Jeff Richardson

If you want to use a stylus with your iPad to take handwritten notes, there are a number of good apps to choose from.  After I tried GoodNotes earlier this year at the suggestion of an iPhone J.D. reader, it quickly became my favorite of the bunch for the reasons that I explained two months ago in my review.  A recent update to the app adds significant new features that keep the app at the top of my list.

Shapes

First, the app can now recognize shapes.  This is a feature that I had first seen (and really liked) in Notes Plus.  If you are taking notes and want to drop a circle, box or line — either because you are making a diagram or just because you want to place a box around some text to make it stand out — Notes Plus can automatically convert your drawing into a shape with perfectly straight lines (or, for a circle or orval, perfectly curved lines).

GoodNotes adds the feature but does so in a way that I think makes more sense.  Tap the pen tool once to write on the screen, or tap it a second time to toggle the shape recognition mode.  Implemented this way, instead of the app trying to guess whether you are trying to make a perfect shape, the app responds to your explicit instruction on what you want the app to do.

Improved zoom window

A zoom window is an essential feature of an iPad notetaking app to fit a reasonable number of words on a page.  GoodNotes now makes it easier to get in and out of that mode by adding a shortcut at the far left of the toolbar to toggle the window on and off.

Also, it is now even easier to resize the zoom window to a size that makes sense for your writing because there is a resize handle in the corner of the window.

Improved eraser

Typically when I use the eraser tool, I want to fix one small mistake and then get back to writing.  Previously you would have to tap the eraser tool, then erase then tap the pen tool again to go back to writing.  Now, GoodNotes includings a setting (in the iPad’s Settings app) called “Auto-Deselect Eraser.”  When turned on, you tap the eraser tool to turn on the eraser, erase, and then as soon as you lift up your stylus the app returns to the pen mode (or the highlighter mode if that was the last tool you used).  This feature saves you a step and makes you more efficient when using the eraser.

Another update is that the eraser tool now comes in three sizes, and a visual outline on the screen shows you the size of the eraser as you are using it so you can see precisely what will and won’t be erased.

Note that the updated version of GoodNotes, version 3.2, is already in the App Store if you purchased the app when you first got it.  If you instead downloaded the free version of the app (GoodNotes Free) and then paid for an in-app upgrade to remove the two notebook limit, Apple has not yet approved version 3.2 of the app but the developer expects it to be approved this week.  [UPDATE 7/17/12:  Version 3.2 of GoodNotes Free is now available in the App Store.]

And fortunately, the developer of GoodNotes (Steven Chan) has even more improvements coming soon.  His blog shows off an upcoming variable line width option that allows the pen size to vary as you write.  I presume that this feature will be similar to the fantastic fountain pen feature in the Paper app, although it looks like the widths will be not quite as dramatic and thus more realistic for a pen.

I am the first to admit that taking notes on an iPad involves tradeoffs.  Even with a good stylus, you cannot write on an iPad as quickly as you can write on real paper with a real pen.  If I am trying a case or arguing a motion in court, I stick with pen and paper.  On the other hand, when you take notes in GoodNotes, you can quickly undo or erase, change line size, store virtually every note you have ever taken in one space, and easily send notes via email to share them with others.  In meetings and other settings, I often find an app like GoodNotes on my iPad to be the best option.

Click here to get GoodNotes ($3.99):  [removed]

Click here to get GoodNotes Free (free):  [removed]

NOTE:  Those old links no longer work; here is an updated link to the GoodNotes app ($7.99): 

Earlier this year at ABA TECHSHOW, California attorney David Sparks showed me an impressive spreadsheet that he uses on his iPad during settlement negotiations, such as during a mediation.  Yesterday he wrote about his spreadsheet on his MacSparky website and even generously made his spreadsheet free to download at the end of his post.  (To use it on your iPad, you need to have Apple’s fantastic $9.99 Numbers app, which you can get here:  )  I plan to start using his spreadsheet.  I always find that there is a lot of down time in a mediation or settlement negotiation while you wait for the other side to decide what to do next, and this spreadsheet is a valuable tool to help you and your client evaluate your next move and be productive during your down time.  Additionally, I find it interesting that Sparks talks about how he used to do this on his laptop but now prefers an iPad because “the client was always a bit detached from the spreadsheet sitting over on the attorney’s” laptop.  I agree that the iPad is much better than a laptop for sharing.  Another advantage of an iPad in a meeting or in Court is that when people across from you see the back of your laptop screen, it gives the impression that you are hiding something, as if you are playing a game of Battleship.  However, the iPad instead creates the appearance that you are more engaged with the other people and not trying to hide anything, even though they can’t really see your screen unless they are very close to you.  Check out his post, download the spreadsheet, and hopefully you can find a way to incorporate strategies like this into your next settlement negotiation.  And now, the rest of the news of note from this week:

• Most of us just use Safari on the iPad to access websites, but there are other browser options.  I use Safari 95% of the time, but when I want advanced features I use Atomic Web Browser.  Dallas attorney Tom Mighel reviewed five alternatives to Safari — Atomic, Dolphin, iCab, Opera and Chrome — and concludes that iCab is his favorite.  You can read his full report in these three posts:  1, 2 and 3.
• Attrorney Edward Tan discusses the WestlawNext app on the FindLaw blog.  It’s a fantastic app, and my review is here.
• I consider Dropbox an essential service if you are using an iPad because it makes it so easy to share documents between the iPad, iPhone and computer.  For many people, the free 2 GB plan will be enough, but you can pay for more storage.  $10 a month used to get you 50 GB, but as Joel Mathis writes at Macworld, Dropbox improved its plans this week so that you now get 100 GB a month for $10 a month.
• Harry McCracken wrote an article for Time magazine about creating documents and other content on an iPad.  He notes that while some things are easier to do on a laptop, the iPad has many other advantages such as weight and long battery life.  Whenever I travel or work out of the office, I virtually always rely on just my iPad (and iPhone).  There are certainly some compromises to be made when you do so, but like McCracken, I find that the advantages far outweigh those shortcomings.
• Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times reviews the TouchFire keyboard, a thin rubber overlay for your iPad’s onscreen keyboard that costs $49.  He likes it, but I’m not convinced yet.  Ihnatko posted some photos of the TouchFire on Flickr.
• Briam Beam of Macworld reviews iOS scanner apps.
• Josh Ong of AppleInsider writes that the App Store has a new category:  Food & Drink.  The new category includes thousands of free and paid apps for the iPhone and iPad.
• And finally, I’ve always been a fan of the iconic Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York.  I was there when the store first opened on May 19, 2006.  (Apple had a camera taking pictures every few seconds and you can see me wearing the red shirt in this picture, and here is a panoramic picture I took of the crowd after I entered the store.)  Thus, I was tickled to see the detailed Lego version of Apple’s Fifth Avenue store that was created by artist H.K. Leung.  Click here to view photos of his creation on Flickr, and click here for an interview with Leung by Giles Turnbull of Cult of Mac.

When I attended the CTIA Wireless convention two months ago, I saw a product demonstration for the DryCASE, a bag in which you seal your iPhone (they also have a model for the iPad) to make it waterproof.  The booth featured an aquarium with an iPhone underwater and a counter to show how long it had been there:

After I wrote about it in late May, the company sent me a free review sample of both the DryCASE for iPhone and the company’s DryBUDS waterproof earbuds.  I’ve been trying out the products for the last few weeks and I’m impressed.  This is a great way to protect your iPhone when you are in the great outdoors.

The DryCASE is a bag that is much larger than the iPhone.  The DryCASE comes with a removable black strap with velcro that you can use to attach the DryCASE to your arm.  There is a cord that you attach to the headphone jack of your iPhone, and the other end is exposed (but waterproof) at the bottom of the bag so that you can plug in a pair of headphones while the iPhone is in the DryCASE.

Don’t put your iPhone all the way at the bottom of the bag because then the arm-strap will block the camera.  Just put it sort of close to the top as shown below, and then use the included white pump to remove all of the air from inside of the DryCASE.  (I apologize for the quality of the next two photos; my iPhone 4S is in the DryCASE and the only other camera I have with me right now is the one on my old iPhone 3G.  Boy has the iPhone camera improved over the years!)

Once the air is removed, you can attach your headphones.  If you want to use waterproof headphones, the company sells both regular DryBUDS for $30 and the DryBUDS SPORT, which includes a microphone, for $40.  The company sent me the DryBUDS SPORT model, and you can see the small microphone on the cord near the top of the picture just above the legal pad.

Even though I had seen the impressive demonstration at CTIA, I was still a little nervous at first to get my iPhone 4S wet, so I first tried out the DryCASE with my old iPhone 3G in a swimming pool.  I attached the DryBUDS and took a few laps.  The DryCASE was completely underwater for most of the time, and the iPhone 3G was completely protected from the water.  The sound quality of the DryBUDS was perfectly fine — I’m sure not as good as high end earphones, but it’s not like you would notice that anyway while you are swimming.  And I have to admit, it was quite peaceful to swim laps in the pool while I listened to my favorite songs.

When the DryCASE is completely underwater, I could not get the iPhone to recognize my finger touching it.  But when I brought it above the water line, I could touch the iPhone through the clear plastic of the DryCASE.  It was not quite as responsive as touching the iPhone without the DryCASE, but it worked.

I also tested the DryCASE with my iPhone 4S when I went to the beach.  I loved that when my iPhone 4S was in the DryCASE and it was with me on a beach chair, the iPhone was completely protected from not only water but also sand.  In the past I have always been nervous about taking my iPhone down to a beach, but with the DryCASE I had no concerns at all.  Note that when the iPhone rings, the ringing noise is somewhat muffled in the DryCASE, but it is still loud enough to hear a ring (and if you have vibrations turned on, you will still feel that).  If you are using the DryBUDS SPORT when the phone rings, it will also ring in the headphones so you’ll have no trouble noticing an incoming call.  The sound quality of a phone call using the DryCASE and DryBUDS SPORT was fine.

I do wish that the microphone on the DryBUDS SPORT included a button.  That would make it much easier to answer and end a call, change music tracks, use the camera, etc. 

Speaking of the camera, it is nice that you can still use the iPhone’s camera even when it is in the DryCASE.  You do pay a slight price in picture quality; the pictures are softer and somewhat out of focus.  For example, this first picture was taken when my iPhone 4S was in the DryCASE, and the second one is just a normal picture taken by the iPhone 4S.  (Click to see full size picture.)

 

Here are two more examples.  Again, the first was taken in the DryCASE:

 

It is a shame that you lose a little something when you take a picture when the iPhone 4S in the DryCASE, but on the other hand, it’s nice that you can still take pictures.  The following picture that I took at the beach might have been better without the DryCASE, but I probably wouldn’t have even had my iPhone with me at the beach but for the DryCASE so the DryCASE gets full credit for the picture existing in the first place:

If you take a video, there is also a slight decrease in quality, but frankly it is much harder to notice a difference in picture quality.  Sound quality does suffer, however, with the iPhone in the sealed DryCASE.

Even though in my tests the DryCASE was completely waterproof even when underwater, and the DryCASE website shows people scuba diving with the DryCASE, I must admit being somewhat nervous about doing so.  I didn’t do enough tests to be able to report on how the DryCASE works when used underwater repeatedly over many months.  But what I really love about the DryCASE is that it gives you protection even when you are not completely underwater.  So as noted above, I felt very comfortable taking my iPhone to the beach with the DryCASE, unconcerned about sand and occasional water.  The website shows people skiing with a DryCASE, and I could see the DryCASE being valuable if you are jogging outside with your iPhone and it starts to rain.  And because the DryCASE bag is much larger than the iPhone, you can use it with any model iPhone or iPod touch, which is nice because when Apple comes out with the 2012 version of the iPhone later this year, it may be a different size than the iPhone 4 / 4S and therefore won’t work with cases that are specific to that model design.  The website says that you can also use the DryCASE with a camera, but I didn’t test that because I use a Nikon SLR that is much too big for the DryCASE.

If you are looking to protect your iPhone from the elements, the DryCASE is an excellent solution.  The retail price of the DryCASE is $39.99, the version for the iPad is $59.99, and the regular DryBUDS are $29.99, but the prices are substantially lower if you buy them from Amazon using the following links.  The DryBUDS SPORT (the version with the microphone) retails for $39.99, but I don’t see it on Amazon Prime nor is it discounted very much on Amazon, so you might as well just buy it directly from the manufacturer.  Or if you don’t plan to go underwater, you can use your regular headphones with the DryCASE.

Click here to get DryCASE from Amazon ($23.99)

Click here to get DryCASE Tablet from Amazon ($40.33)

Click here to get DryBUDS from Amazon ($19.99)

Click here to get DryBUDS SPORT from the manufacturer for $39.99.

I’m sure you can think of one person to whom you frequently send emails from your iPhone.  What steps do you take to do so?  (1) Tap the icon for the Mail app; (2) Tap the compose new e-mail button at the bottom right of the screen; (3) Start to type a few letters of the person’s name; (4) See the person’s name appear in the list below the “To” field; (5) Tap the person’s name; (6) Tap in the “Subject” field.  At this point you can finally enter your subject and then the body of your email.  When you think of it, that is actually quite a few steps, and I can’t even imagine how many times I’ve done all of that on my iPhone.  Launch Center Pro is a new app that let’s you perform many common iPhone tasks that involve launching apps very quickly, cutting down on the number of steps required to do so.

So getting back to my compose an email example, with this app you simply launch Launch Center Pro, and instead of the six steps outlined above, you just press your finger down on the Email icon, slide over to the name of the person, and then you are done.  The Mail app launches, the email is already addressed, and the cursor is already flashing in the Subject field — but you’ve done so in a way that cuts out over half of the steps I identified above.  I know that it seems like an extra step to have to launch the Launch Center Pro app first, but because the overall number of steps that you have to do is greatly decreased, the app improves your efficiency.

You need to take some time to configure Launch Center Pro to meet your needs, but then once you do so, you can become much more efficient with the app.  Here is what my Launch Center Pro home screen currently looks like.  In other words, this is what I see when I launch Launch Center Pro:

As you can see, you have spaces for 12 different icons, and right now I’m only using nine of them.  I may not ever put anything in the two bottom right boxes because I am right-handed, and thus my thumb partially covers those two boxes which would make it more awkward to select them, although of course I could do so.

When I press down on the “Email” icon in the middle of the screen, the screen instantly changes to display shortcuts to different names.  You can select any names from your contacts, and if you are right handed like me I find it easier to place those shortcuts on the left portion of the screen so that your thumb can just push down on “Email” and then slide over to the shortcut and then lift your thumb. That’s it.

When you pick up your finger, the Mail app launches with the email properly addressed and the cursor waiting for you in the Subject field.

If that was all that Launch Center Pro did, that would be enough for me to recommend the app to anyone who, like me, sends emails from the iPhone to some of the same people over and over again.  But that is just the beginning.

You can also configure a similar trick for text messages.  Thus, to send a text message to your friend John, instead of finding the Messages app, going to the list of conversations, finding the one that pertains to John and then tapping on it to send John a new message, all you have to do with Launch Center Pro is launch the app, push down on your text messages button (I called mine “Text” but you can call it whatever you want) and the slide over to John’s name and lift your finger.

You can do the same trick for making phone calls.  It works the same way.  Tap Phone, then slide over to the person.  For some people you may set up multiple icons, such as one icon to call your spouse at home, one to call your spouse at an office, one to call your spouse on a cell phone, etc. 

You can do the same trick for launching bookmarks in Safari.

And you can do the same trick for launching other apps.  The Launch Center Pro app has a list of apps that it can launch, and right now it is a relatively small number.  But for many of these apps, you can not just launch the app but also perform a task.  So for example, I have a shortcut to the IMDb app (Internet Movie Database) that not only launches the app but also jumps directly to the search field so you can, for example, enter the movie title and quickly settle the bar bet over which actress was in the movie.  For Facebook, I have one icon that launches me into the News Feed portion of the app, and another that launches me instantly into the Friends portion of the app.

On my Launch Center Pro home screen I have two other button that are very useful.  One of them is called Flashlight, and it just turns on the LED light on the back of the iPhone.  I have another app that does this, but I use this function enough that it is nice to have a quick toggle for it in Launch Center Pro. 

The other button I have is a brightness toggle.  I normally keep my iPhone at about 60% brightness, but when I am using my iPhone outside in the sunlight I like to increase the brightness to 100%.  By simply tapping the button, I automatically bring the brightness up to 100%, and then when I tap it again the brightness returns to my normal level.  This is much faster than launching the Settings app and finding the Brightness area and using the slider to change brightness.  If you find yourself commonly reducing brightness on your iPhone, you can of course use the toggle this way as well.

And I still haven’t discussed everything that this app can do.  Do you commonly send people an email that has a specific subject and/or specific body of text?  You can configure a Launch Center Pro action to do that.  If you use Twitter on your iPhone, there are tons of shortcuts that you can configure if you use Tweetbot and other options if you use Twitterific or the app from Twitter itself.  You can open a box to enter a Google search term, which is a little bit faster than launching Safari, and then opening a new tab, and then tapping in the search box.  And the list of options goes on and on.  You also have lots of options for changing the icons in the app, and of course you can easily slide the icons around to arrange everything just how you like it.

The developer of this app, App Cubby, used to sell a simpler version of this app called Launch Center which you could use to launch other apps.  The “Pro” in Launch Center Pro is there for a reason — you can do a lot more with this app, but you need to take the time to configure the app in the first place and that might scare off some people, especially if they are new to the iPhone.  But if you are the sort of person who doesn’t mind configuring a utility once to make yourself more efficient many, many times in the future, then I think you’ll really like Launch Center Pro.  I’ll admit that when I first heard of this app it sounded a little complicated to me, but then once I took a look at what it could do I quickly spent three bucks to get it, and I’m really glad that I did.  By the way, the app currently sells for the introductory price of $2.99 but will eventually increase to $4.99.

Click here to get Launch Center Pro ($2.99): 

There have been no posts to iPhone J.D. this week due to the Fourth of July holiday, but there were quite a few news items of interest to iPad and iPhone owners this week, so without further ado, here is this week’s In the news:

• ExhibitView, an iPad app that can display documents at trial or in a meeting, was just updated to version 3.0 with lots of new features including graphics optimized for the Retina Display on the new iPad, improved zoom and free drawing, sharper resolution on zoomed documents, and 1.5x zoom with a double tap.  Click here for ExhibitView ($49.99): 

  

• Trial presentation consultant Ted Brooks reviews TranscriptPad, an iPad app that you can use to read and annotate depositions.  I reviewed the app earlier this year, and it is still one of the most useful apps on my iPad.
• If you use Elite for your time entry and billing in your law firm (that’s what we use at my firm), you may be interested in this report by Even Koblentz of Law Technology News about an upcoming iPad client.
• California attorney David “MacSparky” Sparks talks about how he used his iPhone and other gadgets to lose weight.
• Last week I reflected on the five year anniversary of the iPhone.  John Gruber has an interesting article on the occasion on his Daring Fireball website.  I completely agree with his argument that the iPhone was (and is) special not because it is a phone, but instead because it was “the world’s best portable computer. Best not in the sense of being the most powerful, or the fastest, or the most-efficient to use. The thing couldn’t even do copy-and-paste. It was the best because it was always there, always on, always just a button-push away. The disruption was not that we now finally had a nice phone; it was that, for better or for worse, we would now never again be without a computer or the Internet.”
• Dieter Bohn of The Verge also has an interesting look at the five-year history of the iPhone.
• Ryan Kim of GigaOm opines that the major point in the iPhone’s five-year history was the creation of the App Store.  I agree.
• Ken Segall used to work for Apple’s advertising agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, and he not only authored the Think Different campaign, he also came up with the name “iMac.”  Segall is also one of the masterminds behind the always funny Scoopertino site.  He has a new book out called Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success.  Simon Jary of PC Advisor reports on some of Segall’s revolutions during the promotional tour for his book, including the interesting tidbit:  one of the first names considered for what would be come the iPhone was “iPad.”  Interesting.
• Roy Furchgott of the New York Times offers tips for taking better pictures with your iPhone.
• And finally, we now have a solution to the age-old problem of being unable to use an iPhone while it is in your jeans pocket.  The smart folks at Alphyn Industries have come up with the Delta415 Wearcom Jeans, pants that include a zippered flap for your iPhone.  Available in sizes 28 to 38, they can be yours for the low price of $160.00.  (via Cult of Mac)

 

Five years ago today, on June 29, 2007, the original iPhone first went on sale.  Steve Jobs had previewed the iPhone back on January 9, 2007, in what I think was the best presentation that Steve Jobs ever made (which is saying something).  As we got closer to June 29, 2007, anticipation was high because people wanted to try for themselves the device that seemed so different than everything that came before it.  Around the country, people lined up to be among the first to get an iPhone.

As you would expect after five years, there are tons of differences between the original iPhone and the current iPhone 4S.  Obviously, iPhones are now cheaper.  The cheapest original iPhone was the $499 model with the 4GB, or for an extra $100 you could get 8GB.  Today, you can get the iPhone 3GS for free, while the 4S starts at $199 for 16GB and the high-end 64GB model is $399.

With over 650,000 apps currently in the App Store, it seems strange that the original iPhone did not allow for any third party apps.  Developers were instead encouraged to create web pages formatted for the iPhone screen (a severe limitation, although thousands were created, many of which were surprisingly good).  As for Apple’s built-in apps, because they took advantage of the iPhone’s beautiful and unprecedented screen, they seemed great at the time, but many suffered from severe limitations.  For example, the original Mail app did not work with Microsoft Exchange, and that shortcoming alone was a key reason that few lawyers bought the original iPhone.  You could not select multiple e-mails at once so you had to delete e-mails one at a time.  And as was the case in all apps on the original iPhone, there was no cut/copy-and-paste.

There are important hardware differences between the original iPhone and the current iPhone 4S.  The original iPhone did not even work with 3G, and instead only used the slow Edge network.  The original iPhone’s camera was only 2 megapixels and did not support video recording, let alone FaceTime videochat.  There was a headphone jack on the original iPhone, but it was deeply inset so many headphones would not fit without an adapter.  And due to less memory and a much slower CPU, the original iPhone was a fraction of the speed of the current iPhone 4S.  On the other hand, you did get a free dock with the original iPhone, something that you now have to purchase for $30.

And of course, technologies like Siri, AirPlay, Bluetooth keyboards, etc. were nowhere to be seen on the original iPhone.  Nor were carriers other than AT&T.  (The first international iPhone launch was November 9, 2007, when the iPhone was released in the UK and Germany.)

But for all of the changes over the past five years, I’m actually amazed how much the iPhone hasn’t changed.  Although thinner and lighter, it is still essentially the same height and width.  We still have just the one button on the front, the sleep/wake button at the top, and the volume buttons and mute switch on the side.  The basic interface remains a grid of icons, although with the Retina display those icons look much nicer.  The basic navigation remains the same: scroll through lists, pinch to zoom, tap on the screen without to push down like on earlier touchscreens.  And the iPhone remains dominated by its large, beautiful screen, uncluttered by an always-present keyboard that had been so popular with BlackBerries and Palm Treos.  Here is the ad that Apple was running when the iPhone came out in June of 2007, and it still captures much of what makes the iPhone so special today (not to mention it still makes me hungry for calamari):

It is amazing how much Apple got right with the first generation of the iPhone, resulting in so many key iPhone features remaining the same after five years.

Few lawyers bought that original model of the iPhone, but many of us could tell that Apple was about to change smartphones forever (although I doubt that many of us could have predicted how successful the iPhone would be).  As Steve Jobs said in 2007:  “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. … Apple is going to reinvent the phone.”  I am constantly amazed at how much the iPhone and its sibling the iPad have allowed me to be a better lawyer, while at the same time providing countless hours of entertainment and learning (both for me and my kids).  As we celebrate the fifth anniversary of the iPhone, I lift my glass to toast Apple for all that it has accomplished and to thank the company for creating such an amazing device.

On this special Thursday edition of In the news, let’s start by turning back the clock.  The iPhone and iPad may be the cool tech items du jour, but when I grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s, Atari was all the buzz.  I cannot even imagine how many hours my brother and I spent playing Pong and then the Atari 2600 hooked up to our TV.  The Atari of today bears little resemblance to the original Atari, but there is enough of a connection to celebrate 40 years of Atari this week.  Harry McCracken of Time has a great interview with Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari (and one of the first people to hire Steve Jobs).  And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:

• Boston attorney Martha Sperry of Advocate’s Studio took the time to answer “what’s on your iPad” for Patrick Jordan of iPad Insight.
• Oakland, CA attorney Jeffrey Allen talks about iPad apps in the June MacNotes column for the ABA’s GPSolo eReport.
• Attorney Edward Tan of FindLaw discusses the Court Days Pro app.
• Tan also discusses the JuryTracker app.
• John Barkett of Law Technology News discusses the ABA’s efforts to revise the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to update references to technology.  For example, a proposed amendment to Modle Rule 1.1 would require lawyers to keep abredst of “the benefits and risks associated with technology.”  I’m already trying to comply with this proposed rule.
• South Carolina attorney Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer opines that SpiderOak is better for lawyers than Dropbox.  His arguments are logical, but I love that Dropbox support is so widespread in iPhone and iPad apps.
• Glenn Fleishman, who knows more about Apple Wi-Fi technology than almost anyone else on the planet, reviews the new version of Apple’s AirPort Express in this article for Macworld.  In my home, I have an AirPort Extreme and two AirPort Express devices strategically located to ensure Wi-Fi throughout my house.
• Nick Wingfield of the New York Times writes about the Surface, a tablet recently previewed by Microsoft.  But of course, one cannot talk about any other tablet without talking about the iPad, and this article contains interesting tidbits such as the time that Apple bought a large quantity of high-quality aluminum from an Australian mine to corner the world market and ensure sufficient supplies for the iPad.
• Hone is an interesting idea and a Kickstarter project.  For $49, you get a fob for your keychain that uses low power Bluetooth 4.0 that works on a battery for up to six months.  When you lose your keys, an app on your iPhone can make the keys beep and point an arrow in the direction of your keys to help you locate them using a proximity sensor.
• The iEconomy series in the New York Times has included some unfavorable articles about Apple.  I think that parts of these articles are sometimes unfair, but they are still good reads.  For example, a few day ago David Segal wrote this cover story about how employees at Apple Stores work long hours for little pay.  I think his premise is a little silly.  Does anyone think that working at an electronics store in a mall is going to be a high-paying job?  And yet the demand to get a job at an Apple Store is still incredibly high because of the perks of the job including working with cool technology, great benefits, and the fact that it looks much better on a 20-year-old’s resume than flipping burgers.
• And finally, the smart guys at Tovbot have created a iPhone (and Android) external speaker that is also a robot.  They called their creation Shimi, and the robot dances along to your music, alerts you when you get a Facebook post or a new Twitter follower, and can recommend songs to play based on hand gestures.  And the Shimi will be open to third party development as well, so I’m sure that before long somebody will combine Siri and Shimi (Shirmi?) to turn it into a robot that can talk to you and dance with you  This item is expected to launch in early 2013, and it looks like a lot of fun, as you can see in these two videos.  And if you like Star Wars, check out this one too.

I’ve previously reviewed two other apps that let you scan business cards with an iPhone.  ABBYY Business Card Reader takes a picture of a business card and uses OCR on the iPhone to read the card.  CardMunch takes a picture of a business card and uses a service in which a real person look at the card and finds a match to the person on LinkedIn (if available), or if not types the information in.  You need to wait up to a few hours to get results, but when you do the results in CardMunch are much more accurate and comprehensive.  But I know that some people don’t like the idea of sharing new contact information with LinkedIn and thus prefer to have an app that does all of the OCR on the iPhone itself to maintain privacy.  The developer of the WorldCard Mobile iPhone app, Penpower Technology Ltd., asked me to check out their app and sent me a free copy to review, and I’m glad that they did because I’m very impressed.  It is a strong alternative to ABBYY Business Card reader.

To use the app, tap the large Camera button on the main screen of the app to start scanning a business card.

Simply put the business card within the blue lines and tap the camera button to take a picture.  Better yet, you can tap the icon of a shaking hand, and the iPhone will wait to take a picture until you are holding your iPhone very still.  By default the app handles one business card at a time, but you can also tap the button at the bottom right to scan several cards at a time and then wait until later to edit the details.

After you snap a picture you can preview the result and then you tap a button that says “Recognize” to start the OCR process.  The app then shows you a contact card with the information that it scanned.  As you tap each field, the app shows you the part of the image that it selected to correspond to that field.  If it gets something wrong — for example, for my law firm Adams and Reese LLP the app put a lowercase “p” in the LLP — simply tap on the field to edit it.  And when you do so, the app shows you an image of the portion of the card that it associated with that field.  This way, even if you don’t have the business card with you, you can still see the image to figure out what to correct, if anything.

 

Sometimes the app makes a mistake when it associates a field with names.  For example, I tried a few unconventional business cards in which the business name was more prominent than the person’s name, and the app would sometimes confuse those two fields.  If you tap the Browse button, you are presented with the business card image again and you can manually move crosshairs around a portion of a card, and then once selected you can tell the app to use this part of the image for a particular field.  This is a very useful feature.

The app usually does a great job of recognizing the four edges of a business card, but if it has trouble you can manually select the four corners of the card and the app will create an image based on that. 

In my tests, WorldCard Mobile did an excellent job of recognizing traditional business cards such as my own business card and a business card from an Apple employee.  I also tried some more exotic business cards with graphics, strange fonts, color, etc., and that is where the app started to make some mistakes, but the app makes it easy to fix them.  Importantly, in my numerous tests, WorldCard Mobile was 100% accurate on phone numbers (and fax numbers).  This is a big advantage of using an app to scan business cards instead of typing the information manually; entering numbers is tedious, and it is easy to make a mistake.  I far prefer to have the iPhone quickly read all numbers, and I can double-check it to confirm everything is correct.

One neat feature:  the app gives you the option to scan the back of the business card too, just in case it is a two-sided card.

Once you are finished, you can export the card to your iPhone contacts, to the Card Holder portion of the app itself, or to both.  If you export to your iPhone contacts, you can choose to have the picture of the business card sent as the image for the contact.  The Card Holder portion of the app is nicely implemented.  You can view contacts in a list with a thumbnail of the picture of the business card next to the person’s name, company and phone number.  (My one gripe is that while you can sort by company name or name of the person, when you sort by the name of the person it sorts by first name instead of last name.)   Moreover, the app has a cool cover flow feature; turn the iPhone sideways and you can browse through pictures of business cards.

If that was all that this app did, I’d be very happy with it.  But the app also includes lots of other methods of getting information into the app.  If you previously took a picture of a business card with the Camera on the iPhone, you can import pictures from your photo album.  The app supports syncing to iCloud and Dropbox so if you also use the app on another device (I see that there is a WorldCard HD app for the iPad, although I haven’t tried it) you can share information.  The app also has a QR Code scanning function to translate a QR Code into an address which you can then tap to see the address in Safari or you can add the URL to an existing contact.

The app also has the ability to create a contact entry from the signature at the end of a person’s e-mail.  When you are in your Mail app, just select all of the text at the bottom of a person’s e-mail with all of their contact information, then choose “copy” to place that on your clipboard.  Then launch the app and tap the Signature button on the main screen to tell the app to recognize the data in the e-mail signature and create a contact based on this data.  For some reason, WorldCard Mobile doesn’t let you then create a contact entry only in the Card Holder portion of the app, but it does do a good job of figuring out the fields for all of the data so that you can create a normal entry in the iPhone’s Contacts app.

 

Thee developer also has a free Lite version of the app that limits you to three cards a week during the first week and then one card a week after that.  If you scan very infrequently, perhaps the Lite version is enough for you, but the main value of the Lite version is that it lets you try before you buy.

Overall, I was very impressed by this app.  Using an app like WorldCard Mobile lets you create a Contacts entry faster and with more accuracy than you typing the information yourself.  Also, I like the ability to see the pictures of the actual business cards in the Card Holder portion of the app.  I don’t encounter QR Codes very often so I doubt that will be very useful to me, but I love the ability to easily create a contact by simply selecting the text in a person’s e-mail signature.  If you are looking for a business card scanner for your iPhone, WorldCard Mobile is worth a look.

Click here to get WorldCard Mobile ($6.99): 

Click here to get WorldCard Mobile Lite (free): 

It’s another Friday, so here is another collection of the iPhone and iPad items of interest that were in the news during the past week:

• Angela Morris of Texas Lawyer‘s Tex Parte Blog describes a 60 Apps in 60 Minutes session at the State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting.  Attorneys Ronald Chichester, Grant Scheiner and Mark Unger recommended several apps for iPhone (and Android).  There are a few errors in the article — for example, GoodReader is described as a “news reader” — but the apps themselves seem to be good picks.
• New Orleans attorney Ernie Svensons writes about “true” digital signatures on his PDF for Lawyers blog.  His premise is that nobody really likes the digital signature feature of Acrobat, and it usually is better to just insert a graphic of your signature in a document.  I agree 100%, and it is amazing to me that the digital signature feature of Acrobat has been around for so long and yet it is still so awkward.
• Indiana attorney Bill Wilson discusses Dropbox security on his Third Apple website.
• I’ve long been a fan of the Fastcase app for iPhone and iPad.  This week, Fastcase announced a new free product, Fastcase Advance Sheets.  These are the latest, not-yet-published decisions from courts, provided by Fastcase in an e-book format.  And best of all, Fastcase Advance Sheets are free.  Sean Doherty of Law Technology News writes about this new product.  Click here to get more information on the Fastcase website.  My assumption is that Fastcase Advance Sheets are not yet available; I see this on the Amazon Kindle Store but those Fastcase e-books have prices, and I don’t yet see anything on the Apple iBookstore.
• New York attorney Niki Black writes about the SignMyPad app.
• Matthew Panzarino of The Next Web describes the new Passbook app coming in iOS 6.  I’m really looking forward to this app, both because of what it will do at first and how the app could evolve in the future.
• Peter Cohen of The Loop describes upgrades to the app PDFpen including folder syncing with Dropbox.
• Carmine Gallo has an interesting article about Apple Stores in this article in Forbes.
• MacNN reports that, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, it costs an iPad owner about $1.36 a year to charge an iPad (assuming a full charge every other day).  By comparison, a desktop computer costs about $28.21 a year and a clothes dryer costs about $105 a year.
• Kit Eaton of the New York Times discusses augmented reality apps.
• And finally, here is a really fun video created by British duo Tom Jenkins and Simon Sharp, who call themselves The Theory, using an iPhone and a miniature video projector.  They call it the world’s smallest police chase.  Too funny:

GoodReader is my go-to app for storing and reading PDF files on my iPad.  For example, just yesterday I was doing some legal research on LexisAdvance on my computer.  I downloaded the cases that looked relevant (which, by the way, is a pain with LexisAdvance; they really need to improve the download interface), I dropped the cases into a Dropbox folder on my computer, and then I pressed the sync button in GoodReader to get all of the cases.  Then I could go through each case, delete the ones that were not that important, and highlight the relevant passages in the good cases. I prefer reading cases on an iPad versus a computer to take a break from sitting up and staring at my computer screen all day.  And it is much better than reading cases on paper because I can zoom each column to make the text larger, use the more precise highlight function (including undo, which is lacking with real ink), and I don’t have to worry the cases getting lost on my desk.

One of the things that I love about GoodReader is that the app receives frequent updates so that it is always improving.  One recent update added a handwriting zoom window much like the zoom window in apps like GoodNotes, NoteTakerHD, NotesPlus or Noteshelf.  That feature makes it easier to add notes in the margins of documents.

Yesterday, GoodReader was updated to add a few new features, and my favorite is the new ability to save video.  You can now save a video from Safari to GoodReader so that you can view it later even if you don’t have an Internet connection.  It’s a useful feature, but the one-time setup is a little complicated.  Here are the steps.

First, tap on the Settings icon at the bottom and select General Settings.  You will see two large green buttons and the second one says “bookmark for video.”  Tap that one.  This places an address on your clipboard.

Next, go to the Safari web browser.  Go to any webpage — in this example I went to www.google.com — and tap the button at the top to create a bookmark as if you were going to create a bookmark to that page.  Tap “Add Bookmark.”

You will next be given the option to change the name of the page.  Do so.  For example, I replaced the title “Google” with “Video to GoodReader.”  What you want to do next is change the address, but Safari won’t let you do so yet.  As you can see in this next picture, the URL cannot be selected.  So instead, tap the blue Save button.

Next, tap the Bookmarks button and select the Edit button at the top right.  Now find the bookmark that you just created (if you followed along with me, you called it “Video to GoodReader” and you put it in your Bookmarks Menu, but you could have used any name that you want and put it in any folder that you want).  Tap on that bookmark.  Now, Safari will let you select the URL in the address field:

Tap on the address, hit the X button at the end of the line to delete what is already there, and next hold down your finger in the box for a second until the “Paste” option pops up.  Now you can paste that long address that GoodReader automatically copied to the clipboard for you.

You’re done!  Tap anywhere else to save your edited bookmark.  You won’t have to go through that long process again. 

Now that everything is setup, you can use this new feature.  When you visit a webpage that has a video on it that can be played on the iPad, just tap to start the video playing and then tap pause to stop the video.

Next tap the Bookmarks icon at the top of Safari and select the new bookmark you created, which in my case was the one called Video to GoodReader.  Your iPad will switch to the GoodReader app, and GoodReader will tell you that it has started downloading the video.  The video is placed in the Downloads folder of GoodReader and now you can watch the video whenever you want.

You can also use the standard GoodReader functions to manipulate the file.  For example, you might want to change the title of the video to something that makes more sense.  You can also move the video into another folder on GoodReader, so if the video pertains to a lawsuit that you are handling you can keep it with your other files from the lawsuit.  If you put the video into a folder that you are syncing with Dropbox, then just tap the standard Sync button to have the video uploaded to Dropbox.  That means, for example, that the video will also be on your computer, where you can play it with a program such as Apple’s free QuickTime Player.

I’ve shown all of this using GoodReader on the iPad, but I understand that this new feature also works with the iPhone version of GoodReader.

As I think about it, this new feature is somewhat indicative of the GoodReader app as a whole.  It can be a little confusing at first, but there is a lot of power at your fingertips once you learn how to use it.

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

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