I won’t be posting to iPhone J.D. this week because of vacation travel, but I am working on some interesting items for 2011. I hope that you and your families are enjoying the holidays and I wish you a very Happy New Year.
If you have not yet had a chance to vote for iPhone J.D. in the ABA Journal Blawg 100, voting ends at the close of business on Thursday, December 30th. For those of you who enjoy reading iPhone J.D., it would mean a lot to me if you took a minute and voted. And for all of you who have voted already, thanks for being so considerate.
Most of all, thanks for all of your e-mails and comments in 2010. See you next year!
It is a short week on iPhone J.D. due to Christmas, but there were still several news items over the past few days that are worth mentioning. All my best to you and your family during this holiday season.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and the App of the Day website created a neat graphic displaying some statistics for the 300,000+ apps available in the App Store. Worth a look.
Camera+ is an app that I reviewed on August 11, 2010. I liked a lot of the features, but I especially liked that you could hold your iPhone like a camera and press a volume button to take a picture. Apple disapproved of this unauthorized use of an iPhone button, and promptly removed the app from the App Store the next day. Since then, the app has spent several months sitting in the corner in time out, but yesterday version 2.0 of the app was released and now it is back on the App Store. Version 2.0 has some nice new features for taking and modifying pictures and is faster, but unfortunately (and predictably) version 2.0 removes the the ability to use the button. I contemplated not updating, but then I’ll lose out on the new features and future updates. For a limited time, the app is half price, just $0.99. Click here for Camera+ ($1.99):
The second generation of Apple TV was released in September of 2010, and in October Apple announced that 250,000 had been sold. Yesterday, Apple announced that it will sell the one millionth unit some time this week. The Apple TV is a great iPhone and iTunes accessory, although as I recently reported, it has some problems if you have an older TV that doesn’t have an HDMI port. Still, if you have a new TV, you’re likely to find the new Apple TV worth $99 — and apparently a million other people agree.
If you use DirecTV like I do, the DirecTV app (which I reviewed over a year ago) is really useful. The app lets you set your DVR to record a program no matter where you are. Greg Alsobrook reports, on the useful DBS Talk forum, that the app now contains a QR code scanner to set recordings. The idea is that you see a QR code — those square, black-and-white graphics that work like a bar code — in a magazine advertising a program, and you just point your iPhone at the QR code to tell the DirecTV app which program to record. Once we start to see these codes, this could be a useful feature.
Ed Finkel of the ABA Journal reports that the state of Nebraska created a free state court docket app for the iPhone. I’d love to hear from anyone in Cornhusker State on how the app works. [UPDATE: Omaha, Nebraska attorney Harvey Cooper tells me: “I have the Nebraska Court Calendar app. It provides the upcoming docket for county and district courts, except those in Omaha. (Omaha is not on the statewide Justice system yet so we can’t efile at this time.) You put in the county, court and caption and it gives you the upcoming hearing schedule. No access to the docket sheet or pleadings however. It also gives you upcoming dates entered by the court such as pretrial conference and when pretrial motions are due.” Sounds useful. Click here for Nebraska Court Calendar (free): ]
Speaking of traveling, if you are doing so during the holiday season on Delta, perhaps you’ll notice that Delta has started to install charging stations in 19 U.S. airports, including all seven of Delta’s domestic hubs. Get more information on Delta’s official blog.
And finally, the members of the Finish female group Lauluyhtye Viisi usually perform a cappella, but they picked up some iPads (which only became available in Finland a few weeks ago), loaded a few instrument apps, and recorded a cover of the classic Madonna song Material Girl. Their voices alone are beautiful — check out their website to hear their amazing harmonies, albeit in a language that you probably won’t understand — but the iPads add a nice touch to this recording:
I have the Nebraska Court Calendar app. It provides the upcoming docket for county and district courts, except those in Omaha (Omaha is not on the statewide Justice system yet so we can’t efile at this time) You put in the county, court and caption and it gives you the upcoming hearing schedule. No access to the docket sheet or pleadings however.
If you are looking to give someone the gift of an iPhone or iPad this week, here are two great deals.
Are you a Sam’s Club member? If so, Vlad Savov of Engadget reports that you can get an iPhone 4 for $147, the lowest price I’ve ever seen for it. You can also get an iPhone 3GS for $47.
According to a report by Mark Gurman of 9 to 5 Mac, if you buy an iPad from Best Buy, you get a free MiFi, one of those small devices that uses an AT&T, Sprint or Verizon 3G signal to create a Wi-Fi network for up to five devices, including of course your new iPad. By comparison, if you buy an iPad from a Verizon store, the MiFi costs $130.
By the way, Apple just released a cute Christmas-themed iPhone ad called “Under the Covers.” Here it is:
I’ve frequently written about how an attorney can use an iPhone to manage documents, photographs, videos and other evidence. What I haven’t thought about as much is clients (or opposing parties) using an iPhone to create evidence. Of course, people have been using cell phones to take pictures and capture video of crime scenes, torts, and other activities for a long time now, but now that we have a very good camera on the iPhone 4 along with easy to use tools for sharing those photos and videos, I suspect we’ll see more in the future.
I thought about this over the weekend when I read this post by Mike Masnick, the CEO and founder of TechDirt. The article discusses the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Norse v. City of Santa Cruz, No. 07-15814 (Dec. 15, 2010), a case in which the plaintiff claimed that his free speech rights were violated when he was kicked out of a city council meeting after making a Nazi salute. In a concurring opinion, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski notes that it is clear that “Norse’s sieg heil was momentary and casual, causing no disruption whatsoever” and further notes “there’s no need to take my word for it” because a video of the incident is on YouTube. (Video is here.)
Masnick says “this may be the first time that I can recall a judge noting that even without official evidence being entered, you could just go watch the events in question on YouTube.” I don’t know if that is quite right; the concurring opinion notes that the video is “also found in the record.”
Regardless, what struck me is how different it can be to read facts in a Statement of Facts and to actually be able to watch the video as if you are there. Of course, pictures and videos can be deceiving because of the angle of a photograph, events that occur off-frame, editing, etc. Even so, as more and more iPhones and other sophisticated smartphones get sold and essentially everyone carries a phone with them at all times, I’m sure that we will see more and more cases in which events in a lawsuit don’t have to be described, often by witnesses with inconsistent memories. Instead, we can just hit the play button on an iPhone.
From the very first moment I thought about starting iPhone J.D., I knew that I would never want this to be a rumor site. Perhaps it is because I’m attorney and feel very serious about the need for confidentiality, or perhaps it is because most of the stories behind rumors just seemed way too shady for me; either they were the result of people breaching duties of confidentiality, or they were the result of people just making stuff up. That doesn’t mean that I don’t speculate about future products from time to time, but in my mind there is a huge difference between dreaming up what seems logical to come next and trafficking in information obtained from improper leaks. I will admit that there is one caveat to my general rule; I suspect that from time to time, companies like Apple will purposefully leak information to a trusted news source like the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times just to get a story out there. On the rare occasions when I suspect that is what is going on, I have no problem talking about the rumors. I was thinking about this when I saw, as reported by Philip Elmer-Dewitt in Fortune and various reporters from the Wall Street Journal, that the FBI arrested five people who leaked information about the iPhone 4 and the iPad and other technology products for violating insider trading laws. The reports are interesting, and I’m sure that we will see more to this story in the future. Other interesting news from the past week:
Here is an example of my speculating about what we might see in the future. Imagine that you are in a foreign country looking at a menu in another language. Wouldn’t it be neat if you could point your iPhone camera at the menu and, in real time, view the menu on your iPhone translated into English? Sounds hard to believe, but we may be very close to having this technology. There is a new app called Word Lens that purports to translate, in real time, information on signs from Spanish to English and vice versa. The app itself is free, and includes a demo mode that reverses the order of text. (Click here to get Word Lens (free): ) You can pay $5 in the app to buy the Spanish to English module. I didn’t purchase it because it seems to me from using the demo mode that the technology is not quite ready for prime time, but the following video gives you an idea of what this might look like when the tech is perfected. Really neat stuff:
EA has always made great games for the iPhone and iPad, and right now every single one of those games is on sale for just $0.99. This even includes some of their more expensive titles, such as Mirror’s Edge, Tetris and Scrabble for the iPad which normally cost $6.99. I bought Scrabble a while back (before this sale) and it is fantastic, and I’ve been looking at Mirror’s Edge for a while now so I took advantage of this chance to get it for only a buck. Madden NFL 11 for iPad normally goes for $12.99 (the iPhone version is normally $4.99) and both are on sale for $0.99. Other EA titles include Sim City, the Sims, Need for Speed, Risk, Monopoly, Clue, American Idol and Yahtzee. You can see all of the EA titles on the App Store by clicking here. This is a great time to pick up a bunch of them.
Prizmo is a great app to scan and OCR documents. I reviewed it a few months ago. It was recently updated to add the ability to export to MobileMe and Evernote, making the app even more useful.
New York attorney Nicole Black identifies some holiday gift ideas for the mobile attorney.
Black also loves the GateGuru app, an app which I reviewed earlier this year. Version 2.0 of the app launched this week, adding integration with TripIt and Kayak, estimated security line wait times (based on input from other users) and international airports. It is a free, must-have app for the frequent traveler. Click here for GateGuru (free):
Yesterday I mentioned the beautiful Infinity Blade app. Dave Caolo of TUAW notes that over $1.6 million has been spent buying the app since it was released two weeks ago. $5.99 of that was from me. Click here for Infinity Blade for iPhone and iPad ($5.99):
Sam Oliver of Apple Insider reports that Google Latitude is now available for the iPhone, just a short 22 months after it was first announced. Click here for Google Latitude (free):
Why yes, there is still time to vote for iPhone J.D. in the ABA Journal Blawg 100, so don’t feel guilty that you waited until now to vote. The important thing is that you are voting now so that you don’t forget.
And finally, I see from a story in iPhone Savior that a seller on Etsy designed an iPhone Christmas tree ornament. The price was right at only $2.00, but it looks there were only 86 for sale and they are now all sold out. There was both a black and a white model. I’d like to think that one person bought the entire stock and now has a Christmas tree covered with nothing but ornaments that look like this:
I have a few apps on my iPhone that are large. Black’s Law Dictionary is about 60 MB, the U.S. Code is about 200 MB, and I have a few apps that are around 300 MB. I see that Riven, the sequel to Myst, is now on the App Store and it weighs in at 1.01 GB. Gulp! I believe that Riven is the largest app ever released for the iPhone or iPad. [UPDATE: As Philippe Radley points out in a comment, some GPS apps with built-in maps are even bigger; for example, Navigon MobileNavigator North America is 1.52 GB.] As the developer notes, you actually need to have at least 2 GB free to install this app, and you are NOT going to want to download this one over Wi-Fi:
Riven for iOS is a VERY, VERY large application. We’ve managed to optimized Riven from its original DVD size to a little over a gigabyte. Even at that size it’s one of the largest iOS app we know of – so PLEASE BE PATIENT – download times and syncing times can be longer! It’s possible on slower iOS devices for the downloading/syncing to pause FOR 10 OR 15 MINUTES.
Because of the large size it’s HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you download Riven on your computer using iTunes, and then sync with your iOS device. Downloading directly to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is theoretically possible via a wireless connection, but… uh… well… you really don’t want to.
It is pretty rare for me to play an immersive game on my computer, but after all of the attention that Myst received for being a landmark computer game with incredible graphics back in the mid-1990s, I bought Riven when it was released in the late 1990s. I remember that it took me a very long time to finish the game, but I enjoyed playing it for hours and hours becasue of the incredible graphics, far better than anything I had seen at the time on a computer. Presumably, the Riven app is so large because the developers brought all of those great graphics to the iPhone and iPad screen.
I don’t think that I’ll buy Riven for iOS simply because I’ve played it before (albeit over a decade ago), but I do appreciate it when any developer brings incredible graphics to the iPhone. I recently purchased an amazing iPhone/iPad game called Infinity Blade. At 318.3 MB, it is currently the largest app on my iPhone and iPad (although pretty small compared to Riven). You control a knight and fight the bad guys in a castle. This is not normally a game that I would buy, but I had to check it out because I heard that it has some of the best graphics ever seen on an iPhone or iPad. Here are screenshots from my iPhone (top) and iPad (bottom) (click to enlarge), but frankly these still images don’t do the game justice. The graphics are most impressive when you look around and see the fluid animation.
The graphics are stunning, and even for a non-gamer like me, the game play is not bad either — although I have to admit that sometimes I am a little slow using my sword because I find myself paying too much attention to what a great job the developers did creating the graphics. I suppose that an appreciation for beautiful computer graphics is one of the same reasons that I love Pixar movies so much.
You can get a sneak peak into the Infinity Blade world by downloading the free Epic Citadel app from the developer of Infinity Blade. There are no bad guys to fight, you just walk around and look at the beautiful castle. My five year old son loves using Epic Citadel just to walk around and pretend that he is a knight. I love this app too. In some ways, if you are just interested in great graphics, Epic Citadel is better than Infinity Blade because you have full control over your movement and where you can look. In Infinity Blade, your movement is far more restricted.
Even if you are not a game player, consider checking out one of these apps — especially Epic Citadel — just to appreciate how nice graphics can look on the iPhone (especially the iPhone 4) and the iPad.
Click here for Riven: The Sequal to Myst for iPhone ($5.99):
Click here for Infinity Blade for iPhone and iPad ($5.99):
Click here for Epic Citadel for iPhone and iPad (free):
When CNN released an iPhone app in 2009, it got fairly positive reviews, but I thought it was odd that they sold it for $1.99 considering that many other news apps were free. Yesterday, CNN released a free iPad app and also reduced the price of its iPhone app to free. These are excellent news apps, and if you ever use an iPhone or iPad to keep up with the news, you should download these apps immediately.
Since you can (and should) check out these apps for yourself, for free, I’m not sure that there is a need to say much more in this review … but you can never stop a lawyer from talking, so I’ll note a few things. Most interesting to me is that the apps are somewhat different. iPad apps often contain the same content as an iPhone app, just formatted for a different screen. Not true here. For example, unlike the CNN iPad app, the CNN iPhone app includes a CNN iReport feature that allows you to take a photo or video and contribute it to CNN. The app even features “assignments” such as the current “Wintry weather near you” assignment that asks you to take interesting pictures of the effects of snow and cold weather. You can also view the submissions of others, so while I can look out the window of my office and see the Mississippi river flowing through New Orleans, with the iPhone app I can also see that the same river is currently frozen in Minneapolis:
The CNN iPhone app also includes a “My CNN” feature that gives you local weather and local news. That doesn’t exist on the CNN iPad app.
On the other hand, the iPad app includes a button that lets you listen to the most recent radio hourly update from CNN. This is missing from the CNN iPhone app.
Perhaps over time both of the apps will gain the same features. What won’t change, however, is how nice it is to view CNN news topics on the iPad. Both the iPhone and iPad let you view a list of news story titles along with a thumbnail picture, but on the iPad you can also view a really nice grid view with up to 15 panes visible at a time. You can easily scroll through to see older stories, and once you select a story you can see a large video at the top of the screen while the news article is displayed at the bottom. The CNN iPad app does a great job of taking advantage of the extra screen real estate.
Whether you own an iPhone or an iPad, you should get these CNN apps.
Have you ever wanted to get a closer look at something on your iPhone screen? In many apps like Safari, you can pinch to zoom in, but other apps don’t offer this feature. Nevertheless, you can magnify any part of the iPhone or iPad screen if you enable the Zoom feature. This is designed to be one of the iPhone’s accessibility options for the visually impaired, but anyone can use it.
Turning on Zoom
There are two ways to turn on (and off) zoom. First, you can go to Settings –> General –> Accessibility –> Zoom and then turn it on. That works fine, but those are quite a few menu levels to have to go through to turn the feature on and off.
Second, you can create a shortcut by going to Settings –> General –> Accessibility –> Triple-click Home. On this page, you can tell the iPhone what to do when you triple-click the Home Button. The default option is Off, but you can select the last option, Ask. With that option selected, any time you triple-click the Home button, a menu pops up that gives you three options, with one being to Turn Zoom On or Off. If you plan to turn Zoom on and off from time to time, enabling the Triple-click function will save you a lot of trips to your Settings app.
Come on and Zoom, Zoom, Zooma-Zoom
Once Zoom is enabled, you activate it by double-tapping on your screen with three fingers. By default, that magnifies 200%. If you want a different amount, you can double-tap three fingers and then drag up or down to adjust the magnification between 100% and 500%.
When you are zoomed in, you can still use all of the normal iPhone gestures such as flick, pinch, etc. Of course, you can only see a portion of the screen at a time. To pan around the screen, hold down three fingers and then drag around. When you are done using Zoom, double-tap with three fingers to go back to 100%. Thus, you can quick jump between normal and zoomed in by double-tapping with three fingers.
I would show you a screen capture to give you an example of using Zoom, but an iPhone screen capture takes a picture of the entire screen, even if you have magnified a part of the screen and cannot see the whole thing. Thus, a screen capture gives you the same image, regardless of whether the screen is being viewed at the normal 100% or at 500%. But here is a picture from Apple’s website that gives you a sense of Zoom at work:
Because Zoom is part of the iOS operating system, it works on all apps. Thus, even if the developer hasn’t included a pinch to zoom function, with the Zoom feature you can do it yourself. Zoom works on both the iPad and the iPhone, and I actually find Zoom more useful on the iPad; the screen is so large that you can enlarge one part but still see enough of the rest that you don’t lose your sense of the screen as a whole.
I suspect that Zoom isn’t a function that you are likely to use very often, but it is nice to know that it is there when you need it.
Nothing much to post about today, but rather than post nothing, I recommend that all of the Angry Birds fans out there read this fun article by Jenna Wortham from this past Saturday’s New York Times: Angry Birds, Flocking to Cellphones Everywhere. And if you haven’t tried it yet, here is a link to download the Christmas-themed version of Angry Birds (which also contains Halloween levels) called Angry Birds Seasons. A new level is available every day in December, so it is a cross between the regular game and an Advent Calendar:
Click here for Angry Birds Seasons HD for iPad ($1.99):
Click here for Angry Birds Seasons for iPhone ($0.99):
Voting continues in the ABA Journal Blawg 100, but at a very slow pace. There have only been a few dozen votes in the Tech category, so if you are reading this, consider taking a minute to vote. I know, you have to register, and nobody likes to register, but I promise you it is painless. You just provide an e-mail address, the website sends you an e-mail to confirm that it is a real e-mail account, and then you can vote. The ABA won’t ask you for any personal information and the whole process is quick. If you enjoy reading iPhone J.D., I’d really appreciate your support! And now on to the news of the week.
Want a free iPad? According to Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune, today through Sunday if spend over $1,500 on Y.E.S. clothing at Bloomingdale’s in New York, you get a free iPad.
Wan an iPhone 4 for only $25? According to Darren Murph of Engadget, if you go to a Radio Shack before tomorrow, you can get $50 off the cost of an iPhone, plus you can get $125 for trading in an iPhone 3GS. So if you give Radio Shack your iPhone 3GS and $25, the store will give you an iPhone 4.
Want an iPad for only $429? According to Joe White of App Advice, Apple is selling refurbished iPads with a $70 discount on the $499 model and a $100 discount on the $500 model.
On Wednesday, I wrote about your kids being able to spend money without your authorization on your iPhone if you typed in your password within the previous 15 minutes. Yesterday, the AP wrote about the same problem, quoting one person who said that his child spent $140 on smurfberries in the Smurfs’ Village app even though he claims that he waited more than 15 minutes before letting his son play with his iPad. Very naughty, Papa Smurf!
David Sarno of the L.A. Times writes about corporate America moving from the BlackBerry to the iPhone.
Vlad Savov of Engadget writes about a $149 device that lets your iPhone control a Nikon SLR camera.
Attorney Dan Friedlander of LawOnMyPhone writes about taking notes on a computer, iPhone and iPad and keeping them all in sync.
Lex Friedman of Macworld writes that many songs on the iTunes Store now have 90 second previews. I really like this change, which makes it much easier to decide whether to buy a song. It is also useful to click the “Preview All” button for an album; after spending a while listening to 90 seconds of a dozen or more songs, you really get a sense of whether the entire album is worth buying.
Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times recommends 10 favorite apps for the iPad.
Jason O’Grady of ZDNet writes about how he lost his iPhone at Disney Hollywood Studios but was able to recover it with Find My iPhone.
Galen Gruman of Infoworld recommends iPad apps to use in the office for tasks such as word processing and spreadsheets.
Michael Gray of TUAW writes about Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas using his iPad in Congress.
David Pogue of the New York Times writes about Gorilla Glass, the scratch-resistant glass made by Corning and used on iPhones.
Martin Kaste of NPR warns that if your iPhone is connected to the Exchange server at your office, this means that your office can remotely wipe the iPhone (either on purpose or by accident), even though you were the one who purchased the iPhone, not your employer. I actually consider this a feature, letting your office help you if you lose your iPhone and don’t have Find My iPhone configured to do this yourself, but I understand how this could be a problem in some situations.
Roy Furchgott of the New York Times discusses the Skyfire app, a web browser for the iPhone that is supposed to let you see Flash animation. I’ve had mixed experiences with the app myself; most of the time, it tells me that it cannot play the video.
Roger Cheng of the Wall Street Journal reviews some interesting photography apps for the iPhone.
And finally, Reid Greven and his friends at the North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia used iPhones and iPads as instruments to perform three Christmas songs. This is just too much fun, and is worth watching all of the way through. In a post on Greven’s website, he identifies all of the apps that they used. Check it out and prepare to smile:
