Month: August 2019

Apple got a lot of criticism when it was recently discovered that, in an effort to improve Siri, Apple had hired contractors to review recordings of people talking to Siri — or in some cases, people talking when the iPhone thought that they were talking to Siri but the voice assistant was actually triggered by mistake.  Imagine, for example, an attorney having a confidential communication with a client and one of them says a phrase like “way serious” and the iPhone incorrectly hears “Hey Siri – us” or something like that; the iPhone could record a few seconds of an attorney-client communication, and then third party contractors who are not even employees of Apple might find themselves listening to part of a confidential attorney-client communication.  Apple has realized the error of its ways, and this week announced significant changes to protect the privacy of users.  John Gruber of Daring Fireball shares what Apple said and provides his analysis (which I agree with).  As more and more of the devices around us are “smart” devices and connected to the Internet, this will become an even bigger issue for anyone concerned about privacy, especially attorneys.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Amanda Robert of ABA Journal discusses a resolution passed by the ABA House of Delegates to encourage courts to allow cellphones in the courthouse to improve access to justice.
• Apple will introduce a new iPhone — the iPhone 11? — on Tuesday, September 10.  Jason Snell of Six Colors reports that Apple sent out invitations yesterday, and he speculates that perhaps we will see new colors for the iPhone.  Apple has already created a page on its website where you will be able to watch a live video stream of the event.
• GoodNotes, my favorite app for taking handwritten notes on my iPad, used to have a feature called Presentation Mode whereby you connect your iPad to an external screen and the audience only sees a whiteboard without seeing the user interface of GoodNotes.  Many teachers use this in class, but an attorney could also use it in trial to, for example, have a witness draw something on an iPad that the jury could see displayed on a screen.  The feature was recently restored to the app in version 5.2, and it is described in this post on the GoodNotes website.
• If you get a LinkedIn (or other social media) request from someone you don’t know, be careful about accepting it; it could be a Chinese spy trying to establish a connection with you.  Edward Wong of the New York Times explains how Chinese agents have used LinkedIn to recruit assets.  I guess the next time that I send someone a LinkedIn friend request I’ll be sure to add a note saying that I am not a Chinese spy.
• David Chartier writes about some of the features he is looking forward to in iPad OS.
• Adam Engst of TidBITS provides advice for sharing vacation photos that you take with your iPhone.  When I have photos to share with friends and family members, I post them to a private, password-protected SmugMug page.  I’ve been using that approach ever since Apple shut down its MobileMe web gallery service in 2012, and it works well for me because SmugMug makes it easy for someone else to see the photos, and also provides the option to download full-quality versions of the photos.
• Geoffrey Fowler of the Washington Post discusses the privacy implications of using Apple’s new AppleCard credit card versus other credit cards.
• David Pierini of Cult of Mac reports that, according to a report in Financial Times, Apple is spending more for every episode of it upcoming TV show The Morning Show than HBO did for the episodes in the final season of Game of Thrones.  So I guess what I’m saying is, I expect to see Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and Steve Carell flying around on dragons.
• Zac Hall of 9to5Mac shares the story of a woman in Fairhope, Alabama who says that her Apple Watch helped to save her life.  Fairhope is just a few miles from Robertsdale, Alabama, where Apple CEO Tim Cook grew up.
• Sure, savings lives is nice, but Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reports that you can also use your Apple Watch to tie your Nike self-lacing shoes. 
• And finally, here is an interesting video created by Apple for Korea showing different covers on AirPods:

It has been an interesting week for updates to the iPhone and iPad operating system.  For those of us who are not using beta software, iOS 12 was updated to version 12.4.1.  Apple says that this update “provides important security and stability updates, and is recommended for all users.”

Here’s a little more information.  Researchers recently discovered a flaw in Bluetooth.  If a bad guy was sufficiently close to two devices trying to make an initial Bluetooth connection, such as an iPhone or iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard, the hacker could break the encryption between the two devices and see all communications between the devices — which, in the case of a keyboard, means everything that you type.  This flaw was called Key Negotiation of Bluetooth, or KNOB for short.  If you want more information, you can read this article by Dan Goodin of Ars Technica.  Apple fixed the flaw a few days ago when it released iOS 12.4.

Unfortunately, there was a bug in iOS 12.4 that removed a patch Apple had previously implemented and, as a result, it was possible to jailbreak an iPhone or iPad running iOS 12.4.  You certainly don’t want a bad guy to get access to your iPhone and then have a way to break into it.  Yesterday, Apple released iOS 12.4.1 to restore that patch.  Thus, you should update to iOS 12.4.1 to protect yourself from both the KNOB flaw and the jailbreak flaw.

And there is more news in the world of iOS updates.  In just a few weeks, Apple will release iOS 13, a major update that I discussed in June.  Apple has been testing beta versions of iOS 13 for a while now, both with folks who develop apps and also with members of the public who sign up for the beta program.  Until yesterday, all of the betas were of versions of iOS 13.0.  But yesterday, Apple also released to developers a beta of iOS 13.1.  I cannot remember a time in the past when Apple has released a beta version of not the next version of the iOS but the one after that.

One interesting aspect of the iOS 13.1 beta is that it seems to confirm that some of the features that Apple announced as being a part of iOS 13 won’t be in the initial iOS 13.0, but instead we will have to wait for iOS 13.1 to be released.  According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, the features that we will have to wait for include: 

• The ability to share your live ETA with a friend using the Maps app, a feature described in this article by Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac.
• The ability to pair two AirPods with a single iPhone or iPad so that two people can listen to the same song or watch a movie together, a feature described in this article by Charlie Sorrel of Cult of Mac.
• The ability to have shortcuts run automatically when certain events occur, such as a certain time of day, when you arrive at your office, or when you connect to CarPlay, a feature described in this article by Brendan Hesse of Lifehacker.
• The ability to have Siri automatically read incoming messages if you are using AirPods, plus the ability for you to instantly respond using your voice, all without touching any buttons, a feature described in this article by Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac.
• The ability to limit when your kids can text, talk, or FaceTime via communication limits, a feature described in this article by Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac.

Of those five features that will apparently be missing when iOS 13.0 comes out in a few weeks, Gurman says that the first three are contained in the iOS 13.1 beta.  The last two are not yet in this version of the iOS 13.1 beta, but of course they could be added later.

We don’t yet know when we will see iOS 13.0, let alone iOS 13.1, but my guess is that the delay between releases will be about six weeks.  The prevailing rumor is that Apple will unveil new iPhones on September 10, 2019, so I presume that iOS 13.0 will come out the following week, around September 16, 2019.  Apple released iOS 12.1 on October 30, 2018, and released iOS 11.1 on October 31, 2017, so I presume that iOS 13.1 will similarly come out at the end of October 2019.

Earlier this year, I reviewed PDF Expert version 6 and said that it was my new favorite app for working with PDF files.  I didn’t realize at the time that Readdle was just a few months away from releasing PDF Expert version 7.  Although I have encountered a few problems with this new version, overall I like it quite a bit, and PDF Expert continues to be my PDF app of choice, although I still have other PDF apps on my iPad and I use them from time to time.  Here are my thoughts on what is changed.

Customize the Toolbar

My favorite new feature in PDF Expert is the ability to customize the toolbar.  One of the main things that I do with this app is read and annotate documents — such as briefs filed by an opponent, cases downloaded from Westlaw or Lexis, exhibits, contracts, etc. 

There are four main tabs in the middle of the top of the app:  Annotate, Draw, Insert, and Favorites.  Those first three tabs include the tools most often associated with those tasks, but I never use those tabs in the app.  That’s because the fourth tab, called Favorites, is far more useful than the other tabs.  In the Favorites tab, you can create your own toolbar. 

This feature has made up so much faster to use the app because every tool that I would ever want to use is right there at the top, and the tools that I never use don’t waste any space up there.  I currently have my tools set up so that the first three tools are fine point pens (black, blue, red) with a 1 point thickness.  Then, as a separator, I have the highlight tool — a tool that I use all the time.  Next, I have five medium point pens with a 1.5 point thickness, and I have five colors:  black, blue, red, green, and purple.  Toolbars in other PDF apps typically only give you two or three colors by default; to access more colors, you have to dig into sub-menus, which requires extra steps so I normally just skip it.  But now that green and purple are just as easy for me to access as black, blue, and red, I find myself using those other two colors much more often as I’m annotating documents.  And I’ll often use different colors to mean different things, so my annotations become even more valuable to me.  Also, the ability to have easy access to pens of different thickness is very nice.

My next tools on my Favorites toolbar are underline, insert a text box, erase, add a box, add a line, and add an arrow. 

My final two favorite tools deserve a little explanation.  The Photos tool can be used to insert a photo into a PDF file.  Why would I want to do that?  No, I’m not adding pictures from a family vacation to my work documents.  Instead, I’m often using this for a document-in-document feature.  Sometimes I want to take a part of another document and place it right next to something in this document.  For example, when I’m reviewing a Petition, I might want to grab a paragraph from a contract and place it right there next to the relevant paragraph in the Petition.  I can open the contract, take a picture of the screen, then insert that picture into the Petition document and crop the image so that it only shows the relevant language from the contract.

My final tool is a yellow marker.  When I’m working with files that are OCR’d, I instead use the highlight tool, which works much better.  But if I have a document that doesn’t have readable text, I can use the marker to highlight.

If I ever decide to customize this toolbar even more, it is easy to do so.  You can select which tools are there and change the order.

If the customizable toolbar were the only new feature in PDF Expert version 7, that alone would be enough reason for me to recommend this app to other attorneys.  The new toolbar makes it so much easier to annotate documents.  I love it.

Reduce PDF File Size

Sometimes you want to share a PDF file with someone else but the file is too large to attach to an email, and perhaps even too large to be a reasonable download using a file sharing service such as Dropbox or Citrix ShareFile.  PDF Expert version 7 gives you the ability to compress a PDF file.

You are given the option to use four different document quality sessions, and the app tells you how much smaller a file will be at each setting.  Lossless is often a great option to make a file a little bit smaller but just as legible.  High and Medium are also pretty good, depending upon the document itself.  I never use the Low setting because I find that it reduces the document quality too much, although it can give you a very small file size.

With some documents, the reduce file size option doesn’t help at all.  With some documents, you get the same file size reduction with two or more of the quality settings.  It all just depends upon the document that you are working with.  Nevertheless, it is nice to have this option, and I especially like that you can see what the new file size will be before you even perform the operation.  And if you don’t like how the document looks after you do so, just tap the undo button to go back to the prior version of the document.

User interface tweaks

Throughout the app, you’ll notice numerous changes to the user interface, most of which I think are for the better.  For example, the new Search interface is better, giving you more context when you search for words in a document and buttons that make it easy to jump to the next instance of a word.  You can also customize many aspects of the interface of the app, such as which options appear on the left when you are in the file browser mode.

Along with the improvements, however, I also see some bizarre behavior, which I suppose is a bug.  When I am looking at a list of files, if I tap an item in the list to open that document – such as the third item from the top — for a fraction of a second before the document opens the first two items in the list disappear and the other items in the list move up.  My document does then open, but that bizarre behavior often leads me to believe that I tapped on the wrong item in the list.  I hope that this can be fixed soon.

Convert to PDF

The app now gives you the ability to convert images, Word files, and Excel files into PDF files.  For Microsoft Office files, I typically just use the Word or Excel apps on my iPad to convert to PDF, but it is nice to have another tool that can do this.

Speed

Readdle says that PDF Expert version 7 is much faster because it takes advantage of Apple’s new Metal technology.  I agree that the app does a nice job of working with huge PDF files.

On the other hand, when I’m browsing through lists of files and folders that I have synced to the app from Dropbox, I find that the app sometimes hangs for a second or two.  I think that this might be part of the sync process.  It’s annoying, and I’ve alerted Readdle to the issue.  Again, hopefully this can be fixed in a future update because version 6 never did this.

Pricing

The app pricing has changed.  When reviewed PDF expert earlier this year, the app cost $9.99 and for an additional $9.99 you could unlock the ability to edit a PDF file.  Now, the app is free, but to enable many of the features I described above — design your own toolbar, reduce PDF file size, and convert to PDF — you need to pay for a PRO subscription, which costs $50/year.  I consider the cost of a PRO subscription worth it just for the custom toolbar feature; I use this app virtually every single day at work, so I see the benefit of a better toolbar multiple times a day, every day.  But if you are not sure whether you will want the advanced features, just download the free version of the app and try it out.  If you previously used version 6 of the app and paid to unlock some of the advanced features such as edit PDF text, when you upgrade to version 7 you will still have those features even if you decide not to purchase the PRO version to access the new features.

Conclusion

Aside from the two bugs that I noted above, I’m very happy with PDF Expert version 7.  The app makes it easy to organize, read, and annotate PDF files.  And if you pay for the PRO subscription to access the new custom toolbar feature, annotating documents is faster and easier than ever.  Every lawyer who wants to make serious use of an iPad in a law practice needs a good PDF management app, and PDF Expert is an excellent choice.

Click here to get PDF Expert by Readdle (free): 

 

If Apple takes the same approach that it has for many years now, we will see new iPhones early next month.  In prior years, new iPhones were introduced on Sept. 12, 2018, Sept. 12, 2017, Sept. 7, 2016, Sept. 9, 2015, Sept. 9, 2014, Sept. 10, 2013, and Sept. 12, 2012.  There are lots of rumors on what will be introduced, but typically one of the best source for these predictions is Mark Gurman, now at Bloomberg.  Yesterday, Gurman predicted that we will see three new iPhones.  Unlike the current lineup (iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max), Gurman predicts that next month we will see a regular iPhone and two high-end iPhones called the iPhone Pro.  “The main feature of the Pro iPhones will be a new camera system on the back with a third sensor for capturing ultra-wide-angle photos and videos.”  Gurman said that the iPhone will capture three images from the three cameras and will then combine them into one photo, and also predicts that pictures in low-light situations will improve.  Other features will include improved water resistance, better iPhone unlocking using the Face ID sensor, updated screens, and faster processors.  Gurman also predicts a refresh for the iPad Pro line with better cameras.  My guess is that we will know for sure what Apple is announcing in less than three weeks.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Will Apple announce a new Apple Watch along with the new iPhones?  In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell says that Apple certainly doesn’t need to release a new Apple Watch because the Series 4 is already very good and the software is about to be improved, although there are rumors that we will see new models of the Series 4 with ceramic or titanium in addition to the aluminum and stainless steel. 
• Ryan Christoffel of MacStories discusses the new Apple Card credit card.
• Josh Centers of TidBITS has advice for getting the most out of the Apple Card benefits.
• In a series of tweets, Apple CEO Tim Cook shows off a few amazing photographs taken with an iPhone.
• In an article for Macworld, Dan Moren discusses traveling with an iPhone and other Apple technology.
• We are getting closer to the day when Apple will have its own video streaming service, Apple TV+.  Ryan Christoffel of MacStories explains why Apple may well be successful, even though there are many competitors in this field.
• And finally, speaking of Apple TV+, this week Apple released a full trailer for one of its upcoming shows on Apple TV + called The Morning Show.  It stars Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and Steve Carell, and based on the trailer it looks like it could be pretty good:

When I was in law school in the 1990s, I used a credit issued by Apple.  You could earn points that could be spent on Apple products, and after using it to pay my rent and for other purchases, I earned enough points to purchase a Mac at an extreme discount.  Starting this week, if you live in the United States, you can now apply for a new credit card from Apple (in partnership with Goldman Sachs) called Apple Card.

Sign up

Signing up for the card couldn’t be easier.  Open the Wallet app on your iPhone and tap the plus at the top right to add a new credit card.  Then select the Apple Card.

Next, confirm some basic information about yourself such as your name and address.  Apple already knows all of this stuff you probably won’t have to enter anything other than the last four digits of your Social Security number and your annual income.

Apple will then tell you what credit limit and APR you are approved for.  I was instantly approved for $15,000, but I’ve heard reports of others being offered a higher and lower limit.  Apple says that the APR ranges  from 12.99% to 23.99% depending upon your credit history.  Apple offered me 12.99%.  And the whole process took just a few seconds to be approved.

Using the Apple Card

When you are at a store that accepts Apple Pay, you can use the Apple Card on your iPhone or Apple Watch just like any other credit card.  In the Wallet app, you can see the number, expiration date, and CVV associated with the Apple Card so if you need to pay a bill online, you can enter that information.  The Apple Card is a MasterCard, so it is widely accepted.

Apple will also ship you a physical card.  I saw one a while back, and it looks distinctive because it is made of titanium and is laser-etched with your name.  Notice that I didn’t mention your number; the number is not printed on the card itself as a way to reduce the risk of theft.  (If someone asks you for the number, you can just look it up in the Wallet app on your iPhone.)

Why use it?

Most of us select a credit card because of the rewards and benefits that the card provides.  The same is true with Apple Card.  Here is what you get:

Daily Cash. Every single time that you but something with the Apple Card, you get cash back.  If a store doesn’t take Apple Pay, or if you use the physical card, you get 1% back.  If you use Apple Pay to make a purchase, you get 2% back.  And for certain purchases, you get 3% back.  For now, the 3% applies to anything that you buy from Apple and for Uber.  I’m sure that Apple will add more 3% partners in the future.

If you spend $1500 on an iPhone or a high-end iPad, that’s $45.  Apple virtually never discounts its hardware, so this is a rare way to save money on an Apple purchase.  And if the rumors are true and Apple comes out with a car at some point in the future, I suppose you can save $1,500 on what is sure to be a futuristic vehicle.

Spending summaries. Apple is promoting the Apple Card as a way to improve the way that you manage your money.  Thus, the app shows you weekly and monthly summaries, color-coded by category.  

Maps.  The app can also show you where you were when you purchased something, which can be helpful if the name of the vendor is unclear and you are trying to figure out what a purchase was.

Payment aids. Of course, it is best to pay off the Apple Card credit card every month when due on the last day of the month.  But if you cannot, the app helps you to understand how much interest you will accrue making a partial payment.  The app also lets you pay multiple times a month, which keeps interest lower.

Fraud detection. The app alerts you instantly when there is a purchase, so if you don’t think that the purchase was legitimate you can immediately do something about it.  And by “do something” you actually text Apple, which means no long phone calls and being placed on hold.

Privacy.  Apple has implemented numerous steps to keep your use of the Apple Card private.  For example, your spending habits are not used for internal or external marketing.

No fees.  There are no fees associated with Apple Card.  Even if you go over your spending limit.  Even if you pay late.  Even if you have a foreign transaction.

Conclusion

The Apple Card isn’t right for everyone, and you may have another credit card that offers rewards that work better for your lifestyle.  But the Apple Card is very easy to sign up for, very easy to use, and seems very clear in the benefits that you get.  As you can see from the pictures above, I started the process of applying but then stopped before I got to the last stage, simply because I don’t really need another credit card in my life right now.  But I may reconsider and sign up for the Apple Card when I am ready to make a larger purchase of an Apple product to take advantage of the 3% discount.

Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal wrote an interesting article this week comparing three services that you can use to keep track of the location of a friend or family member:  Apple’s Find My Friends, Google Maps location sharing, and Life360.  She also put together a great video, which you can watch at the top of the article.  As she explains, Apple has the best privacy policy because location data is encrypted, it is only stored by Apple for two hours and then deleted, and Apple doesn’t use the data to try to advertise to you.  Stern notes that you can also use Find My Friends for someone who is just a temporary friend — you can share your location for just an hour, or just a day.  I’ve had a few instances recently in which another attorney I’m working with has shared location with me for just a short time period (and I have with him), making it easy to meet up and easy to know how far away someone is when they are running late.  Like me, you may already know how useful it is to share location with close family members, but don’t overlook how useful it can be to temporarily share location with someone just for a limited time period and purpose.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories describes the new Sidecar feature coming this Fall to iPadOS 13 and macOS Catalina which will allow you to use an iPad as a second screen for your Mac — either to mirror the screen (helpful if you want to use an Apple Pencil) or extend the screen (if you just need more screen real estate).
• Xiumei Dong of Law.com reports on law firm cybersecurity based on a recent ABA panel discussion in San Diego with presenters Ruth Hill Bro of the ABA Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, Jill Rhodes of Option Care, Stephen Wu of Silicon Valley Law Group, and my law partner Lucian Pera. 
• Speaking of security, Brian X. Chen of the New York Times describes all of the information that a hacker can obtain just by knowing your cellphone number.
• Also speaking of security, Joseph Cox of Vice describes a presentation given at the recent Def Con hacking conference in which the presenter modified an Apple Lightning cable to incorporate a way that a hacker could access your computer whenever the cord is plugged in to your computer.  Yikes.
• There are lots of HomeKit-compatible devices that plug into an outlet turn a lamp into a smart lamp.  Just a few days ago, I purchased another Lutron lamp dimmer, which has two outlets so you can control two lamps.  But that device, like most in this category, control both lamps at the same time.  Lory Gil of iMore reviews the Satechi Dual Smart Outlet, which has two outlets that you can control independently.
• I cannot even imagine what kind of road warrior you would need to be to justify buying an Apple Watch in-car charging stand, but if that describes you, Killian Bell of Cult of Mac reviews the Elgato W Stand for Apple Watch, a stand you can use to charge an Apple Watch anywhere which also happens to fit in a car’s cupholder.
• Apple and the jeweler Tiffany & Co. are two companies that I would not normally think of working together, but Mike Wuerthele of AppleInsider explains how the two companies are working together to find new ways to locate gold in Alaskan rivers while also protecting the environment.
• Zac Hall of 9to5Mac wrote an article for the Clarion-Ledger about how parents can monitor how their children use an iPhone with the Screen Time and Family Sharing features.
• And finally, there is a rumor that Apple will offer a “pro” version of the next version of the iPhone, which I expect to be announced next month.  Apple has done well with the iPad Pro, so I can see having an iPhone Pro too.  In the latest episode of his Vector video podcast, Rene Ritchie speculates on what features we might see in an iPhone Pro, such USB-C, a larger size, Apple Pencil support, multi-tasking, a glowing Apple logo on the back, and more:

[UPDATE:  For my latest post on Anker cables dated August 19, 2020, click here.]

I’ve reviewed many of high-end Anker cables, including PowerLine+ and PowerLine+ II cables, but I was recently in the market for a longer cable that was durable but inexpensive.  The cable was for my daughter.  She likes to keep her iPad plugged-in while she uses so that she doesn’t have to worry about battery power, but that means that she has to sit pretty close to a power source.  I wanted to get her a long USB-to-Lightning cord so that she can be farther away from the outlet.  The longest Lightning cable that Apple makes is two meters long and costs $24.36 on Amazon, a small discount from Apple’s $29.00 MSRP.  Anker makes a cable that is 10 feet long, which is just over three meters long.  You can buy that cable in the PowerLine+ II line, which will cost you $19.99 to $21.99 depending upon the color.  But a simple, inexpensive cable was more than enough for my daughter’s needs, so I opted for Anker’s entry-level PowerLine 10ft Lightning cable, which costs $11.99 to $12.99 depending upon the color. 

The white one that I purchased from Amazon is $11.99.  It is also available in blue, red, or black.  It comes with a small Velcro-type strap that you can use to keep it together.

PowerLine versus PowerLine+ versus PowerLine+ II

Anker currently sells three types of Lightning cables.  The basic model is the PowerLine, and it features a cable made of PVC.  Anker says that the PowerLine series is “reinforced with bulletproof aramid fiber” to make it “much stronger than conventional cables.”  I cannot comment on that, but suffice to say that this appears to be a quality cable.

The PowerLine+ series has nylon around the cable, which protects the cord even more and makes it virtually impossible to knot the cord.  The PowerLine+ II series also features nylon surrounding the cord, but it is just a hair thicker and Anker says that it is even more durable.  I’ve had good experience with both of these types of cables.  I have some that I’ve been using for a long time and they still look like new.  I’ve had one or two that my kids have managed to wear out over time, but the Anker ones seem to hold up better than the Apple ones when confronted with the abuse of a standard pre-teen and teen.

PowerLine versus Apple

This white PVC PowerLine cable looks similar to the Apple cable that comes included with just about every Apple device.  The Anker cord it just a little bit thicker, and the plugs on both ends are a little bit thicker.  If you are connecting to a case that has only a tiny place for the end of the Lightning cable — such as the Lifeproof iPhone 6 / 6 Plus cases — the Anker cable is too big.  But for most other uses, the Anker cable works just fine.

In the following picture, a standard Apple USB-to-Lightning cable is on the left, and the Anker PowerLine calbe is on the right:

If the very minor size difference is not an issue for you, then the Anker cable it a great alternative to Apple’s cable.  First, if you want a long cable, the 10-foot cord is about 50% longer than Apple’s longest 2m cord.  Second, the Anker cord is less expensive, about $12 versus about $25 for Apple’s cable on Amazon.  Third, you get that small Velcro-type strap to hold it together, which is minor but nice to have for a longer cable.

My daughter hasn’t used the cable long enough for me to make any definitive statements about long-term durability, but based upon my prior experience with Anker cables, my guess is that this cord will be just as durable as an Apple cable, and perhaps even better.  And because of the price difference, you could actually use an Anker cord for a few years and then purchase a new one and use it for a few years and still pay less than you would for a single Apple cable that isn’t even as long.  Indeed, just last night, I ordered a second one of these cables for my son.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a long, simple, and inexpensive Lightning cable from a company with a reputation for making good products, the Anker PowerLine 10ft Lightning cable is a great choice.

Click here to get the Anker PowerLine 10ft Lightning from Amazon ($11.99)

I’ve been using Apple Maps in New Orleans since the service debuted in 2012.  While I’ve never had the problems with Apple Maps that led some others to insist upon only using Google Maps, I’ve certainly noticed some quirks along the way.  For example, there is a road I take to work every day which I know is the most direct way to go, but for years Apple Maps has suggested that I take an alternate route.  I happened to be using Apple Maps guidance to go that same route a few days ago when I noticed, for the first time ever, that CarPlay wasn’t trying to reroute me.  I thought to myself that Apple Maps has finally learned the way, but didn’t think much more of it than that.  But then I saw reports this past weekend, on sites like MacRumors, that the upgraded data for Apple Maps (which Apple executives discussed a year ago with Matthew Panzarino of TechCrnch) is now available in Texas, Louisiana, and Southern Mississippi. 

Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reports that the improved maps came first to Northern California (including the San Francisco area where Apple is headquartered) in July 2018.  They then came to Hawaii and Southern California in November 2018.  Arizona, New Mexico, and Las Vegas were added in April 2019.  Using the most basic of Photoshop skills one could possibly use — no, you should not hire me to create the demonstrative graphic exhibits for your next trial — I created this map of the continental United States showing roughly where the new maps have been rolled out.

You can tell that only the lower half of Mississippi is included in this update both by looking at the above map (click to enlarge) or just by looking at the state on your own iPhone or iPad because the lower half of the state is light green but the upper half is not.  That reflects one of the changes in the new data for Apple Maps:  there is much more detail on each map, including a more precise indication of which areas are undeveloped (in green) and which areas are developed (in light yellow).  As Panzarino explained in his article:  “Water, swimming pools (new to Maps entirely), sporting areas and vegetation are now more prominent and fleshed out thanks to new computer vision and satellite imagery applications.”  Building shapes and sizes are also more accurate in the new maps.

Based upon my very simplistic arrows indicating the passage of time, and my (perhaps incorrect) assumption that Apple will continue to go in the same direction, my guess is that if you live in areas like Mobile, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia, you may be in the area that will next see improved Apple Maps.  Apple executive Eddy Cute told Panzarino in that TechCrunch article from 2018:  “Over the next year, we’ll be rolling it out, section by section in the U.S.”

If I had known that this update was coming, I would have taken some screenshots of the Maps app last Thursday so that I could do some before-and-after pictures.  I didn’t do that, but I can still give you one example.  When I reviewed the Apple Watch Series 4 last year, I included a picture of an outdoor walk around a playground that I took while my daughter was attending a soccer practice.  The first picture below comes from the Apple Watch app, but it uses the same underlying map data that was in the Apple Maps app last year.  The second picture below was taken last night, with the new maps data.  As you can see, there is more detail in the new map, and you can even clearly see the baseball diamond at the top of the map in the newer picture.  You can also see more precise details in the shapes of the building surrounding the playground.

I don’t have a “before” picture for this next one, but here is a picture of Audubon Park in New Orleans using the newer maps.  You can now clearly identify each hole in the golf course, including the sand traps:

The visual changes are interesting, but as Panzarino explained in his article last year, the new update to Apple Maps is not just about the map image.  The big change is that Apple started compiling its own map data last year.  It gets some information using vehicles driven around areas.  It gets other information from all of our iPhones, although as explained in that TechCrunch article, all of the information uploaded to Apple is handled in a way to maintain user privacy.  By adding its own data to data obtained from others, the map engine itself is more precise.  This explains why my iPhone is now agreeing with me on the most direct route to my office.

Better data is only part of what is new in Apple Maps.  As I noted in my preview of iOS 13, which is coming to all iPhones and iPads this Fall, maps in iOS 13 will have additional details, plus Apple added its version of Google Street View so that you can see what it would be like to stand in a location and look around 360º with smooth transitions from one spot to another. 

The new map data combined with the new features in iOS 13 will make Apple Maps even more useful.  I’m glad to now have it in my neck of the woods, and it will be great when it is available in even more areas.

There are countless features that I like on the iPhone, but there is one fantastic feature that has almost nothing to do with the iPhone’s screen:  CarPlay.  I’ve been using CarPlay for over two years, and it vastly improves the experience of driving a car.  Apple hasn’t done much to improve CarPlay during those two years, but this Fall there will be a major refresh.  Illinois attorney John Voorhees, a writer for MacStories, wrote an excellent and comprehensive review of the new features coming to CarPlay in iOS 13.  I can’t wait.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks discusses some of the new features of Shortcuts in the upcoming iOS 13.
• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories notes that PDF Expert — my app of choice for working with PDF files — was updated to version 7.  You can now use the app for free, but you can access some interesting features of you pay $50/year for the pro version.  After I try it out for a while, I’ll post a review.
• David Notowitz of Law Technology Today discusses a recent California decision regarding the limitations on police forcing users to unlock their iPhone.
• Trevor Daughterty of 9to5Mac reviews Philips Hue Outdoor Lighting, concluding that it is expensive but the best HomeKit-compatible outdoor lighting.
• Geoffrey Fowler of the Washington Post does a great job of showing off and describing the new finger gestures coming to iPadOS this Fall, including the numerous three-finger gestures.  It’s going to take folks a while to get used to these new gestures to do things like cut, copy, and paste, but once you master them you can be much more productive with your iPad.\
• Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch reports that Apple has responded to concerns about how it uses humans to review recordings of Siri queries by suspending this practice and promising that, in the future, users will be able to choose whether the participate in the grading or not.  I personally wouldn’t have a problem with a human listening to a recording of something that I said after I said “Hey Siri,” but the problem is that sometimes an iPhone or other device thinks that you said “Hey Siri” when you actually said something else — and thus the person might be listening to a part of something that I said in private.  Of course, this problem isn’t unique to Apple; Amazon (with its Echo devices) and others have the same issue.
• Last week, I reviewed the HyperDrive 6-in-1 USB-C Hub for iPad Pro, and I noted that it contains all of the ports that I might need to use except for VGA.  Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reviews the Inateck USB-C hub, an 8-in-1 hub that includes VGA and two USB 3.0 Type A ports.
• Speaking of USB-C, David Pogue recommends five USB-C adapters in an article for The Strategist.
• And continuing to speak of USB-C, Chris Welch of The Verge discusses USB-C hubs for the iPad Pro.
• And continuing further … Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that Apple updated its USB-C to HDMI adapter.  The new version supports 4K and 60Hz (HDMI 2.0), HDR video in HDR10, and Dolby Vision.
• And finally, autonomous sensor meridian response (ASMR) is a sensation that many people can experience by watching a video or listening to audio, and ASMR videos typically feature sounds which are normally quiet such as whispering or water drops isolated and louder.  It helps to wear headphones to get the full ASMR experience.  Many people find that ASMR helps them to relax and even experience euphoria.  This week, Apple released four ASMR videos created with an iPhone:  Tapping (featuring the sound of raindrops), Crunching (featuring the sounds of someone walking on a trail), Whispering (featuring a whispering voice which moves from the left to right ear describing and showing the Ghost Forest beach in Oregon), and Scraping (woodshop sounds).  Here is Tapping, which I think is my favorite:

Thank you to Bellefield Systems, the creator of iTimekeep, for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month.  iTimekeep is one of the most useful apps on my iPhone, and along with Microsoft Word, it is one of those rare apps that I use almost every day on multiple computing platforms:  PC, Mac, iPad, and iPhone.  iTimekeep greatly improves time entry and time management for attorneys.  Everyone who bills their time would agree that this is one of the most annoying aspects of a law practice, so the ability to transform this task from a daily drudgery to something that can be done much more easily is a huge win.  I posted a full review of iTimekeep two years ago, and here is an update on why I find iTimekeep to be so valuable, plus a discussion of some of the new features recently added.

iPhone

I don’t use iTimekeep on my iPhone every day, but whenever I do, it is incredibly valuable.  How many times have you had one of those “oh yeah” moments when you suddenly remembered that you forgot to record time for some activity?  This often occurs to me before I go to bed at night.  In the old days, I would hope to remember it the next time that I was in front of my PC in my office, but as you can imagine that didn’t work that well.  Now, in just a few seconds, I can open the iTimekeep app on my iPhone, record my time, and then be done.  The iTimekeep app talks to the server that you use for time entry at your firm (we use Elite at my law firm) and instantly adds your time. 

This is valuable to me for two reasons.  First, I don’t lose credit for the work that I did.  Those little tasks may often be only a fraction of an hour, but they do add up over time when you do a better job of tracking all of them.  Second, my time entry is always more accurate and descriptive when I enter it contemporaneously, or as close to that as possible, which means that the invoice that I provide to my client is a better invoice.  Indeed, I will often enter time on my iPhone immediately after an event ends.  I can step into an elevator after a meeting with my client, and I can finish my time entry before it is even time to get off of the elevator.

The iPhone interface is fantastic because you can enter your time so quickly.  Tap “Matter” at the top and you can just start to type a few letters associated with a client or matter.  As soon as you see the one that you want, just tap it.

 

In the Settings for iTimekeep you can also have the app default to your last matter when you enter time.  This makes it even faster to enter multiple entries for the same client/matter, something that I do every day.

Tap the 0.00 to enter a specific time period.

If you want to instead have the iPhone keep track of your time, press the green Start button to start a timer.  What if you started the timer too early or too late?  No worries, just tap the nudge button to adjust the timer as necessary.  What if you take a break?  Just tap the pause button.

To make it even faster to enter time on my iPhone, I use the iPhone’s built-in text replacement feature (Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Text Replacement.  For example, if I type “rcf” on my iPhone, the iPhone automatically changes that to “Review correspondence from ” and then I just type the person’s name and what the correspondence is about.

iTimekeep validates your time against client billing requirements, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to add a needed issue or task code for a file, or for entering time in 0.1 increments when the client requires 0.25 entries.

PC and Mac

You can also use iTimekeep on a secure website, using your browser of choice, from a PC or a Mac.  That’s how I enter most of my time.  In my office, I enter it using my PC.  When I enter my time from the day at home at night, I use my Mac.

There are large buttons to click to add time or start a timer.  From there, the process is similar to an iPhone, and time entry is even faster because you can use your computer’s keyboard.  The My Time page gives you a clear view of each entry, with the client name, followed by the matter name, and then your descriptive text and the time.

A recent update adds buttons across the top to make it even faster to switch to different views.  The Dashboard gives you an overview of your month (or week or year), including the number of billable and non-billable hours, average daily load, and other useful statistics.   The Calendar makes it easy to see an overview of how much you billed each day, and you can jump to any specific day to add more time for that day.  Those two views also make it easy to review your timecards and fill in any missing time gaps, which is especially useful if someone else enters your time and you just want to fix the entries.  And if you like the timer feature, the Timers view gives you a single view for managing concurrent timers, so you can quickly switch between timers in different matters.

Presumably, your billing system also has its own webpage or desktop software that can be used to enter time.  But iTimekeep is so fast and easy to use that it allows you to be much more efficient with your time entry, freeing you up to either do more work or finish your work day even earlier.

Conclusion

Everything about the time entry process is better with iTimekeep.  You spend less time entering your own time, and you do so more accurately and efficiently.  And because your iPhone is probably always with you, it is incredibly easy to enter time contemporaneously or record an entry from earlier in the day whenever and wherever you think about it.  Additionally, reviewing prior time entries is simple, and iTimekeep will even alert you when you appear to be missing time from a day.  Thus, even if you don’t enter your own time, iTimekeep makes it incredibly easy to see what time was recorded for you so that you can fix any mistakes earlier in the process.  Thanks to iTimekeep for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month and for improving my own law practice.

Click here for more information on iTimekeep.