Jeff Richardson

Comedians at Law is a group of former-attorneys who now perform comedy around the nation.  They also have a podcast in which half of the show is typically devoted to an irreverent look at the legal news of the week and the other half is an interview — sometimes with other lawyer comedians, other times with lawyers who are involved in something interesting.  I’m honored to be a guest on this week’s show, which you can listen to here, or you can subscribe to in iTunes.    And now, the news of note from the past week:

• TrialPad is an iPad app that you can use present documents at trial or in meetings.  The developer, Ian O’Flaherty, published a free e-book to help you use TrialPad, and Ian tells me that the book was just updated to include video tutorials.  As a result, the book is now over 200MB and must be downloaded over WiFi, but the tutorials will walk you through the steps for getting the most out of this app.  Click here for TrialPad Quick Start Guide (free): 
• South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens reviews STM cases for the iPad and iPad mini.
• Two months ago, I noted that Michigan plaintiff attorneys Stephen Goethel and Chad Engelhardt of Goethel Engelhardt, PLLC wrote an extensive article for the State Bar of Michigan Negligence Quarterly about using an iPad in the practice of law.  At the time, I only had a link to a PDF version of the article, but the Atkinson Baker court reporting firm obtained permission to repost it on the web.  If you missed it last time, check it out.
• I recently reviewed the dockBoss air, a gadget from CableJive that adds Bluetooth to speakers with 30-pin connectors.  Last night, I saw an announcement that if you use offer code 5OFF35 you can currently get $5 off any CableJive order of $35 or more.  The dockBoss air only costs $34.95, but if the company sells anything else that you want that costs at least a nickel, you might find this to be a good offer.
• One of my favorites iPhone apps is Fantastical (my review), an excellent replacement for the built-in Calendar on the iPhone.  This week, the app was updated to version 1.1, and my favorite improvement is the ability to tap-and-hold the date bar at the top to jump to any other date, meaning I can now use Fantastical to quickly jump to a date 10 years ago to see what I was doing then.  I find this feature very useful when I’m working on an appeal and I need to determine when something happened pre-trial.  I previously used Calvetica for this function, but I prefer the simple way that it is implemented in Fantastical.  Click here for Fantastical for iPhone ($1.99): 

  

• Lex Friedman of Macworld wrote a great article about using Siri to get things done.  I use many of these tips almost every day.  
• A few years ago, I discussed the origin of the “i” in iPhone.  Of course, that “i” also appears in iPad, and Mark Gurman of 9to5 Mac describes a presentation by Ken Segall, the guy who used to handle Apple’s advertising account, about other names that were considered for the iPad.  By the way, Segall is also half of the team responsible for Scoopertino, a site I wrote about in 2010 that remains funny today.
• One of the first public calls from an iPhone was a prank call, by none other than Steve Jobs.  When Jobs debuted the iPhone on January 9, 2007, he called a nearby Starbucks to order 4,000 lattes to go.  Austin Carr of Fast Company tracked down the woman who took that call, who still works at the same Starbucks.  It’s a cute story and worth a quick read.
• I often see people using cracked iPhones.  This week, I learned that there might be a good reason I’m seeing them here in New Orleans.  According to a report from Gazelle, a large website that purchases used gadgets, New Orleans is the second klutziest city in the country based on broken cell phones, as reported by WWL, the local CBS affiliate in New Orleans.  Indeed, I see that four of the top 10 cities are places in which my law firm (Adams and Reese) has an office:  #1 Tallahassee, #2 New Orleans, #7 Memphis, and #8 Baton Rouge.  As I think about it, perhaps it is a good business move to have law firm offices in places where people often make mistakes.
• Jason Snell of Macworld writes about reading comic books on an iPad.  Until recently, the last comic book that I purchased was probably a Richie Rich comic when I was 10 years old.  But a few months ago, I was inspired by something else that Snell wrote to check out the Comixology app on the iPad, and it is actually quite impressive.  I then started reading Saga, a (not for kids!) comic book that you can purchase through the app on the iPad.  It is billed as a cross between Star Wars and Game of Thrones, and it is a great, well-drawn publication that showed me that a comic can be just as good of a medium for telling a story as a movie, TV show or book.  If you think that this might interest you, download the free Comixology app and then purchase the first “season” of Saga (the first six issues) in a single 169 collection called Saga Vol. 1 for $9.99.  Click here for Comixology (free): 
• And finally, two nights ago, TidBITS author Joe Kissell noticed that there are lots of iPad app icons that contain a letter, and also noticed that there are 26 spots for apps on a screen.  Putting two and two together, he created the following image and posted it on Twitter … the iPad alphabet.  Don’t miss this TidBITS story with the backstory and the fantastic response.  Bravo!

Here is a quick tip that I use all the time when I am typing on my iPad's on-screen keyboard.  When you need to insert a quotation mark, the official way to do it is to tap the key that with the label .?123 and then tap the key with the quotation mark on it.  But that is two motions — first tapping the key in the corner of the left side of the screen, and then tapping the key with the quotation mark near the right side.  There is a faster way to do it that only involves one simple swipe.

To do this, press down on the key that has a question mark at the top and a period at the bottom, and then quickly move your finger up a little bit.  You will see a quotation mark appear in a pop-up window, and just slide up a tiny bit to turn that quotation mark blue to indicate that you have selected it, and then let go.  Bingo: instant quotation mark with a single swipe, and without having to press one key on one side of the keyboard and another key on another side of the keyboard.

If you want a single quote mark instead of a double quote mark, you can also use one swipe to do that.  The only difference is that you swipe up from the key just to the left, the one with the exclamation mark and the comma.  Tap down, quickly swipe up, let go, and then say hello to your newly inserted punctuation mark.

Those are the only two iPad keys that let you use that quick swipe up gesture, but keep in mind that you can hold down on many other keys for about a second and then swipe up to access additional characters.  For example, hold down the E key to get the letter E with different accents on it, useful for typing in foreign languages.

One hidden mark useful for lawyers:  the section mark.  To access it, tap the .?123 key, then hold down the ampersand key.  After a second you will see a § floating in a window just above the & key, and you can swipe up to select that section mark.

I am excited to welcome Connected Data as a new sponsor of iPhone J.D.  The company has come up with a fantastic new product — the Transporter — that attorneys are going to love.  It provides online file storage that is mirrored locally on your computers.  Sounds like Dropbox, right?  But unlike Dropbox, you own the server hardware so your files are 100% secure without your confidential documents being in the possession of a third party, and the product is designed from the ground up to make sharing and backup easy. 

The Transporter itself is a well-designed and functional piece of hardware, which comes as no surprise if you are familiar with the Drobo, a popular storage device that was developed by many people who now work for Connected Data including its CEO.  It has a unique, cone-like shape.  It is about 5 1/2 inches tall and about 4 inches in diameter, so it doesn’t take up much space.  The Transporter comes with an ethernet cord to connect it directly to your network, or you can get an optional wireless adapter.  At my house, I use an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station to provide Wi-Fi, and so I simply plugged the Transporter into an Ethernet port.

The Transporter has a lit band surrounding it.  You can dim or turn it off if you find it distracting, but the light provides you with status information.  For example, the band is solid blue when idle, pulsating blue when transferring data, pulsating yellow if disk space is low (or red if the disk is full), flashing red to yellow if there is no Internet connection, etc.

Installing the software on either a Mac or PC is simple.  Once
installed, you will see a folder on your computer called Connected Data
to which you can drag your files.  It comes with default sub-folders
such as “Documents,” “Photos” and “Home Movies” but you can create your
own folders and rename those if you want.  Files copied to one of your
Connected Data folders are then copied over to the Transporter itself.

For example, at my office I can use my PC to create a folder called “Smith v Jones” and move over my files — correspondence, pleadings, research, etc.  A local copy of those files remains on my PC for fast access, but the files are also encrypted and then stored on the Transporter that is connected to my home network.  On my home computer, a “Smith v Jones” folder is created with all of the files copied over to it, so anything that I am working on at my office will be there at home if I need to access it later.

As I noted before, this sounds a lot like Dropbox, which is a compliment because Dropbox is great.  But the Transporter offers several advantages over Dropbox. 

First, the Transporter is secure.  I only use my Dropbox to store “public” documents such as pleadings because you just never know what is going to happen to confidential documents in the possession of a third party.  But with the Transporter, you own the hardware on which your files are stored, so you can feel comfortable putting your confidential attorney-client and work product documents there.  Documents are sent from your computer to the Transporter using industry-standard AES 256-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption.  You can manage your Transporter(s) via the Connected Data website, but Connected Data does not see the contents of any of your files.  Your files are not located on any of the Connected Data servers, but instead stay on your Transporter hardware.

Second, the Transporter gives you more space at less cost.  Dropbox provides you with 2GB for free, or you can pay $99 a year for 100 GB, $199 a year for 200 GB or $499 a year for 500 GB.  And you need to keep paying, month after month, year after year.  With the Transporter, you just buy the hardware once and there are no subscription fees.  You can get a Transporter with 1 TB of space for only $299, 2 TB of space for $399, or you can even get a $199 Transporter with no hard drive so that you can choose a 2.5" SATA hard drive from whatever drive manufacturer you trust the most.

Third, the Transporter lets you easily add more storage, either by upgrading to a larger hard drive, or by buying an additional Transporter. 

Fourth, you can decide what files to store locally and what files to store on the Transporter.  With Dropbox, you have a local copy of every file in your Dropbox, which is fine if you are using a free 2GB Dropbox or perhaps the 100GB Dropbox, but if you go larger it takes up a lot of space on your local drive.  With the Transporter, you can choose to have certain folders synced locally for faster access and keep other folders only on the Transporter so that they don’t take up space on your hard drive.  The default setting is that the Transporter will keep local copies on your computer of folders that are less than 10 GB, a setting that seems reasonable to me so I haven’t changed it, but you can adjust that as you like.  And as noted, you can also explicitly state that certain folders should or should not be stored on your local drive.  If you use a computer that does not have much drive space, such as a MacBook Air or other computer with an SSD drive, you can tweak the settings as appropriate.

Fifth, you can use multiple Transporters to create backups.  You can share a folder with someone else who has a Transporter and a copy of the folder will be kept on his Transporter as well.  Or, you can buy an additional Transporter and choose to share a folder with that Transporter.  For example, you can keep one Transporter connected to the network in your main office and another Transporter connected to the network in a satellite office.  Tell the Transporter software to copy some or all of your folders to that second device, and that way even if there is a disaster at your main office and both your computer and the first Transporter are destroyed, you still have a copy of your folders on the Transporter at your satellite office.  Thus, Transporter offers you the same off-site backup security that you get by paying for an account with a company like Backblaze or Carbonite.

Many attorneys like to use Dropbox because it makes it easy to share files and folders.  The Transporter also does a great job with sharing files with others, whether they are in your office or around the world.  You can give one other person, or a team of people, access to folders on your Transporter, and they can access and work on files on that folder but they won’t have access to other folders.  Likewise, someone else can give you access to a folder on their Transporter, and the contents show up in your own Connected Data folder.  So you can either use one Transporter for your entire team (or perhaps even your entire office), or you can use multiple Transporters with different people having access to different folders.

I should note that the Transporter handles local files a little
differently than Dropbox.  With Dropbox, you see a folder on your hard
drive that contains your Dropbox files.  If you drag a file from your
desktop to your Dropbox folder, the file is moved from the desktop to
the folder.  The local Transporter folder works like a virtual external hard
drive, so if you drag a file from your desktop, the original file stays on your desktop and a copy is placed in your Transporter folder on your computer.  (And then that file is encrypted and stored on the Transporter hardware.)  For people who share a lot of folders, this is a safety feature because someone else with access to one of your Transporter folders has the ability to delete a file, and if they do so you might want to go back and get the original file.  But right now, I only have a few shared folders and I am mostly using the Transporter to sync folders between my work and home computer, so I have been moving files to the trash after I put a copy in a Transporter folder.

The Transporter is still a new product.  Last year, it was the subject of a successful Kickstarter campaign, and the company just started shipping Transporters in February of 2013.  The company sent me a free review unit so that I could try out the product in advance of this sponsorship, and I just received a second free review unit so that I can test using one Transporter to store backup copies of folders.  (One thing that every attorney in New Orleans learned during Hurricane Katrina is the importance of off-site backup.)  While the software on my PC and my Mac works great, the iPhone/iPad app is still in beta testing and should be ready in a few weeks.  Once the app is available and I have tried it out, I’ll post about my experiences.  For anyone like me who depends upon access to files on an iPad, that app is a critical part of the usefulness of the Transporter.

But even though this product is new, I am very excited about it.  In my one week of testing so far, it has worked great, and once the iOS app is released, the Transporter may well change the way that I work with files.  Transporter offers the advantages of traditional cloud storage while offering much more storage at much less cost, provides the enhanced security of an external hard drive in your locked office, and allows you to use additional Transporters to get the same protection that you would otherwise have to pay for on a monhtly basis with an off-site storage company.

Thanks again to Connected Data for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month, and kudos for coming up with such a useful product.

Click here to get Transporter from Connected Data ($199 – $399).

Click here to get Transporter from Amazon ($299 for 1TB or $399 for 2TB).

Earlier this week, I was a guest on Arizona attorney John Skiba’s JD Blogger podcast, a podcast geared at attorneys who use blogs, podcasts, or other social media to market themselves.  I talked about the history of iPhone J.D. and my blogging workflow, and even recommended a few apps that will be very familiar to many iPhone J.D. readers.  You can click here to get to the page where you can listen to the podcast episode or subscribe to the JD Blogger podcast.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• St. Louis attorney Dennis Kennedy analyzes whether lawyers should create apps to promote their law practice in an article for the ABA Journal.  The current crop of apps, he notes, “seem to fall into two categories: big-firm apps and auto-accident-firm apps.”  I think it makes more sense to create a mobile-friendly website than a dedicated app, but I certainly don’t pretend to be a marketing expert.
• I seems that I mention California attorney David Sparks every week in In the news, but he can’t seem to stop posting useful tips.  This week he recommends using Siri to quickly calculate dates on the iPhone, a great tip and something that I do all the time … although I also still like to use DaysFrom.
• This week, Apple and numerous other businesses filed amicus briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court in the two same-sex marriage cases that are being argued this month.  On Wednesday, Apple and others filed a brief opposing the Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor, a case that will be argued on March 27.  On Thursday, Apple and others filed a brief opposing California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriages in Hollingsworth v. Perry, a case that will be argued on March 26.  Those two links are to the SCOTUSblog pages that provide links to briefs; as of early Friday morning, the Apple amicus briefs were not yet posted, but I imagine that they will be soon.
• Good Technology software is used by half of the Fortune 100 and many law firms to provide enhanced security for mobile devices.  This week, Good announced that 77% of all of its mobile device activations in the last quarter were iPhones and iPads, with Android accounting for nearly all of the rest.
• Fortune magazine named Apple the world’s most admired company.
• Bryan Chaffin of The Mac Observer started a series called “Meet the Board” that will profile each of the eight directors on Apple’s board.  This week was the first entry, a profile of Disney CEO Bob Iger.
• If you lose your iPhone in New York, you’ll be pleased to know that, as reported by Jamie Schram and Chuck Bennett of the New York Post, the NYPD formed a dedicated team of police officers to work with Apple and track down stolen iPhones.
• And finally, one year ago I noted that an iPhone saved the life of a man in the Netherlands when it deflected a bullet.  Lacie Grosvold of the CBS affiliate KTVA in Alaska reports that an iPhone similarly saved the life of a Joel Stubleski, a U.S. soldier stationed in Afghanistan when it was in his pocket and deflected a bullet.  Subleski says that “my iPhone saved my life” and now uses a picture of his shattered iPhone as a cover on his new iPhone to serve as a reminder.

About nine months ago, I reviewed the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo for iPad.  It remains one of two favorite styluses for the iPad, and I use it almost every day.  (The other one that I really like is the Adonit Jot Pro.)  One of the best parts about it is the tip, the “nib” of the stylus.  It feels great against the iPad screen and is a little smaller than traditional stylus tips, which makes it a little more precise. 

About a month ago, West Virgina attorney Roger Lambert asked if I had tried out Wacom’s new firm replacement nibs, posting the following comment on this website:

Have you tried the new firm replacement nibs for the bamboo stylus? I think that they might be the perfect solution to the mushy/durability problem people have been complaining about. In my opinion, the firm nib feels more like a real pen when writing than the soft nib that comes with the bamboo. I’ve seen some reviews saying that the firm nibs are not as responsive when using the stylus to tap icons, but I have not had this problem and am, in fact, typing this post on my iPad mini with the firm nib.

On February 12, 2013, Amazon was selling them for $10.58.  (I see that the price has now dropped to $8.08.  Who knows why.)  They come in a pack of three nibs.  So I decided to buy a set of three firm replacement nibs to try them out, and over the last two weeks I’ve been going back and forth between the original nibs and the firm nibs.

The nibs look exactly the same.  You can only tell the difference by touching the top.  The original nib gives more easily.  The firm nib is more… well, more firm.  In the following pictures, the original nib is on the left, the firm nib on the right:

Lambert is correct — the firm nib is less mushy that the standard tip.  With the firm nib, you have to push down a little bit harder for the stylus to work.   When I am writing in a program like GoodNotes I find that I feel like my writing is slightly more precise as a result of my exerting more effort into writing.  However, the need to push extra hard makes my hand a little more tired when using the firm nib, and I also find that it slows down my writing.  Also, when I want to tap on a button on the screen, I often find that the button doesn’t respond when I am using the firm nib, so I have to go back and push down harder.

It may just be that I am too used to the feel of the traditional nib.  Perhaps if I had started with this firm nib I’d be used to the need to apply extra pressure.  But switching back and forth between the original nib and the firm nib, I always find myself preferring the original nib.

Lambert also mentions the “durability problem.”  I had heard about this and noted the rumors that nibs are fragile in my original Wacom stylus review.  And it must be true that nibs crack for some people because Wacom sells replacement nibs.  But in my own experience, after nine months of regular use, I’ve haven’t yet seen any problem with the original nib that came with my Wacom Stylus duo.  Indeed, I purchased replacement nibs nine months ago just in case I needed them, and now I’m not quite sure where I stored them — which means that when the time comes that I do need them, I’ll need to go hunting in my office.

If you like the Wacom Bamboo Stylus but find the tip too mushy, follow the advice of Lambert and buy the firm replacement nibs.  But I prefer the feel of the original nibs, and now that this review is written, I’m removing the firm nib and storing it in my desk.  (And, in nine months, I’ll probably forget where I put them.  Note to self:  top drawer, left side, in the back.)

Click here to get Wacom Bamboo Stylus Firm Replacement nibs from Amazon ($8.08)

In early April, I’ll be in Chicago at ABA TECHSHOW 2013, the best conference for lawyers interested in technology.  My favorite part of TECHSHOW every year is talking with other attorneys who love gadgets, and one great way to do that is to attend one of the Taste of Techshow dinners on Thursday, April 4th or Friday, April 5th to eat at great Chicago restaurants with a group of a dozen attorneys interested in a topic.  TECHSHOW opened the registrations for this year’s dinners just a few days ago.  The “bad” news is that the first such dinner to fill up is the one that I’m hosting on April 4th with Tom Mighell to talk about iPhone and iPad related topics.  The good news is that this year TECHSHOW scheduled quite a few other dinners for iPhone/iPad enthusiasts.  As of this morning you still have time to sign up for “iPad—I’ll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours” with Victor Medina and Mark Metzger, “iPads” with Rob Dean and Britt Lorish,”App-Etizers, iEntrees and Home Button Cooking” with Brett Burney and Mark Unger, and “Presentations From a Pad or Tablet” with Diane Ebersole and Chuck Diard — or about two dozen other dinners.  Click here to sign up before the other dinners are all booked up.  And now, here is the news of note from the past week:

• Clever California attorney David Sparks explains on his MacSparky website how you can use a Satechi Bluetooth Smart Pointer Mobile Presenter to control a Keynote presentation run on an iPad with remote control.
• New York attorney and TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante describes Remarks, an iPad app from Readdle for taking handwritten notes.
• New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson discusses, and provides perspective on, the security of online services like Dropbox that are so incredibly useful on the iPhone and iPad.
• Speaking of Dropbox, the Dropbox app was recently updated to add more features for viewing PDF files as noted by Killian Bell of Cult of Mac.
• Horace Dediu of Asymco wrote an interesting article wondering why more companies don’t copy Apple’s approach as opposed to just the products that Apple sells.
• Speaking of Apple’s approach, Apple’s chief designer Jony Ive talks on a British children’s program Blue Peter about thinking outside of the (lunch) box.
• Brian Chen of the New York Times writes about the business implications of Apple’s Lightning connector.
• Office² HD is an iPad app that lets you view and edit Microsoft office documents (my review).  Rene Ritchie of iMore interviewed one of the developers of Office² HD at Macworld and has this video.
• Alan of Art of the iPhone explains that we are finally about to see cars with Siri Eyes Free, technology that makes it easier to get information from your iPhone while you are driving.
• David Carey of Hearst Magazines (publisher of titles such as Esquire,
  
  Cosmopolitan, Popular Mechanics, Good Houskeeping, Road & Track and
  
  Town & Country) discusses
  
  digital magazines on the iPad at the All Things D conference, as noted
  
  by Darren Murph of Engadget.  One interesting revelation:  men’s
  
  magazines sell better on the full size iPad, while women’s magazines
  
  sell better on the iPad mini.
• And finally, popular magazines are not the only publications on an iPad.  Firefighters in Atlantic City recently attended a promotion ceremony at which they would traditionally take an oath with a hand on the Bible, except that nobody remembered to bring a Bible.  But there was an iPad available … and you can guess the rest.  The local NBC affiliate has the story. (via Kevin Bostic of AppleInsider)

Yesterday, Apple released a new version of the iOS operating system with a minor update:  iOS 6.1.2.  This update fixes a bug that I mentioned just a few days ago for people who use Microsoft Exchange, which I suspect includes many attorneys — a bug that could occur when you respond to an exception to a recurring calendar event.  I’m happy to see that Apple addressed the bug so quickly, although as I mentioned this past Friday, there is yet another bug in iOS 6.1, one that someone could exploit to bypass a lock screen.  My guess is that it won’t be long before we see a second update to fix that bug.

For now, if you use Microsoft Exchange for your email and calendar, I recommend that you open your Settings app, tap General and then tap Software Update to install the fix.  I updated my iPhone, my iPad and my iPad mini yesterday and had no problem running the update on any of those devices.  Each took under 5 minutes to install the new version of iOS.

From time to time, attorneys who read iPhone J.D. write to tell me
how they are using
their iPhone or iPad in their practice.  I love to read these stories,
and with permission I like to share some of them here on iPhone J.D.  I recently heard from William Axtell, a solicitor in London with the law firm Charles Russell LLP. Will is a corporate lawyer, and his areas of practice include equity capital markets and mergers and acquisitions.  Before joining his current law firm, he worked in-house at Vodafone, so he has a background as well as a passion for the technology and telecom sectors.  He currently uses an iPhone 5, an iPad 2 and a Macbook Air.

I asked Will to describe the apps that he uses in his law practice that he would recommend to others.  Here is what he told me:

• OmniFocus — a powerful task manager which allows you to organise tasks by project and context.  OmniFocus syncs across all my devices and is a great personal assistant.  This has pride of place in my iPhone real estate — it lives on the dock together with Phone, Mail and Safari.  Getting into the OmniFocus ecosystem is not cheap but it helps me everyday and I would very much recommend it.  [Click here for OmniFocus for iPhone ($19.99): Click here for OmniFocus for iPad ($39.99): ]
• NotesPlus — a fantastic notes app.  I tend to use a stylus but you can type as well.  It can record audio (useful for meetings) and you can also insert pictures and grab stuff from websites.  The great thing is that you can erase stuff, move things around, change font colours etc.  It even converts handwritten text to typed text!     You cannot do that with a Moleskin!  The developer also gives great support and keeps pushing the boundaries.  Check it out!  [My review is here.  Click here to get Notes Plus ($6.99):  

  

  ]
• GoodReader — I use this to store documents that I need to use on the go.  It contains marketing material that I can show to clients, key statutes and cases that I may need to refer to, partners’ meeting notes and agendas etc.  [My latest review is here.  Click here to get GoodReader for iPad ($4.99):  ]
• TextExpander — this is a great utility that converts small “snippets” into longer chunks of texts.  For example, after a meeting with a contact I will open TextExpander and type “-exp” and this will create a pro forma email asking my secretary to fill out an expenses form, update our CRM database etc.  This saves me having to type out the same thing over and over again.  [Click here to get TextExpander ($4.99): ]
• 
  
  Jotnot Pro — this is a great scanner.  I can scan business cards, receipts etc. on the go.  [Click here to get Jotnot Pro ($0.99): ]
• Meeting Planner — most of my work in international.  As such I often need to be able to find a slot for a conference call between many different time zones (e.g. the UK, India and New York).  This app works out the best time to schedule such a call.   No more scheduling calls when it is 4am in the Big Apple!  [Click here to get MtgPlanner (free): ]
• GetPacked — If I am actually travelling then I find this to be a very useful app to make sure I have packed all I need for the trip.  [Click here to get GetPacked ($1.99): ]  
• Reeder — my go to app for RSS.  I commute to work by train.  This gives me time to read.  RSS feeds
  
  are great and give me a bespoke newspaper every morning of stuff that I
  
  know will be of interest to me.  [Click here to get Reeder for iPad ($4.99): Click here to get Reeder for iPhone ($2.99): ]
• Daily Telegraph — for a more traditional experience, this newspaper has a decent app.  [Click here to get Daily Telegraph (free): ]
• Instapaper — this app works very well for saving interesting web articles for reading later on (including offline).  [Click here to get Instapaper ($3.99): ]
• Tweetbot — my app of choice for Twitter.  I find this a great tool to see what my clients are up to, seeing trends in the marketplace and just having fun.   I am @oxfordlawyer and am nudging up to 1000 followers.  [Tweetbot is also my favorite Twitter app.  Click here to get Tweetbot for iPhone ($2.99): Click here to get Tweetbot for iPad ($2.99): ]
• Buffer — a great app for scheduling tweets throughout the day rather than bombarding people in one go.  [Click here to get Buffer (free): ]
• Flipboard — a beautiful way to consume your social media and other content on the iPad.  This is my preferred way to look at my personal Twitter account and Facebook.   [Click here to get Flipboard (free): ]
• LinkedIn — I like the iPad app and find it useful to way to stay in contact with my business community and network.  [Click here to get LinkedIn (free): ]

Other great utility apps I use are 1Password (just need to remember one password!), Dropbox (great for finding my personal docs on the go), Evernote (so many different uses) and PDFpen (my go to pdf application that syncs with iCloud).

[Click here for my reviews of 1Password, PDFpen for iPad and PDFpen for iPhone and the links to get those apps.  I’ve never formally reviewed Dropbox, but it is an essential app.  Click here for Dropbox (free):   And click here for Evernote (free): ]

On the way home I will check UK Train Times [$6.99: ] to see that my train is not delayed and which platform it is going from, I will update my journal in Day One [$4.99: ] and may even have a quick go on Angry Birds Star Wars!  [$0.99: ]

My work life is so much more productive with these great Apple products and apps.  I would also recommend checking out macsparky.com, which is run by US attorney David Sparks.  He has some great workflows for Apple-loving lawyers.

Best wishes from across the Pond!

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Thanks, Will, for all of your app recommendations.  We use a lot of the same apps, but you also recommend quite a few that I am now interested in checking out.

If you are willing to share your experiences using an iPhone or iPad
in your law practice with other iPhone J.D. readers, I’d love to
hear from you!  And in case you missed them, here are the reports that I
previously shared from other attorneys:

• Zane Cagle:  1/1/12
• Megan Erickson:  5/11/11
• Tom Freeland:  7/13/10
• Cliff Maier:  12/22/08
• Lindsay Rakers:  12/18/12
• Alfred Saikali:  5/4/11
• Mike Schneider:  4/28/09
• Clark Stewart:  7/22/10

The iPhone 5 has a reasonably good camera that is incredibly convenient because it is always in my pocket.  Unfortunately, I noticed a few weeks ago that there were two spots on pictures that I took with my camera.  In most pictures the spots were almost invisible, but a picture of a light, solid color would reveal the spots.

For example, here is a picture that I took using the ABBYY FineReader Touch app that I recently reviewed, and another picture that I took of the floor of an Apple Store.  I’ve added red ovals to emphasize the spots:

At first I thought my lens was just dirty, but cleaning was not a solution.  Then I thought that the lens had gotten scratched, but I try as I might, I certainly couldn’t see anything.  Some research on the Internet led me to discover others with this problem, and the working theory was that dust had somehow gotten inside of the iPhone 5.  I gave my phone several vigorous shakes to try to dislodge any dust, but that wasn’t a solution either.

So I decided to make an appointment at the Genius Bar at an Apple Store.  As always, the experience was fantastic.  Before I left home, I backed up my iPhone to iTunes on my computer.  As I entered the store I launched the Apple Store app, which instantly noticed that I was in an Apple Store and knew that I had an 11am appointment, so it immediately asked me if I wanted to sign in.  I tapped one button to do so, and a few minutes later, the Apple Genius called my name.  Perhaps he had seen this problem before because as soon as I started to describe it, he quickly said that he would just swap out my iPhone 5 for a new one.  A few minutes later I had a new iPhone 5 in my hand, and when I got home I connected it to my computer, restored from a backup (which took a long time … maybe two hours for my 64 GB iPhone 5), and then I was back in business again.  A shiny new iPhone 5 with no dots in my pictures.

I have not had many hardware problems since I started using an iPhone in 2008, but it is nice to know that if there is a problem, the Apple Store makes it as fast and easy as possible to get customers up and running again.  Can you imagine if other business worked the same way — car mechanics, cable companies, the DMV?

If you see consistent, reproducible spots in the pictures you take, I recommend that you swap it out at an Apple Store.

Before Mardi Gras was even over in New Orleans this past Tuesday, I had to jump on a plane for depositions in another state.  The New Orleans airport underwent a major renovation for the Super Bowl and it looks amazing — new restaurants, new furniture, new amenities, etc.  Of course, being in the airport on Mardi Gras day, there were many other sights to see as I found myself walking behind people in costumes such as this:

While making a connection in the Atlanta airport, I was surprised to see an Apple presence.  The BlackBerry Store that had been at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for the last few years was replaced with a store called iTravel, an authorized Apple reseller.  So the next time that you make a connection through Atlanta, if you need to pick up some extra cables and accessories — or for that matter, a new iPhone or Mac computer — you can do so right in the airport.  Although I first noticed this store this week, I see from an article by Kelly Yamanouchi of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution that the iTravel store actually opened in August of 2012, and apparently there is a similar store at the Boston airport.  The Atlanta iTravel store is located next to gate B18, near the middle of the concourse.

Enough about travel, let’s get to the news of note from the past week:

• I led off last week’s In the news with a story of New Orleans attorney Andrew Legrand making effective use of iThoughtsHD on an iPad mini.  Here is a post from Legrand himself on PaperlessChase.com with more details on using the app.
• California attorney David Sparks explains in a Macworld article why users of Apple’s products shouldn’t get too worked up about the rise and fall of Apple stock prices.
• Speaking of David Sparks, he and New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson teamed up to teach an iPad Basics Webinar on Friday, March 1 at 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern.  No CLE credit, unfortunately, but Sparks and Svenson are both excellent speakers who know this subject well — Sparks literally wrote the book on using an iPad at work — so I suspect it will be an excellent presentation.  The cost is $50, but if you use the promo code “iphonejd” you can save 10%.
• South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens of The Mac Lawyer reviews JuryPad, a jury selection app for the iPad.
• John Paczkowski of All Things D reports that Microsoft could make billions of dollars if it released a version of Office for the iPad.  Paczkowski correctly notes that even if that number is too high, the fact remains that Microsoft could make serious money if it released such an app.  Microsoft is focused on its new Surface tablet right now, but of course Microsoft has sold a version of Office for Mac since the 1980s while at the same time Microsoft promoted Windows, so there is a precedent for Office being on competing platforms at the same time.
• If you need a Lightning cable for your iPhone 5, iPad mini or fourth generation iPad, Juli Clover of MacRumors notes that both Monoprice and Amazon now sell low cost, Apple-certified cables.  Click here for the Amazon cable which is only $14.99, versus Apple’s $19.99 cable.
• Dan Moran and Lex Friedman of Macworld compiled a great list of 33 tips and tricks for iOS 6.
• Similarly, Rob LeFebvre of Cult of Mac offers tips and tricks for using Siri to dictate.
• GoodNotes, which is still my favorite app for taking handwritten notes on an iPad, was updated to version 3.7 this week.  As noted by the developer, the new version is much faster handling PDF files, and I can confirm this from my tests.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a presentation to Goldman Sachs this week.  Macworld has excerpts of the highlights of his speech.
• One of the things that Cook discussed was the Apple Stores, and Horace Dediu has an interesting post at his Asymco website juxtaposing what Cook said with charts showing what it means.
• Apple recently released iOS 6.1, and apparently there are two problems with it.  First, Apple issued an alert that “When you respond to an exception to a recurring calendar event with a
  
  Microsoft Exchange account on a device running iOS 6.1, the device may
  
  begin to generate excessive communication with Microsoft Exchange Server.”  Apple says that a fix is coming in a software update.
• Second, Lex Friedman of Macworld notes that if someone gets physical access to your iPhone or iPad running iOS 6.1, and if they press a complicated series of buttons on the device, the person can gain access to your Contacts.  And because the Contacts app lets a person add a picture from the Photos app to a contact, that means that a person can also view the Photos on your device.  How in the world someone discovered this is beyond me, but now anyone who reads that article can figure out how to do it.  Once again, Apple says that a fix is coming in a software update, but in the meantime, keep an eye on your iOS devices.
• Infinity Blade, one of my favorites games on the iPad, is currently free due to Apple’s app of the week promotion, as noted by Eli Hodapp of TouchArcade.  I was happy to spend $5.99 on this app.  If you don’t have it yet, get it now for free:
• And finally, it appears that Doctor Who predicted the iPad back in 1980, as shown in this clip from an old episode of the TV show.  (via @Jason Snell and @Dalek Thay)