Month: March 2018

Yesterday, Apple had a special event at a high school in Chicago to announce new hardware and software that can be used in schools.  You can watch Apple’s one hour presentation and learn more information from Apple about what it announced on this page of the Apple website.  It looked like these were interesting announcements for folks in the education field who want to help students be even more creative and productive with iPads.  I’m not a teacher, so I’m not really qualified to comment on that.

But I did see quite a few things yesterday that have the potential to be really useful for attorneys, although in some cases you have to read a few tea leaves.  Here’s what jumped out at me.

An inexpensive iPad that works with the Apple Pencil

I’ll start with the one announcement that attorneys can start using this week:  the new sixth generation iPad.  Before yesterday, when an attorney would ask me which iPad to buy, I always said the iPad Pro.  You need to decide whether to get the more traditional 10.5″ size or the larger 12.9″ size, but I always considered the iPad Pro far superior to the standard iPad for attorneys and other professional users.  A big reason for that was that only the iPad Pro line supported the Apple Pencil, which is fantastic for annotating documents — highlighting the cases that you download from Westlaw, adding notes in the margins of a brief filed by your opponent, circling key provisions in a contract or exhibit, taking handwritten notes in a meeting, etc.  But it also helped that the iPad Pro is a much more powerful device, so it keeps up with you and doesn’t get in the way of you getting your work done.

Yesterday Apple updated its entry-level non-Pro tablet, which is simply called the iPad.  This sixth generation iPad features the 9.7″ screen that has been a part of the iPad since 2010, so you don’t get the reduced bezels that result in more usable screen space on the 10.5″ iPad Pro.  And in many other respects, the new sixth generation iPad contains old technology.  For example, it has the first generation version of Touch ID, an older camera that lacks optical image stabilization and can’t record 4K video, lacks True Tone (so the screen doesn’t adjust based upon the ambient light in the room so that white always looks white), lacks ProMotion technology (so the screen doesn’t refresh as often), and doesn’t have a four-speaker audio system.

But for the first time, the entry-level iPad now supports the Apple Pencil, which I’ve always considered the major advantage of the iPad Pro for attorneys.  Because it lacks the ProMotion technology, the Apple Pencil won’t be quite as fast and smooth on the screen of an iPad as compared to an iPad Pro, but if you have never used an iPad Pro then you won’t notice the difference.  Instead of spending $649 for the cheapest version of the 10.5″ iPad Pro (with 64GB), you can now spend $329 for the cheapest version of the iPad (with 32GB), a significant savings of $320.  Use some of that to buy an Apple Pencil (which costs $99) and you are still spending far less than you would on just the iPad Pro itself without the Pencil.

The sixth generation iPad also features the A10 processor (first used in the iPhone 7 in 2016), which is an improvement over the A9 processor used in the fifth generation iPad which came out one year ago, but still slower than the A10X chip used in the currently-shipping version of the iPad Pro (introduced in mid-2017) and the A11 chip in the iPhone 8 and iPhone X.

If you are in the market for a new iPad and are thinking of saving yourself some money by purchasing this sixth generation iPad instead of an iPad Pro, here are two more things that you should keep in mind as you compare the features.  First, remember that the iPad Pro being sold today was introduced in June of 2017.  The 2018 iPad may compare somewhat favorably to the 2017 iPad Pro, but when the 2018 version of the iPad Pro is released (maybe this June?), I’m sure that there will even more of a gap between the non-Pro and the Pro models.

Second, keep in mind that if you are like most people, you will hang on to whatever iPad you buy today for several years.  While many people upgrade to a new iPhone every one or two years, people tend to wait even longer before upgrading to a new tablet.  In a few years, the 2017 (or 2018) version of the iPad Pro will probably still work really well with the latest apps, but the sixth generation iPad may seem even more dated.

But for many attorneys, this won’t matter.  If you just want a basic iPad to get your work done and it is more important to you to pay essentially half as much money, even if it means that you won’t have all of the bells and whistles associated with the high-end iPad Pro, the 2018 version of the iPad is a very good option.  The least expensive $329 version only has 32GB of space, which might not be enough if you plan to keep a lot of documents, photos, etc., but there is also a 128GB version for $429. 

I think it is great that there is now a lower cost, entry-level iPad that I can finally recommend to attorneys and other professionals looking to get work done without paying a premium for the latest and greatest features.

New Pencil feature:  Smart Annotation

Although I often use my Apple Pencil to annotate a Microsoft Word document, adding comments or additions in the margins, circling paragraphs, etc., when I am done annotating I always convert the document to PDF and send that version to the person who is making the changes.  Converting to PDF is necessary because if I just send the document in Word format, it is too easy for the annotations — which are just pictures on top of the document — to get out of sync with the document itself.  For example, If I circle a few words in a paragraph, And then another person starts to type something to the beginning of the paragraph, then the circle stays in the same place while the words that were supposed to be circled move down the page.  And even if you are not sharing a document with another person, if you try to use both redline edits to text and also annotations from an Apple Pencil in the same document, it can quickly become a big mess.

Realizing that this is a problem, Apple added a new feature to Pages, Apple’s word processing app that comes for free with the iPad, called Smart Annotation.  This feature makes your edits stay with the text that you were annotating, even if the words move around. 

Here are two pictures that show you how this works.  In the first image, I circled a word in the last sentence of the first paragraph and wrote some notes:

Now I hit return to move that last sentence so that it becomes the second paragraph.  If you try this in Microsoft Word, the annotations end up in the wrong place.  But in the new version of Pages, the annotation correctly moves as the text moves.

Apple says that this new Smart Annotation feature is currently still in beta, but in my tests last night it seemed to work really well. 

Does this one new feature mean that I’m now going to start using Pages instead of Microsoft Word on my iPad?  No, it doesn’t.  There are too many other features of the Word app that I prefer.  And whenever I translate a document from Microsoft Word to Apple Pages format and then back again, there is a high risk of messing up the formatting of the document.

But even if I won’t use Pages, I’m still excited about this Smart Annotation feature because I hope that it is the start of more intelligent Pencil integration into apps and documents.  I especially hope that Microsoft copies this feature and perhaps even extends it, making annotations work even better.  Smart Annotations is one of those features that once you see it, you cannot imagine why it wasn’t always there.

A second Renaissance Age for the stylus?

Next, I want to talk about a single sentence of Apple’s hour-long presentation.  Just before the 34 minute mark, Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of product marketing, introduced a new durable keyboard-and-case for the iPad from Logitech.  After that, he says this:  “And Logitech is also offering Crayon, a new low-cost option for Education that works great with iWork and other Pencil-enabled apps.”

I’ve been using a stylus with my iPad pretty much since I first got an iPad.  For many years, companies came out with better and better styluses, adding new features to make them work even more like a real pen or pencil or to add some other improvement.  The different styluses came in different shapes, experimented with different tips, some included buttons that an app could interpret to change from a pen to an eraser or other function, and there were lots of other differences.  As I look back at the iPhone J.D. Index, I see that I reviewed 28 different styluses between 2011 and 2016.

And then I stopped.  Shortly after the Apple Pencil came out in 2015, I no longer saw any point in reviewing a stylus made by any other company.  No other stylus had that fine tip, the extremely low latency, and the perfect palm rejection.  It wasn’t even a fair fight; Apple designed the iPad to work with the Apple Pencil, so you could finally have a fine tip stylus that was as responsive as writing with a pen or pencil on paper — especially when using apps designed to work with the Apple Pencil.  No other company could match that.  I’m sure that Apple will release a second generation Apple Pencil at some point, and hopefully we will see it this year.  But before yesterday, I didn’t expect to ever use any stylus with my iPad other than an Apple Pencil.

But now, there is a second stylus that uses Apple Pencil technology.  And it doesn’t even come from Apple; it comes from Logitech.  The Logitech Crayon is half the cost of an Apple Pencil ($49).  It lacks a few features in the Apple Pencil — for example, it isn’t pressure-sensitive so you cannot get a thicker line by pressing harder.  (As a workaround in some apps, you can tilt the Crayon at an angle to change the thickness.)  And you cannot charge the Crayon directly from an iPad; you need to use a Lightning cord, much like you would charge an iPad or iPhone.  But the Crayon also has some advantages over the Apple Pencil besides price.  For example, it is more durable, and it has a flat edge so it won’t roll off of your desk.  (My workaround on my Apple Pencil is to add a clip.)

At this point, the Crayon only works with the sixth generation iPad.  It uses a new method of communicating with the iPad, so it will not work with any of the iPad Pro versions that have been released to date (although maybe that will change when the 2018 versions of the iPad Pro are released).  And at this point, it looks like you need to be a student or teacher to use the Logitech Crayon; according to Lory Gill of iMore, the Crayon will go on sale this Summer to schools, which will have to buy at least 10 units at a time.

If these restrictions remain, I myself may never use a Crayon.  However, what excites me is not the Crayon itself, but instead the possibility that the Crayon is the first of many new styluses to come.  Sure, it is possible that the Crayon is a one-off device, a way for Apple to get a cheaper and more rugged iPad stylus into the hands of schools without Apple having to make the product itself.  But my hope is that Apple is finally opening up the market so that third parties will be able to use Apple Pencil technology to create products that match the low latency and palm rejection of the Apple Pencil, but come in different shapes or sizes or have other differentiating features.  I would love to see professional styluses from Logitech, Adonit, Griffin, Kensington, Wacom, and the many other companies who in the past created some of the most innovative styluses for the iPad.

Will this happen?  Am I reading too much into that one sentence from Joswiak’s presentation yesterday?  We’ll see, but my fingers are crossed that when Apple opened the door to the Logitech Crayon, it opened the door for other third party styluses as well. 

iCloud Storage

Currently, every Apple account comes with 5GB of free iCloud storage, which you can use to store your photos, videos, and other files.  But that space gets used up very quickly, so Apple currently sells 50GB, 200GB, or 2TB plans.  In the U.S., the current monthly costs are $0.99 for 50GB, $2.99 for 200GB and $9.99 for 2TB, and with the two larger plans you can share that space with an entire family.  (I currently use the 2TB plan for me and my family.)

Yesterday, Apple announced that the free iCloud storage for school accounts is increasing from 5GB to 200GB.

Apple did not make any announcement of changes for folks outside of Education, but my hope is that Apple is finally recognizing that 5GB is way too small given current technology and that everyone needs a huge increase in free storage space.

Conclusion

I know many attorneys who are using an older iPad and are overdue for an upgrade.  Now that there is a relatively inexpensive entry-level iPad that supports the Apple Pencil, hopefully the sixth generation iPad will be an incentive for these folks to get a new more powerful and more useful device.  Advanced users will still want the iPad Pro, and after using a larger 12.9″ screen for so many years now I’d never want to return to a smaller screen, which would force me to squint when reading documents.  But for many attorneys and other professional users, the sixth general iPad will be the sweet spot.

The new iPad is available this week, but everything else that excited me about yesterday’s presentation will take a while to become a reality — if they come to fruition at all.  Maybe no other apps will add a Smart Annotation feature, maybe the Logitech Crayon will be the only third party stylus that works as well as the Apple Pencil, and maybe only schools will get increased iCloud storage space.  If that’s the way it works out, I’ll be disappointed.  For now, I prefer to be optimistic, and I hope that it won’t be long before we can choose between a variety of different styluses for the iPad and iPad Pro, and use those products with iPad apps that offer all sorts of advanced stylus features such as Smart Annotations.

Apple technology, especially iPhones and laptops, shows up in TV shows all the time.  I often hear folks speculate about how much Apple must have paid for product placement.  In an article for Variety, Brian Steinberg reports that there are some rare instances in which Apple does so, but most of the time that Apple’s products appear in a show, it is just because the folks creating the show feel that it makes sense for an Apple product to appear in the scene.  But that doesn’t mean that Apple has nothing to do with it.  Steinberg reports that Apple has a team that works with TV shows to provide Apple products to be used by the actors.  There is, of course, some cost to Apple to provide all of those products for free, but as Steinberg reports, that cost pales compared to the cost of a 30-second commercial, even though the exposure can be just as valuable.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• On his Apps in Law website, legal technology consultant Brett Burney discusses in two articles (part one, part two) and two associated videos how the TranscriptPad app works.  This is a great resource if you have TranscriptPad but you are not quite sure how to use all of the features, and is also useful if you don’t have the app and you want to see exactly how you could use it.
• California attorney David Sparks writes about an update to the Trello iOS app, an app that can be used by teams to manage a project.  I haven’t used this myself, but I do hear about other attorneys incorporating project management software into their law practice.
• The LitSoftware blog explains how Texas attorney Ron Clark used TrialPad to win three defense verdicts in criminal cases.
• Next week, Apple will hold an education event in Chicago.  In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell predicts what Apple is most likely to announce, including a new low-cost iPad.
• Jared Newman of Fast Company describes 25 top productivity apps.  There are some good ones in this list, along with quite a few that I’ve never heard of.
• About a year ago, I tried out and reviewed Sleep++, and Apple Watch app that can measure and track your sleep.  The app didn’t seem useful for my life, but I continue to hear from others who see value in using an app like this.  Federico Viticci of MacStories reports that the Sleep++ app was updated this week to add automatic sleep tracking, which I imagine would reduce the awkwardness of using the app.  Viticci’s article also compares Sleep++ to AutoSleep, a similar app which Viticci prefers.
• If you do sleep with your Apple Watch on, Christian Aibreg of iDownloadBlog recommends disabling Auto Call in your Emergency SOS settings so that you don’t accidentally call 911 at night if you sleep on your watch the wrong way.  This reminds me of an incident back when I was a teenager using a Commodore 64 computer and a modem to dial a local BBS.  The phone number of the BBS was 391-19xx.  I could tell as the modem was dialing that it made a mistake and didn’t dial the “3” and thus instead it dialed “911.”  Through my modem speaker, I could hear emergency services pick up, while my end was making the sounds of a modem in the 1980s.  I immediately hung up in panic, but then a few minutes later the police showed up at my house to check that everything was OK — meaning I had to explain to my parents how my computer had called 911 by mistake, something that they didn’t really understand.  We may no longer use modems to dial a BBS, but I guess that accidentally calling 911 is still a thing.
• Apple updated its Apple Watch band collection for Spring 2018.  Rene Ritchie of iMore discusses the new bands.
• Michael Steeber of 9to5Mac discusses some “obscure” Apple accessories of the past which you might have forgotten about.  I enjoyed the article, but some of these “obscure” accessories are items that I used quite a bit, so I’m not sure that they are obscure.  Indeed, I posted reviews of the Apple Universal Dock and the iPad Camera Connection Kit.
• And finally, two weeks ago, I ended the In the news post with an Apple video for the HomePod called “Welcome Home” created by Spike Jonze.  It’s a great video, and the choreography and effects are really impressive.  This week, Tim Nudd of AdWeek posted a fascinating behind-the-scenes article and video on how the Apple commercial was made.  You need to go to the AdWeek article to watch the video, and I recommend that you do so because it does a great job of showing you how complicated this was to create.  It reminds me of Apple technology itself, which is often so easy and fun to use that you can forget how much effort went into making the product.  After you watch that article, you’ll want to watch the Apple video again, so here it is:

Back in 2015, I reviewed the Anker PowerPort 6, a great device that lets you plug into a single wall outlet and charge six USB devices at once.  Since then, that device has been an essential part of my travel gear.  It is nice when you only have to locate one available outlet in a hotel room, conference area, airport, etc., and from that one outlet have the ability to charge multiple devices.  Often, that Anker charger was the only charger that I needed on a trip.  That changed when I started to use an iPad Pro in early 2016 because a traditional USB-to-Lightning connection takes a long time to charge the powerful iPad Pro.  Ever since March 2016, I have mostly charged my iPad Pro (or iPad Pro 2) using Apple’s 29W USB-C Power Adapter and Apple’s USB-C to Lightning Cable (my review), which recharges much more quickly.  So when I traveled, that meant carrying two chargers.

To try to get back to carrying one charging unit during travel, a few weeks ago I purchased from Amazon Anker’s PowerPort+ 5 Ports USB-C, a single unit which features both a single USB-C port for fast-charging, plus four other USB ports.  I’ve used this device on two out-of-town trips, and it has worked very well.  [UPDATE: 1/27/2019:  I see that Anker is now selling an updated version of this device, and it is currently on Amazon for only $35.]

If you are familiar with the Anker PowerPort 6, the PowerPort+ 5 Ports USB-C looks very similar.  If you put them side-to-side you can see that the PowerPort+ 5 is just slightly larger (height of 1.1″ versus 1″, width of 4.06″ versus 4.9″, depth of 3.07″ versus 2.8″) and just slightly heavier (7.5 oz. versus 6.7 oz) but in normal use I never noticed those slight differences.

One difference between the two is that the PowerPort 6 has a blue light that goes on when the unit is plugged in.  It’s nice to have an indication that there is a charge, but it is sort of annoying to have that blue light in a room at night.  The PowerPort+ 5 doesn’t have any light, and I think I prefer that.

The main difference is that while the older PowerPort 6 has six USB ports, the newer device has only five ports. But one of those ports is special — it is USB-C and supports the same 29W that the Apple USB-C charger supports. 

When you need to charge an iPad Pro, the faster USB-C is a noticeable difference.  As I noted in my review of Apple’s power adapter, you can charge an iPad Pro twice as fast.

When you need to charge an iPhone X or an iPhone 8, those devices can also get a fast-charge using USB-C.  However, the difference isn’t as big as it is on an iPad Pro.  In this post from Juli Clover of MacRumors, she shows that using USB-C you can get an extra 7% of charge in 15 minutes, an extra 10% of charge in 30 minutes, and an extra 12% of charge in 45 minutes.  If you only have 30 minutes to charge your iPhone X in a hotel room, does it matter to you whether you will end up with a 49% charge versus a 39% charge — keeping in mind that those number are just rough estimates anyway?  My feeling is that I want a USB-C port to get a substantially faster charge on my iPad Pro, and if that also helps me get a somewhat faster charge on an iPhone X, well why not.  There have been times late at night when an extra 10% in battery life makes all the difference.

(I don’t travel with a Mac laptop, but if you use one of the newer ones that supports USB-C charging, that is an additional reason that the PowerPort+ 5 Ports USB-C will be very helpful for you.)

The disadvantage versus the PowerPort 6 is that you only have a total of five ports, one fewer port.  For me, this trade-off is worth it because it is rare that I need to use all six ports at once.  For example, at night I will often charge an iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and an external battery.  Having said that, there are times when six ports are useful (such as when I’m traveling with my family), and if an extra port is more important to you than having a single fast port, then the PowerPort 6 might be a better product for you.

Although I use this device almost exclusively as a travel companion, I know lots of attorneys who use an Anker PowerPort in a permanent location in an office or home.  That’s what my wife does — she keeps a PowerPort on a shelf and uses it every night to charge her iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and sometimes another device such as her AirPods.

I’ve enjoyed using the Anker PowerPort+ 5 Ports USB-C for the last few weeks.  It lets me charge lots of devices at once, I have the advantage of fast-charge technology, plus I don’t have to carry around the big and heavy Apple power adapter in addition to an Anker PowerPort device.  It’s not often that you can say that five is better than six, but if your charging needs are similar to mine, then you will find the Anker PowerPort+ 5 Ports USB-C to be a very useful device and an upgrade over the older PowerPort 6.  And if you are considering purchasing Apple’s 29W USB‑C Power Adapter, this Anker product costs the same $50 but gives you four additional ports.

Click here to get the Anker PowerPort+ 5 Ports USB-C from Amazon ($49.99).

UPDATE:  Here is a link to the current version for only $35.00

As noted by Dan Moren of Six Colors, Apple announced this week that it is having an event March 27 in Chicago.  The event will take place at a school, and Apple is calling it a Field Trip, so I imagine that Apple will be showing off some new technology that can be used in education.  But that doesn’t mean that it might not also be useful for lawyers.  For example, my Apple Pencil is one of the most useful Apple products in my law practice, and as Serenity Caldwell of iMore notes, one rumor is that Apple could debut an Apple Pencil 2 at the event.  Other folks are predicting a new iPad will be announced, although that one seems a little more far-fetched to me.  At this point we can only speculate what will be announced, but if you were planning to buy an Apple product in the next 10 days, you might consider waiting until March 27 just in case Apple updates the product that you were thinking about buying.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• My favorite app for listening to podcasts is Overcast because it has so many great features.  This week the app added a new feature called Smart Resume, so that when you pause the podcast and then subsequently resume, the podcast backs up a few seconds and finds dead space between words and starts there.  Chicago attorney John Voorhees of MacStories describes the new feature.  It’s so clever that you instantly wonder why podcast apps haven’t always done this.
• Massachusetts attorney Bob Amborgi reports that with Kentucky adding the requirement, there are now 30 states which have an ethical rule imposing a duty of technological competence on attorneys.
• Oklahoma City attorney Jeff Taylor of the Droid Lawyer website explains how you can manage the information that Google has about you using the MyAccount feature.
• Earlier this week, I discussed the recent ABA TECHSHOW conference, and one of the things that I mentioned was that the conference iPhone app was quite good.  New York attorney Nicole Black had the same thought, and write about how a good app can help a conference in this article for Above the Law.
• When you exercise with your Apple Watch, the watch keeps track of your heart rate during the workout.  But what if you want to keep track of your heart rate when you are not working out?  Chance Miller of 9to5Mac describes the HeartMonitor app for Apple Watch which allows you to start a non-exercise session in which the watch will track your heart rate.
• Many cities now have a bike sharing option that you can pay for.  Romain Dillet of TechCrunch notes that Apple Maps now has the ability to show you the nearest bike-sharing stations in many cities, including 24 U.S. cities and many other around the world.  In New Orleans where I live, we have a relatively new bike sharing service called Blue Bikes and I see people using the service all the time, but Apple Maps doesn’t yet work with that service.
• If you ever thought that you could redact a PDF document using the iOS built-in Markup feature, Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac explains why this is NOT an appropriate way to redact confidential information.
• There is something funny about buying an accessory for an accessory, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t useful.  Serenity Caldwell of iMore discusses some of the best accessories for the Apple Pencil.
• There are lots of ways that you can manage multiple iPhones and other Apple products within a family.  This week, Apple unveiled a new Families page on its website to show you everything that you can do.
• If you use iAnnotate by Branchfire to manage and annotate your PDF files, a post on the Branchfire blog describes the version 4.5 update which adds the ability to merge PDFs and other features.
• If you want to add CarPlay to a car which doesn’t have it, Zac Hall of 9to5Mac recommends the best aftermarket CarPlay receivers.
• And finally, this week Apple unveiled a fun commercial called Unlock which shows off the power of using Face ID to unlock an iPhone X.  I like this one:

I usually try to avoid attending conferences two weeks in a row, but appellate law is a significant part of my law practice, and there is a big appellate conference going on this week.  Thus, after attending ABA TECHSHOW last week, this week I’m attending the DRI Appellate Advocacy Seminar in Las Vegas. 

I know from the emails I receive that lots of appellate lawyers read iPhone J.D.  If you are attending the seminar this week, please look for me and say hello.  (This is what I look like.)  I’d especially love to learn about how you are using an iPad in your appellate practice, either during the briefing stage or for oral argument.  Or if you have advice on whether I should bet on black or red, that could be helpful too.

Last week, I attended ABA TECHSHOW 2018.  For decades, this event held in Chicago every Spring has been the biggest and best event for learning more about legal technology — in other words, for about as long as legal technology has even been a thing.  Every TECHSHOW is different, and there were some big differences this year, most notably a new venue at the Chicago Hyatt Regency.  Debbie Foster and Tom Mighell were the co-chairs of TECHSHOW this year, and they and the rest of the planning board deserve lots of praise for making this transition work so well.  Pretty much every aspect of the venue was better this year.  The layout of the Expo Hall was particularly improved, with everything together in one huge space.  And it was nice having the conference rooms much closer to the Expo Hall so you could more easily go back-and-forth.

The iPhone app associated with the conference was also great this year.  It contained the full schedule and made it easy to create your own agenda of the events and sessions you want to attend.  You could see all program materials.  You could get information on speakers and attendees.  And there was a nice integrated social component with pictures and information, a fun way to see what people were doing without having to do a search on Twitter.  I wish that the app had been updated to accommodate the larger iPhone X screen, but otherwise, it was a great companion for the conference and made printed materials unnecessary.

 

My big complaint about the conference this year was the lack of mobile content in the sessions.  ABA TECHSHOW has a ton of sessions, with multiple tracks occurring simultaneously.  Even a cursory look at the Expo Floor would confirm what you already know — mobile technology is one of the hottest areas of legal technology, as it has been for many years.  And yet there has not been a mobile track at TECHSHOW since 2015.  This makes no sense to me.  There could have easily been a track devoted to just the use of the iPad in the practice of law, or there could have been an even broader track focused on iPads, iPhones, wearable devices, etc.

I raised this issue with co-chair Tom Mighell.  It’s not like Tom doesn’t get the importance of mobile technology; back in 2011, he authored a book on how lawyers can use iPads, he used to publish a website called iPad 4 Lawyers, and he and I have co-presented at TECHSHOW in the past on mobile technology topics.  Tom understands mobile technology.  Tom’s response to me was that mobile technology could just be incorporated as a sub-topic of other sessions.  I agree that is good too, and I saw some of that myself.  For example, in a session focused on using Macs, Florida attorney Katie Floyd, California attorney David Sparks, and New Jersey attorney Victor Medina shared some great tips on using an iPhone and iPad in a law practice:

But there was only a single session which even mentioned mobile technology in its title, a (great) session by technology consultant Brett Burney and California attorney David Sparks called All in the Family:  Seamless Workflows From Mac to iOS:

There are so many more mobile-specific technology topics that could have been explored because so many things work differently (and often better) on an iPad and iPhone than a computer.  Moreover, I know that this is an area that lots of lawyers want to know more about.  I lost count of all of the attorneys who mentioned to me at the conference that the lack of sessions devoted to mobile technology was a curious omission this year.  Indeed, that is also the reason that it makes sense to have a Mac track at TECHSHOW (which was abandoned last year but brought back this year) — many attorneys use Macs, and things are different on a Mac.  I hope that the planners of TECHSHOW 2019 decide to “think different” on this topic, and either restore a full track focused on mobile technology, or have many more session topics throughout the conference with a specific iPad and/or iPhone focus.

The Expo Floor was particularly good this year, with lots of vendors showing off lots of great technology, including iPhone and iPad hardware and software, from the largest companies like Thomson Reuters to small startups.  I enjoyed learning about lots of products that could be useful for my own law firm, and I had a chance to learn about future directions for products that I already use.  Here is a short, two minute video that New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson created which gives you a sense of all of the activity on the Expo Floor:

Adam Camras, Laurence Colletti and others from the Legal Talk Network were recording podcasts from the Expo Floor, which was fun to see.  Here is a picture from one session being recorded with the TECHSHOW co-Chairs Debbie Foster and Tom Mighell, along with St. Louis attorney Dennis Kennedy and Steve Best of Affinity Consulting:

Lit Software is probably the best publisher of iPad software for attorneys, and they had lots to share at TECHSHOW this year.  Not only did they preview some new features on apps like TrialPad and TranscriptPad, they also pre-announced an iPad app that lawyers will be able to use to collect all of the key date-based information in a case and create a timeline.  I really look forward to trying that one out when it is released later this year.  And I know that they have other useful apps in the lab for a future release.  Here is a picture of Ian O’Flaherty (founder of Lit Software), Tara Cheever (product manager) and Kyle Kvech (lead applications developer) at the booth.  You can tell that I took this picture first thing in the morning because most of the day this booth was packed:

I also enjoyed talking to John Kuntz, co-founder of Bellefield.  That company created iTimeKeep, an app that you can use to enter your time using an iPhone (or iPad) and which integrates with the time entry system that your firm is already using.  (My review.)  I cannot think of how many times I have communicated with a client on my iPhone, or some some other billable work away from my office.  In the past, I would sometimes forget to record that time, but with iTimeKeep on my iPad I can take just a few seconds and record it immediately.

It is always fun to walk around TECHSHOW and bump into people who you “know” from the Internet.  For example, I ran into lots of attorneys who have emailed me iPhone and iPad-related topics of interest over the years, and it was great to talk to them in person.  I also bumped into perhaps the most prolific person on Twitter when it comes to sharing links to legal technology articles (not to mention a frequent author herself) —  New York attorney Nicole Black, who now works for Mycase (@nikiblack on Twitter):

I can’t attend TECHSHOW every year, and I missed last year.  But whenever I can attend, I’m always glad that I did.

I just returned from ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago, and it was great to catch up with lots of iPhone J.D. readers while I was there.  I was disappointed by the content of the conference this year because there were so few sessions devoted to mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad, but that was offset somewhat by lots of folks sharing tips on using their iOS devices, and the Expo floor featured lots of companies showing off iOS apps.  I’ll have more to say on that next week.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac shows how you can use the Spotlight search feature which is built-in to iOS 11 to track flights on an iPhone or iPad.
• Tim Hardwick of MacRumors has a good list of tips and tricks for the Apple TV remote.
• Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac shows off a very quick way to share your current location with someone else using the Messages app.
• Charlie Sorrel of Cult of Mac explains how to use custom vibration alerts on an iPhone.
• Leif Johnson of Macworld describes some of the interesting features of the Photos app on the iPhone.
• Federico Viticci of MacStories reviews HomePass, an app that stores HomeKit setup codes.
• If you feel that you need a screen protector on your iPhone X, Nick Guy of Wirecutter picks the best one.
• Jason Snell of Six Colors posted a helpful review of the HomePod.
• In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell speculates on what Apple might do to improve the AirPods.
• And finally, to create a commercial for the Apple HomePod, Apple hired Spike Jonze to create what amounts to a tiny movie about how using the device can let you escape from the hum drum of life.  There is a 60 second version that Apple is running as a commercial on TV, but I think that version is too short and loses some of the impact.  The full four minute version is the one to watch:

In my increasingly paperless law practice, most of the documents that I need are already in PDF or some other electronic format, so when I need to get some text out of a document, I can typically just select that text using my computer or iOS device.  But sometimes I find myself working with a paper document — perhaps a single sheet of paper, perhaps a magazine, book, etc. — and I need to get some text out of that document so that I can work with it.  If it is short enough I can just retype it manually, but that is a pain for longer text.  Prizmo Go, an app which was released in 2017, has as its single focus the task of getting text from a paper document into your iPhone (or iPad) so that you can work with it.  Use the app to take a picture of the document, the app does an OCR to read the text, and then the app gives you the text.  The app itself is free, but there are some in-app purchases, discussed below.  The developer gave me a one-month Premium Plan account at no cost (which normally costs $0.99) so that I could see all of the features.  The app works well and I can recommend it.

Background

The developer of Prizmo Go is Creaceed, a company in Belgium that has been making iOS apps since 2008, the same year that the App Store opened.  Back in 2009, I reviewed Prizmo, an app which scans documents and creates PDFs, and that app is still around today.  So these folks have a ton of experience using the iPhone to digitize documents.

Taking a picture

To start using the app, the first step is to use the app to take a picture of some text in a document.  As you are pointing your iPhone at the document, the app will underline all words that it can recognize, so you can see if you need to adjust your iPhone to get it in a position where all of the text that you want is visible and understood.  This is a neat augmented reality-type feature that makes a lot of sense.

Recognizing the words and turning them into text

Once you press the button, Prizmo Go snaps the picture and shows you the picture at the top and the text at the bottom.

If you see errors, you can fix them.  For example, in the above scan, I can see that the word “to” isn’t correctly recognized in the second line.  Just tap in the text field to fix the text, and you can even make the text portion bigger so that you can see more of the text at once.

If you don’t need all of the words in the photo, use your finger to swipe across the image and select the text that you need, which is highlighted in blue.  (Non-selected text is just underlined.)

The app can recognize words in one of two ways.  You can use the free built-in OCR functions to have the app itself try to read the words.  Or, in the app settings, you can turn on Cloud OCR which sends the picture to a server and returns, almost instantly, even more accurate results.  You need to pay for the Cloud OCR service.  One way to do it is to purchase a premium plan for one month for $0.99 or one year for $7.99.  Or you can pay $0.99 for 100 uses or $4.99 for 1000 uses.  There is also a free 10-pack so that you can try it out.

Use the text

I suspect that most attorneys and other folks using this app will want to do something with the text once it is captured, such as copy-and-paste it into another app, an email, a note, etc.  To do so in Prizmo Go, you need to pay.  If you purchase that $1/month or $8/year premium pack, the ability to export is included.  Otherwise, you need to pay a $4.99 to turn on the export feature.

For most folks, this means that you have a choice in how you pay for this app.  You can spend $4.99 to enable export and perhaps also pay $0.99 for 100 uses of the Cloud OCR feature — or just skip the more accurate Cloud OCR feature and use the still pretty darn accurate built-in OCR.  Or you can pay $1/month or $8/year to have unlimited use of this app.  In other words, you get to choose whether you prefer the pay up front model or the subscription model for using this app.

Once the export feature is turned on, you can do something with the text, such as copy it to the clipboard, send it to an email message, etc.

For many attorneys, the operations discussed above are all that you will need.  But if you find yourself needing to work with other languages, the app can handle that too.  Some languages are handled with the built-in OCR, others require the Cloud OCR package.  The Cloud OCR service can recognize languages automatically.

The app can recognize 22 languages and can translate to 59 languages.  In the following example, I scanned a legal decision from a French court, then I had Prizmo translate the text into English.

There are other features available in this app, although I don’t think that they are features that I will need.  For example, the app can read text out loud, which could be useful if your vision is impaired.  (The app also has lots of voice over accessibility features, useful for folks with limited or no vision.)  The app can also detect certain types of data — such as email addresses, phone numbers, URLs, etc. — and you can act upon that data, such as calling a phone number.

Conclusion

Prizmo Go does its job very well.  If you ever need to take some words on paper and then get them into your iPhone or iPad (and from there, you might send them to your computer), Prizmo Go has you covered.  You can often do something similar by using an app which creates PDF documents and then does an OCR, but the Prizmo Go app is more efficient because it focuses on the task of getting you the text that you need as quickly as possible.

The in-app purchases are a little confusing at first, but I really like that the company gives you the choice.  You can either pay $5 to use the app to export text, plus pay for OCR whenever you need it in $1 or $5 chunks (or don’t pay for Cloud OCR at all).  Or you can opt for the subscription model of $1/month or $8/year, which gives you access to every feature in the app.

Click here to get Prizmo Go (free): 

I’m attending ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago next week.  If you will be there too, please say hello if you bump into me.  I love to meet iPhone J.D. readers and find out how you are using an iPhone or iPad in your law practice.  One place to see me is the Mac Power Users meetup on Wednesday night, which you should sign up for (it’s free) if you will be in Chicago that night.  And if you see me on Thursday when I will be attending sessions and checking out the latest in legal technology on the EXPO floor, I’ll have some iPhone J.D. logo Mobile Cloth screen cleaners with me.  They work great to keep your iPhone and iPad (and even your eyeglasses) clean, so please don’t be bashful in asking me for one!  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Texas attorney Zach Herbert shows how you can use PDF Expert on a Mac to apply Bates numbers to a document and then sync that to an iPad.  The only iPad app I know of which can apply Bates numbers is DocReviewPad.  Let me know if you are aware of any others.
• The Lit Software blog explains how Kansas City attorney Bert Braud uses TrialPad and TranscriptPad.
• Joe Rossignol of MacRumors discusses some of the latest improvements to the Maps app, including improvements in South Carolina and lane guidance in many countries.  I’ve found lane guidance to be very helpful when I’m driving in a new area and using CarPlay.
• I don’t ski — I live in New Orleans so I barely even know what snow is — but if you do, you can now use your Apple Watch Series 3 for skiing and snowboarding activity.  Here is an article on the Apple newsroom website with additional details.  This is the first time that I have seen Apple add a new exercise/activity feature that requires the Series 3.
• Tory Foulk of iMore reports that you can save $5 on movie tickets this weekend if you pay using Apple Pay through Fandango.
• Nick Guy of Wirecutter recommends some of his favorite third-party Apple Watch bands.
• Jim McDannald of Wirecutter recommends iPhone armbands and waistbands for running.
• To celebrate Australia voting to legalize same-sex marriage, Apple unveiled some “shot on an iPhone” videos called First Dance.  Luke Dormehl of Cult of Mac collects them all on this page.
• And finally, Apple also unveiled some new, short video ads to encourage folks to switch to an iPhone.  Peter Cao of 9to5Mac has collected all of them.  Here is the one called Safe:

Earlier this week, I had to drive several hours to argue a summary judgment motion in a courthouse across the state.  Fortunately, I was able to listen to some good podcasts and music along the way.  I learned a lot listening to Episode 419 of the Mac Power Users podcast, hosted by Florida attorney Katie Floyd and California attorney David Sparks.  In that episode — “iOS Settings” — they discuss many useful things that you can configure in the Settings app on an iPhone or iPad.  The podcast mentioned one or two things I didn’t know about, but it was just as useful to hear them discuss some settings that I did know about in the back of my brain but hadn’t thought about much lately.  If you have about an hour and a half (or even less time if you speed up your podcasts using the Overcast app like I do) to learn about iPhone settings, this episode is a great one to listen to.

The episode inspired me to think about some of the parts of the Settings app that I access regularly.  Here is my list.  Hopefully you one or more of these will be new to you and useful to learn about.  But even if you already know about all of these, perhaps thinking about them again will remind you about how useful these settings can be.

1.    Pull down to search

Sometimes you know that there is something in the Settings app but you don’t know where it is.  When you first open the app, use your finger to pull down on the screen, and you will reveal a search box at the top.  You can type something like “Restrictions” and the app will jump you write to the Restrictions page, even if you don’t remember that it is tucked away under General.

2.    Family Sharing

My kids have hand-me-down iPhones from me and my wife, without active SIM cards.  I have Family Sharing configured so that when they go to purchase an app, I get an alert on my iPhone, and I need to approve the purchase.  Configure this by tapping your name at the top of the Settings app (just above Airplane Mode) -> Family Sharing -> [tap name of child] -> Ask to Buy.

3.    Airplane Mode

When I am having trouble getting a cellular connection, or when Wi-Fi isn’t working right, the first thing I do is turn on Airplane Mode, wait about 10 seconds, and then turn it off again.  I’m amazed at how often that solves the problem for me.  And oh yes, Airplane Mode is also useful when I’m on an airplane.

4.    Forget This Network

If you find that your device is automatically connecting to a Wi-Fi network that you don’t want to be using, go to Settings -> Wi-Fi -> [network name] – Forget This Network to stop your device from connecting automatically.  For example, if I connect to the Wi-Fi at a hotel, and then I return to the hotel months later, sometimes my iPhone tries to reconnect automatically but runs into problems.  If I forget the network, and then connect again from scratch, I can usually get things working again.

5.    Double-Tap your AirPods

If you own a pair of Apple’s AirPods, you can change what happens when you double-tap on the left and right AirPod.  Go to Settings -> Bluetooth, then tap the info icon (an “i” in a circle) next to the entry for AirPods at a time when your AirPods are in your ears.  This bring you to a screen where you can control what happens when you double-tap.  I have mine set to play/pause wen I double-tap my right ear and to bring up Siri when i double-tap my left ear.  Other options are skipping to the next or previous tracks.

6.    Control Center

When you swipe up on most iPhones, or when you swipe down from the top right on an iPhone X, you bring up the Control Center.  This is a quick and easy way to access all sorts of controls.  You can turn on or off the items that show up in the Control Center by going to Settings -> Control Center -> Customize Controls.  Katie Floyd mentioned in the podcast that she likes to put an Apple TV Remote in her Control Center so that she can quickly control her Apple TV using her iPhone even if she cannot find the tiny and easy-to-misplace remote that comes with the Apple TV. 

7.    CarPlay icons

You can control which icons appear on which screen of your CarPlay screen by going to Settings -> General -> CarPlay -> [your car name].  I put all of the apps I use on my main screen, and move the ones that I never use (such as the built-in app for my Honda Accord) to the second screen.  And the apps that I use the most, like Now Playing and Overcast, are on the left side of the screen so that they are easier to reach from the driver’s seat.

8.    Magnifying Glass

Whether I am reading the fine print in a contract or trying to read small type on a package, it is often useful to have a magnifying glass.  I have my iPhone set up so that if I triple-click the side button on my iPhone X (for earlier models, triple-click on the home button), the magnifier comes right up.  I do this in Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Magnifier.  You can also put a Magnifier icon in the Control Center using the tip I mentioned above if you would rather access it that way.

9.    Where have I been?

Trying to remember the name of that restaurant you went to last week in Boston?  Or trying to figure out how long you were at a location such as a courthouse, to help you to do your time sheets?  Your iPhone keeps a log of many of the places that you visit, and how long you were there.  Sometimes it is useful for you to go back and see where you have been.  But whether you use this feature or not, you should know that it is there in case someone else gets access to your iPhone and you don’t want them to know where you have been.

Go to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services [all the way at the bottom] -> Significant Locations.  I see that on my iPhone X, my phone checks my Face ID before going to the next screen, which is a nice privacy check.  On that next screen, when Significant Locations is turned on, you will see a list of many (although probably not all) of the cities that you have been to recently.  Tap a city to see specific locations with the city.  For example, right now I am seeing that I was at Lafayette Parish Courthouse earlier this week for that summary judgment hearing from 8:49 am to 10:38 am.  That time span includes the time that I was in my car across the street from the courthouse waiting for the building to open, and also includes the time I spent in my car sending an email to my client after the hearing to report that we won.  Thus, the time associated with a specific establishment may include some time when you were nearby, but these time estimates can still be useful whenever you need to recreate your day.

 

Your iPhone uses this log of significant locations for providing location-related information to some of the built-in apps on the iPhone.  Apple tells you in the Settings app that “Significant Locations are encrypted and cannot be read by Apple.”  Nevertheless, if you find this feature to be more creepy than useful, feel free to turn off Significant Locations. 

10.    Mail previews

In my Mail app when I am looking at a list of messages, I prefer to just see the sender and the subject line, so that I can see even more messages on the screen at one time.  I know that others prefer to also see a preview of the beginning of the message.  You can adjust what you see in Settings -> Mail -> Preview [under Message List] and then select from None to 5 Lines.  Mine is set to None.

There are lots of other things that you can control in Settings -> Mail such as whether to organize your emails by thread, swipe options, etc.  Spend a little time poking around there to configure your Mail app in a way that makes the most sense for you.