I’ve been talking about iPad keyboards this week, and I see that Apple just announced that there are now international versions of its Smart Keyboard for iPad Pro, with localized keyboards including British English, French, Spanish, Korean, Italian and Arabic. Jordan Kahn of 9to5Mac has details. Apple also released a new commercial this week touting the iPad Pro as a replacement for a computer, thanks to the ability to use an external keyboard and Apple Pencil and the ability to multi-task. I’ve always thought as my iPad as a suitable PC replacement when I travel, and it is interesting to see Apple explicitly acknowledge this. And now, the news of note from the past week:
If you are in the New Orleans area and want to hear me share some tips for using an iPad in a law practice, I’m teaching a one hour CLE on Friday, August 26, 2016 at Noon for the New Orleans Bar Association. The CLE is free for NOBA members. You can get more information and sign up here.
California attorney David Sparks discusses the new 1Password subscription plans. I like the idea of the subscription, and I plan to do it once their Windows 7 client is out of beta. (I use Windows 7 on my work computer.)
Florida attorney Katie Floyd encourages attorneys to sign up for MacTrack Legal, a conference previously known as MILOfest for attorneys who use Macs, iPhones and iPads. The conference is held at Disney World in Orlando every Fall, and this year is October 6-8, 2016. I use a PC in my law office so I’ve never attended the conference, but everyone I know who has attended in the past has raved about how informative and fun the conference is.
Which iPad Pro is best — the 9.7″ or the 12.9″? It’s a tough question for most folks. Julio Ojeda-Zapata runs through the pros and cons of each iPad Pro in an article for TidBITS.
Once you get your iPad Pro, which accessories should you get? Jason Snell examines that question in an article for iMore.
Hey-Siri.io is a great website that lists every single command that you can give to Siri. There is a ton in here that I didn’t know about. Well worth checking out.
Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal wrote a great article about the transition from paying with credits card by swiping to paying with credit cards using the chip, and compared all of this to using Apple Pay (which is much faster).
Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted that July was a record-breaker for the App Store, with the highest-ever monthly billings and money paid to developers, and with over $50 billion paid to developers to date.
Apple released a new Remote app for the Apple TV. Serenity Caldwell of iMore has advice for using the app.
And finally, Apple created a new ad to run during the Olympics. It features pictures and short videos taken with iPhones, with a voice-over by Mayo Angelou reading an abbreviated version of her beautiful poem Human Family. I really like the last part, which is as timely as ever given the prejudice in our world: “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.” It’s a great video:
Yesterday, I saw a tweet by Merlin Mann encouraging folks to learn the Mac OS X text selection commands, and linking to a page on the Apple support website that lists all of the Mac keyboard shortcuts. Maybe it is because I just posted a review of an iPad Bluetooth keyboard earlier this week and thus still had iPad keyboards on my brain, but my first thought when I saw that list was that it is just as useful for iPad owners who use an external keyboard. It may seem somewhat odd to say that, because the marquee feature of the iPad is that it is a large touch screen. But one of the most efficient ways to use an iPad with an external keyboard is to learn ways that you can keep your fingers on the keys and not waste time touching the screen.
The text selection commands that I am describing in this post work with virtually every app with text input on the iPad — Mail, Microsoft Word, Apple’s Pages, etc. I’m sure that you know some of these commands, especially the ones at the beginning, but probably not all of them. There are a few in here that I rarely think to use and I’m glad to be reminded that they exist.
Note that this list assumes that you have a keyboard with Command and Option keys, such as Apple’s Magic Keyboard (the external keyboard) or the Smart Keyboard (the one that is built-in to an iPad Pro cover). As I noted in my review of the iClever keyboard earlier this week, if you see a keyboard with a Win key (or a Windows logo) that key is a substitute for Command, and the Alt key is a substitute for Option.
Command–Up Arrow
Move the insertion point to the beginning of the document. Similar to Home, Command-Home or Control-Home when using Microsoft Word, depending upon how you have your keyboard shortcuts configured.
Command–Down Arrow
Move the insertion point to the end of the document.
Command–Left Arrow
Move the insertion point to the beginning of the current line.
Command–Right Arrow
Move the insertion point to the end of the current line.
Option–Left Arrow
Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous word. If you want to go back a few words in a document, instead of pressing the left arrow many, many times, just hold down option and tap the left arrow a few times, jumping over one more word every time that you press the arrow. This is a great and quick way to fix words in a sentence that you just finished typing.
Option–Right Arrow
Move the insertion point to the end of the next word. This is a quick way to go back to where you were after you fixed something a few words back.
Shift–Command–Up Arrow
Select the text between the insertion point and the beginning of the document. So if you want to copy the beginning part of a document, put your cursor where you want the selection to stop and then hold down shift and command and hit the up arrow. This will select all of the document up to where your cursor was. You can then copy, cut, etc. that part of the document.
Shift–Command–Down Arrow
Select the text between the insertion point and the end of the document. This lets you do the same trick for the last parts of a document.
Shift–Command–Left Arrow
Select the text between the insertion point and the beginning of the current line.
Shift–Command–Right Arrow
Select the text between the insertion point and the end of the current line.
Shift–Up Arrow
Extend text selection to the nearest character at the same horizontal location on the line above.
Shift–Down Arrow
Extend text selection to the nearest character at the same horizontal location on the line below.
Shift–Left Arrow
Extend text selection one character to the left. I will often use my finger to double-tap on a word to select it, and then hold down shift and hit the left arrow repeatedly to extend the selection to one or more characters before the word. But if instead of expanding the selection one character at a time, sometimes I extend the selection by adding words to it, and for that I use the next one…
Option–Shift–Left Arrow
Extend text selection to the beginning of the current word, then to the beginning of the following word if pressed again.
Shift–Right Arrow
Extend text selection one character to the right.
Option–Shift–Right Arrow
Extend text selection to the end of the current word, then to the end of the following word if pressed again.
Option–Shift–Up Arrow
Extend text selection to the beginning of the current paragraph, then to the beginning of the following paragraph if pressed again. This is a quick and easy way to select multiple paragraphs in a document so that you can cut them and then move them elsewhere. I often draft an argument in one part of a brief, and then decide upon reflection that it would be better placed in another part of the brief. This text selection command helps me to do that quickly on an iPad.
Option–Shift–Down Arrow
Extend text selection to the end of the current paragraph, then to the end of the following paragraph if pressed again.
One last tip — see the traditional document shortcuts
Finally, I’m sure that you know many of the traditional document shortcuts such as Command-B to bold, Command-U to underline, etc. But if you ever forget them, simply hold down the Command key on an external keyboard for a few seconds. Your iPad will then show a cheat-sheet in the middle of the screen with shortcuts that you can use. The hints change based upon the App that you are using. For example, in Microsoft Word, you see shortcuts for commands like save, undo, copy, paste, bold and underline:
In Mail, you see shortcuts for commands like adding attachments, creating a new message, and sending the current message:
Hopefully these tips will help you to be even more efficient with your iPad’s external keyboard.
An external keyboard is an incredibly useful accessory for an iPad, and it is a key reason that, for years now, I have been able to rely on just an iPad when I travel, leaving the computer at my desk. For many years, I have used Apple’s Wireless Keyboard, a really great Bluetooth keyboard. Apple discontinued that keyboard in October of 2015 and now instead sells the Magic Keyboard, which seems even better from my limited tests. But a few months ago, the folks at iClever sent me a free review sample of their Ultra Slim 3 Color backlight Bluetooth Keyboard. I really like it, so much so that I stopped using that Apple keyboard.
Folding design
The best part of this Bluetooth 3.0 keyboard is that it folds up into a compact size, meaning it takes up much less space than a traditional keyboard. It folds up to about 6.5″ x 4.5″ x .5″ — not quite small enough to fit into a pocket (unless it is large), but more than small enough for a briefcase, purse, or other bag. If you have been using mobile devices for as long as I have and you remember using the Stowaway keyboard for Palm devices, later sold by Palm itself, this is a similar product although it folds up differently. (Here is Dan Bricklin’s 1999 write-up on the original Stowaway keyboard.)
Once unfolded, you have a full size keyboard. I had no trouble touch-typing on this keyboard. Typically I would just unfold the keyboard and start using it in that position, which you can definitely do and it is only slightly wobbly. But if you want to make the keyboard perfectly flat and secure, you can fold down small feet on both sides of the opened keyboard. Those feet work really, really well, and make the keyboard feel just as steady as a non-foldable keyboard.
I don’t often use an external keyboard when I am in a meeting. I usually just use the Apple Pencil to take handwritten notes. But on those rare occasions when I do want a keyboard, it is very easy to carry this keyboard and my 12.9″ iPad Pro together in one hand.
The keyboard folds in from both sides, with a hinge between the S and D keys and a hinge between the L and :; keys on the keyboard. Fold the device up and it turns off. Unfold it and the device turns on.
This design makes it incredibly easy to carry the keyboard around, not to mention fun to use.
Power
The device charges via microUSB. I cannot tell you exactly how long the charge has lasted for me, but I can say that I charge it rarely and I’ve never had it run out of power. The manual says that you can use it for 300 hours straight between charges and that there are 90 days of standby time.
The keyboard enters an energy-saving idle mode if you haven’t used it for 10 minutes. To activate it, press any case and wait three seconds.
The keys
There is less movement on these keys than on the Apple keyboard, so I did feel like it was somewhat of a compromise using this keyboard. Based on key feel alone, I would always prefer the Apple keyboard. But the keyboard isn’t that much worse, and I found that I got used to it over time — so much so that a while back I just stopped using the Apple keyboard at all, and I haven’t missed it.
The keyboard has a “Win” key instead of a Command key, but you use it the same way. So you can do Win-C to copy, Win-V to paste, Win-Z to undo, etc.
Function keys can also be used for special features. For example, the Escape key has a home icon on it, indicating that you can press it to exit the app and go to the Home Screen. F1 has a magnifying glass icon on it, indicating that you can press it to jump to the Home screen and then go to the Search screen. F11 and F12 control volume. F8 is previous track, F9 is play/pause, F10 is next track.
F4 through F7 are supposed to control cut and paste functions, but for some reason they didn’t work for me. But as noted above, I could just do Win-C to copy, Win-V to paste, etc. so I didn’t miss those function keys.
One nice feature of this keyboard is that you can turn on back-lighting for the keys. This drastically reduces battery life — iClever says that you go down from 300 hours to 5 hours — but if you are typing in a dark area, it is really nice to turn on back-lighting to see the keyboard while you are typing. There are two brightness levels, and you can choose between blue, green or red back-lighting.
Note that this keyboard doesn’t hold up the iPad, so you will need to use something else to prop up your iPad while you type. I use the Apple Smart Cover, which folds up into a triangle, and that works great. If I am at my office desk and I want to type on my iPad, I use the Stable PRO by Thought Out, a fantastic iPad stand that lives in my office, but which is way too heavy to be portable.
Conclusion
[UPDATE: Ryan asks in the Comments why I prefer this keyboard to Apple’s iPad Pro cover with a built-in keyboard, which is called the Smart Keyboard. If you are interested in my answer, read the Comments.]
I really like this keyboard. The folding feature makes it much easier to carry around. The keyboard feels good to use — even though the Apple wireless keyboard is better — and I can type at full speed on the full-size keyboard. The back-lighting feature is a nice bonus, and the special-feature keys are useful. If you like the idea of a portable keyboard, I can recommend this one.
This article won the BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award. The editors of BlawgWorld, a free weekly email newsletter for lawyers and law firm administrators, give this award to one article every week that they feel is a must-read for this audience.
Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, and sold about 6 million devices in the first year. Last year when Apple introduced the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the company sold over twice as many, about 13 million devices, in just three days. As Apple has improved the iPhone year over year, the company has sold as astonishing number of devices, and of course you can now see iPhones everywhere. Apple announced this week that it has now sold over 1 billion iPhones. It was only about two years ago that Apple sold its 500 millionth iPhone. I liked how Joseph Keller of iMore tried to put that number in context: “[I]t took 27 years for one billion PCs to be sold. Disney welcomed the one billionth visitor to its theme parks after 49 years of operation, and it was 131 years before there were one billion cars driving across roads across the world.” And now, the news of note from the past week:
Jim Dalrymple of The Loop reports that Pokemon Go has set an App Store record for downloads, and that Apple has now paid out $50 billion to app developers. Seems like it was just yesterday when the App Store started in 2008. How far we’ve come.
Jason Snell of Six Colors prepared some interesting graphs after Apple’s 2016 Q3 financial announcements and provided interesting commentary.
Apple has slowly been taking steps into the content business. Even so, I was surprised to see that Apple bought to right to a new TV series based on the Carpool Karaoke skits of James Corden’s late night show, as reported by Cynthia Littleton of Variety.
Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac explains how an iPhone app and an implant are giving a 9-year-old boy his hearing back.
And finally, Apple announced that it will sell limited edition Apple Watch nylon bands during the Olympics, with each band based on a country flag. Looks like a fun way to support your country at the Olympics and remember the experience afterwards. Here is what some of them look like. (via GQ).
Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2016 fiscal third quarter (which ran from March 27, 2016 to June 25, 2016) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. This is typically not a big fiscal quarter for Apple; the important quarter for Apple every year is the first fiscal quarter containing the holiday sales season, and during the fiscal third quarter, most potential Apple customers are waiting to see what new products Apple will introduce in the Fall. Apple reported revenue of $42.4 billion, which was down from the $49.6 billion that Apple reported in the 2015 fiscal third quarter, but was at the upper end of what Apple predicted three months ago. Don't lose any sleep for Apple — the company is still making tons of money — but it is just no longer making even more money every quarter as was previously the case. If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the announcement conference call from iTunes, or you can read a rough transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha. iMore also prepared a transcript. Apple's official press release is here.
As always, I'm not particularly interested in the financial aspects of this call, which did account for most of the call — it is, after all, an earnings call. But I'm always interested in the statements of Apple executives that pertain to the use of the iPhone and iPad. Here are the items that stood out to me:
iPhone
Apple sold just over 40 million iPhones in the last fiscal quarter. By my count, that means that Apple has sold almost 988 million iPhones as of June 25, 2016.
At some point very soon, Apple will sell its 1 billionth iPhone. In fact, it is possible that it will happen this week. [UPDATE: Apple just announced that it has indeed sold the 1 billionth iPhone.]
Apple sells iPhones to three groups of customers: new smartphone users, users switching from another brand (typically Android), and users upgrading from an older iPhone. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that this past quarter, Apple saw a higher percentage of switchers than ever before. Switchers and new smartphone users are important to Apple because hopefully those folks will stick with the iPhone and become upgraders in the future.
Cook says that he sees the iPhone becoming "even more instrumental and important to people's lives" and "more and more your assistant, you're not going to leave without it."
iPad
Apple sold almost 10 million iPads in the last fiscal quarter. By my count, that means that Apple has sold over 328 million iPads as of June 25, 2016.
Apple said that its iPad revenue grew 7% versus the year-ago quarter, with an average selling price of $490 this year versus $415 in the year-ago quarter. In other words, people are buying more expensive iPads — the two versions of the iPad Pro.
Cook announced that half of the people buying iPad Pros are buying them for work. That is certainly where I spent most of my time using my iPad Pro.
Apple Watch, Apple TV
Cook hinted at future Apple Watch announcements, noting that Apple is "just getting started with Apple Watch and we look forward to even more exciting announcements in this space."
Cook also hinted at future Apple TV announcements. He said to think of the current Apple TV "as sort of building the foundation for what we believe can be a broader business over time. And, so I don't want to be more precise than that, but you shouldn't look at what's there today and think we've done what we want to do. We've built a foundation that we can do something bigger off of."
One of my favorite iPad apps is GoodReader, which I use to manage PDF versions of all of the documents in all of my case files. I knew that for many years, the developer, Yuri Selukoff, lived in Moscow, which raised security concerns for some. But I recently came across this February, 2016 article about Selukoff by Eric Lai of the official BlackBerry blog. Apparently Selukoff was no fan of the Russian government, especially after the invasion of Crimea, and applied for an EB-1 U.S. visa, reserved for an alien of extraordinary ability — typically folks like Nobel prize winners. He got it in July of 2015 based on his development of the GoodReader app. (I’m curious if any others have obtained an EB-1 visa simply based on the development of an app.) I discuss all of this today because, in a newsletter sent this week (which I don’t yet see posted online), Selukoff announced that he is now living in San Francisco and is working on a major update to GoodReader. Version 5 will have a new user interface and will be a free upgrade. The release date has not yet been announced, but I’d love to see a new, clean interface on this essential app for my litigation practice. (For example, I used that app all day long yesterday in a deposition of a plaintiff; all of the documents produced in discovery were quickly available to me in GoodReader.) And now, the recent news of note:
California attorney David Sparks discusses Scrivener, a beloved writing tool for the Mac that is now available on the iPad.
Brett Burney reviews Westlaw Case Notebook Portable E-Transcript, an app that can open a .ptx file from a court reporter.
Geoffrey Fowler of the Wall Street Journal reviews Eero (his favorite) and other Wi-Fi routers that you can use to spread Wi-Fi throughout your house and eliminate dead spots. I addressed this problem in my own house in early 2015 by paying someone to run Cat 6 cable from one end of my house to another. My own solution has worked very well, except that there is still one spot at the end of my living room (between my two AirPort Extreme routers) that sometimes gives me trouble. If I had to do it again today, I would seriously consider Eero and similar products.
GoodNotes, my favorite app for using my Apple Pencil to take handwritten notes on my iPad, was updated this week to add support for tabs. The update also supports one-finger panning when using an Apple Pencil, a feature that I wish existed in every app that supports the Apple Pencil. Read more on the GoodNotes blog.
Sascha Segan of PC Magazine released the 2016 version of its report on best mobile networks in the U.S. It is an extensive report that looks at differences in numerous cities across the country. Here in New Orleans where I live, AT&T comes out on top, which I was glad to hear because I use AT&T. But in other cities there are other carriers with the best networks.
Serenity Caldwell of iMore explains an update to Apple Music that lets you store your music library without digital rights management (DRM) — which essentially means that it incorporates the iTunes Match service.
Apple’s Lisa Jackson (VP of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives) explains why Apple is buying and protecting forests, not only in the U.S. but also in China.
Apple’s Eddy Cue (VP of Internet Software and Services) talked to Natalie Jarvey of The Hollywood Reporter about Apple’s plans for TV.
Peter Kafka of Recode offers a “translation” of what Eddy Cue told the Hollywood Reporter.
Karen Freeman of WatchAware reports that a man’s Apple Watch mostly survived being submerged at the bottom of a lake for over a month.
J.D. Power announced that Apple ranks highest among manufacturers of smartwatches. The Apple Watch “ranks highest in customer satisfaction with smartwatches and performs particularly well in comfort, styling/appearance and ease of use.”
I am always surprised when I meet an attorney who is an avid reader but who never listens to audiobooks on an iPhone. They are really missing out. A great voice actor can make a book come alive. And while that is enough of a justification, the biggest advantage for me is that one can “read” while driving, doing chores around the house, cutting the grass, exercising … it is a great way to multitask. If you haven’t tried an iPhone audiobook yet, check out a store like Audible (owned by Amazon).
And if you are looking for a good audiobook, I have a recommendation for you. Last week, Connecticut divorce attorney Wendy Walker released a novel called All is Not Forgotten, and I listened to it last week and over the weekend at the beach. It was fantastic.
Wendy and I went to law school together at Georgetown, and we were even in a study group together during our first year. Thus, I’ve known for a long time how smart and clever she is. You’ll definitely see that yourself when you read this book. Indeed, I’m not the only one to love her book; as reported by Variety, Reese Witherspoon’s production company (known for “Wild,” “Gone Girl” and “Hot Pursuit”) bought the film rights last year, and I understand that a screenplay is in the works. Of course, you should read the book before you see the movie — movies are great, but always leave out so many interesting details.
The book is a psychological thriller crime novel. It is full of surprises, including one that begins at the beginning — the story is told from the perspective of a narrator, but you don’t learn who the narrator is for several chapters. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t say much more other than the story is about a rape and the implications of erasing a (traumatic) memory. It is full of twists and turns that keep you guessing whodunit until the end. You can see and hear Wendy discuss the structure of this novel (without any spoilers) in this YouTube video:
The audiobook version was especially good because it has a celebrity reader who is perfect for the role: Dylan Baker (IMDB link). If the name is not familiar to you, click the IMDB link and I suspect that you will recognize his face, perhaps from the Spiderman movies or the TV show The Good Wife. I most identify him with one of my favorite TV series, The Americans, in which Baker played a key role during the most recent season. The narrator of All is Not Forgotten is smart and somewhat elitist and arrogant, and Dylan Baker is perfect. He doesn’t just read the book, he essentially plays that role, almost like a radio drama. I don’t know who Reese Witherspoon will cast in the movie, but Dylan Baker would be great. (Reese Witherspoon told Wendy that she wants to play the mother character in the movie version of the book; I can definitely see Witherspoon playing that role very well.)
Wendy told me that authors typically are not involved in the creation of the audiobook, but her publisher did consult Wendy about using Dylan Baker, and she knew that he would be perfect. Wendy told me: “He has done many audio books and has a voice that most people recognize immediately. He is a character actor as well, so I had no doubt that he would be able to get into the head of my narrator and become him. This is very important with a first person narrative.” She told me that his reading of the book was “brilliant” and “his vision really brought the characters to life.” I agree.
I asked Wendy how her training and experience as a lawyer impacted her writing this book. She told me that her legal training helped her to map out the story meticulously, with colored index cards and a master sheet which kept track of what was happening when. “Because the plot involves multiple characters and an intricate plot that depends as much on the psychological elements that are revealed as it does on the events that occur, the careful layering was essential to making it work. I credit the years of [legal] training to analyze, break down issues, and build an argument with my ability to execute this vision for the structure of the novel. Also, my work as a family law attorney and a trained guardian ad litem gave me a deeper knowledge of psychology, which I utilize in the novel.”
If you listen to the audio version of this book, the last chapter is a short interview with Wendy. I love it when a book does this because when I finish reading a good book (or watching a good movie or a good TV show), I find myself craving more. Thus, I’ll often go to my computer and search for reviews or anything else to get just a little more insight into the creative work. It was great fun to go from the last few words of the book directly into listening to Wendy talk about it, all without having to do anything on my iPhone other than keep listening.
Whether you read the paper version of this book or enjoy the fantastic audio version like I did, I encourage you to put All is Not Forgotten on your summer reading list. It’s an engaging story, told in an interesting way, with lots of great characters.
Yesterday, Apple released updates for the iPhone and iPad (iOS 9.3.3) and Apple Watch (watchOS 2.2.2). They were minor updates that fixed a few bugs and don’t add any new features that I have seen. What I’m really waiting for is iOS 10 and watchOS 3. Both are due in a few months, and developers are working with beta versions of them now so there are lots of folks kicking the tires. This past weekend, I had a chance to spend some time with the beta version of watchOS 3, running on the Apple Watch of a developer. I normally don’t talk about beta software on iPhone J.D., but I know that lots of attorneys and others are really looking forward to watchOS 3 for the reasons set forth in my preview last month, especially the improvements that make the Apple Watch faster to use. After using the beta of watchOS 3, I can confirm that watchOS 3 is a significant upgrade and will vastly improve the experience of using an Apple Watch.
Faster app launching and access
One of the best features of watchOS 3 is that apps launch faster. This feature works really well. If you put an app in the new Apple Watch Dock, accessed by using the side button, then the app launches much, much faster than on watchOS 2. Often it is instantaneous, which is amazing. Other times there is maybe a second delay in launching, which is still much better than watchOS 2. (And remember, I was using beta software, so everything may be even faster and more optimized when the final software is released in a few months.)
The Dock also makes it much easier and faster to find the apps that you use the most. It is much better than having to find an app on the honeycomb shaped home screen.
When you launch an app that isn’t in the Dock or a complication, it takes a long time to launch — perhaps just as long as on watchOS 2. But I don’t see that as a real issue. Seeing the most frequently used apps launch faster is a very big improvement.
Watch faces
Changing watch faces is much faster in watchOS 3. Instead of a force touch followed by a swipe left or right, you can now use an edge-to-edge (left or right) swipe on the watch face to change to a different face. Put two watch faces that you like side-by-side, and you can swap them pretty quickly.
This feature works so well that changing faces in watchOS 3 becomes not just a fashion statement but also a utility. You can create a few watch faces that make the most sense depending upon the task that you are doing, and then quickly switch between them as necessary.
I still wish that Apple would allow third party watch faces, and perhaps this will come in watchOS 4. But this one change will make watch faces, and the complications that can be added to watch faces, much more useful.
Scribbling text
With the new scribble feature in watchOS 3, you can easily send more complicated replies to emails or text messages, without having to talk and use the dictation function and without being limited to the pre-set replies. Scribbling letter by letter is somewhat slow, but I found it incredibly useful to have the freedom to write any word. Better yet, I didn’t realize before using the beta software that you usually don’t have to scribble every letter in a word. Just scribble one or two letters and a faint icon will appear on the right with an up and down arrow:
That icon indicates that you can scroll the digital crown to see words and phrases that begin with your letter(s). It is similar to the autocomplete feature on the iPhone, and it often means that you can enter a word by only scribbling one or two letters.
As a former Palm user, I did find myself wishing that Apple used something similar to Palm’s old Graffiti alphabet. For example, instead of using two strokes to make the letter T, I found myself wishing that I could just use a single stroke to make an upside-down L (the Graffiti shortcut for a T). And there were a few times when I tried to make a capital B but the Apple Watch thought I was making a 13. I’m sure that with more use, one gets better at using the scribble feature on an Apple Watch.
Of course, for really long and complicated replies you will want to just reach for your iPhone and use the keyboard. But after just a few minutes of trying out this feature, I was really impressed by how useful it is. I’ve learned over the past 15 months of using an Apple Watch that there are times when it is far more convenient to send a message from the watch instead of pulling an iPhone out of my pocket, and the scribble feature of watchOS 3 assists with this convenience.
Now playing
There was one part of watchOS 2 that I missed on watchOS 3. The only Glance that I regularly use in watchOS 2 is the Now Playing Glance. I swipe up on my watch face and instantly see the play/pause button, which is useful for controlling music, a podcast, or an audio book that is playing on my iPhone — sometimes using the built-in speaker, but more often using a Bluetooth speaker. My iPhone and/or speaker might be located across the room, but I can currently control the audio, and even skip back or forward, using a simple swipe up on the watch on my wrist:
In watchOS 3, Glances are gone. Swiping up on the clock face just brings up the Control Center. You can still control audio using the Music app, which you can put in your Dock, but in my tests over the weekend that is somewhat less convenient. First, you need to press the side button. Then, you need to swipe to locate and then select the Music app. You can move any app so that it is at the beginning of the Dock, but it still takes more steps to get to a screen with a play/pause button in watchOS 3 than on watchOS 2.
I thought that a workaround would be to put a Music complication on my watch face. That way, I could just tap the complication on the face of my watch and launch the app with the play/pause button. My gut tells me that there must be a way to make this work, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that during my tests over the past weekend. If any of you are already using the beta of watchOS 3 and have found a simple way to get to that play/pause/FF/RW screen, I’d love to hear about it. Otherwise, this is one of the first things that I will be trying to figure out when watchOS 3 is released and on my own watch.
Conclusion
I also tried out iOS 10 on an iPhone this past weekend, and it also has some nice features as I noted in my preview. But once you are ten versions into an operating system, I suppose it is natural that the improvements are more incremental. In contrast, the Apple Watch is still young with lots of room to grow and improve. Perhaps for this reason, watchOS 3 is a major step forward.
Overall, I was incredibly impressed with the beta version of watchOS 3. Except for the Now Playing feature noted above, I was disappointed to return to using watchOS 2 on my own Apple Watch. Indeed, considering that this was beta software, I was surprised how well it worked, only crashing once during all of my tests. Maybe it will be even faster and more polished when the final version is released in a few months, but even if the final experience is exactly the same as what I tried this past weekend (other than that one crash), I think that most Apple Watch users will be incredibly satisfied.
Back in 2014, explicit photographs of about 100 celebrities started showing up on the Internet, and it was discovered that many came from Apple’s iCloud server. At first, folks thought that Apple was hacked, but investigation revealed that the celebrities had been tricked into revealing their iCloud passwords to hackers, a process called social engineering, and then the bad guys just logged in using the username and password to access the photos. A few months ago, one of the men responsible pled guilty, and Engadget reports this week that now a second man has pled guilty. I mention this because this week, Dan Moren of Six Colors published two articles (1, 2) that explain how to turn on Apple’s relatively new two-factor authentication system. I had previously been using a prior Apple system called two-step verification. The point of these systems is that someone cannot access your account with just the password, so even if they trick you into giving it to them, or if they find a piece of paper where you wrote it down, etc., that isn’t sufficient. Logging in also requires physical access to one of your trusted Apple devices, such as your iPhone. For example, if you try to use an iPad to connect to your iCloud account for the first time, not only do you have to enter your password on the iPad, but also you need to enter a number that appears on your iPhone screen. A bad guy might have your password, but hopefully he won’t also have your unlocked iPhone — and if he does, you have bigger problems on your hand. Better yet, when that special number appears on your iPhone, a map shows you the location of the person trying to log in. Thus, if the number appears when you are not intending to authorize a new device, and if the map shows that the request is coming from a different state or a different country, you know that someone else is trying to improperly access your account. I recommend that you turn on the new two-step authentication system, which is what I did this week after reading Dan Moren’s article. It’s quick and easy to turn on, and it gives you some extra security. And now, the other news of note from the past week:
Florida attorney Rick Georges discusses the Palm Pilot (state of the art in 1998) and links to a PCMag.com history of all of the Palm devices, including the Treo 650 that I used for many years, and really loved when it was in its prime.
Florida attorney Katie Floyd discusses IFTTT, a useful service for controlling devices and automating actions.
Brett Burney reviews Grafio, an app that you can use to create visual diagrams and flowcharts.
If you want to get cable stations without cable TV (or satellite TV), one option is to subscribe to Sling TV, which you can do via an Apple TV. I haven’t tried the service, but when I’ve looked at the offerings in the past I’ve been confused by the packages. Jared Newman wrote a good article for TechHive that explains the pricing. It looks like you need to pay about $40 a month for full basic channel selection, then you pay extra for additional channel packages. By the time you are done, it looks like you might be paying about the same that you pay for cable, but still I like that this option is out there.
Julie Strietelmeier of The Gadgeteer reviews Automatic, a device that lets your iPhone collect information from your car.
Have you ever found that the Messages app on your iPhone has two separate message threads even though they are with the same person? This has happened to me in the past. Dan Moren of Six Colors explains what you can do if this happens — but unfortunately there often isn’t much you can do.
Michael Simon of Macworld discusses third party keyboards for the iPhone. I have Gboard, the keyboard he recommends, and it is sometimes useful.
There is an interesting post on the Molly Watt Trust website about a woman who uses her Apple Watch to cope with Usher Syndrome (she was born deaf and has lost most of her sight). It works very well for her to have the Apple Watch tap on her wrist to get her attention.
Ben Brooks offers advice for choosing between the 9.7″ and the 12.9″ iPad Pro.
And finally, Dennis Sellers of Apple World Today reports that Apple’s Cookie Monster commercial for Siri was named a Top 10 Breakthrough Ad by Ace Metrix. That’s as good an excuse as any to watch the twovideos again:
The best stylus on the market is the Apple Pencil, but it costs $99 and requires an iPad Pro. If you don’t use an iPad Pro, there are other good choices on the market because stylus technology has improved considerably over the last year. Lynctec recently sent me a free review sample of their latest stylus, the Apex Fusion. I’ve been trying it out over the last few weeks, and it is an excellent stylus that is worth your consideration if you cannot use an Apple Pencil.
In addition to the black model that Lynctec sent me, the company also sells silver, gold and rose gold versions of the Apex Fusion.
To speed things up in this review, I will start by referring you to my review of the Adonit Jot Dash that I wrote last October. As fully explained in that review, Jot Dash was the first active stylus (a powered stylus that uses a fine tip) available in a thin stylus, with a barrel diameter similar to a pencil or pen. (Earlier active styluses were thicker, more like a Sharpie or other marker; and before active stylus, we only had non-powered styluses that could be thinner but had thick tips so it felt more like you were using a crayon then a pen or pencil.)
In the following picture, the Apex Fusion is at the top, the Jot Dash is in the middle, and the Apple Pencil is at the bottom:
The Apex Fusion has a lot in common with the Jot Dash. The barrel of the stylus is thin, so it looks like a normal pen. It has a fine tip (2 mm) so that when the end touches your iPad screen it works like a pen, not a crayon. It is powered, so you have to charge it. And unlike more sophisticated styluses that have extra buttons that can communicate with certain apps using Bluetooth (for example, telling the app to switch to an eraser mode), there are no extra buttons on the Apex Fusion (or the Jot Dash).
But the Apex Fusion has a few tricks up its sleeve that I think make it a better option than the Jot Dash for many people. First, the tip has a fiber polymer tip, so it is soft against your iPad screen. The Jot Dash has a hard tip, so it makes a little noise against the screen. The soft tip on the Apex Fusion is much more quiet, which I prefer when I am taking notes in a room with others. I also like the way that the soft fiber glides against the screen. I’ll admit that there is a personal preference at play here, and others might disagree, but my preference is to use a tip like the one on the Apex Fusion and I suspect that many others would agree.
Second, the front of the barrel is not smooth like the Jot Dash but instead has a patterned grip area that makes the stylus easier to hold in your hand.
Third, the Apex Fusion doesn’t require a special adapter to charge. There is a small micro USB port on the side near the back of the stylus. It doesn’t get in your way, and I barely even notice it unless I am looking to charge the stylus. Compare this to the Jot Dash, which comes with a device that fits into a (normal sized) USB port and holds the stylus. It works well if you have it with you, but if you need a charge and that small device isn’t with you, you are out of luck. Micro USB cords come with a ton of different devices, so there is a good chance that you will have one or can find one wherever you are.
In terms of performance, the Apex Fusion and Jot Dash work about the same. That means that they work pretty well, but are not nearly as good as the Apple Pencil. Of course, nothing for the iPad is as good as the Apple Pencil. There is a noticeable lag between the time that you start to write and when you see the digital ink appear, and sometimes the digital ink is less smooth than what you actually drew. It’s the reason that, before the Apple Pencil, many folks concluded that the trade-offs of an active stylus were not worth it and they preferred a traditional, non-powered stylus. I myself often fell in that camp.
But if you want an active stylus because you like the idea of a tiny tip, and the Apple Pencil isn’t an option for you, there is a lot to like about the Apex Fusion. If the Apple Pencil is not an option for you — because, for example, you use an iPad Air or Air 2 or older iPad — the Apex Fusion by Lynctec is one of my favorite styluses on the market today. On the other hand, if you use an iPad Pro, I recommend that you spent the extra money and get an Apple Pencil, which is the gold standard. And finally, if using a stylus is important to you and you don’t currently use an iPad Pro, you should consider upgrading to a new iPad so that you can use the Apple Pencil.
