the 2048 in both resolutions.  If you hold the older iPad in portrait orientation and look at how high the screen is (2048 pixels high), that is the width of the new iPad Pro.

I’m excited about this new screen size.  I spend a lot of time reading documents on my iPad, whether they be Word files or scanned exhibits, and everything should be easier to read on the bigger screen.

One of the marquee features of iOS 9 is the ability to run two apps at the same time on an iPad.  With the iPad Pro, you’ll be able to run one app with all of the pixels that it would have had on an iPad Air, plus you’ll have space left over to see a second app that is running at the same time.  In other words, you can run two apps at once, and yet one of those apps will be the same size that it would have been on the non-Pro iPad.

Weight

My big concern about the iPad Pro is what do you sacrifice by having that larger size.  Weight is the first thing that jumps to my mind.  The original 2010 iPad was 1.5 pounds, which seemed heavy, but over time the iPad got thinner and lighter, down to about 1 pound for the iPad Air, and slightly under a pound for the iPad Air 2.  But the iPad Pro is the heaviest iPad ever, weighing 1.57 pounds. 

While the iPad Pro is essentially the same weight as the original iPad, it only .27 inches in depth, making it about half as thin as the original iPad.  And that 1.5 pounds of weight is distributed over a much larger size.  Does that distribution of weight over a thinner and larger device make the iPad Pro feel lighter that the original iPad?  My hope is yes.  Jason Snell of Six Colors got to try out the new iPad Pro yesterday, and he said last night on the Upgrade podcast that the iPad Pro feels super-light, and he had no trouble holding it with one hand.  Similarly, Dana Wollman of Engadget says “it feels lighter than it looks.”  On the other hand, Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica says “The tablet is 6.9mm thick and weighs about a pound and a half, and as you’d expect you wouldn’t want to hold it in one hand for very long. You can hold it comfortably in one hand for short stretches, though—it manages to be large without feeling overly unwieldy.”  I look forward to trying it myself to see what I think.

Speed

Like the new iPhone, the new iPad Pro is much faster.  So much so that Apple says that it is faster than most laptop computers.  Phil Schiller of Apple said yesterday that the iPad Pro is faster than 80% of PC laptops sold in the last 12 months.

The message here is that this is an iPad that can compete with a laptop computer.  Much like Microsoft positions its Surface Pro as a computer that gives you many of the advantages of a tablet, the new iPad Pro is Apple’s version of a tablet that gives you many of the advantages of a laptop computer.  I thought it telling that when Apple introduced the iPad in 2010, it showed off its iWork apps including its Pages word processor.  But yesterday, Apple brought Microsoft executives on the stage to show off the iPad Pro running Microsoft Word.  Apple clearly sees the iPad Pro as a tablet for folks looking to get work done.  (Of course, the larger screen and improved speed will also be awesome for games and watching movies.)

Stylus

I’m a big fan of using a stylus with an iPad to take handwritten notes during a meeting and to annotate documents.  Third-party manufacturers have done a great job of making some really good styluses, but they are not perfect.  Active styluses can have small tips but are somewhat unresponsive and often do a poor job with things like diagonal lines, and traditional styluses need larger tips that make you feel like you are writing with a marker or a thick crayon instead of a pen.

Apple is introducing a $99 accessory for the iPad Pro called the Apple Pencil, and it looks amazing.  Apple says that it has updated the hardware in the iPad itself to work with the Apple Pencil and be amazingly precise and responsive.  The Apple Pencil is pressure sensitive, so you can push down harder for wider lines.  And the iPad can sense with the Apple Pencil is at an angle, letting you create shading in apps much like you would do with a charcoal pencil.

The Apple Pencil gets 12 hours of battery life on a charge, so you can use it all day long.  To charge it, you just remove the cap off of the back of the stylus and plug the stylus into the Lightning port on an iPad.  Indeed, if your Apple Pencil’s battery is dead, you can simply plug it in to the iPad for only 15 seconds and you will get 30 minutes of battery life.  Wow.

I am incredibly excited to try out the Apple Pencil and see how it works in real life.  And while I’m sure that Apple made a high-quality stylus, I hope that third parties will be allowed to take advantage of the new technology to make their own iPad Pro styluses.  I’m sure that companies like Wacom and Adonit could create some incredible styluses that built upon what Apple did with the Apple Pencil.

Keyboard

I often use an external Bluetooth keyboard with my iPad when I travel, such as when I want to write longer email messages.  Yesterday, Apple introduced another accessory for the iPad Pro called the Smart Keyboard.  It is a thin keyboard built into an iPad cover, and costs $169.

Putting a keyboard in an iPad cover is nothing new, and in the past I haven’t liked those keyboards because they didn’t feature full-size keys, the only way to make a keyboard small enough to fit on an iPad case.  But with the larger iPad Pro screen, the case can also be larger, so the keyboard can also be larger.  I’ll have to try this one out, but it looks promising.

The keyboard also has a new connector, which Apple calls the Smart Connector, which lets the Smart Keyboard talk to the iPad (without using Bluetooth) and get power (so no internal battery is required).  Third parties can use this connector too, so Apple won’t be the only one offering cool new keyboards for the iPad Pro.

CONCLUSION

For those of us who use an iPhone and iPad to get work done, the new improvements to the iPhone and iPad sound great.  I’m most interested in 3D Touch on the iPhone, the larger screen on the iPad Pro, and the Apple Pencil — three features that I can see myself using every day.