Normally, I find that Apple’s Smart Cover provides all of the protection that I need for my iPad. It protects the glass on the front of the iPad, and I don’t much care if the back of my iPad gets any scratches (although so far, it hasn’t). When I’m carrying my iPad to and from work, court, a meeting, etc. I put the iPad with Smart Cover inside of my briefcase or a bag such as the Tom Bihn Ristretto. But sometimes you need more protection for your iPad. For example, my family took a trip to San Francisco earlier this month, and I knew that I would be carrying my iPad and a ton of other items in a backpack. The Smart Cover alone wasn’t going to be enough protection from other items in the backpack. Just before my trip, G-Form sent me a free review unit of their $60 iPad Extreme Sleeve, so I decided to try out the product on my trip. It worked really well, with one exception noted below.
The G-Form iPad Extreme Sleeve comes in either black or yellow. It is easy to use. Just slip your iPad into the case and zip it up.
The case doesn’t take up very much extra space over the iPad itself. It is about 9″ by 11″ and about an inch thick. The case is soft inside and contains PORON foam with a flexible, rubber-feeling exterior and a unique design with shapes and ridges on the outside. The aim is to provide protection from even extreme impacts to the case so that the iPad remains protected even if the case itself is hit really hard.
And I do mean really hard. G-Form has posted videos to YouTube showing the case with an iPad inside being dropped from an airplane 500 feet in the air and with a bowling ball dropped on it. Obviously, I did not even attempt to try these tests myself, but they are impressive. I can say, however, that after a week of having lots of other objects in my backpack bumping into the G-Form case, my iPad 2 held up great, without a scratch.
The only issue that I had with the G-Form iPad Extreme Sleeve is that I wanted to put my iPad 2 in it with the Smart Cover on. It fit, but was very tight and a little difficult to get in and out. My iPad 2 without the case also fit, but it seemed a little loose inside. G-Form advertises that the original case will work with both the iPad and iPad 2, but I see that the company has just released the iPad Extreme Sleeve 2, which appears to be essentially the same as the unit that I tested except that it is $10 more and has a slightly larger interior to better accommodate the iPad 2 with a Smart Cover.
I also see on the G-Form website that there will soon be a similar product called the Extreme Portfolio. It opens like a folder and has even more space inside to hold documents in addition to the iPad. Here is a YouTube video showing the Extreme Portfolio with an iPad inside being dropped 60 feet onto pavement without any damage at all. Amazing.
If you want to put your iPad in a full body case, I’m sure that you are doing it because you want to provide maximum protection in case you drop the iPad or something bumps into it. The G-Form Extreme Sleeve that I reviewed — and I’m sure the same is true for the new products that they are about to release — provides you with incredible protection in a product that is not very bulky and is easy to use. If you have an iPad 2, you’ll probably want to get the new version and not the one that I used.
Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2011 fiscal third quarter (which ran from March 27, 2011 to June 25, 2011) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. It was a record-setting quarter for Apple, with sales of $28.57 billion and net profit of $7.31 billion. If you want to hear the full call yourself, you can download it from iTunes or you can read the transcript provided by Seeking Alpha. Apple’s official press release is here. Here are the highlights of the call that I think would be of interest to attorneys who use an iPhone or iPad:
Apple sold 20.34 million iPhones this past quarter, more than ever before, even though Apple has yet to even introduce the 2011 model of the iPhone. $13.3 billion of Apple’s profit came from the iPhone last quarter.
Apple sold 9.25 million iPads, more than ever before. The iPad 2 went for sale in the fiscal second quarter, but it was hard to find. This past quarter was the first full quarter in which the iPad 2 was for sale and relatively easy to find. Apple sells as many iPads as it can make right now, and Apple now makes more money on iPads than on Macs, even though the first iPad was introduced last year and Apple has been making Macs since 1984.
If you combine iPhone, iPad and iPod touch sales, Apple sold over 33 million iOS devices last quarter, and to date has sold 220 million iOS devices.
There are more than 425,000 apps on the App Store right now. The App Store passed the 15 billion download mark last week.
Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said that there is a “future product transition” coming this quarter. Presumably he is referring to the 2011 model of the iPhone, which I believe will be announced in September. Considering how many iPhones Apple sold last quarter, of a model that is essentially over a year old, I imagine that Apple is going to sell an insane number of iPhones this quarter when the new model comes out.
iPads are increasingly popular in businesses. 86% of the Fortune 500 companies are using iPads, as are 47% of the top 500 companies in the world. As Apple COO Tim Cook said yesterday: “I think if you really looked at it fairly, to be this far into the enterprise, with a product that’s only been shipping for 15 months in the case of the iPad, is absolutely incredible because the enterprise is typically much more conservative and takes a long time to evaluate products. And in this case, people are moving at a speed I haven’t seen.”
At the 2011 ABA TECHSHOW, I teamed up with Reid Trautz and Josh Barrett to teach a session called 60 Apps in 60 Minutes, a fast-paced survey of some of the most useful iPhone and iPad apps for lawyers. You can see a list of the apps we discussed here. ALI-ABA, the non-profit CLE organization formed by the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association, has asked us to get the band back together again and present that session as an online CLE co-sponsored by the ABA Law Practice Management Section. We’ve updated our presentation to add some of the latest and greatest apps, and the session will be on July 27 at 1pm Eastern. You participate in the session by calling in and watching the slides on your computer.
One nice thing about this CLE is the course materials. Instead of some boring PDF file that you will never read, all participants get a copy of Tom Mighell’s book, iPad in One Hour for Lawyers (a $34.95 value). If you register by July 21, you should receive the book in time for the program, although I don’t think we will refer to the book during the program itself. Tom Mighell will serve as the moderator for our discussion. By the way, Mighell also runs the site iPad4Lawyers.
If you cannot attend on July 27, ALI-ABA usually posts these online after the session, so I presume you’ll be able to take the course later.
The very first app that I reviewed on iPhone J.D. when I started this website in 2008 was Google Mobile. That app is now called Google Search, and it remains useful today because you can simply speak search terms to your iPhone and the app understands what you are saying and then runs a search on Google. If you turn on a setting called “Just Talk” you can even just launch the Google Search app, hold up your iPhone to your face, and the Google Search app automatically waits for you to say your search terms without needing to press any buttons.
Google does a great job with voice recognition, but Nuance is the king of voice recognition with its Dragon line of products. Dragon Dictation, for example, is a very useful iPhone and iPad app that is a favorite of mine and many other lawyers. A few days ago, Nuance released a new free app called Dragon Go. The app works like Dragon Dictation in that you start the app, press a button, and then say something to your iPhone. But instead of just converting your voice to text like the Dragon Dictation app, Drago Go examines that text and then runs a search based on the text at some of the most popular website on the Internet. For some searches, Dragon Go will guess that Google can provide the most relevant answers, and the app provides search results in Google. In this way, the Dragon Go app works the same way as the Google Search app. But unlike Google Search, Dragon Go also shows a carousel of icons at the top of the screen with alternative places to search. Just tap another icon to show the results in a different engine such as Wikipedia, Yelp, Twitter, Bing Maps, or many other sites depending upon your search terms.
For example, if I tap the microphone button and then say “24th Judicial District Court,” the app knows that I am in New Orleans, Louisiana (because it uses the iPhone’s Location Services feature) and runs a search in Google with the first result being the 24th J.D.C. in Gretna, Louisiana. But using the icon carousel at the top, I can quickly select the map icon and see a search run in Bing Maps that shows me the location of the 24th J.D.C. (just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans).
Another example: if I say “Mad Men episodes” the Dragon Go app defaults to the tab that gives me link to get episodes of Mad Men from iTunes, but I can also tap the Wikipedia tab to see the full entry there with descriptions of every episode of that TV series.
Adding the phrase “near me” is very useful. You can say “pizza near me” and find a listing on Yelp of restaurants selling pizza close to your current location. You can say “shoes near me” and find product listings from Milo, a website that acts as a front end for local stores.
For many popular websites with content such as newspaper websites, you can even tell the app where to run the search. For example, you can say “iPhone on CNN” and the app will run a search for “iPhone” on the CNN website and display the results. You can say “Harry Potter showtimes” and the app will know to run your search on the Fandango website. Food and restaurant related searches bring up results in Yelp. Click here to see a YouTube video promoting the app, but note that this is a slightly exaggerated commercial, not real life demo of the app. When you find something that you want, you can tap a button export the search results to e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, a text message, etc.
By directing you to lots of different sites that might contain relevant information, Dragon Go attempts to be the one voice-based search engine for all of your needs. I’ll have to use this app for a while to decide whether I find it more useful than just using the Google Search app, but on a first look this looks like a very useful app. And since it is free, you’ll definitely want to check it out and give the app — and carousel at the top of the app — a spin for yourself.
Earlier this week, I wrote about the ABA’s new survey on lawyer smartphone use. In connection with that report, California attorney Monica Bay — who is editor-in-chief of Law Technology News — writes about how Apple was unable to infiltrate law firms with its Macintosh computers but is now doing so with the iPhone and iPad. I agree with her on this. When I started at my law firm in 1994, we were a large law firm that used only Macs, something that was rare at the time and is unheard of today. But by the early 2000s, my firm wanted to use software that was PC only such as document management software, client relationship management software, etc. As a longtime fan of Apple products I was sad to see the Macs and PowerBooks leave, but 10 years later I don’t care as much thanks to the iPhone and iPad. Sure, I still use my computer every day in the office, but the real excitement in technology today is in the smartphone and tablet space, and I enjoy being able to use Apple’s great products. And looking around my office, I see that there are iOS devices everywhere, so I’m clearly not alone. And now, on to the recent iPhone and iPad news of note:
Jahna Berry of The Arizona Republic writes about Phoenix attorneys Marc Lamber and James Goodnow of the Fennemore Craig firm who loaned iPads to 20 of their top personal injury clients to make it easier for the attorneys to communicate with their clients, including Skype video chats.
Apple is involved in lots of high-stakes IP litigation relating to the iPhone, so it needs good lawyers. Dan Levine and Poornima Gupta of Reuters report that B.J. Watrous (formerly deputy general counsel with Hewlett Packard and before that an attorney at DLA Piper) is Apple’s new chief intellectual property counsel, taking over for Richard “Chip” Lutton Jr., who is leaving Apple after 10 years.
People often ask me whether they should get an iPhone from AT&T or Verizon. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and it largely depends on what part of the country you are in. In many areas, you get better coverage with Verizon, but 3G data can be faster on AT&T (plus you can talk on the phone and use data at the same time). Another point of comparison is the price of the data plans, and Art of the iPhone compares the two. Unless you want to use a lot of 3G data, AT&T tends to be cheaper.
Rob Dean of WalkingOffice writes about remote desktop apps for the iPad. I currently use LogMeIn Ignition, and it is one of the most useful apps on my iPad, making it easy for me to travel without my laptop, but I suspect that many of these apps would work just as well. For example, a few days ago, I got an e-mail from an attorney in Scottsdale, Arizona with a strong recommendation for Splashtap Remote, one of the apps mentioned in Dean’s post which is a fraction of the cost of LogMeIn ($2.99 versus $29.99).
How much money have you spent on content for your iPhone or iPad? Neil Hughes of AppleInsider reports that according to analyst Chris Whitmore with Deutsche Bank, the average iPhone or iPad owner has $100 worth of content.
Pete Mortensen of Cult of Mac is an iPhone user who spent some time with Android and Windows Phone 7 phones. He writes about how the competition stacks up.
Zach Honig of Engadget reviews the Kingston Wi-Drive, an external hard drive that talks to your iPhone or iPad using Wi-Fi and provides external storage for movies, photos, etc. He says that the product works well, but says that instead of spending $130 (16GB version) or $175 (32GB version), some people may prefer to spend an extra $100 when they get their next iPhone or iPad to get more built-in storage.
Attorney and consultant Paul Ungar reviews the Worldox iPad app on Brett Burney’s Macs in Law website.
Anne Tergesen of the Wall Street Journal writes that many hotels now offer a service where they will take the guest’s iPhone and other electronic devices and in exchange provide books and board games, something that the hotels call “digital detox” packages for people who need to take a break from their screens. I can’t tell you much more about the article because I stopped reading it in the middle so that I could get back to my Twitter, Facebook, email…
Philadelphia attorney Michael Payne reviews LeapDoc, an app that allows to to “print” a file on your computer and have it show up as a PDF on your iPhone or iPad. I have the full version of Adobe Acrobat on my computer which includes a virtual PDF printer so I can print any file to that Adobe virtual printer to create a PDF, which I can then transfer to GoodReader on my iPad. But LeapDoc looks like an interesting, alternative solution. Click here for LeapDoc ($4.99):
And finally, here is a heartwarming story from the Land Down Under. Evonne Barry of the Herald Sun reports that nine-year old Holly Bligh has albinism and nystagmus, conditions which impair her eyesight. She used to have to carry a heavy magnifying glass to class, but thanks to the iPad she can instead now have her teachers scan documents and then she can use the iPad’s pinch-to-zoom feature to enlarge text so that she can read it. The article discusses correspondence between Holly’s mother and Steve Jobs praising the iPad. I actually suffer from the same two eye conditions (although it sounds like Holly’s eyesight is far worse than mine) and I also find that it is often much easier to read documents on an iPad where I can easily zoom in on text. Indeed, I suspect that many of you don’t see as well as you did when you were younger, and so perhaps you too can take some inspiration from Holly. Here is a picture of Holly and her iPad taken by Ben Seinnerton of the Herald Sun:
When I prepare to write a review of an iPhone or iPad product, I usually try to use the product extensively for several days or weeks, but then the app or accessory often goes to the shelf. The products that I really love, and can give my highest recommendation, are the ones that I continue to use long after my review is written. A perfect example of a product that I have continued to use is the GorillaMobile Yogi for the original iPad which I reviewed early this year. In fact, that product is so great that I continued to use the unit with my iPad 2 even though it was an imperfect fit and the buttons didn’t line up correctly.
A few weeks ago, Joby released an updated version of the GorillaMobile Yogi for the iPad 2. Joby sent me a free sample of the product for review, and I find that it includes everything I loved about the original Yogi. You adjust the legs into any position to prop up your iPad on your desk or any other surface at any angle you want, either in portrait or landscape mode. You can also bend the legs around an object to hold the iPad in a position.
What makes the second generation Yogi different is that it molded to be an exact fit for for the thinner iPad 2. Putting an iPad 2 in the new Yogi is effortless. Removing the iPad 2 from the new Yogi takes a little more work, but just a few seconds. I actually find that with the new Yogi it is even easier to get the iPad in and out; I’m not sure if this is because Joby did something special in this second generation or if it just a result of the iPad 2 itself being thinner with curved edges. When the iPad is in the Yogi, it is very secure.
The new Yogi also has a hole for the back-facing camera. I don’t use the back camera on my iPad 2 very much, but it is worth mentioning that the Yogi is perfect for the using FaceTime on an iPad 2 with the front facing camera. Instead of wearing out your arm trying to hold out the iPad at the perfect position, you can attach your iPad to almost anything — such as the back of a chair in a hotel room — and then have a “hands free” FaceTime chat with the iPad held at the right height and angle.
I also find that when I want to hold my iPad in my hands for an extended period of time, such as to read and highlight a deposition or a long brief, it is nice to put the iPad in the Yogi and wrap the Yogi around my hand for a strong grip. This vastly reduces the risk of the iPad slipping out of my hands.
There are slight differences between the clip on the legs of the prior model and this new model so you cannot interchange the legs from the original Yogi and this new Yogi. But just like the original model, the legs easily clip on and off. Not only does this make it easy to switch the legs from a portrait to a landscape position, but it is also good to break down the Yogi for easier storage during travel.
Whether you want to prop up your iPad at a good angle at your desk. put it in a comfortable position on your lap or in bed while you watch a movie, or attach the iPad to another object by wrapping the legs around it, the GorillarPad Yogi by Joby is an incredibly useful product. The original Yogi was worth the $50 price, and the new model is well worth the reduced price of $40.
[UPDATE 3/18/2012: I tried the Yogi for iPad 2 with the new third generation iPad. It just barely fits — the case is tight, but it does work. I suspect that Joby will release an updated version of the Yogi just to have a little more tolerance, but if you need to use the Yogi for iPad 2 with your brand new iPad, it does seem to work.]
The iPhone can be very useful when you travel, especially when your airline has an iPhone app. I’ve previously reviewed Delta’s Fly Delta app, and recently I took a Continental Airlines flight so I had the chance to try out another such app. It is a great app with a lot of useful features.
The main screen of the app offers all of the common functions, such as flight status information, airport maps and the ability to check in to your flight. I particularly like the option to use a Mobile Boarding Pass, which saves you the trouble of finding a computer with a printer or waiting in line at a kiosk to print out your boarding pass. (I redacted the image with the QR Code because I don’t know if it contains a link to any personal information.)
One thing I love about this app is that it gives you lots of information when you are waiting for your flight. Of course you can find out the scheduled and current departure time, gate, etc. But one feature that I really love is a “Where is this aircraft coming from?” button. If your upcoming flight is delayed, you can press this button to easily get information on the plane that you are waiting for such as how late it left the last city and when it is estimated to arrive at the destination where you are waiting.
The app also provides lots of information about the amenities on the flight, such as whether it offers food, whether there is in-seat power, information on seating, etc. You can even get TV listings. (For a fee, you can watch select DirecTV channels on many Continental flights; this app lets you get the listings for the channels carried by the airline so that you can decide whether it will be worth it to pay for the TV service while you are flying.) It also includes a Sudoku game in the app itself, if you are really bored. You can even get some basic information about the plane itself. For example, without this app, I would not have known that I was being transported by a Rolls-Royce … how fancy!
Another useful feature — and one that is currently missing from the Delta app — is a seating chart for the plane, making it easy to find your seat before you even get on the plane. You can also view the upgrade and standby lists for your flight.
The Continental Airlines app is full of useful features. You should definitely download this free app before your next Continental flight.
My wife and I took our kids to the San Francisco area for about a week leading up to July 4th. We spent some time south of the city in Monterey, north of the city in Bodega Bay, and some time in the city itself. Using our Nikon D50 SLR camera, we took about 1500 pictures while we were there, but only about a third of them were worth keeping. I frequently take very similar shots two or three in a row using different camera settings with the knowledge that just one will be the one worth keeping, and if you have young kids like I do, you know that it often takes a large number of tries before you get a nice one of them both looking at the camera.
In the past, I’ve just taken a lot of pictures, using several SD cards, and then gone through them all when I went home. But just before this trip, I purchased the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit when I was in an Apple Store. Using this kit, every night I would take my SD card out of my camera and put it in the device, transferring the pictures to my iPad. This allowed me to take a few minutes every night to look at the pictures on my iPad and delete most of the bad pictures, saving me from having to do that for a huge number of pictures when I got home. It also let me and my wife review some of our pictures on a large, bright screen while we were on the trip, which was great fun and made it easy to share pictures with others. And because I removed the pictures from my SD card every night, I never had to use more than one SD card the entire trip. I really liked using this device and will definitely use it again in the future.
When you purchase the kit, you actually get two devices. One of them has an SD card slot, which is the only one that I used. The other one has a USB slot, which can be connected directly to a camera using the USB cord that comes with virtually every camera.
Using the device could not be easier. Just take your SD card from your camera and put it in the device, and then plug the device into your iPad.
The Photos app will launch and will show you previews of all of the pictures on the SD card. Tap the button at the bottom of the screen to import your pictures, and you can watch the progress, with each picture getting a check mark after it has been loaded to the iPad.
Importing pictures occurs very quickly, even if you have a larger number of photos. I mention this because years ago (pre-iPhone), I used to use an Apple camera connection kit with a hard drive based iPod. The process worked, but it was very slow. The iPad is obviously much more powerful and speedy than an old iPod.
When you are done importing pictures, you have the option of deleting the pictures from the SD card. I chose to do so on this trip, but you could also choose to keep all of your pictures on the SD card which gives you a backup of your pictures — one set on the SD card, one set on your iPad.
Once pictures are transferred to the iPad, you can delete them, use an app to edit them, e-mail them, etc. Later, when you plug your iPad into your computer, you will have the option of importing all of those pictures just as if you had plugged the camera itself into your computer.
If you own both an iPhone and an iPad, you can use the camera connection device with the USB port to connect your iPhone to your iPad, just as if the iPhone was a standard camera. This way, you can view pictures taken with your iPhone on the much larger iPad screen, and you can take advantage of the larger screen when you use an app to edit those pictures. By the way, although this device fits into the bottom of an iPhone and it would seem that it should be possible to transfer pictures to an iPhone just like you can to an iPad, the iPhone 4 using iOS 4.3.3 does not recognize the device. Perhaps support will be added in the future.
Keep in mind that pictures can be large. When you sync photos from your computer to your iPad, your iPad gets a reduced-size file that it optimized for the iPad. On the other hand, when you use the Camera Connection Kit, you get the full size picture on your iPad. By the end of my trip, I was using almost 3GB of space on my iPad to store almost 600 pictures. (Had I not deleted bad pictures along the way, I would have probably had three times as many pictures taking three times as much space.) If you own the 16GB version of the iPad, and if you have a lot of pictures to transfer, you might not have enough space. Before my trip, I loaded up my 32GB iPad 2 with movies for the kids just in case they were needed for the plane ride or at night knowing that I could delete them later if needed, and sure enough, about two-thirds into my trip I deleted the movie Wall-E from my iPad to make space for additional pictures, such as this one that I took of the beautiful Monterey Bay and another one I took of the stunning McWay Waterfall near Big Sur:
If you are taking a trip and bringing both your camera and your iPad with you, or even if you are away from your computer and you want to use your iPad to do some quick editing to a picture, the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit is a very useful accessory.
Every year, the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center conducts a survey to gauge attorney use of legal technology. Continuing the trend that the ABA saw in last year’s report (which I discussed here), this year’s survey reveals that the number of lawyers using smartphones continues to increase. And for the first time, the survey tells us something about the number of lawyers using iPhones.
Increasing smartphone use
The ABA surveyed lawyers from January to May of 2011. An outside research firm invited “9,800 nth selected names of ABA lawyer members in private practice” to complete the survey, 838 did so, and the ABA says that this means that “[r]esults for total respondents are projectable within a range of +/- 3.5% (with 95% confidence) for most of the tables in this report.” The report itself contains more details on the methodology and the structure of the survey, but suffice it to say that there was a dedicated effort to obtain results with statistical significance.
Last year, 79% of lawyers reported using a smartphone for law-related tasks while away from their primary workplace. This year, that number increased to almost 88%. In large firms with 100 or more lawyers, the number was up to 98%. Solo respondents were the least likely to use a smartphone (78% in 2011, compared with 65% in 2010). Most solo attorneys I know make even better use of technology than attorneys at large firms so these numbers surprised me a little, but perhaps that says more about the attorneys with whom I socialize.
Younger attorneys are more likely to use smartphones than attorneys over 60, but even in the over 60 crowd, 77% reported using smartphones.
For those who use a smartphone, 67% use a device that they own, 35% use a firm smartphone permanently assigned to them, and less than 1% report using a temporarily assigned firm smartphone from a shared pool. Respondents typically replace their smartphones every two years.
Primary smartphone uses
The primary reported smartphone uses this year are “e-mail (92%), followed by telephone functions (83%, compared with 88% in the 2010 survey), calendars (80%, compared with 73% in the 2010 survey), contacts (76%, compared with 72% in the 2010 survey), Internet access (55% in the 2011 and 2010 surveys), and text messaging/SMS (53%, compared with 54% in the 2010 survey), among other functions.” Very few lawyers reporting using a smartphone for time and billing, document creation, spreadsheets, web conferencing and presentations. (5% or less for each of those tasks).
31% of lawyers use an iPhone
Ever since I started iPhone J.D. in 2008, I’ve been asked how many lawyers use an iPhone. In the past, I haven’t really had an answer to this other than “lots, and more every day.” In last year’s survey, for example, the ABA did not ask lawyers which smartphone they used, only whether they used a smartphone.
But this year, they did. Of the almost 88% of lawyers who report using a smartphone, 46% use BlackBerry, 35% use iPhone, 17% use Android, 3% use Windows Mobile. Thus, for all of the attorneys who responded the survey — including the 12% who do not even report using a smartphone in their practice — that means that 31% use an iPhone, compared to 40% who use a BlackBerry and 15% who use Android.
How many lawyers are in the United States? The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics put that number at 759,200 in 2008. The ABA claims nearly 400,000 members and says that there are over 1 million lawyers in the U.S. (asserted, for example, in this PDF file). Assuming that there are a million lawyers and assuming that the ABA’s latest numbers are correct and can be extrapolated to all attorneys — and yes, I realize that extrapolating from 838 ABA members in private practice who responded to a survey to the entire population of U.S. attorneys is huge leap — that suggests that there could be around 300,000 lawyers in the United States using iPhones, compared to around 400,000 using a BlackBerry and around 150,000 using Android.
About half of the respondents say that their law firms support multiple smartphone platforms. Many of the attorneys I know who work for law firms and don’t use an iPhone tell me the reason is that their firm has traditionally only supported the BlackBerry and has not yet updated that policy. Thus, my guess is that a portion of the 40% of all lawyers who are using a BlackBerry is a result of a law firm only supporting Blackberry use, and similarly my guess is that in law firms that due support multiple smartphone platforms, iPhone use is even higher than 31%.
Apps
27% of respondents say that they have downloaded a legal-specific app for their iPhone, especially those who practice in the fields of real estate, family law, contracts and general practice. Legal research apps are popular, and the “most-often mentioned product names for downloaded legal-specific smartphone apps are Fastcase (25%), Westlaw (11%) and Lexis (9%).” Other popular apps reported are Dragon Dictation, Documents to Go and apps to read PDFs.
13% of lawyers use an iPad
15% of respondents say that they use a tablet device for law-related tasks away from their primary workspace. For large firms with more than 500 attorneys, that number rises to 26%. Of the 15% of all attorneys who use a tablet device, 89% report that they use an iPad, 8% report using Android, 4% said “other” and 3% said that they did not know. (Is it really possible for an attorney to use an iPad and not know that they are using an iPad? I’m guessing that most of those 3% are not iPad users.) Using the same assumptions that I used above, 15% of a million attorneys is 150,000 attorneys, so that suggests that around 130,000 attorneys in the U.S. use an iPad.
Keep in mind that this survey took place from January to May. I know a lot of attorneys who waited to get a tablet until the iPad 2 was released in March, and it was hard to even get one until April. Thus, some attorneys who answered the survey during the first few months of 2011 as if they did not have a tablet may now own an iPad 2, which would make the 15% and 89% figures too low.
For those using a tablet, the top uses reported were Internet (83%), E-mail (73%), Calendars (51%), Contacts (44%), GPS/Maps (33%) and Mobile-specific research apps (32%).
Putting the numbers in perspective
Surveys of smartphone users in general (not specific to attorneys) typically show a lot of Android users. For example, comScore reported on April 1, 2011 that Android had 33% smartphone marketshare, BlackBerry had 29% and iPhone had 25%. Attorneys as a whole are conservative on technology, and BlackBerry has long been the smartphone of choice for attorneys, so it is no surprise to see the ABA reporting that attorneys are far more likely to use a BlackBerry than the general population. Likewise, fewer attorneys are using devices with the Android operating system, the newer kid on the block. It is interesting to see that 35% of attorneys using a smartphone opt for the iPhone, a percentage higher than the general population. If I had to guess, I’d say that this is likely because attorneys — and other professionals — are more likely to purchase a high quality product like the iPhone whereas a larger part of the general population will opt for a cheaper Android phone (often perhaps not even realizing that Android is on the phone) with the assumption that it will be good enough. (And yes, I realize that there are many high-quality Android smartphones that are comparable to the iPhone, but there are also many cheap Android smartphones that do not correlate to a phone sold by Apple.)
Having said that, we must be cautious reading too much into fewer than 1,000 responses. Perhaps the real significance of this ABA report is that we finally have the first study that purports to tell us something about the number of lawyers using the iPhone and iPad. It will be interesting to see how the 2011 report compares to future ABA reports — for example, I predict that the 2012 report will show far more lawyers using an iPad — and perhaps these new numbers from the ABA will prompt others to conduct their own surveys. For now, suffice it to say that if you are an attorney using an iPhone or an iPad, you are not alone.
I don’t anticipate any big Apple news on the horizon, so iPhone J.D. will be quiet for the next two weeks. If I come across anything interesting, I will post it on Twitter, if you want to follow me there. @jeffrichardson is my Twitter account. See you in two weeks!
