As reported by sites such as Engadget and Electronista, AT&T announced this past Friday that while it is still working on next generation LTE 4G technology for some point in the future, in the interim it plans to give a speed bump to its current 3G service by rolling out something called HSPA+ to 250 million Americans by the end of 2010. AT&T currently supports HSPA in many markets which can theoretically give you speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps. HSPA+ will double that to a theoretical maximum of 14.4Mbps.
Theoretical maximums are interesting but somewhat irrelevant for end users who rarely see anything close to that. But Gizmodo reported earlier this year that HSPA+ is deployed by T-Mobile in Philadelphia, and tests show real world speeds of up to 6Mbps, which is pretty darn fast for 3G. The iPhone 3GS supports HSPA, so perhaps the next iPhone will support HSPA+ and see much better 3G performance. (Indeed, this past March, Electronista reported that Apple was looking to higher people with HSPA+ experience.)
HSPA+ could help current iPhones too. A PC Magazine article on the T-Mobile HSPA+ network in Philadelphia reported this past February: “HSPA+ improves ordinary 3G
devices, too. I saw speeds on a T-Mobile MyTouch 3G triple when I entered the HSPA+ area (from around 600
kbps to 1.8 mbps). A T-Mobile WebConnect modem rated for HSPA 7.2 got
2.57 megabits down in the HSPA+ zone, but only 431 kilobits down in the
rest of Philadelphia.”
I don’t pretend to understand all of the ins and outs of 3G technology, but I’m happy to learn about AT&T working to improve the speed of its 3G network. I look forward to seeing what this all means for the iPhones of today and tomorrow.
Here are some of the iPhone-related stories that I ran across this week that I thought might be of interest to readers of iPhone J.D.
John Gruber wrote an excellent article for Macworld about how Apple starts out with modest products and then slowly but steadily builds upon them over the years to turn them into outstanding products. I certainly feel that way about the iPhone. The first generation was a cool gadget but not quite ready for business professionals, but the iPhone 3G fixed that, the 3GS improved upon that, and I cannot wait to see what the next version is this Summer. I don’t have an iPad yet even though it is unquestionably an amazingly cool gadget, but over time as iPad-specific apps are released and Apple improves the product through software and hardware updates, I can’t even imagine how amazing the iPad will be years from now.
I know that a lot of lawyers still use a BlackBerry instead of an iPhone, but Tom Kaneshige writes for CIO.com that BlackBerry’s days are numbered and that the iPhone is the future.
The saga of the “lost” iPhone continues. MacNN reports that today, a judge will hear a request from media outlets such as CNET, Bloomberg and the Associated Press to unseal the records related to the police raid on the house of Jason Chen of Gizmodo. [UPDATE: The court granted the media’s request to unseal the records. Unless reversed on appeal, I’m sure that this means that we will soon see news stories with more names, dates and information gained during the police investigation.]
People oftern ask me whether the iPhone will come to Verizon, and just the other day I was talking with a Verizon employee convinced that it was happening in just a few months. Attorney and Engadget editor Nilay Patel discovered from court documents that Apple’s initial deal with AT&T in 2007 was for five years. Of course, that doesn’t tell us if or when we will see a Verizon iPhone. Apple and AT&T could have changed the contract several times since that initial deal.
Dan Moren of Macworld reviews the iHome iA5, a $100 bedside alarm clock and speaker system for your iPhone.
Can you leave your laptop at home and use an iPad instead? Michael Gartenberg did just that for two weeks of travel, and he lives to tell the tale. (Spoiler alert: the iPad does a good job, but we really need apps like Quickoffice or Documents to Go.)
Harry McCracken reports on President Obama’s recent mention of the iPad.
And finally, a few weeks ago in my Friday post I described a fun product called iRetrophone Base being sold on Etsy
One of the very first items that I reviewed on iPhone J.D. was the RichardSolo 1800, an external battery for the iPhone. The company sent me a review unit for free, and 18 months later it is still working great for me. I cannot even begin to count the number of times that I have been out of the office all day in a deposition, in court, on a plane or in a CLE and that battery has allowed me to get through the day without running out of power on my iPhone.
The full retail price of the battery is $69.95, although you can get it on Amazon for only $40.99. But now through Monday, you can buy the unit on the RichardSolo website for 50% off, only $34.98. Or if you buy two or more units, they only cost $29.73. I believe that you have to pay for shipping, so if you have Amazon Prime it might still cost about the same to get it on Amazon, but whether you pay $35 or $40 for this battery, it will be well worth it for you.
If you don’t currently have an external battery for your iPhone, I encourage you to get something like the RichardSolo 1800. Toss it in your briefcase or purse and you’ll never have to worry about running out of battery power on your iPhone before the end of the day — unless you are REALLY going to be using your iPhone all day long, in which case you might want to carry two of these with you.
Bayern that contains the entire text of the U.S. Code. Because the app relies upon the most recent official electronic version of the U.S. Code — which does not include the very latest statutes adopted by Congress — if you use this app you need to be sure that you are always looking at the very latest version of the law. Nevertheless, it is very useful to have the entire text of the U.S. Code in a single iPhone app. Considering that this app is free, it is an app that I encourage every lawyer to download to his or her iPhone.
Prof. Bayern wrote me last night to tell me that the app has been updated to version 1.0.1. From the number alone, that doesn’t sound like much of an update, but the latest version brings full iPad support. If you use an iPad in court, even if you don’t have Wi-Fi or 3G Internet access, with this app you can still have the entire U.S. Code at your fingertips. And whether you are using this app on an iPhone or an iPad, the latest version of the app also updates some of the content. (Be warned, however, that the app is 200 MB, so it takes a while to download from the App Store and transfer to your iPhone. This is currently the second largest app on my iPhone, behind Dragon’s Lair, an app that is full of video.)
Click here to get U.S. Code by Shawn Bayern (free):
Elgato has been giving people the ability to watch and record TV on their computers for as long as I can remember, and now the company has an app that brings TV to your iPhone. You’ll have to have a hardware device attached to your Mac or PC for it to work, but once you have that, you can stream live or recorded TV to your iPhone. I’ve been testing this hardware and software combination for a few months now, and while I have encountered some hiccups, once you get the product working you can view great quality TV on your iPhone.
The Hardware Requirement
My focus here is on the iPhone app, but since you can’t use the iPhone app without having Elgato hardware on your computer, I’ll start by addressing that. The company sent me (free for review purposes) its EyeTV One device, which you can get for just over $100 on Amazon. The EyeTV One has a USB connector on one side and a coaxial connection on the other side to which you must attach your own antenna. I use a “Silver Sensor” antenna similar to this one. The device then works with the EyeTV software on your computer to give you free, over-the-air high definition television on your computer. The quality of the image is excellent. For a good sense of how the product works, here is a recent review by Macworld’s Jonathan Seff of a similar product clled EyeTV Hybrid ($134 on Amazon) which gives you not only over-the-air high definition plus also works with unencrypted cable television.
Unfortunately, I have had some trouble with the hardware. The first unit I was sent would only get a signal for a minute or two and then would stop working. After trying every software fix I could think of, Elgato sent me a replacement unit that solved the problem instantly. The company’s service department was excellent, although I wish I had not wasted so much time trying to fix a problem that turned out to be a hardware issue.
Even with the replacement unit, I still sometimes have trouble with the TV signal, but here I am fairly certain that the fault is mine in that it is inherent with over-the-air television. You have to have a decent over-the-air signal for it to work, and I don’t always get that in the study in my house where my computer is located. This problem brings back memories for me; I was an early HD adopter back in 2002, back in the days when you needed to use an antenna to get HD local stations. Because of where my house is located and the buildings between me and the transmitters in New Orleans, I sometimes had problems getting an HD signal with an indoor antenna. Nowadays, cable and satellite companies provide HD local stations so it has been a long time since I needed to use an indoor antenna to get HD local channels, but with the EyeTV I sometimes find myself having the same problems again. And there is nothing worse than recording an episode of a show like Lost and syncing it to your iPhone via iTunes only to discover while you are on a plane and ready to watch the episode that the recording is poor. Yes, that happened to me, and yes, it was annoying. I hate to dwell on this too much because you might get excellent reception where you live. For example, Seff noted in his Macworld review that he had “a small antenna on my desk at work with a clear view of San Francisco’s Sutro Tower, from which I could
pick up nearly 40 channels.”
When it works, however, EyeTV hardware and software on the computer is really nice. I don’t have a TV in my study, but with EyeTV I can now work on my computer at home and have a tiny window in the corner showing live TV. Or I can expand the window to full screen, turning my iMac into a 27″ high definition TV with an awesome image.
[UPDATE 5/24/10: Elgato has now released the $200 EyeTV HD that hooks up to your cable or satellite box. If this setup works in your home, this looks a great way to use the EyeTV to record from EVERY channel that you get, plus this solution isn’t subject to the problems of over-the-air HD reception.]
The EyeTV app
As I said, however, my real focus here is not the EyeTV hardware but instead the EyeTV app on the iPhone. Once you get the EyeTV hardware and software working on your computer, the $5 EyeTV iPhone app works quite well. Using either Wi-Fi or 3G (the ability to use 3G was added only recently), you can stream video from your computer to your iPhone, no matter where in the world you are. Thus, whatever live TV your computer is able to pick up, thanks to the hardware product such as the EyeTV One, is streamed from your computer to your iPhone. I noticed about a 12 second delay from live TV over Wi-Fi, and about a 20 second delay using 3G. If you are watching a live sporting event the delay might be annoying, but for most uses I had no way of noticing the delay at all.
Setting up the EyeTV app to find your computer is surprisingly easy. If your iPhone is on the same Wi-Fi network as your computer, it happens instantly. For 3G or Wi-Fi connections to a remote computer, a locator utility running on your computer lets your iPhone find your computer. It works well.
After you set up the app to find your computer, it does so easily and quickly over either Wi-Fi or 3G. From the main menu your choices include watch live TV or watch something that you recorded on your computer using the EyeTV software that comes with a device like the EyeTV One.
If you select Live TV, you will get a list of the channels that your computer can receive and a description of what is currently playing The information comes from TV Guide, which is free for the first year that you have the EyeTV hardware on your computer and $20 a year after that.
If you can use Wi-Fi to watch TV, the quality is excellent. Over 3G, the image is much more pixelated. It is difficult to convey this using pictures instead of video, but these two frames will give you a sense of the difference. The first one is Wi-Fi, the second one is 3G. To be fair, however, both of these still frames look worse than the video looks. Capturing just a single frame is not a good way to show off video.
If you select to watch a recording, you will get a list of everything recorded on
your computer, and if you select an episode you are given more
information from TV Guide about the episode.
Start to watch either live TV or a recorded program and the show will stream from your computer to your iPhone.
Note that while the app lets you stream something you previously recorded, the EyeTV software on your computer can be set to automatically create an iPhone-compatible version of a show after it records it. Thus, you can transfer the show to your iPhone using iTunes and watch it on your iPhone just like you would watch a TV show that you purchase from Apple via iTunes. As a result, it will often not be necessary to stream a recorded show unless you have not yet had a chance to sync it to your iPhone using iTunes.
Watching TV on your iPhone is very neat and can be very useful. If you are out of town and want to watch your local news, sports, etc. back home instead of whatever is showing on the TV in your hotel room, you can now watch whatever you want on your iPhone using the EyeTV app — assuming that you left your computer on at home. Or if you are in your office or in some other location that doesn’t have a TV and you want to watch something, such as breaking news on an important event, your iPhone can now function like a portable TV.
Should you get the EyeTV app? The app itself is easily worth $5, but of course to use the app you also have to spend $100+ for the hardware. If live TV on your iPhone is not that important, and you would just like to watch the occasional TV episode, it may be cheaper to just buy episodes as you want to watch them from iTunes. You won’t encounter any commercials and the quality will be excellent. On the other hand, if you find that you often travel and/or often find yourself in situations where you would like to be able to watch TV when you don’t have access to a “real” TV, the
$100+ might be worth it to you. One thing that cannot be disputed is that watching live TV on an iPhone is a neat trick, and EyeTV does that job well.
Click here to get EyeTV iPhone app ($4.99):
Click here to get EyeTV One (the hardware) from Amazon ($104.26).
I’ve written before about the AT&T MicoCell, a device that costs between $50 and $150 (depending upon whether you also purchase extra services) that uses your existing high speed internet to give you a bubble of excellent AT&T 3G service in about 40 feet each direction from the placement of the MicoCell. If you have trouble getting a good AT&T signal at your home or office, this may be a solution. You don’t have to purchase anything other than the unit itself, but if you pay $20 a month ($10 if you have AT&T internet service) the calls that you make on the MicroCell don’t count against your monthly minutes.
I haven’t had the opportunity to try a MicroCell myself yet, but I mention the MicroCell today because Rachel Metz of the Associated Press just posted a great hands-on review of the product. If you are thinking about purchasing a MicroCell, read this review. Dan Moren of Macworld also recently wrote about the MicroCell, although it doesn’t appear that he had a chance to test it himself, and Brian Iam and Matt Buchanan of Gizmodo penned this review a few weeks ago.
All of the reports that I have seen, including these recent reviews, anecdotal postings on online forums, and reviews from folks in places like North Carolina where the product was first tested last year, have been very similar: the product seems to work great, with the only major complaint being the need to pay more to AT&T for better service.
UPDATE: Lawyer and iPhone app developer Cliff Maier posted a comment to this original post that I thought was interesting enough that it should be elevated to this post itself:
I
installed mine last night. It took around 90 minutes to get a GPS lock
(weirdly, it happened right when I finally went into the room to check
on it.) I have it positioned about 15 feet away from a window, and the
window has closed metal blinds and is blocked by a tree, but it worked.
Once it gets a GPS lock, it takes another 5 minutes for the 3G light to
go steady.
I tested it with my own iPhone 3GS, and I get 5 bars in the house,
and 1 bar about a block away. Haven’t yet tested to see the effect of
multiple devices and the effect (if any) on my DSL bandwidth.
I installed it by plugging it into a gigabit switch which is, in
turn, plugged into my Airport Extreme. You can also install it by
plugging it into the DSL modem and then plugging your router into it, if
you want to prioritize voice over data.
I tried adding my iPad wifi+3GS as an authorized device (for
giggles), but the iPad seems not to have the plumbing to see the
microcell.
You know the drill. Another week, another set of links to iPhone stories of interest to me, and perhaps also to you.
If you love to listen to music on your iPhone and like the idea of paying a monthly subscription fee to access an enormous music library, you should check out this New York Times article by Bob Tedeschi about the Rhapsody iPhone service which costs $10 a month and now allows you to download music to the Rhapsody app for offline listening. David Charier of Macworld also has a review.
An article in the Broward / Palm beach New Times describes an iPhone app developed by Palm Beach lawyer Christopher Hopkins containing Florida and local rules of professional conduct.
CNET reports that Ellen DeGeneres created a funny mock commercial about the iPhone, and then apologizes about it because someone at Apple got their feathers ruffled.
Easy Biller is a new time tracking app for lawyers by Blueshift Software. Click here for Easy Biller ($2.99):
If you are looking to get GPS turn-by-turn directions on your iPhone, the TomTom app has always received very good reviews. It is currently on sale for its lowest price ever. You can get TomTom USA for only $39.99 and TomTom USA+Canada for only $49.99, both of which are $20 off of the regular price. I haven’t tried either app, but if you have I’d love to hear what you think. Click here for TomTom U.S.A.: Click here for TomTom USA+Canada:
There is still much to say about the “lost” iPhone that Gizmodo purchased for $5,000. Stuart Green of the Christian Science Monitor writes that it is unfair that Gizmodo seems to be getting a lot of sympathy instead of the victim of the crime, Apple.
Nick Bilton of the New York Times interviews Mark Rasch, former had of the DOJ computer crime unit, on the “lost” iPhone.
Apple announced that it has now sold over a million iPads. Very impressive.
Art of the iPhone identifies what it considers the 15 best iPad apps so far.
Yesterday I mentioned MacSparky’s posts on iPhone Home Screens. Today I see that Josh Barrett at Tablet Legal is doing something similar for iPad apps. Check out the apps on his home screen, plus info on the apps that have been pushed back and the possible new contenders for the first home screen.
And finally, what might the Apple website have looked like back in 1993 when the Newton, not the iPhone or iPad, was Apple’s handheld offering? Dave Lawrence imagines on his nostalgic site Newton Poetry that it might have looked something like this (click for a larger version):
I usually try to stay away from discussing rumors on iPhone J.D. Speculation on future Apple products is so rampant that it is the subject of many different websites, and often the reports that are passed off as “rumors” look to me to be completely made up. Other times, the feature may well be something that Apple is considering, but for one reason or another decides not to include when a product actually ships. Thus, unless Apple itself tells us that a feature is coming in the future — such as Apple’s recent preview of some of the features of iPhone 4.0 due out this summer — I try not to waste too much time talking about it here.
On the other hand, I don’t see anything wrong with coming up with a wish list of desired features, and I started to think about what is on my wish list a few days ago when California attorney David Sparks — a really smart and nice guy who runs the great MacSparky website and also co-hosts an excellent podcast called Mac Power Users — asked me to share a picture of my iPhone home screen and answer a few questions about what I love on the iPhone and hope to see in the future. The post that resulted from our talking is now up on MacSparky so check it out if you want to see a picture of my home screen as of today. It is part of a fun series of posts on MacSparky called “Home Screens” that shows you the first iPhone screen of different people so you can see the apps that others value most.
So anyway, back to those wishes. As much as I love my iPhone 3GS, there are two features that I would like to see in the future that Apple has not yet discussed. It just so happens, however, that there are new rumors that these features are coming. (Thanks to Daring Fireball for the links yesterday to these latest rumors.)
iPhone HD
I’ve predicted for a while now that the next version of the iPhone will be called the “iPhone HD,” and the main reason for my prediction is my hope that a primary new feature of the next iPhone is a substantially improved camera. The camera on the iPhone 3GS is decent, especially if you are outside with good light, and according to independent tests the video that the iPhone 3GS takes is comparable to a non-HD video camera. But now that tiny cameras such as the Flip MinoHD and the Flip UltraHD take decent 720p (1280 x 720) HD video at 30 frames per second, it seems reasonable to predict that Apple can and will add this same technology to the next iPhone.
I own a Nikon D50 SLR camera that takes amazing photographs, but that camera is bulky so I don’t always have it with me. The same can be said for my Canon HV10, which takes very good HD video but is yet another thing to carry. My iPhone, on the other hand, is always with me, so when my kids do something funny when we are at the zoo, park, etc. it is often going to have to be my iPhone that captures the memory. I’ll never use an iPhone instead of an SLR camera when I have a choice, but when I only have the iPhone, it would be great to have a better camera.
When Gizmodo recently paid $5,000 to acquire a “lost” prototype of the next iPhone, one of the features discovered was what appeared to be a better camera on the back. Paul Miller of Engadget wrote an excellent summary of the features seen on this prototype, and he describes the camera on the back as follows:
Around back is more good news: the camera lens seems to be larger, which
would theoretically point to an improved camera, a sort of no-brainer
for phone updates in this day and age, though it’s hard to see Apple
shooting up all the way to the 8 megapixel sensors we’re starting to see
from the competition. We’ve heard 5 megapixels as one possibility,
which sounds more reasonable, but this could really fall wherever. Next
to it is an LED flash, which will help for those dastardly low light
situations that the iPhone so struggles with.
Although Gizmodo and Engadget were really just guessing that the camera was improved, there is now a report from Arnold Kim of MacRumors that the latest beta version of iPhone Software 4.0 gives third party apps the ability to record either 640 x 480 video or 1280 x 720 video — i.e., 720p HD video. While MacRumors often guesses wrong, this report does seem consistent with what Gizmodo and Engadget thought that we might see based on that “lost” prototype iPhone. So maybe the rumor is true.
It is my wish that we will see a better camera in the next iPhone, and if Apple calls the next device the iPhone HD, that would be a clear indication that Apple is very proud of the improved camera.
Screen Orientation Lock
My other wish is for a software feature that is admittedly minor, but one that I would appreciate. On the side of the iPhone there is a switch that turns the ringer on and off. On the side of the iPad, there is a similar switch, but since the iPad is not a phone the switch instead locks the screen orientation. That way, if you are reading something in portrait mode and happen to tilt the iPad because of the way you are sitting, the screen won’t rotate to a landscape view by mistake. I doubt that Apple wants to add an additional button or switch to the side of the iPhone, but disabling auto-rotation of the screen seems like an easy preference to add in software.
There is new report from the Boy Genius Report — although I suppose that site is now just known as BGR — that the latest beta version of iPhone Software 4 has an orientation lock feature that can be accessed by pressing the Home button twice and then swiping left. BGR has a picture of what this apparently looks like in the latest beta version of iPhone Software 4.0.
Just because something is in a beta version, that doesn’t mean it will make the final release. But once again, it is my wish that this one will make the cut.
I’m sure that Apple has lots of goodies in store for us in the next iPhone and the final version of iPhone Software 4.0, including some surprises that may well become my favorite new features once I see them. But for now, these two wishes are at the top of my list of unannounced new features. My fingers are crossed.
For iPhone users who don’t leave home without their American Express card, AmEx recently released a free iPhone app to help you keep track of your account. I wasn’t able to test all of the features of the app, in part because of the type of AmEx card that I use (a Delta SkyMiles AmEx card), but this free app is sure to be useful to any AmEx cardholder, so long as you have one of the following cards:
Green Card, Gold Card, Platinum
Card, Centurion Card [also known as the famous “Black” AmEx card offered to people with substantial net worth who spend more than $250,000 a year on their AmEx card, and no, that doesn’t include me], Zync from American Express, Blue
from American Express, Clear from American Express, Optima
Credit Card, One from American Express, Plum Card from American
Express OPEN, Blue for Business Credit Card, American Express
Corporate Card, TrueEarnings Card from Costco and American Express, The
Delta Reserve Credit Card from American Express, Delta SkyMiles
Credit Card, JetBlue Card from American Express, Hilton HHonors
Card from American Express or Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card
from American Express
Upon starting the app you are prompted to enter your username and password, the same ones that you use to access your AmEx account online. The app does not store either one, so you have to enter both every time you launch the app. And if you leave the app open without using it for 10 minutes, the app will log you out of your account and ask you to login again. After entering your account info, you will see all of your AmEx cards, displayed by showing a picture of the card and the last five digits of your account (which I redacted in the below picture):
Once you select your card, you can see some top-level account details such as the account balance and next payment due date. You can click on any of the fields with a > at the end to see your actual purchases on your last statement (or recent activity) organized by date, or you can see your payment history. In my tests, information downloaded very quickly to the app.
The app lets you pay your bill if you are enrolled in the Pay by Computer program, but I am not so I could not test that. The app also lets you view your AmEx Membership Rewards, but since I use a Delta card that ties in to SkyMiles rewards, that feature didn’t work for my card. The “Contact Us” button at the bottom bring you to a page that lists various AmEx 1-800 and other numbers that you might want to use to get in touch with AmEx.
The App Store description of the app says that “More features are on the way so watch for updates.” Here are a few that I would like to see. First, it would be nice to have the option to save your username, and possibly also your password although that raises obvious security concerns if you lose your iPhone. [UPDATE 6/3/10: Version 1.2, released on June 3, 2010, added the ability to save the username.] It would also be helpful if the app could tell you the date on which your next statement will close. If you have multiple cardholders on your account, the AmEx website lets you look at all of the purchases of a single cardholder, but the iPhone app currently only lists all transactions for all cardholders. Finally, it would be nice to have some sort of search capability, or at least the option to sort by fields such as merchant.
Even though updates with new features would be welcome, even the current version of the app does a nice job handling the simple tasks that you are most likely to want in an app of this nature — review transactions, see your balance, and see your available credit. If you have an AmEx card, then you’ll want to get this app.
How often has this happened to you: you attend a CLE (or for the non-lawyers reading this, a continuing education course or seminar of any kind) and were given a thick and heavy book of materials, and then after the CLE is over, that book goes on a shelf or in a closet somewhere, never to be seen again.
I’ve seen more and more conferences try to get away from this by giving out materials in electronic form instead of written form, a move that I applaud. For example, at ABA TECHSHOW 2010, each attendee received a thumb drive containing the written materials, and now that the conference is over, attendees have access to a special website containing all of the slides used during the presentation. This makes so much sense, not only because it avoids wasting paper, but also because it is more efficient to have materials in electronic form so that I can store them on my computer or document management system in a place that allows for easy search and retrieval when I want to use the documents.
Last night, Chicago attorney Kevin Thompson tweeted about a CNET article describing the annual American Association of Neurological Surgeons conference that started yesterday in Philadelphia. This year, instead of giving each doctor attending the conference a 165-page program book and briefcase-size bag, each doctor receives an iPod touch (in a slender, nylon pouch) with apps containing all of the course materials and conference info, plus links to download follow-up information from the conference. Insert your favorite joke here about “it doesn’t require a brain surgeon to ….”
I think that is an interesting idea. It would have been even more interesting to distribute iPads to the attendees as I’m sure that the larger screen would make it even easier to read the content. Is it going too far to give away a device used to read electronic content instead of just the content itself in electronic form? Sure, but I suppose it is in the same vein (although more expensive) as the tote bags to carry content that are given out at virtually every conference I attend. And it certainly creates some buzz for the conference.
I’m now counting the days until the first CLE for lawyers gives out a device running the iPhone OS.
