Lit Software makes some of the very best apps for any attorney using an iPad: TrialPad (my review), TranscriptPad (my review), and DocReviewApp (my review). If do not yet own all of these apps, you can buy them before December 31, 2018, in the Ultimate Litigation Bundle and save some money. The discounted price is $249.99, which is $50 off. And if you already own some but not all of those apps, you can use the App Store option to complete the bundle at a discounted price. (Note that Lit Software is not a sponsor of iPhone J.D. this month, but the company has been a sponsor in the past.)
For more details, you’ll want to read this post on the Lit Software blog. As the company explains in that post, at some point in 2019, Lit Software plans to remove the option to individually purchase its apps and instead offer the Lit Suite, a yearly subscription which will give you access to all of Lit Software’s apps, including the three apps noted above as well as new apps that the company releases. What will these new apps be? Here is one guess: I mentioned last year that at ABA TECHSHOW 2018, Lit Software was showing off a very early preview of an app that the company was working on called TimelinePad. [UPDATE: Read the first comment to this post for more info from the owner of Lit Software.]
I personally prefer a subscription model for software that I use all the time because I want to provide constant support and encouragement so that the developer has a financial incentive to add new features. I currently subscribe to lots of iOS apps such as 1Password, Carrot Weather, Launch Center Pro, Overcast, Microsoft Office, etc. But if you prefer to own your apps, you can still buy the Lit Software apps and they are still supported, and you might as well buy them over the next few days to save some money.
Click here for the Ultimate Litigation Package ($249.99):
From all of us here at iPhone J.D. — that would be me, my iPhone, my iPad, and my Apple Watch — Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. I hope that you have the opportunity this holiday season to enjoy some time with your family and friends. Many of them may be getting new Apple products, which could also mean some additional tech support responsibilities for many of you.
Speaking of sharing your talents with others, if you haven’t yet had an opportunity to see Apple’s 2018 holiday video called Share Your Gifts, here it is:
This decision came out in late October but I just heard about it. In G.A.Q.L v. Florida, No. 4D18-1811 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2018), a Florida trial court had ruled that the police could force a minor involved in a car accident to disclose his iPhone passcode, but the appellate court reversed, finding that this would violate the Fifth Amendment. It gets more complicated than that so you need to read the opinion to get the full details, but this is a fascinating issue. I often joke that my iPhone is like my second brain — a place for me to store the information that folks with a better memory might just remember. I’d rather not waste my brain space remembering passwords, dates, numbers, information about friends and family that can be stored in a contact entry, etc. I feel that when I offload this data from my brain to my iPhone, I can instead use my brain for more complicated tasks like figuring out creative solutions to problems. I don’t know if there is true scientific merit to that way of thinking about it, but it is one of the reasons that my iPhone is so valuable to me — and also a reason that I wouldn’t want anyone else looking around in there without my permission. And now, the news of note from the past week:
California attorney David Sparks discusses the 3.0 update to Launch Center Pro, an app that you can use to launch automated actions. One of the new features is the ability to support NFC stickers. Place the sticker (you can purchase five for $5) someplace in your house, office, etc., and when you put your iPhone near the sticker, it causes a notification to appear on your iPhone screen, which you can tap to start a series of actions. If you want an alternative to using Siri and your voice to trigger actions, NFC stickers might be just what you need. There are lots of other new features too, including a black mode which looks fantastic on an iPhone X or iPhone XS.
Federico Viticci of MacStories posted the 2018 edition of his must-have iOS apps.
If you are looking to become a cord-cutter, DirecTV Now is one of a few top optics for streaming TV. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that the DirecTV Now iOS app was updated to support the new 2018 iPad Pro models, plus it improves cloud DVR support.
And finally, in this short video, Apple shows how you can use your Apple Watch to locate your iPhone. Hopefully you already know this tip, but if not, it is darn useful and worth knowing:
As you are finishing up your CLE requirements for 2018, if you want to start thinking about 2019, you should consider attending ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago. There are some events on Wednesday, February 27, but the main conference is Thursday, February 28 to Saturday, March 2, 2019 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 E. Upper Wacker Drive. I will present a session on Friday, March 1, at 10:30 a.m. with Brett Burney (of Apps in Law fame). The title of our session, which we did not select, is Get Your Mobile Ninja On: Top iOS Tips, Apps, and Gear. The content of our session, which we did select, is going to be great. It will be jam-packed and fast-paced, and Brett and I will reveal every fantastic tip that we can squeeze into one hour to help you to get more out of your iPhone and iPad. I love presenting with Brett because he really knows his stuff, and my only misgiving about this session is that I wish that the ABA had given us two hours.
Although there are many session tracks at TECHSHOW, there is no dedicated mobile track. Nevertheless, the entire schedule was posted this week, and here are the sessions that jump out at me as being useful for attorneys who use an iPhone and/or iPad:
Thursday, February 28
8:45am — MDM (Mobile Device Management): Not just another TLA by Craig Bayer and Stanley Louissant
10:45am — Collecting and Preserving Discovery from Mobile Devices by Brett Burney and John Simek
4:00pm — Showtime in the Courtroom by Judge Herbert Dixon, Jr., Michael Ko, and David Sparks
Friday, March 1
10:30am — Get Your Mobile Ninja On: Top iOS Tips, Apps, and Gear by Jeff Richardson and Brett Burney
3:00pm — Mac and iOS Security: What You Need to Know by Craig Bayer and David Sparks
Of course, there are many, many other sessions to choose from, on topics such as data breaches, e-discovery, Microsoft Office, collaboration, document automation, privacy, Internet of Things, going paperless, client relationship management, and using a Mac. The other session that I am teaching is (bright and early) Friday morning at 8:30, when Sharon Nelson (of Ride the Lightning fame) and I will talk about Vetting Technology: Avoid Indecision Paralysis. I’m the chair of the Technology Committee at my law firm Adams and Reese, and Sharon and I both have lots of experience selecting and vetting law firm technology. We’ll share our tips on making smart buying decisions. No, it won’t be as sexy as me and Brett Burney talking about cool apps, but hopefully it will be just as useful.
There is also the ABA TECHSHOW EXPO where you can see lots of vendors showing off the latest and greatest improvements to their hardware and software for law firms. I always learn about lots of new things every time that I walk the Expo floor. And if your schedule is open on Thursday night, you can join me and David Sparks (of MacSparky and Mac Power Users fame) when we host a Taste of Techshow Dinner.
If any of this seems interesting to you, register for ABA TECHSHOW by January 14 so that you can take advantage of early bird pricing and save $200.
When the conference ends on March 2, feel free to head straight south down to New Orleans and you can take advantage of the weekend before Mardi Gras leading up to Mardi Gras day on Tuesday, March 5, 2019. I’m (mostly) joking, of course, but I will note that I’ve previously taken the historic City of New Orleans train — as made famous by the song — to travel between Chicago and New Orleans for TECHSHOW and it is a nice and relaxing way to travel.
[UPDATE: For my latest post on Anker cables dated August 19, 2020, click here.] The 2018 versions of the iPad Pro have a USB-C port instead of a Lightning port, so when I bought my new third-generation 12.9″ iPad Pro last month, it was time to get some USB-C cables. I’ve been very happy with the Anker Lightning cables which I have purchased in the past (my reviews: 1, 2), so when I was looking to get a long USB-C to USB-C cable for charging purposes, I purchased the Anker PowerLine+ C to C 2.0 cable (6ft) from Amazon for $15.97. The first version I purchased had a problem, but Anker’s customer service was fantastic, and the replacement cable Anker sent me is exactly what I was looking for and I highly recommend it.
USB-PD
The 2018 iPad Pro ships with Apple’s 18W power adapter. If you want to charge an iPad Pro (or a newer iPhone) as fast as possible, you want to use a power adapter that supports USB-PD (USB Power Delivery), which can transfer up to 29W of power to an iPad Pro, and thus can charge an iPad Pro from 0% to 50% in about 60 minutes. (USB-PD can charge a newer iPhone from 0% to 50% in about 3o minutes.) Note that while you can use a USB-PD power adapter that supports more than 29W of power, such as Apple’s 87W power adapter designed for the MacBook Pro, it doesn’t charge any faster than a 29W USB-C adapter when used with the 2018 iPad Pro. Apple used to sell a USB-C 29W power adapter, and you can still find it in some stores; I bought mine in 2016 (my review). Apple has since replaced it with the Apple’s USB-C 30W power adapter ($49.97 on Amazon). From the standpoint of an iPad Pro, there is no difference between using a 29W or a 30W power adapter, but Apple’s 30W adapter does support some additional voltages so it works better with certain other devices like an iPhone 8.
In my office, I have a power strip on the floor next to my desk. My Apple USB-C 29W power adapter is plugged in to it, and I previously used an Apple 2m USB-C to Lightning cord so that I had something long enough to reach up to my desk, where I could fast charge either my iPad or my iPhone. (Currently, only Apple sells a USB-C to Lightning cord, but there are reports that Apple will allow other companies to sell them in 2019.) That was the cord that I wanted to replace with a USB-C to USB-C cord so that I could charge my third-generation iPad Pro 12.9″ at maximum speed.
There are three reasons that this Anker cord was perfect for my needs: length, durability, and cost.
Length
First, it is a long cord. Six feet is long enough to reach from the floor next to my desk to the devices on my desk with room to spare. Also, when I travel, it is nice to have a longer cord, whether I am in a hotel room or a conference room. Six feet is about six inches shorter than Apple’s 2m USB-C to USB-C cord (two meters is about 6.56 feet) but I haven’t really noticed that small difference in length.
Durability
Second, I like the PowerLine+ cords from Anker because they are very durable. As I just noted, I will take this cord around with me a lot, whether I am traveling out of town or just going to work someplace else in my own office, so I prefer a power cord that will stand up to abuse. The PowerLine+ line from Anker features a double-braided nylon exterior, which protects the cord and makes it almost impossible for the cord to get tangled up. The PowerLine+ cords also have a tough fiber cord and strong connectors at both ends. After using both Apple and Anker cords, I find that the Anker ones hold up better.
Cost
Third, Anker cords are inexpensive for the quality that you get. Apple sells its 2m USB-C to USB-C charge cable for $19. This Anker cable is $15.97 on Amazon. I wouldn’t mind spending $3 more than the Apple cable just to get the additional durability of the Anker Powerline+ cable. Getting all of that for $3 less than the Apple cable is a great deal.
Sync speed
Note that this cable uses USB 2.0 speed, so if you are using this cable for syncing, you only get normal syncing speeds of 480 Mbps. A USB 3.0 cord can give you faster sync speeds of 5Gbps, and a USB 3.1 Gen 2 cord can give you sync speeds of 10Gbps — assuming that you are connecting to another device that supports the higher speed. For example, at my home I use an older iMac which only supports USB 3.0, so when I sync my new iPad Pro to that computer I use the Anker USB Type C Cable, Powerline USB C to USB 3.0 Cable (3ft). You might think, why not just get a long six-foot cable which also supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 so that you get a long length plus the fastest sync? Good idea, but such a cable doesn’t exist right now. Here is what Sarah Witman of Wirecutter said about such a cable after talking to a representative from Anker: “It’s not impossible to make such a cable—according to [the USB Implementers Forum], a USB-C cable of any length can be certified as long as it passes all performance tests. But it might be bulkier than most people would want. A rep at Anker told us that the company’s engineers have found that a 6-foot cable with full USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds would just be too thick.” If you are like me and you want a longer cord just to charge your 2018 iPad Pro, then sync speed doesn’t matter.
Customer support
For all of these reasons, the Anker PowerLine+ C to C 2.0 cable seemed perfect to me. Unfortunately, I encountered some bad news when I purchased this cord from Amazon, but it quickly turned into good news. When I received my cord, I plugged it in and started using it right away. And almost right away, I noticed that something wasn’t right. When I plugged it into my iPad Pro, the iPad beeped to indicate that it was starting to charge, then it would beep again and stop charging, then it beeped again, then again, and it went back and forth a few times before finally starting to charge. At the same time, the battery icon would flash green and then black and then back again. Clearly, there was a problem. It wasn’t a consistent problem — over the course of a few days, it worked great maybe 50% of the time — but for it to happen at all told me that something was amiss, and I had the same problem when I used the cord with different power adapters.
Anker advertises having good customer service, so I decided to contact Anker and take advantage of it. Anker was incredibly responsive. They quickly asked me for the serial number for the cable, which was located on a sticker wrapped around one end of the cable — which I had removed and discarded immediately when I unpacked the cable — and was also located on the box, which I still had. Anker said that if I couldn’t find the serial number, I could simply take a picture of the cable with my iPhone so that they could make sure that they understood the model that I had. I provided this information and explained the problem, and Anker immediately shipped me a replacement cable. That replacement cable has worked perfectly, every single time. Obviously, it would have been better to never have a problem in the first place, but the fact that Anker customer support was so fast and responsive actually resulted in me being even more impressed with Anker.
Conclusion
This Anker USB-C to USB-C cable has been perfect for my needs. When I’m working at my desk, my iPad often sits in a Thought Out Simplex Tablet iPad Stand (my review) and with the Anker cord plugged in the side, I can keep my iPad fully charged while I use my iPad, so it always has a full charge when I pick up my iPad Pro to walk away from my desk. When I travel, I use this cord with an older Anker product called the PowerPort+ (my review), which has since been replaced by the PowerPort Speed PD 5. That device includes a USB-C port which supports USB-PD for up to 30W charging, plus it has four traditional USB ports which support 2.4A charging.
If you have a new iPad Pro with a USB-C connector, the six foot version of the Anker PowerLine+ C to C 2.0 cable is a great cord for your charging needs. If all you need is three feet, you can save a few bucks on the shorter version of this same cord. Both lengths come in gray or red.
There is an interesting article in the New York Times this week by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Natasha Singer, Michael H. Keller and Aaron Krolik about how an iPhone can track, and unfortunately sometimes share, your current location. The article is interesting, but the way that it is presented on the page is also very interesting with lots of graphics that change as you scroll through the article. Virginia attorney Sharon Nelson discusses the article on her Ride The Lightning blog, noting that while the companies collecting location data claim to keep the data anonymous, she has her doubts. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reports on the latest update to the fantastic CARROT Weather app (my review). In the new version, you can select your weather source — Dark Sky, The Weather Channel, AccuWeather and Aeris Weather — plus there are no Apple Watch complications, support for certain personal weather station data, and more.
I use my Apple Pencil with my iPad Pro pretty much every day that I am at work, but I realize that some folks have not yet realized for themselves how useful this device is. In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell explains how the second generation version has finally turned him into a believer in the Apple Pencil.
Christina Farr of CNBC reports that Apple has hired dozens of doctors — sometimes secretly — to work with Apple to improve the Apple Watch and other health technology.
If you use Philips Hue lights, you already know that if you lose power in your home, the lights come back on at full brightness with power is restored — which can be rather alarming. Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reports that the latest version of the Philips Hue app fixes this so that lights can be configured to return to their previous states when the power comes back.
If you want a HomeKit-compatible outdoor outlet, I’m still enjoying the iHome iSP100 which I reviewed earlier this year. Christopher Null of TechHive reviews a more expensive competitor, the iDevices Outdoor Switch.
The Apple Watch Series 4 now support the ECG/EKG function. But it also can do a better job checking your heart rate. Apple recently updated a support page to explain: “To use the electrical heart sensor to measure your heart rate, open the Heart Rate app and place your finger on the Digital Crown. You will get a faster reading with higher fidelity — getting a measurement every second instead of every 5 seconds.”
The iPhone remains, by far, the most popular smartphone for attorneys. Nevertheless, in 2018 an all-time high of one-quarter of all attorneys reported using an Android phone, and that increase is mostly attributable to sole practitioners, where iPhone-to-Android use is a 2-to-1 ratio.
Every year, the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center conducts a survey to gauge the use of legal technology by attorneys in private practice in the United States. The 2018 report (edited by Gabriella Mihm) was recently released, and as always, I was particularly interested in Volume VI, titled Mobile Lawyers. No survey is perfect, but the ABA tries hard to ensure that its survey has statistical significance, and every year this is one of the best sources of information on how attorneys use technology. Note that the survey was conducted from June to October, 2018, so these numbers don’t reflect any changes in what attorneys started using when Apple introduced the 2018 versions of the iPhone or iPad Pro. This is the ninth year that I have reported on this survey, and with multiple years of data we can see some interesting trends. (My reports on prior ABA surveys are located here: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.)
Over two-thirds of all U.S. attorneys use an iPhone, and Android use hits all-time high
The 2o18 survey revealed that around 95% of all attorneys use a smartphone to get work done out of the office. For attorneys using a smartphone, over two-thirds use an iPhone, and for the first time ever more than 25% report using an Android, with the highest Android use among solo attorneys.
The survey asks each attorney “Do you use a smartphone (e.g. iPhone, Android) for law-related tasks while away from your primary workplace?” Back in 2010, the number of attorneys answering “no” was around 12%. That number decreased over the years to 2017 when it hit an all-time low of only 4.4%. This year, the number increased only slightly to 4.9%. We can still say that over 95% of all attorneys use a smartphone to get work done.
In 2013, the big news was that, for the first time, over half of all attorneys were using an iPhone. In 2014 and 2015 the percentage was around 60%. In 2016, there was a big increase up to 68.4%. In 2017, the number was up to 74.9%. In 2018, the number is down slightly to 72%. Taking into account that 4.9% of all attorneys are not using a smartphone, we can say that 68.4% of all attorneys in private practice in the U.S. are using an iPhone in their law practice, which is the same percentage as 2016. According to the ABA 2018 National Lawyer Population Survey, there are 1,338,678 attorneys in the U.S., which suggests that there could be over 916,000 attorneys in the U.S. using an iPhone.
If 68.4% of all attorneys are using an iPhone, and 4.9% of attorneys are not using any smartphone, what are the others using? Most of them are using an Android smartphone, around 25.4%. That is an all-time high for Android, so 2018 marks the first year in which more than one-quarter of all attorneys are using an Android phone.
Back in 2011, 40% of all attorneys used a BlackBerry, and there was a time when it was incredibly common to see another lawyer with a BlackBerry. However, BlackBerry use by attorneys has dropped sharply since 2011. In 2018, the number reached a new low of only 1.5%. According to the survey, the most significant use of BlackBerry devices this year is in law firms with 50-99 lawyers; in those firms, 100% of the attorneys are using a smartphone, and while iPhone use is a little higher than the national average at 72.7%, Android use is down to 18.2% and BlackBerry use is at 9.1%. If you are looking for an attorney who is still using a BlackBerry phone, your best bet is to look at a law firm with 50-100 attorneys.
If you are looking for an attorney who is using an Android phone, your best bet is to look for a sole practitioner. Only 91.4% of solo attorneys use a smartphone, fewer than the statistic associated with any other firm size. 60.1% of solo attorneys use an iPhone, and 30.4% of solo attorneys use Android. So for solo attorneys, almost 1/10 are not even using a smartphone, and for those who do, Android is half as popular as iPhone. That’s still a large number of solo attorneys using an iPhone, but it is interesting that Android phones are more popular with solo attorneys than with attorneys who work with other attorneys at a law firm. I just did a quick search and couldn’t find recent numbers, but historically I know that almost half of all attorneys are sole practitioners, so that is a big market.
Finally, there are almost 1% of attorneys using some sort of Microsoft Windows operating system on their smartphone in 2018, and another almost 0.7% say that they don’t know what kind of smartphone they are using.
If you add the numbers, you’ll notice that they add up to over 100%. But it makes sense for the number to be slightly over 100% because I know that a small number of attorneys use multiple smartphones.
The following pie chart is somewhat imprecise because, as I just noted, the actual numbers add up to just over 100%, but it gives you a general, graphical sense of the relative use:
To place these numbers in historical context, the following chart shows lawyer smartphone use over recent years. The two dramatic changes in this chart are of course the plunge in BlackBerry use and the surge in iPhone use. There has been a more gradual, but noticeable, decrease in the number of attorneys not using a smartphone at all. As for Android use, there was a slight increase from 2011 to 2015, then a slight decrease for two years, and then the all-time high this year. The “Other” category in this chart includes Windows, something else, and those who don’t know what smartphone they are using.
Almost 40% of U.S attorneys use an iPad
Apple introduced the original iPad in 2010, and for the first few years it resulted in a surge in lawyer tablet use. In 2011, only 15% of all attorneys responded that they use a tablet. That number more than doubled to 33% in 2012, and rose to 48% in 2013. Since 2013, the number has stayed between 48% and 50%; in 2018, it was 48.5%. Suffice it to say that about half of all U.S. attorneys in private practice currently use a tablet, and that has remained true for the last five years.
It used to be that around 90% of attorneys using a tablet were using an iPad. It was 89% in 2011, 91% in 2012, and 91% in 2013. From 2014 to 2016, that number stayed around 84%. In 2017, that number dropped to 81.3%, and in 2018 it is at 78.1%.
It looks like the very slight drop in attorneys using iPads is mostly attributable to slightly fewer overall attorneys using tablet devices. Android and Windows tablet use by attorneys has really changed very much. That surprises me on the Windows side because I do seem to hear more attorneys talking about using a Windows Surface device.
Here is a historical chart of attorney tablet use:
Popular apps
The survey also asked attorneys to identify apps that they use. I want to start by making the same objection that I have been making for many years now: I don’t like how the ABA asks the question. The ABA first asks “Have you ever downloaded a legal-specific app for your smartphone?” In 2018, 49.4% said yes. When I see the word “smartphone” in this question, I think of my iPhone, not my iPad. Then the next question asks: “What legal specific app(s) did you download?” When I read the questions in that order, I’m thinking of the apps that I downloaded on my iPhone, not my iPad. But others must be reading the question differently because I see TrialPad and TranscriptPad in the answers, and those apps exist only on the iPad, not on the iPhone. I would have never mentioned those apps when answering the question, even though I use them on my iPad, and TranscriptPad is one of my favorite legal specific apps.
So while I question how much value you can put in these answers, for what it is worth, the top 13 apps listed are, in order of the percentage of attorneys mentioning them:
Fastcase
Westlaw
Lexis Advance
A legal dictionary app
TrialPad
TranscriptPad
Clio
LexisNexis Get Cases & Shepardize
LexisNexis Legal News
Courtlink
Casemaker
Westlaw News
HeinOnline
Congrats to Ed Walters and the team at Fastcase for moving up to the #1 spot this year.
The ABA then asked about general business apps, and the questions have the same ambiguity: the ABA first asked if the attorney ever downloaded a general business app to a smartphone (50.2% said yes in 2018), and then the ABA asked which apps were downloaded, without making it clear whether the question was asking about the iPhone and iPad. The answers provided were, in this order:
Dropbox
LinkedIn
Evernote
LogMeIn
Documents to Go
GoodReader
Box
QuickOffice
MS Office/Word
Notability
QuickBooks
It amazes me that Microsoft Word is so low on this list (only 4.5% report using it). I consider Word an essential app for attorneys using an iPhone or an iPad.
If you are using a Series 4 Apple Watch in the U.S., Apple has now turned on the ability to use your Apple Watch to do an EKG/ECG. Just update to the latest version of watchOS, 5.1.2, to start using the feature. When you first configure the ECG app, you are also given the option to turn on having the Apple Watch do additional periodic checks on your heart. Apple points out that this feature can only do so much, and it is certainly no substitute for talking to your doctor if you are not feeling good. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to see how far Apple has extended the health capabilities of the Apple Watch in the short amount of time that the product has been available. I’m sure that Apple has much more planned in this area, and Alex Fitzpatrick of TIME magazine interviewed Apple CEO Tim Cook and others to discuss this brave new world. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Nazia Parveen of The Guardian reports on the trial of a pharmacist in the UK who was convicted of murdering his wife, in part due to evidence obtained from his iPhone and his wife’s iPhone providing evidence of heart rates and moving around at specific times.
Zac Hall of 9to5Mac has some good suggestions for using HomeKit to automate your holiday lights. My advice: if you do nothing more than this, adding a smart plug to a Christmas Tree is a huge improvement. It is much less awkward than reaching behind a tree to plug it in, may give you the ability to dim your tree, allows you to have the tree turn off automatically at a certain time, etc. And the ability to tell Siri to turn on your tree lights is really useful.
Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal recommends the best mesh Wi-Fi systems. And as usual, her article has a great video to accompany it.
Dave Mark of The Loop notes a few new iPad Pro hardware tricks (such as the ability to spin your Apple Pencil — I figured out that one too) based on a video from DailyTekk.
Active military personnel and veterans can now get a 10% discount on Apple products, as noted by Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac.
iOS 12.1.1 was released this week. It improves RTT/TTY support, which is a form of texting used by individuals who have difficulty making audio phone calls. As each letter is typed on one screen, it appears on the other person’s screen. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac explains this feature and how RTT/TTY is improved in iOS 12.1.1.
And finally, in this video, which Apple calls Real Stories, four people share stories of how an Apple Watch helped to save their life.
This week, I was the guest on the Gen Why Lawyer podcast, a podcast hosted by California patent attorney, and millennial, Karima Gulick. I talked about why I started iPhone J.D., and I also provided some general tips for attorneys, especially younger millennial attorneys, about using an iPhone and iPad in a law practice. Karima does a great job with this podcast, and as enjoyable as it was to be a guest, I have also enjoyed listening to — and learning a lot from — the other episodes of this podcast.
Microsoft Word is unquestionably one of the most valuable apps on my iPhone and iPad. I often use the app on my iPhone to review a document and make quick edits. On my iPad, I can get more substantive work done on a document, especially if I am using an external Bluetooth keyboard. When I am done working with a document, most of the time I want to email that document to someone — sometimes myself. You can do this with Word, but it takes a few steps. And due to a recent update, it now takes more steps than ever. Here is what you need to do to email a document using Microsoft Word on an iPhone or iPad.
1 + 2: Share and invite people.
The first step is to tap the share button at the top right of the iPhone or iPad screen — a box with an arrow coming out of it. In the past, there was an icon with an outline of a person and a + button, and that has been replaced by a share button.
What you see after you press the button has changed as well. In the past, the second step was to select an option to email the file as an attachment. Instead, you now need to select Invite People. That change seems strange to me because you are not really inviting anyone to do anything if you are just emailing a document.
3 + 4: Send a copy with another app.
After you tap the button to Invite People, the app next presumes that you want to share using a cloud service. However, at the very bottom, you will see an option to Send a Copy. Tap that.
The fourth step is to make selections on the Send a Copy screen, and this step is similar to before. Decide whether you want to send in Word format or PDF format, and then decide if you want to use Microsoft’s own Outlook app for iPhone/iPad or Send with Another App. I don’t use Outlook on my iPhone or iPad — and I’m sure that most of you don’t do so either — so you will want to tap Send with Another App.
5 + 6: Select the Mail app and send your email.
The fifth step is to select what you want to use to send the Word file. If you are just sending to another one of your own devices, or the device of someone else in the same room, you can skip email completely and use AirDrop. But most of the time, this will be the step when you tap the Mail app. If your Mail app is not currently your first option, you may need to scroll to the right to find it. Once you do find it, you can drag it left to make it the first option in the future.
The sixth step is to create your email and then send it.
Depending upon your particular situation, there may be other, faster ways to email your file. For example, if your Microsoft Word document is stored on a cloud service that works with iOS, such as Dropbox or iCloud, or in certain other apps that work with the Files app, you can add an attachment from directly within an email. To do this on the iPhone, tap the flashing cursor in the body of an email message to bring up the editing menu. Then tap the right arrow until you see Add Attachment. To do this on the iPad, you don’t have to tap the cursor at all; instead tap the paperclip icon just above the keyboard on the right side.
This brings you into a version of the Files app. If the Browse tab is selected at the bottom, you can select a service such as Dropbox and then tap your file. If the Recents tap is selected at the bottom, you can quickly see some of the files that you recently used and tap the one that you want.
I hope that in the future, Microsoft Word for iOS adds full support for the Files app. If this happens, you should be able to skip many of the six steps I mentioned above when a file is stored locally on your iPhone or iPad. For now, however, you just need to do a whole lot of tapping to get that Microsoft Word file from your device to an email attachment.
