One of the most useful apps that a lawyer can have on an iPhone or iPad is an app that contains often-used rules and statutes. If you practice civil litigation in federal court, then you ought to have a copy of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on your iPhone and iPad so that you can quickly and easily look up the relevant rule, whether you are at your desk or in court. There are several FRCP apps to choose from and some of them are free (such as LawStack, which I reviewed last year). But I have long been a fan of the Louisiana law apps created by New Orleans attorney Matt Miller, and now he has created a $1 app for the iPhone and iPad containing the FRCP. It’s a great app that I highly recommend.
The app lets you get into the rules several different ways. If you want to browse, there are two ways to do so. First, you can browse through titles and then look at the rules under each title. Second, you can just scroll through a long list of all of the rules, with title indicators (roman numerals) on the right that you can use to quickly jump to the right part of the rules.
Tapping on the rule gives you the full text of the rule, and arrows at the top let you browse back and forth through rules. Plus, the app includes a feature I haven’t seen in similar apps: scroll down to below the text of the rule (or tap the “Jump Down” link at the top right to quickly jump there) and you see links to additional information on the Internet selected by the author of the app as potentially relevant such as forms, law review articles, advisory notes, etc. It is not a long list of links for each rule, but it is helpful to have something extra to go a little bit further in your research if you want to do so.
One of the most useful features of an app like this is a powerful search function, and this app has one. Enter one or more words and the app lets you decide whether you want to search for all words (AND) any words (OR) or the exact phrase typed. Tap return and then you see a list of rules showing you the hits. Tap on a search result and see the full text of the rule with the search terms highlighted in yellow.
Once you find a relevant rule you can tap the heart to save it to a list of favorites, or you can tap the button next to the heart to e-mail the full text of the rule, or from that same button you can print the rule (if your iPhone or iPad is configured to work with a printer). And of course, you can just use the normal iOS tools to select some text from a rule, copy the text, and then paste it into an e-mail or another app. Moreover, if you forget to save the results of a search, tap the “More” button at the bottom to see some other options, one of which is a link to all of your recent searches.
If you go to the Settings app on the iPhone and then tap the FRCP icon, you can change some of the settings for this app. First, you can increase or decrease the text size. (The screenshots above use the default 12 point font size.) Second, you can turn off the feature of saving your search history, which I suppose adds privacy.
This is a universal app, which means that it will run on both an iPhone and an iPad. The app takes full advantage of the larger iPad screen, with a list on the left and the full text on the right:
In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I know the author of this app. We both practice law in New Orleans, and our daughters go to school together. Having said that, my enthusiasm for this app is not because of the author, but instead because this app includes all of the features that I would ask for in an app like this. It is easy to browse, it is easy to search, it works on both the iPhone and the iPad, and it is easy to copy text or export to an e-mail. There are free apps out there that contain the federal rules, but they don’t include all of the features of this app. Plus, the app only costs a buck so you can easily afford it, and I’d rather pay for apps like this to give the author a financial incentive to continue to update the app. If you handle civil cases in federal court, this is a great app to get for your iPhone and/or iPad.
Click here to get Federal Civil Procedure by Matt Miller ($0.99):
Last week, I teamed up with Reid Trautz and Josh Barrett for an encore presentation of 60 iPhone and iPad Apps in 60 Minutes, a CLE sponsored by ALI-ABA. Tom Mighell was the moderator. It was possible for participants to submit questions online, but we only had time to address a few questions during the session and promised to handle all of them in a post. Here are the audience questions and our answers, along with a list of the apps that we discussed. We received some good questions, so hopefully you will find this of interest even if you didn’t attend the session.
Dropbox
Question #1 from S.F. in Anchorage, AK: What is the best way for lawyers to use Dropbox or a similar service with an iPhone or iPad, assuming the need to access client information occasionally?
Answer: Dropbox is a useful service for sharing documents between multiple computers and between a computer and an iPhone and/or iPad. Because Dropbox is run by a third party, however, you need to be conscious of security issues. Jeff’s solution is that he only uses Dropbox for non-confidential documents, such as copies of pleadings, depositions and exhibits. For confidential attorney-client documents, Jeff keeps those documents in an app like GoodReader or Quickoffice that allows you to password-protect documents.
Tom also uses Dropbox, but understands that SpiderOak provides better security. Unfortunately, it doesn’t integrate with as many iPad apps as Dropbox, which limits its utliity. Tom also recommends GoodReader as a good app for downloading and accessing your Dropbox files—it is relatively simple to connect your Dropbox account to GoodReader, and start downloading files to your iPad. Tom says, “Whenever I download a new app, one of the first things I do is check to see whether it integrates with Dropbox. You may find you have a lot of apps that do so, and it may be easier to download into those apps directly from Dropbox, rather than into GoodReader.”
Josh often uses the file manager built into LogMeIn Ignition to grab confidential client files left on the computer back at the office. The transfer from desktop to iPad is encrypted end-to-end and doesn’t let the document sit on a cloud based service so the confidentiality concerns some raise about services like Dropbox don’t apply. The key to using any cloud-based service with your device is setting up a good workflow to help keep track of document revisions, versions and originals.
Reid uses the Dropbox/GoodReader combo, and also uses Dropbox to transfer PDFs to the Apple iBooks app for reading. Jeff adds that, on the iPhone, the Apple iBooks app is his favorite app for handling PDFs.
Alternate Calendar Apps
Question #2 from J.H. in San Francisco, CA: Does entering an event in Calvetica simultaneously make the entry in the iPhone Calendar app?
Answer: Yes. One of the nice features of third party calendar apps such as Calvetica, Easy Calendar or Agenda is that the all use the iPhone and iPad’s built-in calendar database. Thus, you can use one app to enter an event, another app to edit the event, another app to view the event, and they are all working from the same database.
Question #3 from C.P. in Greenwood Village, CO: Do the calendar apps interface with Microsoft Outlook calendars?
Question #4 from L.L. in Sant Louis, MO: Do the calendar apps interface with MS Outlook? We use an Exchange server to coordinate with our iPhones.
Answer: Again, yes, Because all iPhone and iPad calendar apps use the built-in calendar database, if you have your iPhone and iPad configured to synchronize with your office’s Exchange server, you can add an event in a third-party app and then the change will be synced to Exchange and will show up in Outlook on your computer.
Stylus
Question #5 from C.McD. in Blue Bell, PA: What stylus do you like for Penultimate?
Question #6 from M.M in Reno, NV: What is the name of the suggested stylus?
Answer: Jeff’s current favorite stylus is the Kensington Virtuoso Stylus for Tablet which he reviewed on iPhone J.D. here. Tom’s current favorite stylus is the Adonit Jotpro Stylus. Josh uses the MORE/REAL Stylus cap because it has the weight and balance of a regular pen. That said, Josh recommends waiting until version 2 is released with the faster tip. If you go to the iPhone J.D. website and do a search at the top right for “stylus” you will find lots of reviews pointing out the advantages and shortcomings of many different options.
Accessing Online Legal Resources
Question #7 from: M.S. in Shawnee Mission, KS: Two general questions regarding the iPad. First, do you have any suggestions on how to access electronic dockets and pleadings etc. in federal court? I can access it through my browser on the iPad but cannot scroll within documents that are retrieved. Do any apps help? Second, and similarly, I cannot scroll down within the web browser when accessing Lexis on my iPad. Do any apps help for this?
Answer: When you access PACER from an iPad, once you select a document from the docket, if you click the button to view a document you only see the first part of the first page and cannot scroll down. However, there is a workaround. Instead of clicking the button that says “view” click the button that says “download.” This will send a .zip file to your iPad, and your iPad will ask what app you want to open the zip file in. One such app is GoodReader, an app that Jeff recommended. Josh recommends ReaddleDocs for the same functionality. Either app will allow you to unzip a .zip file and view all of the PDF files contained in that file.
As for accessing Lexis on the iPad, Lexis is supposed to be updating Lexis.com so that it can be accessed from an iPad. Moreover, before the end of this year, Lexis will be releasing a Lexis Advance app for the iPad. For more information on the upcoming Lexis app, see this post from Jeff on iPhone J.D.
Voice transcription
Question #9 from: S.E. in Draper, UT: Can the Dragon Diction app be download to an iPad?
Answer: Yes. The Dragon Dictation app works on both the iPhone and iPad.
Remote access
Question #10 from R.H. in Milwaukee, WI: Is there an app to allow my iPad to connect to my desktop remotely? I use Time Matters.
Answer: Yes, any of the remote access apps that we discussed in our session will let you do this — Citrix Receiver, LogMeIn Ignition or GoToMyPC.
Question #11 from P.O in Austin, TX: Is LogMeIn Igntion better than iTap RDP?
Question #12 from P.dB in Stuart, FL: Do you recommend LogMeIn more than iTeleport?
Answer: None of the presenters have used the iTap RDP, but in Tom’s opinion, it looks like a good option. It uses Windows’ Remote Desktop Protocol, which is a solid method for remotely accessing your computer. Tom thinks that LogMeIn might be better for one reason: ease of configuration. With LogMeIn, it “just works,” and requires very little configuration. It looks like the iTap RDP requires a little more work under the hood, which might limit the app’s appeal to more advanced users. Further, with LogMeIn you can access your desktop from any computer using just a browser, with no configuration; with the Remote Desktop Protocol, you’d have to configure it on any computer you plan to use.
Likewise, none of the presenters use iTeleport, which also looks like a solid remote desktop application. However, like iTap, it does not appear that you can use iTeleport on regular computers to remotely access your desktop—LogMeIn’s universal capabilities give it an advantage here.
Reid’s office has a corporate GoToMyPC account, so he has to use their iPad app. He finds it works well on his iPad2, although sometimes a bit balky.
First generation iPad
Question #13 from J.G. in Pocatello, ID: Do most or all of the apps discussed work with the first generation iPad?
Answer: Very few apps that work with the iPad require the iPad 2, although some do exist. All of the apps that we discussed work on the original iPad and the iPad 2, although some of these apps are designed for the iPhone and therefore run on the iPad/iPad 2 in iPhone emulation mode.
Accessing Word documents
Question #14 from M.H. in Lubbock, TX: What is the best app to read and edit Microsoft Word documents?
Answer: The most popular apps for reading and editing Word documents are Documents to Go, Quickoffice and Office2. Jeff’s current favorite is Documents to Go because it is the only app of the three that shows you footnotes and shows you redline edits (although it will not let you create footnotes or create redlines). But these apps are updated frequently, so hopefully the other apps will add this feature soon.
Apps for transactional law
Question #15 from D.C. in Naperville, IL: I am a transactional lawyer, with a specialty in business law, estate planning, tax and some business litigation. What are the apps you would consider important for a lawyer with that type of practice to have?
Answer: As a transactional lawyer you deal with a lot of documents. If those documents are in PDF format, GoodReader or PDF Expert are essential apps for managing and annotating those documents. Josh prefers PDF Expert because of the easy to use document signing too, the ability to reorder/move/delete pages from a PDF and the ability to fill PDF forms. You also need one of the Microsoft Office compatible apps like Documents to Go or QuickOffice.
Josh recommends creating a folder on your Dropbox with your principal forms. This will give you access to your key drafting inspirations from anywhere.
If you use a Mac in the Office, also consider TextExpander Touch (with the desktop companion TextExpander) which allows you to expand text snippets into words, sentences or even paragraphs. With this app, Josh types “attfee1” and TextExpander types his preferred attorney fee clause. The snippet “simplemisc” expands into my preferred miscellaneous clauses for a basic contract that I can then edit. “engageltr” expands into the text I start with when drafting my engagement letter or email. Note that iOS 5 will also provide a shortcut feature like this, but it is unclear whether you can sync the shortcuts to a computer.
One key to making the iPad work well for transactional lawyers is to have some flexibility or be willing to try new things in your workflow. For example, Josh does lots of drafting in plain text on the iPad and only worries about formatting when back in front of a desktop computer. Even with the Word compatible apps mentioned here, they aren’t WYSIWYG. You will still need to fine tune back at the office on your own or send to an assistant to format. Plain text is also necessary to take advantage of TextExpander since at this time the Word compatible apps do not support it but apps like Elements or Plaintext do support TextExpander.
List of apps
Most of the apps that we discussed last week are the same apps that we included in our 60 Apps in 60 Minutes presentation at ABA TECHSHOW earlier this year, but there were some differences. Here are the apps that we discussed last week. I’ve added a link for the apps that I have previously reviewed here on iPhone J.D.:
A new iPhone was announced this week and yet, unfortunately, that was far from the most important iPhone and iPad-related story in the news this week. I don’t know whether Steve Jobs was able to watch the iPhone 4S presentation on Tuesday, but I like to think that he stuck around for one last product introduction just to see that Apple would be in good hands before the he finally passed away to go to the great iCloud in the sky. The number of well-written tributes to Steve Jobs that I have seen this week is simply staggering. I’ll note a few below, but there are so many more.
Jason Snell wrote a great article on Steve Jobs making a dent in the universe.
Lex Friedman of Macworld wrote a great article on why Steve Jobs’s death feels so sad, even for those of us who never met him.
Buinessweek is devoting its current issue to Steve Jobs. There is a long, well written, three-part story about his life with tons of details that I had never heard before: 1955-1985, 1985-1997 and Return to Glory.
AdWeek reports that when Time magazine learned the news, they stopped the presses for the first time in 30 years to scrap all of its other stories and devote 21 pages to Steve Jobs. One such story is this one by Harry McCracken, and it’s a great read.
On McCracken’s own blog, Technologizer, he posts an interesting video that was created as a tribute to Jobs on his 30th birthday.
Moving from magazines to newspapers, John Brownlee of Cult of Mac collected pictures of the front pages of over 100 newspapers around the world reporting on the passing of Steve Jobs.
Charles Duhigg wrote a touching story for the New York Times about Jobs saying goodbye to close friends and family during his last few weeks.
Kentucky attorney Finis Price shares a great story on his TechnoEsq blog about the time that he got a call from Steve Jobs to assist with a broken Macbook Pro.
Now for a few other stories in the news this week. If you are trying to decide whether to get an iPhone 4S on AT&T, Verizon or Sprint, Alex Colon of PC Magazine compares the different plans. Sprint, for example, is the only carrier offering a plan with unlimited data.
What size iPhone 4S should you get? I find that video is the one thing that really eats up a lot of space on an iPhone, and since the iPhone 4S takes 1080p video instead of the iPhone 4’s 720p, I’ve been wondering whether I should get a 32GB version or a 64GB version. Justin Horn of When Will Apple estimates that video on the iPhone 4S will take up about 2.5 times as much space as the iPhone 4. In other words, 60 minutes of video will take up about 10.4 GB of storage, versus 4.6GB on the iPhone 4.
Anand Lal Shimpi of AnandTech offers a technical explanation for why the iPhone 4S does not support 4G.
If you drop or otherwise damage your iPhone, bring it to an Apple Store. The folks at the Genius Bar are usually very forgiving and will often help you out with no or minimal charge, at least the first time. But if you can foresee more than one such incident (perhaps because that new iPhone is for a teenager), Charles Starrett of iLounge reports that Apple has a new AppleCare+ program for the iPhone. For $99, it extends your warranty to two years, and most importantly provides coverage for two incidents of even accidental damage (although subject to a $49 service fee).
Newsweek notes that, back in 1984, Steve Jobs described a product that sounds an awful lot like the Siri integration in the new iPhone 4S. The new article on Newsweek’s Tumblr account is here, but you should take a minute and go back and read the original interview from 1984 that is posted here, especially the second page.
Dean Bubley of Disruptive Analysis believes that the new iPhone 4S contains complicated new hardware that will be the basis for many future iPhones to come.
Maryland attorney Michael Berman reviews The Deponent App, an iPad app that can be used when taking a deposition.
Debra Cassens Weiss of the ABA Journal reports that Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School is the first to support using an iPhone or an iPad to prepare your law school application, and will even waive the $50 application fee for those who do so.
Marketing consultant Martin Lindstrom writes in an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times that MRIs show that people literally love their iPhones. On the other hand, David Dobbs writes in Wired that the Lindstrom article is, um, bunk. (He uses more graphic words.)
And finally, one of the most famous Apple commercials to ever air was the Think Different commercial that ran in 1997, shortly after Steve Jobs returned to Apple. Apparently Jobs was directly involved in selecting the people to be featured in that ad and in securing the rights to their images. (Here is a wonderful video of Steve Jobs explaining the new Think Different campaign and debuting the commercial.) The final version that aired was narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, but apparently Apple also considered having Steve Jobs himself narrate the Think Different commercial, and that version is on YouTube. I actually agree with the decision back in 1997 to have an actor with a distinctive voice like Dreyfuss do the voice over, but this week it is great to watch and listen to this alternative version of the video:
I’ve seen Steve Jobs in person three times in my life. I saw him give the keynote address at Macworld New York on July 19, 2000, the introduction of the unique G4 Cube computer. I then saw Steve Jobs unveil another unique cube when I attended the opening of the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue on May 19, 2006. A few months after that, I was eating lunch at Caffe Macs (the cafeteria on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California) and Steve Jobs and Jony Ive sat down at a table next to us to have lunch. Those occasions were the most minor of connections between me and Jobs, and yet there are few people who have touched my life so much without being a friend or family member.
My love of technology probably began with the Atari 2600, but it started to grow when I learned how to program on an Apple II computer in Sixth Grade. Years later, I would save up enough money from a summer job in college to buy my own Mac (a Mac Plus) and I’ve been an avid Mac user ever since. And after Steve Jobs returned to Apple and steered the company towards its current renaissance, I became an avid user of the iPod, then the iPhone, and then the iPad, all technology that has enriched my life in more ways than I can possibly count, such as prompting me to start this website.
We all knew that this day would come — as it will for all of us — but it is still hard to imagine that Steve Jobs is no longer around to inspire great technology and deliver amazing presentations. But of course, his presence remains. As Apple states on its website right now: “Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.” I have no doubt that is true. I had few concerns for Apple when Steve recently retired because I knew that Apple employees are constantly analyzing their work through the prism of what would Jobs see and think, and while that doesn’t mean that every product will be a home run (that G4 Cube I saw him pitch in 2000 never did take off), it does mean that his spirit will live on forever.
One of my favorite technology journalists, Steven Levy, wrote a beautiful and comprehensive obituary for Wired magazine. When you have the time to sit down and read something that is over 5,000 words, read this.
On the opposite extreme in terms of length, there is always Twitter. I saw so many interesting posts on Twitter after the news broke last night. In fact, “broke” is the right word; I hear that at one point last night, 17% of all tweets on Twitter related to Steve Jobs, and then shortly after that Twitter broke from overload and shut down for a short period of time. Here are just a few of the tweets that caught my attention:
The White House: “Brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world & talented enough to do it” -Obama on #SteveJobs
Ernest Svenson: Is it the best you can do? No? Then go back and make it the best. — Steve Jobs
Jim Dalrymple: Here’s to the crazy ones. Cheers Steve
Jason Hiner: 100 years from now, people will still marvel at how Steve Jobs changed the world by humanizing technology.
Joshua Topolsky: One thing I see tonight: Steve Jobs had a crazy ability to affect those who knew him well or didn’t know him at all. An astounding legacy.
David Chartier: Let’s all go make great things tomorrow.
I’ll share three more links before I close. First, if you read only one tribute to Steve Jobs, read this one by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. If you read one more, read this one by Om Malik of GigaOm. Finally, I’ve embedded below the commencement address that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford on June 12, 2005. If you haven’t watched it before, it is a classic that will inspire you, although be warned that it will also bring a tear to your eye.
Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
Yesterday, Apple announced the 2011 version of the iPhone, the iPhone 4S, selling for $199 to $399 depending upon which model you get (16GB, 32GB or 64GB). Pre-orders start this Friday, October 7, and the new iPhone will be available starting the following Friday, October 14. This is a very impressive phone that lawyers are going to love. Here is why.
We need to talk
I think that the most popular feature of the iPhone 4S will be Siri, a combination of excellent voice-recognition with advanced artificial intelligence that understands what you mean and responds in kind. With the iPhone 4S, you will literally be able to have a conversation with your iPhone to tell it what to do. You can say something like “Send my wife a text message and tell her that I am running late” and the iPhone will comply. You can tell the iPhone 4S “Remind me to make a dentist appointment when I get to my office” and the iPhone will understand what you are saying and put an entry in the new Reminders app — an app that knows where you are so it knows when you get to your office and then gives you that reminder.
Moreover, Siri is more than just understanding and executing commands; it allows you to have a conversation with your iPhone. By that I mean that once you start talking to Siri, when you say something else as a follow up, Siri understands the context of your conversation and reacts accordingly. Siri appears to be a powerful and incredibly helpful personal assistant. Here is a video showing Siri in action:
If you want to read more about why Siri could be such a revolutionary technology for the iPhone, check out this post by Paul Miller of This Is My Next.
The artificial intelligence is great, but even just the pure speech recognition part of Siri will be useful for when composing e-mails. I already love to use the Dragon Dictation app to do this, but it will be even more useful to have the function built-in to the iPhone. Indeed, when I talk to lawyers who are still using a BlackBerry, they almost always ask me how hard it is to get used to the iPhone’s virtual keyboard. I think that after a few weeks you get the hang of it, and it is much better to have a full screen to use all of the time instead of having half of the surface of your phone taken up by a tiny keyboard that you only need some of the time. But with Siri, people who move to the iPhone won’t have to worry about the virtual keyboard as much because they can just talk to the iPhone 4S to compose an e-mail.
Speed and reception
Every iPhone is faster than the generation before it, and the iPhone 4S is no exception. The new dual-core A5 chip is twice as fast as the chip in the iPhone 4, plus an improved graphics processor delivers sever times faster graphics. Why does this matter in a smartphone, considering that you are not trying to use an iPhone to decode the human genome? Because it makes the phone much more responsive and it allows apps to do even more and look even better.
But the iPhone 4S doesn’t just have faster chips, it also has a new antenna that provides faster and better reception. Although the antenna on the iPhone 4S (the silver band that wraps around the edges) looks very similar to the antenna on the iPhone 4, inside the iPhone it has been re-engineered to automatically switch between two antennas to transmit and receive. This means that call quality is supposed to be much better than other 3G phones (hopefully we’ll see even fewer dropped calls), and it also means that the maximum data speed is doubled from 7.2 Mbps to 14.4 Mbps. Of course these are just theoretical maximums. In the real world on my iPhone 4, I can often get over 10 Mbps on Wi-Fi but on AT&T 3G in New Orleans I typically see around 3 Mbps. If I could double that to 6 Mbps, I’d be thrilled; it would make 3G feel a lot more like Wi-Fi. [UPDATE: Note that I believe, but I’m not positive, that the improved antenna uses something called HSDPA+ to double the speed. If I’m correct, I think that this means that the improved antenna will, in the U.S, work only on the AT&T network. I haven’t yet seen a report of whether the iPhone 4S antenna is better than the iPhone 4 antenna on Verizon.]
And even though the iPhone 4S is a 3G phone, whereas some other smartphones sold today use the newer 4G networks, Apple claims that in practice, there is not much difference in download speed. For example, Apple showed this slide, showing that the theoretical maximum download speed of the iPhone 4S is the same as phones advertised as being 4G phones:
Again, we’ll have to see how all of this works out in real life, but it would certainly be nice if the download speeds on the iPhone 4S are indeed similar to the download speeds on 4G smartphones.
Better camera
I am far from a professional photographer, but I enjoy taking good photographs with my Nikon DSLR camera and I often have little tolerance for poor quality photographs taken with a cameraphone or an inexpensive digital camera — and yet I frequently use the camera on my iPhone 4 because I don’t always have my big Nikon camera with me, whereas the iPhone is always in my pocket. Moreover, the quality of the iPhone’s video is decent enough that I rarely take the effort to carry my Cannon HD videocamera. When I want to take a short video of my son riding a bicycle or my daughter playing in the park, the iPhone does a fine job.
The iPhone 4 camera is already decent, but the iPhone 4S looks to be a vast improvement. The 8 megapixel camera (up from 5 on the iPhone 4) is in itself an improvement, but the new optics on the camera capture much more light, and getting more light is often the key to a better and sharper photograph. The iPhone 4S also takes 1080p video (up from 720p on the iPhone 4) and includes built-in image stabilization — a welcome new feature considering how easy it is for your hand to shake while holding an iPhone and taking a video.
The iPhone 4S also has a faster camera. The Camera app is ready to take a picture in only 1.1 seconds, and you can take a second picture only .5 seconds after that. And because iOS 5 allows you to launch the camera app without needing to swipe to unlock the iPhone, you can pull your iPhone 4S out of your pocket and snap a great picture much faster than you used to be able to do so with an iPhone 4 running iOS 4 and much faster than you can do so with any other smartphone camera.
The new camera on the iPhone 4S looks to be a great improvement on what was already a good camera.
AirPlay Mirroring
One useful upcoming feature of iOS 5 (which will be out next Wednesday) is that if you are using an iPad 2, and if you have an Apple TV connected to your television, you can wirelessly mirror everything on your iPad’s screen to the TV. (If you don’t have an Apple TV, you can also use an HDMI cable to mirror using a wired connection to the TV.) Thus, if you want to show off and mark-up a document on a large screen, you can easily do so; just use your iPad and other people can see what you are doing by watching the TV screen.
The iPhone 4 only supports AirPlay streaming, meaning that if you are playing a video on your iPhone 4 you can send just that video to an Apple TV. But with the iPhone 4S, like the iPad 2, you can also use AirPlay Mirroring send everything on your iPhone screen to the TV, just as if the TV was a second monitor to the iPhone’s screen. I suspect that there will be more circumstances in which I want to share with others the image on my iPad screen than on my iPhone screen, but it is nice that with the iPhone 4S you have the ability to mirror if and when you want to do so.
Around the world
Are you looking for an iPhone that you can use as a phone when you travel internationally? The AT&T version of the iPhone has always been a GSM phone that works around the world. However, the Verizon version of the iPhone has been a CDMA phone that works in the U.S. but works in very few other countries. The new iPhone 4S is a world phone that can use both GSM and CDMA, so if you get the Verizon version of the iPhone 4S you can also use it abroad.
To be honest, international calling rates are so expensive that I have always kept my 3G turned off when I travel outside of the U.S. When I have needed to make or receive a call, I would find a Wi-Fi hotspot (which would often be in my hotel) and would use the Skype app to make phone calls for only two cents a minute, as I described in this post. But if you don’t mind spending the money for roaming and calls in other countries, and if you are a Verizon customer, then the world phone capability is another useful feature of the iPhone 4S.
What’s in a name?
I know that some people expected Apple to announce an “iPhone 5” instead of an “iPhone 4S” yesterday, and I’ve already heard some lawyers tell me that they are disappointed as a result. They shouldn’t be.
Apple appears to change the number only when the exterior design of the iPhone changes. Thus, Apple released the iPhone 3G in 2008, and then in 2009 released the iPhone 3GS with the exact same exterior but lots of improvements under the hood. Then in 2010 Apple released the iPhone 4, and because the 2011 version shares the same external design, Apple just added the “S” to the name this year. But that doesn’t mean that the iPhone 4S is any less important of an upgrade, for all of the reasons that I noted above.
The physical design of the iPhone 4 is already great — a small, light phone with a fantastic Retina Display and a rock solid feel. I suppose Apple could have designed a new phone that is even thinner (just like the iPod touch is thinner than an iPhone), but I’d rather have a new model that has better processors and battery life in the same size versus a thinner and less capable iPhone. Perhaps the only design feature of the iPhone 4 to receive some complaints was the antenna, and the iPhone 4S includes improvements in that area.
And let’s not forget that there are TONS of iPhone accessories on the market that work with the iPhone 4: cases, docks, speakers, etc. All of those items will also work with the iPhone 4S, and if you already bought any of those to use with your iPhone 4 you can now use them with the iPhone 4S. That is a huge advantage to not changing the exterior of the iPhone.
So don’t get hung up on the name. If you find yourself sad that this is a “4S” and not a “5” just tell yourself that this could have been a “4C” and think about how much higher in the alphabet “S” is than “C”. As Shakespeare teaches us in Romeo and Juliet: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Of course, he also had that line in Henry VI about “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” so perhaps we shouldn’t listen to that crackpot. Just listen to me instead. The name doesn’t matter; this is a great upgrade to the iPhone.
Should you buy an iPhone 4S?
If you don’t currently own an iPhone, or if you currently use an iPhone older than the iPhone 4, than my answer is a strong YES. The features added in the iPhone 4 such as the amazing Retina Display plus the new features of the iPhone 4S make this a must-have device for you. Get it.
If you currently own an iPhone 4, the answer is not as easy — in part because I suspect that you are somewhere in the middle of your two-year contract and thus AT&T and Verizon may not give you the subsidized price for the iPhone. On AT&T, for example, it appears that you have to pay $250 on top of the subsidized price if you are not close to the end of your contract — so $449 instead of $199 for the 16GB model. That’s a lot to pay if you already have an iPhone 4. The features noted above, especially Siri, are incredibly neat, but may not be worth the cost of the upgrade.
On the other hand, there are ways to make an upgrade more affordable if you want to do so. For example, Gazelle is a company that buys used electronics, and that company is currently offering $249 for a iPhone 4 in flawless condition or around $200 for an iPhone in good condition. Similarly, Apple itself has a Reuse and Recycling program that will offer you money towards a future Apple purchase if you trade in an old iPhone, and according to Brad McCarty of The Next Web, Apple will now give you up to $200 for an iPhone 4. Using one of these options can help soften the blow of the additional $250 fee. On the other hand, if you wait until you can use the subsidized price, you may be able to cover most of the cost of the subsidized price by using one of these services.
Also, if you and your spouse are on a shared plan, and if your spouse is eligible to upgrade with a subsidized price but you are not, AT&T typically allows you to take advantage of your spouse’s eligibility if he or she doesn’t plan to get a new phone.
If you do decide to get the iPhone 4S, you now have an additional carrier choice: AT&T, Verizon or Sprint. That just leaves T-Mobile as the only major U.S. carrier to not have the iPhone, although of course AT&T is trying to purchase T-Mobile right now.
Conclusion
The iPhone 4 has been out for 16 months and it is still one of the best-selling smartphones in the world. The iPhone 4S adds great new features, and I’m sure will be even more of a success. If you are a lawyer, you are going to love using the iPhone 4S as a sophisticated personal assistant and the better antenna is a great improvement. The improved camera may not have much impact on your professional life, but is likely to be very useful when you are out of the office, especially if you have kids.
On the other hand, if you decide not to upgrade to the new iPhone 4S, you’ll be happy to know that in just a few days, you can upgrade your current iPhone to iOS 5, so even your “old” iPhone is about to get a lot better. In tomorrow’s post, I’ll discuss iOS 5 and some of the other announcements from Apple’s event on October 4th.
Today at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern, Apple will introduce the 2011 version of the iPhone at an event in the Town Hall theater on Apple’s campus: 4 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California. Town Hall is a small forum; only 12 rows of seats with a capacity of about 250 people. You probably had many college classes in a similar room. (Click here for a 360º view of the room.)
Chances are that you, like me, are not one of the select few invited to the announcement. But some of the people who are attending plan to live-blog the event as it happens. Here are direct links to the live coverage at some of the sites that I expect to provide the best live coverage:
Macworld. Jason Snell and Dan Moren are perhaps the best live-bloggers in the world for Apple announcements.
GDGT. Ryan Block has a great track record of providing excellent live coverage of events.
This is my next. Joshua Topolsky did a nice job of live-blogging Apple events back when he ran Engadget, so I expect that he will also do a nice job on his new site.
Engadget. I suspect that the new guys running Engadget will also do a good job.
Ars Technica. Jacqui Cheng will be posting live updates.
Be sure to return to iPhone J.D. on Wednesday morning for all of my thoughts on the new hardware and software announced by Apple today.
Besides a lot of anticipation for the new iPhone to be announced next week, the other big iOS-related item in the news this week was that Amazon announced new versions of its Kindle, including a $200 tablet computer. I don’t think it really competes with the iPad because it does so much less, but I suspect that the manufacturers of Android-based tablets who were already having trouble competing with the iPad are a little concerned now that a low-priced Kindle that runs Android apps is in the mix. Here is the other noteworthy items in the news this past week:
We don’t even know what the new features will be in the next iPhone, but I suspect that several of you are already planning to buy it. Chris Smith of AppleInsider reports on a study finding that 40% of mobile users plan to buy an iPhone 5. I hope that Apple is making lots of them.
T-Mobile’s chief marketing officer announced earlier this week that, unfortunatly, T-Mobile won’t have the new iPhone that will be announced next week, as reported by Lex Friedman of Macworld.. Right now the iPhone is only on AT&T and Verizon; I wonder if T-Mobile felt the need to make an announcement because Sprint will get the iPhone next week?
Jim Dalrymple of The Loop has a good analysis of why the Kindle Fire — the upcoming color tablet version of the Kindle — will be successful, but will not be major competition for the iPad.
In related news, Jon Brodkin of Ars Technica wrote a good article explaining that the reason that the Kindle Fire is the first viable tablet computer besides the iPad is that Amazon didn’t try to just copy the iPad but instead did their own thing.
LawyerTechReview is a website about technology used by lawyers. The site has apparently been around since January of this year, but I just learned about it recently. About once a month, they run a feature called App Friday in which attorneys, paralegals or other law-related professionals recommend apps. Click here to run a search of the blog and see the 20 App Friday articles that have been published to date.
Speaking of lawyers who love their iPhones, John Cook of GeekWire reports that NFL great Lawyer Milloy loves his iPhone. (See what I did there? Ha ha… ahem. Sigh.)
Gavin McLachlan, an attorney in South Africa, tipped me off that this month, the Dutch Senate gave up on distributing meeting documents in paper form and instead every Senator will use an iPad.
Utah attorney Peter Summerill reviews many of the different apps that you can use to take notes on an iPad on his MacLitigator site.
There are a lot of iPhone apps that are so cool that they are almost magical, and Shazam has long been one such app. Anytime you hear a song, you can just launch the app and have it tell you what the song is. I’ve used it several times when trying to identify a cool song in a movie or on a TV show. For a while now the app has been limited in the number of times you could use it for free, but Kevin Tofel of Gigahom reports that Shazam is removing its five song limit so now you can use the app to identify as many songs as you want.
If you have owned several iPhones, iPods and iPads over the years, you probably have a lot of similar, but not identical, power supplies. John Martellaro of The Mac Observer describes the differences and how to identify them.
iPads can be used to do all sorts of interesting things … including, apparently, fixing national monuments. According to an AP article in The Daily, workers in Washington D.C. are using iPads to help them to fix the Washington Monument after last month’s earthquake.
Just in case you are looking for yet another reason for your kids to ask you for your iPad, Brian Heater of Engadget describes a new product from Disney called Appmates. They are small cars based on the characters in the movie Cars that you can drive on virtual roads in an iPad app. Honestly, I’m tempted to buy some for my kids just so that I have an excuse to play with them; they look fun.
And finally, here is an iPad dock for those of use who have been using the Mac since 1984. Get more information on “The Dockintosh” here.
I suspect that most attorneys know this is a time for next generation legal research. Westlaw’s new Westlaw Next product has been out for some time now and is a fabulous service that makes it much easier to find relevant authorities. The Westlaw Next app for the iPad was released in August of 2010, and it is a useful, well-designed app. At the same time, Lexis has been working on its next generation Lexis Advance product. Lexis has been releasing the product in stages. For example, in October of 2010, Lexis released Lexis Advance for Solos, a limited version of its next generation research product that was geared for — and only offered to — law firms with only one or two attorneys. Lexis also released a version of Lexis Advance for Solos for the iPhone in 2010, but unless you are a solo practitioner or in the smallest of law partnerships, you haven’t been able to use the app.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with some of the folks at Lexis who are responsible for the upcoming Lexis product releases including Marty Kilmer (VP of New Lexis Strategy) and Clemens Ceipek (VP and Manging Director of New Lexis). Here are some details of what Lexis has in store for the iPad and iPhone.
The next major release of Lexis Advance was, until recently, called Lexis Advance for Associates. The “for Associates” part meant that not every feature of the original Lexis.com was going to be ready for the next generation platform, including some of the company research tools that are most useful for partners interested in client development, but the core research tools such as searching for and finding cases and Shepardizing would be ready. Because this type of legal research is how most associates use Lexis, the thinking was that the product would first be called “Lexis Advance for Associates” and then in the future as more features are added, the “for Associates” part could be dropped. But apparently, many attorneys — including me — were confused and frustrated by the “for Associates” designation. To be sure, many partners use Lexis for legal research. Thus, Lexis now plans to call the next release of its product simply “Lexis Advance.” It still won’t have every feature currently on Lexis.com, but those features will be added over time without changing the name.
Lexis recognizes that smartphone and tablet sales are now higher than desktop and laptop sales, so Lexis is very interested in releasing a top-notch product for the iPad and iPhone. The goal has been to create an iPad app that feels like an iPad app, emphasizing what attorneys are most likely to use in an app on a tablet device such as pulling up cases and Shepardizing cases while on the go, whether it be in a deposition, in court, etc. At initial release, the iPad app will not include every feature of Lexis Advance, but the key features will be there, such as research trails and the ability to store research results in work folders and annotate those documents. Lexis is still finishing up the iPad app and is not ready to disclose all of the upcoming features, but did agree to share this one screenshot with iPhone J.D. readers to give you a taste of what is coming. (Click the picture to enlarge.)
In addition to the Lexis Advance for Solos app that is currently on the App Store but can only be used by a limited group of attorneys, Lexis also currently has an app available for any attorney to use called LexisNexis Get Cases & Shepardize. I reviewed that app in late 2009 and, frankly, I was not impressed. Indeed, recently I’ve been having trouble getting that app to work at all. Fortunately, talking to the folks from Lexis this week gave me the impression that they are much more serious about Lexis Advance for the iPad. In addition to the 1.0 release that will come out soon, they are already working on features to be added later such as the ability to use the app when you don’t have an online connection to Lexis (for example when you are in a courtroom without Wi-Fi or a good data signal), and the ability to share work folders between the website version of Lexis Advance and the iPad version.
Lexis was not able to give me a firm release date for the Lexis Advance iPad app or for the web version of Lexis Advance, except to say before the end of this year. A few weeks ago, Evan Koblentz of Law Technology News reported that Lexis Advance for iPad will be out October 15. The Lexis folks told me that this is incorrect; there is no specific release date for the app. It could be finished by Lexis and then approved by Apple next month, but it could be November or December. [UPDATE: I talked to Evan Koblentz about this, and he tells me that the October 15 date is the date that the current version of Lexis will work in the Safari browser on the iPad, not the date that the new Lexis Advance app will appear on the iPad. Now that I read his article again, I see that when I read his reference to the “flagship” Lexis product I thought he was referring to Lexis Advance. Sorry about misreading your article, Evan, and I look forward to trying out the regular Lexis.com on my iPad on October 15.]
Lexis is also working an a Lexis Advance for iPhone app. It will be an updated version of the current Lexis Advance for Solos iPhone app and will be a separate app from the Lexis Advance for iPad app.
Lexis is currently behind Westlaw with its great Westlaw Next product, but Lexis seems to be headed in the right direction. The Lexis folks pointed out to me that five years ago, nobody would have predicted the current popularity of iPhones and iPads. Lexis hopes that the work that they are doing now on Lexis Advance will meet not only the needs of attorneys today but also allow Lexis to continue to evolve to meet the needs of attorneys five years from now, even if we don’t currently know what new technology we will be using then. I look forward to seeing the upcoming iPad and iPhone Lexis Advance apps, and I hope that they are great products that help attorneys make the most of their iOS devices.
Yesterday, Apple announced that on Tuesday, October 4 at 10am Pacific, Apple will hold an iPhone-related special event on its campus in Cupertino, California. This will be the announcement of the new, 2011 version of the iPhone. In other words, it appears that the rumor I discussed last week was true.
The invitation to the event includes this picture with the caption “Let’s talk iPhone.”
The pictures on Apple’s event invitations often provide clues about the event itself. This time, the picture contains four iOS icons, reflecting that this will be an iPhone event. The first icon reflects that the event is on Tuesday the 4th, the second reflects that the event starts at 10am, and the third icon reflects that the event will be at Apple’s headquarters, the 1 Infinite Loop campus adjacent to I-280 in Cupertino.
The fourth icon is somewhat of a mystery. Why did Apple include an icon of the phone app, and then choose to put a 1 on it? This is a representation of a single new voice mail, so perhaps it is simply indicates that Apple has something that it wants to tell us. But could it mean something else? As I was wondering this last night, I saw California attorney David Sparks tweet: “Have the Kremlinologists started on the iPhone event announcement yet? I bet the little ‘1’ over the phone will spawn many posts.” For example, Lex Friedman of Macworld speculates that the “1” might indicate that there will be only a single new iPhone model announced next week (and that post also includes a good discussion of some of the likely, possible, and unlikely features in a new iPhone).
And then there is the message below the icons. Let’s talk iPhone. Dave Caolo speculates that perhaps this should be read as “Let’s talk, iPhone” with a comma, reflecting Apple integrating Nuance technology into the next iPhone that will let you speak commands to the iPhone. Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun Times has a similar thought. Whether or not this is reading too much into three words, I would really love it if the rumors are true and Apple will include advanced speach recognition technology in the new iPhone.
For more absurd interpretations of the picture on the event announcement, see this post by Steven Sande of TUAW, and this post in which Alan of Art of the iPhone wonders if the four square icons means that Apple is buying FourSquare.
What will the new iPhone include? Will it be called the “iPhone 5” or something else? When will it be available? How much will it cost? We’ll know the answers to all of these questions in less than a week.
One of the most useful apps on my iPhone is the free Chase app that I reviewed just over a year ago. Any bank app is useful when you want to do basic features like check your account balance, but the Chase app is particularly useful because it includes the ability to deposit a check on your iPhone. Using a feature that Chase calls QuickDeposit, you simply use the iPhone app to take a picture of the front and back of your check, and after a few taps, your deposit is finished. Not only can you deposit a check any time of day or night, you can deposit a check without having to actually go to the bank or an ATM machine. It’s like magic.
My only criticism of this app has been the deposit limit. Chase has only allowed a deposit of up to $1,000 a day and up to $3,000 a month using the app. Fortunately, according to a message that Chase recently sent to users of QuickDeposit (which includes not only users of the Chase iPhone app but also the Chase Android app), starting this weekend Chase is raising the limits to $2,000 a day and $5,000 a month. The message that I received from Chase states:
Date: 09-24-2001 18:20:00 From: Chase Online Subject: Important update to your Chase QuickDeposit(SM) Agreement
Dear Chase Customer:
You are receiving this message because you are enrolled in Chase QuickDepositSM. We are increasing the deposit limits for this service effective October 2, 2011.
As a consumer or business customer, you can deposit as much as $2,000 on any day and as much as $5,000 over any thirty (30) day period.
We updated the Chase QuickDeposit Service Agreement (Single Check Deposit) to reflect this information. Your continued use of the Online Services acknowledges your agreement to the amendment. The updated agreement will be available online on October 2, 2011. You can review the latest agreement anytime by logging on and clicking the “Legal Agreements and Disclosures” link at the bottom of any page.
We appreciate your business and look forward to serving all of your financial needs. Please call us at 1-877-CHASEPC (1-877-242-7372) if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
William S. Sheley Senior Vice President Chase Online Banking
The increased deposit limits starting this Sunday, October 2, 2011 will make the Chase app even more useful. If you are a Chase customer and you don’t already use this app, you really should.
