Jeff Richardson

If you are one of the hundreds of people in town for the 2010 Federal Bar Association convention, welcome to New Orleans!  Please join me and Ernie Svenson at 10:50 this morning for our session “Social Media, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs: I am a Lawyer—Why Do I Care?”  And afterwards, please introduce yourself.  I’d love to hear about how you are using your iPhone in the practice of law.  And now, the iPhone news items of interest from this past week:

• Dan Moren of Macworld reports that for the fourth straight year — so in other words, as long as the iPhone has been in existance — the iPhone topped the J.D. Power survey on U.S. wireless smartphone customer satisfaction.
• Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune reports on a new study showing that while Apple makes only 3% of the mobile handsets sold in the world, it rakes in 39% of the profit.  Wow.
• Thanks to all of this profit, Bloombert reports that Apple was briefly the second largest company in the world yesterday when its stock peaked at $292.76, putting it ahead of PetroChina Co. and behind only ExxonMobil.  The stock then dropped somewhat, putting the company value at $263.9 billion, just behind PetroChina’s $265.5 billion valuation.  But still.  Wow.  I bought Apple stock in 2000 when the stock was at $18 a share and sold it in 2004 when it was at almost $30.  After that, the stock split in February of 2005 (so it’s like I bought it at $9 a share at current prices) and now it’s up to almost $300 a share, so that means that if I had held on to the stock I could have made, ummm… let’s just say that it’s a good thing that I’m a much better lawyer than a stock analyst.  My only advice to you is that if you ever see me say something on iPhone J.D. that sounds like stock advice, IGNORE IT.
• Douglas Adams taught us that the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is 42.  Josh Ong of AppleInsider reports that it is also the rank of Steve Jobs on the Forbes 2010 list of the richest Americans.
• If you use Dropbox, did you know that there are now 57 different iPhone and iPad apps that can access your files?  Visit this page to see all of those apps.
• One such app that works with Dropbox is the official Dropbox app.  David Cartier of Macworld reports on the new features in version 1.3 of that app.  Click here for Dropbox (free): 

  

• Vlad Savov of Engadget discusses “Awareness!  The Headphone App,” an app that lets you play music but also turns on the microphone on the iPhone.  If a loud noise is sensed — such as someone talking to you or an oncoming bus (but not normal background noise) — then that noise is played through your headphones along with your music.  That way, you can still hear what you need to in the outside world even while your headphones are blaring your music.  Unfortunately, there is a valid reason for an app like this; WPIX-TV in New York (Channel 11) recently reported that a 12 year old boy was killed by a New Jersey Transit train.  It appears that he was listening to his iPod, not paying attention, and walked across the tracks.  The train engineer sounded his horm and pulled the emergency brakes, but it was too late.  What a tragic tale.  Click here for Awareness! The Headphone App ($4.99): 

  

• Are you someone who knows nothing about computer programming but would like to learn how to write an app for the iPhone?  Attorney David Sparks of MacSparky.com reviews Objective C for Absolute Beginners and says that it is a great way to get up and running.
• Nick Bilton of the New York Times wrote a fascinating article on Asians in New York City buying iPhones without a contract for $600 from the Apple Store and selling them for a profit to be shipped to China.  The iPhone 4 debuts in China this weekend, which may put an end to this practice.
• Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal wrote that he went to Paris for 10 days and left his laptop at home, relying solely on his iPad and iPhone.  There were a few things that he missed, but overall he says that it worked great.  I’m hearing more and more about attorneys leaving the laptop at home and traveling with just an iPhone and/or iPad.
• Thomas Ricker of Engadget reviews the Mili PowerSpring 4 and the Mophie Juice Pack Air, two thin external battery cases that can extend your iPhone’s life for more than 16 hours.
• And finally, if you own an iPad and want to be fashionable, than clearly you need to spend hundreds of dollars on an iPad case from Oscar de la Renta, Gucci, Hugo Boss or Louis Vuitton.  Stephen Williams of The New York Times tells you what you need to know to spend that money.  For example, here are the Louis Vuitton iPad cases, priced at only $390:

I often hear lawyers talk about how they want to create an iPhone app to promote their practice.  My advice is to offer something more than just a mobile version of your website in an app; offer potential clients something that they can actually use.  Latham & Watkins, a law firm with over 2,000 lawyers in 30 offices around the world, has done just that in their new, free iPhone app called The Book of Jargon – Corporate and Bank Finance.

The firm says that the purpose of the app is to assist new members of the finance community in learning to talk the talk of corporate and bank finance, describing the app as a sort of “Berlitz Course” for recent law school and business school graduates seeking initiation in to the world of Wall Street, as well as a desktop reference for not-so-recent graduates.  The firm says that the approximately 750 terms listed include acronyms regularly used to describe key government regulations, slang phrases adopted by professionals in the corporate finance and banking arenas, and other legal phrases and definitions.

 

 

You can view terms either by browsing or searching.  Browsing is nicely implemented.  Flick through the screens to page through the list of terms, or slide your finger along the right to quickly scroll from A to Z.  When you see a term that interests you, just tap the term to see the definition.

If you know the term you are looking for, then start to type it in the search window.  If you type enough letters for the app to realize that there is only one match, the app auto-completes the rest of term for you.  Otherwise, when you are done typing just tap search.  This will bring up a list of matching terms.  Note that you can only search the terms themselves; you are not searching the words in the definitions of the terms.

I don’t practice in this area of law so I cannot critique the content of the definitions, but they do seem like they would be helpful for someone trying to learn about this field.  A New York Times article by Andrew Ross Sorkin notes that even with 750 terms, the glossary is incomplete:  “The firm’s compendium isn’t comprehensive, though: While it has definitions for ‘material adverse change,’ ‘Rule 144a offering’ and ‘white knight,’ it lacks definitions for more au courant terms like’ collateralized debt obligation’ and ‘credit default swap.'”  According to an AmLaw article by Brian Baxter, the content of this app came from a print publication that Latham first prepared in 2008 for lawyers and clients.  It was well received, and this app was conceived as a way to increase circulation without the cost of print publication.

If you think that this app might possibly help you in your law practice, go ahead and download it.  It is free.  But more than anything, this app fascinates me because it is such a great example of law firm marketing using the iPhone.  The app provides a useful service and — quite literally — demonstrates to potential clients of Latham that the firm knows what it is taking about when it comes to this field of law.  According to the AmLaw article cited above, the firm plans to release similar apps for other fields, such as project finance and outsourcing manuals.

Click here for The Book of Jargon – Corporate and Bank Finance (free): 

This past weekend, I was working with New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson to prepare for a presentation that we are giving this Friday.  (If you are in New Orleans for the 2010 Federal Bar Association Annual Convention this week, check out our session “Social Media, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs: I am a Lawyer—Why Do I Care?”)  One of the features of iOS 4 is that you can use the iPhone with an external bluetooth keyboard.  Ernie has an Apple Wireless Keyboard that he uses with his iMac, and I borrowed it for a short time to try it out with my iPhone 4.  I did not use it for very long, so this is just a mini-review, but I must admit that I was really impressed.  If you ever decide to travel with just an iPhone, leaving your laptop at home, the Apple Wireless Keyboard could be very handy.

Pairing the keyboard with the iPhone could not be more easy.  Just go to the Settings app and turn on Bluetooth and you will see the keyboard listed.  Select it, type the code that appears on your screen on the keyboard, and then the iPhone and the keyboard are paired.

Once the iPhone is paired with the keyboard, you can use the keyboard with a number of apps.  One app that I tried was the recently updated version of Documents to Go.  I propped up my iPhone, put the keyboard in front of it, and typed instead of tapped out the text.  I consider myself a pretty good typist on the iPhone’s keyboard, but you simply cannot compare that with typing on a real keyboard.  Entering text on the iPhone with the Apple Wireless Keyboard is so much more precise, so much faster, and just so much more natural.

 

One great feature that I had not previously considered is that when you are using an external keyboard, you do not need to fill the bottom portion of the iPhone screen with the virtual keyboard.  Thus, you can see a lot more text at one time.  Indeed, if you press the eject button at the top right of the keyboard, you can trigger the appearance or disappearance of the virtual keyboard.

Another nice advantge of the keyboard is that you can easily type alternative keyboard characters.  For example to type the section symbol § on an iPhone, you need to remember to hold down the & key until you see the option to instead enter §.  But with the keyboard, you can just type Option 6 — the same keystroke that you use on a Mac — to type the symbol.

Unfortunately, not all keyboard shortcuts work.  Documents to Go has an option to make text bold, but hitting Command-B on the keyboard will not trigger the option to turn on bold, nor can you use keyboard shortcuts to trigger underlining, italics, etc.

I also used the keyboard with the e-mail app, which worked just as well as Documents to Go.

 

 

It is also nice that the buttons at the top of the keyboard can be used to control the iPhone.  The increase and decrease brightness buttons will adjust the brightness on the iPhone.  The volume buttons adjust volume.  The play/pause, forward and reverse buttons can control the iPod app.  And as noted above, the eject button can trigger the virtual keyboard appearance.  The tab button works, as do the shortcuts to cut, copy and paste.

One other nice feature about the Apple Wireless Keyboard is that it is ultra thin.  It would be very easy to pack this in a suitcase or briefcase for travel.

 

Note that there have been several versions of the Apple Wireless Keyboard over the years.  The versions released in 2009 (aluminium case and uses two AA batteries) and in 2007 (aluminum case and uses three AA batteries) work with the iPhone.  The version released in 2003 (white case and uses four AA batteries) does not work with the iPhone, as noted in this article on Apple’s website.

You can purchase the Apple Wireless Keyboard at the Apple Store or on Amazon for $69.  Or if you already have this wireless keyboard (it comes with many new Macs), considering taking it along on your next trip.

 

Yesterday, I got the good news that I passed the Florida Bar Exam.  No, I’m not moving to Florida; I just have a client who asked me to help with some litigation there.  Florida pro hac rules are very restrictive (only three cases a year) and bar reciprocity is very restrictive, even if you have been practicing law elsewhere for a long time (16 years, in my case).  Thus, to handle any real volume of litigation in Florida, you need to take the bar exam.  With Florida law on my mind this Summer, I’ve been thinking about what apps I might want to get on my iPhone to assist with practicing law in Florida.  Coincidentally, I received an e-mail a few weeks ago from Nick Manzoli.  His company, LegalMesh, developed an iPhone app called Pocket Legal Florida which contains all 48 titles of the Florida Statutes.  Manzoli sent me a free copy of the app to review.  There are things in the app that I would like to see revised in a future version, but the app is not very expensive ($6.99) and worth a look if you practice law in Florida.

There are three buttons at the bottom of the app.  The “Go To” button lists the titles.  Tap a title to see the chapters, tap a chapter to see the sections, and tap a section to see the law.

Unfortunately, the app can be slow.  I often found myself watching a “Loading” alert for a long time.  A few times it stayed on the screen so long that I am pretty sure that the app had hung, so I forced the app to quit.  Moreover, when you are looking at a long list, such as a list of titles, a long list of sections, etc., the app only loads the first 10 items in the list.  You then have to scroll down and tap “More Results” to load the next set of 10.  If the items you are looking for as far down on the list, you’ll have to tap that “More Results” button many times.  This really slows down browsing.

When you are viewing a section that you plan to view again in the future, you can add it to a “Saved” list to make it easier to come back to later.  Tap the Saved button at the bottom right of the app to see your list of saved sections.  Unfortunately, the Saved list does not automatically update itself so it is sometimes necessary to tap a Refresh button to see the latest sections that you added to the list.

 

The third button at the bottom of the app is the Search button.  The search feature will give you a list of all sections containing the search terms.  Unfortunately, the app does not highlight your search terms, so you’ll just have to skim through the statute to find your search term.

I like having legal reference apps on my iPhone for two reasons.  First, it is handy to have the law with you so that you can quickly look something up.  Second, it is often handy to copy a part of a statute or rule and paste it into an e-mail.  A major drawback of the current version of this app is that you cannot copy the text.  Tapping on text doesn’t do anything.  There is an e-mail button at the top of each statute, but unfortunately that button only creates an e-mail with the cite of the statute, not the text of the statute.  I asked Manzoli about this, and he told me that a new version is coming out in a few weeks that allows you to e-mail the text of a statute.  He also told me that they are coming out with versions of this app for other states in the near future.  [UPDATE 12/11/10:  Version 2.0 of this app was just released, which adds the ability to e-mail the full text of a statute.]

Pocket Legal Florida is not the only source of Florida law on the iPhone.  For example, Tekk Innovations (who created the LawStack app that I reviewed earlier this year) also sells a $19.99 app called “Florida Statutes (48 Titles)”.  If you use the LawBox app that I reviewed earlier this year, you can purchase Florida Statutes within the LawBox app for $0.99 for each Title — a bargain if you just want a few titles, more expensive if you want all 48.  And if you just want Title VI, Florida Civil Practice and Procedure, PDA Wizard has a $5.99 app called “Florida Civil Practice & Procedure – FL Laws Title VI.”

[UPDATE:  And remember, if you have Internet access over 3G or Wi-Fi you have even more options, such as the Fastcase app which shows you Florida statutes for free.  But sometimes in a courthouse or elsewhere, you don’t have that, which is why it is helpful to have an app with self-contained law.]

Pocket Legal Florida is definitely the cheapest way to get all 48 Titles of the Florida Statutes on your iPhone.  The current version of this app can sometimes be frustrating because of the problems that I described above, but I was glad to hear Manzoli say that he and his team are working to improve the app in the near future.

Click here to get Pocket Legal Florida ($6.99): 

Yesterday I was in Jackson Square in the French Quarter in New Orleans.  It was a bright sunny day, but because of the trees in the park there were lots of areas of shadows.  I thought that this would be a good opportunity to try out the HDR features of the iPhone 4 and iOS 4.

HDR is not right for every photograph, but it can sometimes make a big difference and result in much nicer pictures.  Here are two pictures (original on the left, HDR version on the right) for which I first tapped on the St. Louis Cathedral to make that the focus of the picture.  (In all pictures in this post, you can click on the picture to see the full size version.)  The HDR version brings out more detail in the tree and the rest of the picture.  On the other hand, the HDR version also reduces the shadows on the surface of the cathedral, which makes the surface of the church more striking in the non-HDR version:

   

Here is another example where I feel that the HDR version is better than the regular version.  There is more detail and a wider range of color.  In all of these examples, you can also see one side effect of HDR in iOS 4; it tends to make the picture as a whole lighter.

   

Because HDR works by taking three pictures in a row, HDR can create problems when there is movement during the three pictures.  For example, in the next set, you can see the movement of a person (especially around his head) in the HDR version on the right.

   

Similarly, you need to be careful to hold the camera very steady.  I didn’t do so when I took this picture of a statue of Andrew Jackson, and here is the HDR result.  I suppose that one could argue that there is something to be said for the illusion that the horse is moving, but that wasn’t what I was trying to do.

The built-in HDR function of iOS 4 is fast and nice, but you don’t have any control over the process.  You can get more control with the app Pro HDR ($1.99).  I purchased that app shortly before Apple had announced that HDR would be built-in to iOS 4, and after I learned that HDR would be a part of iOS 4, my first thought was that I had wasted my money on the app.  To the contrary, my experience is that you can often get better results with Pro HDR.  

When you launch Pro HDR, you are given both an automatic and a manual HDR option:

If you choose automatic, once you tap your screen to start the process you will watch the screen go from very light to very dark as the app analyzes the image with different exposure settings.  Then the app will take one light picture and one dark picture.  The app tells you it is doing so and you can hear the sound of a picture being taken each time, so unlike the iOS 4 version of the Camera app, you actually know when the pictures are being taken.  Then the app analyzes the two pictures, and then you are given the result with the option to further refine a number of settings:  brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth and tint.

Although the automatic setting can work well, I prefer the manual setting.  In this mode, the app asks you to first select somewhere on the image that is bright, then to select somewhere on the image that is dark.  After those two taps, the app then takes two pictures to get the best exposure for those two areas of the image, and then goes through the same steps noted above.  

The process of taking an HDR picture with Pro HDR takes more time than using iOS 4.  However, the end result is sometimes (although not always) a much better HDR picture than what you get with iOS 4.  For example, here is a set of pictures taken using the normal Camera app (original on left, iOS 4 HDR on the right):

   

Here is a version using Pro HDR, which I consider a vast improvement over the iOS 4 HDR picture:

I really love the iPhone 4 camera.  The picture quality often rivals point-and-shoot cameras, and thus you can just leave the “real” camera at home.  And with the iOS 4 HDR function, the pictures can be better than what you get with point-and-shoot.  With Pro HDR, you need to take a little more time taking each photograph, but the end result can be really amazing.  I’ll end with the following non-HDR picture taken across the street from Jackson Square in a spot where millions of tourists and locals have taken pictures.  Very expensive cameras have surely resulted in better versions of this picture, but the iPhone 4 holds its own:

Click here for Pro HDR ($1.99):  

 

It wasn’t a very busy week for iPhone news, perhaps best evidenced by one of the top stories this week being whether Steve Jobs tried to take ninja throwing stars on an airplane in Japan.  (Bloomberg originally said yes, but then Apple told them no.)  That story did spark some amusing posts, such as this great one by John Moltz and this great one by the guys at Scoopertino.  It’s hard to compete with ninja throwing stars, but here is the rest of the iPhone news of the week that might be of interest:

• Hugo Miller of Bloomberg reports that very large companies such as JPMorgan Chase are now considering the iPhone as an alternative to the Blackberry, noting that “BlackBerry loyalty may be fading among the bankers, lawyers and government workers who drove RIM’s initial success. About 42 percent of BlackBerry users say they want to stick with the brand when they buy a new phone, according to an August survey by Nielsen Co. The rate is 89 percent for iPhone owners and 71 percent for Android devices.”
• Frederik Balfour and Tim Culpan of BusinessWeek wrote an interesting article on Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn, the Chinese company that makes iPhones to Apple’s exacting standards at a rate of “137,000 iPhones a day, or about 90 a minute.”
• Marianne Schultz of AppShopper reviews LogMeIn Ignition for the iPhone and iPad.  I consider it one of the most useful apps on my iPhone.  Click here for LogMeIn Ignition ($29.99): 

  

• Roman Loyola of Macworld reports that if you get the new Parallels 6 for Mac, you can also get for free Parallels Mobile, an iPhone app that acts as a remote client for the virtual Windows environment on your Mac.  Frankly, this is very similar to what LogMeIn ignition does.  For me, instead of a virtual Windows machine, I have LogMeIn installed on both my PC at work and my Mac at home so that I can remotely control either computer from my iPhone using the LogMeIn Ignition app.
• I was honored to be named in the 2009 ABA Journal Blawg 100, and now the ABA Journal is getting ready to select the 2010 nominees.  If you want to tell the ABA Journal about the law-related websites that you read regularly, click here to nominate your favorites.  It only takes a few seconds to do.
• If you want a quick way to find an iPhone app, try the new App Store Instant.  Modeled on the recent update to Google, start to type the name of an app and choices pop up instantly.
• Ed Sperling of Forbes writes that the iPad is the beginning of a new trend towards mobile hardware.
• Sam Grobart of the New York Times reports on the Chase app that lets you deposit checks on your iPhone.  I reviewed this app last month, and I continue to use the app all the time.
• Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times reports that you can use your iPhone as a guide at New York museums.
• Ryan Faas of Computerworld looked at the updated iPhone Configuration Utility, software used by companies to configure their employees’ iPhones.
• Chris Foresman of Ars Technia discusses the new HDR capabilities of the iPhone 4.
• And finally, if you have an extra $100 bill and don’t know what to do with it, why not make an iPhone stand?  Or you can just be cheap and do the same thing with a buck.

A large number of the files that I handle every day are PDF files.  Sometimes it is a PDF of a brief that I filed in court or that opposing counsel filed.  Sometimes it is a physical document that I scanned to put it in PDF format.  Sometimes it is a webpage that I “printed” by saving it as a PDF (something that all Macs can do, and that Windows can do with the right program installed such as Acrobat Professional).  It is often useful to have those files with me on my iPhone so that I can access them no matter where I am.  Fortunately, we now have lots of different options for reading PDF files on the iPhone.  On my iPhone, I currently have five options:

1. Mail
2. iBooks
3. Documents to Go
4. Quickoffice
5. Office²

Here are my thoughts on the pros and cons of using each of these to manage your PDF files.

Mail.  When you receive an e-mail with a PDF attachment, you can just tap on the file to read it.  

PROS:  (1) Very simple because you can just tap to read a file.  (2) Easy to flick your finger to scroll through a document with a few pages.  (3) Very fast.  Pages render quickly, and you can quickly pinch to zoom.  (4) Just forward the e-mail to forward your document.

CONS:  (1) No real storage.  As your e-mail gets older and older, you have to hunt for the e-mail with the attachment.  As a workaround you can create a Mail subfolder and store the message there.  (2) No ability to jump to a specific page, so it can take a long time to flick to the bottom of a long document.  (3) If you forward the e-mail to forward the document, the recipient will also see the content of your original e-mail.  (4) You cannot view the PDF file full screen; the menu bar is always at the top.

iBooks.  Although  this app was designed to purchase and read electronic books, it also handles PDF files.

PROS:  (1) Very fast.  I have yet to see a faster way to view a PDF file on the iPhone.  Pages render very quickly.  (2) You can store multiple PDF files in the app so that they are there when you want to look at something in the future.  (3) You can adjust the iPhone brightness while you are viewing a file, without having to go to the Settings app.  (4) If the PDF is searchable, you can search for words, which are highlighted in yellow and easy to see.  (5) Tap a button to see miniature versions of 9 pages of the document at once, making it easy to get an overview of the document and jump to a specific page.  (6) Slide your finger across the bottom of the screen to quickly page through the document, making it easy to jump to a specific page.  (7) You can view the PDF full screen with no distracting and space-hogging menu bars.

CONS:  (1) No folders, so all of your PDF files just go in a big long list.  (2) No way to change the title of the PDF to something that makes more sense to you.  (3) No way to e-mail the PDF file to someone else.  The app can receive files, but cannot send them.

Documents to Go.  A powerful application that can handle lots of different file types, including PDFs.

PROS:  (1) You can store multiple PDF files in the app.  (2) Option to see miniature versions of the pages making it very fast to flick through multiple pages.  (3) Option to jump to the first page, last page, or a specific page number — and this last option is key for getting through a long PDF file.  (4) Full screen view.  (5) Lots of options for handling the PDF file.  You can e-mail it, you can do a Save As to save it to online services like Google Docs and DropBox.  (6) You can open the document in any other app that handles PDF files, so for example you can store the document in this app but choose to open it in iBooks.  (7) You can rotate a document.  (8) You can access files stored on MobileMe iDisk, Google Docs, Dropbox, Box.net, or SugarSync.

CONS:  (1) Rendering files is slower than iBooks or Mail.  The app slowly builds each small part of the page at a time.  Having said that, it does seem to render a little faster than Quickoffice and Office².  (2) No way to search a PDF file.  (3) No way to create folders in the app to organize your PDF files.  (You can use a computer to create folders and then sync those folders back to Documents to Go.)  (4) No way to change a title of a PDF file, although you can save the file with a different name and then delete the original file which is a reasonable workaround.

Quickoffice. 

PROS:  (1) You can create folders to organize your PDF files.  (2) You can rename PDF files.  (3) You can e-mail a file that is stored in the app. (4) You can access files stored on MobileMe iDisk, Google Docs, Dropbox, or Box.net.  (5) Full screen view.

CONS:  (1) Rendering files is slower than iBooks or Mail.  (2) No miniature page views, options to jump to specific pages, or any other aids to manage large files.  (3) You can only manage a PDF file that is stored in Quickoffice.  Thus, if you have a PDF as a Mail attachment, you can choose to open the file in Quickoffice to view it, but you cannot save it into Quickoffice.  And because the file isn’t saved in Quickoffice, you cannot e-mail it to someone else.  (4) No way to search a PDF file.

Office². 

PROS:  (1) You can create folders to organize your PDF files.  (2) You can
rename PDF files.  (3) You can e-mail a file that is stored in the app. 
(4) There is a slider tab along the right that you can use to more quickly scroll through documents, although this method is slower than the options in iBooks and Documents to Go.  (5) You can open the document in any other app that handles PDF files,
so for example you can store the document in this app but choose to open
it in iBooks. (6) You can access files stored on MobileMe iDisk, Google Docs, Dropbox, myDisk, icloud, Box.net, or any other hard drive on the Internet with WebDAV.  (7) Full screen view.

CONS:  (1) Rendering files is slower than iBooks or Mail.  (2) You can only manage a PDF file that is stored in Office².  Thus,
if you have a PDF as a Mail attachment, you can choose to open the file
in Office² to view it, but you cannot save it into Office². 
And because the file isn’t saved in Office², you cannot e-mail it to
someone else.  (4) No way to search a PDF file.

Summary.  Unfortunately, there is no single app that provides everything that I want.  When it comes to just viewing files, iBooks is the best because it is so fast and offers great options to get to different pages in a PDF file and to search a file.  But iBooks stores all files in a list with no folders, and doesn’t give you an options for getting a file out of iBooks.  And because Apple views iBooks as an app for reading books, I suspect that Apple is unlikely to add options to e-mail or otherwise export PDF files in iBooks.  Documents to Go renders PDF files slower than iBooks, but it is the best for saving PDF files, sending them to other apps, and e-mailing them to others. Quickoffice and Office² let you create folders to better organize a large number of PDF files and have some other minor advantages such as the ability to rename a file.

As a result, my current preference is to read PDF files using iBooks, but I really don’t have a preference for storing and working with files and find myself using both Documents to Go and Quickoffice, which is not very efficient because I have to remember which app I am using to store a file.  If only Documents to Go or Quickoffice would find a way to render PDF files as fast as iBooks can, then I would probably make one of those apps my go-to app for PDF files.

The others.  Although these are the options on my iPhone, there are MANY more available.  Do a search for “PDF” on the App Store and you will find dozens of apps that can be used to read PDFs.  Many of these apps have a bunch of five star reviews.  Over time I will try to check out some of the other PDF readers with the hopes that I will find that one app that excels in handling PDF files.  Please let me know if you are using one of these apps now and if you like it.

Fortunately, we have an embarrassment of riches on the iPhone.  There are lots of ways to view and manage PDF files, including Mail and iBooks which are free, and including three good third party apps, any of which I recommend that you consider buying anyway to manage Microsoft Office documents.  Nevertheless, I am still looking for that one best app that does everything well.

UPDATE:  “RFD” raises an interesting question in a comment to this post:

It would be nice to know if any of the above options allow emailed,
completed Acrobat PDF forms to be read. I have clients who use Adobe
Acrobat to complete PDF forms with information entered into the form’s
data fields, saved, and then emailed. I’ve yet to find a way to see the
data in the completed fields on the iPhone. On the iPhone, the form
itself is perfectly readable but it appears to be blank (no data in any
of the completed fields).

None of the apps listed in this post can do that.  The apps open up the PDF form just fine, but you only see a blank form without any of the information entered into the form.  If you know of an iPhone app that can handle this, please let me know.

A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from St. Louis University law professor Nicolas Terry asking if I had tried out an app called Prizmo.  I had not heard of it, so I contacted the Belgian developer, Creaceed, and the company sent me a free review copy.  I’ve now had a chance to try it, and I’m very impressed.  The app allows you to take a picture of a document with your iPhone, then the app uses an OCR (optical character recognition) process to read all of the words in the scan and give you the plain text, then the app lets you do all sorts of useful things with the text that it has read.  This is an app that a lot of lawyers are going to want to have on their iPhones.

To scan a document, start the app and tap the Text button.  For example, I opened up my Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure book and found the article pertaining to dismissal or settlement of a class action and snapped a picture with the app.  (Or if you have already taken a picture, you can access any image in your Photos library.)  The app then gives you lots of options to prepare the image for OCR.  You can crop to select the relevant portion of the image, rotate the image, adjust the perspective, or tap on a portion of the image that should be white to enhance the contrast between black and white.

   
 

When your image is prepared, tap the Next button and the app will scan the text, accompanied by an amusing graphic of a scanner going down the document as if it is reading it during the OCR process.  The app then shows you the text, which you can edit.  OCR is never perfect on any computer, let alone on an iPhone, but with decent quality scans I found that this app did a very good job.

  

After you are finished with your edits, the app shows you the text and gives you a bunch of options for what you can do next.

   
 

The first option is to have the app read the text out loud.  The app doesn’t come with built in voices, but instead lets you buy up to 35 different male and female voices for many different languages for $2.99 each.  The quality of the voices is quite good, and after you have installed one, the app can perform a text-to-speech to read you your document.  Another option is to copy the document, which you can do either by selecting some of the text and using the normal iPhone copy function, or if you want to copy all of the text to the clipboard just tap the copy button.  You can also tap the mail button to send either the image that you scanned or the text from the image to an e-mail message.  You can also send the app to a file depository on the Internet (DropBox or CloudApp).  You can also save the original or the processed image to the Photos app on the iPhone.  And finally, you can tap the Translate button to have the app use Google Translation services to translate the text into one of ten different languages.  For example, here is what Article 594 of the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure looks like in French.

 

Notwithstanding Louisiana’s civil law traditions and connection to the French Civil Code, that probably isn’t very useful.  But perhaps if you were in a foreign country in a restaurant that had Wi-Fi, it would be helpful to scan a menu in French or German or Spanish and then translate it into English.  (The internet connection is necessary so that the app can have Google Translation Services translate the text; the OCR process occurs on the app itself without the need for any internet connection.)

If all this app did was OCR documents and let you do lots of different things with the resulting text, that would be useful enough, but that is just the beginning.  I’ve only described the steps that happen after you tap the first button on the main screen of the app, and there are many other options.

 

The Business Card option allows you to scan a business card, and then the app turns the text into entries of a Contact.  The app takes a guess at what to do with names and numbers, but in many cases you will have to go in and adjust the field or, in some cases, adjust the text if the OCR process or the app made mistakes.  For example, when I scanned my business card, the app put “New Orleans, LA” all in the City field instead of putting “LA” in the state field.

  

When you are finished with the fields, the app gives you buttons to do various things such as add the person to your Contacts on the iPhone or e-mail a vCard.  It takes some time to get all of the text assigned to the correct fields, but I have to admit that this is probably faster than typing in all of the data from a business card on your own.

I did not try out the Bill feature, but I understand that it lets you scan a bill, OCR and interpret it (detecting labels, prices and tax), split up the bill among different people (assigning the different food items to the different people at your table) and figure out the tip.  I doubt I would ever use this feature in real life, but if you are eating with a group of people who want to be exact and have Joe pay more because he had two egg rolls whereas Bob only had one, then this is the button on the app for you.  I also did not try out the Whiteboard feature, which lets you take a picture of a whiteboard and work with the information.

The Reader function works if you have purchased a voice for the app.  You can paste any text into the app (or by default it uses the text from your last scan) and then have the app read to you.  For international travelers, it might be useful if the app let you paste a block of English text, then translate it to a foreign language, and then read that out loud using a foreign language voice.  For now, you can access the Google Translate website and translate your text there, and then paste the translated text into this app and have the app read it out loud if you need this function (assuming that you have purchased a foreign language voice).

Finally, the Documents part of the app allows you to access previous scans and work with them again.  By default the app shows you a portion of the scanned document, but tap once on any image to instead see the beginning of the OCR text.

  
 

There are a few features that I would like to see added to this app.  First, I wish the app could work with PDF files.  Many of the scans that I receive are in PDF format, but this app can only work with JPG images.  I tried to get around this limitation by displaying a PDF on my iPhone screen and then taking a screen shot, and then working with the resulting image that was saved to my Photos library, but the quality wasn’t very good because the text was so small when I displayed an entire document on the iPhone screen, and thus the OCR had too many errors.  Also, I don’t see a way to handle documents that are more than one page long.  The app handles each scan of a page as a separate file.  It would be nice to be able to combine multiple images into one large file.  Additionally, I wish that there was a way to get a document into the app using third party services such as DropBox or CloudApp.  Right now, the app only lets you take a new picture or select a picture from Photos on the iPhone.  In other words, you can save a scanned document to DropBox or CloudApp, but you cannot receive a document from those services.

To be fair, though, I hate to complain too much about missing features because it is stunning how much is packed into this one app.  This developer clearly has put a lot of thought into what you might want to do once you OCR a document.  And the developer knows quite a bit about OCR, having sold a Macintosh version of Prizmo for some time now.  The field of law is becoming more paperless every day, and with an app like this you can move more of your physical documents into a digital form that can be more easily used.  This is a useful app to add to your iPhone toolbox.  (And thanks to Prof. Terry for bringing it to my attention!)

Click here for Prizmo ($9.99): 

Fifty years ago in 1960, Theodor Seuss Geisel — who we all know as Dr. Seuss — accepted a $50 bet from his editor at Random House.  Could he write an entertaining book for children using only 50 different words?  Dr. Seuss won the bet, and the result was the classic story Green Eggs and Ham.  Oceanhouse Media publishes a bunch of iPhone apps based on the work of Dr. Seuss including books, games and camera apps.  Yesterday, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Green Eggs and Ham, Oceanhouse dropped the price of their Dr. Seuss apps for the iPhone and iPad by 50%, for a limited time.

If you have younger children then I suspect that, like my kids, they love Dr. Seuss and they love getting to use an iPhone, so what could be better than Dr. Seuss on the iPhone?  I have two of these apps — the Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham — and I recommend them to anyone who has kids.

 

 

The apps have three different modes.  In the “Read to Me” mode, a narrator reads each page of the book, and you swipe to go to the next page.  In the “Read it Myself” mode, there is no narrator so the app works much like a traditional e-book.  And in the “Auto Play” mode, the child can just sit back and have the story read out loud without needing to swipe to change pages.  In both of the modes with a narrator, each word is highlighted as it is read to help the child learn to read.

In all modes, there are fun sound effects on every page.  Also, a child can tap on any word
to hear it spoken, or a child can tap on any object on the screen to see
hear what it is — “hat” “Sam I Am” “Sign” etc. — and to see that word
briefly appear under the object.

 

The graphics come right from the books and are as vibrant and whimsical as ever.  They look amazing on the iPhone 4 (with full support for the retina display — tap on the above pictures to see them full size), and I hear from people who use these apps on the iPad that they look fantastic on that larger screen.  (The same app will work on both an iPhone and an iPad.)  Also, each app does a great job of panning across the page to zoom in or out as is appropriate for the text.

There are 12 titles in the e-book series:

• Green Eggs and Ham
• The Cat in the Hat
• Dr. Seuss’s ABC
• One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
• Yertle the Turtle
• Hop On Pop
• The Lorax
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
• Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
• Gertrude McFuzz
• The Big Brag
• The Sneetches

Now that these apps are 50% off for a limited time, you can pick one up for only $1.99 (or in some cases, 99¢.)  Note that the prices have been discounted even more in the past; I purchased The Cat in the Hat this past March when it was on sale for one day only for 99¢.  But whether you spend $1 or $2 or even more, the apps are certainly worth it.  You should have seen the look on my son’s face last night after I purchased the Green Eggs and Ham app and I told him that I had a new Dr. Seuss book on the iPhone.

If you have kids, or if you are just young at heart, these apps are a fun purchase.  Oh, the places you’ll go!

Click here to get The Cat in the Hat ($1.99): 

Click here to get Green Eggs and Ham ($1.99): 

Everyone knows that the popularity of the iPhone has put a strain on AT&T’s network over the years.  The #1 reason people give me for not buying an iPhone is that they prefer the Verizon network.  AT&T is well aware of this and has several initiatives underway to improve performance on the iPhone and other cell phon… oh, who are we kidding.  We all know that this is all about the iPhone.

One initiative was to unveil a faster 7.2 Mbps HSDPA 3G network, which both the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 can take advantage of.  You can learn more about HSDPA in this article written last year by Glenn Fleishman.  

Another initiative by AT&T has been to add 3G support at its cell towers for the 850 MHz spectrum.  I am certainly no expert in cell phone spectrum, but here is my understanding of what this means.  850 MHz is the original frequency that was used in the U.S. for cell phone service, originally for analog cell phone service in the 1980s.  The 1900 MHz frequency (also called PCS) was added about 15 years ago and is only digital.  AT&T debuted its GSM network on the 1900 spectrum, and then more recently used 1900 for 3G.  The higher frequency means that the signal does not travel as far, which can result in problems when you are trying to use the phone inside of a building with thick walls.  As analog and other uses of 850 MHz have gone away, AT&T started to support GSM on both 850 and 1900 MHz. 

The iPhone, like most other current generation phones on AT&T, supports both 850 and 1900.  In the past, however, 3G was only available on the 1900 MHz band, and thus an iPhone could only use the 850 MHz band for slower Edge service.  To improve coverage, AT&T has been working for over a year to bring 3G to the 850 MHz spectrum across the country.  This helps users in two ways.  First, by moving some of the 1900 traffic over to the 850 band, there is room for more traffic on 1900 MHz and hopefully fewer dropped calls for everyone on both bands.  Second, as noted, the 850 band can work better inside of buildings.  In New York City — a city famous for both lots of buildings and poor AT&T coverage — AT&T worked hard to add 850 MHz support throughout the country, and the company announced this past June that it had finished upgrading all of the Big Apple.  To be clear, New York is not unique; AT&T supports 3G over 850 MHz in areas across the country.  However, I’m not aware of AT&T previously announcing which cities have 3G over 850 MHz, except for New York where AT&T is now bragging about it quite a bit.

In the following video from AT&T’s Seth the Blogger Guy, Seth explains what the 850 MHz upgrade means in New York, and of course most of what he says will also benefit you in your city when the 3G 850 MHz rollout is complete.  I’d love to hear from New Yorkers on whether they have seen improvements now the that the new band is rolled out.

[UPDATE 9/16/2010:  See also this post from Nilay Patel at Engadget on additional announcements from AT&T on upgrades.]