Jeff Richardson

Josh Adams is an immigration attorney in San Francisco.  Before he went to law school, he was a software developer, so he knows a thing or two about computers.  As a practicing attorney, he was frustrated with existing methods for accessing resources used by immigration lawyers.  Books are heavy to carry around, and websites can be difficult to use when you are on-the-go and don’t let you easily jump to specific parts of the statutes.  Thus, he decided to make an app.  He took advantage of Apple’s free iTunes U to take a Stanford class on making iOS apps, he created the code for his own iPhone app, he hired a graphic designer to help him create some icons, and the result is the new Immigration app.  The app costs $24.99 and contains the text of the Immigration & Nationality Act and 8th Code of Federal Regulations, presented in a way that makes it easy to search each individual subsection of the INA and CFR, jump between corresponding sections of the INA and CFR, and bookmark specific subsections — all in an app that works even if you don’t have Internet access.

There are five buttons at the bottom of the screen that you use to navigate the app.  The first button, INA, contains the text of the INA.  Slide your finger up and down the left side of the screen to scroll through sections.  When you find the section you want, tap the plus icon to see the subsections.  The window containing the text of each subsection stays the same size, so to see all of the text, you slide your finger up and down in the middle of the screen.  With the default text size, you can see about 3.5 lines of text at a time.

 

This is the first time that I have seen an app that doesn’t display all of the text of a subsection of a statute at once, and to be honest, at first I had serious reservations about the need to scroll up and down just to see all of the words.  However, after playing around with the app for a while, the approach does grow on me a little.  One advantage is that it is very easy to see where a particular subsection lives in the context of the statute as a whole.  In other words, it helps you to see both the forest and the trees at the same time.  Having said that, sometimes you just want to see all of the words, and Josh tells me that in the upcoming version 1.1 of the app, you can long press on any subsection to cause that subsection to come up in a full screen scrollable window of its own.  He showed me a video of how it will work, and I like it.

If you tap on the text of a subsection, a menu lets you copy the text in that subsection, create a bookmark for that subsection, or jump directly to the corresponding section of the CFR.  Jumping to the CFR brings you to the second area of the app, which works the same as the first area but which contains the CFR instead of the INA.

 

If you want to search the INA and CFR, use the search box at the top of the screen.  The app will then take you through each subsection in which the word is found, with large arrows at the top to navigate through search results.  The individual search term is not highlighted in the subsection so you just need to scroll up and down until you find your search term in the text.

Tap the Settings button and you can change the font size.  You can also turn on Dynamic Type, which is helpful if you previously established a default preference for the text size in apps, a process that I discussed in this post from last October.  You can also turn sounds on and off in the app.

 

The above screenshots show the app running on an iPhone 5s, but this is a universal app so it will also work on your iPad.

I think it is a great idea for attorneys to have an iPhone/iPad app that contains the text of the law that is important to your practice.  As a litigator, I frequently use apps that contain the text of applicable rules of civil procedure, both when I am in court and when I am working at my desk.  This Immigration app is a perfect example of the type of app that I consider so useful.  My only reservation about this app was the use of fixed-size windows for displaing text, and as noted above, this will be addressed in an upcoming update.  I particularly like how easy it is to jump back and forth from the INA to the CFR.  If you are an immigration attorney, I suspect that you would find this app to be quite useful in your law practice.  Kudos to Josh Adams for seeing a need, learning how to address it, and then coming up with a solution — a workflow utilized by good lawyers every day.

Click here to get Immigration ($24.99):  

Thank you to Clio for sponsoring iPhone J.D. in 2014.  Clio offers web-based practice management, time & billing and client collaboration services (including document management) for small and mid-sized law firms.  When you use Clio, your important client data is securely accessible anywhere that you have Internet access.  You can access Clio in a browser, or you can use the Clio app to access Clio from your iPhone. 

I discussed the Clio app when it was introduced last year.  Not only is it useful, but it also has a beautiful design that matches the aesthetic of iOS 7. 

 

If you swipe the screen from right to left you access the Awesome Dashboard, which shows your upcoming events and tasks.  It also has a timer at the top to make it easy to track your billable hours even if you are away from the office.  A recent update to the app added a Document options menu.  When viewing an image, long press to bring up the menu; for other document types, tap the bottom of the screen.

Clio also helps lawyers by offering regular webinars.  For example, Joshua Lenon of Clio recently teamed up with the amazing Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase, to provide some advanced legal research tips.  You can read about it, see the slides and even watch the entire webinar here.

Thanks again to Clio for supporting iPhone J.D., and for everything else that the company does to providing cutting edge assistance for lawyers.

This weekend I was listening to California attorney David Sparks and Florida attorney Katie Floyd on their great podcast Mac Power Users.  They were discussing the 1Password app, which is one of those rare apps that has completely changed how I use my iPhone, iPad and computer and which I recommend to everyone.  (My review is here.)  1Password makes it easy to have different, complex passwords without you needing to worry about remembering them, plus it also provides a secure vault on your iPhone (synced with your iPad and your computers) in which you can store any confidential information that you want — personal medical information, sensitive information related to your representation of a client, the password for the Wi-Fi at your Mom’s house, etc.

Katie Floyd mentioned one tip on the podcast that I thought was brilliant, and now I see that she blogged about it last year:  creating a digital wallet.  The idea is to scan the front and back of all of the important cards that you keep in your wallet such as your driver’s license, credit cards, medical cards, car insurance, etc.  You can use a scanner if you have one attached to your computer, or just take pictures of your cards with your iPhone and sync those to your computer.  You are likely to have entries in 1Password for all of those items anyway (create one if you don’t) and then attach the images as file attachments for each entry.  Note that you need to use 1Password on your Mac or PC to add attachments; the current version of the iPhone and iPad apps can view attachments but cannot add them.

Because these images are stored in 1Password, they are incredibly secure, so you don’t need to worry about someone picking up your iPhone and looking at all of your card images.  Indeed, those images in 1Password are going to be much, much more secure than the cards in your wallet which could be swiped by a pickpocket.

 

Next, create a folder in 1Password called Wallet.  Finally, go to each of your entries to which you have attached an image from your wallet and tap the button at the top to add a shortcut to the entry in your Wallet folder.

Once you have created this digital wallet, if you ever lose your real wallet, you have easy access to a copy of every important card that was in your real wallet in the digital wallet folder within 1Password on your iPhone and iPad and computer.  Plus, just looking at the list of items in the Wallet folder will remind you of what was in your wallet.  Depending upon the card, the image may or may not be sufficient to use in lieu of the card, but at least you will have all of the information on the card, and having the images will help you to replace your lost cards quickly.  For example, the back of credit cards will tell you the number to call to replace a lost card.

After I heard this tip, I immediately went to my computer and scanner and did the same thing.  The whole process took me only about 20 minutes, and most of that time was because I was trying to be fancy and put the front and back of the cards in a single file.  That wasn’t really necessary because 1Password lets you attach multiple files to a single entry.

Thanks to Katie and David for the useful tip.  If you use 1Password, I encourage you to create your own digital wallet.  And if you don’t use 1Password or another password management app, now you have yet another reason to do so.

Click here to get 1Password ($17.99):  

John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote a great article on the 30th anniversary of the Mac.  He focuses on how Apple employees really think through the details — something that was true not only for the first Mac in 1984 but also for the first iPhone in 2007, and subsequent generations of both.  The article is called “Special” and you’ll find out why when you read it.  And now, the rest of the news of note from this week:

• San Francisco attorney Morgan Smith explains how you can use the Personal Hotspot function on your iPhone to create a private WiFi zone in a courtroom so that you can using an iPad and an Apple TV to give a presentation.  I haven’t had an opportunity to try something like this in a trial, but I’m glad to hear that it is working for others.
• Ohio attorney Joseph Hada provides tips for using an iPad to give presentations in this article (PDF file).
• Sacramento attorney Randy Singer provides a list of options for reading Microsoft Word files on the iPad in a post on The Mac Lawyer website published by South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens.
• Los Angeles attorney Mary Der-Parseghian created a $5 app called CourtDial that has court and judge information so that you can easily look up addresses and phone numbers.  For now it just contains California state court data, but she plans to add information for courts in other states.
• If you need to use an iPhone or iPad when you are outside in the cold weather,  you’ll want gloves that keep your hand warms but that also work with a touchscreen.  Clifford Agocs reviews the best options in this article for The Wirecutter.
• Starwood, which runs the hotel chains W and Aloft, is testing a new system that lets you use your iPhone as a room key, as reported by Shane Cole of AppleInsider.
• Dan Moren of Macworld explains how to schedule recurring events on an iPhone or iPad.
• And finally, if you want a way to carry both your iPhone and forms of payment without being obvious about it, the Push from Dapperbox is an iPhone case that includes a hidden wallet compartment that can hold three cards (license, credit card, etc.) or two cards and some folded cash.

If you ever practice in federal court, then using PACER is a part of your job.  PACER websites typically let you select a mobile option so that you can access PACER on an iPad or an iPhone, but the experience isn’t ideal.  You cannot save your username or password, it is difficult to manually enter case numbers, and every time you access a docket sheet or a document you have to pay to do so.  Matthew Zorn, an attorney at a large New York law firm, decided to do something about that, so he spent nine months writing a useful and beautifully designed app that he calls DkT.  The DkT app is free and can access PACER for federal appellate, district and bankruptcy courts. 

When you first use the app, tap the house icon at the bottom left to save your user name, password and default client number information.  The app then saves and encrypts that information for future use, although you can logout when you want.  Zorn tells me that the app interacts directly and only with PACER/ECF, so no third party (including Zorn) ever sees your password.

Once logged in, you can use one of the three main parts of the app, each of which is selected by tapping the tab on the right:  Search, Bookmarks and Documents.

You use the Search screen to find a case.  The available fields or Case Type, Region, Case Number, Date Filed, Date Closed and Party Name, and you can use as few or as many of those fields as you want.  The Region is organized by federal circuit, so when I selected the Fifth Circuit I was able to find both Eastern District of Louisiana cases that I am working on and a single Southern District of Mississippi case where I am admitted pro hac vice.

Once you find your case you can view the docket.  Docket entries are clearly displayed on the left.  You can use a finger to scroll up and down.  You can also scroll up with two fingers to quickly jump to the top, and scroll down with two fingers to quickly jump to the bottom to see the most recent entries.  If this is a case that you will access in the future, tap the bookmark icon above the docket entries. 

When you are at the top of the docket list, you can pull down on the entries to review a search bar, where you can search for specific entries.  When you are at the bottom of the docket list, you can pull up to refresh with any more recent docket entries (which will incur PACER charges).

To see a particular document, tap on an entry on the left to see the document on the right.

It is easy to view a document on the screen.  Buttons at the top right let you print the document, save the document, or email the document.  If you have previously saved a document, a disk icon appears next to the entry so that you know that you can view it again without having to pay PACER to download a fresh copy.

If you want to open the document in another app that reads PDF files, you cannot currently do that directly from this screen; you do it from the Documents section of the app, discussed below.

The second part of the app is the Bookmarks section.  Tap the large Bookmarks tab on the right of the main screen to see the cases that you have previously bookmarked while you were looking at the docket entries.  This gives you a fast way to access a case without having to perform another search.

There are two ways to look at a bookmarked case.  If you tap the disk icon you will see a saved version of the docket sheet.  This is a nice function because you can view a docket without having to pay PACER to download it again — something that you cannot do when you use PACER in the Safari app.  If you want to view both saved docket entries and all of the newest entries in the docket, then tap the second icon.  PACER will charge you for the new entries.

The third part of the app is the Documents section.  This is where you will see all of the documents that you have previously saved, each organized by case.  You can tap on a document to view it again (without having to pay PACER to download a new copy).  You can tap and hold on a document in the list to choose to open the document in another app on your iPad that can read PDF files.  If you want to send all of the documents from a case at one time, tap the paperclip icon to create and email a .zip file with all of the documents.

This app is probably most useful on an iPad where you can read a document on the large screen, but it works on the iPhone too.

 

PACER is a useful service, but the biggest complaint is its cost.  For example, every time you view a docket sheet, you need to pay to download the docket sheet.  And over time, as docket entries grow, that gets more expensive.  DkT is built with cost saving and accessibility in mind.  For example, as explained above, you can bookmark a docket the first time you view it, and then in the future the app only downloads new entries to limit your additional PACER expenses.

Speaking of costs, Zorn spent a lot of time creating this app, and yet he is giving it away for free.  He even made the code open source so that other app developers can learn from his work.  I asked Zorn about this, and he told me:  “There are two main reasons why I chose to publish it for free and open source.  First, I used a lot of open-source code myself, and used a beautiful, free icon set, which is the only way I could have produced a high quality product on my own.  Second, this is my first major iOS release, and I’m looking for users, not money.”

DkT is obviously a version 1.0 app and I see room for future improvement.  For example, I’d like to be able to open a document in another app without having to first save the document and then go to the Documents tab.  I’d also like a quick way to access recently viewed cases even if I forgot to bookmark them.  But these are minor issues, and DkT is without a doubt the absolute best way to access PACER on an iPad or iPhone.  If you practice in federal court, download this app now so that you have it whenever you need it.  And thanks to Matthew Zorn for creating such a useful app for the legal community.

Click here to get DkT (free):  

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This article won the LitigationWorld Pick of the Week. LitigationWorld is a free weekly email newsletter that that provides helpful tips regarding electronic discovery, litigation strategy, and litigation technology.

Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2014 fiscal first quarter (which ran from September 29, 2013 to December 28, 2013, and did not actually include any days from calendar year 2014) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results.  This is typically Apple’s best quarter of the year because of holiday sales.  It turned out to be Apple’s best fiscal quarter ever, with revenue of $57.6 billion and profit of $13.1 billion.  Indeed, Apple set new records for iPhone and iPad sales.

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 concerned about 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:

• Apple sold a record 51 million iPhones last quarter.  By my count, as of December 28, 2013, Apple had sold over 472 million iPhones.
• There were two new iPhones for sale last quarter.  The good news is that Apple couldn’t make enough of the iPhone 5s.  If you want to be a pessimist, reading between the lines, it does seem based on yesterday’s conference call that Apple had expected to sell more iPhone 5c devices then they actually did last quarter.  Indeed, outside of the Apple Store, I’ve only seen a single person using an iPhone 5c — albeit a very important person.  (Hi, Mom!)
• Apple executives indicated that they are excited about future iPhone sales.  One reason for excitement:  just last week, the iPhone became available on China Mobile, the largest cellphone network in the world with around 750 million subscribers.
• Apple sold a record 26 million iPads last quarter.  Apple did not disclose how many of those were iPad minis, but it did say that throughout the quarter it could not make enough iPad minis to keep up with demand.  By my count, as of December 28, 2013, Apple had sold over 195 million iPads.
• Apple says that 7 million iPads to date have been sold to U.S. educational institutions.  And this football season, Apple says that nearly every NFL team is using iPads as playbooks instead of three-ring binders.
• That means that Apple has now sold over 667 million iOS devices to date.  Apple is now two-thirds of the way towards being able to say that it has sold a billion iOS devices. 

• The App Store now offers over 1 million apps.  Based on data previously released, over 30% of those are native iPad apps.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook emphasized that Apple wants to sell a lot of iPhones and iPads to companies:  “It’s clear that the enterprise area has huge potential, and we’re doing well from a percentage of companies that are using iPhone and iPad.  It’s up to unbelievable numbers.  The iPhone is used in 97% of the Fortune 500 and 91% of the Global 500, and iPad is used in 98% of the Fortune 500 and 93% of the Global 500.  And we have a number of accounts … that have tens of thousands of iOS devices working.  And also, as I think was mentioned earlier, 90% of tablet activations in corporations are iPads.  And 95% of total app activations were on iOS.  And I think that’s an incredible measure of ultimately how sticky the products are because you can get so much productivity out of an iPad and an iPhone.  And so I think the road in enterprise is a longer one.  The arc is longer than in consumer, which can immediately go out and buy things, etc.  And I think we’ve done a lot of the groundwork as you can tell from these numbers that I’ve given you, and I would expect that it would have more and more payback in the future.”
• In prior calls, Apple CEO Tim Cook has indicated that Apple has a new type of product that it is working on.  In April of 2013, Cook indicated that it would likely come out in late 2014.  When asked yesterday whether the plan was still to come out with something new by the end of 2014, Cook said simply:  “Yes.  Absolutely.  No change.”  Who knows what that new product will be, but now that 2014 has started, the countdown clock (perhaps an iWatch countdown clock?) has started.

I don’t use a case with my iPhone because I prefer not to add any bulk or weight to it.  That means that my iPhone lacks the protection of a case if I drop it, which of course I have done, but I have avoided any major calamity over the years, and I figure that minor nicks and scratches just give it some character.  Having said that, I’d obviously rather not drop the iPhone at all.  The Maxxable is a small clip that attaches to an iPhone and provides two rings that you can put your fingers in to reduce the risk of your iPhone falling out of your hand.  The company sent me a free review unit of this $14 product and I’ve been trying it out for the last few weeks.  The product works and is useful.

The Maxxable is a plastic clip, available in black or white, that firmly attaches to the sides of your iPhone.  Simply fit your iPhone into one side and then push down to snap the other side. 

The inside of the Maxxable, both the back and the edges, has a soft foam rubber to provide some cushion against your iPhone.

The back of the Maxxable has two rings which are attached to a ball and socket joint.  Place two fingers in the rings and you can easily use your thumb for one-handed operation of the iPhone.  The rings spin 360º so you can hold it in just about any position.

The website says that it doesn’t matter if the rings fit down around your knuckles.  I have larger hands, the Maxxable doesn’t fit around my knuckes, and I often find myself wishing that it did.  If the Maxxable offered a larger ring size as an option, I would get it to be a little more comfortable in my hand.  Nevertheless, the device works well enough with just the top of my fingers in the Maxxable. 

In my tests, the Maxxable has worked well.  I have a much better grip when I hold my iPhone using the Maxxable versus just holding the iPhone by itself.  I’ll admit that I have on occasion worried about whether the plastic ball and socket joint will fail over time with use; hopefully that is just me being paranoid. 

When not in use, It is easy to remove the Maxxable.  Or you can keep it attached and fold down the rings, which snap to either side.  In that position, the Maxxable doesn’t add much thickness and adds virtually no weight so it is easy to slip an iPhone in your pocket even when the Maxxable clip is attached.

The Maxxable website advertises that you can also use the device as a kickstand to prop up your iPhone.  In my tests, that has not worked well because it is easy for the rings to turn in the ball and socket joint, which causes the iPhone to fall down.  Get the Maxxable to use it as a way to hold your iPhone; don’t buy it just because you are looking for a kickstand.

I wish that the Maxxable was a little more comfortable in my hand, and if you have smaller hands you may have better luck.  But the Maxxable still works well, and at $14.00, the device is inexpensive enough that it is worth you considering it if you don’t use an iPhone case and you want a way to minimize the risk of an iPhone slipping out of your hand.  You can find a version that works with the iPhone 4 / 4s / 5c on Amazon, but if you want a version for the iPhone 5 / 5s you currently need to get it directly from the manufacturer.

Click here to get Maxxable from the manufacturer ($14.00).

I am a big fan of all of the new features in iOS 7, but one thing that I don’t like is that my home screen will sometimes reboot.  I know that I’m not the only one to have this problem, and this week Apple told the news organization Mashable:  “We have a fix in an upcoming software update for a bug that can occasionally cause a home screen crash.”  I’m glad to hear that a fix is coming soon.  And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:

• Minneapolis attorney Sam Glover of Lawyerist.com reviews three apps that you can use to annotate PDF documents on an iPad.
• South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens of The Mac Lawyer says that the Adonit Jot Script is his favorite iPad stylus.  I testing that stylus now and will post my thoughts in an upcoming review.
• California attorney Scott Grossberg recommends apps for accessing documents and other information when you don’t have an Internet connection.
• California attorney David Sparks reviews the Belkin QODE iPad Air keyboard case.
• John Moltz reviews the Zagg Keys Cover for the iPad Air, another combination keyboard and case.
• Thirty years ago, Apple introduced the Macintosh.  I remember when I first saw the Mac, and I was amazed by the graphical user interface and the overall friendliness of the computer.  Four years later, in 1988, I used the money I made working a summer job during college to buy my first Mac, and I’ve been buying Apple products ever since.  Jason Snell of Macworld interviewed three Apple executives to talk about the 30 year anniversary, and the iPhone and iPad were a part of the discussion too.  And tonight at 6:30 Eastern, Apple CEO Tim Cook will be interviewed on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer to talk about the 30th anniversary.
• Fantastical 2, a calendar app, is one of my favorite iPhone apps.  I loved the first version when I reviewed it in December of 2012, and now version 2 offers even more features.  Steven Owens of The Sweet Setup recently declared it the best calendar app for the iPhone.  The app is currently on sale for $1.99, a 60% discount, so if you haven’t checked it out yet I strongly encourage you to do so now.  Click here to get Fantastical 2 ($1.99):  

  

• LogMeIn has long been my favorite remote access software.  I use it all the time to access the PC in my office from my Mac at home and vice versa, and to access both my PC and my Mac from my iPad or iPhone.  For a long time you could use many of the features for free, but this week LogMeIn announced that they will now charge yearly subscriptions to use the service.  This has made some people upset, but I agree with Florida attorney Rick Georges of FutureLawyer who points out that the service is worth paying for.
• Planning to buy an iPad Air this weekend?  Lance Whitney of CNet reports that Best Buy is cutting the price of the iPad Air by $50, but the sale only lasts today and tomorrow.  The iPad Mini is $30 off.
• Brent Dirks of AppAdvice notes that this week Apple updated the Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps.
• And finally, I recently reviewed the Powerocks Super Magicstick, a small tube-shaped charger for the iPhone and iPad.  If you like the idea of using that sort of product but want access to not just battery power, but also the Dark Side of the Force, Brando is now selling the Star Wars Darth Vader Lightsaber Portable Battery Charger for $49.90.  The Force is strong with this one.

You can do a lot of interesting things with an iPhone, but until recently it never occurred to me that an iPhone could be a laser pointer.  But then the folks at Conary Enterprise sent me a free review sample of the iPin,  a tiny laser pointer that fits into the headphone jack of an iPhone and is activated by an app.  Why might you want to add a laser pointer to your iPhone?  I’ll admit that the first justification that occurred to me was that I could do my best Dr. Evil voice and brag that my iPhone had a frickin’ laser beam attached to its head.  But the real answer is that many folks like to use an iPhone to run a presentation on a computer, and since some of the best presenter remote controls have a laser pointer built in, the iPin adds that same capability to your iPhone.

Hardware

The iPin hardware is only  .75″ long and it fits into the headphone jack of your iPhone.  Using an app (discussed below) you press a large button on your screen and a red laser shoots out of your iPhone. 

I tested the standard model.  I see that there is also an extended model that sticks out from the iPhone just a tiny bit more to accommodate iPhone cases that are less than 2 mm thick.

The technical specs say that the iPin uses a Class II 635 nm laser pointer.  According to Wikipedia, that is a good thing:  “The least expensive laser pointers use a deep red laser diode near the 650 nanometers (nm) wavelength. Slightly more expensive ones use a red-orange 635 nm diode, more easily visible because of the greater sensitivity of the human eye at 635 nm.”  I cannot comment on wavelengths, but I will tell you that from my tests, the laser is more than strong enough to remain very bright across a very large conference room like the one that you might use when giving a presentation.

The iPin is so small that the package comes with a plastic white square that holds the iPin so that it doesn’t get lost in your briefcase.  The iPin really is quite tiny, and there were a few times that I lost it for a minute when it was sitting on my desk (without that white square) and got buried under papers.

However, you might not even need to use that white square because the iPin is so small that you can actually just keep it plugged into your iPhone whenever you go to give a presentation.  I kept an iPin plugged in for an entire week in which I flew to another city for a meeting for two days just to see what it was like to have the iPin in my iPhone for a long period of time.  It was fine.  I sometimes noticed the iPin, but it only sticks out of the iPhone just a little bit so it wasn’t uncomfortable when I put my iPhone in my shirt pocket.

You might fear that keeping an iPin plugged in risks having a laser beam shoot out of your iPhone by accident.  Fortunately, there are three reasons that isn’t going to happen.  First, the laser beam only activates when the app is running and you hold down your finger on the iPhone screen.  Second, when you are not using the iPin, you can turn it 90 degrees which disables it.  Here is a picture of the iPin in my iPhone when it is in the off position.

Third, if you exit the app without turning off the iPin by rotating it, your iPhone will show an alert reminding you to do so.

Software

One part of the iPin software is the app that runs on your iPhone.  When you first start the app on an iPhone 5 or 5s, you will notice that it is upside down, but that actually makes sense because the headphone port (and thus the iPin) is on the bottom of the iPhone, so you hold your iPhone upside down when you use the iPin and thus see the app in the correct orientation.

The main use of the app is to activate the laser.  Just tap anywhere on the screen.  The large circle in the middle of the screen gains a red glow to alert you that the laser is on, as does a yellow warning triangle.

 

The app also shows you the current time, your remaining battery life, and an optional countdown timer if you want the app to help you know when you are getting close to the end of your allotted time for your presentation.  Speaking of battery life, the iPin gets its power from your iPhone.  The website states that it uses the same amount of power as playing a song.  I would not dispute that; I did not notice any major battery drain while using the device.

If that was all that the iPin did, it would be little more than a novelty that you might use to amuse (or annoy) friends and pets.  As noted above, the goal of the iPin is to help professionals giving presentations.  Thus, you can download free software for your Mac or PC that allows the iPin app to control your computer as long as you are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.  Simply swipe left and right on the iPhone screen to advance to the next of previous slides of a presentation.  The app also lets you use your iPhone as a wireless remote to control your mouse cursor and click. 

I tested the Mac software with the iPin and it worked as advertised.  My only complaint was that I sometimes lost a connection, and I don’t know if the iPin software was at fault or it was just a problem with my Wi-Fi network.  Fortunately you can tap a few buttons on the app to reestablish a connection.  Note that there was also a single occasion when even that didn’t work and I had to quit and then restart the iPin software on my Mac.  But for the most part it worked well, and it was very nice to be able to control a presentation on my Mac using just the iPhone in my hand, and any time that I wanted to emphasize something in a slide by using the laser pointer, I simply held down my finger on the iPhone screen to activate the laser.

Is this iPin right for you?  I give presentations all the time, but it is very rare for me to do so from a computer.  Instead, I typically use the Keynote app on my iPad and connect my iPad to a VGA projector, swiping my iPad screen to advance slides.  Keynote even includes a virtual laser pointer; simply tap and hold on a part of your iPad screen and a bright red dot will appear there so that they audience will see a red dot similar to, but less bright than, a real laser pointer.  So for me, I can’t imagine many times when I will have a need for an iPin. 

But if you give presentations using a Mac or PC and you like the idea of controlling the presentation using a handheld device, the iPin is a reasonable alternative to buying a handheld presenter that includes a laser pointer.  Those products appear to cost around $35 on Amazon, and you can get the iPin on Amazon for $40.  For the slight difference in price, you gain the ability to not have to carry around another device that you need to keep track of and keep charged with fresh batteries.

And you also gain the knowledge that your iPhone has a frickin’ laser beam attached to it.

Click here to get the iPin from the manufacturer ($56.00)

Click here to get the iPin from Amazon ($39.99)

If you bill by the hour like I and many (most?) other attorneys do, the start of a new year means the resetting of your personal odometer — zero hours to date out of the total number of hours that you plan to bill during the year.  Many of us divide our billable hour goal by 12 to have a rough sense of how much we need to bill a month, or divide by 52 to have a rough sense of how much we need to bill a week, but of course that is not very precise because it doesn’t not take into account vacation days, personal days, holidays, etc.  Elliott Mason, a non-attorney who holds a Ph.D. from MIT, is a patent agent at the Boston law firm Occhiuti & Rohlicek LLP.  A few months ago, he created an iPhone app called BillablePlan that helps you to perform precise billable hour calculations.  The app costs a $2, or you can get a free version of the app that includes ads and is missing an auto-update feature.  Mason sent me a free review copy of the full version of the app so that I could check it out.

To use the app, you first need to tap on the Settings button at the bottom right and give the app your data.  This includes your billable hours goal for the year, the number of day that you work in a workweek (presumably five), the hours that you have already billed this year, the number of firm holidays remaining in the year and the number of personal days left in the year.  Then you select a Calculation Period for all of the calculations that the app will make for you.  The most useful one is “Auto Update” (available in the paid version of the app) which means that every time you start the app it makes calculations from the current date to the end of the year.  Another useful one is “Full” which makes calculations for the entire year, regardless of how many days have already passed.  There are some other things you can adjust in Settings for more advanced calculations.

 

Once you have finished in Settings, you can start making some calculations using the other three buttons at the bottom of the screen.

The Vacation button lets you calculate how many vacation days you can take in a year based on how many hours you plan to work, on average, every workday.  For example, if I tell the app in Settings that my annual billable hour goal is 2000 hours and that I have already billed 80 hours this year, the Vacation calculator tells me (as you can see below) that as of Jan. 19th, if I work an average of 8.5 hours every workday I can take 10 vacation days on top of my 12 holiday/personal days.  If I instead tell the app that I will bill an average of 9 hours a day, the app tells me that I can take 23 vacation days.

 

On the other hand, if in Settings I tell the app that I plan to bill 1800 hours this year, I can now bill 8 hours each workday and still get 21 vacation days in addition to holidays/personal days.

The second calculation button is called Work Hours, and it performs a calculation from the other direction — if you plan to take a certain number of vacation days, how many hours do you need to bill on each of your workdays?  In the next example, with a 2000 billable hour goal selected in the Settings, I tell the app that I plan to take 10 vacation days.  The app tells me that to do that I will need to bill 8.5 hours a day.  If I instead tell the app that I’d like to have 15 vacation days, the app tells me that I will have to bill 8.7 hours every workday to meet my 2000 billable hour goal.

 

Finally, the app has a Progress button that simply shows how many days are remaining in the year and— based upon what you put in the Settings — how many hours you have left to bill in the year.

If you are interested in being able to make precise billable hour calculations, BillableHours is a helpful app.  You can download the free version to get a feel for how the app works, and if you like it, you’ll definitely want to pay $2 to get rid of the ads and to enable the useful Auto Update function.

Click here to get BillablePlan Free (free):  

Click here to get BillablePlan ($1.99):