Jeff Richardson

I never thought I would review a flashlight app on this website.  I don’t mean to imply that an iPhone isn’t useful as a flashlight.  For as long as I’ve had an iPhone — and even before that when I had a Palm Treo — I’ve occasionally used the screen of my phone as a flashlight.  For example, if I find myself walking upstairs in the dark at night, I may turn on my iPhone to make sure that there are no children’s toys that I might trip over.  Nevertheless, I’ve always thought that it was a little silly to pay for a flashlight
app considering that most any app will light up your iPhone screen
enough to provide some light in the dark.  If the iPhone doesn’t seem bright enough, just tap an app like Mail or the Calendar that has a lot of white space.

But with the iPhone 4, there is finally a real reason for a flashlight app.  The LED light that provides a flash for the camera provides much more light than the iPhone screen, even if your brightness is turned all the way up.  Thus, having an app that turns on the light quickly can be quite useful.

The iPhone 4 has not been out very long, but we already have a ton of flashlight apps, many of which cost $0.99.  I haven’t tested any of them because there is an app called LED Light for iPhone 4 Free that does the job just fine and, as its title suggests, is free.

The app could not be more simple.  Start the app and you see a button.  Touch the button and the LED light comes on.  At that point, I recommend that you just leave the button in the on position.  Every time you exit the app the LED light goes off, and every time you return to the app the LED light comes back on.

  
 

If for some reason you have the need for a flashing light — a strobe light — just tap the button at the bottom.  A slider comes up so that you can control the speed of the strobe effect.

 

Using the flash for a long period of time surely wears down the battery, but I suspect that when you use an app like this as a flashlight, you are typically just using it for a minute or less.  If you plan to use the app as a strobe light for your next disco party, consider plugging in your iPhone first.

By the way, this is one of the first apps that I’ve used that has Apple’s new iAds in it.  If you are curious to see how an iAd works, that is another reason to download this app.  And I cannot think of a better app for an iAd.  It makes little difference what is on the screen while you are using this app — all that really matters is that the LED light goes on — so why not stick an iAd in there.  It certainly doesn’t get in the way.

[UPDATE:  MacRumors reports that Jason Ting, the developer of LED Light for iPhone 4 Free, made $1,372 from iAds revenue in just the first day that his app was available.  Apparently, giving away a free app can be quite profitable!  To be fair, though, this may just be a lot of people who, like me, saw this app as an opportunity to try out iAds for the first time.  As more and more apps have iAds and thus the novelty to users wears off, revenue to developers may decrease.]

As I noted above, we already have several apps in the App Store that do the same thing.  In fact, before I downloaded this one, I downloaded the free app LED Torch Flashlight and it works very similar to LED Light for iPhone 4 Free except that it lacks the strobe light function.  Even though I doubt I will use that function very often, why not get one that has that feature just in case you want it.  Having said that, I’m sure that we will soon see many more LED flashlight apps for the iPhone 4 adding lots of additional features.  Perhaps we will see one that integrates with Facebook, posting a status update every time you use the app.  “My light is now on.”  “My light is now off.”  Maybe there is some feature to be added to a flashlight app that will actually have some utility, but for now the LED Light for iPhone 4 Free app seems to do everything I would want.  And the price is right.

If you own an iPhone 4, I think that you will find this app useful from time to time.

Click here to get LED Light for iPhone 4 Free (free): 

There are lots of great stories about people finding their lost iPhone by using the Find My iPhone feature available to subscribers of MobileMe — sometimes because the iPhone is stolen, but often just because a person cannot remember where they left it.  As useful as Find my iPhone is, be aware that if you find yourself in a tall building, the feature doesn’t work very well.

For example, my law office is on the 46th floor of One Shell Square.  When it was built in 1972 it was the tallest building in the entire Southeast, and it remains the tallest building in New Orleans.  From my office, I have a great view of the city and the Mississippi River, but that high up I don’t have great AT&T reception (although it is much improved with the iPhone 4).  Here is a view of the Mississippi River and the Warehouse District in New Orleans, taken from my office using an iPhone 4 (click to see the full size, original file):

 

The Find My iPhone feature, like the iPhone Maps app, uses GPS and cell tower triangulation to determine where you are located, but I suspect that it presumes that you are at ground level because whenever I am on the 46th floor of One Shell Square or any other tall office building, I find that Find My iPhone is really off.  For example, here are two recent readings when I was sitting at my desk in my office.  My office building is located where I placed a green rectangle with arrows pointing to it, but my iPhone thinks that I am located many blocks away.  In the first picture (using Maps), it thinks my iPhone is close to where the New Orleans Convention Center is located.  If I didn’t know better, looking at this map I’d think that someone in town for a convention had stolen my iPhone.  In the second picture, taken a different day (using the Find my iPhone app), my iPhone is supposedly on the other side of the Superdome from my office.

  
 

If you subscribe to MobileMe and you lose your iPhone, by all means use Find My iPhone to try to locate it.  But just keep in mind that if you lost your iPhone on the upper floors of a skyscraper, you can’t trust the Find My iPhone map.

Click here to get MobileMe discounted at Amazon for only $89.24 (about $10 off).

Click here to get the Find My iPhone app from Apple (free): 

I’ve raved in the past about Fastcase, a must-have app for any lawyer using an iPhone.  The app allows you to search and access caselaw and statutes on your iPhone, for free.  Up until now, you could use the app on an iPad in expanded screen mode, but today Fastcase is releasing a new version of the app that runs natively on the iPad to take full advantage of the large screen and which also runs even better on the iPhone.  [UPDATE 7/17/10:  The app is finally in the App Store.]

I don’t own an iPad yet, but apps like this push me closer towards getting one.  Ed Walters, the CEO of Fastcase, sent me some images so that I could see what the app looks like on an iPad and gave me permission to share them here.  It looks like this app really shines on the iPad, with a large screen making it easy to read cases and statutes.  Click on any of these pictures for full size views:

  
 

  
 

I see that there is a slider that allows you to increase the font size to make it even easier to read cases.  It is unclear to me whether you can also change font sizes in the iPhone app; the app still isn’t live in the App Store as I type this, so I’ll have to see for myself later today.  I also love that in landscape mode on the iPad, you can see both the list of cases on the left and the case itself on the right:

Obviously, the app preserves the “Save” feature, and that is one of my favorite parts of the Fastcase app.  There are several cases that I find myself referring to frequently, and it is great to be able to essentially carry the cases around with me at all times just by saving the case to the Saved Documents area of Fastcase.

Ed tells me that if you use Fastcase on an iPhone, the changes in the new version are more subtle, things like different page navigation.  It is not yet clear to me whether this version of Fastcase is optimized for iOS 4 to provide, for example, fast app switching; again, I’ll find out later today when the app is out.

As I mentioned last Friday, the American Association of Law Libraries recently named the Fastcase app the best new product of 2009-2010 — high honors considering the other great legal research products to come out recently such as the new version of Westlaw.  The honor is well deserved.  I love having an iPhone with me in court because I know that I can always use Fastcase to pull up any case that I need.  For those with an iPad, you now have that same ability, although with a larger screen that ability is far more compelling.

Click here for Fastcase (free): 

Last week I mentioned that you can use the Glyphboard web app to access 48 special characters, such as an Apple, that you can paste into the title of a folder.  After the article was picked up on Daring Fireball, I got a large number of comments on that post, including some pointing out that you can do a similar trick with Emoji icons.

Emoji is the Japanese word for picture characters, and in Japan, Emoji are incredibly popular for use in text messages and instant messaging.  There are tons of different Emoji images ranging from happy and sad faces to animals to flags to musical instruments, and most Emoji characters are in color.

Emoji has been a part of the iPhone since version 2.2 as an alternative keyboard, but it is typically available only to Japanese iPhone users.  (Indeed, I remember reading way back when that few Japanese customers would consider buying a smartphone that lacked Emoji, so Apple essentially had to add the feature for that market.)  Nevertheless, it is possible for iPhone owners outside of Japan using iOS 4 to enable Emoji just by downloading a free app and restarting your iPhone.  This does not require jailbreaking your iPhone.  Sebastien at the iPhone Download Blog has a great post on how to enable Emoji on your iPhone running iOS 4, so rather than repeat the steps here I’ll just refer you to his article.

Once you have turned on the Emoji keyboard on your iPhone, you can just switch to that keyboard and select a picture character to use in the title of a folder using the same steps that I outlined last week.  In fact, it’s even easier because you don’t have to copy from one location and them paste into a folder name; just enable the Emoji keyboard and directly type any picture that you want.

 

Some pictures look better than others.  For example, I tried to use an umbrella for the folder containing my weather apps, but it didn’t look very good against a dark background.  So instead, I used the sun icon, and that works quite well.

 

I also like using some musical notes for various music-related apps and a color airplane for some travel apps.

I don’t plan to have picture icons for all of my folders, but so far I find that having pictures on a few folders is nice.  Indeed, it seems faster to identify a folder with a unique picture.  I suppose that is because of the old picture-thousand-words phenomenon. 

UPDATE:  I see that Alan at Art of the iPhone has a similar post today, and in his examples he puts an Emoji icon right before the text in the folder name.  That’s another interesting way to do it, so check out Alan’s post to see that approach.

I got my iPhone 4 this week, and many of you did too.  It is still an object of curiosity; I traveled to Miami this week and was stopped by many people who saw me using the iPhone 4 — both friends and strangers — to ask about it.  But I saw that I was not alone, with many other people using iPhone 4’s, and all of them had a story about what they went though to get it (difficulty in pre-ordering, waiting in line to get it, etc.).  Apple announced this past weekend that they sold almost 2 million iPhone 4’s and I suspect that they are well over 3 million by now.  Here is the iPhone news of the week that caught my attention:

• Earlier this week, I talked about the funny and well-designed Scoopertino website.  What I didn’t realize at the time is who is behind that site; check out my update to that post and you may be as surprised as I was.
• West recently updated the Black’s Law Dictionary app (which I reviewed last year) to work better with iOS 4 and the iPhone 4.  West also says that it is working on an update to the Black’s Law Dictionary app, due this Fall, which will include the content of the 9th edition of Black’s Law Dictionary (the current print edition which was released in 2009); the current version of the app contains the contents of the 8th edition of Black’s Law Dictionary (released in 2004).  Click here for Black’s Law Dictionary ($49.99): 

  

• Clayton Morris of Fox News was trying out the camera on his new iPhone 4 when he realized that he was taking pictures of a thief leaving the scene of a crime so he called the police and followed the criminal, and justice was served.
• Michael Johnston of the We Have Communicators podcast lost his iPhone when it slipped out of his pocket while he was on a ride at Six Flags.  Using the Find My iPhone feature, he tracked the iPhone’s location, learned that an employee had stolen it and sold it to someone, and with the help of the police was able to recover his phone, and once again justice was served.  Get the full story on this week’s edition of the podcast.
• Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas was the victim of a theft when someone broke into his house and stole lots of items, including his iPad.  According to KTLA news, Will.i.am used Find My iPhone to tell the police where his stash was located, and even more justice was served.
• James
  
  Galbraith of Macworld tests battery life on the iPhone 4.  In short:  it is better.
• I am a big fan of LogMeIn Ignition, an app that allows you to control a computer from your iPhone.  It is a great way to access your home computer when you are away, connect to a relative’s computer to troubleshoot, etc.  The app was updated for iOS 4 not too long ago, and a second update this week brings fast app switching support so that you can leave the app and come back within a few minutes and stay connected to the computer that you are controlling.  So now you can answer the phone, check an e-mail, or look something up in Safari without having to reconnect to the computer.  It’s a great update to an already great app.  Click here for LogMeIn Ignition ($29.99):

  

• For $9.99 a month, you can get Hulu Plus on your iPhone, allowing you to view a ton of new and old television shows.  Ben Drawbaugh of Engadget has a review.  You can download the app for free to check out some sample content and decide if you want to pay for the service.  Click here for Hulu Plus (free): 

  

• How many apps can you put on an iPhone running iOS 4?  David Pogue of the New York Time investigates.
• Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times discusses using iPhone apps to find restaurants.
• Fastcase is one of my favorite iPhone apps and a must for any lawyer using an iPhone.  The American Association of Law Libraries just named the app the New Product of the Year.  (Link via Robert Ambrogi.)  Click here for Fastcase (free): 

  

• Lawyer Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge reviews the iMovie app for the iPhone 4.  Click here for iMovie ($4.99): 

  

• Jim Dalrymple of The Loop reports that AT&T has upgraded its network in New York City.  About 4% of iPhone J.D. readers are in New York City, and if you are one of them, I’d love to hear whether you are seeing a difference.
• Jeff Gamet of The Mac Observer explains how to put a phone call on hold using an iPhone 4.
• What should you know about the iPhone 4’s improved camera?  Ted Landau of the Mac Observer wants you to know about ten things.
• If you are a current iPhone owner and upgrade to iPhone 4, will your existing iPhone accessories work?  Dan Frakes of Macworld tackles that question.
• And finally, what would it looks like to attach your iPhone 4 to a balloon and set it free?  Apparently, something like this:

Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners is one of the guys primarily responsible for the Palm Pre.  When the Palm Pre debuted, McNamee boasted to Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal that the back of the Palm Pre had a reflective surface that one could use as a mirror, stating:  “Never before has a device like this been designed for a woman.”  He got a lot of grief for that statement, but I suppose there may be times when you need a mirror and all you have with you is your phone.  For those of you contemplating buying a Palm Pre over an iPhone because of that mirror (ahem), rest assured that the iPhone 4 now has you covered.

Apple added the front-facing camera on the iPhone 4 so that you can participate in video chats using the new FaceTime software.  Nevertheless, if you ever find that you have a sudden need for a mirror, you can use that same camera to get a quick look at yourself.  Just launch the Camera app.  The screen will display an image from the camera on the back of the iPhone, but if you tap the button at the top right of the screen the Camera app will switch to the front camera.  Now you can see yourself.  Fix your hair, make sure you don’t have food stuck in your teeth, or heck, just admire yourself if you want to.  Your iPhone won’t judge you.  At least, not yet.  Who knows what Apple has planned for iPhone 5.

With iOS 4, we can now create folders to group similar apps.  One folder that I created on my iPhone contains the apps developed by Apple that I don’t use very much.  Some are apps included with the iPhone that I rarely use but cannot delete, such as Stocks and Compass.  Others are apps that I sometimes use but don’t use very often, like Voice Memos and Find my iPhone.  Then there is the YouTube app:  I almost never launch it directly; I just let the iPhone take care of launching it when I click on a movie link on a web page or elsewhere.  I like the idea of storing all of these Apple-created apps in one folder so that they don’t take up valuable space on my Home Screen.

What should I call this folder?  I could just call it “Apple,” but here is a tip for instead giving the folder a more distinctive identity by using the Apple symbol  for the name so that it looks like this:

How do you do this?  The Apple symbol is not on the iPhone keyboard, so you can’t just type it.  Instead, you need to use the free Glyphboard web app created by software developer Neven Mrgan.  As I’ve previously noted here and here, to use Glyphboard, go to this address on your iPhone:  http://mrgan.com/gb/  Then follow the on-screen directions and press the plus sign at the bottom of your Safari screen to Add to Home Screen.  Then click on the icon that you just added to your home screen to start the web app, and you can copy a special character from Glyphboard and then paste it someplace else, such as in an e-mail.  Glyphboard includes 48 special characters, including the Apple logo:

After you have Glyphboard installed, you just launch it and hold your finger down on the Apple symbol until you see the option to copy.  Copy the Apple, then create a new folder, and in the name field for the folder, delete the default folder name and paste that Apple icon.  There you have it! 

Feel free to also create folders called things like ☺ or ♥ or ♪.  For you intellectual property lawyers out there, you’ll relish having folders called © or ™.  Use an umbrella for your weather apps and use an airplane for your travel apps.  And for fans of Daring Fireball, just look at the bottom right corner of Glyphboard and you’ll know what to do.

[UPDATE 7/5/10:  Click here for a follow-up post on how to use color Emoji icons in your folder names.]

I woke up early this morning and arrived at my friendly neighborhood AT&T store two hours before the 7am opening, making me first in line (although only by about a minute).  I brought work with me, so the two hour wait actually went by very quickly and was quite productive.  By 7am, there were almost 50 people in line behind me, and the rumor was that the store only had 50 phones, so hopefully those in the back will get one.  By 7:15, I left with my new iPhone 4, and it is syncing with my computer and loading up all of my apps as I type this.

I haven’t tried it enough to have any real opinions yet, except to say OH MY GOODNESS THIS SCREEN IS BEAUTIFUL.  I look forward to getting to know this new iPhone over the coming days.

There are three new reviews of the iPhone 4 that are notable and that have gotten me excited to play with mine.  First, Jason Snell of Macworld published his review yesterday, and as is to be expected, it is a well-written, useful review.  Second, late last night, Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun Times published his 6,000 word review that is perhaps my second favorite review so far, behind only Joshua Topolsky’s excellent review for Engadget.  Ihnatko’s review is packed with details and fun to read.  If you can only read two reviews, read the ones by Topolsky and Ihnatko and decide which review you like best; I can’t decide.

Finally, Jason Chen of Gizmodo — yes, that Jason Chen of that Gizmodo — published yesterday afternoon what he calls a “review” but what is really more of an essay or a short story describing the first day in his life as an iPhone 4 owner.  Given Chen’s history with the iPhone 4, it makes sense for him to do something different.  I don’t agree with all of his complaints about the iPhone 4.  For example, I don’t think it is a problem that the iPhone doesn’t come with free turn-by-turn navigation because that would hurt competition and I like that we have several compelling alternative commercial apps to provide navigation assistance.  Indeed, I wonder if part of the reason that Apple still hasn’t updated its simple Weather app is that the third party weather apps are numerous and sophisticated, so there is nothing to be gained and much to be lost by Apple competing in that space.  Nevertheless, Chen’s article is a good read and does provide some interesting perspectives.  For example, when discussing FaceTime, he notes:  “The camera and screen are so close that they create the illusion of a
camera behind Matt’s eyes—so I really feel like we’re talking face to
face.  When Skyping someone on a laptop, they’re always looking at me on their
screen—away from their webcam.”  I hadn’t thought about that.

I loved my original iPhone (the one pictured at the top of this website), I loved my iPhone 3GS even more, and now I can’t wait to start using my new iPhone 4.  I just wish it had finished syncing before I got to the end of this post!

If you like to read Apple news and also like to laugh, have I got a great site for you.  I recently learned of Scoopertino which describes itself as “an independent news organization devoted to ferreting out the most
relevant stories in and around the world of Apple, whether or not they
actually occurred.”  This source of “unreal Apple news” is consistently funny.  Here are the headlines and some quotes from some of my favorite Scoopertino stories related to the iPhone:

• If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em:  Apple launches Prototype Store:  “Beginning immediately, the online Apple Store will feature a new
  
  Prototype Store where customers can do their prototype shopping from
  
  home — without having to search through bars, cafés and restaurants.”
• Redwood City bar flooded with lost prototypes as others try to create Apple-like buzz:  “The Redwood City beer garden, Gourmet Haus Staudt, has become ground
  
  zero for every company hoping to get the same buzz generated by Apple.”
• Rumor:  feature free iPhone shuffle due in June:  “iPhone shuffle is designed first and foremost as a phone. It syncs
  
  automatically with your computer contact list. With its single button,
  
  iPhone shuffle provides two ways of making calls. In Sequential
  
  mode, it calls the numbers in your contact list in order, from A to Z.
  
  In Shuffle mode, it calls contacts randomly.”
• Apple blinks:  new iPad XL to offer Flash capability:  “Their engineering team has invented a mobile
  
  power generator that, according to Apple’s press release, ‘integrates
  
  perfectly with iPad in form and function.’  Just insert iPad into the
  
  XL’s side-mounted socket. The
  
  diesel-powered generator starts up automatically, providing ample power
  
  to run Flash-dependent websites for up to 22.5 hours on a single tank.”
• And most recently:  Apple introduces iHand: the right way to hold your iPhone: “Responding to complaints that the new iPhone 4 loses signal when held by
  
  a human hand, Apple today launched iHand — a synthetic appendage that
  
  makes it easy for anyone to ‘get a grip’ on iPhone and remain connected.”

And it’s not just the articles that are funny.  Pay attention to the ads on Scoopertino, many of which are fake and humorous. 

Scoopertino is a cross between Macworld and The Onion.  The site reminds me of the days when we had two great daily Apple-related humor sites, Jack Miller’s fantastic As the Apple Turns and John Moltz’s Crazy Apple Rumors Site (which still lives on with occasional posts, but is not the daily site that it used to be, although Moltz is still quite funny on Twitter).

If you are looking for an Apple-related laugh, check out Scoopertino.

UPDATE 6/29/10:  I just learned that the guys behind Scoopertino are Michael Rylander (an art designer who has done work for Apple) and Ken Segall.  The name Ken Segall might ring a bell if you read this Wired article back in 2009.  Segall used to work for Apple’s advertising agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, and he not only authored the Think Different campaign, he also came up with the name “iMac,” which makes him in some way responsible for every Apple product to follow with an “i” including, the iPhone.  So when this guy makes a joke about Apple, he really knows what he is talking about!

It will not surprise you that the news this week was pretty much all about the iPhone 4 and iOS 4.  Here is the news that I found of note:

• Jenna Wortham of the New York Times writes about people waiting in line for an iPhone 4 yesterday.
• Late this week we saw several good iPhone 4 reviews, such as this one from Peter Cohen of The Loop.  Also worth reading is Harry McCracken’s Initial Random Thoughts on the iPhone 4, and David Chartier of Macworld notes some of iOS 4’s hidden features.
• To get a gaming perspective, Eli Hodapp writes for Touch Arcade about what the iPhone 4 means for games.
• You can download the iPhone 4 user guide (243 pages) in PDF format here.
• Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun Times discusses iOS 4, as does Roy Forchgott of the New York Times.
• iSmashPhone looks at the Best 64 Features of iOS 4.
• Tom Kaneshige of CIO writes about the benefits of iOS 4 for enterprise customers.
• Could iOS 4 be even better?  Michael deAgonia of Computerworld suggests five ways that iOS 4 could be improved.
• If you and someone else with an iPhone 4 are talking to each other on your phones, you are of course using your AT&T minutes.  What happens if you start using FaceTime to switch over to a video call?  Apple confirmed to Dan Frommer of Business Insider that your cell call ends at that point and the call takes place solely over Wi-Fi.  Thus, you are no longer using your AT&T minutes.
• How long can you use FaceTime?  Jeremy Horwitz says that you use about 30% of the iPhone 4 battery life for every hour of FaceTime, so you get just over three hours of videochat before you need to recharge the battery.  I suspect that using FaceTime is the most battery-intensive task you can do with an iPhone 4.
• If you are having trouble with reception on your iPhone 4, it might be because of the way that you are holding the phone.  The official statement from Apple, quoted by Joshua Topolsky of Engadget, is:  “Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna
  
  performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on
  
  the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless
  
  phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it
  
  in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black
  
  strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.”
• Antenna expert Spencer Webb writes
  
  about the iPhone 4’s unique antenna built in to the outside of the case
  
  and explains why the 3G antenna is at the bottom of the iPhone, and most other phones.
• Should your law firm have its own iPhone app?  That question is explored in this article by Slyvia Hsieh of Lawyers USA, which quotes me and several other bloggers who discuss the iPhone and the law.  For what it’s worth, I agree completely with the opinions of Kevin O’Keefe and Dan Friendlander in that article.  If you aren’t going to offer anything unique in your app (for example, if the app is just a version of your website) then I don’t really see the point.  Having said that, one thing that I did tell Hsieh but which didn’t make it into the article is that I do think it is smart for law firms to create iPhone-friendly versions of their website that are nicely formatted on the small screen of an iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc. to make it easier for current and potential clients to navigate a law firm’s website when they are on the go.
• 
  I talked earlier this week about the ways to get an iPhone 4.  I forgot to mention one method — as iPhone Savior notes, you can also get an iPhone 4 by being the President of Russia and visiting Steve Jobs in person.  (Picture at right is from the new official Twitter feed [English version] of the President of Russia.)
• I don’t use a GPS app when I drive very often, but when I do I use MotionX
  
  GPS.  That app is only $1 up front, and then $3 a month after that,
  
  but you only have to pay during those months that you use the app.  I
  
  mention the app because it was just updated for iOS 4 and can now work
  
  in the background.  It is also supposed to have a more accurate GPS when
  
  your iPhone is plugged in (which of course it usually is when you are
  
  driving).  Click here for MotionX GPS Drive ($0.99): 

  

• My favorite Twitter client for the iPhone is Twitterific, and the
  
  app was just updated to version 3.0.  Technically, the iPhone app wasn’t
  
  updated; instead the iPad app was updated to work on both the iPad and
  
  the iPhone.  Thus, if you currently have Twitterific installed (either
  
  the free or premium version) you wont be alerted that an upgrade is
  
  available.  Instead, you’ll have to download Twitterific anew from the
  
  App Store, unless you already have the iPad version.  The app is free,
  
  but you can pay $5 within the app to remove the ads (which I did). 
  
  Click here for Twitterific 3.0 (free): 

  

• My favorite app to remind me of things to do in the future is NotifyMe, and it was updated to version 2.0 for iOS 4.  It includes lots of new features such local notifications, a new interface, and tons of other tweaks.  Click here for NotifyMe ($5.99): 

  

• Christopher Breen of Macworld discusses Apple’s new iMovie app for the iPhone 4.  Click here for iMovie ($4.99): 

  

• I’ve written in the past about the AT&T 3G MicroCell (1, 2, 3), a way to use the Wi-Fi in your home or office to boost the AT&T cell signal.  Chris Ziegler of Engadget notes that the MicroCell is now available nationwide.  And George Ponder of WMExperts posted a recent review of the MicroCell.
• Lee Ann Enquist writes for iPhone Life magazine about how more and more attorneys are buying iPhones.
• Dan Moren of Macworld reports that Apple has now sold over 3 million iPads.
• And finally, Dilbert explores the compulsion to buy iPhone apps: