There is a KickStarter campaign seeking to raise $100,000 to produce a documentary called App: The Human Story that will discuss the impact of the availability of apps for mobile devices. It’s an interesting idea, and caused me to think about the impact that Apple’s App Store — which turned six years old yesterday — has had on installing software. Software for computers has, of course, been around for years, but most folks rarely saw the need to buy much additional software; they would buy Microsoft Office and the other basics, and then were pretty much done. But now with the iPhone/iPad and the App Store, I see people downloading new apps all of the time, making their devices so much more powerful as they add functionality (and so much more fun as they add games). I suspect that most iPhone J.D. readers have rarely purchased computer software but download iPhone and iPad apps all of the time. And now, the recent news of note:
You can download a free TrialPad 4 Quick Start Guide through the iBookstore by clicking here.
Ben Stevens of The Mac Lawyer notes that the Scanner Pro app, normally $6.99, is on sale for $2.99. Ben names it his “go to” scanner app. I reviewed in in 2012, and it is still my favorite scanner app.
Raw Ward, an appellate lawyer in the New Orleans office of my law firm (Adams and Reese), notes that the U.S. Fifth Circuit has a new website that uses dynamic design to work well on mobile devices.
Every year in December, the ABA Journal publishes its list of the top 100 law blogs (blawgs). The ABA is starting to decide which 100 blawgs to include in this year’s list and is asking for your help in the form of “Amici” submissions. Click on this link if you want to tell the ABA Journal editors about one or more websites aimed at legal professionals that you enjoy, whether it be iPhone J.D. or any other blog. The deadline for submissions is August 8, 2014.
Looking for an external Bluetooth speaker for your iPhone? David Pierce of The Verge looked at the market and concluded that the Logitech Ultimate Ears BOOM was the best. You can get it on Amazon for $179.99.
Transporter is a past sponsor of iPhone J.D., and I talked about the product in this post. I use the product virtually every single day as a way to share secure files between my computers, iPhone and iPad without having to worry about the security implications of cloud services like Dropbox. I mention it now because I see that if you buy a Transporter today from the manufacturer and use the code 500FREE when you checkout, you can get a 1TB Transporter for the 500GB price, a $50 savings.
I’ve never before noticed that the Trapper Keepers and the Apple II computers that I used when I was younger used the same font, but look at that.
For those keeping track at home, this is the 250th edition of In the news. Time flies.
And finally, Apple loves to put together nice videos, and they recently posted a good two minute video showing the thousands of Apple employees and their families who marched in the San Francisco Pride Parade on June 29, 2014. The cards you see folks handing out were $1 iTunes cards. The video is below, or you can click here. The song is A Sky Full Of Stars by Coldplay (click here to buy on iTunes).
Last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson announced in a press release that he was directing TSA to “implement enhanced security measures in the coming days at certain overseas airports with direct flights to the United States.” This past Sunday, the TSA announced that one of the ways that it will do so is that TSA officers at overseas airports will require owners of mobile devices, including cellphones, to show the TSA officer that the device is powered up before being cleared through security on a flight to the U.S. According to the TSA’s press release: “Powerless devices will not be permitted onboard the aircraft.”
When you are traveling, there is a good chance that you will be using your iPhone and iPad extensively. I know from my own experience and from what I have seen of others at airports that there is nothing unusual about using an iPhone or iPad all day long and then by the time you get to the airport, you are out of power. This often results in folks scrambling to find an outlet where they can try to recharge at the airport. But most folks wait to do that until after they pass through TSA security, when they are at the gate waiting for a flight to leave. That approach is not going to work with this new TSA requirement.
The TSA has not announced the specific airports where it will implement this new requirement. Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac says that the requirement has been implemented at London’s Heathrow airport. NBC News reports that smartphones will be subject to “extra security checks on U.S.-bound direct flights from Europe, the Middle East and Africa.”
I’m curious whether this new requirement will actually result in better security. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball points out, couldn’t a terrorist simply pack explosives into a laptop or other device that can still turn on the display?
Regardless, if you are traveling internationally, make sure that you save at least some charge on your iPhone and iPad (and laptop) for when you get to the airport. This is yet another argument for carrying an external battery when you travel so that you can charge your devices. I like the small and portable Powerocks Super Magicstick but there are tons of similar batteries on the market. Also, a travel-sized device like the Monster Outlets to Go Power Strip might also be useful if you need to share an outlet with someone else.
I hope that the TSA doesn’t implement this requirement on domestic flights in the U.S.; I seriously doubt that it would stop a terrorist, but it would surely cause chaos for a lot of travelers.
This month is going to be a relatively quiet time when it comes to iPhone and iPad news of interest to attorneys. Apple previewed iOS 8 last month, but it won’t be out until the Fall. Developers are using beta versions of iOS 8 to prepare new versions of their apps, but that means that those busy developers are not currently releasing many new apps or interesting updates to existing apps. I expect that it will also be September or October before we see new versions of the iPhone and iPad. Perhaps at that time we will also see an “iWatch” or whatever new wearable device Apple has been working on in its labs. And of course, it is the Summer, so lots of folks are taking vacations, which also results in less news. Later this year, there is going to be a lot to talk about, but right now, not so much.
Since we are not currently seeing much that is new, I find myself thinking about the past. I bought my first iPhone in July of 2008. That is also the month in which Apple first launched the App Store; it opened on July 10, 2008 with 552 apps. By the end of 2008, the App Store had almost 15,000 apps. (Today, there are over 1.2 million apps on the App Store.)
Over the years, both the quality and quantity of apps have increased substantially. Even so, there are a few apps that I first downloaded in 2008 that I still use today. These are the apps that have stood the test of time, apps that I still recommend to attorneys who use an iPhone:
The New York Times. The leading newspaper in the country was also one of the first on the iPhone. The app itself is free and lets you view 10 articles a month; you need to pay for a subscription to the Times to read more than that. I have the Sunday Times delivered to my house because my wife likes to browse the paper edition. I rarely touch the paper edition of the Times (except sometimes to get the crossword), but I still enjoy using my iPad, and sometimes my iPhone, to browse and read stories using the New York Times app.
Click here to get the New York Times (free):
Shazam. What the app does is simple: start the app while a song is playing, tap a button, and in a few seconds Shazam tells you the artist and the name of the song. It is incredibly useful, and I still use it today as much as I did in 2008. But what I really remember about using Shazam in 2008 is that it was an early example of an app that made me think that my iPhone was truly magical. For decades, I had heard songs on the radio or on TV or someplace else and wondered what was playing — sometimes when I was discovering new music, and other times when I was trying to remember an artist that was on the tip of my tongue. With the Shazam app on my iPhone, I suddenly had the ability to know virtually every song that was playing at any time. Even today, after using this app for eight years, I’m still amazed that it works. There are reports that Shazam will be integrated into iOS 8 and therefore will be even easier to use this Fall, but for now, the free Shazam app still works quite well:
Click here to get Shazam (free):
The Weather Channel / WeatherBug / AccuWeather. It is always useful to know the current weather and forecast, either in my current city or someplace else, such as a city that I am about to visit to take a deposition. The iPhone has always had a built-in weather app, but you could always get a lot more information with third party apps. The Weather Channel, WeatherBug and AccuWeather apps were the first three weather apps that I downloaded in 2008. While there are now others that I also love to use, these three continue to maintain a spot in the first page of my iPhone’s folder of weather apps.
Click here to get The Weather Channel (free):
Click here to get WeatherBug (free):
Click here to get AccuWeather (free):
Amazon. You can buy just about anything on Amazon, and with the Amazon app on an iPhone, you can carry around in your pocket access to that store that sells just about anything. I don’t remember when Amazon added this feature, but what I like most about the app today is the ability to scan a barcode on an item and instantly see the item on Amazon, making it easy to reorder items or compare prices.
Click here to get Amazon (free):
Wurdle. There are tons of games available for the iPhone. I’m not a huge gamer, but there has always been that one game on my iPhone that I would play when I had some downtime, such as while waiting for an airplane or while looking for something to do before I go to bed. The current iPhone game that fills that need is Candy Crush Saga; I came to that game much later than most others, but I quickly learned how addictive the game can be, and I’m currently at around level 200. But the first iPhone app that I purchased that really stuck to me was Wurdle. It’s an updated version of the Boggle game that I played as a kid (which I see now looks like this, different from the version I remember), and Wurdle a great word game. I may not play it today as much as I did in 2008, but I still turn to it from time to time and it is still fun to play. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it again, I know what I’m going to do when this post is finished.
Click here to get Wurdle ($1.99):
Twitterific. I joined Twitter in October of 2007, but it wasn’t until I got my first iPhone, an iPhone 3G, on July 22, 2008 that I really started to use Twitter.
You can use Twitter on a computer, and sometimes I do that, but Twitter has always been a service that I use primarily on my iPhone and iPad. The first Twitter client that I used and really liked was Twitterific. A few years back, I switched over to Tweetbot, and I don’t use Twitterific very often today, but Twitterific was the app that really started it all for me. The app itself is free, and for a few bucks you can pay to turn off ads, turn on push notifications, etc.
Click here to get Twitterific (free):
DataCase. As I look back at my favorite iPhone apps from 2008, there are two that stand out in the category of gone-but-not-forgotten, the first of which is DataCase. DataCase was the first app that I used extensively to store documents on my iPhone, such as pleadings from my cases, PDF files related to travel, etc. DataCase was also one of the first apps that I ever reviewed on iPhone J.D. (back on November 20, 2008). The app is long-gone from the App Store, and today I use other apps such as Dropbox, Transporter, GoodReader, and others to accomplish the same task, and those apps have far more features than DataCase ever did. Nevertheless, it has always been useful to carry around documents on my iPhone, and that started, for me, with the DataCase app.
Law apps from Cliff Maier. Carrying around pleadings on an iPhone is great, but having quick access to the law on an iPhone is always useful and can sometimes even help you to win a case. Some of the first law-related apps that I used on my iPhone were apps that contained the text of rules and statutes, such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Evidence, etc., created by Cliff Maier, an IP attorney in the Palo Alto, CA office of Mayer Brown. I even posted an interview with Maier in December of 2008. Maier doesn’t sell apps anymore, but I touched base with him again this past weekend and he tells me that he still creates apps just for his own personal use. He also tells me that he considers the Microsoft Office app for iPad the “best thing to happen to lawyers” on iOS. Hard to argue with that.
While all eyes are on this Fall when Apple will release iOS 8, Apple hasn’t completely forgotten about iOS 7. Apple released iOS 7.1 this past March, released iOS 7.1.1 this past April, and yesterday releases iOS 7.1.2. The update fixes a few bugs, but perhaps more importantly, patches a security flaw that was discovered soon after iOS 7.1.1 was released. Apparently with iOS 7.1.1 installed, while emails on an iPhone (and iPad) were protected with encryption, attachments to emails were not encrypted. It was difficult for any hacker to exploit the bug because — unless you were using a jailbroken iPhone 4 — the hacker would have to have physical access to your iPhone and would have to figure out your passcode or otherwise find a way to jailbreak the iPhone, as noted by AppleInsider in early May. My sincere hope is that all attorneys using iPhones have a passcode and are not using a jailbroken device. But even though this hack was difficult to execute in practice, and I haven’t seen any published reports of it being exploited, it was still a security flaw that should have been fixed. I’m glad that Apple fixed it in iOS 7 rather than wait until iOS 8 to get it fixed.
While that was the most prominent security flaw addressed in iOS 7.1.2, Bryan Chaffin of The Mac Observer reports that, according to Apple’s security release notes, 35 security bugs were fixed, such as a security flaw by which a hacker could use Siri to access contacts on an iPhone without a password.
iOS 7.1.2 addresses a few other minor bugs too, such as improving support for iBeacon, a service rarely used today but which may be used more in the future that uses low-power Bluetooth 4.0 to provide your iPhone with alerts and other information based on its location. But the real reason to update is to fix the security issues just in case a bad guy ever gets access to your iPhone, which hopefully will never happen. As Justice Roberts reminded us last week in Riley v. California, an iPhone can contain a lot of private information.
I suspect that all iPhone J.D. readers have installed a software update on their iPhone (and iPad) by now because it is easy to do. You can wait for your iPhone to alert you that an update is available, or you can update now by opening up the Settings app, selecting General, and then selecting Software Update. Then simply follow the instructions to download the update and install it. It takes several minutes to install the update, then your iPhone will reset, and then you are done.
Please be aware that before performing any update on an iPhone or iPad, I strongly recommend that you backup your device. The easy way to do it is to connect to a computer running iTunes, but I know that many people instead backup to iCloud. Either way, you want to make sure that you have a way to restore the data to your device if something goes wrong during the update.
For iOS 7.1.2, this advice is especially warranted. While the update has apparently gone smoothly for most people, be warned that I’ve seen some reports of people having trouble with the update, and I can confirm the problem. While the update worked fine on my iPhone 5s and my iPad Air, when I tried to install the update on my (first generation) iPad mini, my device froze in the middle of the update and I had to do a hard reset on the device (hold down the power button at the top and the home button for about 10 seconds). Depending upon when the problem occurred, you may not have to do anything more, but with my iPad mini I was forced to connect to a computer running iTunes and do a factory restart. It was then easy enough to restore all of the data from a backup, but again, you have to have that backup in the first place. So make sure that you have a backup before you install iOS 7.1.2, and you might even consider waiting a few days to see if Apple does something to address this rare problem with applying the update to some devices.
iOS 7.1.2 was not Apple’s only security update yesterday. Apple has also started to add two-factor authentication to iCloud.com, as reported by Chuong Nhuyen of iMore. I recommend that everyone have two-factor authentication enabled on your Apple ID. (Click here to learn how.) That way, even if someone learns your password and tries to download apps, music, etc. — or more importantly, access your Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents — using your password on a device that is not yours, they will not be able to do so. Once two-factor authentication is turned on for your account, activating a new device requires having access to your iPhone so that you can see the security code sent to it. In other words, a hacker would need both your password and physical access to your iPhone to use your account on a device that you do not own. This makes good sense.
As a result of my crazy schedule last week — depositions. meetings, and a missed connection in Atlanta resulting in me being stuck there overnight — this In the news comes a little later than normal. As we finish up the first half of 2014, there were lots of interesting items in the news over the past week, including a big cellphone-related decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. Last week, the Court unanimously ruled in Riley v California (PDF opinion) that police must obtain a search warrant before examining the contents of a cellphone taken from a person that is arrested. Thus, the Court limited the scope of the search incident to a lawful arrest doctrine, accepting the argument that a cellphone is unlike the contents of your pocket, and can contain information for which a person is entitled to expect privacy. As Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “it is no exaggeration to say that many of the more than ninety percent of American adults who own a cell phone keep on their person a digital record of nearly every aspect of their lives — from the mundane to the intimate.” I agree completely. Lyle Denniston of the SCOTUSblog wrote an analysis of the opinion. And now, the other news of note from the past week:
Ian O’Flahery is the man behind some of the very best iPad apps for lawyers: TranscriptPad and TrialPad. In a post on MacSparky, Ian shows California attorney David Sparks what apps are on his iPad home screen.
The iPhone turned 7 yesterday. As Rene Ritchie of iMore notes, the first generation iPhone went on sale June 29, 2007. My first iPhone was the iPhone 3G that went on sale July 11, 2008. Four months later, iPhone J.D. launched on November 17, 2008.
Apple celebrated Pride Week by raising a rainbow flag at the company’s 1 Infinite Loop headquarters, and Seth Weintraub of 9to5 Mac notes that Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple VP of Environmental Affairs Lisa Jackson, and 5,000 Apple employees and their family marched in San Francisco yesterday. The Apple rainbow T-shirts that they wore to support nondiscrimination remind me somewhat of the original multi-colored Apple logo. As Glenn Fleishman remarked on Twitter: “A world in which gay kids see [the] Apple CEO fully embracing Pride Week, posing with employees, is a piece of Making Things Better.”
Mike Beseley of 9to5 Mac reports that Apple has apparently started updating data in the Maps app every morning at 3 am.
Kate Renner of KSTP reports that a two-year-old used Siri to call for help when her mother fainted. She told Siri “Call Emergency” and the phone dialed 911. (via iMore)
A few days ago I reviewed the CaseMaker Pro, a device that lets you use whatever picture you want on an iPhone case. My wife owns a neat cutting device called the Silhouette Cameo — sort of like a printer that cuts paper instead of printing on it, a useful and fun product for any tech-savvy crafter in your life. She pointed out to me that folks who own a Silhouette can follow these instructions to do the same thing. And as she told me that, I think I heard the song “Anything you can do, I can do better” playing in the background, but that may have been just my imagination.
And finally, if you are of my generation, then you probably have fond memories of using a Trapper Keeper when you were in grade school. Kensington this week introduced the Mead Collection Folios to give you an iPad case with the Trapper Keeper look.
I recently reviewed three of the best active iPad styluses on the market (1, 2, 3), styluses that use tiny tips (around 2 mm or so) but which require power (battery or rechargeable) and are somewhat expensive ($50 to $75). But what if you just want a traditional stylus, one that is less expensive and that you can use without worrying about turning it on and making sure that there is a charged battery? There are probably hundreds of styluses on the market with 6 mm tips (some of which you can buy for less than $1 each), but for best results, I recommend that you instead go for a higher quality stylus with a 5 mm or smaller tip. It makes using a stylus with an iPad a much better experience. The one that I have used and recommended for years is the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo, which you can get on Amazon for about $25. But several iPhone J.D. readers recommended that I also check out the Hand Stylus. The manufacturer sent me a free sample to review, and I’ve been trying it out for the last two weeks. I’m so glad that so many of you recommended that I check out this product. It is a fantastic stylus.
Origin
The Hand Stylus was started as a Kickstarter campaign in 2012. The goal was to create a stylus with the smallest possible tip that the iPad can recognize (around 4 mm), plus make the tip retractable by pressing a button on the back, plus make the stylus itself out of a high-quality anodized aluminum with lots of colors in a hexagonal barrel that reminds you of the feel of a Number 2 pencil. The creator sought to raise $25,000 on Kickstarter; instead he raised over $300,000 from over 7,500 backers. Clearly, there were folks excited about the idea.
The Kickstarter campaign is now long over, and you can buy a Hand Stylus directly from the manufacturer for $24.95, or you can get one on Amazon for $21.99 (with fewer colors available). They come in blue, pink, orange, green, red, black, silver or purple. The manufacturer sent me a black one.
Tip
The Hand Stylus has a great tip. There is a big difference between using an active stylus with a tiny 2 mm tip and a traditional stylus with a larger tip. The small tip on an active stylus gives you the great sensation of precision, much as if you are using a real pen. All other things being equal, I would prefer to use an active stylus with a much smaller tip.
But if you are going to use a traditional stylus with a larger tip, the one on the Hand Stylus is very good. At 4 mm, the tip on the Hand Stylus is about as small as you can get on a non-power stylus. By comparision, the original Wacom Bamoo Stylus duo had a 6 mm tip, and the second generation has a 5 mm tip. However, in actual usage, I don’t notice much difference between the Hand Stylus and the Wacom Bamboo Stylus in terms of the size of the tip. I did notice that the tip on the Hand Stylus is a little bit softer than the tip on the Wacom Bamboo Stylus, so I have to apply just slightly more pressure when using the Hand Stylus. If I go back and forth between the two, I slightly prefer the tip on the Wacom, but both work very well in normal usage. Both of these products are about as good as you can get with a tradtional stylus.
In the following picture, the first generation Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo is at the top; the Hand Stylus is at the bottom:
The marquee feature of the Hand Stylus is that the tip is retractable. This certainly sets it apart from any other stylus that I have ever used. In theory, it sounds like a great feature. Stylus tips are soft rubber and could certainly be cut or otherwise broken if something sharp makes contact. By simply clicking the button to retract the tip, the tip is protected.
In practice, I question how necessary this feature really is. In my many, many years of using lots of different iPad styluses, I have never once encountered a problem because the tip was exposed. Having said that, I can certainly imagine a scenario in which an exposed tip would get damaged but a retracted tip would not. One minor disadvantage of the Hand Stylus is that if you forget that you have not yet exposed the stylus and you go to write on your iPad, you might touch your iPad screen with the metal at the end of the stylus. I did that only once, and then quickly pulled the stylus off of the screen and clicked the button to expose the nib tip.
One unexpected benefit of the retractable tip that I discovered is that sometimes when I was feeling fidgety, it was somewhat calming to be able to press the button on the back of the stylus on and off and on and off again, much like I now realize that I’ve sometimes done with other pens.
Barrel
I prefer the feel of the barrel on the Hand Stylus over the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo. The hexagonal barrel on the Hand Stylus feels really nice, and reminds you of a Number 2 pencil. The knurled collar near the tip of the pen ensures that the stylus doesn’t slip in your hand. The Hand Stylus weighs just slightly more than the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo (my measurements showed the Hand Stylus at 26 grams and the Bamboo at 25 grams). Put it all together and the Hand Stylus feels like an expertly engineered premium product. My father is an architect, and as a child I used to like to go to his office and play with all of the neat drawing tools on his drafting table — high quality pencils and pens, drafting templates that could be used to create perfect circles and squares, etc. The Hand Stylus reminds me of the high-quality mechanical pencils I would always find on my father’s drafting table.
The Hand Stylus has a clip at the end, which makes it easy to put it in a shirt pocket or a pocket in your purse or briefcase. But if for some reason you don’t want the clip, you can remove it. (The Bamboo Stylus duo also includes a removable clip.)
A real pen: the Hand Combo
One feature of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo that I like is that it also contains a real pen under the cap. That’s what makes it a “duo”. So any time that I am in a meeting with just my iPad and my stylus, if I need to write something on a piece of paper, I also have a pen with me. It is far from the best pen in the world — it’s just a simple ballpoint pen — but it works fine when you need it.
The Hand Stylus lacks a pen. Instead, the manufacturer sells a different product called the Hand Combo. The Hand Combo has a 6 mm stylus tip on the back of the pen and has a twist-to-use ballpoint pen tip on the front. The company sent me a free review sample of the Hand Combo so that I could try it out in comparison to the Hand Stylus. In my tests, I didn’t like the Hand Combo at all.
First, when I use a stylus, I want to primarily use it as a stylus. But with the stylus end on the back of the pen, the stylus function of the Hand Combo feels like almost an afterthought, and the stylus is much less comfortable to hold upside down — unlike the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo, which feels great in either direction because the pen top with a clip fits on either end of the stylus. Second, the larger 6 mm tip is not as nice as the 4 mm tip on the Hand Stylus. I can’t think of any reason that I would recommend the Hand Combo over the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo for anyone who wants a pen included in their stylus.
Extra tips
The rubber nibs that form the tip over a stylus will eventually wear out from use, so all of the high-quality styluses on the market give you the ability to buy replacement nibs instead of buying a whole new stylus. You can buy a set of six replacement tips for the Hand Stylus for $9.95. They come in a round metal container, which is a nice change from all other manufacturers that seem to just send the nibs in a tiny plastic bag that you are more likely to lose in your desk drawer. The company sent me one so that I could see how it worked, and replacing tips was very easy to do.
In theory, because the tip of the Hand Stylus rotates every time you click the back, the tip on the Hand Stylus should wear more evenly on all of its sides even if you hold the stylus the same way every time. You would have to use a Hand Stylus and another stylus in the same way for a long time to determine whether the nib on the Hand Stylus does actually last longer as a result of these rotations. I obviously haven’t done that after just two weeks of use, but this does seem like another potentially nice feature of the Hand Stylus.
Conclusion
The Hand Stylus is a wonderful stylus. It does a great job writing on the iPad screen, it looks and feels really nice in your hand (better than any other stylus that I have ever used), and it is reasonably priced for such a high quality product. It doesn’t have the tiny tip that you find on an active stylus, but it costs much less and you don’t have to worry about giving it power. If you are in the market for a traditional stylus, this is an excellent one to get.
Two of my favorite iPad-using attorneys — Tampa, FL attorney Katie Floyd and Irvine, CA attorney David Sparks who together host the great Mac Power Users podcast — wrote this week about an iPhone dock that they both like called the EverDock. Katie’s article is here, and David’s article is here. I haven’t used the EverDock, but based on what both of them had to say, it sounds like a nice product.
What I instead use is the dock that Apple makes and sells. I reviewed it last year, and it is called, appropriately enough, the iPhone 5s Dock. (It also works with the iPhone 5.) Apple doesn’t sell it on Amazon, but you can get it directly from Apple for $29.00, which is cheaper than the EverDock that Katie and David use (normally $49.99, but currently on sale for $39.99). Note that if you use a case, the Apple dock will probably not work; it is molded to the shape of the naked iPhone. Note also that with any of these docks, you need to furnish your own USB-to-Lightning cord. And also note that many other companies sell docks that work with an iPhone.
The advantage of the EverDock over the dock sold by Apple is that it is designed to be a universal dock so it should work with future versions of the iPhone. My iPhone 5s Dock will almost certainly not work with whatever new version of the iPhone that Apple releases later this year. As I noted in my review of the iPhone 5s Dock, I’ve purchased many other docks for other iPhone models over the years.
I mention all of this today because Katie and David’s articles remind me that a dock is one of the best iPhone accessories that an attorney can buy — or anyone else who has a job that involves spending a lot of time working at a desk. When you have a dock on your desk, you have a central place to put your iPhone when you are working, so you never need to worry about it getting lost under a bunch of papers. And because docks hold up the iPhone at a nice angle, you can always see the screen while you are working, a nice way to see alerts for new emails, new text messages, calendar appointments, or whatever other alerts you have enabled on your iPhone. And best of all, because docks are made to have a cord attached that runs to a USB port (either on your computer, or on a power supply), your iPhone charges whenever it is sitting in the dock. So when you pick up your iPhone from the dock to head off to a meeting out of the office, chances are your iPhone will have a 100% charge and you don’t need to worry about running low on power.
If you don’t already own an iPhone dock, you should seriously considering getting one. It is an accessory that you will find useful almost every single day.
Except for a short period of time when I occasionally used the Apple bumper for the iPhone 4, I have never used a case for my iPhone. Yes, this means that I have gotten some minor nicks and scratches on the edges on my iPhones over the years, but I figure that they just add character. I prefer to keep my iPhone as small and light as possible, and I like the way that an iPhone fells in my hand without a case. That’s probably the reason that I haven’t reviewed an iPhone case in over three years. So when the folks behind the CaseMaker Pro offered to send me a free sample of their product for a review, I had some doubts about spending time with a case on my iPhone so that I could review it. But now that I’ve used it for a while, I have to admit that this is a pretty neat product. Originally an IndieGoGo campaign, it is now a shipping product that lets you use any picture as an iPhone case. If you want a case for your iPhone — and based on what I see around me, it seems like most attorneys do use a case — and you want a versatile way to make it both unique and changeable, you’ll want to look at the CaseMaker Pro.
The CaseMaker Pro consists of two devices. First, you get an iPhone case. It is a slim design case with a black silicon edge. The case does not cover the front of the phone, so you can touch your iPhone screen just like normal.
There is a slot opening for the mute switch, and the case includes buttons you can press which push in on the iPhone’s built-in volume up/down buttons and power on/off button.
There is also an opening for the speakers, microphone and the Lightning port on the bottom. Be warned that the opening for the Lightning port is very small. I was able to use the USB-to-Lightning cord made by Apple that came with my iPhone, but most of the third party Lightning cords in my possession had bases that were too big to fit through this hole in the case, so I had to remove the case to use the cable, which was annoying.
The second part of the CaseMaker Pro is the photo cropper, a stainless steel stamp with 14 blades. This is a substantial, heavy unit, not unlike the industrial-strength three-hole punch that you might have your office.
When you place a picture in the photo cropper and then firmly push down, the stamp cuts the outline of an iPhone and a hole for the camera and flash.
Take the stamped picture, place it in the case and then the picture will appear on the back of your iPhone.
Sometimes you have to experiment to get your stamped picture just right. If you want something precisely centered, or if you want to precisely align something right at the edge, you may want to experiment with how your crop a picture before you print it, and you may want to print out more than one picture, so that you can try a few times. When you place a picture in the photo cropper, the photo cropper does not show you precisely where your picture will be cut. But once you get the photo cropped like you want it, the end result looks nice.
My favorite feature about the CaseMaker Pro is that there are infinite possibilities. You can use any of your own pictures. You can use a picture in a magazine or a catalog. You can find a picture on the Internet and print it out. You can cut out pretty much any picture you can find as long as it is thin enough. So this means that if you want to have your iPhone stand out and grab people’s attention, you choose a colorful, eye-catching image. Or you might want to use a picture of your kids or your spouse or your pet. Or you might want to use a picture of your favorite team, actor, band, superhero, college, sportscar, or product. Or you could use a company logo. Or a pattern. And if you ever get bored with your picture, just make a new one. Your son just brought home the class turtle to take care of for a few days? Take a picture, and bingo, you have another iPhone case.
Thus, with the CaseMaker Pro, you don’t have to worry about being stuck with the leopard-print pattern that happened to strike your fancy when you were in the Apple Store buying your iPhone. You can change your picture as often as you like.
At first, I thought that the CaseMaker Pro would be best for folks who want to make a bold statement with their iPhone by using a picture that stands out in a crowd, but there is nothing stopping you from using a picture of a simple, dark, muted background. With the CaseMaker Pro, the back of your iPhone can look however you want it to look. You are limited only by your own imagination and creativity.
The CaseMaker Pro is designed for the iPhone 5 and 5s. If you upgrade your iPhone when Apple releases the new 2014 model later this year, I seriously doubt that the iPhone size will remain the same. Thus, this product is unlikely to work with your next iPhone. Of course, this is true with almost every iPhone case since Apple tends to change the shape of the iPhone every two years. And when I get a new iPhone later this year, if I pass on my current iPhone to my daughter to use (without a SIM chip) for entertainment purposes during a long car or plane ride, she will be able to select any picture or design that she wants to customize the look of the case just for her. (Were she to pick a picture today, I strongly suspect that it would be a character from Frozen; all of you who have six-year old girls know what I am talking about.)
If you like the idea of a slim profile iPhone 5/5s case that can look like anything you want and is infinitely changeable, then the CaseMaker Pro is a fun and useful product.
I frequently take handwritten notes using my iPad and a stylus. People sometimes ask me why I’m not just typing my notes, using an external keyboard. Sometimes I do, such as if I am in a meeting or monitoring a deposition and I want to capture as much as possible, almost as if I am transcribing. But I’ve often found that my notes are more helpful to me when I take them by hand. I have far fewer words on the page, but my handwritten notes capture what is most important. It turns out that I’m not alone in thinking this way. This week, Minneapolis attorney Sam Glover of Lawyerist.com wrote about new research confirming that taking notes by hand is often better than typing. It’s a fascinating article and worth reading. And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:
Speaking of Lawyerist.com, this week the site produced a list of every iOS app created for lawyers. The site explains that some apps are purposely excluded (such as apps not updated in the last few years and apps that simply republish free content such as statutes), and once you take those out, I couldn’t find any apps missing from the list. Of course, there are also lots of incredibly useful apps for lawyers that are not created specifically for lawyers, such as Microsoft Word for iPad, Fantastical, 1Password, etc.
Attorney Andrew Weber, the Legislative Information Systems Manager for the Law Library of Congress, tells me that Congress.gov was updated this week with new information and the ability to save your searches. As I noted when I reviewed the site in 2012, the website works well on a mobile device. You can get more information on the updates in this post by Weber.
If you find that your iPhone or iPad is clinging to a weak Wi-Fi signal when it should instead be using 4G LTE, you can always turn off Wi-Fi to force your device to get off of Wi-Fi, but California attorney David Sparks explains why it may be better to toggle Wi-Fi off and then on again.
Erika Aguilar of KPCC (Southern California Public Radio) discusses a Los Angeles trial court that is giving jurors iPads to us to view evidence.
One of my favorite Apple Stores is the one inside of Grand Central Terminal in New York. What I like most about it is that this high-tech store greatly respects the traditional architecture of the building. Kevin Baker wrote an interesting article this week about how Grand Central Terminal was almost demolished. It’s an good read. (via Daring Fireball)
Harish Jonnalagadda of iMore writes that EA has cut the price of many popular games by up to 90%. For example, Battleship (normally $4.99), Monopoly (normally $9.99), Trivial Pursuit (normally $4.99) and Mirror’s Edge (normally $9.99) are each just $0.99 for a limited time. Click here to see all of EA’s games in the App Store.
Apple has done a lot to make it harder for a thief to steal your iPhone. For example, you can use Find My iPhone to locate and remotely erase your device. Brian Chen of the New York Times reports that, according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneidermn, these changes have resulted in a huge decrease in iPhone thefts.
Jason Gilbert of Yahoo Tech shows off some of the best photos of the year taken by an iPhone. These pictures may happen to have been taken by an iPhone, but they are just great photos, period.
This week, Matt Richtel and Brian Chen of the New York Times wrote a profile of Tim Cook’s tenure as Apple CEO. The analysis in the article suffers from many flaws, but the article does includes some interesting information including statements from Jonathan Ive, the head of design at Apple. I actually preferred reading the edited transcript of the interview with Jonathan Ive.
And finally, here is a short video of a woman wearing x.pose, which purports to be a “wearable data-driven sculpture that exposes a person’s skin as a real-time reflection of the data that the wearer is producing.” In other words, the more that you use your iPhone to share information about yourself, the more that this corset makes you naked. Mariella Moon of Engadget has some details, you can get more information on the x.pose website, or you can just click here or below for the video.
This week, a new fund-raising campaign launched on IndieGoGo to raise money to produce the oPhone DUO, a hardware accessory and app for the iPhone that lets you send someone a scent. The idea is that Person #1 takes a picture and then tags the picture with what he smells — much like when you sample a wine and then say that you smell hints of blackberry, chocolate, and oak. Then Person #1 sends that tagged picture to Person #2, who can see the picture on his iPhone and can — thanks to the connected oPhone DUO hardware — also smell the scent that was described by Person #1 because the oPhone hardware device can create over 300,000 different aromas. The product is being developed by David Edwards, a Professor of Engineering at Harvard, and some of his former students. This video does a nice job of explaining how it works:
When I initially saw this video for the oPhone, my first thought was that this is such a quirky idea that it would be perfect for the offbeat video that I typically post at the end of my Friday In the news posts. But upon further reflection, I’ve begun to think more seriously about what the oPhone might tell us about the future.
None of us are old enough to remember a time before the telephone was invented, but for those who encountered a telephone for the very first time, I imagine that it must have seemed incredible to hear the voice of a loved one from across the country. I am old enough to remember a time before cellphones, and I remember that when my father first brought home one of those large, clunky devices that debuted in the 1980s, it seemed amazing to me to be able to talk to someone wherever they were, even if they were far away from a house or a payphone. (For younger iPhone J.D. readers, here is a link to the Wikipedia entry for payphone so that you can read up on this device that you may have never used.) It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of taking a high-quality picture on a mobile device and then instantly sending it to someone else around the world seemed futuristic. And today, with my iPhone, I can easily have FaceTime videochats with people around the world, even if both of us are in the middle of parks. We now live in a world where sights and sounds can be instantly shared from anyone to anyone.
Which brings me back to the oPhone. I’m not sure that the oPhone itself will ever be commercially popular; the device would be far more interesting if it could automatically sense a smell and then recreate that exact scent for someone else without relying on people to choose the right words to describe an aroma. Nevertheless, it makes me wonder about what may be coming in the future. Will our children be using mobile devices that can instantly transmit not only sights and sounds, but also smells? Tastes? Or even the sense of touch, so that you could send someone a handshake or a hug or a kiss? It all seems pretty unbelievable right now, but if Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson were around today to see what I can do with my iPhone 5s, I suspect that they would be astonished.
