Every September, Apple holds a special event attended by media and announces new iPods for the end of the year buying season. Yesterday, Apple announced that this year’s event will take place on Tuesday, September 1.
Because one of the most popular iPods is the iPod touch — essentially just an iPhone without the phone — these iPod announcements tend to be significant even for iPhone owners. Indeed, sales of iPod touch devices means that there are even more devices running iOS, giving software developers even more of an incentive to develop great apps, meaning more great apps for iPhone owners.
Last year on September 9, 2009, Apple announced iPhone Software 3.1, iTunes 9 and and a new model of the iPod touch. (Click here for my rundown of last year’s event.) I expect that we will see similar updates this year. We’ll probably see a release (or at least an announcement of an upcoming release) of iOS 4.1, which will hopefully address the bug in iOS 4.0 that can sometimes cause the screen to activate when you are talking on the phone and the iPhone is next to your face. John Gruber expects iOS 4.1 to debut the new Game Center for iOS, which makes sense because the iPod will be the main focus next week and the iPod touch is even more of a game device than the iPhone. Hopefully iOS 4.1 has other great new features for the iPhone.
I’m sure that we will see a new version of the iPod touch which incorporates some of the same features new to the iPhone 4 such as the HD camera, a front camera for FaceTime and retina display.
There are also rumors that Apple will come out with a new version of the Apple TV based on iOS. I love my Apple TV, even though I admit that I don’t use it very often, and it would be fun to see a new model, especially if it has interesting new features such as perhaps the ability to run iOS apps and has an attractive price. There are related rumors that Apple will allow you to rent TV shows on an iPhone for only $0.99.
And of course, there is always the possibility that we will see something that nobody is expecting.
Here is the picture (courtesy of Engadget) on the invitation that Apple sent to media outlets for next week’s events, an indication that music (the iPod, iTunes, etc.) will be a focus of next week’s event:
One of the nice things about Apple products is that Apple usually makes it easy to upgrade. If you buy a new Mac, you can just connect a Firewire cord and use the Migration Assistant to move everything over to the new computer. Or if you have a Time Machine backup, the Migration Assistant lets you restore from that backup. (On a PC, my experience is that when you get a new computer, it is better to just reinstall everything from scratch.) Apple has also made the upgrade process very easy when you get a new iPhone. Just backup your old iPhone to your computer, plug in the new one, and tell iTunes that you want to restore from the backup that you just created.
For example, after I upgraded from an iPhone 3GS to an iPhone 4, my wife took over my 3GS. We simply backed up her iPhone 3, plugged in the iPhone 3GS, right-clicked on the device in iTunes and said that we wanted to restore from her backup, and then waited for everything to move over. It took a while (over an hour) but was easy and the computer did all the work.
As I noted earlier this week, I was recently given a brand new iPhone 4 from Apple because my prior model was having problems with the SIM card. For the most part, transferring my data to the new iPhone was easy. I backed up my iPhone 4, brought it to the Apple Store and returned home with the replacement model, and then told iTunes to copy everything from my backup to the new model. Again, I had to wait, but the computer did all the hard work.
But there was one very annoying difference between these two restorations from backup. My wife’s data moved from the iPhone 3G to the iPhone 3GS flawlessly, including all of the apps being placed in the same place she had the app on her old model. My experience was quite different. All of the time I had spent putting apps on certain screens and in specific folders on my prior iPhone 4 was wasted on the new model. A few apps went where they belonged, but then rest of the apps were simply restored to the new iPhone in alphabetical order. (And no, alphabetical was NOT the order I had previously used to carefully arrange my apps!) Indeed, iTunes didn’t even restore all of my apps — the 11th page of the Home Screen ended with apps starting with the letter R. The other apps (such as Twitterific) were still moved to the new iPhone, but because they were past the 11th screen I couldn’t see them and instead could only launch the apps by using the Search iPhone function.
I believe that the difference between the restore on my iPhone and my wife’s iPhone was the number of apps. The iPhone can normally display 144 apps on its 11 screens (16 per screen) plus the four apps at the bottom of each screen, for a total of 148 apps. My wife only has a few dozen apps on her iPhone, but I have a lot more than that. (I just counted and I currently have 240 apps on my iPhone. Yes, I know, I have an app addiction.) Thanks to iOS 4 and the folder feature, I can easily display all of those 240 apps on only 7 screens with plenty of room for for more apps, but it seems that iTunes has a problem with app placement when you restore from a backup and have more than 148 apps and a lot of app folders.
Because of this problem with restoring an iPhone when you have over 148 apps, it has taken me probably an hour or so of time over the last few days to move all of my apps back where they belong and to recreate all of my folders. The one advantage is that my iPhone is now even better organized that it was before, but how I wish I had thought to take screen shots of each of my home screens before I moved over to the new iPhone. That would made it so much faster to put everything back where it belongs.
If you have a lot of apps and use folders to organize them, I hope that you can learn from my experience if you ever need to restore an iPhone from a backup, such as when you upgrade to a new model. Take pictures or otherwise take note of where everything is before you upgrade so that you are prepared to restore order to the location of your apps after the upgrade.
UPDATE: Before I wrote this post, I read reports from a number of people on the Internet associating this problem with a large number of apps. But several people have posted comments to this post saying that they have had problems with app placement after a restore from backup even when they had only have a few dozen apps. Hmmm. The mystery continues, but the lesson is clear — when you backup your iPhone with the knowledge that you will soon do a restore from that backup, do yourself a favor and take note of where your apps are located. An easy way to do that is to just take a screen shot of each of your home screens (by pressing the button at the top of your iPhone and the home button at the same time).
I find it very useful to have rules and statutes on my iPhone so that I can access them whenever I need them, whether at my desk or with a client or in court. I have several apps containing the federal rules on my iPhone and several apps created by New Orleans attorney Matt Miller containing Louisiana laws.
Greenwich, Connecticut attorney Hilary Miller recently told me that he has published an app containing the court rules and other content from the Official Connecticut Practice Book, which is Connecticut’s
consolidated rules of practice for attorneys, and he gave me a free copy so that I could tell iPhone J.D. readers about the app. Contents include the ethics rules, civil, criminal and appellate rules, and special rules applicable to family and juvenile matters. The app does not include annotations for which the State of Connecticut asserts a copyright, but does have all of the rules updated as of December 31, 2009. (Future versions will incorporate revisions adopted in 2010.)
The app is simple to use. Upon launch you are given a list of all of the rules, organized by topic (such as “Rules of Professional Conduct” and “Sup. Court & Apel. Proc. Rules” and then rules are listed under each topic. Tap a rule to see the text.
There is a simple search feature so that you can look for keywords, and the results are highlighted in yellow.
The app lacks advanced features such as the ability to bookmark common-used ruled or shortcuts to jump to specific rules, but if you just need to look at a specific rule, this app will do what you need. As far as I can tell, is the only iPhone app containing the Connecticut rules. Thus, if you practice in Connecticut, I’m sure that you will find this to be a useful addition to your iPhone.
Six weeks ago, I wrote about a problem that I was having with my iPhone 4. Every once in a while I was getting a “No SIM card installed” message. At the time, I reported that removing and replacing the SIM card seemed to be a fix, and I said that I would update after a while to say how things were going.
Unfortunately, that “fix” didn’t do much good after all. I continued to get the error message every once in a while. Turning on airplane mode and then turning it off again was a quick way to get my signal back, but that was still a pain to have to do. And then in late July I got the dreaded “No SIM card installed” message while I was IN THE MIDDLE OF A PHONE CALL. The call dropped, and I thought that maybe I just lost a 3G signal — something that doesn’t happen to me very often, but at the time I was in another city and wasn’t paying attention to the strength of the 3G signal in that area. But then I looked at the iPhone and saw the dreaded No SIM message. Arggh! So on Friday, July 30, I visited my local AT&T store and was told that the best fix was to replace the SIM card, which the salesperson did quickly. All was good for about a week, but then the problem happened again, and continued to happen every once in a while after that. Sometimes I would go a week before seeing the message again, sometimes I would see the message twice in one day.
So I finally made an appointment at my local Apple Store this past Saturday. I was worried when I arrived because the store was packed with people. (Back to school purchases?) I was told when I checked in that the wait would be over 30 minutes, but fortunately within 2 minutes my name was at the top of the list. I suppose the long wait was for people who hadn’t made an appointment before arriving. As soon as I mentioned what was happening, the helpful employee asked if I had backed up my iPhone 4 before I went to the store (I had) and then within a few minutes he swapped out my phone for a new iPhone 4.
I suspect that this was just a construction defect with my particular iPhone, not a flaw in the iPhone 4 series, so Apple is just guessing that another unit won’t have the same flaw. Indeed, as I noted in my prior post, others have experienced this problem with prior models of the iPhone.
So now I have a shiny new iPhone 4 (although frankly the other one looked pretty shiny and new) and my fingers are crossed that I won’t see this problem again. I’ll update this post in the future to let you know.
[UPDATE 1/11/11: It has now been several months and the problem has not come back. Apparently, getting a new iPhone was the solution. I’m glad that I live in a city with an Apple Store, which made that very easy to do.]
One of the biggest iPhone stories this week took place just yesterday, when Facebook debuted a new feature called Facebook Places for the iPhone, a location-based social network. Simply tap one button in the Facebook app to see a list of nearby places, tap the one that corresponds to where you are (a restaurant, a bar, a park, a zoo, etc.) and a Facebook status update announces where you are to your friends. It is similar to other location-based social networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla (although it lacks the extra features of those services such as the game aspects). Of course, if you are like most attorneys who I know, you have no desire to let other people know where you are and indeed may consider that an invasion of your privacy. If so, you’ll still want to pay attention to Facebook Places because if you are one of the 500 million people with a Facebook account, even if you don’t use the feature, any of your Facebook friends can use it for you and check you in at a location. So if a friend joins you at a restaurant, or even just sees you across the room at the restaurant, he can indicate on Facebook that both of you are at the restaurant — or, for that matter, at a bar or other location. If you want to prevent others on Facebook from doing this, you’ll have to change your Facebook privacy settings. Thus, for some people Facebook Places will be a cool new feature, but for others it will be an annoying invasion of privacy that forces them to change privacy settings to opt out. For more information, including advice on protecting your privacy, check out these articles by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, Miguel Helft and Jenna Wortham of the New York Times and Adrian Chen of Valleywag. By the way, the new version of the Facebook app for the iPhone also lets you upload pictures and video in the background. Other news of the week that might be of interest to you:
If you practice bankruptcy law, you’ll be interested to learn that West has released the Norton Bankruptcy Dictionary as an iPhone app. Click here for Norton Bankruptcy Dictionary ($4.99):
Oxford, Mississippi attorney Tom Freeland writes about Pano, an iPhone app that lets you take panorama photographs.
Nick Spense of Macworld UK writes about updates to LogMeIn Ignition, an iPhone app that I use all the time. (My review is here.)
Steven Sande of TUAW reports that Apple was awarded patents for two iPhone features: slide to unlock and keyboard letter pop. I use both features every day, and I bet you do too.
David Pogue of the New York Times describes three iPhone 4 tips.
David Kravets of Wired reports on a federal Second Circuit ruling that using an iPhone to secretly record a conversation does not violate the federal Wiretap App if used for legitimate purposes. (Keep in mind, though, that you also need to be aware of state laws on recording conversations, and if it is an attorney recording the conversation, the state rules of professional conduct may also limit or prohibit the practice.)
Brian Chen of Wired writes that the director of Apple’s App Store also has apps that he wrote in the app store, including a fart app. No word on whether Apple will soon release an official, Apple-sanctioned fart app.
One of the reasons that Apple has resisted putting Adobe Flash on the iPhone is that, until recently, there was no software that allowed one to run Flash on a mobile device. There is now a Flash app for Android, and according to Avram Piltch of Laptop magazine, it has serious flaws, suggesting that it is probably a very good thing that we don’t have Flash on the iPhone. (Link via Daring Fireball.)
I recently wrote about a backdoor method to use the volume buttons to take pictures with the Camera+ app. Apparently Apple wasn’t too happy about that undocumented feature because the app was pulled from the App Store. Lex Friedman of Macworld argues that Apple should let developers access the volume button. I agree and I hope that Apple reconsiders.
And finally, Rene and Georgia at TiPb tested two skins for the iPad — the Invisible Shield (which I reviewed here) and BodyGuardz — against a severe scratch test. If you have the stomach for it, you can watch the brutal test below. (Spoiler alert: both held up quite well and the iPad was protected. Whew!)
As I noted this past Friday, this is a slow time of year for iPhone news, especially iPhone news that I think might be especially interesting for lawyers. I’m working on some app reviews, but they are not ready to post yet, and as a result I had nothing iPhone-related to post yesterday and the same is true for today.
While we have this pause in normal operations, I thought that this would be a good time to recommend that you become a regular reader of the great legal humor blog Lowering the Bar. The blog is the creation of Kevin Underhill, an attorney in the San Francisco office of Shook, Hardy & Bacon and (like me) a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. Underhill consistently provides humorous takes on law-related news of the day, and it is rare that I make it through one of his posts without laughing, or at least smiling. (Heck, even his “About” and “Disclaimer” pages are pretty humorous.)
I believe that Underhill is an iPhone user [he told me after this post went live that he uses an iPhone 3GS], and every once in a while he might happen to mention something about the iPhone on Lowering the Bar — such as his post on the Phoenix Wright iPhone game or his post “Epic Trademark Battle Erupts Between Makers of Competing Fart-Sound Software” — but don’t expect to hear much about the iPhone on his blog. Instead, expect to read about absurd scenarios giving rise to even more ridiculous lawsuits, funny contractual provisions (I love this one) and Kevin’s sometimes bizarre but always funny take on the events of the day.
If you use an RSS reader, I encourage you to add his site to your feed. Otherwise, be sure to visit Lowering the Bar from time to time, whenever you need a good laugh.
I am often asked about using the iPhone to take dictation, and when this happens next, I plan to refer to this recent post by Ernie Svenson. I have never really used dictation, even when I started my law practice over 15 years ago and it was the norm for attorneys, because I am a good typist and I know my way around Microsoft Word. Thus, I have never been able to say much on the topic. The only dictation that I do on my iPhone is that I dictate short e-mails and have them transcribed using the amazing and free Dragon Dictation app that I reviewed late last year. I love Dragon Dictation, but you are not going to use that app to dictate even a section of a brief, let alone a whole brief; that app works best for just a few sentences.
Earlier this year I reviewed SpeakWrite, an iPhone app and service that will transcribe what you record on your iPhone, and I know that many lawyers love that service. Keep in mind, however, that you need to pay for every word that you have transcribed.
If you would prefer to have the computer handle dictation instead of paying a person to do it, the best iPhone solution appears to be to record your voice using an iPhone app and then transfer the recording over to your computer so that a robust program (like Dragon NaturallySpeaking on the PC or MacSpeech Scribe on the Mac) can turn what you said into a brief, letter, etc. New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson recently described his solution which uses the $9.99 Dictamus iPhone app and the $149 MacSpeech program on his Mac. Svenson points out that it is handy to use your iPhone to do the recording because you are always going to have your iPhone with you, unlike a dedicated recorder or a headset connected to your computer.
My law firm has offices across the Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida. Quite a few have joked that my firm only puts offices in states that are targets for hurricanes. (Not true, we also have three offices in Tennessee!) Thankfully, this has been a quiet hurricane season so far, but one cannot get too comfortable with headlines like this: Despite Slow Start, Government Still Expecting Heavy Hurricane Season. Lovely. But one thing that attorneys know is that if you plan for contingencies, you’ll be prepared even when bad things happen.
There is a new $3.99 app that will help you prepare for the next severe hurricane, especially a hurricane that forces an evacuation. The flagship app is called iVacuate, and it is designed especially for people here in New Orleans. But there is also $1.99 app called iVacuate – Basic which is aimed at people elsewhere in the Gulf Coast region and lacks the New Orleans-specific features.
iVacuate tries to take all of the information that you would need during a hurricane and put it into a single app. First, the app includes Twitter-style updates on the latest hurricane. The app also includes a world map that shows you the current location of a hurricane. Fortunately, we don’t have anything in the Gulf of Mexico right now, but here is a screen shot that I took on August 7, 2010 when Tropical Storm Colin was in the Atlantic:
You can zoom in or out on the map, and the blue dot shows your current location. One feature I would like to see added to this map is a tail on the hurricane / tropical storm so that you can see the track. I also wish that the app included some of the projected paths from the National Hurricane Center and the major computer models.
The app has lots of features to help you plan an evacuation. First, the app includes information on the New Orleans contraflow plans. Contraflow is a system designed to speed up the evacuation of a city by reversing the flow on the Interstate lanes that would normally be headed into a city so that all lanes head outward. The system works well to speed up an evacuation, but you need to be prepared for it because certain lanes will force you to go a certain direction. If you plan to leave New Orleans and head towards Mississippi, you need to be careful not to be in the lanes that force you to go towards Houston. Because contraflow is not something put into effect very often, it is difficult to remember which lanes you need to be in. This app shows you your current location and helps you to plan for the lane changes.
To plan for a hurricane you should also prepare a disaster supply kit for those times when you don’t plan to evacuate but you know that it is possible to lose power, water, etc. for a long period of time. The app has a section to help you prepare your kit. The app also includes a checklist of things to do to prepare for a hurricane.
The app is full of interesting information, some of which was provided by Evacuteer, a volunteer organization that assists with evacuations. Almost all of the information in this app can probably be obtained from other sources if you want to do the legwork yourself, and there are ways to duplicate some of the features of iVacuate. For example, the app helps you get a list of nearby gas stations to use when you are driving, but you can do that yourself just by using the Maps app and searching for “gas.” But even though you can reproduce many of the app’s features without iVacuate, the value of the app is to put a lot of information in one place. When preparing for a hurricane, it is easy to get nervous and forget something, so having a central location for lots of important information can be helpful.
If you want more information, the New Orleans ABC affiliate television station did a short piece on iVacuate, which you can view here.
I didn’t run across very many interesting iPhone-related news items this week that I considered worth sharing here, but perhaps the quality helps to make up for the lack of quality? I suppose that we are in the technology doldrums of Summer when not much happens of note. Or maybe it’s just because it is Friday the 13th? Anyway, take a look at these if you missed them this week:
Apple released iOS 4.0.2 for iPhone this week. The update fixes a single security flaw that could be used by a website to install software on an iPhone without the user knowing about it.. There are no reports of any bad guys exploiting this flaw to harm an iPhone, but this was the flaw that was being used by many for the last two weeks to jailbreak an iPhone by simply visiting a website. I’m sure that the jailbreakers already have a new technique planned, but I am glad that Apple addressed this serious security flaw so quickly before it was used for evil purposes.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball shares his thoughts on a possible Verizon iPhone in January of 2011.
Eric Taub of the New York Times reviews some new battery chargers for the iPhone.
Jeanna Wortham of the New York Times wonders about rules of etiquette on using your smartphone to text or check e-mail.
Nashville attorney Barry Shrum provides four thoughts on the iPhone 4.
iSmashPhone reviews CardMunch, an app that scans business cards.
Lifehacker posted a list of its editors’ favorite iPhone apps. I don’t agree with all of the choices, but there are certainly some great ones in there.
According to this statistical analysis by an online dating service, people who take their profile picture with an iPhone, without a flash, in the afternoon are more likely to have sex. So now you know.
And finally, following up on recent studies indicating that a huge percentage of BlackBerry owners plan to move to an iPhone, the always funny web comic The Joy of Tech shared this tale of breakup:
Have you ever found yourself out and about, perhaps visiting another city, looking for a free Wi-Fi hotspot? Perhaps you want to download an app or a podcast that is too big to be downloaded over 3G. Here are two quick ways to find free Wi-Fi zones on your iPhone.
First, using the iPhone’s built-in Maps app, just do a search for “Free wifi” and you will see some entries:
Second, you can find one of the thousands of free AT&T Wi-Fi locations (such as McDonald’s and Starbucks) by using the free AT&T Mark the Spot app. When I reviewed that app last year, I noted that even if you never want to use the app for its intended purpose (alerting AT&T when you find a spot with poor 3G coverage), the app is a very useful way to select a spot on a map and immediately see (1) the latitude and longitude coordinates of that specific location and (2) the street address. The address feature is especially useful — it’s a quick way to look at a map and learn whether a part of the street is, say, the 800 block or the 900 block.
Additionally, the Mark the Spot app added a feature since I reviewed it last year to show you all AT&T hotspots on a map. To use this, just start the app and tap the “Map” button on the main screen. This will bring you to a map, where you can tap a button to see your current location or you can scroll around the map. Orange icons show you where you can find an AT&T hot spot.
In my tests, the information in Google Maps and the AT&T Mark the Spot app is sometimes out of date. You may walk to a spot only to find that the facility is now closed or under new management with free Wi-Fi no longer offered. But most of the time these two methods have proved accurate for me, so don’t forget about these two easy ways to find free Wi-Fi next time you need it.
