Jeff Richardson

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.

Click here to get Rulebook (free): 

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)

Lexis Advance is a huge leap forward over the old Lexis.com research system. The simplified interface reduces most of the clutter that was always a problem for Lexis.com, and Google-like search features make it easier to find the case, statute, or other authority that you need. For many of the same reasons that WestlawNext is a big leap forward from the old Westlaw.com, Lexis Advance is much better than still-available-but-why-would-you-use-it-anymore Lexis.com.

WestlawNext has had an iPad app since 2010, and as I noted in my review last year, it is fantastic and it has received some great improvements since it was introduced.  Lexis recently released Lexis Advance for the iPad and iPhone. The apps themselves are free, but of course you must be a subscriber to Lexis Advance to use them. My law firm is, so I was able to try both apps.

When you start the iPad app, you are given a large search bar at the top. In the large panel below that, you can swipe between a (useless) Welcome page, a view of your saved folders and research or a history of prior research that you have done in Lexis Advance on either your computer, iPad or iPhone.

Select a content type (e.g. cases or statutes), a jurisdiction and/or a practice area (or leave any or all of them set to “all”) and then enter your search terms and tap search. This quickly brings up a search result screen. Cases are shown first, but you can tap on the word “Cases” in the bar on the left to select other sources. The large pane on the right shows you your search results. By default, cases are listed by relevance, but you can change the sort order such as court (highest/lowest), date, etc. Search terms do not seem to be displayed in this view.

Tap on a case name to bring up a case. A full case list is shown on the left to make it easy to jump to other cases. Search terms are highlighted in bold, and you can even jump to specific search words using the terms button at the bottom. You can make the left bar go away just by sliding it, and you can even make most all of the bars on the left and the top of the page go away by tapping the full page view button at the top left of the opinion.

Simply tap the Shepardize button to get full Shepard’s history, such as subsequent history and citing cases.

One of the features that I love in the WestlawNext app is the ability to highlight text. Unfortunately, you cannot do this in the Lexis Advance HD app. When you select text, your only options are to copy it to the standard iOS clipboard or you can save the selected text to a folder within Lexis Advance, but that feature seems fairly useless to me as you can only view a portion of the saved text.

Also curious is the gear at the top. It brings up something called “Settings” but it is not really settings at all, and instead just a way to get feedback, support, share the app, etc. There are no options to change any aspect of the app.

When you find a good case you can save it to a research folder on Lexis Advance so that you can easily access that case on your computer, or you can e-mail the case in PDF format. I don’t see any option to control the format of that PDF file, such as changing how search terms are highlighted or using an easier-to-read dual-column format. This is less of an issue for a statute, but is a very unfortunate omission for cases. Having said that, one of my biggest gripes with Lexis Advance on the computer is how difficult it is to change these same options; for example, even on the computer, there is no way to save dual-column format as a default so you must manually select it on the computer every single time. Arrgh.

In addition to the iPad app, Lexis also released a version of Lexis Advance for the iPhone. I cannot even begin to list all of the ways that this is an improvement over the prior, almost-useless Lexis Get Cases and Shepardize app for the iPhone released back in 2009. The Lexis Advance iPhone app works just like the iPad app, and now provides a great way to pull up a case, Shepardize it, and even perform real legal research on the iPhone, although you are of course somewhat limited by the small size of the screen.

These two apps are great for many of the same reasons that I love WestlawNext on the iPad. The interface is even more simple than Lexis Advance on the computer, and while this means that you lose some functionality, it also means that there are fewer barriers between you and your research. The Lexis Advance HD app on the iPad is so nice that I can honestly see myself using it even if I have easy access to a computer. The clean and focused interface seems to make it even faster to find good cases. I can’t see myself doing much true legal research on the iPhone, but since my iPhone is always with me, it is fantastic to have the ability to look up a case no matter where I am. In the past, I have used the Fastcase app on the iPhone to quickly find cases being cited by an opponent during oral argument. With the Lexis Advance iPhone app, I can not only read the case but I can also Shepardize the case to potentially find contrary authority.

The Lexis Advance app for the iPad doesn’t have all of the features of WestlawNext for the iPad.  Some of this may be because Lexis Advance on the iPad app is a 1.0 product whereas WestlawNext has been on the iPad for well over a year and has received improvements. Some of this has to do with the differences between the full versions of the products on the computer. But many attorneys don’t have a choice between WestlawNext and Lexis Advance because their office picks one system for everyone to use. There is no doubt that for any attorney who is a Lexis Advance user, the new iPad app is really impressive in its 1.0 version and I can’t wait to see it improved over time. Lexis has been doing some amazing things over the last few years, and the new Lexis Advance apps for iPhone and iPad embody all that is good about Lexis Advance and the future of Lexis.

Click here to get Lexis Advance for iPhone (free):

Click here to get Lexis Advance HD for iPad (free):

 

Whether you are in New Orleans today in person or just in spirit, have a Happy Mardi Gras!

 

[UPDATE 5/8/2014:  LinkedIn announced that it is discontinuing this app effective 7/11/2014, and that it is recommending that CardMuch users instead use Evernote.  Click here for more info.]

Last week, I reviewed ABBYY Business Card Reader, a $5 app that uses sophisticated OCR to read the names and numbers off of a business card so that you can create a contact entry without having to type all of that information by hand.  Florida attorney Katie Floyd of the great Mac Power Users podcast posted a comment on that post suggesting that I check out a similar app called CardMunch.  CardMunch also lets you scan business cards with your iPhone, but it takes a very different approach.

First, the app is free; the professional social network LinkedIn owns the app and gives it away.  More about this in a moment.

Second, as reported by Matt Lynley of Business Insider, the app doesn’t use optical character recognition (OCR) to read your business cards.  Instead, it uses a service owned by Amazon called Mechanical Turk, a service that hires real people to do simple, repetitive tasks.  The pay is low, but Mechanical Turk workers have very flexible hours and can work at home, so for many it is an easy way to supplement their income.  Because real people look at the image of the business card and then type the information, the accuracy of CardMunch is much higher than the OCR used by ABBYY Business Card Reader.

Here is an extreme example of how valuable this can be.  A while back, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (who goes by “Woz”) gave me his business card, and it is unlike any other business card you’ve ever seen.  It is made out of stainless steel and is laser-cut.  I’ve heard it said that you could cut a steak with this business card, and I suppose that is possible.  When I tried to scan the card with ABBYY Business Card Reader, the app simply couldn’t recognize it.  No surprise; it is etched metal and difficult to read.  Even more curious, the phone number is presented in a format similar to a standardized test with numbers punched out on a grid.  However, when I scanned it with CardMunch, the Mechanical Turk worker was able to figure out that it was Steve Wozniak and sent me back an entry, although I see that even that person couldn’t figure out the 408-888-8888 phone number from the card.  (Note: I’m not giving out anything private here; Woz has advertised that number ever since he acquired it in the 1970s back when he used it as a dial-a-joke number.)

 

On the other hand, you need to have Internet access for CardMunch to read a card, and the scan process can take much longer.  In my tests it took about 15 minutes, but I’ve seen others post on the Internet that it sometimes takes several hours.  ABBYY Business Card Reader, by comparison, can read a card in few seconds.  Having said that, the CardMunch app doesn’t make you wait.  Just scan one or more cards and let the app send off the images.  You can then return to the app minutes or hours later and you will notified if you have new contact entries that have been processed.

Third, because the app is owned by LinkedIn, the app (or perhaps more accurately, the Mechanical Turk employee) will try to match the business card with a resume on LinkedIn.  If CardMunch finds a LinkedIn entry, your contact will contain information from the person’s LinkedIn profile.  For example, you can see in that scan of the Woz business card that it provides me with information not on the card itself, such as the fact that he is a Fellow at Apple, his photograph, etc.  It is a little strange — some might say creepy? — to scan a simple business card and get back a contact entry that includes additional information such as a photograph of the person, employment history, schools attended, etc.  On the other hand, this is all public information that the person has decided to put on LinkedIn, so you shouldn’t feel too voyeuristic, and it can quite be useful to have all of this information regarding the person who just handed you a busines card.

Herr is the result from scanning my own card, which led to results from my own LinkedIn profile plus phone numbers from my card.  I’m not sure why the Mechanical Turk worker who read my own business card called the main number at my office my “home” number; it is clearly labled “Main” on the card itself.

If the person cannot be found on LinkedIn, then you just get back a simple contact entry that only contains the information from the card that the Mechanical Turk worker was able to read.

CardMunch doesn’t have some of the advanced features of ABBY Business Card Holder such as the ability to sort by different attibutes and the ability to assign groups to different contacts.  On the other hand, just like the ABBYY app, CardMunch does give you the option of keeping the contact in the app itself and/or sending the contact information to your iPhone’s Contacts.

Note that when you share from CardMunch to the main Contacts app you don’t get all of the LinkedIn information such as the profile photograph, website, biographical information, etc.; it appears that the app only share the information taken from the card itself.

Katie Floyd warned me about checking out the Settings app on the iPhone and then scrolling down to the entry for CardMunch.  There is an option called “Auto Connect” and if you have it turned on, every time the app scans a business card of someone who has a profile on LinkedIn, it automatically sends a request to become a LinkedIn Connection.  You might not want to become a connection of the guy trying to sell you life insurance who just handed you a business card, so make sure that this is turned off if you don’t want to use the feature.  (For me, it was turned off by default.)

I am torn on whether to recommend ABBY Business Card Reader or CardMunch.  I suppose that it is nice that CardMunch is free versus the $5 for the ABBYY app, but when an app is free that just makes me wonder what else they are doing to make money off of me.  What does LinkedIn do with the information on the business cards that are scanned?  I don’t know the answer, and frankly I’m trying to decide how much I even care.  It’s not like I often receive business cards from private celebrities or political disidents who are trusting me to keep their contact information confidential from a third party liked LinkedIn, but I can’t help but wonder about this.

As for the use of Mechanical Turk and the use of LinkedIn profiles, there are clear advantages to getting scan results that are not only more accurate, but in many cases even more complete than the information on the card itself.  On the other hand, if speed is important, you’ll want an app like the one from ABBYY that performs the OCR itself in a matter of seconds. 

There are other apps in the App Store that let you scan and handle business cards with the iPhone and I don’t plan to do an exhaustive review of all of them.  Nevertheless, the approach taken by CardMunch is so different from the ABBYY apps that I reviewed last week that I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast them.  Whichever app you choose, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and hassle entering contact information manually, and you have the helpful ability to decide whether you want the contact to remain in the app or be moved to your main Contacts database.

Click here for CardMunch (free): 

Click here to get ABBYY Business Card Reader ($4.99): 

Click here to get ABBYY CardHolder ($2.99):