I’ve been on the lookout for good iPhone apps that also work well on the Apple Watch, and that led me to buy an app called Deliveries. This app has been around for many years, but I had never tried it. The app costs $4.99 and gives you a central location to track any packages sent via all of the popular delivery services. This past week, I had packages coming to me via UPS, FedEx and U.S. Mail, so I figured that was a good chance to test this app. I found that the app works well for the times when you want to check status, but I had less success when I waited for the app to send me push notifications.
Entering your tracking numbers
To use the app, you need to start by providing the app with a tracking number. The easiest way to do this is to use cut-and-paste. For example, my Apple Watch has a classic leather band, but I also ordered a Sports Band to use when working out. Last week I received an email from Apple telling me that my band had shipped and would deliver by May 8. That email told me that my watch was being shipped via FedEx and gave me a tracking number. I selected that number in the email, copied it, and then launched the Deliveries app.
Deliveries automatically sensed that I had something that appeared to be a tracking number on the clipboard, and asked me to confirm that I wanted to use that number. I tapped Add.
Next, the app asks you to confirm the delivery company, which Deliveries had correctly guessed was likely a FedEx delivery, but also gave me some other choices. I tapped FedEx to confirm, and then I could type a unique name to identify this package. I entered “Band” and then tapped Save.
After those few taps the app knew about my package.
Other times I had to use a few more taps to get the information added. For example I ordered some headphones from Amazon, and although Amazon sent me an email when they shipped, I had to go to the Amazon website to get the tracking number. For this package, it turned out that Amazon was using the U.S. Postal Service.
Of course, you can also manually enter a number, but tracking numbers are typically so long that I imagine that most folks will want to use cut-and-paste whenever possible. If you have access to a barcode, you can also tap the + at the top right of the app’s main screen and then tap on the barcode icon to turn on your camera so that you can scan a barcode to enter the tracking number. I haven’t yet tested this feature myself, but I imagine that it could be useful when you are sending a package that you want to track.
There are a few other ways to enter tracking numbers, and you can get all the details here. But I imagine that copy-and-paste of a tracking number is how much folks use this app.
Tracking Packages
Once the Deliveries app knows about your package, it is easy to check the status. Simply open the app and the app checks the appropriate websites to find the latest shipping status. The main screen of the app lists each item, puts a big number to indicate how many more days you have before the delivery is coming, and even uses appropriate color coding for entries — such as brown for UPS, purple for FedEx and white for U.S. Mail.
Opening the Deliveries app on an iPhone is much, much faster than having to find the email or website to locate the tracking information and then clicking the appropriate buttons to search the current status. Just launch the app and the status of all of your pending deliveries are in one central location, no matter what store you ordered from and what service is shipping the package.
If you want more information, just tap on any entry. That brings you to a screen that shows you the additional information on the status of the package, including a map that shows where the package is and where you are located. If you want even more details, tap “View details online” to go directly to the FedEx/UPS/etc. website page for that tracking number.
Once your package is delivered, the entry remains on the app’s main screen. If you want to remove it, swipe to the left and tap Archive. You can find packages — both new ones and ones that are archived — by typing search terms in the Search box at the top. Or type a space in the search field to see every entry that has ever been tracked by the app, including archived entries.
Apple Watch
There is also a Deliveries app for the Apple Watch. You cannot enter a new tracking number on the watch (nor can I imagine wanting to do so), but when you tap the icon to launch the app you see a handy list of the packages that you are tracking on your iPhone.
Tap on any entry to get more details on the current status, similar to what you see on the iPhone (including a map, albeit a tiny one given the size of the watch screen).
For those times when you are eagerly anticipating the arrival of a package, it is nice to be able to check the status with a few taps on the watch instead of having to use the iPhone app.
Notifications
All of the features I described above work very well and make this app worth getting. Having said that, the one feature of the app that I was most looking forward to was notifications, especially notifications on my Apple Watch, and this is an area in which the app fell short for me.
I usually have my packages delivered to my office, which means that they are given to the mail room at my law firm. The mail room is on the 44th floor of my building and my office is on the 46th floor, and so sometimes I have to wait an hour or two for a package to show up in my office. For those times when I want to get a package as soon as it arrives, it is nice to know that the package is already at my law firm. For example, this past Friday I was eager to try the sports band on my Apple Watch. My hope was that the Deliveries app would send me notifications within a few minutes of that package arriving in my office, so that I could just walk down to my mail room to get it right away.
Similarly, if you have a package being delivered to your home and if the delivery company just leaves it on your porch without ringing a doorbell, it would be nice to know, right away, that it is there.
The Deliveries app does advertise that is provides notifications, but in my experience they were sent to me very infrequently, and often too late. For example, I was handed a package from Amazon that had been sent via U.S. Mail without getting any notification that it had arrived. In this case, the fault was with the U.S. Mail, which did not even update its website to say that the package had arrived until that night. But at the same time, I was also handed my watch band, which had been sent via FedEx, without getting any notification from the Deliveries app, even though the FedEx website reflected that it had been delivered an hour earlier.
The app does seem to check in from time to time to update entries, and did occasionally send notifications of delivery updates to my iPhone/Apple Watch. But the app doesn’t seem to check very often.
When you launch the app, Deliveries updates status at that time, and then doesn’t send you notifications of that updated status because you are already looking at it. If you never launch the app, Deliveries will send you updates via push notifications, but you should not count on those being timely notifications.
Other
There is also a version of Deliveries that works on the Mac, and the app uses iCloud to sync information between the iPhone and the Mac. I didn’t test the Mac version.
Deliveries is a universal app, so it also works on the iPad, again syncing information using iCloud. Deliveries on the iPad takes advantage of the larger screen by showing both a list of packages being tracked and the details for one of the items — essentially showing on one screen what the iPhone and Apple Watch show on two screens.
The iPhone app also features a notification center widget. If you enable it, you can check your package status just by swiping down from the top of your iPhone screen, without even having to launch the app.
Conclusion
Deliveries works great for those times when you decide that you want to find out the latest status of your packages. Just launch the app on your iPhone or Apple Watch, and in a few seconds you’ll see the current status.
Deliveries didn’t work as well in my tests when I wanted to have the app to take the initiative and push a timely notification to me. Notifications did come, but not as quickly as I had hoped when I purchased the app.
Nevertheless, I can still recommend Deliveries for anyone who is interested in tracking package status and who wants a quick and easy way to do so. The app really shines when you have multiple packages in route because a simple launch of the app collects different information about different items from different delivery services and then shows you all of the information at once.
Here we go again; another week in which there is very little iPhone/iPad news but a lot of Apple Watch news. For example, I enjoyed the short article by Dave Caolo of Apple World Today in which he recommends silencing your iPhone, silencing your Apple Watch, and turning your Apple Watch haptic settings to high. This way, you get your alerts via a tap on your wrist instead of a noise or vibration from an iPhone, maximizing the utility of the Apple Watch and making you less annoying to others in meetings. The way that I do it is a little different, but he and I agree on the goal. Indeed, shifting my alerts from my iPhone/iPad to taps on my wrist is one of my favorite features of the Apple Watch, especially since you can control which notifications are important enough to tap you on the wrist. As the Macalope wisely wrote in an article criticizing a New York Times editorial, “the Watch is like an administrative assistant for your phone. It filters the things that vie for your attention.” I agree 100%. And now, the news of note from the past week:
A small administrative note: I switched my domain registration service this week, and depending upon your own internet server provider, iPhone J.D. may have been down for a period of time yesterday. Also, if you sent me email on Thursday afternoon, there is a chance that it did not come through so consider resending it. I apologize for the inconvenience, but everything should be up and running now.
Jason Snell of Six Colors was the first person I saw who figured out and posted that you can change the volume of your iPhone playing music or a podcast by using the Digital Crown on the Apple Watch. This is really useful.
Jon Fingas of Engadget reports that a Florida woman, who was held hostage and not permitted to use her phone for anything other than to order pizza, inserted a 911 message in her pizza order using the Pizza Hut app. The Pizza Hut employees saw the plea for help and called the authorities.
Apple has a new part of their website called Everything changes with iPad, showing off lots of different ways that you can use your iPad when cooking, learning, traveling, redecorating, and in business.
And finally, as we get ready for Mother’s Day, what would it be like if Siri was your mom? The Daily Dot explores this in a funny video — which works because it stars Susan Bennett, whose voice was the basis for the first version of Siri. Very much worth watching:
A few weeks ago, LynkTec sent me a free review unit of its 360 Tablet Kickstand. I received it just a few days before I headed to Chicago for ABA TECHSHOW, and I have kept it on my iPad for the last three weeks, except to periodically remove it just to make sure that it is still just as easy to put on and off. This is a really useful device that I can recommend for two reasons: it is a great stand, plus it is also makes it much easier to hold an iPad in your hand.
Microsuction adhesion
When I first saw this device, I assumed that it had some sort of a sticky paste as an adhesion, which made me nervous that if I stuck it to my iPad, it wouldn’t easily come off again. But to my surprise, it actually uses nothing glue-like at all, so there is no residue that could be left on the back of your iPad. The device instead uses microsuction technology, which is like having thousands of tiny suction cups gripping the smooth back of the iPad. I cannot see them, but they are there.
To apply the device, just push it firmly down on the back of your iPad. To remove it, put your fingers around the curved part and slowly and gently pull it off. I applied and removed the device many times, and had no trouble attaching it or removing it.
Once attached, it is a very, very strong connection. I have no concern that it will come unattached by mistake. And I have never noticed even a hint of a problem with the connection in the three weeks that I have been using the product.
When the device is removed, you can apply an included plastic pad over the microsuction end so that you can store it in a briefcase or purse and it won’t stick to anything else.
Stand
The primary purpose of the product is to serve as a kickstand. Once attached, the hinge on the leg of the device can be adjusted to any angle. Once in an angle, it is very firm and stays in that angle until you move it. Even if you type or push down rather hard on the iPad, the leg stays in place at that angle.
The number 360 is in the name because you can also spin the leg. It snaps into any of eight positions. Frankly, it could have just snapped into four positions — I cannot think of any reason that you would want the stand at a diagonal position. If you think of the stand as normally being pointed down at the 6 o’clock position, by turning it to either the 3 o’clock or the 9 o’clock position, the stand will hold an iPad in a portrait position. I use my iPad in a landscape position far more than the portrait position, but it is nice that this stand can adjust to portrait when you need it.
Holder
The device makes a nice kickstand, but what I liked even more is that it works so well as a holder or handle for the iPad. I frequently find myself leaning back in a chair and reading documents, transcripts, etc. on my iPad. I found that holding the leg in my hand was much more comfortable than holding the edges of the iPad. (Indeed, this is a reason that I used to love to use the FreeOneHand, but unfortunately that product has not been updated for the iPad Air / iPad Air 2.)
Although the leg is made of aluminum, it has soft curved edges on the side, so it doesn’t hurt to hold it i your hand for a long period of time. The openings in the leg give you lots of spots to place your fingers so that you can find a position that feels best. And the leg is tapered near the bottom, which also gives you another place to comfortably grip the leg.
For example, during my plane ride to Chicago for TECHSHOW, I had some transcripts to review. I launched the TranscriptPad app, held my iPad by gripping the 360 Tablet Kickstand in my left hand and annotated using my right hand, and it was a much more comfortable way to hold my iPad during a long flight than just gripping the edges. I also felt that the iPad was much more secure, far less likely to slip out of my hand than if had been holding it at the edge.
Limitations
Because this product attaches to the back of your iPad, you cannot use it if you have a case that covers the back. I use an Apple Smart Cover, which just protects the front of my iPad, so that wasn’t a problem for me.
The device does protrude somewhat from the back of your iPad, even when you fold the leg all of the way down. I typically carry my iPad in Tom Bihn Ristretto bag, and the sleeve where the iPad goes is big enough to accommodate this device. But if you use some sort of very slim sleeve to cover your iPad, it may or may not work with this device attached.
Conclusion
The best thing that I can say about the Lynktec 360 Tablet Kickstand is that when I first received it, I had planned to remove it after my review was posted. But instead, I plan to keep using it for a long time. It is incredibly useful, it feels good in your hands, and it adds almost nothing to the size and weight of your iPad. This is a great product for anyone looking for an effective way to prop up an iPad on a desk, plus a way to more easily hold it in their hands.
The world of iPhone and iPad this week was pretty much all focused on the Apple Watch. I’ve now been using mine for a week, and I continue to really like it because it is so convenient to use. Sure, almost everything that you can do on an Apple Watch you can do on an iPhone, but it is just as true that just about everything that you can do on an iPhone, you could do on a computer. Of course, carrying around a computer — while possible, especially with a small laptop — is not convenient, and that is why we all have iPhones in our pockets. Similarly, it is a lot more convenient to glance at your wrist than to fumble for an iPhone in your pocket every time you need to look at a notification or get some other quick information. At the risk of needing to change the name of this website from iPhoneJD.com to something like WatchJD.com, here is the news of note from the past week, with a heavy emphasis on the Apple Watch:
One of the presentations that I gave at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago a few weeks ago was called 60 Apps in 60 Minutes. When I got home from Chicago, I posted a list of all of the 60+ apps that we discussed. But while I was still in Chicago, right after the session ended, I was interviewed by Laurence Colletti of the Legal Talk Network and I explained the reasons for including some of the apps in our list. That interview is now part of a podcast, so if you want to hear what I had to say, you can listen to the podcast here on the Legal Talk Network website, or you can download the podcast on iTunes here. That podcast also includes a discussion of Android and Windows apps, but the iPhone/iPad part of the podcast is at the very beginning.
Sparks also says that when it comes to organizing the icons on your Apple Watch, X marks the spot. [UPDATE 5/5/2015: After trying this for a while, I went back to the normal clustering. For me, I find that it takes too long to move up and down and around the legs of a large X to find an app that I want. Still, it is an interesting idea that some might like.]
Kathryn Rubino of Above the Law tells the tale of U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss who lost an iPhone on a ski slope. And for the record, the tale has nothing to do with the Apple Watch.
New York attorney Nicole Black talks about how lawyers might use an Apple Watch in this post for The Daily Record.
Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans is using the Apple Watch to monitor patients, as noted by Meg Farris with WWL-TV. I’m sure that we will see more of this in the future.
When Siri first came out on the iPhone 5s, people frequently shared examples of some of the funny things that Siri said. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of these articles, but J.R. Bookwalter wrote an update for Macworld that shows that Siri hasn’t lost her sense of humor.
And finally, if you really need to get more information on torturing an Apple Watch (specifically, the Sport model), this video from CNET made me wince, especially when she took out the cheese grater:
Earlier this week, I encountered my first problem with the Apple Watch, but fortunately I discovered a quick fix for it. The problem was that my Apple Watch didn’t see my iPhone. The solution was to reset Bluetooth. Here are the details in case this happens to you.
The Apple Watch works best when it is in constant communication with your iPhone — preferably via Bluetooth, but if your iPhone and Apple Watch are too far away for Bluetooth (e.g., your iPhone is upstairs in your bedroom, but you are downstairs), they can also communicate if they are on the same Wi-Fi network. If your Apple Watch doesn’t have that Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection to your iPhone, there are some things that it can still do all on its own, such as:
Operate as a watch
Use the alarm, timer, stopwatch
Play music, if you have previously synced a playlist (up to 1 GB of music) to your Apple Watch
Track your activity (stand, move, exercise) with the Activity app
Track workouts (e.g., you can go for a run with your Apple Watch and leave your iPhone at home)
Display photos that you previously synced to the Apple Watch
Use Apple Pay to make purchases
But for most of the rest of the features of the Apple Watch — such as work with apps on your iPhone, display your text messages and emails — you need to have that connection to your iPhone.
The problem that I experienced was that I wasn’t getting emails on my Apple Watch, and I looked at the display and saw that there was a red icon at the top center of the watch showing an iPhone with a line through it:
Here’s a close up view of that icon:
This icon was an indication that my Apple Watch lost its connection with my iPhone. And similarly, when I swiped up on my Apple Watch to get to the Glances view and looked at the Settings Glance, I saw an indication at the top that the iPhone was disconnected:
I knew that this should not be happening because my iPhone was in my shirt pocket — just a few feet from the Apple Watch on my wrist. They were more than close enough for a Bluetooth connection. But on my iPhone, when I looked at the Bluetooth settings, I similarly saw that my Apple Watch was not connected, even if I tapped on the entry for the Apple Watch to try to force a connection:
Fortunately, there was an easy fix. I flipped the switch at the top of the screen shown above to turn off Bluetooth, then I waited a few seconds, then I turned Bluetooth back on again. Suddenly, my Apple Watch and my iPhone found each other again.
All of this happened on Monday morning, and in the several days since then, it has not happened again. Hopefully that was just a one-time bizarre problem for me, but if it happens to you too, now you know what to do.
Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2015 fiscal second quarter (which ran from December 28, 2014 to March 28, 2015) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. Apple always sees a big decrease in revenue from its first to its second fiscal quarter because Q2 comes right after the holiday quarter. Nevertheless, Apple reported quarterly revenue of $58 billion and net profits of $13.6 billion, which is a record for Apple’s second fiscal quarter. 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. Apple’s official press release is here.
As always, however, I’m not as interested in the financial details as I am the statements of Apple executives during the call that are of interest to iPhone and iPad users. Here are the items that stood out to me:
iPhone
During the past quarter, Apple sold 61.2 million iPhones. That was the second highest quarter ever of iPhone sales. The most ever was the prior quarter — the late 2014 holiday season — when Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones, but the record before that was 51 million (during the prior year’s holiday quarter). So Apple sold more iPhones in a non-holiday quarter than they did in the holiday quarter just over a year earlier. That certainly tells you something about how interested people are in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple is seeing a higher rate of people switching from another brand to the iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus than Apple has seen with previous iPhone models. So a lot of BlackBerry, Android, etc. are users are switching to the iPhone.
About 20% of people who had been using a previous version of the iPhone have now upgraded to an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.
By my count, as of March 28, 2015, Apple had sold over 726 million iPhones since they first went on sale in 2007.
iPad
The iPad turned five years old this month. Although Apple did see impressive iPad sales in some parts of the world, such as Japan and China, overall Apple sold 12.6 million iPads in the 2015 fiscal second quarter. That’s a big number, but to put in in context, one year ago in the 2014 fiscal second quarter, Apple had sold 16.3 million. There was a similar story last month, so it seems that, so far at least, Apple is selling fewer iPads in 2015 than is did in 2014.
Cook said that part of the reason for the decline is that folks who might have previously purchased an iPad are now purchasing a Mac or an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.
Apple CFO Luca Maestri noted that the iPad has consistently been the #1 tablet in companies, and cited a recent Changewave survey that found that among corporate buyers planning to buy a tablet in the next six months, 77% plan to buy iPads. In light of Apple’s partnership with IBM on the iPad (announced in July of 2014), Cook says that he remains a big believer that the iPad will play a major role in companies.
By my count, as of March 28, 2015, Apple had sold over 271 million iPads since they first went on sale in 2010.
Apple Watch
The Apple Watch did not go on sale until after the 2015 fiscal second quarter ended, but Apple still had a lot to say about the Apple Watch yesterday.
Pointing out the obvious, Cook stated that Apple Watch demand is outstripping supply, and he said that Apple is working hard to remedy that.
Cook did not say how many Apple Watch shipments took place since this past Friday when the first deliveries occurred, but he did say that Apple was able to deliver more customers an Apple Watch since Friday than Apple had originally anticipated.
Cook also said that Apple is continuing to notify customers that their Apple Watch will arrive earlier than originally estimated. So if you ordered an Apple Watch and think that you still have a long wait, perhaps it will come earlier than you are expecting.
By late June, Apple plans to start selling the Apple Watch in additional countries, although Apple did not identify which ones. Right now, the Apple Watch is on sale in nine countries: Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US. If Apple is planning to sell to more countries in June, that is some indication that Apple believes that it can start to catch up to demand by then.
Cook announced that there are now more than 3,500 apps for the Apple Watch. That compares to about 500 apps when the App Store for iPhone was launched, and about 1,000 apps for the iPad when the iPad launched.
The Apple Watch is the newest product from Apple. It requires an iPhone and thus can be viewed as an iPhone accessory, much like you might have Bluetooth headphones that work with your iPhone. But it has so much computing power that it can also be considered an independent device, alongside the iPad, iPod, etc. After three days with the Apple Watch, I am incredibly impressed. For those of you wondering whether you should get one, hopefully my initial experiences will help you to make a decision for yourself.
The model that I have is the Apple Watch 42mm Stainless Steel with Black Classic Buckle. I ordered it just a few minutes after Apple started taking pre-orders on April 10, 2015, and my Apple Watch was in my hands around 9:30 a.m. on Friday, April 24. My first three days with the Apple Watch have been different types of days. Friday was a work day, so I was mostly in the office. Saturday I was mostly at home, doing errands and playing with my kids. On Sunday I was at the New Orleans Jazz Fest, so I was outside most of the day and doing a lot of walking around and receiving and sending a lot of text messages to make plans with others at Jazz Fest. These three very different days gave me the opportunity to really understand how the Apple Watch excels and what its limitations are.
The Apple Watch is not an iPhone
It definitely takes some time to get used to the Apple Watch, much like the first time that you ever used an iPhone when you had to get used to gestures such as pinch to zoom and swiping left and right, up and down. Many of those iPhone skills that we all now take for granted don’t work on the Apple Watch, so you need to get used to a new set of skills. For example, there is no pinch to zoom, nor would such a gesture even make sense on a screen this small. And even though you can flick up and down on a screen to scroll much like you can on an iPhone, you quickly learn that it is better to use the Digital Crown because that way your finger does not obscure the entire screen while you swipe, plus the Digital Crown is a more precise way of scrolling. And you need to learn that if there is a red dot at the top of your watch face, that indicates a new notification. You can swipe down from the top of the watch app to see those notifications (like an iPhone), but you can also swipe up from the bottom of the watch app screen to see Glances, from apps that provide them.
The Apple Watch also has force touch, the ability to touch the screen and then push a little harder to cause some secondary function. There is no on-screen indication of when you can force-touch so you just need to experiment to see when it works, but you quickly learn when to do so, such as force-touching on the clock face to change the clock design, or force-touching on the list of notifications to see an option to clear them all.
But it is not just the way that you interact with the Apple Watch that is new. My first instinct was to treat the Apple Watch like a small iPhone, one that I would use to run lots of neat apps and to consume information. But I quickly learned that the Apple Watch is not a small iPhone, but instead is a different type of device, one that excels at providing you with small bits of relevant information, and can also be a very useful remote control. Let’s explore those functions a little deeper.
Small bits of information
I stopped wearing a watch a few years ago because I was looking at my iPhone all of the time anyway and, in doing so, I could always see the time on the iPhone. But before the iPhone, I had worn a watch every day for around 25 years. As I think back to how I used that watch over the years, it would always be for quick glances to get small bits of information; a quick glance would give me the time, or the date, and then I could go back to whatever else I was doing, armed with that information.
When I was in high school, I wore a Casio calculator watch. I would occasionally do more than just glance at that watch — sometimes I would use the calculator to perform simple math — but even then, I only used the watch for a short period of time, maybe 15-20 seconds, to get information. Once I got that information, I was done with the watch.
This is where the Apple Watch excels. You can quickly raise your arm to look at your watch, which causes the screen to come on, and then you can get information. Often the default is for my Apple Watch to display a clock, so a quick glance gives me the time and date and any other small bit of information that I choose to display on that customizable watch face, such as my next appointment, or the weather.
But unlike a traditional watch, with the Apple Watch you are not limited to glancing at the time and perhaps the date. The information that the Apple Watch can provide with that quick glance is infinitely customizable. Of course you can modify the watch face itself, adding what is called “complications” in the watch world — the additional information displayed such as the date, or the weather, etc. But with that quick swipe down from the top of the watch I can also quickly see recent notifications. Those are the same types of notifications that I can see by swiping down from the top of my iPhone screen, but to do that I need to first take my iPhone out of my pocket and unlock it. The Apple Watch is so much faster and more convenient; just raise my wrist and swipe down.
This is a good point to mention that there are two types of settings on the Apple Watch that I really like. First, there is the Brightness and Text size setting. From here, you have the option to increase screen brightness, increase the font size and make text bold. I quickly made my text as bright, large and bold as possible, which makes it so much easier for me to see read words on the screen. (I wear glasses; for those of you with better eyesight, you might be comfortable with the default sizes, or something between the default and my setting.)
But the setting I really want to focus on right now is located under General and is called Activate on Wrist Raise. Here, you can choose to have your screen come on when you raise your wrist (which is the default option, and the one that I recommend that you use) but you can also choose what happens when you lift your wrist: either display the clock app (to see the time etc.) or display the last used app. I typically keep it set to clock, but at various times during the day I will change it to Last Used App. That way, raising my wrist and a quick glance shows me information other than the time.
For example, this past Saturday night I was doing other activities with my family so I wasn’t watching the game, but I was curious to see how the New Orleans Pelicans were doing in the NBA playoff game against the Golden State Warriors. The ESPN app on the Apple Watch is perfect for this function. The watch app already knows my favorite teams (because I have that entered in the iPhone app), so when I launch the clock’s ESPN app it shows me the current score for the game that my favorite team is playing. By changing the wrist raise setting to the Last Used App, every time I raised my wrist, I quickly saw the current score of the game. This was much, much faster than having to take out my iPhone, unlock the iPhone, and then look up the score. Unfortunately for those of us in New Orleans, the Pelicans lost, but the ESPN Apple Watch app worked like a charm.
I haven’t yet traveled with the Apple Watch, but I look forward to using some travel related watch apps when I do travel. For example, I have a Delta flight next month, and I look forward to seeing how that app gives me the key information that I need for my trip. A TripIt app may also be useful, and similarly faster to use as I am walking through the airport versus fishing out my iPhone. I suspect that I will pick the most useful travel app and choose to have my Apple Watch show me that app when I raise my wrist so that, for example, I can quickly see my upcoming flight status, gate, etc.
I have no doubt that in the future I will find additional useful apps, apps that quickly show me whatever information I need at that very time, simply by lifting my wrist.
Push notifications
Lifting my wrist to get small bits of information is useful and nice, but even better is the push notifications feature on the Apple Watch. Instead of me deciding that I want to raise my wrist to glance at information, with push notifications, my watch tells me that I should raise my wrist now to see something.
I don’t like it when my iPhone makes noise so I always keep it muted, and on Friday and Saturday I also muted my Apple Watch. (On Sunday, at Jazz Fest, I turned on noises — there was enough sound around me that the pings didn’t bother anyone else, and they helped to make sure that I noticed every notification.) I love that, even when the Apple Watch is muted, the watch has another way to grab your attention: the Taptic Engine, which produces haptic feedback. What this means is that the Apple Watch taps your wrist when it wants to get your attention. These notifications are discrete enough that nobody else will notice or hear them, so you won’t have to worry about being embarrassed by a notification while you are in court.
I found that I preferred for the tap notifications to be a little more obvious, and there is a way to adjust this. In Settings -> Sounds & Haptics, you can dial up the Ringer and Alert Haptics and can turn on Prominent Haptic.
Notifications could drive you crazy if you have too many of them, but I already had my notifications tamed on my iPhone, and they are similarly tamed on my Apple Watch. Thus, my watch doesn’t tap me every time I get an email, but instead only when I get an email from a person who I have designated as a VIP — which is a very small group of people. My watch does tap me every time I get a text message, but that works fine for me because on most days I get texts pretty infrequently, and when I do get one it is often my wife, in which case I virtually always do appreciate knowing right away that she was trying to tell me something.
But yesterday at Jazz Fest, I received lots of text messages throughout the day. It was wonderful to be walking from one stage to another, feel the tap on my wrist, and then raise my wrist to see that I was getting a text from a friend, and a second later see the text itself — such as a message that someone just got to a certain spot and will meet me there. It was much easier to notice the notification when there was a tap on my wrist versus my iPhone buzzing in my pocket. And it was much easier to read the notification by raising my wrist and glancing versus pulling my iPhone out of my pocket — especially if my hands were full because I was carrying food or drinks in both hands.
I also have notifications turned on for Twitter. I’m still trying to decide whether I want to let my notifications be handled by Tweetbot or Twitterific, both of which seems to be useful on the watch. I like that my watch taps my wrist to let me know that someone has sent me a reply or mentioned my username on Twitter. I’ll rarely act on that information right away, but it is nice to get immediate notification that it happened.
I’m still trying to decide the other apps to which I will grant permission to send me notifications on my watch, but even after just a few days, I really love this feature. For example, I mentioned how easy it is to receive a text message on the watch, but it is also easy to respond to a message on the watch — especially if one of the default responses like “OK” or “Thanks” suffices. When it doesn’t, I found that tapping the microphone icon and dictating a short response for Siri to turn into text worked quite well. There was one time at Jazz Fest when I intended to text someone to say that I was headed to the Blues Tent and instead my watch thought I said Blues 10, but the other person had no problem understanding what I meant. Other than that minor hiccup, Siri’s voice-to-text translation worked incredibly well for me. I was especially impressed how well that Siri on the watch worked even when I was in the crowded and loud environment of an outdoor festival.
Remote Control
Another feature that I’ve quickly grown to love on the Apple Watch is the ability to have apps that let you control other tasks, working as a remote control of sorts. For example, I listen to a lot of podcasts, and my favorite app for doing so is Overcast. If I’m alone in a room, I’ll often just set down my iPhone on a table and listen using the iPhone’s built-in speaker or using a Bluetooth speaker. Other times I’ll listen using Bluetooth headphones or I’ll have my iPhone in my shirt pocket and use the white Apple headphones.
If I am listening to a podcast and I realize that I missed something, the Overcast app on my iPhone includes a button to rewind, which I have set to 15 seconds. Another button skips 30 seconds forward, useful for skipping a commercial. But it is not always convenient to reach over the to my iPhone to use those buttons — especially if it is on a table across the room. But with the Overcast app on the Apple Watch, I can just lift my wrist and tap those buttons, which then tells my iPhone what to do. I can also lift my wrist to glance and see how much longer the podcast will last, or to play/pause.
This is another example of a time that I often set my Apple Watch to show the last used app, instead of the clock, when I lift my wrist. That way I see the Overcast app every time I lift my wrist. But even if I forgot to change that setting, you can always quickly switch from the clock to the last used app by pressing twice on the Digital Crown.
Similarly, it is nice to use the Remote app on the Apple Watch to control my Apple TV, especially if I am sitting on the coach and I realize that my kids have left the Apple TV’s physical remote somewhere else in the room.
Also, while I have only started to play around with this app, I see that there is a Camera app on the Apple Watch that controls the Camera app on my iPhone. I can prop up my iPhone somewhere to take a picture of me and others, then I can walk away and use the watch app as a remote viewfinder, so that I can make sure that we are all in the shot. When everyone is in place, I can either press one button on the watch to take the picture right away, or another button to wait three seconds and then take the picture. My iPhone then quickly takes a burst of 10 pictures, useful if someone is blinking during one of the pictures.
Because my Apple Watch is always on my wrist, this means that I always have easy access to any of the apps with a remote control type of function. I look forward to trying out other apps that let my Apple Watch act as a remote control.
Interact with others
I’ve already talked about some of the ways that the Apple Watch can help you to interact with others, such as the notifications of emails and texts, and the ways in which you can quickly respond to text messages. The Apple Watch also has some unique ways that you can interact with others who also own an Apple Watch, such as by tapping on your watch, which causes your friend to feel the same taps on their wrist, or by drawing a very simple picture on your watch that then displays on your friend’s watch.
In the future, I can see this being useful and fun, but at this point so few people have an Apple Watch that I haven’t been able to test the feature very much. I did annoy Florida attorney Katie Floyd on Friday afternoon by sending her some silly finger drawings, and she drew me a smiley face in response. I look forward to the day when I can be in court and someone can send me a quick tap to alert me to something, such as the need to object as soon as opposing counsel finishes answering a question. Another often-cited example is a previously agreed upon sequence of taps during a party that allows one person to tell another person something like I’m ready to go, or please come rescue me from this conversation that I’m having. Suffice it to say that I can envision this feature being useful in the future as more folks get an Apple Watch.
Fitness
Another feature of the Apple Watch that I haven’t tested out yet is using it for fitness. Right now I just have the leather band that came with my model, and that’s not a good band to use when sweating. But I ordered a Sport Band as an accessory the same day that I ordered the watch, and I may receive it as soon as this Friday. I’m encouraged by the initial reports from others, such as Katie Floyd’s take in the post she wrote after her first 24 hours with the Apple Watch.
I will say that the Apple Watch seemed very impressed with all of the walking around that I did yesterday at Jazz Fest. I haven’t had the heart to break it to my watch that (1) I don’t walk nearly that much every day and (2) the food and drink I had yesterday made up for much of that walking around.
The Apple Watch as Jewelry
I realize that I am still in the honeymoon period with the Apple Watch and thus it is still the shiny new toy, but something else that I really like about the Apple Watch is how it looks and feels. Much like any other nice jewelry, the Apple Watch looks very nice, both to others and the person wearing it. (And much like other jewelry, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so I recognize that others might disagree that it looks good. But I certainly like the look.)
I’m really glad that I spent the extra money on the stainless steel model, which I think looks and feels nicer than the aluminum model. (Although I will say that the Space Gray version of the Apple Watch Sport has a certain appeal to it.) You can tell that an incredible amount of craftsmanship went into the Apple Watch. It feels like a well-made device, with amazing fit and finish. This is something that is likely to be on my body all day long, every single day, so it is nice to have something that I like.
And I’m not just talking about the physical features of the watch, although I really like those. I also love the display. While small, it is really beautiful and fun to look at, no matter what the watch is dispaying. Indeed, the watch face that I mostly used on Friday and Saturday was the Mickey Mouse one. The first watch that I ever remember using was a Mickey Mouse watch, and there is something about seeing Mickey smiling and tapping his foot (to count the seconds) on my wrist that makes me smile. And unlike the watch I used as a child, it is fun to see that Mickey shifts his position and the way that he is facing depending upon the hour that his hand is pointing at.
When I was at Jazz Fest yesterday, there were parts of the day when the sun was very bright. Thus, I switched to the X-Large display, which has numbers that are comically large, but when you are outside on a bright day and it would normally be hard to see the Apple Watch, you can always easily see the numbers on this display.
My only small complaint about the Apple Watch is that I might consider getting a different band for the watch. The Classic Buckle feels really nice, but right now one of holes sometimes feels a little too tight, and the next hole sometimes feels just a little too lose. I’m going to wait and see if I get used to this over time (and perhaps as the leather stretches) — I liked it a lot more on Sunday than I did on Friday and Saturday. But I can see myself down the road getting one of the bands that uses magnets and can be adjusted to any size at all, such as the Milanese Loop or the Leather Loop. And I also look forward to receiving my Sport Band, which I would have used instead of the leather band at Jazz Fest yesterday had mine arrived because it was a hot and sweaty day.
Other thoughts
There is so much more that I have to learn about the Apple Watch, so I’m sure I will have more to say in the future. But for now, here are a few more thoughts.
First, I was concerned about the battery life on the Apple Watch, but so far it has been fine. As much as I used the Apple Watch yesterday at Jazz Fest — not only because it was useful, but also because folks kept asking to see it — I still had 40% power left at 10pm last night. Three days is not enough to reach a definitive verdict on how long the battery lasts each day, but so far I’m very impressed. And it is easy to charge the watch at night by placing it on the charger; a magnet causes it to snap into the right position, and the watch is fully charged every morning.
Second, while there are already a lot of Apple Watch apps, and you know that we will have thousands more in the near future, I’ve discovered that only a small set of apps make sense on the Apple Watch — especially those for whom glances, notifications and remote control functions make sense. For example, I have a useful app on my iPhone that displays a weather radar, and while it also works on the Apple Watch, looking at a weather radar on the tiny Apple Watch screen seems sort of pointless. For this task, I’ll want to use the larger screen of my iPhone, or maybe even my iPad. Of course, developers are also just now getting an Apple Watch to use, so over time I’m sure we will see more apps that make sense given the advantages and limitations of a device on a wrist with a small screen.
Third, I have found that the raise your wrist to glance at the Apple Watch feature works great most of the time, but every once in a while it doesn’t turn on the screen. At first my instinct was to raise my wrist again more violently, which did work but made me look like I, or at least my arm, was doing the robot dance. I quickly learned that you can also just tap the watch screen to turn it on.
Fourth, I haven’t had a chance to try Apple Pay on the watch yet. It works so well on my iPhone that I’m sure that it will work on the watch. Having said that, it’s not really that inconvenient to pull out my iPhone to pay, so I’ll be curious to see how much better it is to pay with my wrist without having to reach for my iPhone at all.
Conclusion
Over the coming weeks and months, developers will come up with even better apps for the Apple Watch. Not every app makes sense for the Apple Watch, but for the ones that do, it is often so much nicer and more convenient to use the Apple Watch version of the app. And as I use the watch even more both in and away from the office, I’m sure that I will find new ways to use the watch that I’m not even thinking of yet.
But even with just what I know and what I can use the Apple Watch to do right now, I can see that I’m going to be a big fan of this product. What it does is often something small, but it does it so darn well, giving me exactly the information or controls that I need with extreme efficiency and minimum fuss. Apple created a really impressive device, one that a lot of people are going to really enjoy using.
Today, Apple begins a new chapter in its history, with the Apple Watch going on sale and being delivered to the first customers. Sure, it is just an iPhone accessory, but it is also a new type of device, one with a different kind of interface, different input methods and different ways of acquiring and presenting information. Will the Apple Watch become a significant new product, or is it instead destined to enter the history books next to the Apple iPod Socks? My hunch is that the Apple Watch in particular, and wearable devices in general, will indeed be an important new type of product for Apple, and as Apple learns from the first generation Apple Watch and issues software and hardware improvements, we will one day look back and be amazed at how interesting the product is and how far the product category has come, much as we look back now at the progress since the first Mac, the first iPod and the first iPhone. This could be pretty exciting, and it all starts today. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Last year, I reviewed an app called DkT that you can use to access PACER on the iPhone or iPad. The developer of the app tells me that some folks are now experiencing login errors with the app, but he needs more information to fix the problem. If you have noticed this problem with the DkT app, please contact Matt Zorn (matt@zorn.is) to help him to troubleshoot.
Whether you get notifications on your iPhone, your iPad, your Apple Watch, are all three, you need to effectively manage those notifications so that you are only interrupted by the stuff that really matters. New York attorney and TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante shares some good advice on notifications in an article that was published in the SmallLaw newsletter a few months ago but was just recently posted online.
California attorney Scott Grossberg discusses the excellent GoodReader app.
Even if you don’t yet have an Apple Watch, you can get a sense of how it works with some new items on the Apple website. First, you can now watch ten guided tour videos. Second, you can now read the Apple Watch User Guide online.
John Gruber doesn’t think that Apple will allow custom watch faces, except for a few hand-selected by Apple. He explains why in this article, and he makes a pretty compelling argument.
If you are wondering what it is like to try on the expensive Apple Watch Edition with the gold face, Caitlin McGarry and Leah Yamshon describe the Edition experience in an article for Macworld.
If you are wondering how durable the Apple Watch is likely to be, Greg Koenig wrote a detailed article on the subject for iMore.
Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that you have 14 days to exchange an Apple Watch band for another one. Many folks (like me) ordered an Apple Watch before they even saw the bands in person, so if you now wish that you had selected a different band, it may not be too late.
If you use a Mac, the new Photos app has the amazing ability to store every single one of your photos on the cloud so that all of the photos are available to you on your iPhone and iPad. I love that I can now find that picture from many years ago on my iPhone or iPad, and when I tap the picture my device loads a better quality version from the cloud. It works great. However, please be aware that you need to pay Apple for storage space in the cloud, and that cost can add up. For my library of almost 50,000 pictures and a lot of videos, I needed to sign up for the 500 GB, $10/month plan to have enough space online. Second, and especially if your library is large, it takes a while to upload all of your data, and as Glenn Fleishman of Macworld notes, your Mac will flood your broadband to upload as fast as possible.
Microsoft debuted a new service called Office 365 Video that lets companies upload and share videos to their employees. There is an iOS app for the service, and Harish Jonnalahadda of iMore explains some of the details.
Caleb Melby of Bloomberg raves about Apple CEO Tim Cook in this article.
Lisa Jackson, Apple’s VP of Environmental Initiatives, and Larry Selzer of The Conservation Fund talk explain how and why Apple is now working to protect forests.
And finally, Ben & Jerry’s introduced a new ice cream product this week, one which plays off of the 420 theme. Ice cream and pot are usually not things that I discuss on iPhone J.D., but I was amused at how they created a video for the new product that is a parody of the famous ad that Apple used to introduce the Mac in 1984:
I didn’t take a lot of pictures at ABA TECHSHOW 2015 this year, but I thought that I would share a few of them that I did take with my iPhone as well as a few reflections on the show from the iPhone and iPad perspective.
Before the show began, I dashed down Michigan Ave. to check out one of the largest Apple Stores in the country and to try on the Apple Watch again, since I knew that I would be talking about it throughout TECHSHOW. Here is the model that I ordered, which hopefully I will have soon. (As I type this, the Apple website says that it is preparing my Apple Watch for shipment, with delivery expected at some point between tomorrow and May 8.) [UPDATE: Using the UPS trick described by Buster Hein on Cult of Mac, it looks like my Apple Watch is being shipped Thursday with UPS Next Day Air delivery for Friday afternoon.]
Overall, this was one of the best TECHSHOWs that I have ever attended. A lot of the credit for that goes to the great TECHSHOW board, and especially this year’s TECHSHOW Chair, Brett Burney. I’ve presented with Brett in the past and he really knows his stuff, especially when it comes to the iPhone and iPad. Here’s Brett at the start of the conference:
On Thursday, April 16, one of the eight tracks was the iPad track. That track had four sessions that were full of information for any attorney looking to integrate an iPad (and iPhone) into their practice.
The first session was Introducing Your iPad Into Your iPractice, by Ohio attorneys Joe Bahgat and Paul Unger. This was an introductory session that hit the highlights such as how to work with documents, take notes, and do legal research with an iPad, plus how to use an iPad in litigation.
The second session was called iLitigate on the iPad — Essential Litigation Workflows From Beginning to End, by D.C. Judge Herbert Dixon, New Jersey attorney Jonathan Lomurro and Dallas attorney Tom Mighell. The session covered more advanced techniques for using an iPad in litigation, and it was quite good. I’ve presented with Dixon and Mighell before and so I knew that they know their stuff, but this is the first time that I have heard Lomurro speak and he was excellent. I’d love to hear him speak again.
At the luncheon, I met up with some old friends and met new ones. This was the first time that I had met Florida attorney Katie Floyd in person, although after listening to her speak on hundreds of episodes of Mac Power Users, I felt like we were old friends.
The third session in the iPad track was Easy & Effective Presentations From Your iPad, a presentation that I gave with Canadian attorney Bjorn Christianson. We started by discussing general techniques on giving effective presentations with an iPad. Then for the last 20 minutes or so I gave some very specific power user tips for using the Keynote app on an iPad. I’ve never before given a presentation on giving a presentation, and I hope that we disproved the old adage that those who cannot do, teach — at the very least, we got some great feedback from the audience. Speaking of which, here is a picture of the audience that I took before we started (and before the room filed up), so if you were there early, here is what you looked like. (As always, you can click on these pictures to enlarge them.)
For a view from the other side, Detroit attorney Randy Juip was using a selfie stick to take pictures at approximately the rate of one every 10 seconds throughout TECHSHOW. In this picture that Randy took, Randy is at the bottom left, and I see that Jeff Taylor of The Droid Lawyer was in the back of the room as well (bottom right):
The folks at MyCase were nice enough to once again hire Stephanie Crowley to produce live murals based on what was being discussed during some of the presentations. She was there for the presentation that Bjorn and I gave, and here is her graphical interpretation of what we said:
The final session of the iPad track was a presentation that I gave solo called iUse Microsoft Office on My iPad. You should know that the TECHSHOW board picks the titles and subjects before speakers are even invited, so it was not my decision to try to cover all of Microsoft Office for iPad in only an hour. Instead, I gave the briefest of mentions of the Excel and PowerPoint apps and then I jumped into the nitty gritty details of the Word for iPad app, which I think any lawyer would agree is the most important part of Office for attorneys. I had also planned to discuss the Outlook for iPad app, but the Word discussion ended up taking the entire hour. (If you do want some of my thoughts on Outlook for iPad, check out this post.)
Throughout the day, I met up with countless attorneys who use iPads and iPhones, and really enjoyed hearing about some of the interesting ways that they use their devices. It gave me lots of ideas for future iPhone J.D. posts.
I also got a chance to catch up with Ian O’Flaherty, who makes two of the very best apps for litigators who use an iPad: TrialPad and TranscriptPad. Ian showed me some cool new features that will soon be included in TranscriptPad, as well as a brand new app that he is working on. I look forward to trying them out and talking about them on iPhone J.D. when they are released, so stay tuned for some great stuff. Here’s a picture of me with Ian:
On Friday, I visited a ton of booths at the Expo Hall and saw lots of iPhone/iPad software and accessories that I’ll be talking about in the future. I also attended a few sessions. It was interesting to hear Wisconsin attorney Robert Sisson and Florida attorney Rick Georges discuss wearable technology on Friday afternoon. Of course they mentioned the upcoming Apple Watch, but most of their focus was on showing off other smartwatches currently on the market such as those that use Android Wear and the Pebble. Clearly, this market is about to be disrupted in a major way once the Apple Watch starts shipping.
Friday night, Katie Floyd and I hosted a Taste of Techshow dinner. I was too busy talking with everyone at dinner to remember to take a picture, but Katie and I both took pictures when many of us traveled to the dinner — in style, thanks to a limousine that was parked outside of the Hilton and looking for customers:
Thanks to everyone who joined us at our dinner: Judge Joseph Adams and his wife from York, PA; Maureen Blando from Mobile Helix in Silicon Valley; Jacksonville, FL attorney Jim Mullaney; David Roth from the Houston office of Jones Walker; Chicago attorney Eli Stoughton; Gregory Tweed from the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board; Ian O’Flaherty and Tara Cheever from Lit Software (makers of TrialPad and TranscriptPad, and current sponsors of iPhone J.D.); and Katie Floyd’s mom. I know that I speak for everyone when I say that it was a really fun night, and it is a shame that we could only fit a dozen people at our table.
On Saturday morning, I gave the 60 Apps in 60 Minutes presentation that I mentioned earlier this week. My co-presenters were Ohio attorney Joe Bahgat, legal tech consultant Adriana Linares, and Dallas attorney Tom Mighell. Here is a picture that I took of the audience as the room started to fill up, and by the time we were underway, the room was standing room only.
It is always interesting to look at the Saturday morning attendance to get a sense of attorney interest in different mobile platforms. As you can see from this collection of selfie stick pictures from — of course — Randy Juip, there were tons of attorneys interested in the iPhone/iPad, a decent number of attorneys interested in Android, and an incredibly small number of attorneys interested in BlackBerry or Windows mobile devices:
By the way, I see that my co-presenter Adriana Linares was preparing for the Apple Watch by rocking the Casio calculator watch — which she pulls off with much more style then when I wore a similar model as an awkward teenager in the 1980s.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to say hello to me last week; it was great talking to all of you. I hope to see even more of you at ABA TECHSHOW 2016, which takes place around St. Patrick’s Day next year.
This past Saturday morning at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago, I teamed up with Dallas attorney Tom Mighell, Ohio attorney Joe Bahgat and Florida legal tech consultant Adriana Linares to present the 2015 installment of 60 iOS Apps in 60 Minutes. Lots of useful and fun apps were discussed during the session, and the enthusiasm from the standing-room-only crowd was fantastic. I know that the session was fast-paced, so for those of you who attended and who may have missed an app or two, and for those of you who could not make it to ABA TECHSHOW 2015 this year, here is a list of the apps that we discussed.
For the apps that I previously reviewed here on iPhone J.D., I added a link to the app name.
And just in case those 74 apps are not enough for you, you should check out the prior editions of 60 Apps in 60 Minutes. Some of the apps we discussed in previous years are now outdated, but quite a few of them are just as worth checking out today as they were way back when:
2014 — Brett Burney, Chad Burton, Jeff Richardson, Reid Trautz
2013 — there was no 60 Apps in 60 Minutes session that year
2012 — Josh Barrett, Brett Burney, Jeff Richardson
2009 — David Sparks, Ben Stevens, Jeff Richardson, Reid Trautz (it wasn’t yet called 60 Apps in 60 Minutes that year, but there was a similar presentation)
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