Today is Mardi Gras day in New Orleans, the culmination of many weeks of parades and parties. My own family had a great Mardi Gras season this year, with lots of friends and family getting together to enjoy the festivities.
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. And of course, New Orleans is a great place to visit year-round if you like food, drinks, music, history or architecture. Jazz Fest is just around the corner (starting April 28), and the music, food and art at Jazz Fest provides another great reason to visit New Orleans.
Whether you are in New Orleans today in person or just in spirit, have a Happy Mardi Gras!
We are in peak Mardi Gras season down here in New Orleans, and the weather for the parades has been fantastic this year. Many of the floats feature clever satire, and it goes without saying that the last 12 months have provided ample material to work with. But you came here for iPhones and iPads, not beads and doubloons, so here is the news of note from the past week:
Some folks are suggesting that Apple should buy Netflix. It has enough money to do so, but does that strategy make sense? Neil Cybart of Above Avalon wrote an interesting analysis of why Apple doesn’t need to buy Netflix.
Joseph Cox of Motherboard explains how with $170 and just a few seconds of access to an Android phone, anyone can install malware to listen to the speaker remotely and track the phone’s location. The article suggests that something similar could theoretically happen to an iPhone too, but the iPhone has to be jailbroken first. For this reason, I discourage every lawyer from jailbreaking an iPhone. Many years ago there were some legitimate arguments for doing so, but improvements in the iOS have made this largely unnecessary and the main reason that people do it nowadays is to run pirated software, which you of course shouldn’t be doing.
How often do you buy apps for your iPhone? Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reports that, according to research by Sensor Tower, the average U.S. iPhone user spent $40 on apps and in-app purchases in 2016.
Speaking of buying apps, GoodNotes 4, my favorite iPad app for taking handwritten notes, normally costs $7.99 (and is worth it), but for the next few days the app is discounted to $0.99. If you have any interest in trying out the app, get it now by clicking here.
And finally, Apple announced this week that its new campus, called Apple Park, will open in April, although it will take six months to move in the 12,000 employees who will work there. Here is a short video from Apple showing off the new building:
Soon after Apple first announced its new AirPods, I saw a discussion of other companies potentially making a dock for the charging case. And sure enough, I see that there are now some products like this for sale. Spigen makes the Spigen Compact Airpods Stand Charging Case Dock for Airpods, available on Amazon for only $12.99. The idea of a dock for the AirPods seemed a little silly to me because the charging case doesn’t have to be charged very often. I use my AirPods every single day (my review), and I probably only need to charge twice a week. If you use your AirPods more often than I do, you may need to charge more frequently, but the battery life is still pretty good. The AirPods themselves last around 4-5 hours, and the charging case provides another 20 hours of battery life.
But even though an AirPods dock seemed unnecessary to me, the truth is that I have been using one almost every day for the last few weeks. On my desk, right next to my computer’s keyboard, I have an Apple iPhone Lightning Dock. I reviewed that Apple dock back in 2015, and I continue to love having a specific spot to place my iPhone which makes the screen easy to see and which recharges the iPhone. I noticed that the Lightning connector sticking up from that dock works perfectly with the AirPods — so well that it is almost as if Apple designed this dock with the AirPods in mind.
It is super easy to place the AirPods on the dock or remove them from the dock. But the Lightning connector also has just enough friction that it is also easy to just pop open the lid on the top of the charging case, making it easy to remove or replace the AirPods, and also making it easy to trigger the iPhone’s on-screen indication of how much power is left in the AirPods.
The Apple dock is $39. That’s not super-expensive, but it does seem like a lot to pay for a dock for a pair of headphones that don’t even need to be charged very often, especially considering that the Spigen product, and perhaps others, are available for much less money. So I feel foolish recommending that any user of Apple’s AirPods spend $39 just for an AirPods dock.
Having said that, I still really like this product as an iPhone dock. I also love that I can unplug the cord from the back of the dock and then use that Lightning cord to charge my iPad at my desk. (I use the Apple USB-C to Lightning cord with the dock so that the cord provides the fastest possible charge for my 12.9″ iPad Air, but the same cord also charges my iPhone or AirPods.) And now that the dock also functions as a convenient stand for the charging case of the AirPods whenever I feel like topping of the charge, I find this dock more useful than ever.
Apple used to release iPhone charging docks that were molded to the shape of the bottom of the iPhone. That meant that you needed a new dock whenever Apple released an iPhone with a new design. Thus, there was an iPhone 3G Dock, an iPhone 4 dock, and an iPhone 5 dock. But now that the Apple Lightning Dock has a flat design and relies on the strength of the Lightning connector to hold an iPhone in place, the current model of the dock has worked with the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone 7. We don’t yet know what shape the 2017 version of the iPhone will be, not to mention what its name will be, but I suspect that there is a good chance that this dock will continue to work with many generations to come. Thus, I suspect that if you buy this dock now, you will continue to be able to use it with upcoming iPhones for many years.
If you like the idea of a dock for your iPhone and AirPods, Apple’s Lightning Dock works really well. And even if you just want an AirPods dock, if you don’t mind splurging a little, this product handles AirPods like a champ.
If you spend a lot of time using your iPhone in an area with no Wi-Fi, then you can go through a lot of data. Unlimited data used to be an option with some carriers, but then it went away. Now, it is back again. This week, Verizon announced a new unlimited data plan, and AT&T’s new unlimited data plan starts today. The plans are not cheap, but may be worth it if you and/or your family use lots of data. Jerry Hildenbrand of iMore compares the unlimited data plans offered by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, and concludes that T-Mobile and Verizon offer the best deals. But of course if a certain carrier provides better coverage in the areas that matter the most to you, coverage may be more important than the cheapest plan. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Anna Massoglia wrote an interesting article for Lawyerist.com about the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision to live stream the hearing on President Trump’s Muslum Ban order. An amazing 136,000 people listened live, which was up slightly from the previous live stream which had 50 listeners. On several occasions, I’ve watched a live video feed of arguments before the Louisiana Supreme Court, and it is nice to be able to monitor what is going on without having to be there — and my office is just a few blocks away from the French Quarter where the Louisiana Supreme Court is located. Live streaming makes it possible to watch or listen from anywhere. I hope that at some point soon the U.S. Supreme Court switches gears and allows live streaming.
And finally, Apple will soon launch its first two “TV shows” (if that is even the right phrase to use) which will be available exclusively on Apple Music. One is a reality show called Planet of the Apps — which doesn’t appeal to me because reality shows don’t appeal to me. But the other one is Carpool Karaoke: The Series, and it looks like a lot of fun. Here is the trailer for that one:
Thank you to iManage for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month. iManage is the industry’s leading email and document management application, allowing lawyers to create, manage and collaborate on work product. Over 2,000 law firms use iManage. I have been using iManage at my law firm since 2003, and over that time I’ve seen the product evolve and improve greatly. (The name has changed too — from iManage, to Interwoven, and now back to iManage.) As iManage has improved over the years, the iPhone and iPad integration has improved greatly over time.
iManage is sponsoring iPhone J.D. to promote iManage Work version 10, which is a major upgrade, offering tools for lawyers to work on documents from anywhere on any device. Indeed, iManage 10 advertises that it uses a “mobile-first user experience” so that you can learn the software once and then have a consistent experience across phone, tablet and desktop, enabling you to work from anywhere and stay productive on-the-go. iManage Work 10 includes smart features such as personalized search, document timelines, and intelligent worklists. Companies around the world in the legal, accounting and financial sector use iManage to handle their documents and emails.
iManage manages not only documents, but emails too. On the PC in my office, I use the iManage software which is incorporated into Outlook so that I can take any email from my Inbox and drag it in to the appropriate folder in iManage. That way, case-related emails are stored with the appropriate case, and can later be found by browsing or searching. I see that iManage Work 10 also works with Lotus Notes and Gmail.
Since you are reading this post, I’m sure that you are especially interested in the iOS app for iManage. I use the iManage app on my iPad or iPhone to access documents and emails that are stored in iManage. Here are some things that iManage says about the iOS app in iManage Work version 10:
Manage Work Mobility for iOS is a native iOS app for iPhone and iPad that enables professionals to view filed documents and emails, file newly received emails, respond to emails and even edit documents in MS Word, enabling a completely functional and secure user experience with the native iOS functionality, look and feel.
The iManage Work Mobility for iOS app automatically keeps recently accessed content in a local briefcase, which allow users to review work product when disconnected on a flight or in a remote location. Work product in the briefcase is refreshed with a single tap when back online, ensuring all information is up to date with the latest versions of all engagement files.
If you want to get a better sense of how the iOS app works, here is a video which shows off the iManage Work Mobility app on an iPad. It also shows how iManage can be configured so that you can access your documents directly from the Microsoft Word for iOS app. It looks similar to the way that you can access Dropbox apps from within the Word app:
If you are looking at adding or improving document management at your law firm, you should definitely check out iManage. And thanks again to iManage for supporting iPhone J.D.
Sleep trackers have been around for a while now, and I know that many people find real value in them. For just over a month, I tried using Sleep++, a free app by developer David Smith who has created lots of useful apps (including Activity++, an app that I enjoy using to keep track of my progress over time with the Apple Watch activity rings). I feared that wearing my Apple Watch overnight (and thus not charging it during the night) would mean that my Apple Watch would run out of power during the day, but I thought that the value of monitoring my sleep might be worth it. It turns out that I was wrong on both counts. Power wasn’t a problem at all; it doesn’t take very long to give an Apple Watch enough power to last all day. On the other hand, and to my surprise, I didn’t really see any value to monitoring my sleep activity.
Finding time to charge
I’ll start with the good news. It turns out that it isn’t necessary to charge an Apple Watch all night to keep it powered during the day. My tests were with a 42mm Apple Watch (which has a larger battery than the 38mm version), and I have the newest Series 2 Apple Watch (which has better battery life than the original Apple Watch). If you are using a different model, you might not have the same experience that I did. But I found that if I took off my Apple Watch after I woke up and charged it while I was showering and getting ready for work, that small amount of time gave me enough power to go all day long. Sometimes at night I would also charge it for a little bit while getting ready to go to bed just to ensure that I really did get enough charge. But with those one or two charging periods during the day, I was able to wear my Apple Watch all night long, so that Sleep++ could monitor my sleep, and I never had a problem with the Apple Watch running out of power during the day.
Using the Sleep++ app
Before using the Sleep++ app, I recommend that you put on a comfortable Apple Watch band. I love my Milanese Loop band during the day, but at night I found a Sport Band much more comfortable. (The Woven Nylon Band is also pretty comfortable at night.)
Next, when you are ready to go to sleep, start the Sleep++ app. The bottom of the screen will show data from your lats measured sleep. At the top of the screen, press the “Start Sleeping” button. Now you can go to sleep.
When you wake up in the morning, press the Stop Sleeping button at the top of the screen. The app will then take a few seconds to analyze your sleep from the night before, and will then send the sleep data to the Sleep++ iPhone app. In that app, you can see data on your sleep, including what time you went to sleep and what time you woke up. Darker blue bars indicate times that you were likely in a deeper sleep — or more specifically, the times that you didn’t move your arm very much. Lighter blue bars indicate times that you were more restless. And if you get up out of bed at night, such as when nature calls, there is a skinny light blue bar to show you that.
Of course, you might not go to sleep exactly when you press the start button, and you might wake up before you remember to press the stop button. Thus, the app gives you the option to trim the start and stop times so that the data is more accurate.
The app stores your sleep data in the Sleep++ app so that you can go back and look at the sleep records for prior nights. And the app can also share that sleep data with the Health app, which could be useful not only because it keeps the sleep data in the same place where other health-related data is stored, but also because it makes it possible for other apps to access and use that sleep data.
A setting change every night and every morning
One thing that I did not like about using Sleep++ is that I found that for the app to be most useful, I needed to make an important change in the Apple Watch’s Settings app every night. I needed to go into Settings -> General -> Wake Screen and then turn off “Wake Screen on Wrist Raise.” When that setting is turned on, it was easy for the Apple Watch screen to turn on during the night. And if the screen turned on, it was possible to touch the screen to interact it with — even if I was sleeping and doing so without realizing it. I had two different nights when the Sleep++ app stopped recording my sleep in the middle of the night, apparently because I moved my wrist and the screen turned on, and then I must have touched the screen on the “Stop Sleep” button even though it was all unintentional because I was still sleeping.
Another reason to turn this setting off before using the app at night is it prevents the screen from coming on and creating light while you are moving your arm. I found that light distracting as I was trying to go to sleep. And of course having the light come on while you are sleeping is a waste of battery power, so turning this off every night gave me the best battery results too. But unfortunately, that meant that I had to go back into Settings to turn the function back on every morning because, during the day, I like being able to just raise my wrist to have the Apple Watch screen turn on.
It’s not the fault of Sleep++ that I had to go into the Settings app every night and every morning to make this change. I’m sure that if there was a way for the Sleep++ app to do it automatically, it would do so. Even so, I found it annoying to have to make this change.
So what’s the point?
My primary complaint about this app is that I don’t really see the point. What good is it to see that I slept more one night versus another night? And seeing that I was more restless one night and less restless another night was somewhat interesting, but again, I don’t quite get what to do with this information.
I see people suggesting online that if you monitor when you have a good night’s sleep and correlate that with other activity in your life, including diet, you can learn to make changes in your lifestyle to get a better night’s sleep every night. I suppose that makes some sense, but there are enough differences between my activity and diet every day that I wasn’t able to discern any patterns after using this app for a month. And I see that at least some doctors have also questioned the value of this information.
For me, it was vaguely interesting to use this app for a month, but ultimately I didn’t see any real value in it.
What would Apple do?
There is speculation that Apple will release its own Apple Watch sleep app in the future, perhaps in connection with a software or hardware update to the Apple Watch which improves battery life even more. Unlike Sleep++, an app from Apple could do things like turn off the Wake Screen on Wrist Rise automatically. And maybe Apple could even find more interesting ways to measure sleep data. David Smith himself recently wrote about the possibility that Apple could release its own app, making it necessary for Smith to find some other way to make Sleep++ provide value, such as better tools for analyzing data.
Conclusion
I’m glad that I tried Sleep++ for a month. It was interesting to see how an app like this works. And if Apple ever releases its own sleep tracking app, I may try this experiment again to see what I think. But for now, I just don’t see much value in collecting sleep data with Sleep++. Having said that, if you own an Apple Watch and you do see a value in monitoring and recording your own sleep patterns, Sleep++ is worth checking out. It is free, it works, and you can use it without having your Apple Watch run out of power by just finding a small slice of time once or twice a day to charge the Apple Watch.
What is the future of the iPad? In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell discusses what he sees, and the future looks bright if Apple makes some of the improvements that he suggests — and I suspect that Apple will. As Snell notes, the iPad is truly the future of computing; if you imagine what kind of computing device many folks are likely to be using in 2025, it is probably closer to an iPad than a computer. On a side note, how can the number “2025” seem SO FAR in the future, and yet when you do the math it is only 8 years away? Yikes. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Katie Floyd and California attorney David Sparks released a recent episode of their Mac Power Users podcast in which they interview Ivan Hemmans, the senior manager of technical development at a large law firm. Ivan provides a fascinating perspective on how large law firms can support attorney use of technology, including iPhones and iPads. It’s a great episode.
Alexander Smith of NBC News reports that the Trump administration is considering a new rule that folks visiting the United States would be required to hand over their social-media passwords to U.S. officials. I cannot imagine that I would want to visit any other country that imposed such a requirement.
David Pogue of Yahoo explains how to make your iPhone say out loud who is calling you. You can even have your iPhone only say the caller’s name when you are using your headphones, or when you are using your headphones or Bluetooth in your car. Neat trick.
And finally, this week Apple released another one of their great “shot on iPhone” ads. This one is called “One Night” and includes some amazing pictures and videos taken with an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus at night. Cool music, too. Definitely worth watching.
For those of you who are starting to plan your 2017 CLE hours, I wanted to mention that I’ll be speaking at the DRI Drug and Medical Device Litigation Seminar, which is being held in New Orleans on May 11-12, 2017 (just a few days after Jazz Fest). This seminar is well-attended every year, and it is designed for both in-house and outside counsel who represent pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. There will be presentations by in-house and outside counsel, a federal judge, deans of the drug and device defense bar, and the US Chamber Litigation Center. My session is on Friday, May 12, at 10:00, and I’ll be providing advice for using an iPad in a litigation practice.
The seminar takes place at the Sheraton, which is conveniently located on the edge of the French Quarter. Thus, anyone attending the conference will have no trouble finding good food, music, and cocktails. Click here to take advantage of the DRI group rate at the Sheraton, and click here to register for the conference.
New Orleans has always been a great city for tourists, and tourists need help getting around a place that they don’t know very well. Thus, I was pleased to see that this week, the built-in Maps app on the iPhone added transit directions for New Orleans. Transit directions give you a combination of walking and public transportation directions to get between spots. The timing is good; we are just a week away from the start of Mardi Gras parades, and Jazz Fest is only two months later, so lots of tourists will be coming here starting in just a few days. (Transit maps in Houston were added just before the Super Bowl, so Apple does seem to be thinking of the right time to roll out new cities.) Although we also have buses, ferries, Amtrak, and other forms of public transportation, all of which are included in the transit feature of Maps, New Orleans is most well-known for its numerous streetcar lines, especially the St. Charles line which received national historic landmark status from the U.S. Department of the Interior a few years back (and which runs right next to my law office). Fortunately, the Maps app can help you find the closest streetcar stop and use the streetcar to get around town.
When you run a search for transit directions between two spots, the Maps app will typically give you multiple transit options. Routes are color-coded and include transit logos. Make sure that you look at each of them and think about which one makes the most sense. For example, I see that if I ask the Maps app to take me from Commander’s Palace (my favorite restaurant in New Orleans) to the famous Pat O’Brien’s bar in the French Quarter, the first recommended route is to take the Magazine Street bus, whereas the second recommended route is to take the St. Charles Avenue streetcar. I see that the Maps app predicts that it would save two minutes to take the bus, so I suppose that is why the bus route is listed first, but I cannot imagine why anyone would opt to take the bus over the historic streetcar.
I also thought it was strange that when I asked the Maps app to give me directions via the streetcar starting at my office, the app told me to catch the streetcar not at the stop which is right in front of my office, but instead at the stop before which is two blocks away — even though the Maps app knows (and shows) that there is a stop at the corner of Poydras and St. Charles, and I can see from the blue dot on the map that the app even knows that I’m basically right there at the corner of Poydras and St. Charles. Bizarre.
But I also ran lots of other test searches that came out exactly as I would have given someone directions. The moral of the story is just to use your common sense when following directions and don’t just blindly follow the first option that the Maps app gives you.
I’ve used transit directions on the Maps app in other cities in the past, such as Chicago and New York, and they work really well if you are wearing an Apple Watch because you can minimize the need to look at your iPhone while you are walking. Your Apple Watch will tap your wrist 12 times in a row if you you need to turn right at the next intersection, or will give you three pairs of two taps if you need to turn left at the next intersection.
If you want to use transit directions in the Maps app in other cities, Apple has a page telling you which cities are available. Twenty-seven U.S. cities are listed on that page, but the list doesn’t yet include New Orleans.
Buy why visit those other cities when you can now use transit directions in New Orleans? With this latest update to the Maps app, now you have no excuse to put off experiencing the amazing food, music, architecture, history, and friendly people of the Crescent City. Just make sure to remember that the streetcar in this city is called the “streetcar,” not the “trolley.”
In 2014, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a rule specifying an area behind every vehicle which must be visible to the driver when the vehicle is placed into reverse. 79 FR 19177, 49 CFR 571. Full compliance is required for all new vehicles by May 1, 2018. The agency anticipates that vehicle manufacturers will use rearview video systems and in-vehicle visual displays to comply with the rule. As a result, if you are not currently driving a vehicle with a backup camera in it, your next new car will likely include this technology. The agency adopted this rule because drivers using these systems “avoid crashes with an unexpected test object at a statistically significant higher rate than drivers using the standard complement of vehicle equipment.”
If you are driving a vehicle that does not have a rearview video system installed, you can have one installed. It typically involves installing a camera on the back of your car, having a hole drilled to run wires to the front of your car, and installing a screen in the front of your car. Good equipment often runs a few hundred dollars, and once you add the cost of installation, you can easily spend well over $500. Some former Apple employees who previously worked on the iPod and iPhone decided to start the company Pearl to sell a $499.99 solution that works with your iPhone called the Pearl RearVision. Using the iPhone as a video screen makes sense because it is already useful to mount an iPhone in your car to listen to music or podcasts, take and receive telephone calls, use hand-free technology to read and respond to messages, etc. Pearl sent me a free sample of the RearVision to review it, and I’ve been trying it out for the last few weeks. This system works very well, and while $500 is a substantial investment, you will appreciate using this device every time you need to parallel park or need to go into reverse and don’t have a clear view through your windows of what is behind you.
Installation
I’m sure that there are some of you out there who can remove and replace an in-dash stereo system on your car without breaking a sweat, but that is definitely not me. Thus, I was a little worried that installing something like this on my car would be challenging. To the contrary, it was simple … so easy that when my 11 year old son showed interest in what I was doing, I let him do much of the work with me. The most time-consuming part was finding the correct size wrench in my toolbox to remove the two bolts holding my current license plate on my car (an older model Honda Accord). Pearl doesn’t give you any parts for that because every license plate is attached in a different fashion.
But once you remove your current license plate, the rest is a piece of cake. The RearVision camera is part of a license plate holder. You simply put your license plate in the holder and then attach that to your vehicle using the same bolts that you used to remove your license plate. You then use some additional, tamper-resistant bolts that are included with the RearVision (and for which Pearl gives you the tool) to attach the front part of the RearVision to its frame, with your license plate sandwiched in-between. Next, you plug a small car adapter into the OBD port that is typically underneath your car dash. Pearl has a video on its website that shows the installation process.
Hardware
There are three parts of the RearVision hardware. First, the Camera Frame holds your license plate. It includes two HD cameras, one that is used during the day, and one that is optimized for seeing at night. The Camera Frame has a solar panel on it so that it can charge whenever exposed to sunlight. It is possible to remove the frame and charge it via USB, but you should never need to do that because just a little sunlight should provide ample power for the frame. The use of a solar panel is smart; it means that you don’t need to run power to your license plate for this product to work.
Second, the Car Adapter plugs into your car’s OBD port (a port that technicians will sometimes use to read diagnostic data from your car). The Car Adapter is a miniature computer which talks wirelessly to the Camera Frame to get the video, and then the Car Adapter analyzes that video in real-time and sends the video wirlelessly to your iPhone using either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth (more on that below).
Third, there is a car mount to hold your iPhone. It is included with the RearVisision system, but because Pearl also sells the car mount on its own, I posted a separate review of that product last week. Read that review to learn how the car mount works.
Software
A free Pearl app on your iPhone shows you the video from the cameras. The app has been regularly updated to add new features and improve the Pearl RearVision. For example, in late November of 2016, version 1.3 added (optional) guidelines to help you when backing up into a parking spot and when parallel parking. in December of 2016, the app added a notification feature (described below). So like the iPhone itself, this is a product with a history of improving itself after you buy the hardware.
How it Works
When you first get in your car, assuming that you have notifications turned on, you get an alert on your iPhone (and Apple Watch) from the Pearl app. Swipe that alert on your iPhone to start the Pearl app. If you have alerts turned off, then you’ll need to manually open the Pearl app.
When the Pearl app starts, it automatically goes into the mode to display video from the rear camera. What you see on your screen depends upon whether your iPhone is in portrait or landscape orientation. In portrait orientation, the top part of your screen shows a portion of what the camera can see behind you. The bottom portion of the screen shows you everything that the camera can see behind you, with a yellow bar at the top indicating whether the top part is showing the middle, left, or right view from the camera. You can swipe to change the view. For example, if you are backing up in a parking lot with traffic coming from one direction, what you really want to see are cars coming from that direction, so you can focus the camera to that direction.
I prefer to put my iPhone in a landscape orientation, which shows you almost all of the field of view at once.
You can make minor adjustments to the view by tapping the screen and using the on-screen controls at the top. You can adjust the horizontal plane of view to see up or down a little bit more. You can also switch from wide to super-wide view and back.
There are three controls at the bottom of the screen. First, there is a button to turn Night Mode on or off. When Night Mode is on, the Pearl RearVisision switches to its second camera which is more sensitive to the infrared spectrum and gives you an excellent picture at night. This occurs automatically after sunset, but I suppose that the button could be useful if it is a dark day but not yet sunset. The second button turns audible and visual obstacle alerts on or off. The third button brings up the app settings.
The main question that I had about this product was how much more would I see using the camera versus not having the camera? The answer was pretty astonishing to me. The following picture shows what I see in the parking lot at my office as I am preparing to backup, and I have superimposed some graphics on top. First, I show what in the image I could see just using my rear view mirror. As you can tell, that is only a very small part of the image. Second, I added dotted lines to show how far left and right I could see by turning my head around and looking through the rear window on my car. As you can tell from this image, the wide angle camera at the very back of my car shows me much more to the left and right that I can see by turning my head and using my rear window.
If there are no cars parked next to me in the parking lot, well then I can also turn around and look through the side windows in my car to see more. But often in my parking lot there are cars on both sides of me — or even worse, a big truck, SUV, van, or other large vehicle. In those circumstances, I really cannot see very much as I start to back out — nothing past those dotted lines in the above image. Thus, I have to go slow and hope that any oncoming car would see me and stop in time. But with the Pearl RearVision, I can see much, much more behind me. I am amazed how much to the side the camera can see with its wide angle lens; it is almost like someone got out of the car and stood behind my car to tell me what is coming.
Unlike systems that are built-in to a car, the RearVision doesn’t have any way to know when you are done backing up. (For some models of cars, Pearl might be able to get that information from the OBD port, so I’ve seen some mention that this could be a added in a software update, but nothing official has been announced.) But the Car Adapter does know from the OBD how fast your car is going, and thus once you hit 10 mph, the device concludes that you are done backing up, the video feed ends, and the Pearl app changes its screen. This is done for at least two reasons. First, it could be a distraction to see live video of what is behind you while you are driving. Second, sending the video uses up the battery in the RearVision, so there is no reason to keep it running when you are finished backing up. (If you are using a car model that does not provide speed information to the Car Adapter, then the video stops after 60 seconds.)
When the video feed ends, the app switches to a very handy mode — a launch screen with four large buttons that you can tap to launch another app. (Or you can manually jump to this mode by double-tapping the screen while video is being shown.) The mode works in both landscape and portrait view. If you do need to go back to the rear camera, just tap the RearVision icon.
The two apps that I am most likely to want to use after I am done backing up are the Overcast app (to play a podcast) or the Music app (to listen to music). I have the Maps app and Waze app on the other two buttons. But you can configure these buttons however you want. Currently, the other apps that you can choose from (if you have them installed) are Google Maps, MapQuest, Scout, Amazon Music, Audible, Google Play Music, Mixcloud, Pandora, Plex, Radio.com, Shazam, SoundCloud, Spotify, TIDAL, Apple’s Podcasts app, ESPN, NPR News, Sticher, GasBuddy, Luxe, MarkMe, Parkmobile, PayByPhone Parking and SpotHero.
A typical workflow for me is that I will get in my car, plug my iPhone in to charge it and put the iPhone on the magnetic car mount, start a podcast in the Overcast app to play it via Bluetooth in my car, and then start the Pearl app. I will use the Pearl app to backup, and then after it switches to the launcher screen I’ll tap the Overcast app to see the controls for the podcast I’m listening to.
The other time that I use Pearl RearVision while driving is when parallel parking. The RearVision is great for giving you information on how close you are to the car behind you. After starting the app, I can see the car behind me. I then start to backup.
The Pearl app can tell as an object approaches. When you get too close, the Car Adapter beeps and a red rectangle appears around the picture. The beep comes from the Car Adapter rather than the Pearl App because if your device was on silent, you could miss the alert.
The Pearl system uses three types of alerts. When you are about 6.5 feet from an object, you will hear the first beep. When you are about 4 feet away, you get another beep. When you are about two feet away, you will get a continuous beep and see a red border on the video. Remember, with a wide angle lens, objects are closer than they appear, so when you get the alert with the red border, you don’t want to back up much more.
In practice, I found that my parallel parking skills improved immensely with the Pearl RearVision. Long past the point where I would normally assume that I need to stop, the RearVision would show me that I have a little more space to go. Being able to back up even more lets me get into any spot much more quickly and easily. Fortunately, I don’t have to do a lot of parallel parking in my life, but if you do, then you will really love this product.
One more note on alerts. Whenever your iPhone is showing video from the camera, you will get a beep notifying you if an object is detected within 6.5, 4, or 2 feet of the car. So if a person (or child) starts to walk behind your car, you should get a warning. But if you are not currently running the Pearl app, or if the video portion of the Pearl app is off, then you don’t get any alerts. I know that with some built-in car systems, you get alerts any time something is close to your car, even if you are not moving and someone just walks close to your car — which can be annoying. So I suppose you could call this a feature or a flaw, but just keep in mind that if you want the audio and visual alerts that something is close to the back of your car, you need to have the app running and the video turned on.
Wi-Fi versus Bluetooth
The Car Adapter has two different ways to communicate with your iPhone. The preferred method, which provides the best picture, is Wi-Fi. When you first configure the PearlVision, you connect your iPhone to a private Wi-Fi network in your car created by the Car Adapter. If for some reason the iPhone cannot connect using Wi-Fi, it can also connect to the Car Adapter via Bluetooth.
Because I have off-street parking at my house, I don’t really need a backup camera as I leave home. That’s a good thing because the Wi-Fi in my house is more than strong enough to cover my driveway, so my iPhone stays connected to my home Wi-Fi as I am getting in my car and doesn’t automatically connect to the Car Adapter via Wi-Fi. That means that if I do use the PearlVision as I am backing up at my house, the video uses Bluetooth and is of lower quality. Note also that in the default setting, your iPhone cannot send audio via Bluetooth to your car’s speakers at the same time that your iPhone is getting video via Bluetooth from the Pearl RearVision. Thus, you cannot listen to music or a podcast while you are backing up. However, in the settings in the Pearl app, under iPhone audio, you can turn off the “Pause for Bluetooth Video” feature to enable both at the same time.
Fortunately for me, the times that I have wanted to use PearlVision — in the parking lot at my office, when parallel parking on the street, when backing up in the parking lot at a store — my iPhone has never been connected to another Wi-Fi network so it automatically connects to the PearlVision Wi-Fi and I get full quality video. Just keep in mind that if you are planning to use RearVision primarily in a location where your iPhone will already be connected to another Wi-Fi network, you’ll want to first manually select the RearVision Wi-Fi network in the Settings app on your iPhone before backing up to get the best quality picture.
Conclusion
At $499, this is probably not a product that you will buy on a whim. And because you only spend a small portion of the time in your car going in reverse, this is a product that you will probably only use for a minute or so every day. But there is a good reason that the government is making rearview video systems (or something equivalent, whatever that might be) mandatory starting next year; they provide a significant safety improvement, and as a bonus, they make parking, especially parallel parking, much easier. Everything about the Pearl RearVision is nicely done, and I’m not surprised that it came from the minds of former Apple engineers. Using an iPhone as a screen for a backup camera makes a lot of sense, and the Pearl RearVision works really well. If you are using a car that doesn’t already have a rearview camera and you want the functionality and safety that you get with a rearview video system, the Pearl RearVision is a nice upgrade and I can recommend it.
