Once again, the big Apple news this week was the FBI’s request that Apple be ordered to come up with a way to break its own encryption. Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down for a 30 minute interview with ABC News anchor David Muir to discuss the issues. Some of the questions and answers are repetitive, but Tim Cook does an excellent job explaining and defending Apple’s position. Yesterday, Apple filed a motion to vacate the order in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and you can read a copy here. It’s very well-drafted brief, authored by Ted Olson and other attorneys at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher along with the ZwillGen law firm. (My only critique is that they call the software that Apple is being asked to create GovtOS, when I think that FBiOS sounds much better.) Next week, Apple’s General Counsel Bruce Sewell will testify before a congressional hearing on encryption, as reported by Dan Moren of Six Colors. The issues surrounding this continue to be fascinating. As Apple points out, if the government can use the All Writs Act to order Apple to write software to facilitate hacking into an iPhone, what is to prohibit the government from ordering Apple to create software to turn an iPhone into a remote surveillance device by turning on the microphone? And if the U.S. government can order this, so can the government of any other country. And once this software is created, what is to prevent other courts from trying to take advantage of it in non-terrorism cases, such as divorce cases, tax evasion cases, etc. And once hackers can access to this software, it can be used to invade the privacy and safety of virtually anyone — especially if a bad guy is able to use the Find Friends feature to track everyone in your family. Slippery slope arguments can sometimes be silly, but in this case I think Apple is correct that these are all natural consequences of this order. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Canadian attorney Simon Chester reflects on chairing the 1993 ABA TECHSHOW.
I often link to articles by California attorney David Sparks. This week, he reflects upon his one year anniversary of leaving a law firm after 20 years and hanging out his own shingle. I enjoy working at a large law firm, but it sounds like David made a choice that works well for him.
I’m not a big fan of iPad cases — I just use an Apple Smart Cover to protect the glass but have nothing on the back. But if you want one, Nicky Guy of The Wirecutter explains why the Apple Smart Case is the best option.
Alan of Art of the iPhone explains how to mute text message notifications for a specific contact.
Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reports that a 19-year-old girl was kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend, but her mother worked with the police to locate her using the iPhone’s Find My iPhone feature.
And finally, this is a few years old, but I just saw it recently: an advertisement for the law office of Lando Calrissian:
Earlier this week, I discussed Larry Port’s comment that it is easy to lose track of an Apple Pencil, and indeed Larry accidentally left his in a restaurant last week. (Good news: he recovered it.) My suggestion was to use a clip, such as the Fisher Chrome Clip, so that you can easily clip the Pencil to a pocket. Memphis attorney Darrell Phillips of Pietrangelo Cook PLC wrote to me with another suggestion: the Apple Pencil Magnet by Moxiware, a $14.95 sleeve for the Pencil that lets you attach the Pencil to the magnets built-in to the side of the iPad Pro. I had not heard of this product before, and Darell was nice enough to write a short review of this product for iPhone J.D. readers. He also took some pictures and even made a video to show it in action. Take it away, Darrell:
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I ordered the Moxiware Apple Pencil Magnet after trying the Switcheasy Coverbuddy for iPad Pro [$39.99 on Amazon] and finding it inadequate for my uses. The Coverbuddy is essentially a rear cover for the iPad, with a protruding Apple Pencil holder made of hard plastic. It works well, but I found that since I was using the Apple Pencil to take notes and, most frequently, with the iPad Pro flat on the table, the protruding holder was an annoyance because it made my writing surface uneven. The Coverbuddy is fairly well-reviewed on Amazon and I had no problems with its construction, but simply found it impractical for my daily use.
I then started looking for Apple Pencil holders with greater flexibility and ultimately discovered the Moxiware Apple Pencil Magnet. It is not extraordinary and does not ship with any fancy packaging, but it just works very well. It is a sleeve, through which you push the Pencil upon first use, and which cradles the pencil very snugly.
Half of the sleeve has a protruding magnet which adheres quite rigidly to various spots on the iPad Pro, both with and without the smart keyboard cover.
When I put my iPad away, I leave the Pencil stuck to the outside of the Smart Keyboard and, although it may shift a bit during transport, it (so far) appears to remain intact. The magnet is so strong that I do not worry about losing the Pencil because of an open bag, and the Pencil (to date) has not fallen off my device upon withdrawal from my briefcase.
When I am using my iPad Pro with the keyboard, I leave the Apple Pencil stuck to the tablet face. It looks smart and, although I am less likely to need the Pencil once I have decided to use keyboard mode, it is easily accessible and I am not likely to lose it or forget it.
Alternatively, when I am using the iPad Pro for note-taking, I frequently plop the Pencil on the side of the tablet face during breaks; it just seems to work there.
The presence of the magnet does not affect my grip at all; frankly, I use the Apple Pencil quite a bit for note-taking and am completely unaware of the magnet.
Here is a video showing the Apple Pencil Magnet in action:
Until the market presents a better alternative, this is the best product I have found to cradle my Apple Pencil.
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I see from the Moxiware website that in addition to the white model that Darrell uses, you can also get it in black, red, yellow, blue and green:
If any of you have discovered other useful third party products with your Apple Pencil, I’d love to hear about them. I suspect that many other interesting accessories will be coming out soon.
Thanks again to Darrell Phillips for reviewing this product. And by the way, while Darrell is now a litigator, I see that before law school he was a broadcast journalist, and he occasionally blogs about media law at NewsroomLegal.com.
Last night, I read a post by Larry Port on the Legal Productivity blog about things that he dislikes about the Apple Pencil. He had two complaints about charging the Apple Pencil: (1) it looks silly when the Pencil is connected to the side of an iPad and (2) there is no place to put the cap while you are charging. I respect Larry on issues of legal technology; he is the CEO and founder of Rocket Matter, one of the leading online services for law practice management. Nevertheless, I disagree with Larry on that first complaint, and I have a tip regarding the second one.
Charging on the side
One of the ways that you can charge an Apple Pencil is you remove the cap on the back and then connect it to the Lightning port on the iPad Pro. If your iPad is in the landscape position, that means that the Pencil will be sticking out of the side of the iPad Pro. Larry thinks that Apple should have done it another way because that is inelegant, but I disagree. I think it is brilliant that you can charge the Pencil using just the iPad Pro that is surely right next to the Pencil, without having to find a charging cord or adapter. Would I want the Pencil sticking out of the iPad all of the time? Of course not, but you don’t have to worry about that because it takes very little time to charge the Pencil.
If you are using the Apple Pencil and you get an alert on the iPad Pro that the battery is running low, you can connect the Pencil to the iPad Pro for only 15 seconds and get another 30 minutes of battery life, which for me is virtually always enough extra power to finish the task at hand. Later, when I am not using my iPad, I can plug in the Pencil for a little longer to get back up to a full charge. (It takes about 10 minutes to go from nothing to a 50% charge, and almost 20 minutes to go from nothing to a 100% charge.) Because the Pencil holds a charge for about 12 hours, I can go for days or weeks before I have to worry about charging the Pencil again.
You don’t need to use an iPad Pro’s Lightning port to charge an Apple Pencil — it comes with an adapter to use a Lightning cord — but that’s the way that I always do it. In my opinion, the convenience of being able to quickly recharge the Pencil without fumbling for a cord or adapter far outweighs the temporary unsightliness of having the Pencil connected to the side of the iPad for a few seconds or minutes.
A place for the cap
Regarding Larry’s second point about the cap, here is a tip: attach the cap to the magnets on the side of the iPad while the Pencil is charging. The sides of the iPad have numerous magnets designed to attach to the Apple Smart Cover and Smart Case — five on each of the long sides, and two on each of the short sides. Those magnets are more than strong enough to hold the cap. So whenever I charge my Pencil, I just put my cap on the magnet which is slightly above the Lightning port where my Pencil is plugged in.
Even if my iPad is propped up (e.g., using the Apple Smart Cover folded in a triangle), the magnet is strong enough to stop the cap from falling off. Best of all, I always know exactly where my cap is when it is time to return it to the back of the Pencil.
Get a clip
Larry did voice one complaint that I agree with: there is no easy place to store the Apple Pencil. And unfortunately for Larry, he wrote his post shortly after he had lost his Pencil at a restaurant earlier that day. (I hope he recovered it!) My solution, which I wrote about back in December, is to add a clip to the Apple Pencil such as the Fisher Chrome Clip. For just a few bucks, you can make it easy to clip an Apple Pencil in your shirt pocket, or in a side pocket in a briefcase or purse.
The big Apple news this week is that Apple is challenging a U.S. Magistrate Judge’s order, pursuant to the All Writs Act of 1789, that Apple must help the FBI unlock the iPhone 5c that belonged to a gunman who, with his wife, killed 14 people in San Bernadino, CA two months ago. Many, such as security expert Rich Mogull, believe that the FBI has been looking for the right case to set a legal precedent on the duty of a company like Apple to crack its own security when requested by the government, and with the horrific fact pattern of the San Bernadino shooting, the FBI may well hope that these facts will influence the ultimate legal ruling. In the past, Apple has complied with court orders to extract data from older iPhones that were locked. And even in this case, Apple turned over the data that it did have in its possession, including an iCloud backup of the iPhone in question from about two months before the shooting.
What Apple is resisting now is an attempt to force Apple to hack into the iPhone. This iPhone is running iOS 9, which not only makes it impossible to extract data from a locked phone, but also has built-in protection against a hacker guessing the password. If you look on your iPhone in Settings, and then tap Touch ID & Passcode, at the bottom there is a setting that erases all data on the device after 10 failed passcode attempts. So if the FBI just starts trying to guess the password and guesses wrong too many times, it risks losing all of the data on the phone, data that the FBI believes could be pertinent to its investigation.
To get around Apple’s own security and comply with this order, the FBI wants to force Apple to create a special version of iOS 9 and load it onto this iPhone 5c, a special iOS that doesn’t include the limitation of only 10 attempts, and one that also lets the FBI use a computer to rapidly enter different passcodes, many different times every second, so that the FBI could try to get access quickly. It has to be Apple that creates this special version of iOS — some have dubbed it FBI-OS — because the iPhone will only install a new operating system that is digitally signed by Apple itself. So the question of the day is, should the FBI be permitted to force Apple to create FBI-OS?
Apple CEO Tim Cook posted an open letter this week explaining why Apple opposes this. It is very interesting and well written, and I encourage you to read it if you haven’t done so already. In short, Apple is opposed to being forced to create a backdoor to its security. Once a backdoor is created, there is no guarantee that it would be used only in this one instance. Indeed, that may be why the FBI wants to create the legal precedent (and the tool), so that it can use it in many other cases.
Moreover, if Apple creates this backdoor for the FBI, it would presumably have to make it available to other governments in countries where Apple does business when they ask for it in an investigation, including oppressive regimes with a different view on human rights. And even if you assume that all governments only do what everyone would agree is good (ahem), it seems unrealistic to expect that FBI-OS, once created, would only be used by governments. Getting access to this tool would be such a tempting prize for hackers that it could just be a matter of time before it falls into the wrong hands.
As California attorney Megan Zavieh writes at Lawyerist.com, lawyers should pay particular attention to this case because of the privacy issues that are at stake. Moreover, there are serious questions about whether this order is a proper application of the 200-year old All Writs Act. This is a fascinating and important legal issue. I’m glad that Apple is taking a stand, and it will be interesting to see how this develops in the courts.
And now, the other news of note from the past week:
ABA TECHSHOW takes place in Chicago in just a few weeks, and I’ll be there. Because this is the 30th anniversary of TECHSHOW, the ABA has been talking to some of the attorneys who were in charge of the early conferences. Dan Hagens talks about the first TECHSHOW in 1986, when a big topic was using personal computers from IBM or Apple to do legal work. Jeff Aresty talks about the 1988 TECHSHOW, when there was as much interest from paralegals as attorneys because many attorneys didn’t handle their own technology.
Los Angeles attorney Jeffrey Kent reviews the Staad Attaché bag from WaterField Designs as a case for the iPad Pro on his Mobile Barbarian website.
Security expert Bruce Schneier writes an article in the Washington Post explaining why Apple’s position on FBI-OS is correct. For example, he writes: “What the FBI wants to do would make us less secure, even though it’s in the name of keeping us safe from harm. Powerful governments, democratic and totalitarian alike, want access to user data for both law enforcement and social control. We cannot build a backdoor that only works for a particular type of government, or only in the presence of a particular court order. Either everyone gets security or no one does.”
Brad Stone, Adam Satariano, and Gwen Ackerman of Bloomberg Businessweek interviewed Johny Srouji, the Apple VP who is in charge of creating the chips used in iPads and iPhones. It’s an interesting article and provides a view into a side of Apple that you don’t often hear about, even though it is incredibly important to Apple’s success.
Chance Miller of 9to5 Mac reports that all of the photography in the March issue of Bon Appétit magazine was shot using iPhones.
Speaking of food, John Callaham of iMore reports that you can now use the Domino’s pizza app to order a pizza from your Apple Watch, avoiding the effort required to reach for your iPhone or computer.
And finally, in the ultimate mashup of old and new, you can now play Pong (from 1972) on your Apple Watch with the app A Tiny Game of Pong. The app is free, but if you pay a buck you can unlock another game mode and the ability to change the color. I played it last night, and it was simple and fun — a good combination for an Apple Watch app. Here is a video showing it in action:
Over the past few years, many major websites have been hacked, exposing usernames, passwords, emails, and other private information. One example that received a lot of news coverage in 2015 was the data breach at Ashley Madison, a website that advertises itself as facilitating affairs (although some have concluded most of the supposed female users of the website are actually just bots).
There is an interesting article in Law Practice Today this month by attorney Sharon Nelson and her husband John Simek, both of whom are legal security experts and who run Sensei Enterprises, a digital forensics company. Their article is about the “deep web” and the “dark web,” parts of the Internet that you cannot access from a search engine like Google, and it is an interesting read on that topic. But today I want to focus on just one part of that article, the part in which they explain how they downloaded from the dark web (for research purposes) a copy of the breached data from Ashley Madison. One of the things that they saw in the data was all of the passwords people used on Ashley Madison.
Now remember that this is a website that people used to be unfaithful to their spouse, so you would presume that most users would select passwords that are even more secure than normal to try to avoid prying eyes — not only hackers, but also spouses. And yet the top ten passwords used on Ashley Madison, as revealed by Nelson and Simek, are ridiculous:
123456
12345
password
DEFAULT
123456789
qwerty
12345678
abc123
[redacted to keep iPhone J.D. family friendly]
1234567
According to a similar report from last year by reporter Keith Collins for Quartz (which lists the top 100 passwords used on Ashley Madison), that top password — 123456 — was used by over 120,000 users. And over 200,000 users used a string of numbers beginning with 1 and ending at 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9.
So this is another opportunity for me to urge you to use complex and unique passwords on each of the websites that you visit. And the easiest way to do that is to use a password manager, for all of the reasons that I discussed when I wrote about password security in June of 2015. I use 1Password, which works very well on the iPhone, iPad, PC and Mac, and which even has a useful Apple Watch app which works great for storing a few commonly-used passwords like a locker combination. In fact, just yesterday, 1Password introduced a new family plan so that your whole family can use, and when appropriate share, secure passwords. But whether you use 1Password or another product, I strongly encourage you to use something.
Click here to get 1Password for iOS (free, but $9.99 to unlock all features):
I have been involved in a large number of mediations over the last two decades (as a defense attorney), and most of my experiences have been very positive. Of course, mediation is not right for every case. I often see cases in which the best strategy is to try to convince the court to dismiss my client on a motion to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment, plus there are some cases that just need to go to trial. But for cases in which money will likely change hands at some point, mediation can be a great tool to achieve a fair settlement while minimizing defense costs for my client.
To obtain a favorable result in a mediation, you need to be well-prepared before you even begin the mediation. But while the mediation is ongoing, an important part of the strategy is to pick the right numbers to offer the other side. You need to act in a way that will move the mediation towards a fair end result, which means issuing offers most likely to result in good responses from your opponent during each step of the negotiations.
ADR MediationTool is an app that was released this past December which aims to help you make settlement offers as a defense attorney, or settlement demands as a plaintiff attorney, in a mediation or other settlement negotiation. The app costs $9.99, and the developer sent me a free copy so that I could check it out. My last mediation was in October of 2015 so I haven’t yet had a chance to test out this app in a real mediation, but I can already see that this app can be a useful tool.
To start using the app, tap the Settings button at the bottom right and add your basic case information such as case name and the names of the parties.
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If you are on the plaintiff side, you next tap the Plaintiff button to add your expenses, contingency fee and the dollar figure that you would like to obtain for your client. Then tap Negotiations to start the mediation, and the top of the screen will give you a target that matches those numbers. For example, in these screenshots you can see that I have indicated that expenses are $75,000, my contingency fee is 25%, and I want my client to get at least $250,000. The app tells me that I will need to reach a settlement target of at least $408,333 for those numbers to work.
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If you are on the defense side, tap Defendant on the main screen. That will bypass the part of the app with expenses, contingency fees, etc. and bring you right to the negotiation portion of the app.
This is the part of the app where you record the demands and the offers. In my example, the plaintiff has started with a $1 million demand, and I responded with a $50,000 offer. In the next round, the plaintiff demanded $950,000 and I offered $75,000.
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Whenever you enter a demand and an offer, the app shows you the midpoint for those numbers. That’s math that you can often just do in your head, but it is nice to see the midpoint automatically, and it is useful to see how the midpoint changes throughout the settlement process.
Whenever you are ready to start a new round, you tap the plus sign at the bottom left.
In addition to showing you the midpoint, the app shows you two other numbers that can help you. First, tap the midpoint until it turns red and the app will show you the response ratio — in other words, how much the defendant offered in response to the plaintiff’s demand. If the plaintiff goes down by $50,000 and the defendant goes up $25,000 in response, that is a 50% response ratio. By looking at your prior response ratios, one negotiating tactic is to make additional offers that are consistent with that ratio, a way to signal to the other side that for every $100,000 that they come down, you are going up $50,000. Or you can adjust your offers to yield different response ratios to send different signals to your opponent.
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Perhaps the most useful tool is the Trends Intersection figure, which you can see by tapping until the middle number is blue. This shows you where your negotiations are headed based upon the last two rounds of demand and offer.
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By looking at the prior Trend Intersection numbers and adjusting your next offer accordingly, you can try to push settlement negotiations towards a certain number. So in my example, I am assuming that I am trying to settle my case for $350,000 to $400,000, and thus I am trying to keep the Trends Intersection number within that range.
Another tool that this app gives you is the Graph tool. There are three pages of graphs. First, you see the progression of offers and demands over time, and how the midpoint has changed over time. Second, you see a page that, the developer says, lets you apply finance analytics to litigation — things like Bollinger Bands and Linear Regression. I will admit that it is a little over my head, but if you understand these things, click here for the developer’s explanation of what the graph shows.
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The final page of graphs shows you the trend intersection for your negotiations.
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The app also has a tool for handling brackets. In my hypothetical example, when we got the point where the plaintiff was at $775,000 and the defendant was at $175,000, the plaintiff proposed a settlement bracket of between $500,000 and $300,000, which the defendant accepted. Once a bracket is entered, the app will make future recommendations that are within that bracket, and it accounts for the bracket on graphs by using small white circles.
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Speaking of recommendations, the app can help you to come up with your next demand or offer. When you first tap the bubble to enter an amount, the app will suggest an amount that is consistent with the most recent midpoint, response ratio or trends intersection.
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You can also enter a possible number and then look at the graphs to see how that number would affect the likely midpoint or trend intersection, and then enter a different number to see how that changes the midpoint or trend intersection.
When you are done with a mediation, the app can create a report in PDF format. Strangely, the app doesn’t give you the option to email that report, but you can open it in another app that handles PDFs and then email from that app. The report gives you a handy record of all of the demands and offers.
I’ve only seen one other app designed for settlement negotiations, an app that I reviewed several years ago called Picture It Settled Lite. That app has some features missing from this one, such as recording the time and date of each offer or demand, and I also prefer the interface for suggesting the next offer/demand by showing multiple numbers on a single page with an explanation of what each number would represent — such as matching the dollar change of the last number, matching the percentage of change of the last number, etc. Picture It Settled Lite also lets you store multiple negotiations in the app, whereas ADR MediationTool only lets you work on a single negotiation at a time. On the other hand, I find it easier to enter numbers in ADR MediationTool, and the graphs are much better (even though I’ll admit that I don’t understand all of them). And I particularly like the Trends Intersection feature in ADR MediationTool, which doesn’t exist in Picture It Settled Lite.
All data is stored in the app itself, so you don’t need to worry about confidential settlement numbers being uploaded to the Internet.
Will this app, by itself, make a noticeable difference in your next mediation? Maybe not, but then again, who knows. It is certainly one more tool that you can use to help you with your strategy. And because it requires minimal time to use, you don’t have to devote much time to the app to get value out of it. If you are a litigator, I think you’ll find it worthwhile to give this iPhone app a try the next time that you are involved in a mediation or settlement negotiation.
There have been rumors floating around for a while now that Apple is about to introduce the iPad Air 3, which looks to be similar to the iPad Pro but in the traditional iPad size. For example, here is a recent article by Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac predicting that the iPad Air 3, along with a new iPhone 5se, will be announced on Tuesday, March 15 and will go on sale on Friday, March 18. If you are in the market for a new iPad but you think that the iPad Pro is just too big for you, it probably makes sense to wait a few weeks before you buy your next iPad. And now, the news of note from the past week:
South Carolina attorney Justin Kahn reminds us that when you put your iPad Pro in airplane mode, you cannot use an Apple Pencil with it until you turn on Bluetooth.
If you have some areas of your home where Wi-Fi isn’t as strong, you are not alone. Even the leader of the free world has to deal with Wi-Fi dead spots in the White House, as reported by Allie Malloy of CNN.
And finally, skier Nicolas Vulgnier found a cool way to make a 360º movie of intense skiing. He put his iPhone 6 on a contraption at the end of a string and spun it around him while he went down the slope. The resulting video is pretty cool:
Here in New Orleans, we are celebrating Mardi Gras today. I suspect that most of you know a little something about Mardi Gras, even if you haven't been here for it, although your impression of it from afar may be limited to the craziness associated with the French Quarter. Yes, you can find lots of drunken debauchery if that is what you are looking for, but there is also the family side of Mardi Gras, which I described in this post from 2013.
If you are not in New Orleans today, then I hope that you have a chance to come here at some point in the future. This city throws a great party during Mardi Gras season, plus New Orleans is a great place to visit year-round if you like food, drinks, music, history or architecture.
If you are in New Orleans today, then perhaps I'll bump into you on the parade route. My son will be the one in a Kylo Ren costume. I wonder if any other kids will be dressed up like a Star Wars character today? (Ahem.) Now that I think about it, though, if my son is Kylo Ren, perhaps as his father I should dress up like … well, I better not say, just in case you haven't seen the movie yet. Although surely the embargo on spoilers must have lifted now that the film has crossed the $2 billion mark.
Whether you are in New Orleans today in person or just in spirit, have a Happy Mardi Gras!
Lots of folks are looking forward to the Super Bowl this weekend, and at the school that my kids attend here in New Orleans there will even be a pep rally for Peyton Manning today. (Manning is an alumnus of the school.) But the bigger news right now in New Orleans is Mardi Gras, with lots of great parades tonight through Fat Tuesday. If you haven’t ever attended Mardi Gras in New Orleans, it is a lot of fun and you should put it on your bucket list. From the family-friendly parade atmosphere in Uptown New Orleans to the craziness in the French Quarter, there are lots of ways to have fun as you catch beads, eat great food, and spend time with friends and family. Thanks to numerous parade-tracker apps, you can use your iPhone to figure out when the next parade will arrive at your spot. And now, the news of note in the world of iOS from the past week:
Yesterday, I had a chance to grab lunch with North Carolina attorney Jim Dedman, who was in New Orleans for a DRI conference. (I’m sure it was just a coincidence that the conference took place during Mardi Gras week. Ahem.) If you practice products liability law like I do, I recommend that you follow the Abnormal Use blog that Jim edits. The blog covers what is going on in the world of products liability, often with a sense of humor. For example, a recent entry discusses the recall by Disney of a Darth Vader infant bodysuit because … it is a choking hazard. Sometimes, the jokes just write themselves.
In iOS M&A news, this week Microsoft purchased SwiftKey, which makes a popular third party keyboard for iOS, as reported by Tim Bradshaw and Murad Ahmed of Financial Times. Also this week, Zagg purchased Mophie, which makes popular battery cases for the iPhone, as reported by Ina Fried of re/code.
David Pogue of Yahoo Tech reviews Dragon Anywhere, an app that lets you dictate to your iPhone or iPad. Yes, you can already do that with Siri, but Dragon Anywhere lets you speak for much longer, and has better speech recognition. However, it requires a $15/month subscription.
Dennis Sellers of Apple World Today reviews Duet Display, an app that lets your iPad become a second screen for a Mac or PC. I’ve tried the app with the PC at my office, and it does work as advertised. Having said that, I don’t find it to be as useful to extend my PC screen as it is to just run helpful iOS apps while I use my PC at the same time — for example, editing a document in Word on my PC while I review cases or documents using the GoodReader app on my iPad. But if having a second screen makes sense for the type of work you are doing, you’ll want to consider this app.
And finally, an interesting new iPhone app was launched this week. It is called Notarize, and it lets someone get a document notarized using just an iPhone. It turns out that it is legal to use video chat to notarize a document in Virgina, so this app scans your driver’s license and your document and then lets you video chat with a notary in Virgina who then notarizes your document. The cost is $25, and the service is available 24/7. Like many attorneys, I am a notary public, which is often useful for my clients. But if I have a client or a witness who is somewhere else in the country and I need to get a notary stamp on a document that they sign, such as an affidavit that I will attach to a state court motion for summary judgment, this app could provide an interesting option. Moreover, the video for the app, created by Adam Lisagor of Sandwich Video, is amusing:
After purchasing an iPad Pro in November of 2015, I started looking for a messenger-style bag to use with it because the iPad Pro was too big to comfortably fit in the bag that I had been using for my iPad Air 2. My research led me to two choices: the Field Muzetto by WaterField, and the Ristretto by Tom Bihn. I went back-and-forth between both of those bags during the month of December to test them, and I posted my review of the Field Muzetto in January. I had planned to post a review of the Ristretto that same week, but Tom Bihn was out of stock at the time and it felt silly to post a review of a product that you couldn’t buy. But they are back in stock again, which led me to finish this review.
I have used a version of the Ristretto bag for many years now. I first reviewed the Ristretto for iPad in 2011, and then when the bag was updated in 2012 I reviewed the new version. The version that I used from 2012 to 2015 was the 11″ inch version, which at the time Tom Bihn called the “Ristretto for iPad,” and which Tom Bihn no longer sells — which is a shame because it is a great bag for a traditional-size iPad such as the iPad Air 2. Instead, the only Ristretto that Tom Bihn currently sells is a 13″ size. Because I was a fan of the 11″ version and I needed something larger for the iPad Pro anyway, I decided to buy the current model of the Ristretto when I started to compare bags for the iPad Pro last December, so I have now been using this bag for almost two months.
The size
I’ll start with the feature most important for iPad Pro owners: the size. The Ristretto features a padded compartment for holding a device. The 11″ version of the Ristretto that I reviewed years ago was perfect for a traditional iPad with a 9.7″ (diagonal) screen. Even better, the 11″ bag was a great size for a messenger bag. It was compact enough to be noticeably smaller than a typical briefcase, but large enough inside that it could store tons of items. But when you put an iPad Pro in the padded compartment of the 11″ Ristretto, it stuck out and made the flap difficult to close.
The current model of the Ristretto, the 13″ model, is … you guessed it … larger. Its padded compartment is 12.8″ x 9″ x 1″. At first blush, that might seem to be the perfect size for the iPad Pro, which is about 12″ high and about 9″ wide (12.04″ x 8.69″ to be precise). But the padded compartment is only 9″ wide when there is an object 1″ thick inside of it. The iPad Pro is only about a quarter of an inch thick, so unless you are carrying four iPad Pros at once, the padded compartment expands somewhat. As a result, it felt like the bag was about an inch too wide for an iPad Pro. Similarly, the 12.8″ height seems almost an inch too high.
We’re only talking about an extra inch on each dimension. That’s not a lot. However, it does make the Ristretto seem just a little too big for the iPad Pro. It’s like the difference between wearing a perfectly-sized shirt and an oversize T-shirt. You can make an argument that it is nice to have extra space, much like the larger T-shirt is perfect for lounging in front of the TV while you binge on Netflix shows. But I really liked that the size of that 11″ Ristretto, and while I am slowly getting used to the 13″ Ristretto after two months of use, I wish that Tom Bihn would come out with a 12″ model that was just a little smaller overall. (Tom Bihn didn’t design the 13″ Ristretto for the iPad Pro; it was designed for a laptop computer such as a MacBook Pro.) My hypothetical 12″ Ristretto would be as small as possible while still being big enough for an iPad Pro.
But because my hypothetical 12″ Ristretto doesn’t exist, this 13″ size is the one to get for an iPad Pro.
Design
The website says that the Ristretto is made with “U.S. made, 1050 denier high tenacity ballistic nylon.” To me, the material seems similar to the knapsack that I used in college and law school. It is very durable and very comfortable. I used the 11″ Ristretto for many years, taking it on many trips. It has been tossed under a seat in front of me on an airplane and kicked by my feet more times than I can count. It has been opened and closed thousands of times. And it still looks great and hasn’t been damaged at all.
There are currently three colors available: black, steel and verde (green). But Tom Bihn changes the color of its products from time to time, so perhaps there will be even more choices in the future.
Compartments
I already mentioned the padded compartment where you place an iPad (or laptop computer). My former 11″ model provided great protection for many years, and so far it looks like the same can be said about the current model. You place your iPad Pro into the compartment and then fold over and tuck into the back a padded flap. This system provides protection, while also making it easier to put in or take out an iPad Pro.
The main compartment is approximately 2″ thick and can store lots of items. For example, I store an Apple Wireless Keyboard which is inside of a case (an Origami Workstation), plus external batteries and lots of other items in this compartment.
The front of the Ristretto has a zippered pouch. Inside of the pouch there are organizational pockets — two small pen-sized ones on the left (a perfect size to store an Apple Pencil) and two larger ones. I use the larger once to hold pens and styluses, but you could also put something like a passport, a wallet or an iPhone in those pockets. And then in front of the pockets is a large storage area that can store whatever you want. I love this zippered pouch because the zipper is in a semi-circle, so when it is completely unzipped you can see the entire top half of the pouch. This makes it incredibly easy to find items, even if the pouch is stuffed with lots of, um, stuff. One of my complaints about other messenger bags (such as the Field Muzetto by WaterField) is that you can only access items in the compartments from the top, which makes it harder to find something small that is at the bottom.
Finally, the very back of the Ristretto has a slanted, open-top pocket that you can use to store papers, a magazine, or a newspaper. It is big enough to hold letter-sized documents, although the top of the document will be somewhat visible because of the slant. (In the following picture, I put a standard 8 1/2 x 11″ piece of paper in it so that you can see how much sticks out.) It is a convenient place to store documents or a magazine that you want to be able to access quickly without opening up the Ristretto.
The o-rings
One of the very best features of the Ristretto (and other Tom Bihn products) is the inclusion of o-rings: small plastic rings attached to the inside of the Ristretto by a tiny strap. There is one o-ring in the front zippered compartment of the bag. The main compartment has three o-rings: one on the far left, one on the far right, and one on the left side of the front of that compartment.
Tom Bihn sells organizer pouches in lots of different sizes, colors and varieties that you can attach to the o-rings. Some are clear or netted on one side making it easy to see what is in the pouch. Some are padded to give extra protection to the items in the pouch. There is an RFID-blocking passport pouch. There is also a clear-sided organizer cube that meets the TSA 3-1-1 liquids requirements, and a light-on-a-strap that you can use it you want to have a light inside of your bag to make it easier to find items. The Ristretto also comes with a keystrap that you can attach to an o-ring, although I don’t use that so I just removed it. Click here to see all of the different accessories sold by Tom Bihn, many of which are for the o-ring system. If you are the sort of person who likes organization, looking at the large variety of o-ring accessories will make you downright giddy. I’m currently using these five pouches in my Ristretto:
I love using pouches in the Ristretto because it makes it easy to find items, even small items that usually get lost in a bag or briefcase. I know which items are in each of my pouches, so I know which pouch to reach for. And because the pouches are attached to specific o-rings, I always know where to find a pouch, such as on the left or the right side of the main compartment. And you can even attach more than one pouch to a single o-ring if you need to do so. You can also quickly disconnect a pouch to remove it from the Ristretto, and then quickly snap it back on the o-ring when you are done.
The Ristretto would be a nice messenger bag without the o-ring system, but with this system the bag becomes really amazing.
The strap
The Ristretto comes with a Standard Strap, but for an additional $20 you can upgrade to the Absolute Shoulder Strap. I encourage you to do so. This is the best strap that I have ever used for any bag. First, the part of the strap that sits on your shoulder has a rubbery feel which provides amazing friction. Unlike most other shoulder straps that slip off of you shoulder, this one really stays in place.
Second, there is something about the engineering of this strap that distributes the weight to make the bag seem much lighter than it really is. Tom Bihn says that it “combines a nonslip, ergonomically curved pad — made of soft, durable neoprene — with comfortable stretch backing to make bags feel 50% lighter and 100% more comfortable.” It works really well.
By the way, the Ristretto also comes with a waist strap on the back that you can use if you are riding a bike or otherwise need to keep it very close to your body. I didn’t need this, and it is easily removed.
There is also a small, padded strap on the top of the Ristretto, great for when you just want to grab the bag quickly without dealing with the longer strap.
Conclusion
If you like the idea of a messenger-style bag, the Ristretto is really wonderful. It has tons of compartments and can hold lots of items, and the o-ring system makes it easy to store and locate those items. I wish that it were just a little bit smaller so that it held an iPad Pro without any additional space while keeping the bag as small as possible. Nevertheless, based on my research I think that this is one of the very best messenger-style bags on the market for the iPad Pro, and I’m happy to have it as the bag that I use every day.
