I could probably sum up just about all of the news of note from this past week by just saying “new iPad.” But that would make this a really short post, so I’ll also note the following:
Macworld published one of their “what you need to know” articles on the new iPad. It covers many of the questions that you may have about the device.
Glenn Fleishman of Macworld explains what LTE means for the third generation iPad.
Portland attorney Josh Barrett of Tablet Legal suggests that attorneys may only need two apps on their iPad. I have just a tad more than that.
Jim Dalrymple of The Loop got to use the third generation iPad, and says: “It’s impossible to put into words just how good the Retina display is on the iPad. It’s not just images that look sharper, it’s text too. Reading a Web site or an iBook on the iPad’s display is incredible. Even the home screen on the iPad is crisper and sharper than I expected.” Sounds great.
If you want to get a new iPad with 4G LTE, should you get the AT&T or the Verizon model? Chris Ziegler of The Verge compares the two.
Evan Koblentz of Law Technology News talks to a few lawyers to find out whether they are getting the new iPad.
Roy Furchgott of the New York Times discusses the useful Shortcuts feature of the iPhone and iPad.
New York attorney Niki Black has a video review of the Typi Folio iPad case with built-in Bluetooth keyboard.
And finally, the iPhone might be the hottest smartphone today, but what if you want it to look like the hottest smartphone of the 1980s? Then the 80s Retro iPhone Case is what you need, available on Amazon for only $19.15:
Yesterday, Apple announced the 2012 version of the iPad. Instead of calling it the “iPad 3” or the “iPad HD” or something like that, Apple is just calling it the iPad. That makes sense to me. I use an iMac as my home computer, and the computer has been called the iMac for a very long time even though it is updated from year to year. It is sort of like saying you drive a Honda Accord, without needing to say the “Accord 9” or something like that, although of course you often do need to know your model year to get service, accessories, etc.
I ordered the new iPad last night, to be delivered on March 16 when it becomes available for purchase. I look forward to trying it out myself, but based upon what Apple announced yesterday, here are the reasons that I think that lawyers will love the third generation of the iPad:
Retina display. This is the new feature that we expected, but even though it is not a surprise, I am sure that this will be the best part of the new iPad. The original iPad and iPad 2 have a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi). The new iPad doubles that for four times as many pixels: 2048 x 1536 resolution at 264 ppi. Those are just numbers, though … what does it mean in real life? As I mentioned last week, remember that a fancy 1080p HDTV has a 1920 x 1080 display, and even though that screen is probably 30 to 50 inches or more, you really can’t see individual dots very much. The iPad display has got a million more pixels than an HDTV, and they are packed together MUCH more to fit the considerably smaller iPad screen. As a result, text will look amazingly smooth, photographs will look stunning, and videos will look amazing. Ryan Block of GDGT saw the new display yesterday and wrote:
Let me put it this way: when I pulled up a nice, high resolution photograph on the iPad 3rd-gen, I genuinely could not tell the difference between what I was seeing onscreen, and a nice, beautifully shot, well-printed, glossy photograph. It was seriously to that level. It’s the best display I’ve ever seen. Anywhere, period. And it makes a meaningful difference to the experience — it’s not just a spec.
The iPad is all about the screen. You view the screen, you touch the screen — the iPad is nothing more than a screen. This resolution on a screen will be amazing and make the iPad so much more pleasant to use.
Faster. The new iPad needs to have a faster processor to handle the vastly improved screen, and it does. My hope is that the overall experience of using the iPad will also be faster because it means that the iPad will be more responsive. I’ll have to test this to see how it works, but my hope is that all apps feel faster including, for example, apps like Note Taker HD that let you use a stylus to take handwritten notes on an iPad. More speed would make that app and others like it feel more like you are directly writing on the screen.
4G LTE. Additionally, if you buy the iPad model that has a built-in radio, it now works not only with 3G networks but also with 4G LTE networks, which means even faster web browsing, downloads, etc. I almost always have Wi-Fi available so when I placed my order last night, I didn’t pay the extra $130 for this feature. Instead of paying a monthly fee to AT&T or Verizon for the iPad, I just pay for the AT&T iPhone tethering plan and use that with my iPad for the rare times that I need it. But I cannot deny the usefulness of having that radio – my first iPad was the 3G version and it was great to just always be on the Internet. If the 3G model is right for you, you can now also use 4G LTE if you are in a city that supports the service.
Voice dictation. One of the things I love about Siri on my iPhone 4S is the ability to dictate an e-mail, which is often so much faster than using my thumbs to type (and I’m a pretty fast thumb typist). The new iPad doesn’t support all Siri features, but it does support voice dictation, so you don’t need to use a third party app like Dragon Dictation to accomplish this. Writing e-mails and editing documents are a huge part of my daily use of the iPad, and having voice dictation will make those tasks easier.
New and updated apps. Apple announced the new iPhoto app, making it easy for you to improve photos on your iPhone or iPad, and Apple updated the iWork apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) and the iLife apps (GarageBand, iMovie) to take advantage of the Retina Display and get new features.
Other details. The new iPad has a vastly improved camera, but I can’t imagine that using a large iPad as a camera is important to most lawyers so I don’t see this as a very big deal, although I suppose it is nice. [UPDATE: As several have wisely pointed out in the comments, the improved camera will be helpful for attorneys who want to scan documents.]
The new iPad weighs about two ounces more than the iPad 2 (but still less than the original iPad). It is also a little bit thicker than the iPad 2, although much less than the original iPad. All other things being equal, I’d prefer a lighter, thinner iPad. I’m sure that Apple needed the extra bulk to keep the amazing iPad battery life of up to 10 hours, even with the larger screen and more advanced processor.
The price remains the same as before, so you can get the entry-level new iPad with 16 GB for $499. Add another $100 for 32 GB or an extra $200 for 64 GB; add an extra $130 for the 3G/4G LTE radio.
If you want to save some money and you don’t mind getting the 2011 model instead of the new 2012 model, you can now get the 16 GB version of the iPad 2 for only $399. You can compare the iPad 2 with the third generation iPad on this page.
The bottom line. I’ll have to wait until the third generation iPad is in my hands before I can post a full review, but I suspect that it will be a nice upgrade for any attorney using an iPad, especially if you are still using the first generation iPad. And for new attorneys who have yet to get their first iPad, the third generation iPad looks to be a real treat. There will be a lot for lawyers to love in the new iPad.
Apple will announce the next generation of the iPad today. We’ll learn whether it is called the iPad 3 or the iPad HD. We’ll learn whether it will have a retina display (most likely 2048 x 1536 resolution at 264 ppi). We’ll learn whether the 3G model will also support the much faster LTE 4G. We’ll learn whether there is a better camera and whether it comes in a model with more than 64GB. We’ll learn whether the price will remain the same and whether Apple will keep selling the current iPad 2 for under $500. We’ll learn when it will go on sale. And perhaps Apple has some other new features up its sleeves that I’m not thinking of.
And that’s just the iPad hardware. We might also learn about a new operating system (iOS 5.1?) for the iPad and iPhone with new bells and whistles. We might hear about some new apps, such as perhaps an iPhoto app from Apple and perhaps Microsoft Office from Microsoft. If the new iPad does have a retina display, I expect that we will see demonstrations of some amazing-looking new apps that take advantage of the better screen. And we might see a new version of the Apple TV with new features for when you want to display content from your iPhone or iPad on a TV.
And who knows what else. Maybe we’ll see a 2.0 version of the Apple iPod Socks to bring compatibility to the iPhone and iPad. We’re in that magical time just before a big Apple announcement when anything seems possible.
All will be revealed when the event starts at 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern today. If you want to get live updates as the event unfolds, here are my recommendations for what I expect to be the best live coverage with links to the pages that will contain the updates once the event starts:
If I asked you how much you would pay for a desk lamp, I suspect that many of you would say less than $50.00, if not less than $20.00. If I asked you how much you would pay for art for your office, I suspect that most of you would not blink at a pricetag of several hundred dollars. The D’E-light is a desk lamp created by famous French designer Philippe Starck that contains a charging dock for an iPhone or iPad, placing your device at a perfect height when you want to glance at it. It is sold by FLOS, an Italian company that has been working with Starck since 1988, and it costs $396. Whether you think that price is reasonable or not depends upon where you place it on the spectrum from a functional desk lamp to a piece of art. FLOS sent me a review unit to evaluate for a few weeks and I will say this: it is very useful, and very cool.
The lamp has a simple, efficient design with a highly polished aluminum finish. It weighs a substantial 2 lbs. 1 oz., but the base is only 5.3” wide and 4.6” deep and is flat so it doesn’t take up much space on your desk. You can certainly place documents on top of the base.
The light comes from a flat panel 2700K LED, which runs cool to the touch. Because the lamp is about 8 inches high, your eyes don’t see the light source unless you really duck down your head, so the light is not going to blind your eyes as you work at your desk, but it will do a nice job of lighting up whatever sits below it.
The D’E-light has no buttons on it. To turn on the light, you tap the touch-sensitive right side of the lamp. Tap it again to dim the light to 50%, then again to turn the light off. This simple design feature has been a source of constant amusement for my six year old son for the past few weeks; the first thing he does when he comes to my desk is turn the light on or off. And to be honest, I find it almost as cool as he does.
The reason that this is the first desk lamp review on iPhone J.D. is that the top of the lamp contains a spot to charge an iPhone, iPad or iPod. Your device sits at a slight angle in portrait orientation, and the lamp is more than sturdy enough to hold an iPad, and certainly has no trouble with an iPhone or iPod. This is not a dock with a USB connector so you can’t use the D’E-light to sync your device with your computer; it is just a charger.
When you place an iPad on the D’E-light, part of the iPad sits over the edge. It might look like this is not stable, but because of the weight of the D’E-light, the angle that the lamp holds the iPad and the surface that the iPad leans against, the iPad is actually quite secure.
There are two things I love about charging an iPhone or iPad on the D’E-light. First, once you place your device here, you’ll always know where it is and you don’t have to worry about an iPhone getting lost on your desk. (This is the same reason that I have always used an Apple iPhone dock at my desk in my office.) Second, the D’E-light places an iPhone or iPad at a perfect height for you to glance at it to see the time, look at a notification for when a new e-mail comes in, look at a picture, etc. The height is also good for FaceTime calls on the iPhone, although maybe just a tad too high. (Unfortunatly, it is too high for FaceTime on the iPad.)
Would I pay $400 myself for the D’E-light? For my home? No, because there is nothing fancy about my study. On the other hand, if I had a law office with a modern decor that matched the D’E-light, I would definitely consider purchasing this because it a very nice lamp and iPhone/iPad charger and holder that also looks really cool to me — although as is true for any art, you’ll have to decide whether you like it as much as I do. Goodness knows I’ve seen other attorneys spend far more than $400 for art, furniture and other items for their law office. The D’E-light reminds me of many Apple creations; it is a premium product that works well and looks great.
Click here to get the D’E-light from the FLOS website ($396.00).
We are just a few days away from the release of a new iPad, and that story pretty much dominated the iPhone and iPad news outlets this week. But there were a few other news items of interest to me, and here they are in case they might interest you too:
Dan Friedlander, a California attorney who writes some great iPhone apps, has started his own law firm, Klein Friedlander. To celebrate, he has made four of his apps that attorneys would find useful free for the next few days: (1) Court Days, which I reviewed back in 2009, is a date calculator that lets you count business days and takes into account court holidays. Click here to get Court Days free for a limited time: (2) Court Days Pro, which I reviewed a year ago, is a date calculator that lets you use sophisticated rules to calculate multiple dates that follow each other. Click here to get Court Days Pro free for a limited time: (3) Do Date, which I reviewed two months ago, provides daily reminders of important events that are coming up. Click here to get Do Date free for a limited time: (4) TallyPad, which I have never reviewed, is an app that let’s you keep track of scores or otherwise keep track while you count. Click here to get TallyPad free for a limited time:
Are you already convinced that you are going to upgrade when the next model of the iPad is announced next week? Mickey Meece of the New York Times offers tips for selling your soon-to-be-old iPad.
New York attorney Niki Black suggests iPad apps for lawyers who travel.
Apple occasionally highlights businesses using Apple products on their website. For example, about two years, Apple posted a profile of the Chicago-based Sonnenschein law firm because of the firm’s use of the iPhone. Apple recently added this profile of the Fennemore Craig law firm in Arizona because of its use of the iPad.
Attorney Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer reviews PaperPort Notes, a free app that can convert voice to text. My review of that app from a few weeks ago is here.
Do you like using ringtones on your iPhone? If so, Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica explains how to use a Mac to create your own ringtones for free.
Do you use your iPad at work? So does President Obama. Here’s a picture in the Official White House Flickr Stream of the President using his iPad while getting a daily briefing. I’ve noted this in the past, but in case you forgot, the President actually got his iPad 2 directly from Steve Jobs shortly before they were released to the public. No word yet on whether Tim Cook is making plans to give the President a new iPad 3 next week. It has also been reported that the President uses the DODOcase for his iPad, a case that looks like a book. You often see that case on the President’s desk in the Oval Office, such as in this picture and this picture.
And finally, while all of us are wondering what the iPad 3 will look like, the folks at 3D animation production company Aatma Studio decided to let their minds run wild and produced this really fun video:
It is always fun to be pleasantly surprised. When Happy Owl Studio sent me a free review unit of The Leather Shell, I wasn’t even sure if I would use it. I don’t like having a case on my iPhone, and while I use an Apple Smart Cover (black leather) with my iPad 2, I’ve never wanted to have a case for my original iPad or my iPad 2. But I tried it anyway just to see how it worked; I thought it was interesting to have a leather case for the back of the iPad that is completely compatible with the Apple Smart Cover on the front of the iPad. That was over a week ago and The Leather Shell has remained on my iPad 2 ever since. What a pleasant surprise.
The shell is simply a polycarbonate frame with a black leather exterior.
It takes me a good 10 seconds or so to get the frame snapped on the back of the iPad. The Shell has openings on the sides for all of the iPad 2’s ports, so it only connects to parts of the edge of the iPad 2. But it does so fairly easily. Once on, it stays on until you are ready to take it off, and it comes off in just a second without in any way damaging the iPad.
If you have the black leather Apple Smart Cover, you’ll think that it and the Shell were separated at birth. The black color is the same and the feel of the leather is the same.
The only markings on the Shell is the Happy Owl Studio logo at the bottom right. Because it is all black you don’t really see it that much, and I think it looks fine.
Happy Owl Studio advertises that the Shell protects the back of the iPad. It certainly does so, but for me that has never mattered much. So what if the back of my iPad gets a small scratch now and then? That just adds character. All I want to protect is the glass on the front of my iPad, and the Apple Smart Cover handles that.
But even though I don’t care much about adding protection to the back of the iPad, I love the Shell because it feels great in my hands. Just like the Apple Smart Cover, the leather on the Shell is soft and comfortable. It also adds just enough friction to help prevent the iPad from slipping out of your hand.
The black leather on the back of the iPad 2 looks great if you have the black leather Apple Smart Cover. My wife uses the red leather Apple Smart Cover on her iPad 2. I thought that the black and red might be a good contrast, but I’m not sure. Decide for yourself:
One reason that I have avoided using a case for my iPad is that I don’t want to add to the weight. The Leather Shell only weighs about 3.5 oz. The Apple Smart Cover weighs about 5 oz., so my iPad 2 (Wi-Fi only) with an Apple Smart Cover on it weighs 1 lb. 10 oz. The difference between 1 lb. 10 oz. and 1 lb. 13.5 oz is noticeable, but not very much. After about a day of using the Shell, I stopped noticing the slight extra weight. And because the Shell is so thin, it doesn’t add much to the overall size of the iPad. If your briefcase or purse currently has enough space for an iPad 2 with an Apple Smart Cover and it isn’t a ridiculously tight fit, then I’m sure that it will still fit with the Leather Shell added to it.
Because The Leather Shell is such an exact fit for the shape of the iPad 2, I doubt it will work with the new iPad that Apple is announcing next week, unless Apple keeps the exterior design exactly the same — much like Apple did with the iPhone 4 and 4S. [UPDATE 3/16/2012: As I suspected, it doesn’t work with the third generation iPad. The Leather Shell is just too perfectly sized for the iPad 2.] But if you own an iPad 2 and like to use the leather Apple Smart Cover, then I suspect that you will really love The Leather Shell. It’s a great addition to my iPad 2.
Click here to get The Leather Shell on Amazon ($39.99).
Click here to get The Leather Shell from Happy Owl Studio ($39.99).
Yesterday, Apple confirmed that the next iPad, which I presume will be called the iPad 3, will be announced at a press event at 10:00 Pacific on Wednesday, March 7 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the same place that the original iPad was announced on January 27, 2010 and the iPad 2 was announced on March 2, 2011. The invitation to the event says “We have something you really have to see. And touch.”
The graphics that accompany invitations to Apple announcements always receive close scrutiny to determine whether they give anything away. Here is the picture on the invitation that was sent around yesterday, as reported by Joshua Topolsky of The Verge:
Last September, the invitation for the iPhone 4S announcement said “Let’s talk iPhone,” which at the time I noted could include a double-meaning, not only that Apple would talk about the iPhone but also that the iPhone itself would talk with you. Sure enough, the iPhone 4S added Siri.
I suspect that the “something you really have to see” langauge on the invitation is a reference to a Retina Display screen, the biggest rumored feature of the next iPad. I’ve also seen several people claim that the screen shown in the above graphic is much sharper than the current iPad screen (such as this post from Gizmodo). Frankly, I do believe that the next iPad will have a Retina Display screen. The iPad and iPad 2 have a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi). My guess is that the next iPad will have a 2048 x 1536 resolution at 264 ppi. (The iPhone 4 and 4S have a 960 x 640 pixel resolution at 326 ppi.) While technically that means that the screen density would be even better on the iPhone than the new iPad, as a practical matter I expect it to look the same because you typically hold your iPhone a little closer to your face than the iPad. Also consider that 2048 x 1536 is better than the resolution on your fancy 1080p HDTV (1920 x 1080), so if that is what Apple will be using, it will look amazing.
What else? I’m sure that the new iPad will also have a faster processor. New iPads and iPhones are always faster, plus it will need to have a much better processor to take advantage of the Retina Display screen. There is also a rumor that the next iPad will support LTE 4G on cellular-equipped models. I’d probably opt for a Wi-Fi only model anyway, but I would consider 4G on the iPad significant primarily because it would signal that the 2012 version of the iPhone would also have 4G when it is released, presumably later this year. There is also a rumor of a better camera. The only time I use my iPad 2 camera is for FaceTime, so while a better camera would be nice and is a logical feature to upgrade in a new model, it isn’t a big deal to me. I really hope that the next iPad adds Siri, a feature that I love on my iPhone 4S and that I miss on my iPad 2. Lex Friedman and Dan Moren of Macworld offer a good roundup of other rumored new features, while at the same time breaking the record for most puns in a Macworld article.
There are also rumors that Microsoft is planning to announce a version of Office for the iPad, and if this happens, perhaps it would also happen at the March 7 event. And there are rumors of a new version of the Apple TV, presumably one that would add support for 1080p.
Time will tell which rumors are true, and I’m really looking forward to Apple’s announcement next week.
There are lots of apps that allow you to carry court rules on an iPhone or iPad, making it difficult to choose just one. One difference between apps is the content. Not many apps offer local rules and state rules, but it is common to see the major federal rules included such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or Evidence. Another big difference between these apps are the features. The boring ones just display the rules; the better ones offer useful features to help you find the rule. For example, most apps offer the ability to bookmark a rule, but what if you want the ability to further annotate a rule, such as highlight a rule or add a note in the margin, much like you might do with paper copy of the rules? Rulebook is an app developed by Utah attorney Greg Hoole that offers this feature and more, and while content of the app is currently limited to a few jurisdictions, I'm very impressed by what this app can do.
The app itself is free, but then you need to download sets of rules. Some sets, such as the Federal Rules of Evidence, are free. Other sets cost $0.99 or $1.99. Rules currently available include the major federal rules (Appellate, Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure and Evidence) as well as state and local rules for California, New York, Texas and Utah.
Once you have installed a set of rules, you can browse through the list of rules then tap a rule to view it.
You can search for terms across rules. For example, in the Federal Rules of Evidence I decided to search for the hearsay rule for when a witness believes that he is about to die. A search for "death" reveals every rule with the term. Tap a rule to see each subpart of the rule with the word in it. Note that you can search for a specific phrase, or you can enter a few possible search terms and show any matches of any words, useful if you are not sure of the exact word used.
You an tap on a subpart of a rule to see the term in the context of the entire rule.
To highlight or add notes, hold down on a block of text to select text, and then you can adjust the standard selection bars to select more or less text. Then tell the app whether you want to highlight, add a note, or add a bookmark. When you add a bookmark, you are not just bookmarking the entire rule as a whole, but instead the specific part of the rule that you selected, which is a great feature. The second picture below shows a portion of the rule with both a note in the beginning (tap to read the note) and a portion of the rule highlighted.
An advertised feature of the app is that when the court updates the rules, the updates will soon afterwards be automatically delivered to the app, and your notes and highlighting will still stick around after an update. No rules were updated while I was testing this app so I couldn't confirm this myself, but people who commented on Rulebook in the App Store say that the feature worked for them after the federal rules of civil procedure were updated last year.
There is also an interesting mutltiask mode, activated by tapping the icon with the two rectangles at the far right. Tapping this button freezes the app at your current location and then lets you start what appears to be a new session of the app, much like multiple tabs in the Safari web browser. You can then go search for another rule, but when you want to return to exact where you were before, tap that multitask button again to go back to the screen that you froze. This is a very neat feature that I haven't seen in any other rule books, and Hoole tells me that he is seeking a patent on it.
You can swipe left or wipe to go from rule to rule in order, and you can double-tap on any subsection of a rule to quickly see the full specific cite to that section (e.g. Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(2)) which is helpful for the times when you can see that you are in subsection "2" but don't want to have to scroll all the way up to see that you are under subsection "b" of the app. This is another useful feature I haven't seen in other rule apps.
You can adjust the font and font size of the rules in the app, and if you don't like yellow as the highlight color, you can instead use blue, green or pink for all of your higlights. (You cannot highlight in different colors at the same time.)
All of the above images come from the iPhone version, but the iPad version is similar except that it also works in landscape view, and in that view you can see the list of rules on the left with the specific rule on the right. Any rules you purchase with one device can be downloaded to your other devices that use your same iTunes password.
Rulebook is an impressive app. It includes all of the basic features that you would expect in any app containing the rules, plus it adds some useful features that I haven't seen elsewhere. As someone who does not practice in California, New York, Texas or Utah, I wish that additional jurisdictions were offered, but the website for the app says that "many more" authorities are "coming soon" so I look forward to seeing future additions. If you want to put court rules on your iPhone or iPad, you'll definitely want to take a look at Rulebook.
I rarely pay much attention to lawsuits involving Apple on iPhone J.D. We all know it doesn’t take much more than a filing fee to initiate a lawsuit, so the fact that a lawsuit is filed against Apple is not an indication that Apple has done anything wrong, and lawsuits are often settled just because it is more efficient to resolve them that way versus paying to litigate and win a case in court. Nevertheless, after the iPhone 4 was released on June 24, 2010, there was a lot of discussion in the news about the unique antenna. By placing the antenna outside of the phone, there was more space inside of the phone which allowed the iPhone 4 to be both more powerful and thinner. Unfortunately, placing the antenna in that location had the potential to reduce the capabilities of the antenna depending upon a number of factors, such as how you hold the phone. The issue got enough attention that Apple finally held a press conference on July 16, 2010 to discuss how Apple developed and tested the iPhone 4 antenna and to announce that Apple would give out free iPhone 4 cases, such as the “Bumper” model sold by Apple, to any iPhone 4 customer who wanted one.
A number of lawsuits were filed alleging that the iPhone 4 antenna was defective. These cases were consolidated for multidistrict litigation (MDL) treatment before Judge Ronald M. Whyte of the Northern District of California in San Jose. In re Apple iPhone 4 Products Liability Litig., No. 5:10-MD-2188 (N.D. Cal.).
On February 10, 2012, Plaintiffs in the MDL lawsuit filed a notice that a settlement had been reached and attached a copy of a settlement agreement signed on January 24, 2012 by Jeff Rishner (Director, Litigation at Apple, Inc.), Apple’s outside counsel at Morrison, Forester, and counsel from five plaintiff law firms including Ira Rothken.
The terms of the settlement include the following. The class is defined as: “All United States residents who are or were the original owners of an iPhone 4.” (Apple employees, agents, etc. are excluded.) Apple is providing class members with two options. First, Apple will continue to provide free Bumpers until 18 months after it discontinues the iPhone 4. Second, Apple will provide class members with $15, but only if they certify in a claims form that (1) they experienced antenna problems with their iPhone 4, (2) they completed the troubleshooting steps on Apple’s website at www.apple.com/support/iphone/assistant/calls, (3) they “could not have returned their iPhone 4 without incurring any costs” and (4) there were unwilling to use a free bumper for the iPhone 4. Apple agrees to pay the cost of notifying class members of the settlement, including an e-mail to everyone in Apple’s warranty registration database and a quarter-page notice in USA Today and Macworld magazine. Apple also agrees to not oppose an award to Plaintiffs’ counsel for attorneys fees and costs of up to $5.9 million. Click here for a copy of the full settlement agreement.
On February 17, 2012, Judge Whyte granted conditional class action certification for the purposes of settlement and approved of the settlement. The deadline for opting out of the settlement is June 15, 2012 and a final fairness hearing is scheduled for July 13, 2012. Kurtzman Carson Consultants LLC is the settlement administrator. The settlement website (which goes live on March 28, 2012) will be www.iPhone4settlement.com.
I continue to believe that this issue was overblown by the media. Every design feature involves tradeoffs, and I love the small size of the iPhone 4 that was made possible by the antenna design. I used to occasionally use an iPhone 4 Bumper, not because of the antenna but instead because it added some friction, and I gradually found myself using it less and less until I stopped using it altogether. Ever since I upgraded to the iPhone 4S with its similar antenna design, I haven’t found the need to use a Bumper for any purpose and I almost always carry around my iPhone 4S without any cover at all. I suspect that this could be one of those settlements where the plaintiff attorneys make more money than all of the class members combined, but it is good to finally put this issue to rest so that now we can do more important things, such as speculate about what will be in the iPad 3 and the iPhone 5.
This has been a big week for rumors, with more discussion of a possible iPad 3 introduction in less than two weeks and talk of the possibility that Microsoft will soon release a version of Office for the iPad. We’ll find out soon enough if there is anything to the rumors. In the meantime, here are the iPhone and iPad news items of note from the past week:
We now have three good options for legal research on the iPad: WestlawNext, Lexis Advance (which I reviewed yesterday) and Fastcase, a free alternative that I’ve long considered a must-have app for any attorney with an iPad. Fastcase was recently updated to add a Mobile Sync feature so that you can link the account you use on your computer with the iPad/iPhone account. Thus, you can save a document in one platform, and it will show up in the saved items list on other platforms
I use Chase bank, and I love the ability to deposit a check on my iPhone using the Chase app without having to go to a bank or ATM. Citibank has now added this great feature to its app.
Quickoffice, one of the best apps for viewing Microsoft Office files, was just updated to add Office 2010 support. I use this app all the time; my big gripe is that it doesn’t have support for footnotes or the ability to view track changes.
Ryan Faas of Cult of Mac discusses increasing support by IT departments of the consumerization of technology. In other words, employees are buying their own iPhones and iPads and looking to their iT departments to support them.
Tim Nudd of AdWeek discusses (and shows) every commercial that ever ran for the iPhone. I’ve always loved the first one, the “Hello” ad that ran during the Oscars in 2007.
Attorney Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer reviews 7Notes HD Premium, an app that converts handwriting to text.
Attorney Tom Mighell of the iPad4Lawyers site has an article in Law Practice Magazine about getting the most out of your iPad.
David Pogue of the New York Times reviews OnLive Desktop Plus, a way to run Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer on an iPad in a virtual environment. It’s an interesting app; I just started trying it out today and I’ll post a review soon.
A few days ago, ABC’s Nightline took a look at the factories that make iPhones and iPads. You can watch the video here on your computer; the program is not yet available in the ABC Player app for the iPad but I presume that it will be soon.
You know the noise that your iPhone or iPad makes when you slide to unlock it? John Brownlee of Cult of Mac reports that it is actually the click of a vice grip opening.
Horace Dediu of Asymco reports that Apple sold more iOS devices in 2011 than all of the Macs that it has ever sold in 28 years. Wow.
Rob Dean of WalkingOffice provides a tip for using the “Open In” feature to save legal opinions on an iPad.
And finally, for those of you who love personal protection as much as you love your iPhone, you’ll love the SmartGuard Pepper Spray iPhone case, available from Sabre Red for only $34.99: (via AppAdvice)
