Jeff Richardson

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):  

Sorry for the delayed In the news post this week; I first had to finish up the papers for the sessions I’m teaching at ABA TECHSHOW in March.  It’s been fun working with my co-presenters, and as we brainstorm and collaborate, I’m getting very excited for the conference.  I hope to see many of you in Chicago.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Illinois and Wisconsin attorney Nerino Petro discusses the pros and cons of lawyers using an iPhone or an Android phone in an article for the Wisconsin Lawyer magazine.
• Daniel Sockwell, a student at Columbia Law School, suggests in an article in the Columbia Business Law Review that you make some changes to how you write your brief if you know that the judge will be reading it on an iPad (as more and more judges are doing nowadays). (via Sara Austin).
• John Edwards of Law Technology News recommends time and billing apps.
• If you are looking for a really cool way to share photos, videos and text that you write, check out the new (free) iPad app called Storehouse.  Find more info on Storehouse.co.  Neat stuff.
• Michael Andronico of Yahoo Tech shows off 15 bizarre iPhone cases.
• MG Siegler explains that if you want to use a tablet in place of a computer, you need to give up some of you old habits.
• Gregory Schmidt of the New York Times reviews the Typo Keyboard for the iPhone 5, a device that aims to add a BlackBerry-like hardware keyboard to the iPhone.
• Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal also reviews the Typo Keyboard.
• The iPhone is now available on China Mobile, the biggest cellphone carrier in the world.  Paul Mozur of the Wall Street Journal interviews Apple CEO Tim Cook to discuss the implications.
• And finally, wouldn’t it be nice if your iPhone or iPad could make you a cocktail?  Now it can.  The new Perfect Drink from Brookstone is a scale that attaches to the headphone port on your iPhone or iPad.  You place a glass on the scale and a special app tells you how much to pour of each ingredient.  If you overpour, the app helps you to adjust other ingredients.  The app can also suggest recipes based on the ingredients you have at your bar, you can add your own recipes, and it works with any size glass you put on the scale, so you can make an entire pitcher of a cocktail if you want.

Here on iPhone J.D. and when I speak at seminars about integrating an iPhone and iPad into a law practice, I frequently talk about the best iOS apps and strategies for working with Microsoft Word files.  From time to time, I am reminded that not all lawyers use Word as their primary word processor.  There are still some attorneys who prefer to use WordPerfect.  Moreover, even attorneys who use Word for their own drafts sometimes encounter WordPerfect files, either from opposing counsel or from a court.

The iPhone and iPad cannot natively view WordPerfect files, but a few years ago, LawBox came up with an app called WPD Viewer that let you view WordPerfect files in iOS.  The app does not let you edit WordPerfect files, but you can select some or all of the text and copy it and paste it into a new document created with another app such as Pages.  I reviewed that app in 2010.  Corel, the company that sells WordPerfect, liked the idea so much that it purchased the right to sell WPD Viewer and, effective January of 2011, renamed the app WordPerfect Viewer.

For three years, Corel sold an iPhone version of the app for $4.99 and an iPad version for $5.99.  Unfortunately, Corel did not introduce very many new features during that time — just some minor things like adding folders in late 2012.

As of January of 2014, the app is now back in the hands of LawBox, the original developer.  California attorney Nicholas Zeltzer, the founder of LawBox, tells me that he has already updated the app for iOS 7, and I see that the app does now have a new look on both the iPad and iPhone.

Zeltzer also tells me that more updates are planned for the future.

[UPDATE:  Zeltzer tells me that unlike the original transition from LawBox to Corel, those of you who purchased the Corel version of this app need not pay again to get the upgrades.  LawBox inherited all of the users of the Corel version of the app.]

The WordPerfect Viewer app is a useful tool to have on your iPhone or iPad, especially if you use WordPerfect in your law office, but also if you are just someone who encounters WordPerfect files from time to time.  I’m happy to see that the app is back in LawBox’s hands, and I look forward to seeing future updates to the app.

Click here to get WordPerfect Viewer for iPhone ($4.99):  

Click here to get WordPerfect Viewer for iPad ($5.99):  

Thank you to Connected Data and Drobo, maker of the Transporter, for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month.  Last year, the company sent me a review unit to check out the product when it first sponsored iPhone J.D., and now I use it every day and recommend it to other attorneys all the time.  It is a great solution if you want many of the advantages of Dropbox — such as having your files available online 24/7 and the ability to have your files synced between all of your computers and mobile devices — but you also want (1) to have a lot of storage without paying the high fees charged by Dropbox and (2) you want the security of knowing that your data is only stored on hardware that you control, not on a server located who-knows-where controlled by others.  I wrote extensively about how the Transporter works in a three part series last year (1, 2 and 3) and I also talked about the product last year when Connected Data was nice enough to give away two free Transporters to two lucky iPhone J.D. readers (Nashville attorney J. Britt Phillips and Maryland attorney Jack Sturgill, Jr.).

But as much as I wrote about the Transporter during the first half of last year, a lot has changed since then.  First, the company expanded the hardware line.  You can now buy the original Transporter (the cone-shaped device) that I reviewed last year in three sizes:  $199 for 500 GB, $249 for 1 TB or $349 for 2 TB.  Additionally, the company sells the Transporter Sync, a small device that costs only $99 and to which you connect your own USB drive of whatever capacity you want.  The Transporter Sync looks like the Transporter with the top part chopped off — which actually makes some sense because the top part of the Transporter is where the hard drive is stored.

New hardware is nice, but what really makes this a better product now is the improved version 2.0 software that came out in the middle of 2013 and has been updated many times since then.  The new software is much easier to use and is similar to using Dropbox.  You simply have a folder on your computer in which you can store your files and folders.  Files are stored on your local hard drive (so that they open and close quickly) but are also copied to your Transporter hard drive and from there are shared to your other devices — just like Dropbox, except that the online version of your file is stored on a hard drive located in your secure office.  Or if you want, you can use a folder on the Transporter called the Library.  If you put a file in the Library, a local copy is not kept on your computer.  You can still access it whenever you want from whatever computer or device that you want (more slowly because you are accessing it from a network) but it doesn’t take up space on your computer’s hard drive.  For example, if I have a large video file or a huge number of large exhibits that I might want to access in the future but are so large that I don’t want then taking up space on my work computer and synced to my home computer, I just put them in the Library on my Transporter.  Note that the Library function currently only works with the Transporter, not the Transporter Sync, but the company announced that this feature will soon be added to the Transporter Sync. 

In my practice, I use both Dropbox and a Transporter.  I use Dropbox to store my not-so-confidential files, such a complete copy of pleadings (in PDF format) for all of my cases, papers I am working on for CLE conferences or other presentations, miscellaneous pictures, etc.  I like that so many apps can easily sync with Dropbox, such as GoodReader on my iPad.  (I’d love to see GoodReader add direct Transporter support.)  But when I want to sync documents between my office and home computer and my iPhone and iPad that are more confidential, I put them on the Transporter.  I can easily access those files by just opening up the Transporter folder on any of my computers or by using the Transporter app on my iPhone and iPad.  I feel secure knowing that no third-party has access to any of my confidential documents.  I also use my Transporter to use lots of other large documents that I probably could put in my Dropbox but I have so much space on my Transporter drive that it is just as easy to keep it there.

Which reminds me — before I used a Transporter, the size of my Dropbox went over 20 GB, the limit of the free Dropbox service, so I had to pay $100/year to upgrade to a 100 GB a year Dropbox Pro account.  But I now have hundreds of GB of space on my Transporter so frankly I no longer need the Dropbox Pro account.  If you are thinking about getting a Transporter, as you consider the price — $100 for the Sync up to $349 for the 1 TB model — remember that if you have a lot of files you will be paying between $100/year for the 100 GB version of Dropbox up to $500/year for the 500 GB version of Dropbox, so the Transporter (which has no recurring fees after you purchase the hardware) ends up being less expensive at the same time that it is more secure and offers more storage space.

If you own a single Transporter, you have multiple copies of your files — a copy on the local hard drive(s) of whatever computer(s) you sync to Transporter plus the copy on the Transporter itself — so that if any one hard drive crashes you still have a backup elsewhere.  I actually have two Transporters — one located in my office and one located at my home — and they are set to automatically sync to each other so that even if the hard drive in one Transporter fails (and remember, all hard drives eventually fail, so backups are essential) the other one is ready to go.  This is also a good way to have a backup copy of the files in my Transporter Library because remember those files only live on the Transporter so as to not take up space on your local hard drive.

As you consider your online storage options, I urge you to take a look at Transporter and Transporter Sync.  They are great products that have worked very well for me.  You can buy them from the company and pay $10 shipping and handling, or if you are an Amazon Prime customer with free shipping, it might be cheaper for you to get one through Amazon.

Click here to get Transporter Sync ($99.99 from Connected Data / $104.67 from Amazon)

Click here to get Transporter ($199 to $349 from Connected Data / various prices from Amazon)

Seven years ago yesterday, on January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone to the world.  It would not go on sale until June 29, 2007, and according to behind-the-scenes reports (such as this great article by Fred Vogelstein) it was a miracle that the the unit that Jobs showed off on January 9th worked at all, but that was the day that Apple changed how people would think of a smartphone.  In 2008, Apple started selling third party apps, and this week, Apple announced that it has now sold over $10 billion worth of apps, including over $1 billion just in December of 2013.  Quite a bit has happened in seven years!  And now, the recent news of note:

• New York attorney Nicole Black recommends “must-have apps” for a lawyer’s new iPad.
• John Edwards of Law Technology News shares 15 iOS 7 tips and tricks.
• Alan Cohen of Law Technology News reviews the iPad Air.
• If you are having trouble logging in to the Fastcase app in iOS 7, Fastcase is aware of the problem and is working on a fix.  For now, here is a workaround:  enter your username and password but DO NOT tap the green Login button on the screen.  Instead, tap the Go button on the keyboard. 
• Do you love your iPhone but miss the keyboard on your former BlackBerry?  The new Typo keyboard provides a BlackBerry-like keyboard for the iPhone — so much so that BlackBerry is actually suing the company that makes Typo, a company backed by Ryan Seacrest.  Kevin Michaluk of the CrackBerry site reviews the Typo keyboard.
• Roy Furchgott of the New York Times describes the Filip, a new $200 watch that your kids can wear that lets you use your iPhone to track, call and text your kids (which you could also do if your kids were using an iPhone) but which isn’t a smartphone so you don’t have to worry about your kids surfing the Internet or texting.  I’m not sure about this one, but it is interesting.
• David Pogue of Yahoo Tech reviews the Mophie Space Pack, an iPhone case that doubles the battery life on your iPhone 5 or 5s and also provides up to 32 GB in additional storage.  It costs $150 and goes on sale in March.
• Alyssa Bereznak of Yahoo Tech reviews the ZeroHour, a flashlight that will also recharge your iPhone up to seven times.
• Derrick Story of Macworld has tips for using an iPhone to take portrait pictures.
• Marianne Schultz of AppShopper describes the SkyBell Doorbell app, an iPhone app (and doorbell accessory) that gives you a live video feed of who is at your door and lets you talk to them.
• Thanks to all of you who voted for iPhone J.D. in the ABA Journal Blawg 100.  Because of your support, iPhone J.D. won the Legal Technology category.  The only prize is bragging rights, but even so, I really appreciate the vote of confidence.
• And finally, there are countless rumors about Apple developing a smart watch that will work with the iPhone.  But David Soofian has what he thinks is a better idea — just attach an iPhone directly to your wrist.  The result is a Kickstarter campaign for a product he calls Smartlet.  I’m not so sure about this one, but who knows, this could be a solution for some folks.

Many attorneys tell me that GoodReader is one of the most useful third-party apps on their iPads, and I wholeheartedly agree.  I use GoodReader almost every day to read and annotate PDF documents on my iPad.  All of the important public documents in all of my cases (e.g. pleadings) are in GoodReader on my iPad and are synced back to my computer via Dropbox, which means that I always have those important files whenever I might need them.  (For confidential documents, I use Transporter, a current sponsor of iPhone J.D.)  Because GoodReader is so important to my law practice, I am always interested to learn about updates to the app, which happens regularly.

This week, GoodReader was updated from version 3.19 to version 3.20.  Don’t let the numbers fool you … this was a major update to GoodReader.  The app now features a new user interface that is a vast improvement.  I always considered the prior interface rather clunky, but the app was so useful that I loved it anyway.  I’m thrilled to see an improved and more useful interface.  The app also includes some new features that I think lawyers will like.  Here are the features that jumped out at me the most.

Let me start by showing you what the new interface looks like, and then I’ll focus on specific features:

New Path Bar

The top left of the file view in the app now features a path bar which makes it easy to understand where you are in a folder substructure.  Also, unlike the old GoodReader where you only had the option to go back to the prior folder, you can now instantly jump up several levels in the folders or tap the home button to go all the way back to the top.

Tools button for every file

In the past if you wanted to do something to a file (such as change the name) you had to tap the Manage Files option on the right and then select the file on the left before you could select what you wanted to do with the file.  You can now do the same thing in only a single step.  Each file entry has, at the far right (just below the file size), a tools button.  It is in very light gray so it isn’t obnoxious, but it is always there when you need it.  When you want to act on a file, just tap the specific tools button on the line next to that file name and the right side will come to life with each possible file management button that could pertain to that file `highlighted — such as the Rename button if you want to change the file name.

New tools layout on the right

Speaking of the tools on the right, GoodReader no longer has a series of bars that you must tap to reveal the options under each bar, which would cause the viewable options to move up and down so you never know where anything is located.  Now, the tools layout has five options at the top right that are always visible and in the same location:  Find, Recents, Starred, Connect and Manage Files.  Tap one option and all available selections appear underneath those five options.  And as noted above, only the tools that would work with whatever you have selected are highlighted, so the irrelevant tool don’t distract you.  I find the layout much easier to use, and it is far easier to find the options that you want.

The options at the bottom also stay in one location, and now one of those buttons is the very important Sync button that updates all of your files with Dropbox.  I love that this button has a permanent home, making it easier to find.  The button next to it, Back to Reading, is a fast way to go back to the last document you viewed in the app.

Also, the tools layout is more efficient.  Because it takes up less space, there is more space available to display file names which is helpful if you are using long file names a la David Sparks that start with a date in a Year-Month-Day format.

Flatten PDF annotations

When you add annotations to a PDF file, sometimes you want to be able to go back and edit those annotations.  Other times, you want to make the annotations a permanent part of the file so that someone else cannot change your annotations and so that you can be sure that the annotations are viewable in any PDF viewer.  Flattening is the process of making annotations a permanent part of a PDF file.

Under the Manage Files option there is a new button called Flatten Copy.  You can now flatten the annotations in many PDF files with a single button click, without needing to open up each file one by one to flatten it.  Doing so creates new files with the original file name followed by “- flattened”  If you try to flatten a file that doesn’t contain any annotations, the app will tell you that there are no annotations.  Also, when emailing a bunch of PDF files, there is now an option to flatten all files at once. 

Images to the clipboard

Most of my GoodReader files are PDF files, but I have other file types too such as some pictures in JPG format.  When you view a picture in GoodReader, there is now an icon at the bottom of the screen that you can tap to copy the image to the clipboard.  This makes it easy to go to an email message and paste the picture right in the email or paste the picture in a document in another app.

Other enhancements

GoodReader now has full support for iWork 2013 files,  Finding files is easier with the ability to limit a search to this folder, subfolders or elsewhere.  You can now star files with seven different colors, and search for individual color tags.  There is a new audio player if you want to use GoodReader to manage your audio, something that I haven’t tried (although I do sometimes use GoodReader to manage videos associated with my files, such as a local TV news story on an accident that is the subject of litigation).

GoodReader already seemed to work fine in iOS 7, but this new version advertises “full iOS 7 compatability,” which sounds good to me.  It also advertises faster PDF rendering for some PDF files, another improvement that I haven’t noticed but sounds good.

Put it all together, and GoodReader version 3.20 is a great update for an app that I already love to use.  I continue to believe that GoodReader is the best $5 that any attorney can spend on their iPad — now more than ever.

Click here to get GoodReader for iPad ($4.99):  

A few months ago, Pennsylvania attorney Sara Austin wrote to tell me about a neat little portable battery called the Halo Pocket Charger 2200, and she let me turn her email into a post with her review of the product.  Shortly before the holidays, Powerocks sent me a free review sample of a similar product called the Super Magicstick.  The Magicstick contains a 2800 mAh rechargeable battery (so it holds a larger charge than the Halo unit that Sara Austin reviewed) but it uses a similar design — a small tube that is easy to toss into a briefcase or a purse or even a pocket on your pants or jacket.  I tested the Magicstick extensively when I was traveling on business before the holidays and while traveling for pleasure during the holidays.  It was very handy to have this easy-to-carry external battery with me, and I suspect that many others would like it just as much as I did.  You can get it on Amazon for about $30 to $35.

The Magicstick is a small tube about 3.6" long and almost 0.9" in diameter.  It has a smooth, brushed-aluminum finish that reminds me of an iMac or a MacBook Air.  I like the rounded design because you don’t have to worry about any sharp edges when the Magicstick comes in contact with something else in your briefcase (or scratching you in your pocket), and the brushed-aluminum finish is resistant to scratches so the unit should stand up to wear and tear. 

The unit that I tested is silver, but on Amazon you can currently also get it in black, blue, purple, red, pink, green and gold.  And the Powerocks website indicates that there are other colors available, so you might see more choices when you shop for it.

The Magicstick only weighs 2.6 ounces.  Thus, you’ll barely notice it in a briefcase or purse, and you will only somewhat notice it in a pants or coat pocket.

One end of the Magicstick has two ports — a USB port and a micro USB port. 

To use the device to charge your iPhone, take the cord that came with your iPhone that has both a USB connector and a Lightning connector (iPhone 5/5s) or 30-pin connector (iPhone 4S and earlier).  (The Magicstick doesn’t come with the cord to connect to your iPhone, which makes sense because different devices need different cords.)  My preference is to use the Magicstick with an iBoltz XS five inch cord that I reviewed last year, which lets me charge my iPhone (or iPad) on a desk without having lots of extra cord get in my way.

The Magicstick holds a 2800 mAh charge which is more than enough to fully charge an iPhone and almost enough to charge an iPhone twice.  (For example, an iPhone 5S has a 1560 mAh battery, and an iPhone 4 has a 1420 mAg battery.)  The Magicstick puts out 1 Amp of power so it is designed for the iPhone, but you can use it with an iPad if you need to do so, although it won’t charge as fast as a regular iPad wall adapter that puts out 2.1 Amps and the 2800 mAh battery will only give you a partial charge on an iPad.  When I used the Magicstick with my iPad Air, a fully-charged Magicstick was able to add about 20% battery life to the iPad Air, and that took about two hours.

The Magicstick comes with a USB to micro USB cord that you use to charge the device.  Powerocks says that it takes about 5 hours to fully charge the Magicstick, and based on my tests, that sounds about right.  You can get a sense of how much charge is in a Magicstick by pressing a button on the end of the device, which cause the button to glow for a second in one of three colors:  blue (70% to 100% charged), green (30% to 70% charged) or red (0% to 30% charged).

The Magicstick comes with a cloth carrying pouch, but I never used it.  I just tossed the Magicstick into my briefcase and it held up fine.

I see that Powerocks just recently announced a similar device called the Flash Magicstick, which includes all of the features of the Super Magicstick that I reviewed but is slightly longer and adds an LED flashlight.  It will retail for $49.99 and will be available in the first quarter of 2014.  I’ve used other chargers that have an LED flashlight and I’ve never found a need for the flashlight, so the Flash Magicstick does not appeal to me.  Nevertheless, I mention it here because if you are shopping for a Magicstick and see both the Super and the Flash for sale, now you know the difference.

My iPhone usually has no problems lasting all day on a charge, but there are times when it runs through its battery more quickly, such as if it is having trouble maintaining a cellular connection or if I am tethering my iPad to my iPhone’s 4G LTE.  I never want to run out of power when I am in Court or in a meeting but I cannot always depend upon having easy access to an outlet.  Thus, I consider a small, portable, easy-to-carry external battery an incredibly useful accessory for the iPhone, and the Powerocks Super Magicstick hits the sweet spot:  a great size, shape and weight, more than enough power for a iPhone and even enough to add a little extra juice to an iPad, and a reasonable price.  If you are in the market for an external battery, this is a good one.  I see that Amazon has different prices depending upon the color you select and who you buy it from, but the range is $30 to $35.

[UPDATE 1/26/15:  I have been using the Powerrocks Super Magicstick extensively for the past year.  I might sometimes go two weeks without using it, but then I would use it several days in a row.  I’ve noticed over the past few weeks that the ability to hold a charge drastically decreased, to the point where it could only charge my iPhone 6 about 10% before the Super Magicstick ran out of power.  So based on my experience with this one unit, it lasted about a year of moderate to heavy use.  I find this device so useful that I just ordered another one to replace it, and fortunately the price has gone down since I reviewed it last year; the price fluctuates from day-to-day on Amazon, but when I ordered mine on Jan. 24, 2015, it was $12.50.  So keep in mind that, if you buy one of these, you might not get more than a year of use out of it, but considering the price I still consider it a great value.  And I continue to love this product for the same reason noted when I wrote the above review a year ago:  it is so small that it is easy to carry around in a pocket.  By the way, a brand new Super Magicstick (2800 mAh) was able to bring an iPhone 6 from 12% power to 91% power when I wasn’t using the iPhone — not as much power as it provided an iPhone 5s, but more than enough to give your iPhone new life at the end of a day.]

Click here to get the Magicstick on Amazon ($30 to $35).

Thank you to GoodCase Apps for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month to promote its CaseManager apps for the iPad and iPhone.  CaseManager was created by New York civil rights attorney John Upton as a fast and inexpensive solution for sole practitioners and small firms who want to use mobile devices to manage their law practice.  The app debuted in 2011, and I discussed the app back in August of 2012 when GoodCase Apps last sponsored iPhone J.D.  Since then, the app has added many new features including the ability to save a backup of all of your data in Dropbox, synchronize data between multiple devices using Dropbox, the ability to add handwritten notes (and the ability to email those notes), greater user customization, the ability to print lists, etc.

CaseManager is an app in which you can store all of the key information about your cases.  You can add documents to the app to carry around the key pleadings, contracts, etc.  You can add contact information, calendar entries and tasks that are unique to each case.  The app even includes a Facts section so that you can track the key events in the timeline of a case and can help you track your time and expenses.  All of the information is stored in the app itself, so you can access your information even when you don’t have an Internet connection. 

The main screen of the app is the Cases screen.  Each case is indicated with a large, easy to tap button, and you can easily add new cases by tapping in the top right.  (To delete a case, slide your finger from right to left across a case name and a Delete button will appear on the right.)

Once you select a case, you are brought to the main navigation screen for that case, where you are presented with nine choices such as a Calendar view of your events and tasks, buttons that let you view a list of Events or a list of Tasks, a button that lets you enter Time & Expenses, etc.

For example, to add an event you can tap either the Events or the Calendar button and then tap the Add Event button.  You can then enter the title of the event, the date and time, the location, and whatever description that you want to add.  And if you would rather draw than type, tap the Pencil button next to the word “Event” and you can sketch a note, diagram, etc. using your finger or a stylus.

To see other information in the case, you can either tap the Back button at the top left of the screen to go to the main navigation page, or better yet you can tap the Case Navigation tab that appears at the bottom of most screens.  (It looks like the top of a folder.)  That tab gives you quick access too all of the case navigation options.

The Calendar view lets you see all of your events and tasks in a specific case.  Or if you want to view all of your events across all of your cases, tap on the Calendar button on the black bar at the bottom of the app.  This gives you a calendar with a large number on each day representing the number of events or tasks that you have for that day.  (It is optional to include tasks on your calendar — you can decide that as you enter a task.)  Just tap a day to see what is on your calendar for that day.

If you give CaseManager access to the main Calendar app on your iPad/iPhone, then when you create an event the event will also be placed on your main iPad/iPhone calendar as a 10 minute entry.  That can serve as a reminder for you to go back to the CaseManager app for more details.

You can also use CaseManager to enter time, either manually or via a timer that you start and stop, and to enter expenses.  This is a useful way for you to remember your billable hours and expenses when you are out of the office so that when you get back to the office you won’t forget what you need to record the time/expense into your billing software.

One of the new features of CaseManager is the ability to save your data on Dropbox.  This is useful to save a backup of all of your important data.  It also gives the app a way to sync between CaseManager on the iPad and CaseManager on the iPhone.  (There are also versions of CaseManager for Windows and for Android, but I did not test those.)  To use this feature, you go to the Settings portion of the app and tap a button to Link to Dropbox.  This will launch the Dropbox app, where you give CaseManager permission to access the CaseManager folder on your Dropbox, and then returns you to the CaseManager app.  Then tap the Sync Dropbox button to sync all of your data with Dropbox.  Once you have synced on your iPad, you can then go to your iPhone and sync in all of the new data (and vice versa).

The above screenshots all show CaseManager on the iPad in landscape mode, but the app also works in portrait mode on the iPad.  And as indicated above, there is also a version of CaseManager for the iPhone, and here are some screenshots to show you how it looks — basically the same as the iPad version, just formatted for the iPhone screen.

 

CaseManager doesn’t aim to compete with expensive case management software that is designed for dozens or even hundreds of users and often has a monthly fee.  Instead, CaseManager aims to provide a simple and easy-to-use solution for folks who want to manage their own case files on a mobile device that is always with them.  And at only $20 for the iPad or the iPhone version of CaseManager, it will only cost you a fraction of a billable hour to get up and running.

Click here to get CaseManager for iPad ($19.99):  

Click here to get CaseManager for iPhone ($19.99):