The number on the newest iPhone is “13” and now this website has hit 13 as well. Thirteen years ago today, on November 17, 2008, I took a picture of the front of my iPhone on a legal pad to create a banner for this website, and I published the first post. I guess that means that iPhone J.D. is now a teenager. There have been over 2,100 posts here since 2008, and while lawyers are still using iPhones, so much of what that means has changed so much since 2008.
A milestone always seems like an appropriate time to step back and take a look at where you have been, so let’s do that.
Popular posts this year. Every year on the birthday of iPhone J.D. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12), 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 on what has been on the minds of attorneys and other 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 12 leather case — slim case to protect your iPhone. I would never have guessed that an iPhone case review would be the most-viewed post of the past year, but that’s what the numbers say. I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised because I’ve always been a huge fan of the leather iPhone case sold by Apple over the years. It is slim, it feels good, and of course, it fits perfectly. And because it supports MagSafe, it is even more useful. I’ve been buying versions of this $59 case every year with every new iPhone for as long as I can remember. Because of the flat-edge design of the iPhone 12 and now the iPhone 13, I no longer use the case all of the time. I find that it is easier to slip an iPhone in and out of a pocket without a case, and the flat edge makes it easier to get a good grip on the iPhone when it is in my hand. But many times a week – and always when I travel — I use Apple’s leather case to get a better grip on the iPhone.
- How to make your Apple Watch speak the time out loud — or not do so. I always enjoy sharing a good tip. Indeed, one of the things that I love about the weekly In the News podcast that I do with Brett Burney is that we always end with our “In the Know” segment in which we each share a tip, and I often learn something new from Brett. In this post, I explain how to enable the talking clock feature of the Apple Watch that you trigger by putting two fingers on the display, and also how to turn it off if you are worried about triggering it by accident.
- Review: Solo Loop band for Apple Watch. I’m glad to see that this review got so much attention because I love the Solo Loop band. In fact, when I recently upgraded to an Apple Watch Series 7 and had to select a watch band to go with it, I knew instantly that I would get a different color of the Solo Loop. Because this band has no buckle, it is incredibly secure. It is also incredibly comfortable and easy to keep clean because you can just wipe it off. I have a lot of different Apple Watch bands, but this is one of my all-time favorites.
- 20 iPhone tips for lawyers in 2020. Technically, this post was not from the past year because it was posted the day before my 12th anniversary post. But so many folks read this one during the past twelve months that it is worth mentioning here. A year ago, I was invited by the Monroe County Bar Association in Rochester, NY to team up with the fantastic New York attorney Nicole Black, the Legal Technology Evangelist with MyCase law practice management software, to share some iPhone tips. We had a great time doing that presentation and I shared many of our tips in that post. Those tips are just as useful today as they were a year ago, so be sure to take a look at that post if you missed it last year or just want a refresher.
- Review: Foam Masters Hybrid Silicone-Memory Foam Ear Tips for AirPods Pro — comfortable replacement tips that fit. As much as I love my AirPods Pro, the built-in tips are not great for my ears. I vastly prefer using these replacement ear tips. I see that the version that I purchased and reviewed has now been replaced with a new 3.0 version for $24.99, which uses upgraded memory foam, has new brackets, and has a new “NanoWeb Ultra-thin Membrane” that “coats each Foam Tip to improve hold in ear, sweat resistance, and drastically improves durability.” I may have to check those out. For the past few weeks, I’ve actually been testing a different replacement tip for the AirPods Pro: the COMPLY Foam Apple AirPods Pro 2.0 Earbud Tips. So look out for a review of those at some point soon.
- iPad tip: download a YouTube video using the a-Shell app. This was a complicated tip that involved using a terminal window on the iPad. For me, the most interesting part was just that it worked at all.
- Review: LIT SUITE — powerful iPad litigation apps. Lit Software has been producing top-notch iPad apps since 2010. Earlier this year, the company switched to a subscription model, and I used that post to explain what it all means.
- Review: iPhone 13 Pro — better cameras, better screen, better battery life. It’s been about six weeks since I wrote my formal review of the iPhone 13 Pro. I started that review by mentioning the new 3x telephoto lens, and that remains one of my favorite features. I’ve also found the Macro camera very useful. I wrote in that review that I hadn’t had enough experience with battery life to comment on it. I can report now that the additional battery life is real and is very nice. The only time I’ve had to be concerned about iPhone battery life is when I’ve filmed a lot of 4K video.
- Reivew: SongPop Party — compete to quickly name that tune. I don’t play a lot of games on my iPhone or iPad, and that’s why I rarely discuss games on this website. But I did enjoy SongPop Party quite a bit this past summer. And after typing that last sentence, I just played the game again. It’s still fun.
- Subscription services that are worth paying for. This post gave me an excuse to talk about a lot of apps and services that I enjoy using so much that I consider them to be worth paying for, every month.
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.
Google Analytics reports that, during the past 12 months, about 52% of readers visited from a smartphone, and 90% of those were iPhones. It also reports that 44% of readers visited from a desktop computer and 4% visited from an iPad, but I think those numbers are wrong. As the Safari browser on the iPad has gotten more sophisticated over the years, I think that Google is assuming that some iPads are desktop computers. Across all devices, the most popular browser is Safari (62%), followed by Chrome (30%) and Firefox (4%).
I know that lawyers around the world use the iPhone and iPad. About 53% of iPhone J.D. visitors during the past year were in the U.S., which is the lowest percentage I ever remember seeing. Over 10% of readers are in the U.K. Canada (6%) and Australia (4%) make up another 10%. I’ve never before seen many iPhone J.D. visitors from China, but for the first time this year, China was the #5 country to visit this website. China is a huge and growing market for Apple, so I suppose it should come as no surprise that many iPhone and iPad users in China who can read English (or use translation tools) would be visiting sites like iPhone J.D. for tips and product reviews.
Every year, I also look at the top cities for the folks who visit iPhone J.D. New York has been #1 every year, except for 2015 and 2020 when London was on top. And this year, London is back on top for the third time, just barely beating out New York. But the most notable change is to see cities in China on this list for the first time: Tianjin and Beijing, two of the largest cities in the world.
- London
- New York
- Singapore
- Tianjin
- Los Angeles
- Sydney
- Beijing
- Chicago
- Dallas
- Melbourne
Other cities that have previously made the Top 10 list, but did not this year, include Toronto (#11 this year), Houston (#12), Atlanta (#13), and San Francisco (#14). I live in New Orleans, which was #41 this year. Salt Lake City was #100, Coral Gables was #250, Naples was #1000, and Beverly Hills was #4000. A number of cities had only a single visitor to iPhone J.D. last year, such as Powerview-Pine Falls, a town in the Canadian province of Manitoba with a population of 1,294.