Month: October 2017

The new iPhone X is a high-end model, more expensive than any iPhone sold in the past.  It includes lots of features that Apple couldn’t afford to put in the more mass market version of the iPhone, and I expect initial sales to go mostly to true iPhone enthusiasts.  I am one of them, and I know that many folks who read iPhone J.D. are as well, so I suspect that many of you were up late Thursday night (or very early Friday morning, depending upon how you look at it) to place an order.  From what I could tell myself and what I heard from others, the online store officially opened around 12:05 a.m. Pacific / 3:05 a.m. Eastern, and for about 10 minutes you could place an order with a delivery date of this Friday November 3.  Then it switched to a 2-3 week wait for about 15 minutes or so, and then it slipped to a 5-6 week wait.

 

From what I could tell from the comments on Twitter, podcasts, etc., most folks who stayed up late to order had a good experience ordering online (especially if you used the Apple Store app on the iPhone, which continues to be the best way to order from Apple when time is of the essence), but a few folks had hiccups.  For example, one part of the buying process is for a carrier to confirm order eligibility, and for most (like me) that occurred quickly.  But for others, there was a delay, and some received a note saying that an iPhone X was reserved but that Apple would have to wait for the carrier to come back and confirm eligibility.  Florida attorney Katie Floyd had that experience:

I got “we couldn’t reach your carrier” but we reserved a phone for you. (Verizon) so I have to come back later to finish.

— Katie (@KatieFloyd) October 27, 2017

(Fortunately, even with that delay, Katie will still get her iPhone this Friday.)

Before last Friday, many folks were predicting that Apple would have very few iPhone X models available for pre-order, and that shipping dates would quickly slip into 2018.  Thus, I was surprised and happy to see that once shipping slipped to 5-6 weeks Friday morning, it stayed there the rest of the day and over the weekend too.  It is still not too late to get an iPhone X before the holidays.  I suppose one possible explanation is that after the early morning Friday sales, very few additional folks decided to buy one.  But I suspect that Apple deserves the credit here for making far more devices than folks had predicted would be possible.  There was a time when Apple used to proudly announce the iPhone sales when new models were introduced, but they haven’t done that in a while now.  Apple did tell iMore:  “We can see from the initial response, customer demand is off the charts.”  Apple didn’t indicate what number was at the top of those referenced charts.

If you did order an iPhone X and your delivery date is this Friday, there is a good chance that it is already shipping from China.  Apple hasn’t yet sent out official emails with tracking numbers, but I learned from a tweet from Mark Gurman of Bloomberg that you might be able to figure out your own tracking number.  Here’s how.  First, get your Apple Order number, which you saw when you placed your order and which is also in the email from Apple confirming the order.  (Mine is W followed by nine numbers.) 

Then, go to this UPS website on an iPad or your computer.  (I couldn’t get it to work on an iPhone.)  By default, that webpage offers to track by UPS tracking number, but if you look down the left side you will see an option for Track by Reference — click that.  Then, enter the Apple Order number but leave off the last two numbers.  Then click search.  That will bring you to a page with the full tracking history (including the UPS tracking number).  For my order, I can see that as of early October 30, my iPhone X is currently in ZhenZhou, China:

If you didn’t pre-order an iPhone X in time to get one delivered to you this Friday, it is still possible to get one this Friday because there will be limited quantities at Apple Stores starting at 8am.  Of course, if you choose that route, I’m sure you will have to get in line early to get one.

And finally, if you are still deciding if the iPhone X is right for you, here is Apple’s introduction video which shows it off:

Apple’s new iPhone X (pronounced “ten”) went on sale at Midnight Pacific / 3am Eastern this morning.  I ordered the 256GB version (Space Gray color) using the Apple Store app on my iPhone and my delivery date is Friday November 3, which is the same date that the iPhone X officially goes on sale in the Apple Stores.  I presume that we will start to see reviews of pre-release models from select members of the press next week, and I look forward to trying out this new iPhone design myself a week from today.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Virginia attorney Sharon Nelson provides password advice based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).  First, requiring users to use complex passwords with capital letters, lowercase letters, special characters, etc. is actually less secure.  The same is true for short password expiration periods, such as a requirement to change passwords every 30 days.  It seems counter-intuitive at first, but when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.  Passphrases, such as a bizarre sentence, are just as secure and are far easier to remember than something like j#(FlWFd19J$.  And requiring folks to change passwords frequently only results in people being more careless with their passwords, such as writing them down.  Sharon also notes that the best solution is to use a password manager, and I strongly agree with that.
• In a post for MacStories, Chicago attorney John Voorhees shares some photos of Apple’s impressive new flagship store in Chicago on Michigan Avenue. 
• Alex Cooke of Fstoppers (a website for photographers) reviews the 12.9″ iPad Pro.  Yes, the review has a photographer angle to it, but it is a useful review for anyone thinking about getting the larger version of the iPad Pro.
• I happen to fly Delta frequently, so this story caught my eye.  According to Killian Bell of Cult of Mac, Delta’s 14,000 pilots and 23,000 slight attendants are moving from Nokia handsets and Microsoft Surface tablets to the iPhone 7 Plus and the iPad Pro.  It’s nice to know that the pilots are using the same tablet that I’m using.
• I’ve seen lots of reports of Apple CarPlay being added to cars, but this is the first report I’ve seen of CarPlay on a motorcycle.  As reported by CarPlay Life, the 2018 model of the Honda Gold Wing motorcycle has CarPlay prominently in the center of the console.
• John Hancock has an interesting life insurance perk.  Under its John Hancock Vitality program, if you pay $25, the insurer will give you an Apple Watch Series 3.  You then pay off the Apple Watch over a 24 month period, but instead of paying cash  you have the option of “paying” by earning points every time you workout using the Apple Watch.  John Hancock says that earning 500 points in a month means that you pay nothing, but I don’t see on the website how much exercise you need to do each month to earn 500 points.  If you meet that goal every month for 24 months, then you’ll never pay anything more other than the initial $25 payment.  It’s an interesting way to give life insurance customers an incentive to stay in shape.
• Wirecutter has a great roundup of the best gadgets and apps for your home office.
• Jesse Hollington of iLounge reviews the Fibaro, a $70 HomeKit-compatible flood sensor you can place in a basement or other area that you are concerned might flood.  The Fibaro can give you an alert, and it can also trigger other automation such as turning another appliance on or off.
• This article isn’t directly related to the iPhone, but it is certainly related to tech security, an issue that we all need to think about.  David Sanger, David Kirkpatrick and Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times wrote a frightening article about the rise of North Korea as a source of ransomware, hacking, and other cyberattacks.
• Nicole Nguyen of BuzzFeed posted a profile of Angela Ahrednts, Apple’s SVP of Retail for Apple.
• And finally, in an interview with CNBC, Ahrednts discusses Apple’s new stores and the sale of the iPhone X.  Ahrednts, who was previously CEO of Burberry, notes that she wants for the stores to be inviting to build a relationship with customers.  “It’s no different than fashion.  … Don’t you go back to someone who has taken really good care of you, who you trust, to make you a better version of yourself?”  Ahrendts is a great spokesperson for Apple, and I’m glad that we are starting to see more of her.  Here is the video:

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.

At my firm, we are getting ready to upgrade to version 10, and I’m very much looking forward to the new features.  I see that iManage recently issued a press release discussing how Minneapolis family law firm Honsa Rodd Landry is using iManage Work 10.  Kristy Rodd, a partner at the firm, is quoted as saying:  “Since we don’t have dedicated on-site IT staff, technical issues could result in delayed access to critical documents. … Because of my past experience with iManage at a larger law firm, I know how valuable it would be to incorporate the same platform here. Getting iManage Work 10 and iManage Share via the iManage Cloud is an essential solution for us.”

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.

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.

After Hurricane Katrina, lack of dependable cell phone service was one of the major problems for those of us who were in New Orleans and the surrounding areas.  And when I say “surrounding” I don’t just mean the Greater New Orleans area; I’m talking about over hundred miles away.  Katrina caused huge areas in Louisiana and Mississippi to lose power, and also damaged many cell towers.  At the same time, people had an even greater need to use cellphones to try to locate friends and families, putting even greater strain on the networks.  As a result, it was incredibly difficult to use a cellphone to make a call.  I remember driving around Mississippi to find a spot with weak cellphone connectivity and then having to redial over-and-over again to try to get service.  And I remember how relieved I was every time I was able to confirm someone’s safety and whereabouts.  Back in 2005, text messaging was far less popular than it is today, and many folks (me included) discovered that even if you couldn’t make or receive a call, you could often make and receive text messages.  Even a limited ability to send and receive text messages made a huge difference in the recovery effort.  And Katrina was not unique in this respect; I’ve heard many stories of other disasters after which it was difficult to use cellphones.

The situation in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria is horrible on many different levels, but I know that one of the many problems is limited to non-existent cellphone service.  Thus, I was delighted to read an article by Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch describing how better cellphone service will soon be coming to Puerto Rico through the combined efforts of many different parties.  Panzarino provides the details, but in short, AT&T and Apple are tapping into a currently-unused (and unlicensed) part of the spectrum which will let working cellphone towers do more, Google is sending its Project Loon balloons to the region to provide even greater cellphone coverage, and the FCC is giving emergency licenses to make all of this possible.  The article says that the additional coverage will still be limited, but it should be enough for many more folks to send text messages.

I have no doubt that this joint effort will do a lot of good as folks in Puerto Rico undertake the long recovery process.

Senator Al Franken recently sent a letter to Apple, asking about the privacy implications of the Face ID system in the upcoming iPhone X.  After all, it would be a little creepy if Apple uploaded a picture of every owner’s face to an Apple server.  Apple recently responded and addressed those concerns, as reported by Mikey Campbell of AppleInsider, in an article that also includes a scan of Apple’s letter.  As confirmed by Apple, your face information stay securely on the phone, and is not even stored as a picture of your face — similar to how Apple stores your fingerprint on an iPhone or iPad with Touch ID.  It is nice to see more confirmation that Apple treats privacy so seriously.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks has advice for using the new Siri face for the Apple Watch and explains why it is now the face that he uses all of the time.  I agree with everything he says, although it is my second favorite watch face; I use the Activity Digital face even more to keep track of my activity circles.
• New York attorney Nicole Black recommends five apps for lawyers on the MyCase Blog.
• Serenity Caldwell of iMore asks why Apple is the only smartwatch manufacturer that makes smaller versions of a watch that are more suited for many women.  John Gruber of Daring Fireball says that the answer is likely that the other companies just don’t have the same ability to make the technology that small; Apple is by far the leader in this area.
• Jeff Byrnes of WatchAware tells the story of how an Apple Watch helped to save a man’s life by alerting him that his heart was unusually elevated.
• David Pogue of Yahoo reviews some of the first augmented reality apps for the iPhone and iPad running iOS 11.
• If you use GMail, you can now make it even harder for a hacker to access your account by requiring not only a password but also a hardware dongle to login.  Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai of Motherboard explains how it works.
• Rene Ritchie of iMore reviews the Apple Watch Series 3 Edition (the ceramic model).
• I see that there is an Indigogo campaign for a new product called the Bento Stack, which has lots of compartments to carry all of the power cordsa and accessories that go along with your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.  Looks like an interesting design.
• And finally, tonight at 5pm, Apple is opening an impressive new Apple Store in Chicago on Michigan Avenue.  It is a beautiful building that sits on the river and blends in with steps going down to the river.  Taylor Hartz of the Chicago Sun-Times gives a sneak peak of the newest Apple Store, and this video from the Chicago Sun-Times provides a great preview of what this store looks like:

I suspect that virtually every attorney with an iPhone or iPad uses Wi-Fi in connection with the representation of a client.  And if you are on a modern password-protected network, it should be reasonably safe to do so.  Unfortunately, things became more uncertain yesterday when Belgian security researcher Mathy Vanhoef revealed that it was possible for a hacker to intercept Wi-Fi communications, even over a secure password-protected WPA2 network, and even if the hacker didn’t know the password.  Yikes.

Lily Hay Newman of Wired has a good explanation of the flaw, which Vanhoef calls a Key Reinstallation Attack (KRACK).  And while the technical details of the risk may go over your head (mine too!), an argument can be made that every lawyer using technology such as Wi-Fi needs to keep up with this stuff.  For example, ABA Model Rule 1.6(c) says that lawyers shall take “reasonable efforts … to prevent unauthorized access to … information relating to the representation of a client.”  What reasonable efforts should a lawyer take?  Comment 8 to Model Rule 1.1 says that “a lawyer should keep abreast of … benefits and risks associated with relevant technology ….”  And ABA Formal Opinion 477 (May 11, 2017) says that “lawyers must, on a case-by-case basis, constantly analyze how they communicate electronically about client matters” and must undertake “reasonable efforts to prevent inadvertent or unauthorized access.”  Of course, keeping abreast of the risks is easier said than done considering that technology changes so rapidly, as do security risks.

That’s the bad news.  Fortunately, there is good news for iPhone and iPad users.  First, while every Wi-Fi device is at risk to some extent, those of use who use iPhones and iPads are at less risk than folks using Android.  According to Tom Warren of The Verge, 41% of Android users are at risk, especially those using Android 6.0, because of the Wi-Fi implementation on those devices.  The current version of Android is 7.0, but unlike iOS users, it is typically much harder for Android users to update their devices.  There are many reasons for this, including that most Android phone manufacturers have no financial incentive to update older devices so they don’t do so.  Fortunately, Apple makes it much easier to update iOS devices and makes its frequent updates available for a wide range of devices, so you can expect to continue to receive security updates long after you buy an iPhone or iPad. 

The second item of good news is that Apple already has a fix for KRACK, as reported by Rene Ritchie of iMore.  Apple says that the fix is currently in a beta version and will soon be available for all users.  I’m not sure if this update will be in iOS 11.1 which I expect to come out in a few weeks (the one with the new Emoji in it) or if Apple will release a iOS 11.0.x update just to fix the KRACK flaw.  (Similarly, Apple has a fix for KRACK in a beta version of macOS.  And if you use Windows in your office or home, Microsoft similarly has a fix, as reported by Tom Warren of The Verge.)

What is currently less clear is whether you need to update both your iPhone/iPad and also your Wi-Fi router to fix this, or if just updating your iPhone/iPad is enough.  That article from Rene Ritchie of iMore says that whether you need to also update your router depends on the brand of router that you can using.  Of course, you have some control over the Wi-Fi router in your home and office, assuming that the manufacturer of your router releases an update.  But what concerns me is that if you are using Wi-Fi in another location, such as a hotel or conference or even just at another law firm, how are you supposed to know whether (1) the router is one that is vulnerable and (2) that router has been patched?  Hopefully we will soon get more information on how to confront this.

Note that there is another solution:  use VPN.  For a long time, I have recommended using VPN with your iPhone or iPad (and computer!) if you are using a public Wi-Fi network, but you can also use VPN on a private, password-protected network to protect yourself from any hacker using KRACK on the same network.  You can set something up at your own law firm so that all of your users can use VPN over Wi-Fi to connect back to your law firm network, or anyone can use a third-party VPN service.  For example, back in 2014 I reviewed a great app called Cloak; the name recently changed to Encrypt.Me and the service still works really well.

You could also avoid this particular hack by using cellular data instead of Wi-Fi.  I’ve been doing that more and more myself now that I have an AT&T unlimited data plan, and nowadays AT&T LTE is often faster than Wi-Fi for me.

Hopefully we will learn more about all of this very soon.  And when Apple does release the next version of iOS to fix this security flaw, I encourage you to install the update so that you have more protection when using Wi-Fi.

I’ve noted in the past that you can charge an iPad Pro twice as fast by using a USB-C charger instead of the 10W or 12W charger that comes with an iPad Pro.  The new iPhone 8 also supports fast charging, but the results are not the same as the iPad Pro.  According to a test conducted by Dan Loewenherz reported by John Gruber of Daring Fireball, a USB-C charger is much faster than the 5W charger that comes with the iPhone 8, but you can get almost the same results using a standard 10W or 12W iPad charger with an iPhone 8 as you can using a USB-C charger.  Of course, if you have both an iPhone 8 and an iPad Pro, using a USB-C charger with both makes sense because then you get the fastest possible charging with both devices.  I’ll be curious to find out in a few weeks if the iPhone X results with USB-C are similar to the iPhone 8.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• I often link to articles relating to the iPhone or iPad written by California attorney David Sparks, who publishes the MacSparky website.  This week, that website had its 10th anniversary.  In addition to the iOS-related articles that I often mention here, David also writes about the Mac, technology in general, and occasionally even his favorite topic, Jazz music.  (And yet amazingly, I don’t think that David has ever made it to Jazz Fest down here in New Orleans, which just makes no sense to me.)  Congratulations, David, on reaching this milestone, and thanks for all of the informative posts over the past decade.  I hope that you can celebrate by taking some time to relax and listen to Kind of Blue.
• Chicago attorney John Voorhees of MacStories discusses the new drag-and-drop feature in GoodNotes, the app that I use to take handwritten notes on my iPad Pro.
• Earlier this week, I wrote about Apple’s impressive new general counsel, Kate Adams.  Supreme Court practitioner Neal Katyal noted on Twitter that now both Apple and Facebook have a general counsel who previously clerked for Justice Breyer.
• If you feel like taking three seconds to vote for iPhone J.D. in a legal blog contest being run by The Expert Institute, feel free to click the VOTE box on this website.  (No registration required.)
• Apple is developing a video service, and news broke this week that Apple reached a deal with Steven Spielberg to bring back his Amazing Stories TV series from the 1980s.  I have lots of questions about what Apple has planned, and Jason Snell of Six Colors saved me the time of asking them out loud by exploring them all in this post.
• With iOS 11, many iPhones and iPads can now run apps that take advantage of Apple’s new ARKit to create virtual reality experiences.  These are early days so we don’t yet have a lot of these apps, but Andrew Hayward of Macworld describes 10 of the best ARkit apps that you can try out now.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook explains why ARKit is such a big deal in an interview with Andrew Griffin of The Independent.
• The iPhone X is the major new design for the iPhone, but Apple VP Jony Ive says that it is just the beginning of a new chapter in iPhone development, as reported by Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac.
• Michael Simon of Macworld reviews the Apple Watch Series 3.
• Neil Hughes of AppleInsider explains why he likes the Apple Watch Series 3.
• Craig Lloyd of How-To Geek explains that in iOS 11, if someone wants to use your WiFi network, you can have your iPhone send the password, saving your friend the trouble of typing it in.
• Thanks to Apple’s AirPods, which I absolutely LOVE, I haven’t needed or wanted to use a wired headphone in a long time.  But if you prefer to use wired headphones which plug into a headphone jack, and you want to be able to charge your iPhone at the same time that you use headphones, the Belkin 3.5mm Audio + Charge RockStar ($35 on Amazon) is what you need.  Jesse Hollington of iLounge posted this review.
• And finally, here is a short but great video in which photographer Albert Watson talks about some of his most iconic photographs over the years, including the great shot of Steve Jobs which appears on the cover of Water Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography.  I’m sure that you will recognize many of the photos in this video.  As for the Steve Jobs photograph, Watson explains:  “When you think of a Mac or an iPad, it’s pretty simple.  And the shot is pretty simple and direct.  I said, ‘I’d like you to think about your next project, and think about that some people might not let you do it.’  And that’s where that look came from.”  Here is the video:

When iOS 11.1 is released at some point in the future — my guess is in the next few weeks [UPDATE: released on Oct. 31] — one of the new features will be the addition of new emoji.  Apple recently previewed high-quality versions of some of the upcoming new emoji.  In case you are curious what is coming soon, take a look.

New faces include face with symbols over mouth, face with monocle, crazy face, and shushing face:

New food includes pie, broccoli, takeout box, and dumpling:

New animals include giraffe, hedgehog, cricket, and sauropod (a dinosaur with a long neck, tail, and four thick legs, such as a Brontosaurus):

New accessories include coat, gloves, billed cap, and scarf:

New lifestyle emoji include man climbing, curling stone, sled, and woman in steamy room:

New mystical emoji include mermaid, mage (wizard), woman fairy, and man vampire:

Apple will also add gender-neutral emoji, including a child, adult, and older adult, as well as an orange heart:

Another one coming is the American Sign Language gesture for “I love you”:

The 28 emoji images shown above are just a small sample of the new additions.  According to Emojipedia, there should be 239 new emoji in iOS 11.1.  A larger number of those are variations on a central theme; for example, many emoji come in two genders and five different skin tones.  We saw an example of that last year in iOS 10.2 when Apple gave us 12 different versions of the judge emoji:

Other emoji coming in iOS 11 include face with hand over mouth, bearded person, breast-feeding, zombie, flying saucer, and coconut.  And also, there is a new face emoji with one eyebrow raised, which many folks call the Stephen Colbert emoji.  Colbert discussed it back in March of 2016, as you can see in this video:

This past Friday, Apple announced that Katherine “Kate” Adams will be the next general counsel of Apple.  Specifically, she is the general counsel and senior vice president of Legal and Global Security, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook.  Here is some background on the general counsel position at Apple and Ms. Adams.

The general counsel position at Apple over the last 20 years

After almost dying as a company, Apple purchased NeXT in March of 1996 and brought Steve Jobs back to the company.  Eighteen months later, Apple hired Nancy Heinen to serve as General Counsel and Secretary, a job Heinen had also held at NeXT.  Heinen held the position until May of 2006, when she resigned shortly before Apple admitted to some irregularities in the backdating of stock options.  Heinen eventually settled claims brought by the SEC for about $2.2 million, without admitting to any of the SEC’s charges.

It took Apple six months to replace Heinen, and the next two replacements did not last as long as Heinen.  First, Apple hired Donald Rosenberg in November of 2007.  Rosenberg had previously been general counsel at IBM, where he had worked for over 30 years.  But Rosenberg did not stay at Apple very long, leaving after only 10 months to become general counsel at Qualcomm, a position that he still holds today.  Today, Apple and Qualcomm have more than Rosenberg in common; they are also suing each other in huge litigation over Qualcomm’s cellphone patents.  A few days ago, Max Chafkin and Ian King of Bloomberg Businessweek wrote an article about this litigation called Apple and Qualcomm’s Billion-Dollar War Over an $18 Part.

In September of 2007, Apple replaced Rosenberg with Daniel Cooperman.  Cooperman had previously served as General Counsel for Oracle for 11 years and before that was a partner in the San Francisco office of the firm that eventually became Bingham McCutchen.  Cooperman stayed at Apple for only two years, and then he returned to Bingham McCutchen.  When that firm collapsed in 2014, he moved on to DLA Piper, and now teaches at Stanford Law School and advises an angel investor.

In September of 2009, Apple hired D. Bruce Sewell, the fourth and final general counsel hired during the second tenure of Steve Jobs at Apple.  Before coming to Apple, Sewell had served as Intel’s general counsel for 15 years.  During the eight years that Sewell has lead the legal department at Apple, Apple become the largest company in the world thanks to the iPhone.  Sewell oversaw numerous complex legal issues including litigation with Samsung for copying the iPhone, efforts to return a prototype iPhone 4 that an Apple employee left in a bar, and numerous consumer privacy issues including negotiations with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the world eager to access confidential information on iPhones.

Sewell announced last week that he will be retiring from the Apple at the end of 2017.  “To have worked with this amazing executive team and all the incredibly smart people at Apple, especially my colleagues in legal and global security, has been the honor of a lifetime,” said Bruce Sewell in Apple’s press release.  “The years I have spent in this job have been the most gratifying of my career.  I’m delighted Kate is joining and I know she will be a huge asset.”

Kate Adams

Adams grew up in New York, and thanks to her father John Adams, had lots of early exposure to the law.  John Adams worked as a Wall Street attorney and then a federal prosecutor, but is best known for co-founding the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1970, the nation’s first litigation-focused environmental advocacy group.  Under the leadership of John Adams, the NRDC was involved in some of most important environmental litigation in the 1970s and beyond. 

Kate Adams went to college at Brown University, where she graduated in 1986 when a B.A. in Comparative Literature with French and German concentrations.  She thought about becoming a professor of literature, but got a job after college working in the criminal justice system, and this made her decide to be a lawyer.  She explained in one interview:  “I got a job right out of college [at Brown University] in the Bronx criminal court system working with repeat offenders.  I was exposed to lawyers and working in the justice system and got really interested in that whole arena of the intersection between law and society.  I thought, ‘Maybe I should do this.  It’s not a professor of literature, but I will do a lot of writing.'”

Adams then went to law school at the University of Chicago Law School, where she graduated in 1990.  After law school, she clerked for Stephen Breyer, who was then the Chief Judge of the First Circuit, but would be appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1994.  From 1991 to 1993, she worked as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, working on environmental law.  From 1993 to 1994, she worked as a law clerk for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1994, Adams joined the New York office of the Sidley Austin law firm, where she had an environmental law and litigation practice for almost ten years.  She made partner at Sidley in the late 1990s, and also taught environmental law as an adjunct professor at Columbia and NYU.

In 2003, Adams left private practice to work as Deputy General Counsel at Honeywell.  In 2009, she was named general counsel at Honeywell.  She worked to improve Honeywell’s safety and environmental record, and reduced Honeywell’s new case filing rate through litigation prevention measures.

After working at Honeywell for 14 years, eight of those years as general counsel, Kate Adams is now the first general counsel hired in the post-Steve Jobs era of Apple.  Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a press release:  “We are thrilled to welcome Kate to our team.  She’s a seasoned leader with outstanding judgment and that has worked on a wide variety of legal cases globally.  Throughout her career she’s also been an advocate on many of the values we at Apple hold dear.”  Adams is quoted as saying:  “Apple has had a tremendous impact on the world and it’s an honor to join their team.  I’m excited to help Apple continue to grow and evolve around the world, protecting their ideas and IP, and defending our shared values.”

Kate Adams seems to have the perfect background for this position.  She is incredibly smart, has experience as a general counsel, has a lot of experience with patents and other technology issues thanks to her time at Honeywell, and she grew up with a deep appreciation for protecting the environment and other values that are critical to Tim Cook’s Apple.  Good luck to the entire legal department at Apple during this transition, and I hope that Adams has a long and successful tenure.

UPDATE 12/8/2017:  Today, Apple updated its Apple Leadership page to replace Sewell with Adams.  Here is what Apple says about Adams:

Kate Adams is Apple’s general counsel and senior vice president of Legal and Global Security, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. Kate serves on the company’s executive team and oversees all legal matters, including corporate governance, intellectual property, litigation and securities compliance, global security and privacy. Kate joined Apple from Honeywell in 2017, where she worked for 14 years, most recently as senior vice president and general counsel. At Honeywell, Kate was in charge of the organization’s global legal strategy across more than 100 countries.

Prior to joining Honeywell, Kate was a partner at Sidley Austin LLP in New York. Earlier in her career, she served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; as trial attorney for the United States Department of Justice, Appellate Section, Environment and Natural Resources division; and as law clerk for Stephen Breyer, then chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Kate earned a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature from Brown University and a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School.

 

As I type this, New Orleans is a potential target of Hurricane Nate,  Enough with the 2017 hurricanes, already!  But if you are tracking a hurricane or just wondering when it will rain next, here are two weather apps that I have been using a lot lately and that I can recommend.  First, I like Hurricane HD, a great app that focuses just on tracking hurricanes.  Second, for a long time I put off trying CARROT Weather because it has a reputation for being snarky, which seemed like just a gimmick to me.  But I’ve been using the app for a few weeks now, and it has quickly become my favorite weather app.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Massachusetts lawyer Bob Ambrogi discuses the Clio Cloud conference which just took place in New Orleans, and will be here again in 2018.
• In iOS 11 on an iPad, you can put the most important apps in the dock.  California attorney David Sparks shows off how you can put all of your apps in the dock, leaving a blank screen.  Interesting.
• Florida attorney Katie Floyd reminds us all to watch out for emails that appear to be, but are not really, from Apple.
• If you use a Mac, you should check out 60 Mac Tips, Volume 2, a collection of video tips and tricks for the Mac by California attorney David Sparks and Brett Terpstra.
• Jason Snell of Six Colors reviews the Apple Watch Series 3.
• Jesse Hollington of iLounge reviews the Apple Watch Series 3.
• Hollington also reviews the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.
• Dennis Sellers of AppleWorld.Today discusses the new Apple TV 4K.
• Leander Kahney of Cult of Mac also reviews the new Apple TV 4K.
• Steffen Reich of iDownloadBlog has some good advice for using a single finger to zoom in Apple Maps.
• Steven Sande of AppleWorld.Today discusses the release of Camera+ version 10, a great camera app for the iPhone.
• Jony Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer, was interviewed earlier today at the New York TechFest.  Zac Hall of 9to5Mac has a transcript of the interview.
• And finally, Apple released a new ad this week to show off the Portrait Lighting feature of the iPhone 8 Plus.  This feature will also be part of the iPhone X being released next month: