Month: October 2015

Whenever there is a discussion of lawyers using iPads, a frequent topic is when is it appropriate to use an iPad instead of a computer.  Thus, I thought it was interesting when I saw a post on Twitter this week about the most famous iPad-using lawyer in the country, President Obama.  Pete Souza, the Chief White House Photographer, posted a picture this week of President Obama working at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.  Then, in response to a question about why there isn’t a computer on President Obama’s desk, Souza explained that the President just uses an iPad.  Feel free to tell folks that if it is good enough for the President, then it is good enough for you, if someone asks why you are using an iPad to get your work done.  And now, the news of note from this week:

• Speaking of Pete Souza, most of his presidential photographs are taken with a high-end camera, but he also uses an iPhone to take and post pictures on Instagram (and Twitter).  This week, I enjoyed listening to an interview of Souza on Episode 20 of the Hashtagged podcast, in which Souza discusses how he started to use an iPhone to take official White House pictures.  He also discusses this famous photograph taken in the situation room on May 1, 2011 during the mission to find Osama bin Laden.
• Des Moines, Iowa attorney Victoria Herring explains why she likes wearing an Apple Watch in an article for the ABA’s GP Solo website.
• The Apple TV officially goes on sale today.  I enjoyed watching a short interview on CNN Money with Apple Senior VP Eddie Cue in which he discusses the Apple TV.  The easiest way to watch both parts of the interview is to start at this post by Dave Mark on The Loop.
• Ben Thompson of Stratechery discusses why Apple is doing just fine, notwithstanding what some stock analysts might say.
• Jason Snell writes for Macworld about the big takeaways from Apple’s 2015 Q4 earnings call this week.
• Lance Ulanoff wrote an interesting article on Mashable about Apple’s drive to make the perfect device.
• Steven Levy, who knew Steve Jobs and frequently interviewed him, isn’t a fan of the new Steve Jobs movie.  Levy posted an interesting interview this week with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin about the liberties taken in the movie.
• If you want to switch from Evernote to Apple’s Notes app, you can move all of your notes using a program on a Mac.  David Pogue of Yahoo Tech explains the process.
• Based on analysis by Chris O’Brien of VentureBeat, it appears that Apple has sold more than $1.7 billion worth of Apple Watches.
• Need a costume idea for Halloween?  Evan Killham of Cult of Mac points out that you can just ask Siri.
• Law Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University visited New Orleans this week and posted a few fun pictures, and discussed lawyering in the Big Easy.  No, this doesn’t have anything to do with the iPhone, but I’m always happy to see lawyers (and others!) have a good time down here in New Orleans.
• And finally, now that I’m off the topic of the iPhone anyway, I’ll conclude today with a link to this silly video of a Jeopardy game that I think I could totally win (via The Loop):

The Apple TV has always been the best way to display content from your iPhone or iPad on a television.  You can show off pictures and videos that you took on a large HDTV, and you can mirror your screen so that others can see web pages, apps, etc. that you are using on your device.  Additionally, the Apple TV has provided a way to stream video from services such as Netflix and HBO.  Starting this Friday, Apple will start selling the new (fourth generation) Apple TV, which can run its own apps and works with the new — and very cool — Siri Remote. 

Apple gave review units of the Apple TV to select journalists, and their reviews started to go online last night.  If you have been wondering whether a new Apple TV is right for you, here are the reviews that I found interesting:

• John Paczkowski of BuzzFeed:  “Apple says the future of TV is apps. That may or may not prove true, but after a couple days with the new Apple TV, it’s a compelling argument. Turns out custom-building a TV from a broad palette of apps that includes everything from pay TV channels and games to travel accommodation services and Periscope is a great way to get exactly the TV experience you want — or close to it, anyway. The new Apple TV isn’t just an upgraded set-top box, it’s the first ‘true’ Apple TV, one that articulates Apple’s vision of what the TV viewing experience should be. It’s an appealing vision.”
• Christina Bonnington of Refinery29:  “If you are an iPhone user and you own a TV, you’re going to want the new Apple TV.”
• Christina Warren of Mashable:  “The remote is, in a word, fantastic. It’s slightly larger than the old Apple TV remote and it includes a few more dedicated buttons for menu, home, play/pause and Siri. … It feels awesome in the hand. If you’ve ever used a trackpad on a MacBook, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro — you’ll be familiar with the experience.  Swiping faster on the touchpad moves faster across the interface, slower goes slower. Movements are extremely precise and never felt out of control. The remote is Bluetooth — not IR — so you don’t need direct line of sight to navigate — which is nice. On some Bluetooth-based remotes, I’ve noticed lag between a selection and what happens on screen but the Siri remote always keeps up.”
• Nilay Patel of The Verge:  “I asked for ‘‘80s movies with Tom Cruise on Netflix’ and Siri found me Top Gun and Risky Business, for example. Delightful. Once you select a movie or show, Siri will open a universal landing page that deep links you right into the various services that offer the content. So if you search for Game of Thrones, you’ll see that you can buy it on iTunes and stream it on HBO Go or HBO Now, and you’re off to the races. In terms of iterative improvements to the Apple TV, this is the most important thing Apple could have done, and the execution here is among the best in the game.”
• Geoffrey Fowler of the Wall Street Journal:  “I think the Apple TV lays the best foundation for what I want TV to become.  The Apple TV’s greatest edge is its remote control. That may sound trivial, but other efforts to make apps work on TVs have been comically complex. …  The Apple TV gets the Internet TV remote right by reaching for the same touch-screen feeling that makes the iPhone intuitive to a 2-year-old. The new remote has a glass touchpad on one end that you swipe and tap around with your thumb as if it’s an iPhone. Without having to look down, you feel connected to what’s happening on the big screen.”
• David Pogue of Yahoo Tech:  “Apple has taught Apple TV to recognize natural voice commands in four categories: finding videos, navigating playback, opening apps, and asking questions. … It’s clear that Apple worked its fingers to the bone on this; it works unbelievably well. You have to give a lot of commands before you find a failure.”
• Brian Chen of The New York Times:  “Even for those more basic elements, the device is better at streaming video content than less expensive products from Amazon, Roku and Google, all of which I tested over the last month. While the new Apple box has flaws, it also has a cleaner interface for finding things to watch and a niftier remote control — not to mention more compelling apps and games.”
• Walt Mossberg of The Verge:  “Apple TV has become a sort of iPhone or iPad for the TV, a platform for apps usable across a room. By making the box another vessel for its giant assortment of third-party apps and home-grown services, Apple is putting itself in a position to host programming the networks and studios are increasingly streaming, as well as new kinds of TV content.”
• Patrick O’Rourke of MobileSyrup:  “In true Apple fashion, my initial impression of the Apple TV is that it feels exceedingly refined, similar to most Apple products. It’s clear this revamp of Apple’s set-top box has been in development for a number of years; everything from the device’s new iOS 9-based user interface (UI) – dubbed tvOS – to its sleek Siri Remote is both visually and functionally impressive.  But is the Apple TV a better device than the plethora of already released Android set-top boxes, or my current favourite streaming device, the Roku 3? In most respects, yes: The new Apple TV is significantly ahead of the competition in terms of design and hardware, especially when it comes to the device’s UI and Siri Remote.”

Apple starts a new fiscal year at the end of September every year.  Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2015 fiscal fourth quarter (which ran from June 28, 2015 to September 26, 2015) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results.  Apple's largest financial quarter is always the first fiscal quarter (the one that we are in now) because it includes the holiday sales during November and December.  But because of a surge in iPhone sales at the very end of the last fiscal quarter — the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus went on sale on September 25, and the quarter ended the next day — this turned out to be a hugely profitable quarter for Apple.  Yesterday, Apple announced quarterly revenue of $51.5 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.1 billion, making it Apple's best ever fiscal fourth quarter.  And because it was the end of the fiscal year, Apple also reported revenue for the fiscal year of $234 billion, which is $58 billion (28%) more than 2014.  As John Gruber of Daring Fireball remarked:  "The most profitable company on the planet today, and revenue and profit are still growing at around 30 percent annually."

If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the announcement conference call from iTunes, or you can read a rough transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha, or you can read a transcript prepared by Serenity Caldwell and Jason Snell over at iMore.  Apple's official press release is here.  Here are the things said on the call yesterday that I think would be of interest to iPhone and iPad users:

iPhone

• During the past quarter, Apple sold just over 48 million iPhones, the most that Apple has ever sold in a fiscal fourth quarter. A big chunk of those were the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus phones sold in the last two days of the quarter; Apple CEO Tim Cook previously announced that Apple sold 13 million new iPhones in the first three days that the new models were on sale, and the first two of those days were in the last fiscal quarter.  By comparison, in the 2014 fiscal fourth quarter, Apple sold just over 39 million iPhones, and the end of that quarter included the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
• 30% of folks who purchased an iPhone in the last quarter to replace a prior smartphone were switching from Android, the highest Android switch rate that Apple has ever seen since it started measuring switchers a few years ago.
• By my count, as of September 26, 2015, Apple had sold over 821 million iPhones since they first went on sale in 2007.

iPad

• Apple sold almost 10 million iPads (9.873 million).  That's the fewest iPads that Apple has sold in a fiscal quarter since 2011. 
• By my count, as of September 26, 2015, Apple had sold almost 292 million iPads since they first went on sale in 2010.
• Cook referenced that Apple will start to sell the brand new iPad Pro next month.  It will be interesting to see what kid of demand there is for the iPad Pro considering that overall iPad sales have been down recently.
• Here is my updated chart showing iPhone and iPad sales to date, by fiscal quarter.  Looking at the trend, it seems likely that in the current quarter that includes the 2015 holiday season, Apple will sell over 100 million iOS devices for the first time ever.  Indeed, Apple might even sell close to 100 million iPhones alone this quarter.

Etc.

• Cook said that Apple sold more of the Apple Watch in the fiscal fourth quarter than it had in the fiscal third quarter (which was higher than the fiscal second quarter) so Apple Watch sales are on the rise.
• Cook said that there over 13,000 apps on the Watch App Store, 1,300 of which are native apps designed for watchOS 2.0.
• Apple's revenue in China doubled from the previous year.  Tim Cook says that, at some point, he believes that China will be Apple's biggest market.
• iOS 9 adoption is very strong, and the updated operating system for the iPhone and iPad was downloaded by more users than any software release in Apple's history.  Today, six weeks after it was released on September 16, 61% of active iOS devices are already running iOS 9.
• 6.5 million people are paying for Apple Music.  Another 8.5 million people are still in a free 3-month trial of Apple Music.
• Apple Pay will be available to American Express customers in Australia and Canada before the end of 2015, and will expand to Spain, Singapore, and Hong Kong in 2016.

Thank you to Lit Software for sponsoring iPhone J.D.  Many of you know Lit Software because of the company’s fantastic TrialPad and TranscriptPad apps.  The company’s newest app is DocReviewPad, an app that you can use to review and annotate documents on your iPad.  It is the only app of its kind for the iPad, and it turns an iPad into an even more useful litigation tool for attorneys.  For my overview of the basic features of DocReviewPad, check out the review that I posted in July.  But since then, the company has issued three updates to add new features and improvements.

The most recent major update was version 1.2, which came just a few days ago, and it adds some great new features.  (And that update was tweaked today, October 27th, with Version 1.2.1.)  My favorite new feature is that you can now create a tag or issue code at the page level.  In the past, you could only assign issue codes tags or issue codes for an entire document — which usually makes sense, but in some circumstances is not as precise.

After you assign issue codes, when you create a document report, the report will now show you whether the issue code applies to the entire document (and will give you the Bates range of the document), plus the report will show you if there is a document for which the issue code applies to just one or a few pages of the document (with an indication of both the total Bates range of the document, plus the specific Bates number pages on which the issue code appears).

Another new feature is a redact tool, useful if you have a document that you need to produce which contains information that is privileged, trade secret, or otherwise not appropriate for disclosure.  Note that this is not a “true” redaction in that DocReviewPad simply obscures the content with a black box, which means a PDF editor could still reveal the content below the black box.  However, if you print the document with the redacted portion obscured and then re-scan the page that you printed, you will then have an electronic file that can be produced and which doesn’t contain the redacted words or information underneath the black box.

One nice interface improvement is that there is no longer a single “Annotate” tool which contains both the highlight and the pen function.  Instead, there is a separate button for “Highlight” and for “Pen.”  Both of those tools are so useful that it makes sense to give them dedicated buttons so that you can select them more quickly.

Another interface improvement is that you can now hold your finger down on a document image and a pop-up menu will appear with useful options:  rename document, remove or update the appearance of the Bates number that you applied, assign a new Bates number, extract pages (with the option to select a starting and ending page, plus a file name for the extracted pages), and close the document.

Other new features include the ability to search for a specific Bates number as well as OCR data and document name, and a notification of gaps in the Bates number sequence.

DocReviewPad was a great app when it was launched in July, but it continues to get more useful thanks to frequent updates adding new features.  It is amazing that you can use an iPad to store, organize and review all of the documents in your case, and even create production sets.  But even if you just want a tool for applying Bates numbers to a set of documents, DocReviewPad works great for that function alone and is easier to use than any other software I’ve tried for the computer or iPad.

Click here for DocReviewPad ($89.99): 

The Steve Jobs movie comes out today, although it has been in limited release for a few weeks now.  From everything I’ve read it sounds like a great movie for folks who like Aaron Sorkin’s fast-talking style, and with its three acts the movie is more like a stage play than a motion picture.  Having said that, I understand that the movie is so full of factual inaccuracies that it seems almost unfair to call it the “Steve Jobs” movie.  Good articles by Walt Mossberg and John Gruber suggest that it would have been better if the movie had changed the name of the main character from Steve Jobs to something else so that it was clear that this is a work of fiction, much like Orson Welles made a movie loosely based on William Randolph Hearst but then called it Citizen Kane — not Citizen Hearst — to account for the artistic liberties.  As California attorney David Sparks writes:  “Aaron Sorkin writes some great dialogue and the story does pull you in.  However, there is so little connection between the movie and actual events, that you have to wonder why they called it Steve Jobs at all.”  I’m sure that I’ll see the movie eventually, and because I am a fan of Sorkin’s work, I suspect that I will enjoy this as a movie.  But if you see it, don’t expect this to be anything close to a true biography.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• If you practice law in Louisiana like I do, you’ll be pleased to learn that New Orleans attorney Matt Miller has updated his $4.99 Louisiana Civil Code app to contain the current law.  It is a free upgrade for prior users of the app.
• Attorney Jeremy Horwitz of 9to5Mac explains why the new Apple TV that comes out next week is worth getting.
• Apple released iOS 9.1 this week.  It adds new emoji characters such as a taco, rolling eyes, a middle finger, and even a fleur-de-lis (a favorite for those of us in New Orleans).  Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia has a good list of the new ones.  If you have an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus, iOS 9.1 also does a better job creating live photos when you move your camera after taking a shot.
• Apple also released watchOS 2.0.1 this week.  The update includes those new emoji characters and also fixes a lot of bugs and improves performance and battery life.
• Christina Warren of Mashable interviewed Apple’s Chief Design Officer Jony Ive.
• Nate Raymond of Reuters reports that Apple told a federal court that it is impossible for Apple to access data on an iPhone running iOS 8 or iOS 9. Apple said that it is technically possible for the company to access data on the 10% of iPhones still running iOS 7 or earlier, but Apple would not do so unless ordered by a court.
• Christian Zibreg of iDownloadBlog reports on some of the highlights of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s appearance this week at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference.
• Rene Ritchie of iMore reviews Apple’s newest Magic Keyboard.  I love using the prior model of Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard with my iPad.  I don’t think it is worth spending the money to upgrade because that older keyboard still works great for me, but if you are looking to get a Bluetooth keyboard for your iPad, you’ll want to consider the new Magic Keyboard.
• Jordon Kahn of 9to5Mac discusses a new report from AAA on how distracting it is to use the iPhone/Siri and other hands-free technology while driving.
• And finally, Adam Lisagor of Sandwich Video has started to produce a hilarious new series of videos called Computer Show.  It is a computer-related talk show from the early 1980s that interviews folks from the technology world today — which means that the co-hosts are mighty confused as to what is going on.  It is amazing how well these are done; they walk the fine line between parody and being a spot-on duplication of shows that I used to watch when I was a kid, back when the Apple II was high technology.  So far, there are two videos.  The first video, embedded below, is very funny.  Watch that one first.  But then don’t miss the second one which answers the question of what someone from the early 1980s might think of an iPhone.

Ever since the first model of the Apple TV went on sale in 2007, it has been the best way to get content from your Apple devices on your TV.  The last big update to the Apple TV was in 2012, although there was a minor update in 2013.  On September 9, 2015, at the same time that Apple introduced the iPhone 6s and the iPad Pro, Apple announced the new version of the Apple TV.  Yesterday, during an interview at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple would start taking orders for the new Apple TV on Monday, October 26, and said that the device would start shipping by the end of the week.  There will be a $149 model with 32 GB, and a $199 model with 64 GB.

The new Apple TV will have a fresh new interface, and thanks to its use of the Apple A8 chip (the same chip used in last year’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus) it will be substantially faster and more responsive than the prior model of the Apple TV (which used an A5, the chip that was in the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4s).  It will come with a new remote that has a touch pad and buttons for common functions. Early reviews indicate that the touch pad will be very precise for scrubbing through shows, and I hope that this is true.  Fast-forward and rewind on the current Apple TV always seems to me to be difficult to control, and never gets me exactly where I wanted to go.

One of the buttons on the new remote will trigger Siri.  Just hold down the button and tell the TV what you are looking for, such as the name of a movie or a TV show, or a particular actor or genre.  At launch, Apple TV will be able to search Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Showtime and iTunes.  You can also use Siri to ask questions or give commans, such as “who directed this movie” or “fast forward two minutes.”  One neat feature:  you can ask Siri “what did he (or she) just say” and the show will not only rewind 15 seconds but will also temporarily turn on closed captioning so that you can read the words on the screen as well as hear the words again.  Very neat.

The new Apple TV also supports third party apps.  I’m sure that we will see lots of games on the Apple TV, just l like we have a huge number of games on the iPhone and iPad.  I don’t currently have a game console in my house; in fact, it occurs to me that I haven’t had a game system hooked up to my own television since I had an Atari 2600 and a ColecoVision in the early 1980s.  I doubt that the Apple TV will support the sophisticated games that can be played consoles like the PlayStation and Xbox, but my guess is that the games that Apple TV supports will still be plenty fun.  I’m just as interested to see what non-game apps are introduced for the Apple TV.  As Tim Cook said yesterday:  “Apps are the future … things that you want to do on a larger screen.  Games are a part of it, but there are many other genres.”

The Apple TV has always been a nice way to show off something on the iPhone or iPad on a large screen so that it can be shared with others.  And if you have a Mac at your house, the Apple TV has always been a great way to show off your home movies, photographs and other media.  With the new features that will be available starting next week, the Apple TV has the potential to be much, much more.

Apple will start selling the iPad Pro and its little buddy, the Apple Pencil stylus, in November.  We don’t have a release date yet, but Roger Fingas of AppleInsider reports that both products were approved this week by the FCC.  Rumors are that Apple will start taking pre-orders in the next week or so, with shipments starting in the first week of November.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Lit Software previews what TrialPad will look like on the larger iPad Pro.
• California attorney David Sparks discusses the apps on the home screen of his iPhone.
• Jonny Evans of Computerworld has a good list of iOS 9 tips.
• Jared Newman of PCWorld reports that JetBlue is starting free and fast Wi-Fi service on its flights — fast enough to even stream video.
• Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post reports that Gary Allen has passed away.  For many years, Allen published the definitive website on Apple retail stores, and he visited more stores and had more experiences in lines outside of Apple Stores than anyone else.  He will be missed.
• Allyson Kazmucha discusses some of the reasons that 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s is great.  I love it too.
• Federico Viticci of MacStories reports on the new versions of Pages and Numbers for iOS released by Apple this week.
• Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels reviews the new Notes app in iOS 9.
• And finally, have you ever wanted to be in the middle of a music video?  You can do so if you load this 3D YouTube video on your iPhone or iPad and make it full screen.  Then move your device around while the video plays and you will be in the middle of the action.  If you have a chair that swivels, it is fun to sit in that chair and spin around with your iPhone or iPad in your hand while the video is playing.  The video is embedded below, but to make it work I think that you need to click or tap here to load the video in the YouTube app.  This is a song from the Andrew Lloyd Weber upcoming Broadway show School of Rock — the Musical.

I love my Apple Watch, even though the time that I spend using it every day pales in comparison to my iPhone and iPad.  That is because some of its most useful features are the ones that just take a few seconds to use — such as being able to quickly look at what my next appointment is, quickly see how I am doing on my Activity circles for the day, quickly skip to the next music track, and of course glance to see the current time or date.  This presents somewhat of a challenge to third party app developers, because some of the best apps will be those that don’t do very much, but do it in a great way.  I was pleased to see that Iconfactory released a free app this week called Clicker because it manages to be a great app by just doing one simple task well:  it counts in increments of one.

Launch the Clicker app on your iPhone and you see a number — zero, the first time that you launch the app.  Tap anywhere on the screen and the large number increases by one.  Tap it again to increase by one again. 

The only other feature of the app is that if you force-click, you can decrease by one (useful if you tapped by accident and didn’t mean to increase the counter) and you can Reset (to clear and go back to zero).

The app also features a small complication.  It serves two simple purposes.  First, it displays the current number in the clicker app so that you can see the current number right next to the clock.  Second, if you tap that number on the clock face, the Clicker app launches.

Clicker is a native app on the Apple Watch, so it launches quickly, plus you can use Clicker even if your iPhone is turned off, in Airplane Mode, or is not nearby.

As for why you would use the Clicker app, there are countless (ahem) reasons.  The developer says that he uses Clicker to track how many days he swims laps.  Watching the number increase gives him motivation to swim more often.  Whatever your own personal goals are, you could tap once day every time that you achieve it for that day.

You could also use it for tasks that require tapping more frequently.  How about the number of times that opposing counsel uses a certain word or phrase during opening or closing argument so that, when you stand up to give your response, you can point out that they said it too many times (or too few).  Or perhaps you are figuring out how many items you have and want to avoid losing count half-way through. 

The app worked great when I tested it yesterday, although I was just playing around with it and wasn’t using it to keep track of anything real.  I’m not even sure what task I will use this app for first, but I love knowing it is right there on my wrist, waiting for me.  And since the app is free, there’s no reason not to download it so that you have it handy the next time that you need to count.

Click here to get Clicker (free): 

Yesterday, Microsoft released updates to its Office suite of apps on the iPhone and iPad, including Word and Excel.  (Version 1.14.)  Looking forward to some new features, I updated my apps.  Unfortunately, after updating the apps, Word and Excel started crashing upon launch.  Hopefully, some of you did not have this problem and were able to apply the updates successfully.  I’m writing today with some tips for those of you who had the same problem that I had, but not just for that audience; these same tips should help you any time that you have a problem after updating any other app in iOS.

[UPDATE 10/14/15:  Last night, Microsoft released Version 1.14.1 of its Office apps for iOS.  It appears to me that this update fixes this specific problem, although Microsoft’s release notes do not disclose what is different between 1.14 and 1.14.1.  If you have not yet installed 1.14, you should be safe to install 1.14.1.]

The problem

The specific problem here occurred right after I updated the app and launched it for the first time.  At first all seemed fine.  I saw some introductory screens and scrolled through them.  After those screens, I tapped a button to start using the app.  From that point on, one of two things would happen.  Most of the time, the app would just immediately crash after launching.  Other times, right after launch the app would tell me “Updating…” but would just hang and do nothing at all.

I experienced the same problem with the Microsoft Excel app after it was updated.  And the problem occurred on both my iPhone 6s and my iPad Air 2.

Solutions

Here are the steps that I try when something like this happens to me when updating an app.

First, of course, you can try to launch the app again.  Always worth a try.

Second, force quit the app.  You do this by double-pressing on the Home Button so that you can see your active apps, and then swipe up on the preview screen for the app in question.  Then try to launch the app again.  This often fixes problems for me, but it didn’t work yesterday for Word or Excel.

Third, force quit the app again and restart your iPhone or iPad.  Then launch the app right after your device has restarted.  I’ve had this work in the past, but again, it didn’t work yesterday.

Fourth, delete the app and reinstall it.  To delete an app put your finger on the app icon for a few seconds until the icons start to jiggle.  Then tap the X in the top left corner to delete the app.  Then download the app again from the App Store.  You won’t be charged again for an app that you already paid for.

That fourth step is what Microsoft Support recommended that I try.  And it did work to a certain extent when I tried it on my iPhone; the freshly downloaded version of the app launched with no problem, and I still had access to all files stored in cloud services such as Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive.  The problem, however, was that I lost all of the Word documents that had been stored locally on my iPhone.  That wasn’t really a problem for me on my iPhone because I store very few documents in Word on my iPhone and none of them are the only copy of the file; I use the app on my iPhone mostly to read and revise Word documents attached to an email.

However, my iPad was a different story.  I had some documents saved locally on my iPad that I didn’t want to lose.  All of them existed in some form in some other location, but it would be a pain to track them down again.  Fortunately, there is a way to recover files in an iPhone or iPad app even if the app itself won’t launch.  Simply use a USB cable to attach your device to a computer with iTunes, then in the iTunes program on your computer tap on the icon for the device, then tap on Apps in the sidebar.  The top part of iTunes will say “Apps” and contains a list of apps on the left and each of your iOS screens on the right.  Scroll down below that to a section called File Sharing.  You’ll see another set of apps on the left, and if you click on an app, on the right you will see a list of documents locally saved in that app. 

You can access those documents using drag-and-drop on your computer.  So I created a folder on my desktop called Word Docs, then selected all of the Word documents listed in iTunes and dragged them to that folder.  That created a copy of all of the documents in Word on my iPad and added them to that folder on my Mac.  I then deleted the app on my iPad and reinstalled it.  It worked great upon reinstall but contained no locally-saved apps.  Then I connected to iTunes again, went to that same File Sharing section, and dragged all of the documents from that folder on my computer’s desktop to the Word app on my iPad.  It only took a second or two for the files to be copied over, and I could even see them showing up on the screen of Word on my iPad as I did so.  I did the same thing for the Excel app, and I was back in business.

Fortunately, most apps that I use on my iPhone and iPad are very stable even when frequently updated.  But every once in a while, there is a bug.  Hopefully these tips will come in handy if you see something like this on your own device — whether it be this recent update to Word and Excel or some other app.  And if you have your own tips to share for dealing with app problems after an update, I’d love it if you posted a comment to share with me and others.

In an interview this week with NPR’s Robert Siegel on All Things Considered, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that he believes that privacy is a fundamental human right, and explained how Apple builds privacy into the iPhone and its other products.  For example, while Apple must comply with the laws of the U.S. government and other governments when ordered to produce information, Apple’s approach is to not collect personal information, and to encrypt personal data kept on devices.  Thus, “we design our products in such a way that privacy is designed into the product, and security is designed in.”  Cook also explained that Apple resists the idea of creating a back door in its products for government use because if a back door exists, then bad guys will also find a way to access it.  I appreciate this dedication to privacy, not only because I have information on my iPhone and iPad protected by the attorney-client privilege, but also because of the private information that I keep on my devices relating to my finances, health, and other personal matters.  It is an interesting interview, and you can listen to the eight-minute interview or read about it here. You can also read Tim Cook’s privacy statement on Apple’s website.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks discusses improvements in Apple Maps.
• Speaking of security, Apple introduced a revised two-factor authentication system to maintain security on your devices in a way that is easier to deal with.  With this system, it is much harder for a bad guy to access your private information even if he has your password.  I’ve started using the new system, and it works very well.  Security expert Glenn Flesighman of Macworld does a good job explaining how the new two-factor authentication system works.  I recommend that you start using it.
• Do you sometimes find yourself trying to make or receive a call on your iPhone when you are in an area with poor cellular coverage but decent Wi-Fi?  If so, a feature called Wi-Fi Calling lets your iPhone use Wi-Fi instead of cellular to make calls when the cellular connection is poor.  AT&T just turned on the feature this week (for the iPhone 6 and later).  Jeff Gamet of The Mac Observer explains in detail how to turn on Wi-Fi Calling.  Once you set it up the first time, you can easily turn it on or off from Settings on your iPhone. 
• Wi-Fi Calling just came to AT&T, but it was previously available for T-Mobile and Sprint.  Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reports that AT&T believes that those other carriers turned on the service prematurely, before they had FCC permission to do so.
• In an article for Tom’s Guide, Jason Snell picks some of his favorite apps that take advantage of 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus.  For those of you who have not yet upgraded, 3D Touch is one of those rare features that once you start using it, you want to use it all the time.  It works great.
• The new iPhones can also record 4K video, and according to photographer Lee Morris of Fstoppers, the iPhone 6s “appears to be a far better video camera than my $3000 DSLR when there is enough light present.”  And while 4K video may seem like overkill considering that most of us don’t even have 4K televisions, Morris also explains why there are other reasons to record in 4K.
• David Pogue of Yahoo Tech explains how the Chromecast Audio can give new life to an old speaker for only $35.
• Serenity Caldwell of iMore reviews the new Philips Hue HomeKit bridge that lets you control Hue lights with Siri.  I don’t have a need for colored lights in my house so the Hue lights don’t appeal to me, but I love using HomeKit to control lights in my own house using Lutron devices.  In fact, I just added another dimmer switch last week so that now my porch lights can automatically come on at sunset, turn off at sunrise, and be dimmed and controlled any time that I want.
• This week, Apple started to sell the Hermès versions of the Apple Watch.  Prices range from $1,100 to $1,500 depending upon which type of band you get.  Rene Ritchie of iMore explained some of the basic details of this product, but if you want to have a better understanding of what it means for Apple to team up with Hermès, I recommend this article by Benjamin Clymer of Hodinkee, a high-end watch website.
• Fantastical, my favorite calendar app on the iPhone and iPad, now has a new Apple Watch app.  Abdel Ibrahim of Watch Aware discusses the new Fantastical app.  It has been working great for me, and I now use the Fantastical complication on my watch face instead of Apple’s own calendar complication.
• Katie Benner of the New York Times reports that you will soon be able to use Apple Pay at Starbucks, KFC and Chili’s.
• And finally, Serenity Caldwell of iMore takes only 20 seconds to show off what is new about the iPhone 6s in this very short video: