Jeff Richardson

At some point in the future, I suspect that Apple will sell an Apple Watch with a built-in cellular connection so that it can connect to the Internet even when it is not within Bluetooth range of an iPhone, and thus be more of an independent device.  Even now, there are certain things that you can do without an iPhone nearby, although you run into limits.  An Apple Watch can track your workout (and track your progress if you have a Series 2 with GPS), and you can even listen to music using just the Apple Watch and Bluetooth earphones (such as AirPods) if you first transfer songs to the Apple Watch.  But if you want to listen to a podcast, there is no built-in way to do that without having an iPhone nearby.  Of course, the absence of a feature is often a great opportunity for a third party developer, and Peter Knapp, a software developer in Germany, created Watch Player so that you can transfer podcast episodes to an Apple Watch and then play them on the Apple Watch even without an iPhone.  The app works well, and it is free to use (although in-app tips are accepted).

The iPhone version of the app has one main screen with four buttons across the top.  Use the button at the top right to select a podcast.  You can either search for a podcast by name, or if you have a specific RSS feed you can add that URL.

Tap on any podcast name to select specific episodes to download to your iPhone, which should happen very quickly on a Wi-Fi connection. 

The main screen of the Watch Player app on the iPhone shows all of the episodes which have been downloaded and are thus available to transfer to your Apple Watch.  A green button indicates that an episode has already been synced; a red button indicates that it has not yet been synced.

To sync episodes, open the Watch Player app on your Apple Watch and then press the sync button at the top left of the iPhone app.  Episodes will then transfer.  It takes a little while to do so.  For example, a 2 hour and 21 minute episode of The Talk Show (97 MB) took me about six minutes to transfer.

While the file is transferring, if you look at your Apple Watch screen you can see the progress as a percentage at the top of the screen.  The same percentage also shows at the bottom of the iPhone app during transfer.  The percentage is only updated when your watch screen is on, so if the screen turns off during the transfer, just tap once on the Apple Watch screen to wake the watch and update the progress indication.

 

Note that in the current version, you will see some bizarre numbers at the top of the screen at the very end of the transfer, due to the way that the app calculates the percentage.  Just ignore that and it will go away.

Once episodes are transferred, the main screen of the Apple Watch app will show you the available episodes.

Tap on an episode to see a screen where you can start to play the episode.  On this screen, you can also select to start the podcast at any particular point, useful if you have already listened to part of a podcast on your iPhone and just want to resume listening starting where you left off.

Once you press play, the podcast will begin.  If you have Bluetooth speakers attached to your Apple Watch, such as a pair of AirPods, then the podcast will play through that source.  Otherwise, you will just hear the podcast using the built-in speaker on the Apple Watch.  There is a large play/pause button in the middle, plus smaller buttons to jump forward or backwards five seconds at a time.  You can also adjust the volume.

Alternatively, if you are using Bluetooth speakers, you can use the standard Now Playing app on the Apple Watch to play/pause or control volume.  However, the FF and RW buttons in the Now Playing app don’t appear to do anything when the Watch Player app is playing a podcast.

Tap the Watch Player icon at the top left of the Now Playing screen to jump to the Watch Player app.

I mentioned using this app while you are walking or jogging and you leave your iPhone at home, but it is also useful if you are listening to a podcast while you are just doing errands around the house and your iPhone is not in your pocket.  You can listen to a podcast using earphones connected via Bluetooth to the Apple Watch without having to stay in the same room as the iPhone so that the earphones are close enough to the iPhone to maintain a Bluetooth connection.

I also used this app when using a treadmill inside of my house.  Everything worked fine, but I didn’t see any advantage to using Watch Player when it is easy for my iPhone to be nearby.

When you are finished with an episode, you can delete it from the watch one of two ways.  First, you can swipe across an episode title in the iPhone app to delete that episode, and then sync to the watch to remove it from the watch.  Second, in the Watch Player app on the Apple Watch, go to the screen for a particular episode (the one with the big Play button at the bottom) and force-press on the screen.  This will show the option to delete an episode.

Other options

My iPhone podcast player of choice is Overcast, and it has the option to speed up podcast playback by playing at a faster speed (I typically use 1.5x) and by removing longer pauses between words.  Watch Player lacks those features, and I miss them.  When you are used to hearing a person’s voice at 1.5x speed, the voice—sounds—really—slow—at—normal—speed.  There is an Overcast app for the Apple Watch, but it is just a remote control for the iPhone.  That’s a useful feature, but I wish that the Apple Watch app also let you download particular episodes to the Apple Watch.  Maybe that feature will be added to Overcast in the future, and if it is, I strongly suspect that I would switch from Watch Player to Overcast.

[UPDATE 5/8/17:  Shortly after I wrote this review, Overcast added the ability to send a podcast to the Apple Watch.  I’m still testing the product, but I can already say that it has some advantages (such as syncing your spot in a podcast between the watch and the iPhone, and the ability to play podcasts at the same speed as your iPhone setting) and some disadvantages (no progress indicator for how long you have left to transfer a podcast to the watch).]

Just a few weeks ago, another app was released that does something similar to Watch Player.  It is called Watchcast, and it aims to be both an iPhone app for listening to podcasts and an Apple Watch app, meaning that you can sync your play position between both devices.  It has some features that I prefer over Watch Player.  First, the artwork for a podcast syncs to the Apple Watch, which I like to see.  Second, Apple Watch app lets you jump forward 30 seconds or jump back 15 seconds, better than the 5 seconds offered by Watch Player.

 

However, the current version of Watchcast  has a major drawback — no progress indicator for when you are transferring a podcast to the Apple Watch.  Transferring audio to an Apple Watch is very slow no matter how you are doing it; this is true even when you are transferring songs using Apple’s own music app.  Thus, I consider seeing how much longer you have to wait pretty essential.  Otherwise, you wonder if it is doing anything at all and feel tempted to shut down the app and start over.  (Another, less important, issue is that Watchcast doesn’t work with the Now Playing app.)  If Watchcast is ever updated to add a progress indicator, such as a percentage like Watch Player uses or even just a progress bar, then I’ll take a closer look at Watchcast, but this omission makes the current version less appealing to me than Watch Player.

Conclusion

For now, Watch Player is a perfect solution to the problem of playing podcasts on your Apple Watch without having to also carry around your iPhone.  This past weekend, I went jogging on historic St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, watching the streetcars pass and looking at the beautiful live oak trees overhead.  My Apple Watch was on my wrist and my AirPods were in my ears, but I didn’t have any other electronics with me.  Not carrying my iPhone meant that I was cut off from electronic communication with the world — no phone calls, text messages, emails, etc. — but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you are exercising.  Thanks to the Watch Player app, I was able to listen to a brand new podcast as I looked at interesting houses on St. Charles Avenue built in the 1800s.

Click here to get Watch Player (free): 

Brett Burney makes his living helping lawyers make the most of technology in their law practices.  He is also a former chair of ABA TECHSHOW, very smart, and an all-around nice guy.  He recently launched a new podcast called the Apps in Law Podcast in which he interviews lawyers and other legal professionals about one of their favorite apps.  Each episode is short, focused, and full of great information.  For any iPhone J.D. reader who enjoys listening to podcasts, this is a good one and I encourage you to subscribe.

I mention his new podcast today because I was a guest on Episode 4.  It was hard to pick a single app to discuss — there are so many that I love! — but I selected 1Password because it is incredibly useful, a delight to use, and with all of the security issues that we read about in the news every day it is incredible important.  (My review.)  You can listen to Episode 4 in your web browser by clicking here.  But I recommend that you instead subscribe to the podcast using your podcast player of choice.  That way, you can hear all of the future episodes, and the three great episodes that have already aired:

• Episode 1:  Ohio attorney Chad Burton discusses the Mail app.
• Episode 2:  Maryland attorney Neil Tyra discusses Daylite.
• Episode 3:  Illinois attorney Nerino Petro discusses Trello.

By the way, if you are trying to select a great podcast app for the iPhone, I recommend Overcast.  And if you want to learn more about Overcast, Brett just posted an entertaining video review of Overcast on his Apps in Law website.  Not only does that video show you the great features of Overcast, it also provides a brief history of podcasts.  So if any of you don’t yet listen to podcasts, I recommend that you watch that video just to see what all of the buzz is about.

Thanks, Brett, for creating this podcast and for providing attorneys with such a valuable resource for learning about how to make the most of their iPhones.

Click here to subscribe to the Apps in Law podcast using Apple’s podcast app: 

Click here to listen to Episode 4 of the Apps in Law podcast using Overcast.

I love using my AirPods with my iPhone.  They weigh nothing, you don’t have any cords to worry about, and it is nice to wear just one of them if you are half-listening to music or a podcast while you also want to hear what is going on in the outside world.  But some people prefer a soft rubber tip versus the hard tip of each AirPod, and even I will admit that I miss having buttons on a cord to play/pause, FF, RW, etc.  If those issues are more important to you than the advantages of AirPods, I’ve heard great things about Apple’s BeatsX headphones.  Just this week, a friend was raving about them to me.  If you are in the market for Bluetooth headphones and you are looking at the AirPods, you should also consider whether BeatsX is a better choice for you.  To help you make that decision, this week Susie Ochs of Macworld reviews Apple’s BeatsX headphones, and she really likes them compared to the AirPods.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks discusses the new APFS file system in iOS 10.3.
• Joan Feldman of Attorney at Work discusses app updates and other tech news announced at ABA TECHSHOW earlier this month.
• FlightTrack Pro used to be one of my favorite travel apps.  It would tell me when my airport gate had changed before anyone else knew about it, and was a great source of information on flights.  Alas, the app is no more, but David Pogue of Yahoo discusses other apps that do something similar, and found some good options.
• Bryan Wolfe of AppAdvice reviews the Griffin iTrip Clip, a device that turns any traditional headphones into Bluetooth headphones.
• Ryan Christoffel of MacStories reports that Google Calendar for iOS was updated this week to support the iPad.
• Jason Snell describes 25 cool things that you can do with Workflow, an automation app that Apple recently acquired.  There are some neat tips in here, many of which I use frequently.
• Snell also discusses the new iPad, and what it might tell us about other future Apple products, in an article for Macworld.
• Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports on what at first sounds like good news — President Trump is no longer tweeting from his Android phone.  But that’s only because he switched to an iPhone.
• Greg Barbosa reports that iOS 10.3, which was released this week, includes over 300 security fixes.
• Zac Hall of 9to5Mac explains how to save an email from the iOS Mail app to Notes as a PDF.
• Rene Ritchie of iMore explains many of the features of the Apple Clips app which will be released in April.
• And finally, Apple released three new iPad Pro ads this week, more in its line of finding real tweets on Twitter and turning them into an ad (using an actor instead of the original tweeter).  The new ones are Light and Powerful, the almost-but-not-quite-racy All Your School Stuff, and All Day Battery.  Here is the All Day Battery one:

As a litigator, I frequently need to calculate dates.  I often just ask Siri to do the calculation — “Hey Siri, what is 65 days after April 4?” — but it is nice to see all of this worked out on a calendar, especially if you need to adjust dates.  Time Jump is a date calculator app that has a slight learning curve when you first start using it, but the app lets you do some pretty sophisticated date calculations.  The developer of the app sent me a free code to try out this $2.99 app.  I’m impressed, and I recommend the app for attorneys.

Basic features

You use Time Jump in landscape mode because the app mostly consists of a single screen with a calendar on each side of the screen.  When you start the app, both calendars are set to today.  If you tap a date in the future on the right side, the app calculates the difference between the days.  If you tap a date in the past on the left side, the app does the same thing.  (The calendar on the left always has to have a date on or before the calendar on the right.)  Change a month either by swiping up/down or left/right.

The main calculation done is the difference between the two dates.  If I tap March 30, 2017 on the left and April 25, 2017 on the right, Time Jump tells me that those two dates are 26 days apart.

Time Jump also tells me that those two days are 17 business days apart.  Business days are calculated by excluding weekends and, if you have any holiday calendars selected, by excluding holidays.   You can adjust all of this in the app settings, accessed by tapping the gear at the bottom of the screen.  For example, if your business week runs Tuesday to Saturday, you can tell the app to exclude Sundays and Mondays when calculating business days.

Date Calc

For me, the most useful function of any date calculator is the ability to count days in the future, which this app calls “Date Calc.”  For example, let’s assume that today I received a favorable decision from a state appellate court, and I want to know when the 30 days will run for my opponent to file a writ with the Louisiana Supreme Court.  Yes, I can manually count 30 days in my head (after reciting the “30 days has September” rhyme), but it is better to see it clearly shown and calculated on an iPhone screen. 

On the left side, I select March 30, 2017.  That’s easy to do by just tapping on that date on the calendar, but you can also double-tap on the large number above the left calendar to bring up a date wheel to quickly jump to a specific date.

To select the number of days forward that you want to count, tap the top middle of the app, and a screen comes up to select 30 days.  (The default is to count by Days, but you can also count by Business Days, Weeks, Months, or Years.). 

Even before you tap done, you can already see the 30th day in the top right.  To see this day on a full calendar, tap done.  Here, I see on the calendar on the right that the 30th day is April 29, which is on a Saturday.  Thus, I know that the real filing deadline would be Monday, May 1. 

Holidays on a calendar are marked with a blue dot under the day, so if for example I were to see that the 30th day was on a day with a blue dot, I would know that the actual deadline is the following day. 

If you tap on a day in either calendar, the date is shown in a large number above that calendar.  Tap on that large number to see more information on that day, including an explanation of why it is a holiday (if applicable), the day of the year, the week of and the month of the year.

Holidays

Holidays can be complicated to account for in any date calculator, but they are handled very well in this app.  First, there are lots of built-in lists of holidays to choose from.  The Federal (standard) list includes all of the major holidays.  Tap the words “Federal (standard) to see the specific dates on that list, and you can manually turn on or off any of those holidays if they do not apply to you. 

The Federal (optional) list includes holidays they are typically not work holidays, such as Flag Day and Halloween.

There is also a full set of U.S. State holidays that you can optionally enable.  Here in New Orleans, for example, Mardi Gras is a work holiday for virtually everyone, and the Louisiana list includes Mardi Gras and Good Friday.  If you need to select a day as a holiday which is not on any of the app’s lists, you can designate any other day using the Personal Day Off feature, which is fully described on the Time Jump website.

As a test, I decided to configure Time Jump to correspond to the court holidays of the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans (New Orleans, LA).  There is a complicated Louisiana statute which governs holidays, La. R.S. § 1:55(E), but it is easier to just look at the page of the CDC website that lists the holidays.  To accomplish this, I turned on the Federal (standard) list which gave me most of the holidays (except that I needed to turn off Columbus Day which is not a holiday here).  Then I turned on the Louisiana list, which added Mardi Gras day and Good Friday as holidays.  Finally, I needed to manually add holidays for All Saints Day, the day after Thanksgiving, and the day after Christmas.

Your own calendar

In the Settings portion of this app, you can choose to show events from your own Calendar.  Doing so is a two-step process.  First, turn on the switch next to Show Events From iPhone Calendars.  Next, tap the words “Show Events Form iPhone Calendars” to select which of your calendars to show in Time Jump.

You will now see green dots on days on which you have events on your own calendar.  If you are like me, you’ll have a green dot on just about every day.  But this is still useful because, for example, if you do a date calculation and determine a filing date, you can look at your calendar and see that you are already scheduled to be in a deposition all day long, and thus you can plan accordingly.

Conclusion

The interface of this app seems a little clunky at times.  For example, it took me a while to figure out that, in the app settings, you often need to tap on the words in the title of a setting to get more options.  That wasn’t intuitive to me.  But I’m willing to live with the problems with the form of this app because the function is quite useful.  This app lets you perform pretty sophisticated date calculations, and the dual-calendar layout and indications of holidays makes it easy to figure out what is going on.  Time Jump is now my go-to app for date calculations on the iPhone.

Click here for Time Jump ($2.99): 

Yesterday, Apple released an update to the iPhone and iPad operating system, iOS 10.3, and also updated the Apple Watch software to watchOS 3.2.  (Operating systems for the Mac and Apple TV were also updated.)  This is a minor update, but I encourage everyone to update their iPhones and iPads whenever Apple releases a new version of iOS because virtually every iOS update includes security enhancements.  It is always good to give your iPhone and iPad the best protection possible against hackers.  There are also a few new minor features, and here are the ones that I think that you may find useful.

Find My AirPods

If you own a set of Apple AirPods, you know that they are amazing, but also very tiny (when not in their case), and thus it is possible to lose them.  You might take one out of your ear and put it on a kitchen table, only to have it knocked to the floor, and then you will have to search for it.

Yesterday, Apple updated the Find My iPhone app to add support for finding AirPods.  There are two functions available.  First, if your AirPods are in their case, the app can tell you the last location where the AirPods were connected to the iPhone.  Thus, you might be looking all over your home for your AirPods, and this app can tell you that they are probably at your office.

Second, if one or both AirPods are out of the case and connected to your iPhone via Bluetooth, the app can play a chirping sound — it’s not terribly loud, but loud enough that if you are quiet, you should be able to find them.  Because the AirPod has to be close enough to the iPhone to have a Bluetooth connection, this only works if you are in the same room as an AirPod (or maybe just outside of the room).  But in my above example where the AirPod rolls off of the table and on to the floor, that chirping noise might be enough to make help direct you to the corner of the room where the AirPod landed — or to between the seat cushions on the couch, or in the pocket of your jacket, etc.

This feature won’t prevent you from losing your AirPods, but I can imagine many circumstances in which it might be just enough to save the day.

CarPlay Improvements

If you are fortunate enough to have a relatively new car that supports Apple CarPlay, there are now three icons on the left side of the screen that you can tap to quickly jump to the most recent media app (such as Music), the most recent communication app (such as the Messages app) and the most recent travel app (such as Maps).  This saves you the trouble of first tapping the on-screen Home button to go to the Home Screen and then launching the app.

New File System

iOS 10.3 features a new file system called APFS.  APFS has the potential to do all sorts of neat things such as making iOS more efficient and fullproof.  Here is an article from Rene Ritchie of iMore on APFS if you want to learn about all of the geeky details.  But you don’t need to know any of that, and for now, you won’t really notice any difference with the upgrade to APFS – other than the fact that this update takes longer to install because it is doing major brain surgery on your iPhone.

Settings — Apple ID

When you launch the Settings app, you’ll see a new area at the top with your name and picture.  Tap that to get into many of your personal settings such as your Apple ID, and a list of all devices associated with your Apple ID.  There is some new information, but mostly it is nice to just have a central spot for all of this information.

If you tap in iCloud in this section, you’ll get more detailed information on how your iCloud storage is being used.

 

Siri — Third Party Apps

In iOS 10.3, Siri can now has the ability to do more with third party apps.  Payment apps can now let you use Siri to pay or to check the status of a payment.  Ride-booking apps can let you use Siri to schedule a car.  Automobile apps can let you use Siri to check the fuel level, ask if the car is locked, turn on lights, and activate the horn.  I’m not sure if any third party apps are taking advantage of these new Siri features yet, but I’m sure that support will come soon.

App Updates

There are lots of minor updates to Apple’s apps including Mail, Safari, Podcasts, Calendar, Music, iTunes, Maps, Keynote, Pages and Numbers.  Most of the changes look fairly minor or cosmetic to me, but there are some nice new features.  For example, in the Music app, on the Now Playing screen, you can scroll to the bottom and see what is coming up next.  In the Mail app, there are numerous slight interface changes.  In the Maps app, you can now search for parked car to see the last place that you parked your car.

Also, third party apps now have the ability to change the icon for their app.  You first need to give the app permission to change, but once you do so, the developer can let the app provide you with limited information just based upon the appearance of the app.

Apple Watch Theater Mode

Besides updating Siri on the Apple Watch to correlate to the Siri changes in iOS, there is only one big change to the Apple Watch, a new Theater Mode.  Swipe up from the bottom of the clock screen and tap the icon with the two masks to turn on this mode.  When it is on, your Apple Watch screen will not light up if you lift you wrist, thus preventing you from creating a distraction to others when you move your wrist during a movie or a play.  You can still use the watch by tapping the screen or touching a button, but you are far less likely to accidentally turn the watch on.  Also, this will silence your Apple Watch if it otherwise makes noise.  (I always keep my Apple Watch on silent mode anyway.)  Theater Mode is a simple improvement, but it is a great idea.

There were two iPhone-related stories out of the UK this week, one tragic, and one with a happy ending.  Starting with the bad news, Amie Gordon of the Daily Mail reports that a man in London was electrocuted when he tried to use and charge an iPhone in the bathtub.  It sounds like the deadly part was not the iPhone itself or the charging cord, but the fact that he had an extension cord that ran to his tub.  In happier UK iPhone news, Steven Sande of Apple World Today shares the story — and the recorded audio — of a four year old boy whose mother lost consciousness.  The boy asked Siri on his mother’s phone for help and was connected to emergency services (999 in the UK).  The boy told them that he thought his mother was dead because her eyes were closed and she wouldn’t wake up.  The paramedics arrived a few minutes later, and the mother was saved.  Good job, Siri!  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• There was a news story earlier this week that hackers were going to remotely wipe iCloud accounts unless Apple paid the hackers $150,000.  Apple responded that it was not hacked, and that the account information came not from Apple but from third party sites.  Florida attorney Katie Floyd discusses this story and correctly concludes that, even if this was just a hoax, it is a good reminder that you should use unique, complex passwords for each website, and that a password manager can help you do that.  I use, and recommend, 1Password.
• California attorney Jacob Flesher shares tips for using TrialPad in a post on the Lit Software blog.
• Massachusetts attorney Robert Ambrogi discusses upcoming enhancements to the MyCase mobile app.
• Workflow is a cool app that can automate many tasks on your iPhone or iPad.  I discussed the app when I reviewed a video field guild on using the Workflow app created by California attorney David Sparks.  Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch reports that Apple recently purchased Workflow and the team that makes it.  Going forward, the app will be free.  Sparks shares his thoughts on this acquisition.  My hope is that Apple isn’t just hiring the developers, but also plans to keep the app going.  Indeed, if Apple builds support for Workflow deeper into iOS, the app can become so much better than it already is. 
• Speaking of Apple apps, I mentioned earlier this week that Apple will release its new Clips app next month.  Lauren Goode of The Verge got a chance to see a beta of the app. The ability to transcribe what you are saying and add that text on top of the video is a neat trick; Apple calls that Live Titles.
• Margaret Rhodes of Wired also discusses the neat Live Titles features of the upcoming Clips app.
• Dan Moren of Six Colors notes that Apple updated iTunes to version 12.6 this week.  The new version lets you rent a movie on a computer and then watch the movie on an iPhone, iPad or Apple TV.
• Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reports that he believes that Apple is working on augmented reality, including a pair of glasses, as its next big thing.
• And finally, you may not need this app for yourself, but there is a good chance that someone in your family does — an app to help a person remember to take medications.  David Pogue of Yahoo notes that 125,000 Americans die every year because they don’t take the right medicine at the right time.  After looking at dozens of apps in this category, Pogue concludes that Medisafe is the best one.  The app can even alert you if your loved on misses a dose so that you can reach out and remind the person to take the medicine.  Here is Pogue’s full story, but you can get most of what you need to know from his video at the top of that story, and also embedded right here:

Apple introduced a number of new products yesterday, including (1) a low-end iPad, (2) a red version of the iPhone, (3) new Apple Watch bands and (4) an app called Clips that can be used to create fun videos.  Here are the details, and what I think the announcements mean for lawyers.

The new iPad

Before yesterday, Apple sold three lines of iPads:  the inexpensive iPad Air 2, the iPad Pro, and the iPad mini.  Yesterday, Apple replaced the iPad Air 2 with a new device called simply “iPad,” but announced nothing new in the iPad Pro or iPad mini lines.

The new iPad is cheaper and faster than the iPad Air 2.  While the iPad Air 2 started at $399, the new iPad starts at $329 for a 32GB model.  And while the iPad Air 2 had an A8X chip, the new iPad has an A9 chip — the chip used in the iPhone 6s released in September of 2015 as well as the iPhone SE released a year ago.  Ars Technica has some benchmark tests comparing the A8X to the A9, and the difference varies depending upon the test being run; in one test, the A9 is about 38% faster than the A8X.  Suffice it to say that the new iPad should see a noticeable speed increase versus the iPad Air 2, but it still won’t be as fast as an iPad Pro which has an A9X chip.

On the other hand, the new iPad is slightly thicker and heavier than the iPad Air 2 it replaces.  In fact, the new iPad is about the same size and weight as the original iPad Air introduced in 2013.  Thus, the new iPad is 7.5 mm (versus 6.1 mm for the iPad Air 2) and weighs 1.03 pounds (versus 0.96 pounds for the iPad Air 2).  So you can think of the new 2017 version of the iPad as the same as the 2013 version of the iPad Air, but with a faster processor. 

How does the new iPad compare to the iPad Pro 12.9″ (released in late 2015) and the iPad Pro 9.7″ (released in early 2016)?  I think that the big difference for attorneys is that the new iPad does not support the Apple Pencil.  I love my Apple Pencil, and I use it almost every day to annotate documents, take notes, etc.  Any attorney getting a new iPad which lacks support for the Apple Pencil is really missing out.  The new iPad also doesn’t support the Smart Connector, which can be used to connect to an external keyboard, so if you want to use a keyboard with the new iPad, you won’t be able to take advantage of the new Smart Connector keyboards.  Fortunately, there are plenty of good Bluetooth keyboards on the market so I don’t think you’ll miss the Smart Connector that much.

There are other differences too.  The new iPad is thicker and heavier than the iPad Pro of the same screen size (the 9.7″ model, which is similar in thickness and weight to the iPad Air 2).  The speakers and screen are much better on the iPad Pro.  The iPad Pro also has a better camera, better LTE (if you get the model with cellular), and there are some other differences.

I know many attorneys who are still using an iPad 2 or an iPad 3.  For them, this new iPad would be a major upgrade, even if it is not as nice as the iPad Pro.  And the price is certainly attractive; if you get the 128GB model (the minimum I recommend for an attorney), you are paying $699 for the iPad Pro 9.7″ versus $429 for the new iPad (9.7″).  When you add the $99 cost of an Apple Pencil, that’s $800 versus $430.  You get quite a bit for the $370 price difference:  an Apple Pencil, a thinner and lighter iPad, a faster iPad, an iPad with better sound and a better screen, etc.  And considering that you are likely to use an iPad that you buy now for several years, you’ll appreciate the advantages of an iPad Pro for a long time.  I recommend that attorneys opt for an iPad Pro over the new iPad.  But if price is a big issue for you, and if you are fairly certain that you wouldn’t want to use an Apple Pencil, then the new iPad is a reasonable choice.

Speaking of the iPad Pro, there have been rumors for a while now that Apple is preparing a new iPad Pro which fits a larger screen into a smaller size by reducing the bezel.  The idea is that the screen would be similar to the 12.9″ iPad Pro, but the device size would be similar to the 9.7″ iPad Pro.  John Gruber of Daring Fireball predicts that we won’t see this new version of the iPad Pro until 2018, or maybe 2017.  Anything is possible, and maybe Apple will introduce a new iPad Pro this June at its WWDC conference, but my guess after yesterday’s announcement is that we won’t see any update to the iPad Pro before the Fall of 2017.

iPhone changes

Apple also made some changes to the iPhone line yesterday, but they are far less significant.  First, Apple announced a new (Product)RED version of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.  The difference is that the back and sides are red (the front is white) and a portion of the sales are donated to fund HIV/AIDS prevention programs.  If you don’t use a case for your iPhone and you like the idea and color of a (Product)RED version, this might be the iPhone for you.  But I see it as having a more limited appeal.

If you prefer the smaller size of the iPhone SE introduced last year, Apple made one change yesterday.  Instead of the iPhone SE selling in a 16GB or 64GB version, the choices are now 32GB or 128GB.

If you want an Apple case for your iPhone, either the silicone version or the leather version, Apple also released some new case colors yesterday.

Apple Watch band changes

Apple didn’t change the hardware of the Apple Watch yesterday, but it did change how it is sold.  In the past, you could select from a small number of watch bands, such as a leather band or a stainless steel band, when you purchased an Apple Watch.  But now, you can only get a Sport Band or a Milanese Loop band when you buy an Apple Watch.  My guess is that those are the two most popular bands.  Indeed, those are the bands that I currently wear every day; I wear the Milanese Loop at work during the day, and I switch the Sport Band when I get home and on the weekends because it is more durable and better for working out. 

You can still buy the specialty lines of the Apple Watch and they come with other bands.  The Apple Watch Nike+ comes with a Nike Sport Band (which features holes, which is supposed to be lighter and breathes more when you sweat, but I haven’t used it myself to try it out).  The Apple Watch Hermės comes with a variety of premium leather bands.  But if you get just the regular Apple Watch, you now need to choose between a Sport Band or a Milanese Loop.

When it comes to buying additional bands, Apple announced some improvements and changes yesterday. First, you can now buy the Nike Sport Bands even if you didn’t buy an Apple Watch Nike+.  They cost $49 (the same price as Apple’s Sport Band).  I’m very happy with the Apple Sport Band, especially because it comes in an XL size which works better on my larger wrist.  But if the M or L size works for you, you might prefer the Nike Sport Band over the Apple Sport Band for working out.

If you want to buy a Sport Band, Apple is now selling it in 13 different colors, including the new Pebble (off-white), Azure (pale blue), and Camellia (reddish pink) colors.  There are also 13 different versions of the Nylon Woven Band, including six new color combinations.

Apple also revised the Classic Buckle leather band.  Instead of a curved rectangular buckle, like the one I reviewed in 2015, the buckle on the new model is square.  I’m not sure if this is just a cosmetic change or if the larger buckle actually works better.  There are also some new colors.  And if you want the fancier and more expensive Hermès leather bands, there are some additional options.

Whenever Apple introduces new bands, it also retires some of the older models, including some really nice ones. For example, my wife usually uses a Sport band with her 38mm Apple Watch, but when she wants a more dressy look, she uses a Classic Buckle in a marine blue color.  That marine blue color is no longer available, and that is a real shame because I think it was one of Apple’s best watch band colors ever, especially for a woman with blue eyes.  But I know that in the world of fashion, new seasons mean that old designs and colors go away and new designs and colors come in.  If you are looking for a new watch band to get some additional variety with your Apple Watch, you now have lots of new choices.  And at some point in the future, many of these new choices will go away.

Clips

Apple hasn’t give us much information on this yet, but next month, Apple will release a new free app called Clips.  This app makes it quick and easy to create short and fun videos on an iPhone or iPad with text, effects, graphics, filters, etc.  If you already use Snapchat to create short and fun videos, this looks somewhat similar.  But Clips does have a cool feature where you can add text to a video just by speaking the text.

I seriously doubt that lawyers will find any professional use for the Clips app, but it is likely to be the hot new video app that your kids will be using next month, and it looks like it could be quite fun to use.  I look forward to checking it out in April.

For many years, my iPhone had been on an AT&T data plan where I got 4GB of data a month, and my wife had 2GB/month.  Most of the time, that was sufficient for us.  But for the last few months, there have been times when we have gone over, especially when traveling and away from Wi-Fi.  Every additional 1GB cost another $10, and I got tired of paying that.  Thus, I recently switched to one of AT&T’s brand new unlimited data plans.  The price of the new plan was not much more than my old plan, and was actually cheaper overall by letting me avoid those $10/month overage charges.  If you are an AT&T customer and you are also thinking about taking advantage of one of these new unlimited plans, here are my thoughts.

The history of unlimited data

When the iPhone first went on sale in 2007, AT&T was the only carrier choice, and there was unlimited data.  At the time, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a June 27, 2007 press release:  “We want to make choosing a service plan simple and easy, so every plan includes unlimited data with direct Internet access, along with Visual Voicemail and a host of other goodies.”  AT&T stopped offering an unlimited data plan in 2010.  Folks who had it could be grandfathered in to the old unlimited data plan, but there were limitations.  For example, I eventually gave up my unlimited data plan because I wanted the ability to tether my iPad to my iPhone, which was not an option with an unlimited data plan.  In 2016, AT&T brought back an unlimited plan, but it was only available to DirecTV and U-Verse subscribers. 

After other major carriers offered unlimited data plans in 2017, AT&T brought back unlimited data as an option for everyone.  Initially, AT&T was not allowing tethering under the unlimited plan, so you couldn’t use your iPhone to connect an iPad or computer to the Internet.  AT&T changed that on March 2, 2017 when it introduced a second unlimited data plan with new features.  I signed up for the expanded plan and I’ve been using it for about two weeks now.

The current plans

There are currently two ways to get unlimited data on AT&T:  the Unlimited Choice plan, and the Unlimited Plus plan.  Both plans offer unlimited voice calls and text messaging, and both plans offer unlimited data — subject to some restrictions, noted below.

The Unlimited Choice plan costs $60 for the first phone, $115 for two phones, and then $20 a month for additional lines.  But that plan has some important limitations:  (1) no tethering, (2) video streaming is limited to standard definition 1.5Mbps (about 480p, similar to DVD quality), and (3) the speed is capped at 3Mbps.  To get rid of those limitations, you have to select the Unlimited Plus plan, which costs $90/month for the first phone, $145/month for two phones, and $20/month for each additional phones. 

Notwithstanding the “unlimited” in the name, there are still some limitations with the Unlimited Plus plan, but I consider them reasonable limits.  First, after you use 22GB a month, AT&T reserves the right to throttle your speeds.  That’s a lot of data for an iPhone to use unless you plan to stream a large amount of video.  I suspect that it will be a very long time before I ever get close to that much data every month.

Second, although you can get HD video with the Unlimited Plus plan, you need to manually turn it on by disabling the “Stream Saver” feature.  AT&T touts this as a convenience to customers, the idea being that standard definition DVD-like quality is probably just fine for a smaller iPhone screen, and this smaller stream size means that you use less data (taking you longer to hit that 22GB) and the video starts playing faster.  I actually do think that AT&T has a point here, but I’d prefer to get the best video quality possible, so I turned off Stream Saver.  You can do so on the AT&T website, but it is even easier to do so via the myAT&T app on the iPhone:

Third, tethering on the iPhone works great until you hit 10GB in a month.  After that, your tethering speed is limited to 128Kbps, which is quite slow.  If you plan to tether your laptop computer to your iPhone every day, I’m sure that you would hit that limit.  If you are like me and you see tethering as a more occasional thing to do — using it for a few days while you are out of town — then I suspect that 10GB will be more than sufficient.

The other advantage of the Unlimited Plus plan over the Unlimited Choice plan is that your iPhone data speed is not capped at 3Mbps.  The actual speed will vary tremendously during the day and night just depending upon network traffic, how close you are to a cell tower and any interference, where you are in the country, and many other factors.  Even with the Unlimited Plus plan, there have been times when my speed has been slightly less than 3Mbps.  But there have also been times when I have gotten over 100Mbps here in New Orleans, and most of the times that I have checked my speed, it has been over 50Mbps.  Suffice it to say that I’ve been satisfied with the speeds that I have been seeing with AT&T — the same speeds that I was seeing before I upgraded to the Unlimited Plus data plan.

 

Please note that I’ve heard that AT&T service is faster in New Orleans than many other cities.  If you are already an AT&T customer, then you can test yourself to see what the data speeds are in your area.  According to the latest report (February, 2017) from OpenSignal, the average AT&T 4G (LTE) speed is the United States 13.86Mbps, which is just slightly slower than the T-Mobile and Verizon average in the United States (around 16.7Mbps).

What I think

Even though I’m only a few weeks into this new Unlimited Plus plan, I can already tell that I like it.  I get the same AT&T speed that I had seen before, which as noted above can be very impressive and is often faster than Wi-Fi.  For example, at my house, I have a Cox internet plan which gives me 300Mbps, so the AT&T service isn’t as fast at my home Wi-Fi if I am close to a router.  But there are some locations in my house where the Wi-Fi doesn’t reach as well, and in those spots, AT&T is faster. 

As for the limits to the “unlimited” plan, I don’t think that they will be a problem for me.  I just don’t see myself using 10GB/month for tethering, nor do I see myself hitting 22GB/month overall.  As noted above, I have been living with a 4GB/month plan for years now, and I think I only went over 5GB/month once.

More importantly, I love the freedom of no longer having to be worried about using data when I’m not on Wi-Fi.  I can stream songs from Apple Music as much as I want.  I can watch all the videos that I want.  And if I am in a part of my house where the Wi-Fi isn’t reaching very well and is thus slow, I can just turn off Wi-Fi on my iPhone and use the fast AT&T data without worrying about going over my previous 4GB/month limit.

Looking to the future, AT&T says that you can add a wearable device to this plan for an additional $10/month.  Apple doesn’t currently sell a wearable device that has a chip to use cell data, but if Apple adds this to the Apple Watch in the future — which I can see happening — AT&T already has a price for this.

If you are an AT&T customer and the idea of virtually unlimited data is appealing to you, I recommend that you check out these new plans.  The new plans may not cost much more than you are paying now (and may even be cheaper if you are currently paying for overages), and it is a real advantage to no longer have to worry about using too much data.

One of the things that the iPhone excels at, but which few of us ever use, is accessibility.  For example, over the years, I have heard many times about blind people who make extensive use of the iPhone.  They do not need to see the screen because of impressive Voice Over technology that reads everything to them.  I’ve always wanted to sit down with someone who is blind so that they can show me how it works, and David Pogue of Yahoo recently had the opportunity to do just that.  In the video at the top of this article, Pogue sits down with Joseph Danowsky, a Harvard Law graduate who is blind and who uses an iPhone.  It is a fascinating video that I encourage you to watch.  I can’t imagine that Apple makes much profit on its Voice Over efforts, but I love that the company invests in the technology anyway.  In this video, the speaker is used so anyone around the blind person could also hear what is on the screen, but I suspect that if a blind person used AirPods in one or both ears, it would be a perfect combination.  It’s all very cool.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Massachusetts attorney Robert Ambrogi reviews LiquidText, an iPad app with a different approach for viewing and annotating PDF documents.  I haven’t tried it out yet, but it is worth viewing the one minute video at the top of Ambrogi’s post.  It looks like a really interesting app.
• Ambrogi also keeps a running list of states that have added the requirement to their rules of professional conduct that lawyers have a duty to be competent in technology.  He recently added Tennessee to the list, so it is now up to 27 states that have adopted the duty of technology competence.
• In an article for Above the Law, San Diego attorney Jeff Bennion argues that unless an attorney is often away from the office, “it really doesn’t make sense anymore to invest in a tablet” when you can instead use a Surface Pro 4 to serve as both a computer and a tablet.  I’m glad that solution works for him, but I believe that the iPad is a perfect complement to a computer in your office.  I know that I can do so much more with the two devices on my desk than just using a single device.
• Underscoring Apple’s commitment to privacy, this week Apple hired Jonathan Zdziarski, an iOS security expert who I have mentioned before on iPhone J.D.  Jason Snell discusses the hire on his Six Colors website.
• Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reviews some of the most popular apps for controlling HomeKit devices with your iPhone.  One that he missed is the Lutron app, which I use.  But as Lovejoy notes, you can now do most of what you need with Apple’s own Home app.
• In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell discusses possible additional features for Apple’s AirPods.  As Snell correctly notes, as tempting as it may be to add more features, they would undoubtedly take away from the simplicity of the AirPods, which is a big selling point.
• Neil Hughes of AppleInsider reports that the Amazon app for the iPhone is being updated to incorporate Alexa, Amazon’s version of Siri, so you can talk to the app just like you might talk to an Amazon Echo.  It hasn’t yet appeared in my version of the app.
• Overcast is my favorite podcast player app on the iPhone.  I use it every day when in the car, when working out, when doing tasks around the house, etc.  The app was recently updated to version 3, and Glenn Fleishman of Macworld posted this review.
• Karen Freeman of WatchAware reviews minube, an Apple Watch app that displays points of interest that are near your current location.
• And finally, Apple created a cute ad to show off sticker packs in the Messages app.  Here is the video:

Five of the six characters in the word “iPhone” refer to the phone feature, but the phone is easily the least important part of my iPhone.  Thanks to email and text messages, I make and receive cell phone calls far less today than I did years ago.  Phone calls can be important, and thus even though I have my iPhone configured so that almost no apps are allowed to play a sound during a notification, I still allow my iPhone to ring when a call comes in.  If it is a call from my wife, a colleague, or someone else important, I want to hear the ring.  But because my iPhone makes noise so infrequently, when I receive a nuisance call from a telemarketer or a robo-call, I am far more annoyed than when I receive a spam email.  Fortunately, Apple recently made it possible for apps to automatically block phone calls.  Since early January, I’ve been using a free app that AT&T provides to its customers called AT&T Call Protect.  (If you are not an AT&T customer, there are similar apps available such as Hiya.)  After using this app for over two months, I can enthusiastically recommend it because it does a fine job of blocking, or at least warning of, nuisance calls.

Blocking Calls

The best part of this app is that it automatically blocks calls from entities that it believes to be a nuisance or likely fraudsters.  The Call Protect app uses Hiya’s list of known phone numbers to block.  When a call is automatically blocked, you never even know that the call occurred.  Your phone doesn’t ring; the call just doesn’t come through.  However, you can go back and look at the call log in the app to see when calls were blocked. 

I see that in late February, there was a week when I received seven calls.  Two of the were from real people who I wanted to talk to.  Five of them were automatically blocked and never bothered me. 

You can tap on an entry in the call log to get more information on the blocked call.  If it turns out that it was someone who you wanted to talk to, you can unblock the number so that it won’t be blocked in the future.  But over the last two months, this app has never blocked a call from a number that I would consider to be legitimate.

 

Call Warnings

If all that the app did was block known fraudulent calls, that would be enough for me to recommend the app.  But even better, if there is a call that the app thinks that you probably don’t want but isn’t as sure, the call is allowed to ring, but you are given a warning.  Instead of just seeing the phone number that is calling you, this app gives you some information on why you probably don’t want to answer the call, such as labeling the caller as a telemarketer or suspected spam.

 

As annoying as it is to get a call on my iPhone from a telemarketer, at least with this app I can know to decline the call immediately.

Temporary Call Block

I haven’t used this feature, but I see that the app also offers a Temporary Call Block feature.  AT&T says:  “Temporary Call Block lets you manually block unwanted calls for 30 days.  Use the AT&T Call Protect app to select the callers you want to block.  These numbers can be renewed for continued blocking.”

Fortunately, I don’t have a need for this feature in my life.  If you do, that is another reason to use this app.

[UPDATE:  PRIVACY

A reader wrote in to note that this app uploads numbers in your iPhone’s Contacts to Hiya.  This is so that the numbers can be added to a white list of phone numbers that are known legitimate numbers.  You can get more information on the privacy implications of Hiya in this post by Glenn Fleishman of Macworld.  This seems reasonable to me, but consider this before you use this app.]

Conclusion

AT&T Call Protect works great.  It blocks calls from entities that you never want to talk to, warns when you probably don’t want to answer the phone, and gives you a log so that you can see exactly what it is doing.  I recommend that you use the app.

Click here to get AT&T Call Protect (free):