Ten years ago, I had lunch with two New Orleans attorneys who had successful blogs — Ernie Svenson of Ernie the Attorney and Robert Peyton, who used to publish Appetites and who now writes about New Orleans food at Haute Plates — and they encouraged me to start my own blog. They both knew that I love technology, and I suppose they also knew that I like to talk and write. I agreed that I was interested, but at the time did not have a topic worth writing about. Around that same time, I bought my first iPhone. After using it for a few months, I realized that the iPhone was something that really interested me and seemed like a perfect topic for a blog. On November 17, 2008, I started iPhone J.D. with my first post, explaining why I found the iPhone a valuable tool in my law practice. Here we are 10 years later, and I still love using my iPhone in my law practice.
At the time, I had no idea if this blog had a future. Back in 2008, only a tiny percentage of lawyers were using an iPhone. If a lawyer was using a smartphone in 2008, it was most likely to be Blackberry. But it was clear that there was incredible potential. The Blackberry and Palm Treo taught us that having a handheld computer which could be used for emails, text messages, and apps was a great idea. On July 10, 2008, Apple debuted the App Store, which made it easier than ever for developers to create and publish new apps for people to buy them. A few months after the App Store opened — and only a few weeks after I started iPhone J.D. — Apple published an ad in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to announce that there were over 10,000 apps available in the App Store.
Out of those 10,000 apps, Apple selected 16 to feature in the ad, and it is interesting to look back at what Apple considered noteworthy ten years ago. There are two news apps (the New York Times and Bloomberg), three social media apps (Facebook, AIM, and Loopt), three games (Sodoku, Asphalt4, and Spore), and two music apps (Shazam and Remote). There was also a travel app (Flight Status), a translator app (Mandarin), a dining app (Urbanspoon), a banking app (Bank of America), a voice recorder app (QuickVoice), and a shopping app (eBay). Many of those apps no longer exist, and one of the apps — Shazam — is now owned by Apple itself. But the categories selected by Apple ten years ago continue to be very popular categories today.
What was missing? There are many categories of apps useful for attorneys which are popular today but barely existed ten years ago. Most importantly for attorneys are apps that help you to get your work done on an iPhone (or iPad) when you are working with documents. Indeed, the debut of Microsoft Word for iPad in 2014 (it debuted on the iPad in March 2014, and then came to the iPhone in November 2014) was arguably the most important app release for attorneys in the past ten years. Whether you are a litigator like I am or a transactional attorney, I suspect that you work with Microsoft Word files every day. While there had previously been third-party apps which could work with Word documents with various degrees of success, having the real Microsoft Word on iOS was a huge development, giving you the ability to review, revise, and send Word documents using your mobile device no matter where you are. Another significant change over the past 10 years was the introduction of apps designed specifically for lawyers. There were a few of those apps back in 2008 thanks to developers like Cliff Maier, but not nearly as many as today.
At the same time that those iPhone apps improved, the iPhone itself has vastly improved. The iPhone X introduced last year was such an incredible leap forward in technology with its beautiful OLED edge-to-edge screen and incredible speed. This year, the iPhone XS and iPhone XR improve upon that concept.
When Apple first started working on the iPhone, the goal was actually to create a tablet computer, but along the way, Apple figured out that an iPhone would be a better first device to introduce. When Apple did release the first iPad in 2010, the ability to get work done with an iOS device increased substantially. The iPhone will always be my first love when it comes to Apple mobile technology, but my iPad is probably a more important part of my getting work done every day. And with the new third-generation iPad Pro 12.9", we now have the tablet that the iPad always wanted to be.
Add to that some amazing accessories in the iOS universe — the second-generation Apple Pencil, the Series 4 Apple Watch, AirPods — and there has never been a better time for an attorney to use iOS devices. Apple has provided us with incredible hardware running amazing software, all of which can be used in countless ways to increase productivity, not to mention improve our lives outside of the office.
Popular posts this year. Every year on the birthday of iPhone J.D. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), I find it interesting to look back and see which posts over the prior 12 months were the most popular. The fact that these posts were so popular often sheds some light into what has been on the minds of folks using an iPhone or iPad. Here, in order, are the top ten most viewed posts published in the last 12 months:
- Review: Apple iPhone X Leather Case - slim case to protect your iPhone. I was surprised to learn that this was #1 most read post from the past year. With the radical new design of the iPhone X, I suppose that folks wanted to find the best case to keep the device safe. I like the slim design of the leather case sold by Apple, and that's also what I use with my iPhone XS.
- Review: Anker PowerLine+ II versus PowerLine+ -- high quality nylon USB to Lightning cords. Every iPhone owner can use some good Lightning cords, and these cords from Anker are great. They are less expensive than the cords sold by Apple and yet they are of excellent quality, in many ways better than what Apple sells.
- Apple previews new emoji coming in iOS 12. Attorneys may use their iPhones and iPads to get work done, but when you need to send a quick message to a friend or family member, there is nothing wrong with using some fun or silly emoji character to get your point across. Apple previewed the new emoji in July of 2018, and they were finally available when iOS 12.1 was released on October 30, 2018.
- iOS update error -- press home button to attempt data recovery. I encountered this bizarre error when backing up my daughter's iPad in January 2018. I guess I wasn't the only one to run into this problem because over 10,000 people have read this post so far this year.
- The latest on GoodReader version 5. I have been using GoodReader to manage and annotate work-related PDF files on my iPad for just about as long as I have had an iPad. But the app has not been updated in years, and while the developer has been claiming that a big update is coming soon (as noted in that post), my frustration with the lack of an update caused me to start using Readdle's PDF Expert. If the incredibly overdue update to GoodReader ever does show up, perhaps I'll consider going back, but for now, I'm enjoying using PDF Expert. The popularity of this post tells me that I'm not the only one who has been wondering if GoodReader will ever be updated again.
- Tips for using 3D Touch, 3D Touch has been a part of the iPhone for many years, but I suspect that many folks still don't use it to its full potential.
- Review: CARROT Weather -- excellent weather app, with attitude. It was the snarky attitude which first brought this app to my attention, but I remained a user because it is a fantastic weather app with lots of great features.
- Why lawyers will love iOS 12. iOS 12 was a big update for the iPhone, and I especially love the new Shortcuts feature. iOS 12 was a less significant update for the iPad, and I hope to see more attention paid to the iPad in iOS 13.
- Hey Siri, read me the news. Near the beginning of 2018, Apple introduced iOS 11.2.5, which added the ability to ask Siri to read you the news. I use this feature often with CarPlay in my car, and it causes Siri to play the latest episode of the NPR News Now podcast, which is updated every hour (so it is always fresh news) and only lasts 3-5 minutes (so you quickly get the highlights).
- Presidential Alert coming tomorrow, October 3. I was in my office when the first Presidential Alert was issued. It was only a test, but you could hear lots of iPhones ringing throughout the halls of my office.
The iPhone J.D. Hall of Fame. On the fifth anniversary of iPhone J.D., I listed the most popular posts during the first five years. Here are the top ten most-read posts of the ten years of iPhone J.D., the posts that have stood the test of time — or in some cases, were just so incredibly popular when they were first published that they still have the most pageviews:
The iPhone's Do Not Disturb Feature. The iPhone is great when you want to use it, but sometimes you just want it to be quiet — especially if you are in court or in a meeting. In this post from 2013, I talked about how the Do Not Disturb feature worked in iOS 6. That post was incredibly popular at the time and has now been viewed over 600,000 times. Clearly, this is a topic that a lot of folks are interested in. Apple must know this too because Apple has improved the Do Not Disturb feature many times since 2013.
- iPhone tip: content of e-mail not displayed. When I encounter problems with my iPhone or iPad, and then I find a solution, I often write about it on iPhone J.D. so that others folks who have the same problem can do a Google search and can learn from my experiences. Back in 2011, I talked about what to do when you tap on an email but there is no content displayed. I still encounter this problem from time-to-time, and the solution remains the same: restart the Mail app.
- iPad tip -- turn off Messages if you share your iPad. If you use multiple iOS devices, you can get your messages on all of your devices, which is very handy. It can also be a problem if you leave one of your devices, such as your iPad, at home and it is used by someone else, such as your child. Confidential and personal messages intended for your eyes only can suddenly be viewed by third parties. This post from 2015 offered some good advice which remains good advice today.
- A look at the iPhone passcode lock feature. When I discussed the passcode lock feature of iOS 3.1 in this 2009 post, the passcode lock was something that you had to manually enable. Passcodes are so important to security that Apple now has passcodes enabled by default. Thanks to Face ID and Touch ID, you don't have to go through the trouble of entering a passcode every time you try to use your iPhone, but this remains a critical step for maintaining the confidentiality of information on your iPhone.
- iPhone "No SIM card installed" message. I encountered this error message shortly after I started using an iPhone 4 in 2010. As I noted in a follow-up post, the solution that ended up working for me was bringing my original iPhone 4 back to Apple so that I could get a new one. This post was the all-time most popular post during the first five years of iPhone J.D., so much so that it still appears on this list for the first ten years even though substantially fewer folks are now using an iPhone 4.
- Apple Watch tip: solve disconnect from iPhone by resetting Bluetooth. I loved my first-generation Apple Watch, but it was clearly a 1.0 product with issues that would need to be addressed in future updates. This post from 2015 discusses the first problem I ever had with an Apple Watch and a solution.
- My favorite iPhone shortcuts. Phone J.D. was only a week old when I wrote this post in November 2008. During the first five years of iPhone J.D., it was read well over 100,000 times. And even though the post is now ten years old, it continues to get some pageviews. Many of the tips remain just as useful today as they were when iPhone J.D. was in its infancy
- How to view unread emails on an iPhone or iPad. If you get as many emails as I do, it sometimes feels like simply reading and managing your emails is its own full-time job. In this tip from 2013, I showed how to see a list of all of your unread emails in iOS 7. To do the same thing in iOS 12, tap the filter button at the bottom left of the screen.
- Review: Apple Lightning to 30-pin adapters -- use older accessories with your new device. In 2012, Apple replaced the large 30-pin connector on the iPhone with the much better Lightning port. While that was a fantastic improvement, it meant that you needed an adapter to make older accessories work with the new Lightning connector. In this post, I discussed options for doing so. Six years later, Apple has now replaced the Lightning connector in the iPad Pro with USB-C. I don't know if Apple will ever make that change on the iPhone, but USB-C has incredible potential on the iPad Pro. But once again, there will be some growing pains during the transition.
Why the "i" in iPhone? When I wrote this post almost ten years ago, I had to go back another ten years to May 7, 1998, when Steve Jobs first introduced the iMac — the first Apple product to begin with a lowercase "i" in its name. It was fun to research and write that post, and I love that the post continues to get pageviews today as folks wonder, like I did, about how the iPhone got its name.
Visitors to iPhone J.D. Every year, I use this post to share some statistical information on iPhone J.D. visitors, to the extent that I can figure it out using the tools at my disposal — specifically, the Google Analytics service.
During the past 12 months, about 60% of iPhone J.D. readers have used an iOS device. Back in 2010, only 15% of readers were using an iOS device. By 2012, that was up to 40%. It rose to 60% in 2015, which has remained consistent for the past few years. Most of those folks used an iPhone, but last year almost 20% used an iPad. About a third of iPhone J.D. readers use a computer, with Windows being twice as popular as Mac. Around 5% of iPhone J.D. readers use an Android device.
In the past 12 months, about 62% of iPhone J.D. visitors were in the U.S. The main other countries were the U.K. (8%), Canada (5%), and Australia (4%). Looking at the past ten years, those results are virtually the same. And while those are by far the top four countries, 42 countries have had over 10,000 residents visit iPhone J.D. at least once over the past ten years. Making better use of an iPhone or iPad is something that we can all agree on.
Looking at the cities of iPhone J.D. readers, New York was #1 for the past twelve months, as it has been every other year except for 2015, when there were a few hundred more visitors from London:
New York
- London
- Los Angeles
- Chicago
- Houston
- Dallas
- Atlanta
- Sydney
- Washington, D.C.
- San Francisco
Last year was the first year ever that San Francisco wasn't in the Top 10, and it regained its status this year, knocking Melbourne down to #11.
Looking at all of the visitors for the last ten years, the results are very similar. The top four spots remain New York, London, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Sydney was the #5 city over the past ten years, followed by San Francisco at #6 and Houston at #7. Although Melbourne didn't make the Top 10 list this year, Melbourne is #8 on the all-time Top 10 list. Washington, D.C. and Dallas round out the all-time Top 10. The only city on this year's Top 10 list which doesn't appear in the all-time Top 10 list is Atlanta, which is #13 on the all-time list. I went to college at Emory so I have many fond memories of Atlanta and I love to see Atlanta readers here on iPhone J.D.
My hometown of New Orleans is #37 on the all-time list, just below Dublin and Nashville and just above Columbus and Orlando.
At the bottom of the list is Center Moriches, NY, where only 14 of the 7,580 citizens of this hamlet in Long Island, New York have visited iPhone J.D. in the past ten years. To be honest, I'm not quite sure why this shows up at the bottom of the over 17,000 cities identified by Google Analytics; surely there is at least one city in the world where fewer than 14 people have ever visited iPhone J.D.? Maybe Google just stops counting at 14? Regardless, even if Center Moriches doesn't truly deserve to be at the bottom of this list, I think it is fair to say that not many people know about iPhone J.D. in this part of Long Island. If you are reading this and you practice law in Center Moriches, NY, let me know and I'll send you some MobileCloths with the iPhone J.D. logo to help you to spread the word far and wide!
On a more serious note, I cannot thank all of you enough for reading iPhone J.D. for some (or all!) of the past ten years. So many of you have reached out to me, either in person such as at a conference or via email or a comment on a post. By hearing from you about how you have been using an iPhone or iPad in your own law practice, I have learned so much, and I have been able to share lots of that advice on this website. This helps all of us to do a lot more with our devices, making us better attorneys and also enriching our personal lives.
Ten years from now, will we still be using an iPhone and an iPad? And if we are, what advanced features will they have that we couldn't even imagine today? I cannot wait to find out.
