Jeff Richardson

Back in 2012, I reviewed an app called Reader HD by a company called Naverage, created by German attorney Maren Reuter and her husband who is a software designer.  I was very impressed with the way that the document displayed Microsoft Word .docx documents — better than any other iPad app — but at the time (and this is still true today) so much of my practice involved working with Microsoft Word files in the older .doc format that I didn’t use the app very much.  Reuter has now updated her app to add a number of improvements that attorneys are going to love.  First, the app now works with both .doc and .docx files, so you can use it with all of your modern Microsoft Word documents.  Second, the app improved the way that it displays tracked changes, and as you will see below, I think that this is now the very best app you use to view the “redline” tracked changes in a Microsoft Word document.  Third, the interface of the app was updated for iOS 7, and the name was changed as well; instead of Reader HD, the app is now called Reader 7. 

Viewing Word Documents

Unlike other apps that work with Word files such as Apple’s Pages and Dataviz’s Documents to Go, Reader 7 is not a word processor.  You cannot use this app to edit a Word document.  The app only displays Word documents so that you can read them on your iPad.  Of course, the iPad already has a built-in viewer for Word documents; simply tap a Word document attached to an email and you can read it without using another app.  But when you do so, the formatting is often wrong, footnotes are not displayed, tracked changes are not displayed, comments are not displayed — suffice it to say that it is just a peek into the text of the Word document, not a good way to display the Word document as it was intended to be seen. 

Many other apps give you more features than the built-in viewer when you view Word documents.  For example, the latest versions of Pages and Documents to Go can both display tracked changes, footnotes and comments.  But they still do not display documents perfectly, the same way that the document would look on a computer, and thus margins will sometimes look incorrect and you will sometimes see other quirks in the document.  For example, in my 2012 review, I included some images to show you how a table of contents displays when viewing a Word file on a computer, using the iPad’s built-in viewer, in Quickoffice, in Office², in Documents to Go and in Reader HD.  At the time, Reader HD did the very best job showing you the document the way that it is supposed to look, and that still remains true today.  Footnotes, indents, headers, footers — everything looks the way that it is supposed to look.

For example, I created a simple memorandum that has a header at the top with a privilege statement and my firm logo.  The iPad’s built-in document viewer showed me the logo, but put it in the middle instead of the right where it is supposed to be, and messed up the formatting in the “TO” “FROM” “DATE” and “RE” lines.  I could still read everything, but it just doesn’t look the way it is supposed to look:

In Apple’s Pages app, the firm logo isn’t shown at all.  The formatting at the top is better than the built-in viewer, but the title “MEMORANDUM” is too high.

Documents to Go just removes the header completely.  Not a big deal, but I’m not seeing the document the way that it was supposed to be seen:

Office² does a great job with the document header, but still makes some mistakes in the formatting of the “FROM” and “DATE” lines at the top, and doesn’t display the line that is between the “RE” and the body of the document.

Reader 7 does an excellent job of displaying the memo the way that it was supposed to be seen:

The menu bar at the top of the screen is not very obtrusive, but if you tap the icon with the arrows you can hide it completely so that the document fills your iPad screen:

This is just one example of how a document displays better in Reader 7 than other apps, but I tested many other documents, and every single time, documents displayed best in Reader 7.  Sometimes another app would be just as good, and even when I saw problems in other apps those problems were often just formatting quirks that didn’t stop me from reading all of the text in the document.  Nevertheless, in all of my tests, Word documents in Reader 7 looked closer to the way that they are supposed to look.

Navigating Pages

When you are reading a document in Reader 7, you swipe up and down to view the rest of a page.  To go to the next page, you swipe from right to left, and you swipe from left to right to go back a page.  The app includes a nice animation when you move pages; the page rotates somewhat to the bottom right.

One thing that I do not like about this app is that when you change pages, you continue to view the same part of the page.  Thus, if you are at the bottom of page 4 and you swipe to go to page 5, you are first presented with the bottom of page 5, and you need to swipe to get to the top of the page.  I wish that there was at least an option to automatically go to the top of a page when you move forward in a document, and automatically go to the bottom of a page when you go backwards in a document.

Track Changes

Back when this app was called Reader HD it did a nice job showing tracked changes, but there is a new approach to redline edits in Reader 7 that is excellent.  The main part of the screen shows the document as it would look with changes accepted, with new text underlined and with a small triangle indicating where text was deleted.  A panel to the right gives you more details on the changes, with the new text underlined and the deleted text struck through.  Comments are displayed at the bottom of the right panel.

If you tap in the main text near an edit, the panel on the right jumps to that spot.  For example, you can tap next to a triangle to see the text that was deleted.  If you tap on a word in the panel on the right (either an edit or a comment), the document darkens with a highlight on the line that contains that word.  This makes it easy to look at changes or comments in the right panel and then quickly see where that change or comment occurs in the document.

Reader 7 assigns a color to each author’s edits.  You can tap the word Settings to change the color assigned to an author.  For example, Reader 7 assigned the color yellow to edits in one of my documents, and I found yellow hard to see, so I changed that author to red and another author to blue to make the changes more obvious.

Accessing Files

You can send a file to Reader 7 using the “Open in…” option in any other app.  For example, just hold down on an email attachment to get the option to open the document in Reader 7.  And Reader 7 can also send a document to any other app. 

If you tap the word Files in the menu bar you see a list of all files you have opened in Reader 7.  Tap another file name to view that file.  Unfortunately, I don’t see a way to delete files from the file list.  [UPDATE:  Reuter tells me that an option to delete files will be added in an update.]

Speaking of files, in addition to Word .doc and .docx files, Reader 7 can also view PDF files.  However, there are tons of apps that do a great job viewing PDF files and I didn’t see any unique advantage to viewing a PDF file in Reader 7.  On the other hand, I did like that Reader 7 can turn a Word file into a PDF file, something that not many other iPad apps can do.  In my tests the PDF files that it created were often quite large — as much as ten times the file size that I would get if I created a PDF file from from the same Word file using one of the many programs that can do this on my PC or Mac.  Nevertheless, it is nice to offer this feature in an iPad app.

The app currently lacks built-in Dropbox support, but it is easy enough to use the Dropbox app to open a file in Reader 7.  Having said that, Reuter says that built-in Dropbox support is already in the works and should be in an updated version of the app just a few weeks from now. 

Etc.

If you use an IMAP mail server, Reader 7 can access your emails and display a list of emails that contain Word documents.  I wasn’t able to test that feature because my law firm uses Exchange.

Reader 7 gives you the ability to assign hashtags to documents so that you can later use those hashtags to find documents.  For example, you might assign #smith to all documents in the Smith case, and then you can later filter the file list to only show documents with that tag assigned.  I didn’t test this feature much because it isn’t a feature that I see myself using.

I had a few problems with the app crashing.  It did not happen very much, but once it did result in a file that could no longer be opened — I got an error saying that the file wasn’t closed properly.  Because this is just a document viewer, this kind of crash is no big deal — just go back to wherever you got the file from and open it in Reader 7 again.  I mention this only because app crashes are a pretty rare occurrence on my iPad, and apps like Pages have been rock solid for me.  Hopefully the bugs will be ironed out soon.

Bottom Line

If you need to edit a Word document, you need to look elsewhere [UPDATE: at least you need to look elsewhere for now; document editing is planned for a future, paid update to the app].  I myself currently use Pages or Documents to Go, and sometimes Microsoft Office Mobile (an iPhone app but it runs on an iPad) to edit Word files on my iPad.  But if you just want to view a Word file, Reader 7 does a better job displaying Word files than any other iPad app.  Virtually every time, the document on my iPad looked the same as the document in Word on my PC and the same as the printed version of the document.  This alone is a great reason to use Reader 7.

In addition, Reader 7 does a great job displaying redline edits in a document created using the track changes function.  Some people might prefer the way that redlines are displayed in Documents to Go in which all edits are displayed in the text itself, with additions underlined and strikeouts for deletions.  But I like the way that Reader 7 focuses on how the document will look with the edits made, while also giving you the ability to quickly see in the right panel exactly what was added and deleted.

Put is all together, and Reader 7 is the very best app for displaying Word documents on an iPad, including documents with tracked changes.  Considering how important it is for attorneys to read Word documents on an iPad, especially Word documents with edits in redline, Reader 7 is an app that almost every attorney will want to have on their iPad.  I suppose this should come as no surprise considering that the app was created by an attorney and her husband.

The app used to cost $2.99, but it is now free.  I actually wish that Reuter would charge for this app to reward her for her efforts and give her an added incentive to continue to improve the app.  [UPDATE:  Reuter tells me that her plan is for this to be a free reader app, and then in the future she will add the ability to edit documents as an in-app purchase.]  Considering that the best Word viewer app is free, I can’t think of any reason for you to wait to get this app.

Click here to get Reader 7 (free):  

The Notification Center in iOS 7 gives you the ability to allow apps to give you a banner style notification alert.  I don't let many of my apps interrupt me, but usually I do like seeing banner notifications at the top of my iPhone screen when I receive a new email.  It is nice to be able to quickly glance at the banner to decide whether the email needs my immediate attention, and if not, I can go right back to whatever I was doing on the iPhone.  After about five seconds, the banner notification goes away.  If you don't already have this feature enabled, open the Settings app and go to Notification Center to turn it on.  For example, here is the screen to turn it on for a Mail account:

Most of the time, a banner notification is a great and unobtrusive way for you to receive a notification.

Most of the time, but not always.  There are many times when I need to tap the top of my iPhone screen in an app — such as to tap a button at the top, or to tap at the very top of the screen to scroll up to the top of a long list — and right at that very moment that I was about to tap the top of the screen, an email banner notification shows up, covering up the very spot that I was about to tap.  The five seconds that the banner stays on the screen, right on top of where I want to tap, seems to last an eternity.

Fortunately, there is a quick way to dismiss a notification banner.  Place your finger on the banner and then swipe up.  This gesture flicks that banner alert right off of your iPhone screen, so it is no longer covering up the top of your iPhone.  Make sure that you don't tap the banner and lift your finger up — that will select the banner notification and bring you right to that email message (or bring you right to whatever other app sent you the notification).  But if you just flick it off, it quickly gets out of your way.  Before iOS 7, you had to pull down and then flick back up to do this; in iOS 7 you can now just flick up.

Learning that quick little action, a simple flick of a finger at the top of the screen, has saved me a lot of aggravation.  If this tip is new to you, I hope that you find it as useful as I do.

We are only in the second month of the year, but I’m already looking forward to this Fall to find out what new product Apple has been working on.  Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke to Daisuke Wakabayahi of the Wall Street Journal yesterday.  The focus of the story is Apple repurchasing $14 billion of its own shares, but what especially interested me is that Cook also confirmed that Apple will be releasing a new type of product this year.  Cook said:  “There will be new categories. We’re not ready to talk about it, but we’re working on some really great stuff.”  Most expect this to be an iWatch, and I look forward to learning what it is and what it does.  Apple seems to be pouring a ton of resources into this new product, and the last two times that they did something new, we got the iPhone and the iPad.  And now, the news of note from this week:

• If you are in or near New Orleans and you don’t have lunch plans on Tuesday February 18, then why don’t you join me for this month’s LSBA Tech Tuesday CLE?  For $25 you get lunch from 11:30 to 12:00 and then I’ll present a 1 hour CLE on using an iPad in the practice of law.  Click here for more information and to sign up.
• No matter where you are, I’d love to see you at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago March 27 to 29.  I talked about why you should considering attending TECHSHOW last month, and I mention it again today because early bird registration discounts end on Monday, February 10th.  So if you want to come and you want to save $200, register now.  You can download the full conference brochure in PDF format by clicking here.
• South Carolina attorney Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer updated his iPad app recommendations for lawyers.
• Texas attorney and e-discovery expert Craig Ball discusses mobile device discovery in this article for Law Technology News.
• South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens of The Mac Lawyer reviews the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad mini.
• Jeff Abbott of The Sweet Setup interviewed California attorney David Sparks to find out what is on his iPad.
• Nick Heer picked VSCO Cam as the best iPhone photo editing app in an article for The Sweet Setup.  I take lots of pictures on my iPhone but I usually edit them on my Mac at home using Photoshop Elements, not on my iPhone, so I myself don’t have a favorite iPhone photo editing app.
• And finally, Apple recently released an amazing video called 1.24.14 that honors the 30th anniversary of the Mac by showing people around the world using Apple devices.  The video itself is worth watching, and you can click here to do so, but the story-behind-the-video is even better.  First, I suspect that Apple considered making this a Super Bowl commercial, for the reasons noted by Ina Fried of Re/code.  Remember that the Mac debuted with a Super Bowl commercial in 1984 that many consider the best commercial of all time.  Second, the making of this video is a great story.  The entire video was shot by 15 camera crews around the world, all on the same day, all taking video with an iPhone, all orchestrated by director Jake Scott, the son of Ridley Scott who directed Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl commercial.  This video explains how it was done.  Very neat:

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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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).