Jeff Richardson

Apple is famously secret about the new features coming in its unannounced products.  As a result, there is always a lot of speculation about what is coming in its next generation products and a lot of (free) publicity for Apple when the product is finally announced, especially when Steve Jobs himself unveils the new product.  For example, everyone expects a new iPhone to be unveiled by Apple this summer, perhaps in late June, so normally we would expect a lot of speculation for the next two months, followed by the big reveal, followed by a ton of buzz and excitement.  Presumably, the end result would be a boost in sales of the next generation iPhone.

For this sequence to work best, Apple needs to keep the details of a new device secret.  It is difficult to generate buzz when people already know what is coming.  However, this past Saturday, Engadget posted blurry photographs of what it claimed to be the next generation of the Apple iPhone.  And then yesterday, Gizmodo revealed that it actually had the device in question because it paid $5,000 to a person who picked it up in a bar after an Apple employee mistakenly forgot the device on a bar stool.

The story that has unfolded over the last 48+ hours is fascinating, as reflected in the following:

1. Original Engadget story on Saturday with blurry pictures purporting to show the next generation iPhone.
2. Followup Engadget story on Sunday asserting that the pictures are real.
3. Monday morning post on Gizmodo revealing that the site had acquired the device, including video and photos of the device, and listing the new hardware features such as a camera on the front (presumably for video chat), a flash next to the camera on the back, a possible secondary mic on the top of the device for noise cancellation, split buttons for volume, and improved display, a flat back made of glass or ceramic, a larger battery and a more squared off design.
4. Monday morning tweet by Nilay Patel, an attorney who is an editor at Engadget, stating that “in California, the
   
   finder of a lost item is required to tell the police and turn it over
   
   to rightful owner.”  Patel subsequently tweeted that he was referring to Cal. Civ. Code § 2080.
   
5. Monday afternoon tweet from Nick Denton, head of Gizmodo’s parent company Gawker, confirming that Gizmodo had paid for the device.
6. Monday night post on Gizmodo identifying the Apple employee who they assert lost the device and the alleged details on how it was left in a bar on a bar stool by mistake.
7. Monday night AP story saying that Gizmodo paid $5,000 for the device.
8. Monday night online New York Times story (printed this morning on page B1 of the newspaper) outlining the sequence of events.
9. Late Monday night post on Gizmodo by Brian Lam stating that the Apple had called during the day to ask for the device back, Gizmodo responded it wanted a formal demand [in other words, something that Gizmodo could publish on its website], and that in response Apple’s Senior VP and General Counsel Bruce Sewell sent a formal demand letter.  Note that Brian Lam says in his reply to Apple:  “Just so you know, we didn’t know this was stolen when we bought it.”  Stolen?  By the way, if you want to know more about Bruce Sewell, I posted about him last September when Apple hired him as its new general counsel.

[UPDATE:  This is an interesting post by Ian Betteridge, who is not an attorney, about the potential civil and criminal liability of Gizmodo and the person who the site paid $5,000.  Link via Daring Fireball.]

Thus, it appears that the device that Gizmodo asserts was left in a bar on March 18, 2010 is indeed Apple’s property.  Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the device is exactly what Apple will reveal this summer.  It could be just one of several possible prototypes with some features that will not be included and missing other features that will be included.  One can only speculate.  But whether or not the device itself is what we will see this summer, I agree with John Gruber who noted on his Daring Fireball website that “the story behind this unit is almost certainly more interesting than the device itself. And the device
is fascinating.” 

And if the device really was mistakenly left in a bar by an Apple employee as Gizmodo asserts (although its latest post does say “stolen”), I feel bad for the Apple employee who made that mistake.  We’ve all had moments in our life when we wish we could go back and change just one thing that we did that causes a big fallout.  This would be one of those moments.

Lots of apps allow you to jot down a note on your iPhone, but the text is typically entered by using the virtual keyboard.  Note Taker is an app that allows you to jot down notes by using your handwriting — or perhaps I should say your fingerwriting.  The app allows you to create a blank page of notes, each page being approximately the size of an index card.  You use your finger to draw letters in red ink on the full screen, and then whatever you write appears in black text on the card as a whole.  This way, you can use the entire screen as a writing surface, but then what you have drawn only takes up a small part of the screen.  It’s a pretty ingenious system.

 

 

It’s a little hard to describe the process for writing notes, but this video shows you how it is done:

Buttons at the bottom of the screen let you move the blue box (which is the part of the card where what you write will appear), change to a larger or smaller pencil to draw on more on the card at once, erase using an eraser and delete the last letter that you wrote.  And you can tap the button at the bottom left to make all of the writing area disappear so that you can just see what you wrote.

 

The app keeps tracks of all of your notes and lets you name them or tag them.  When you are finished with a note you can e-mail it or save it to your Photos on the iPhone.

 

This is a really neat app but, for me at least, it doesn’t seem very useful.  I find that it is much slower to write text using my finger than it is to just type on the iPhone virtual keyboard, and thus I cannot see ever wanting to write out a note using this app instead of any of the countless apps that have a virtual keyboard such as the iPhone’s built-in Notes app.  But fortunately, the developer offers a free lite version (which is the version that I tried) that lets you create up to four notes, and then if you find the lite app useful you can upgrade to the full version which costs only $1.99.

One interesting tidbit about this app:  it was developed by Dan Bricklin.  In 1979, Bricklin was the co-creator of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program for a personal computer.  For a time in the early 1980s, VisiCalc was the #1 reason for many business to get a computer in the first place.  One might argue that the Apple II, and thus Apple itself, would not have been an early success but for VisiCalc.  There are not many iPhone app developers who can say that they also wrote software for the Apple II, and none who can say that they wrote software nearly as important.  Bricklin’s Note Taker app will not have the same impact on the iPhone as VisiCalc did on the Apple II, but it is great to see Bricklin still writing innovative software for Apple’s products over 30 years later.

If you think that you might enjoy the ability to write out, instead of type out, your notes, try the lite version and see what you think.

Click here for Note Taker Lite (free): 

Click here for Note Taker ($1.99): 

Sorry for the failure to post yesterday; it’s been a busy week for me at work.  And now as I catch up on iPhone news, there are bright lights coming through the window in my study because they are filming an episode of the great new HBO show Treme next door to me.  So in a few weeks, if you watch the show and you see a scene with someone writing a blog post in a house in the background, that’s me.  Hi Mom!  Anyway, it’s Friday, so that means it’s time for another installment of In The News — indeed, the 50th such installment, the golden anniversary, for those of you counting at home.  And yes I realize that we just did one of these.  Here we go again.

• Minneapolis attorney Barry Edwards explains why lawyers will like iPhone software 4.0, a topic on which I also have an opinion.
• Gizmodo has some screen shots of the current developer build of iPhone 4.0 if you want to get a sense of how the new features are likely to look when the final version comes out this summer.
• John Welch writes for Macworld about what iPhone 4.0 will mean for large companies with IT departments.  I count large law firms in that category.
• Gizmodo also has a review of the AT&T MicroCell, the $150 device that lets you use your broadband internet to improve AT&T 3G service, noting:  “It’s nothing short of revelatory, to suddenly have full
  
  reception where
  
  there was none, to make calls where one couldn’t before.”  If you find that your law office or home has poor AT&T reception on your iPhone, this looks like a good solution.  
• Tennessee attorney Mark Cowan wrote to me about a bizarre problem on his iPhone — suddenly, all of his third party apps started crashing when he tried to launch them.  What to do?  He finally located this comment on a blog post which explains that problems can happen if you lose Internet access while syncing your iPhone.  The solution is to download another app — any app, even a free one — on the iPhone to restore your iPhone’s ability to run any third party apps.  A strange problem and an non-intuitive solution, but now if you experience it yourself you will know what to do.
• I cannot count the number of times that people have written to me saying that they want to add an iPhone J.D. bookmark on their iPhone Home Screen but they are waiting for a nice custom icon.  (My inability to count them is related to the complete lack of any such requests.)  Nevertheless, the wish that you didn’t even realize that you had is now granted.  I’ve set it up so that when you are viewing the home page of iPhone J.D. on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, just tap the plus at the bottom of Safari and select Add to Home Screen, and you will get a custom iPhone J.D. icon with a shortcut to this website on your Home Screen.  Thanks to attorney Megan Erickson for the post on her great website, Social Networking Law Blog, which alerted me to this trick, and to Dan Dickinson for posting the technical information for how to make this work.
• For the Louisiana attorneys who read iPhone J.D., attorney Matt Miller is updating his iPhone apps containing Louisiana laws to version 2.0, adding the ability to change the font size and improving search and text readability.  The Civil Code app was updated in late March and the Code of Civil Procedure app was updated last night.  My review of the original version of the apps is here.  Click here to get La. Civil Code ($6.99): 

  

    Click here to get La. Code of Civil Procedure ($9.99): 

  

• And now for the iPad news of the week.  I had my first chance to play with an iPad earlier this week when attorney and app developer Dan Friedlander came to New Orleans and the three of us — me, Dan, and the featured guest, his iPad — met up for lunch.  Dan wrote the useful law-related iPhone apps Court Days, Workdays and myMCLE.  One of the most useful iPad apps that Dan showed me is GoodReader, and on his blog he explains why it is a must-have app for lawyers using an iPad.
• Jason Calacanis of Mahalo started a video podcast on the iPad, This Week in Pad (TWiiP).
• Attorney Brian Malcolm writes about the pros and cons of the iPad for lawyers on the Young Lawyers Blog.
• Utah attorney Peter Summerill bought an iPad and believes that is
  
  has potential, but recommends
  
  that lawyers wait to buy one:  “Bottom line: wait to buy the iPad.
  
  There is no specific ‘need’ for
  
  attorneys to have this device at this time. While the future of the
  
  iPad may hold magical and amazing things in store for attorneys, the
  
  inability to do any significant work and the complete lack of
  
  applications which support the workflow of an attorney” are reasons not
  
  to buy today.
• And finally, if you are looking for a sleeve-style case for your iPhone with a fun picture on it, check out the designs of Etsy merchant Coolbeans717 who offers lots of choices that cost $20 each such as the ones pictured below.  And for $26, she can even create a custom case for you with your own picture.

 

 

Here is a very quick tip, probably something that you already know, but if not then now you do:  the way to redial a number on the iPhone.  This was one of the dozens of tips that Ben Stevens and I discussed last month during our ABA TECHSHOW presentation.  There are two ways to redial in the Phone app.

First, you can tap the Recents tab at the bottom.  This will show you all of the people who you have recently called or who have recently called you.  Just tap a name to call.

Second, you can redial from the keypad.  You won’t see a redial button on the screen, but if you don’t type any number at all and just hit the Call button, the iPhone will present you with the last number that you dialed.  Tap the Call button a second time and the iPhone will redial that number.  Thus, two taps of the Call button get you a quick redial of the last number that you called.

Apple has traditionally been reluctant to approve of third party apps that duplicate built-in functions on the iPhone, and thus Safari has been the only web browser on the iPhone.  There are third party web browsers in the App Store, and many apps include a built-in web browsing function, but all of those apps have used Apple’s WebKit, the same engine that powers Safari.

Late last night, that changed when Apple approved the Opera Mini web browser and added it to the App Store.  Just the fact that this app was approved in the first place is a significant event.  As noted in the New York Times back in 2008, Opera had started working on a web browser for the iPhone soon after Apple allowed third parties to write apps, but the company stopped development once it became clear that Apple would not approve an alternative to its own Safari browser.  But for whatever reason, Opera went ahead and wrote the app anyway and submitted it to Apple last month, Apple surprised everyone by approving the app yesterday, and now we have the free Opera Mini on the iPhone as an alternative to Safari.

The main advantage of Opera Mini is speed when you are connecting via Edge or 3G.  Unlike the Safari app which presents you with the “full internet” on the iPhone, when you request a web site in Opera Mini the request goes to the Opera server, which gets the page, compresses it up to 90%, reformats it for a mobile phone screen, and then sends it to the iPhone.  Because much less data is sent to the iPhone, pages display faster.

The difference is most notable if you are on an Edge connection, where Opera displays a website much faster than Safari; Opera claims up to six times faster.  On 3G, Opera still feels faster but the effect is not quite as dramatic, and on Wi-Fi there is virtually no speed advantage.  For example, Greg Kumparak of Mobile Crunch ran a speed test and found that on 3G, sites loaded two or three times as fast as Safari, but on Wi-Fi, sites loaded just about as fast on both Opera Mini and Safari although Opera Mini had a very slight advantage.  In addition to the speed advantage there is also a data advantage; if you are not on an unlimited data plan (for example you are traveling internationally), you will appreciate using less data to view the same website.

Unfortunatley, you pay a price for the speed and reduced data.  Pages frequently look worse in Opera than they do in Safari, with text not wrapping around graphics the right way or graphics not being sized correctly.  Websites are still completely functional, just sometimes not as pretty and less legible when you are viewing the entire page.  Here are two examples with Opera on the left and Safari on the right:

Although it is difficult to read a webpage in Safari in full page view, you can still double tap on a column of text (just like in Safari) to zoom and read that text.

In addition to the speed advantage on Edge and 3G, Opera has some other unique advantages.  First, the default blank page in Opera can hold shortcuts up to nine of your favorite sites.  Hold down on one of the icons and a pop-up menu will appear letting you change the shortcut.

Second, the app has an interesting method of using multiple tabs so that you can have different websites open at the same time.  Tap on the tabs button and a strip will pop up with overlapping square icons that you can tap to jump to a page.  Unlike Safari, which limits you to 9 tabs, you can open many more tabs in Opera Mini.  (If there is a limit, I haven’t figured it out yet.)  And switching between tabs in Opera Mini seems to be faster than doing so in Safari.  If you like tabbed browsing on an iPhone, I suspect that you’ll be a fan of Opera Mini.

Third, the app has some very useful tools that you access by tapping the wrench icon.  Three that I particularly like are (1) the ability to save a webpage so that you can instantly load it again later and (2) a useful Find in Page feature that gives you the ability to search for text within a webpage, with the terms highlighted and a Next button that lets you quickly find each instance of the word.

You can pinch to zoom in Opera, but unlike Safari where you can zoom to any level, in Opera you only have two zoom levels — the entire webpage, or zoomed in on the text.  You can select text, but the implementation is more cumbersome than in Safari; you have to hold down your finger, then choose select text from a pop-up menu, then drag to select the text.  And sometimes, the app doesn’t correctly register that you are trying to select text.  On the plus side, Opera does give you a fast option to run a Google search based on selected text.  When you scroll down a webpage, you will see that pictures further down are not fully loaded although they do load as you scroll.

The Settings screen gives you several options to make Opera even more efficient.  For example, you can adjust the image quality to make pictures load even faster (or turn off loading images completely).  If you use Opera on your desktop computer, you can also use Opera link to sync between the two (although I didn’t test that option).

Opera is new to the iPhone, but Opera Mini has been around on other smartphones for a while.  Indeed, the debut version of Opera Mini for iPhone is version 5.0.  While Opera Mini has been around the block and thus you would expect a solid app on the iPhone, I still consider Safari on the iPhone a much more polished browser overall.  Nevertheless, I encourage you to download Opera Mini, especially considering that it is free.  If you ever find yourself on a slow Edge connection, web browsing can be much faster on Opera Mini than on Safari.  If you ever want to save a bunch of webpages to view later (perhaps when you don’t have a web connection), Opera Mini lets you do that.  And the Find in Page feature is great, and I am sure that I will use Opera Mini at times in the future just for this feature — at least, until Apple adds it to Safari, which I hope that they do soon.  (Yes, I know that there are currently javascripts that you can use in Safari to find text in webpages, but they always feel like hacks to me.)  It is significant that Apple approved Opera Mini at all, and because of the unique features of Opera Mini, I am sure that lots of people will download it for occasional use at those times when the unique advantages of Opera make it a better choice than Safari.

Click here to get Opera Mini (free): 

The big news late last week was, of course, iPhone software 4.0, so I did not post an “In the news” segment this past Friday.  Thus, today is a special Monday version of the latest iPhone-related news that has caught my eye.

• Palm Beach, Florida lawyer Christopher Hopkins wrote a free app containing the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct, plus the Southern
  
  District guidelines and local bar rules for Broward/Fort
  
  Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach.  Click here for CLaw — Florida Rules of Professional Conduct (free):

  

• Today, Adobe is releasing Flash Professional CS5, software used to write Flash apps.  One of the marquee features of this new version was supposed to be the ability to write an iPhone app using Flash, but late last week Apple prohibited this in its developer rules.  John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote an interesting article speculating on why Apple was doing this, and according to Engadget, Steve Jobs himself seems to like what Gruber said.
• There are lots of different iPhone GPS apps out there to assist you when driving, and Engadget recently tested and rated some of the more popular ones.  Note that they did not test MotionX GPS Drive, the one that I have been using.
• Dan Moren of Macworld reports that actor Justin Long says that the “Get a Mac” ads that he does with John Hodgman may be over.
• Did you ever notice that all of the official Apple pictures of the
  
  iPhone display the time 9:42 and the official iPad pictures display
  
  9:41?  Have you ever wondered why?  iPhone developer Jon Manning ran
  
  into Apple Senior VP Scott Forstall at an Apple Store on iPad launch day
  
  and asked him. 
  
  To get the thrilling answer, read
  
  Manning’s blog entry, and then read Harry McCracken’s article on
  
  Technologizer for the rest of the story.
• I always enjoy reading stories of people using MobileMe to track down a stolen iPhone, and C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle has a new one.  Unfortunately, he also reports that iPhone crime is very frequent in San Francisco, and he quotes San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Brian Buckelew as saying:  “Probably half the
  
  robberies in the city are iPhones. Some days there are three iPhone
  
  robberies on the court calendar.”
• Last year, I reviewed Gogo, a Wi-Fi service that you can use with your iPhone on many airplanes.  If you travel often, you may be interested in this Electronista article which notes that you can now get a $35 per month unlimited plan that works on all Gogo flights, even services offered on different airlines.
• Marco Tabini of Macworld reports that the iPhone was easily the winner of the 2010 J.D. Power smarphone satisfaction survey.
• The Week has created a list of “The 10 Stupidest Apple Apps Ever.”
• The iPad continues to dominate the news, and here are a few iPad stories that I think are worth reading.  First. TUAW reports that someone placed an iPad for sale on eBay for $5,000 with the provision that the seller would personally deliver the iPad to any international airport in the world on April 3, the day that the iPad came out.  Apparently the offer appealed to someone who doesn’t live in the U.S. but wanted an iPad on Day 1, as the eBay listing shows that the item was sold for $5,000.  The TUAW article also reports that someone else in the UK reportedly spent $5,500 for an iPad.
• Dan Frakes of Macworld has an excellent post on how the iPad works with existing accessories that were made for the iPhone or iPod.
• Attorney David Shulman writes about the use of the iPad by lawyers.
• iPad Notebook is a blog about the iPad by lawyer Justin Kahn.
• Dr. Joel Topf speculates that the iPad may be the “next great thing” that Steve Jobs first spoke about in 1996.
• PC World stress tested the iPad and found it to be rather strong.  You can damage it by dropping it or getting it wet, but not by scratching it.  “Its well-coated screen is literally scratch-proof: We couldn’t
  
  produce any scratches on the display even when we tried to etch it with
  
  a nail; you definitely won’t need to buy one of those stick-on screen
  
  protectors.  The glass did start showing signs of physical
  
  damage after a couple of drops onto concrete. But even in those extreme
  
  circumstances, the screen cracked only after we dropped the iPad
  
  face-down onto the pavement.”
• Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times describes some of the best iPad apps.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball has an excellent review of the iPad.
• And finally, Blendtec answers the question, will the iPad blend:

Yesterday, Apple previewed the next version of the iPhone operating software, version 4.0, which is
due out this summer.  You can watch a video of the presentation by Steve Jobs on the Apple website.  Jobs announced that there are now over 185,000 apps in the App Store, that users have downloaded over 4 billion apps, and that Apple has sold over 50 million iPhones (plus another 35 million iPod touches).  Scott Forstall of Apple announced that over 80 of the Fortune 100 companies are using iPhones.

But the star of the show was the new features in iPhone software 4.0.  Apple says that there are over 100 new features for iPhone users, and here are the ones that I think that lawyers and other professionals using iPhones will really love.

1. Multitasking: fast app switching.  Instead of closing one app to launch another app, you can now quickly switch between apps with each app freezing its current state until you return.  This will increase your efficiency using multiple apps at the same time on your iPhone, such as switching back and forth between Mail, Safari and a third party app while you are drafting an e-mail, just to pick one example.
2. Multitasking: VOIP in the background.  With 4.0, Voice over IP will be supported in the background, which makes the
   
   Skype app 100x more useful.  With 4.0, while you are doing something else on your iPhone, Skype will still be able to ring you when a call comes in.  Plus, you can continue talking to someone over Skype while switching to another app, such as checking your e-mail or your calendar. 
   
   For people traveling internationally who want to use Skype to talk to
   
   people in the U.S. for pennies instead of paying expensive roaming fees,
   
   this is huge.
3. Multitasking: audio in the background.  The iPod app has always been able to play audio in the background while you use another app.  With 4.0, third party apps can do this too — making the Pandora app all the more useful.  
4. Other multitasking features.  Those first three multitasking features will probably be the ones that lawyers find most useful, but in addition it is nice that under 4.0 (1) apps will have improved abilities to send you pop-up notifications, (2) apps can complete certain tasks (like upload a picture or video) while you switch to another app, and (3) social networking type apps will be able to track your location even when the app is running in the background (and Apple will notify you of this so that an app cannot track your location without your knowledge).  These three features are less important for attorneys, but may be useful at times.
5. Mail: attachments and third party apps.  We spend a lot of time in the Mail app, so it is great to see some major improvements.  First, with 4.0 you will be able to open an attachment to an e-mail directly into a third party app.  I hope that this means that 4.0 will let you choose from among several possible apps, so for example if you have a Word attachment you can choose to open it directly from Mail into apps like Quickoffice or Documents to Go.  Those apps currently have creative work-arounds for accessing attachments to your e-mails, but direct access would be much more efficient.  I much prefer viewing Word, PDF and Excel files that are attached to an e-mail in Quickoffice or Documents to Go, so anything that makes it easier to do so is a welcome improvement.
6. Mail: unified inbox.  Most of us have multiple e-mail accounts such as Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc., and 4.0 will let you have a single Mail inbox to view all of your e-mails at once, much like the Mail application on a Mac does.  Or if you want to keep your accounts separate, 4.0 will give you much faster inbox switching.
7. Mail: threaded messages.  With 4.0 you can organize e-mails by thread, making it much easier to view an original e-mail and all of the replies.
8. Mail: better MS Exchange support.  Most large law firms, and many smaller ones, use Microsoft Exchange for e-mail.  iPhone software 4.0 adds support for Exchange Server 2010, plus adds the ability to access multiple Exchange accounts.
9. Mail: spell check.  Mail and other apps have spell check in 4.0. The iPad already includes a spell check feature, and I imagine that the feature will work the same way in 4.0 for the iPhone.
10. Mail and other apps: external Bluetooth keyboards.  If you need to write a long e-mail or a significant insert for a document on an iPhone, with 4.0, you can pair your iPhone with a Bluetooth keyboard to make it much easier to type all of those words.  This makes it easier to decide to leave your laptop at home and just travel with an iPhone and a small keyboard to use when you need to type something long on your plane or in a hotel room.  There are already many small, portable Bluetooth keyboards such as the iGo Stowaway Ultra-Slim Bluetooth Keyboard

    

    or even Apple’s own Wireless Keyboard

    

    , but I imagine that very soon we will see some nice portable keyboards specifically designed for an iPhone running 4.0.  This will make apps like Quickoffice and Documents to Go even more useful because, for the first time, you might actually decide to use those apps as word processors.
11. Organize apps into folders.  The only way to organize your apps now is to move them to separate pages, but this is not ideal when you have a lot of apps.  Under 4.0, you will be able to drag one app onto another one to group those apps into a folder, and then drag other apps into that folder.  Thus, you can keep all of your legal statute apps in a single folder, one which remains on your first or second home screen (or even in your dock) but which doesn’t take up numerous spaces.  I have been wishing for a feature like this for a long time, and I can’t wait to use it. 
12. Display more apps.  Folders are not just an organizational tool; they also let you display more apps on your iPhone.  If you are an app junkie like me with tons of apps, you know that the iPhone can currently display only 11 pages of 16 apps per page, which is 176 apps, plus the four apps at the bottom for a total of 180 apps.  You can store more than 180 apps on your iPhone, but they do not show up on your home page screens so you can only access them using search.  Jobs said that the folders in 4.0 allow you to display up to 2,160 apps on your iPhone.  (2,160 divided by 180 is 12; so perhaps that means that each folder can hold up to 12 apps.)
13. iBooks.  The larger iPad is far superior for reading iBooks, but if you have both an iPad and an iPhone, it will be useful to be able to read a book on the iPhone as well.  Your current page will sync, so if you are up to page 156 in a book on your iPad and then you have a few minutes of down time with your iPhone, you can read a few more pages and the iPhone will know where you left off.
14. Improved security.  Security is important for lawyers, and in 4.0, all of the e-mails and attachments on your iPhone can be encrypted with your PIN code.  (It was unclear whether this was automatic or a feature to be turned on.)  Plus, app developers will be given the tools to encrypt all data in their apps as well.  Another security enhancement in 4.0 is improved tools for a company to manage all of the iPhones used by employees.  Additionally, 4.0 supports SSL VPN for improved security in VPN sessions.

There are many other new features in iPhone software 4.0 that lawyers might enjoy, although they are unlikely to improve your billable hours.  For example, with 4.0 you can add a wallpaper to your home screen.  If you like games, 4.0 enhances support for multiplayer games and makes it easy for your friends to send you a message on your iPhone asking you to join a game, plus you can compare your high scores with those of your friends.  

If you like to take videos on your iPhone, with 4.0 you can tap to change the focus while you are recording a video.  If you take a photo in the wrong orientation, with 4.0 you can rotate a picture on the iPhone.

4.0 also supports a slick advertising feature that Apple calls iAds.  You may question whether adding ads to your iPhone is a “feature.”  As John Moltz humorously noted on his website:

iAds. AWESOME. Now we can watch ads on our iPhones. YES. At long last.
The feature we’ve all be asking for. Our long national nightmare is
over. All hail our wise corporate overlords who always have our best
interests at heart. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

The counter argument is that iAds will encourage developers to create more free, ad-supported ads.  Time will tell whether iAds bring us better free apps.

Note that not all iPhones will be able to support iPhone software 4.0.  It doesn’t appear that the original iPhone will run 4.0 at all.  [UPDATE 4/12/10:  Engadget reports that Steve Jobs confirms this.]  An iPhone 3G can run some features, but not the ones that require more horsepower such as multitasking.  An iPhone 3GS can take advantage of all of the features in 4.0.  If you don’t own an iPhone 3GS, 4.0 will be a compelling reason to upgrade once Apple releases the next version of the iPhone this Summer.  4.0 will also come to the iPad, but not until this Fall.

Developers can now download iPhone software 4.0, and as they tinker with it over the next few months, I’m sure that we will learn more about the great new features in 4.0.  But from what we learned yesterday about 4.0, it is clear that lawyers and other professionals using the iPhone will see a lot to love.

Apple is announcing details on the new iPhone Software 4.0 today at
10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern.  If you are in the Central time zone like I am, why not have lunch at your desk on Thursday and read about all of the exciting announcements as they happen.  Many websites will be providing live
coverage of the Apple event.  Here are the ones that I recommend, based on the quality of their prior coverage of similar Apple announcements, including the links to where the sites should provide their live coverage:

• Engadget
• GDGT
• Macworld
• Technologizer
• Gizmodo
• CNET
• Ars Technica
• TUAW
• TWiT (live video commentary)

If you ever have the need to annotate documents, such as fill out a form or add some text to a document, Touch-Fill-Go is a neat iPhone app that can scan a paper document to create a PDF file or import a PDF file, add annotations such as text or a signature, and then e-mail the annotated PDF file or send the file to another iPhone via Bluetooth.  There is room for improvement, but this app is very handy.  It regularly sells for $4.99, but it just went on sale for $2.99 for a limited time, and at only $3 I think it is an app that many lawyers and others will want to get.

 

You add a document to Touch-Fill-Go one of two ways.  First, if you have the document in paper form, you can use the iPhone camera to scan the document.  To assist you in making the scan straight, the app displays a white grid on top of the document that you are scanning, and the app turns the grid green at the best time to take the picture.  In my experience, it was very difficult to tap the screen and take the picture at exactly the moment that the grid is green, but the camera still did a decent job capturing the image.  Once the image is captured the app will analyze the image to try to optimize the image quality and orientation.

 

Once the image is analyzed, you can then adjust the image by cropping the sides (useful to make sure that only the document itself remains, cutting out the edges), by rotating the image and by manually adjusting the brightness and contrast.

Alternatively, you can import a file that is already in your Photo Library on your iPhone, or you can import a PDF that is available at a website.  To use that last feature, you enter an address in the app’s web browser and then find a PDF that is online.  For example, I downloaded an attorney admission from from the U.S. Supreme Court website.

Once the file is ready, either because you scanned it or you imported it, you can then annotate the file.  If you are filing out a form, the app does a decent job of automatically detecting most fields such as lines and checkboxes, or you can manually tell the app where you want to type.  If you start to enter text that you have typed in the past, the app offers suggestions so that you don’t have to fully type the text again.  You can control the font and size, and after text is entered you can easily move it around or scale it larger or smaller.

 

In addition to adding text, you can place a checkmark in a box, and you can even add a signature, which you can scale so that it is the right size on a line.

Once you are done, you can store the file in the app itself, and the app includes folders to keep files organized.  You can use Bluetooth to send the file to another iPhone.  Or, and most usefully, you can send the annotated file as a PDF attachment to an e-mail.

I was very impressed with the abilities of this app.  The annotation feature is impressive, and the ability to take a physical document and easily create a digital PDF file is very useful.  Having said that, there are several areas for improvement that would make this app even better.  First, I wish that there were additional ways to get PDF files into the app, such as the ability to e-mail a file to the app.  The Zosh app that I reviewed last year is similar to Touch-Fill-Go and it allows you to do just that.  Zosh does not let you scan physical documents to create a PDF, but if you already have a file in PDF form, it is a lot easier to get that file into Zosh.  Similarly, it would be nice if Touch-Fill-Go could access PDF files on cloud storage services such as Google Docs, MobileMe, Dropbox, etc.

Second, it is difficult to add a signature to a document because you are limited to the width of the iPhone screen in landscape mode.  Zosh solves this problem by automatically scrolling a window while you are signing.  It would be useful if Touch-Fill-Go could do the same thing.

Third, I wish that the app would let you crop or adjust the brightness/contrast on a document AFTER you start to annotate it.  Adjusting any of those settings results in the app erasing all of your annotations.

The developer of this app is EarthLink.  Yes, that EarthLink, the internet service provider.  I don’t really understand how this iPhone app fits into the company’s core business.  I imagine that one of its employees just developed this cool app on his own, perhaps just because he wanted to use it himself, and the company decided to sell the app under its name.  EarthLink was kind enough to provide me with a free copy of this app for review purposes, but has not yet responded to my question on how this app fits in with the rest of the EarthLink business.  I mention this only because I hope that EarthLink recognizes the value of this gem of an app and continues to improve it, even if it is just an ancillary business for the company.  Indeed, I wish that there was some way to merge the best features of
Touch-Fill-Go and Zosh, because the result would be an amazingly
powerful app.

If you need to annotate a PDF file that you can access on the internet, or if you have a physical document that you want to scan and fill out, this is an incredibly useful app.  And if EarthLink adds a few more features, then this app could become essential for many lawyers and others who work with a lot of documents that need to be annotated or filled out.

Click here for Touch-Fill-Go ($2.99 sale): 

In March of 2008 and 2009, Apple took the opportunity to preview the next version of the operating system for the iPhone.  The target audience has always been developers, who need to start getting their iPhone apps ready before the new operating system comes out, but mere iPhone users also have a chance to learn what is coming next.  On March 6, 2008, Apple announced iPhone Software 2.0, which allowed third party apps for the first time.  This was the single biggest change that Apple ever made to the iPhone, and today it is hard to imagine the iPhone without apps.  The picture on the invitation for the 2.0 announcement was:

A few weeks ago on March 17, in addition to thinking green, I also thought about the fact that Apple had not yet announced anything about iPhone 4.0.  Of course, at the time, everyone was focused on the iPad and not the iPhone, but I did wonder whether we would see an announcement soon.

Yesterday, two days after the iPad first went on sale, Apple announced that this Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 10 am Pacific, Apple will preview iPhone OS 4.0.  The picture on the invitation sent to selected members of the press is:

 

I’m sure that Apple has known for many weeks that they would have this announcement, but the company didn’t tell the world because Apple wanted the focus to remain on the iPad.  But now that the iPad is out there, developers really need to know about the new software ASAP, so Apple cannot wait much longer to have this announcement.

What will we see on Thursday?  Considering how major the iPhone 2.0 and 3.0 announcements were, people are expecting quite a bit.  Probably the #1 feature being requested for the iPhone and the iPad — I presume that iPhone 4.0 will work on both devices — is the ability to run multiple apps at the same time with some apps running in the background.  Who knows whether this feature will be announced, but I do notice that the picture on the invitation for this Thursday includes the number four IN THE BACKGROUND.  I know, I know, I’m probably reading too much into a picture, but you have to admit that this is at least a possible explanation.  We’ll see in a few days.

As important as the Thursday announcement will be, it is really only one half of the big iPhone news for 2010.  I also expect to see new iPhone hardware this year, perhaps announced around June 28, 2010 because that is when an anonymous “corporate event” thought to be Apple is scheduled for the Moscone Center in San Francisco.  But because I expect that iPhone OS 4.0 will work on most or all current iPhones in addition to the iPhone that Apple will announce this summer — which I’m guessing will be called the iPhone HD — the announcement this Thursday will be more important for a greater number of iPhone users. 

I am excited to see what we learn on Thursday, and you can be sure that I will discuss it here on Friday.