Jeff Richardson

In my review of the iPhone 3GS yesterday, I noted that one of the features I really like is the ability to record video.  I just ran across a website called The Automatic Filmmaker which is published by Steve Ellington, an independent film director from the U.S. who currently lives in Switzerland and who knows a thing or two about video.  He recently posted this great article that includes a lot of information about recording video on the iPhone 3GS, including tips on using focus, how the auto exposure works, etc.  He even has an educational video that shows you exactly what he is describing.  If you plan to use your iPhone 3GS to record video, you should definitely take a few minutes to read his post and view the video.

While you are there, you might also want to take a look at what he says is the first music video shot on an iPhone 3GS, titled Technologic Overkill.  

Yesterday, I talked about how difficult it can be to hold the iPhone 3GS steady while you are taking video.  At least two companies have announced products to compensate for this.  Both seem a little over the top to me, but I love the creativity, and I’m sure that many will consider these useful and worth the money.  

First, Zacuto, a company that sells and rents professional video cameras and equipment for filmmakers, has announced the Zgrip iPhone PRO, an adjustable and quick releasable handgrip system for shooting professional, stable video using the iPhone 3GS.  Here is what it looks like:

The Zgrip iPhone PRO is for professionals, and the price reflects that:  $295, plus you can add extras like a $40 ten inch rod that allows you to get your iPhone 3GS up above the crowd for taking shots and a $50 tripod mount.  If that price is too steep for you, a consumer version is coming out “soon” that will be cheaper but offer fewer options.  Here is a video that shows you more about this product:

Second, a company called Optical Widgets for Life Enhancement (OWLE) has announced a product called BUBO.  It is a gadget with two handles that surrounds the iPhone 3GS and adds a widescreen lens (to which other filters or lenses such as a telphoto can be added) and an improved microphone.  It looks like this:

The BUBO is in production now and will be released later this year for between $30 and $50.  The best way to see what the BUBO can do is to watch this video from one of the developers of Qik, an iPhone app that allows you to stream live video from your iPhone to the web.  At least, that is what they want to do.  Right now, Apple and AT&T are holding up the approval of this app, presumably because of concerns about how much pressure this would put on AT&T’s network.  The first few minutes of this video are recorded using a BUBO, and the quality is quite good.  Then, around the 4:30 mark, they remove the iPhone from the BUBO and you can immediately see and hear the difference. 

Thanks to Engadget for the post that first informed me about these two devices.  I’m sure that they are the first of many video-related add-ons for the iPhone 3GS.

Over 40 million people owned an iPhone (or an iPod Touch) before Apple released the iPhone 3GS.  Because you are reading this website, chances are that number includes you.  Should you upgrade to a new iPhone 3GS?  It’s a big decision, and one that I tried to focus on as I have been using my iPhone 3GS over the past week.  If you are a heavy iPhone user and if you are eligible for the discounted price, I think you will really appreciate the upgrade.  Here is why.

How much will it cost?

If money was no object, everyone would want to upgrade.  For example, virtually every iPhone owner should upgrade to iPhone Software 3.0 because it includes great features and it is free.  But there is a cost, and that cost depends upon your particular circumstances.  AT&T has this page describing its upgrade policy for the iPhone 3GS, but here it is in brief:

1. If you own the original iPhone, sold from June 29, 2007 to July 10, 2008, then it is virtually certain that AT&T will let you take advantage of the discounted prices that it offers new customers, especially if you bought that iPhone in 2007.  For you, an iPhone 3GS will cost $199 for the 16 GB version or $299 for the 32 GB version.  By paying this price, you will lock in to a new two year commitment with AT&T.
2. If you own an iPhone 3G, sold from July 11, 2008 until today, then the formula becomes somewhat more complicated.  You can purchase a new iPhone 3GS for the discounted prices only if (1) you purchased your iPhone 3G during July, August or September of 2008, (2) you have been paying your bills on time and your account is in good standing and (3) you pay AT&T over $99 a month.  All AT&T iPhone owners must pay $30 for the data plan, but if you have the minimum 450 minute $40 voice plan, then you are only at $70 (or $90 if you add on the top $20 unlimited text messaging plan) so you are not over the $99 threshold.  But if you have the 900 minute or higher plan and/or have text messaging on your account, then you are over the threshold.  Even if you have the minimum minute plans with no text messaging, you may still be paying over $100 a month if you have a family plan.  This was the situation that I was in; although I have the cheapest phone plan and no text message plan, my wife also has an iPhone, so AT&T views my total account as an over $100 a month account because of my wife.  (Thanks, honey!)
3. If you are an iPhone 3G owner but don’t meet those three requirements, then you cannot take advantage of the discounted price.  You will likely than have to pay the Early Upgrade price of $399 for the 16 GB / $499 for the 32 GB.  Ouch.
4. Any customer always has the option of paying the No Commitment price of $599 / $699 which gets you the new phone without a two year commitment to stay with AT&T.  Of course, you cannot (legally) use your iPhone with any other carrier in the U.S., so this option will appeal to few people.

What are the new features?

Compared to the iPhone 3G, here is what is added:

1. Speed
2. Better camera for still pictures
3. Video camera
4. Voice Control
5. More storage: 32 GB in the higher end model, 16 GB in the entry model
6. Compass
7. Slightly better battery life
8. The included headphones now have volume buttons (and you can now use the volume controls on the Apple In-Ear Headphones)
9. Support for Nike + iPod, which you can use if you have Nike+ shoes (or a shoe-mounted pouch) and the $19 Nike Sensor for your shoe
10. An optional battery percentage indicator next to the icon at the top of the screen showing remaining battery life.
11. An oleophobic coating on the screen which helps to resist fingerprints

In my opinion, the first five features are real reasons for iPhone 3G owners to consider upgrading.  The remaining features are nice, but unless you have special needs (perhaps you run with your iPhone and would really appreciate the Nike + iPod feature, or you are a boy scout leader and really want a compass on your iPhone) the remaining features are unlikely to be worth the upgrade price.

Thus, I will focus the rest of this review on those first few features.  Having said that, I do encourage you to read some of the more comprehensive reviews of the iPhone 3GS to get all of the nitty gritty details on all 11 new features.  The brand new website gdgt has lots of great information on the iPhone 3GS, including this helpful page which links to around three dozen iPhone 3GS reviews (although it misses some good ones, especially Andy Ihnatko’s review in the Chicago Sun Times).  To narrow down the list for you, I think that these are the best reviews to read if you are trying to decide whether to upgrade:

• Macworld
• Ars Technica
• iLounge
• New York Times
• Engadget
• Wall Street Journal
• Chicago Sun-Times

Speed

There is no real question about the #1 reason that I am happy that I upgraded to the iPhone 3GS.  Apple says the “S” in 3GS is for speed, claiming that the iPhone 3GS is twice as fast as the iPhone 3G.  I haven’t tested the speed myself—and some people who have done so find that the 3GS is even more than two times faster—but what really matters to me is the responsiveness of the phone.  The 3GS is much more responsive that the 3G.  Launching apps is so much faster.  Switching apps happens very quickly.  The typewriter is much more responsive, and not once have I seen a key freeze for a second as it raises while I am typing, something that my old 3G did from time to time.  Web browsing is so much faster that when you are on 3G, you will think you are on Wi-Fi, and when you are Wi-Fi, you will think that your bandwidth somehow increased.

The increased responsiveness makes the iPhone much more pleasant to use.  My calendar and contacts have tons of entries, but on the 3GS they pop right up with no lag as I scroll.  Safari on my iPhone 3G was a great experience because Safari does a great job of rendering web pages, but Safari on my 3GS is an excellent experience because pages jump up almost as quickly as they do on my computer.  And it is no longer any bother at all when one of my apps (such as a Twitter client or an RSS reader) wants to open another app (such as E-mail or Safari or YouTube) because it all happens so quickly.  Also, because part of the speed increase comes from more internal memory on the iPhone, [UPDATE 7/8/09:  see here for more on this] games that are memory hogs run much much better on the iPhone 3GS.  For example, I have a game called Guitar Rock Tour which, on my
iPhone 3G, would sometimes have the flying notes get ever so slightly
out of sync with the music, which is frustrating in any Guitar
Hero-type game.  The game doesn’t have that problem on the 3GS, nor
have I seen the game crash once.

I realize that part of the charm is that the iPhone 3GS is new.  We all know what it is like to get a new computer and have it feel so fast, but a year later the speed just seems “normal” and by two or more years out that same computer starts to feel slow.  Perceived speed is relative.  There will surely come a time when the speed of the iPhone 3GS will start to feel normal, but even then I suspect that I will still appreciate having a very responsive device in my hands.

In sum, the added speed to the iPhone 3GS is really great.  If you are a frequent user of your iPhone, then you will find yourself appreciating the increased speed every day, throughout the day.

Better camera

The 3GS camera is better in two ways.  First, it is a 3 megapixel camera versus the 2 megapixel camera in prior iPhones (2048 x 1536 versus 1600 x 1200).  That alone makes pictures look better.  Many of the iPhone 3GS reviews have done an excellent job of showing side-by-side pictures that compare the 3G to the 3GS.  For example, look at these pictures in the Macworld and the iLounge reviews.  Those examples do such a good job that I haven’t set up any side-by-side tests myself, but I can definitely tell that my pictures are better.  For example, here are two pictures that I took this weekend  Click on each picture to see the full size, unedited pictures.

As you can see, the picture quality is actually quite good when you are in daylight.  But even more than the increased pixels, what really makes this a better camera is the improved ability to focus.  Just tap on an area of the screen.  A box will go around whatever is in the image where you touched and the iPhone will adjust not just the focus, but also the exposure and white balance. For example, in the first of these two pictures, I tapped on the desk, and on the  second picture I tapped on the face of the watch.  Again, you can click for full-size versions, but even from the smaller version you can see that the difference is dramatic.

With the ability to control focus, the camera on the iPhone becomes much more powerful, and this is often the difference between having a usable picture or a useless picture.  For example, in the past, I have tried to take a picture of a page of handwritten notes on a legal pad, and the results were almost always terrible.  But with the iPhone 3GS I can use the manual focus feature to get images that are very readable, saving me the trouble of taking home a note pad when I just want to have quick access while I am at home to what I scribbled down during a meeting in the office.

Let’s be perfectly clear:  the iPhone camera is still just a phone camera.  I own a great digital SLR camera (a Nikon D50 with an amazing 18-200 mm lens) and for times when I want to take good pictures, there is no question what I will want to use.  But for those times when you just want to take a quick picture, having the iPhone 3GS with you means that you can take decent pictures when the light is good, and often a merely decent picture is fabulous when the alternative is no picture at all.

Video camera

Another key new feature is the ability to take video. Much like with the still camera, when the light is good, you can get decent quality video.  For example, here is a quick video I shot of one of my son’s games.  The quality of what YouTube is showing you seems a little worse than the original file on my computer (the original is a little sharper and less jerky), but this gives you an idea of what you can get with an iPhone 3GS.  The colors are actually quite good.

One problem with using something like an iPhone as a video camera is that it is very difficult to keep the iPhone still, resulting in video that can cause motion sickness.  You can see this in the video I posted above:  watch the pattern in the carpet during the video and you will see it jump all over the place even though I did my best to hold my hand steady.  But if you have a Mac, one nice feature of the built-in iMovie software (the current version, iMovie ’09) is the ability to stabilize video.  The software zooms in slightly to do this trick, so you lose a little around the edges, but the results are quite good.  Here is that same video, stabilized.  You can click play on both this one and the above one at the same time to easily compare the difference:

The point is that even though hand shake is one of the major problems with a video camera in a device like the iPhone, it is easy to correct this on a Mac.  (I don’t know if there is anything as cheap and powerful as iMovie for the PC, but I presume that there is software out there that does this same trick.)

Another problem with the video is that you have little control over the focus.  Just like with the still camera, you can tap on an object to tell the iPhone to focus on that object.  But then on
ce you start taking video, that focus point stays the same and cannot be changed.  Since videos inherently involve motion, this can be a problem as the subject of the video moves.  For example, here is a short video I took of a streetcar passing through the Garden District in New Orleans.  I’m not sure what the iPhone was focusing on at the start of the video—I guess something across the street or maybe a passing car—but when the streetcar passes, it is not in focus.  Note that this version was stabilized using iMovie to save you from feeling nauseous due to my hand shaking:

Enough about the negative, let’s focus on the positive.  The iPhone 3GS takes 640 x 480 video at 30 fps.  This doesn’t compare to an HD video camera, but it is better than then the VHS-C video camera that I used from 1995 to 2007, and I created a lot of great memories with that old video camera.  And that is really why I love having video in the iPhone 3GS.  Often, the quality comes not from the number of pixels but instead from the content.  The video quality of the iPhone 3GS is good enough that you will pay attention to the content.  Perfect example:  while playing around with the video functions this past weekend, I took a short video of my son while my wife and I were playing the board game Candy Land
with him.  The video is great, even when viewed on a large 57″ TV screen, because my son said a lot of funny things that were captured in the video.  I suspect that years from now I will find myself watching the video again to remind me of the the funny things that a three year old can do and say.  I would have never bothered to go and find my HD video camera, but my iPhone 3GS was there, so I used it, and I’m glad I did.

One of the more interesting iPhone 3GS reviews is by camcorderinfo.com, a site that—you guessed it—reviews camcorders.  They prepared an exhaustive, 17 part review of the iPhone 3GS the same way that they would review any other camcorder, humorously throwing all of the other features of the iPhone like phone, e-mail, apps etc. into the “other features” category.  While obviously not in the same league as any HD video camera, they found that the video camera on the iPhone 3GS is actually quite good, concluding:

Apple-haters, you may want to look away. The iPhone 3G S performed very, very well under our battery of tests. The color
accuracy rivaled that of camcorders in its class and better, including
the high definition Flip and Sony Webbie. The low light performance was
impressive, making it a good choice as a party camera, considering its
diminutive size.

                            *    *    *

In short, the iPhone 3G S is a surprisingly capable camcorder.
It’s at least as good as the standard definition Flip Mino,
and offers an exceptionally intuitive interface that far exceeds the
typical, labyrinthine experience of a full-featured video camera.
Lacking HD, it falls short of being a complete replacement, but we are
very impressed with Apple’s first time out on the field.

Speaking of HD, I have to think that just as Flip and other manufacturers of tiny video camera started out with SD versions and then came out with equally small HD versions, Apple will one day have an HD video camera in the iPhone.  In fact, I’ve seen reports that the iPhone 3GS can technically handle HD 720p video, but presumably Apple is not enabling that feature because, among other problems, it would severely drain the battery.  I wonder if the June, 2010 version of the iPhone will be called the iPhone HD and add HD video and better pictures?

Voice Control

Hold down the Home button on the iPhone 3GS and you jump into Voice Control mode, where you can talk to your iPhone to have it call someone or play music on the iPod app.  Helpfully, the possible commands that you can say float by in the background when Voice Control is on.  In my experiences, sometimes this feature works great, but other times it misunderstands me and reminds me of that classic clip from the Simpsons that makes fun of the handwriting recognition on the Apple Newton.

Because it sometimes doesn’t work, and because I don’t find that I have much of a need to use Voice Control, I really haven’t used it very much this past week.  And I was tempted to tell you that Voice Control isn’t a good reason to upgrade when I ran across this post from my friend and fellow New Orleans lawyer Ernie “the attorney” Svenson.  I respect Ernie’s opinions quite a bit, and he believes that Voice Control is the “best new feature” of the iPhone 3GS.  He demonstrates why in this part of his post:

1. Hold down the middle button (equivalent to the ‘Home button’) until Voice Command announces
2. Say “call John Appleseed [short pause] mobile’
3. Wait for confirming announcement, which if correct means I just wait for the phone to start ringing.

Ernie makes a compelling argument, and I suppose I’ll have to give Voice Control more time.  If you are trying to decide whether to upgrade, this feature might be an important consideration.

Increased storage

There isn’t much to say here.  If you find that your current iPhone is often full, then you can use more storage.  If not, then you don’t need this feature.

I was frequently running low on space on my 16 GB iPhone 3G, so I appreciate the increased elbow room on the 32 GB iPhone, but it all comes down to video and music.  If you don’t store a lot of video and music on your iPhone, then you probably won’t need extra storage space.  With few exceptions like this one, it is rare for iPhone apps to take up much space, and you would have to have an insane number of e-mails, contacts and calendar entries for that data to take up much space.

…and the rest

Although I don’t consider the other six new features of the iPhone 3GS important enough to justify the upgrade, they are certainly nice.  For example, the compass makes it quick and easy to orient yourself in the Map app.  I don’t like the feel of the included iPhone headphones so I use the the Apple In-Ear Headphones, but on either headphone I love being able to change the volume on the headset without having to touch the buttons on the side of the iPhone.  And the oleophobic coating really does work, helping to resist fingerprint smudges and making removing smudges on the screen as quick as a simple swipe on my shirt.

Recommendation

If you use the first generation iPhone, now is the time to upgrade.

If you use the iPhone 3G, and if you consider yourself just a casual iPhone user, then I probably wouldn’t worry about upgrading.  Most of what is great about the iPhone 3GS is also in the iPhone 3G.  Wait until next year and you can take advantage of these 11 new features plus presumably many more.

But if you are a more serious iPhone 3G user, one who uses the iPhone every day throughout the day, you will want to give serious consideration to the five new features I outlined above.  There is little question that the new iPhone 3GS would make you happier, and if you are eligible to take advantage of the $199 or $299 price, then for you it may well be worth it.  For less than a dollar a day over the next year, you can have a much more enjoyable iPhone.  It was well worth it for me.  But it would have been a much harder decision if it would have cost me $499, so if you are in that boat, then that’s a tough decision and you have my sympathy.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the iPhone 3GS, including why you did or did not upgrade and, if you did, what you like best about the 3GS.  If you have a moment, share your views in the comments.

Following up on my last post on this subject, here are some additional tips and shortcuts that I have come across in iPhone Software 3.0.  You might also want to check out this post and this post from last year regarding shortcuts in the prior version of the iPhone software because many of those shortcuts still work today.

Search, ASAP!  The iPhone has long had a shortcut to bring you back to your first home screen.  When you are on one of the later pages of your Home screen, press your Home button once to jump to the first page.  That shortcut still works today.  Additionally, with 3.0, if you press your Home button when on your first home page, the iPhone brings you right to the search screen.  You could do the same thing by just swiping to get to that screen on the left, but I find it faster to press the physical button.  And when you are on the search screen, you can press the Home button again to get right back to the first home screen.

Ellipses.  I recently wrote about how you can hold down the hyphen key for a second or two to have the option to make an em dash.  There is a similar shortcut for and ellipses.  You can always just type the period three times … for a makeshift ellipses, but if you want to make a proper ellipses with the dots even closer together, you can now hold down the period for a second or two and a menu will pop up that allows you to insert a single character ellipses, such as …

E-mail pictures at highest quality.  If you take a picture with your iPhone and then tap the icon on the bottom left of the photo, the iPhone gives you the option to E-mail the photo.  That button makes it easy to do so, but note that the iPhone will automatically scale down the photo to 800 x 600 if you do so.  To send the highest quality version of the photo, go to the camera roll and hold down your finger on the thumbnail of the photo until the Copy menu pops up, which you can tap to copy that one picture.  (Or alternatively, tap the icon at the bottom left of the camera roll, and then tap multiple pictures that you want to send and then tap the copy button at the bottom to copy them all at once.)  Then go into an e-mail, and paste the photo(s) into the body of the e-mail.  This will send the photo at full resolution, which is 2048 x 1536 on an iPhone 3GS, and is 1600 x 1200 on an iPhone 3G.  Most of the time that I send a picture via e-mail on my iPhone, I’m just looking to send a “hey take a quick look at this” type of e-mail so I don’t really mind the scaled down 800 x 600 photo, but if you want to send the highest possible quality version, this is how.  (Thanks to Jon Martin and his Geek Stuff website for this tip, and to Daring Fireball for the link.)  Note that pictures in your iPhone’s Photos app that were synced to your iPhone from your computer are already scaled down (such as 640 x 426 format), which is just a slightly higher resolution than the iPhone’s 480 x 320 screen, so it doesn’t much matter whether you let the iPhone e-mail the photo directly or if you copy-and-paste into an e-mail.  Either way, you will be sending a scaled down version of the original picture.  So this tip only makes a difference for pictures that you take using the iPhone that are still in your camera roll.

Hold on links.  In Safari, if you hold your finger down on a link, you will get three options:  (1) open the link (which is the same as just tapping it), (2) open in a new page, a handy way to look at the linked item but keep your current page, and (3) copy the link URL.  Very useful.

Share contacts.  There is a new “share contact” button at the bottom of each individual contact on the iPhone.  If you tap it, it loads the contact info into a vCard and attaches it to an e-mail, which you can then send to one or more friends.  You could even share yourself — make a nice contact entry for yourself with all of your addresses and numbers, and then send it to your friends.  (Thanks to Ernie Svenson for this tip.)

Share text messages.  You can now forward an individual text message.  Just tap the edit button and tap on the text message you want to forward.  You’ll be given the option to delete that individual message or forward it.  The message arrives without any indication that it’s being forwarded so you’d have to alert the recipient of that fact in a previous text message.  And, obviously, this process allows you to delete individual text messages, which I don’t believe was an option before.  (Thanks to Ernie Svenson for this tip.)

Flick to select.  Apple has done a very nice job implementing cut, copy and paste.  One little detail that I noticed is in the text selection.  Double tap on a word and you will see the lines with blue dots indicating the end of the selection.  I’m sure that you know that you can tap and drag a blue dot to extend the selection, but one neat feature is that you can just flick a dot in a direction and the dot will keep moving until it hits the end of the word.  This shortcut can make it faster when you are selecting text.

Shake to undo.  [UPDATE]  I have previously noted that shake to undo is a feature of the 3.0 software, and I should have included it in this list of shortcuts.  Thanks to Jerry for reminding me by posting a comment to this original post.  In my prior post on 3.0 shortcuts and tips, I noted that I personally don’t like the shake to shuffle feature.  But shake to undo can be a time saver, not to mention it is sort of fun. 

If you have any other iPhone Software 3.0 tips or shortcuts, please post a comment or send me an e-mail so that we can share the tips or shortcuts with others.

This has been a big iPhone week for me personally.  The iPhone 3GS that I ordered last week arrived on Tuesday, and I have really loved the upgrade from my iPhone 3G.  The increased speed is wonderful; it makes the device feel so much more responsive.  I’ll post a full review after I have a chance to use it more.  There was also a huge spike in traffic to this website on Wednesday as lots of people came here to read about the new em dash feature in 3.0 and the missing en dash.  It’s interesting how many of us can get so interested in the little details, but perhaps not surprising when it comes to the iPhone; Apple is so good at producing polished products that we expect perfection even in the tiny details.  If you read the post when it first went up Wednesday morning, click here to read it again to see the update that I added later in the day about the cool Glyphboard web app and to read the very interesting comments. 

Anyhoo, here are some of the interesting iPhone-related items that I ran across this week.

• Which company has the best 3G service?  PC World conducted an extensive test of 3G speeds in various cities around the country, even down here in the Big Easy.  In short, PC World found that Verizon’s 3G service was the fastest and most reliable with an average download speed of 951 kbps across 13 cities, Sprint did well at maintaining a connection and had an average download speed of 808 kbps, and our beloved AT&T had an average download speed of 812 kbps, with individual tests in different cities ranging from 477 kbps in New York to 1259 kbps in Boston.  When you read the article, you may also want to check out this table showing different averages in different cities.
• I would have never thought of the iPhone as being something that you could service yourself, but Jeff Carlson writes in TidBITS about how he replaced the cracked screen on an iPhone for about $80 in parts and about 4 hours in time.  Even if you have zero desire to service your own iPhone, the pictures in Jeff’s articles that chronicle his iPhone dissection are interesting.  Jim Dalrymple also notes that Apple’s retail stores can now fix a broken screen in-house if your iPhone is still under warranty.  (Both links via Daring Fireball.)
• MacNN reports that the iPhone 3GS is #1 in the Consumer Reports smartphone ratings.
• Speaking of the fine folks at TidBITS, all of the titles in their excellent Take Control series of e-books are 50% off through July 7.  Click this coupon-loaded link to view the catalog.  Topics covered include the iPhone, Macs, iLife, AirPort networking, and more.
• Ars Technica reports that Apple has updated its MobileMe service.  Among other new features, you can now publish video taken with an iPhone 3GS directly to MobileMe.
• Macworld reports that Apple is already preparing iPhone Software 3.1 with new features such as (1) the ability to trim a video on the iPhone 3GS but save the original, longer version, (2) the ability to use Voice Control with Bluetooh earpieces, (3) fraud protection in Safari, (4) performance improvements and (5) a new AT&T profile that might mean that MMS is coming soon from AT&T.  As I noted earlier this year, iPhone Software 2.0 was released in July of 2008, followed by two minor bug fix updates the following month in August, the
  
  major 2.1 update in September, the major 2.2 update two months later in
  
  November, and then the 2.2.1 minor bug fix update in January of 2009.  If history is to serve as any guide, then we may see iPhone Software 3.1 released within the next few weeks.
• I reported earlier this week
  
  that Quickoffice was selling its Quickword app at a discount, $4.99
  
  instead of the normal $12.99.  Quickoffice was so happy with that sale
  
  that it discounted the rest of its apps.  You can now get the
  
  Quickoffice Suite for $12.99 instead of $19.99 (for the first 10,000
  
  buyers), Quicksheet, like Quickword, is also discounted to $4.99 (for
  
  the first 1,000 buyers), and Quickoffice Files is now just $o.99 (for
  
  the first 1,000 buyers).  By the way, a Quickoffice representative
  
  tells me that the next upgrade to Quickoffice will add the ability to
  
  open e-mail attachments (a feature that Documents to Go already has for
  
  Exchange), full support for iPhone 3.0 cut, copy and paste, and improved
  
  undo/redo. If you want both Word and Excel features on your iPhone, I
  
  recommend that you click here to get Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite
  
  ($12.99): 

  

• I wasn’t the only one to get an iPhone 3GS, and a whole bunch of you got it before I did.  AppleInsider reports on a leaked memo from AT&T that showed up first on MacDailyNews which reveals that Friday, June 19—the day that the iPhone 3GS launched—was the best ever sales day in AT&T’s retail store history and the largest order day in att.com’s history.  Considering the blockbuster sales of the iPhone 3G when it launched (not to mention its successful year since then), I’m amazed to see that even more people bought the 3GS at launch.
• And finally, David Dobin, an attorney in Massachusetts who is working as a judicial law clerk, has been teaching himself how to program iPhone apps.  He has a few apps on iTunes right now, but one that looks particularly useful is iDoClipboard.  When you launch the app, it automatically takes whatever you last copied and adds it to the app’s running clipboard.  You cap tap any item previously saved to the clipboard to view it or create an e-mail with that content.  The app is free, so if this sounds interesting to you, check it out.  Click here to get iDoClipboard (free): 

  

I recently traveled to Russia for a week, and while I was there I needed to call home quite often to keep in touch, participate in conference calls to keep up with my cases, etc.  I had an AT&T calling card with me, but to use it for international calls I would have had to use 10 minutes of calling card time for every one minute of talk time, and that is on top of the fees that my hotel was charging me to get an outside line.  I also could have used my iPhone to make an international cell phone call using a 3G service in Russia, but I suspect that would have cost me—and I am just guessing here—a million dollars a minute.  (I don’t know what the roaming fee would have been, but I presume expensive.  My iPhone stayed in “airplane mode” the entire time I was abroad, although I did keep Wi-Fi turned on.)  Instead, I decided to try out the Skype app for the iPhone.  It was released a while ago and I downloaded it as a curiosity just because it was free, but I hadn’t had a chance to use it yet.  I was very happy to discover that Skype on the iPhone is truly amazing.

I know that there are many of you who use Skype on your computer all the time, either to video chat or audio chat with people or as an instant messaging client.  I have used Skype for video chats once or twice before, but most of my family and friends have Macs at home so we instead use iChat to video chat.  So essentially, before my trip, I was a Skype newbie.  Before I left town, I had gone to the Skype website and purchased $10.00 worth of Skype credit.  I wasn’t even sure if it would work, but I figured $10.00 was a small price to pay to find out.  I also set up an option so that if my $10.00 was used up, Skype would automatically charge my credit card for another $10.00.

I was happy to learn that my hotel in Russia had free Wi-Fi, making it very easy to use my iPhone to keep up with e-mail etc.  When I needed to call home, I just fired up my Skype app on my iPhone.  There are five buttons at the bottom of the screen:  Contacts, Chats, Call, History and My Info.  The My Info button tells you how much Skype Credit you have remaining, and to make a call I just tapped the Call button to see a familiar number pad:

To call a number in the U.S., I just dialed the area code and the number and tapped Call.  After just a few seconds, I was talking just the same as if I was using the iPhone’s normal phone function.  The call quality was excellent, and people had no idea that I wasn’t calling from a regular land line in the U.S. until I told them that I was out of the country.  For short calls, I just held my iPhone up to my face (which causes the screen to go black, just like the regular phone app) but for longer calls, I used my Apple In-Ear Headphones (which I really love) and slipped my iPhone into my front shirt pocket.  With this arrangement, I could even walk around while I was talking on the phone.

There were two times during long conference calls that I lost my Wi-Fi connection for a moment (after being on a call for about 30 minutes) and, of course, also lost my Skype connection.  I was able to immediately call back as soon as I re-established my Wi-Fi connection and get back on the call.  And once, the other parties said that they heard a lot of static from my line, so I tapped the “mute” button in Skype for a few minutes to solve the problem.  But aside from those minor, isolated issues, I was able to call home without any trouble dozens of times.

Most importantly, the calls were incredibly cheap.  Calls to U.S. landlines and cellphones from Russia (and I believe from anyplace in the world) cost just 2.1 cents a minute.  Calls to 1-800 and other toll free numbers were free.  If you want to use Skype to call numbers in other countries, the costs are a little higher, and you can click here for a chart with international rates.  All told, after several dozen calls over a week, many of which lasted a long time, I barely used $4.00 of my Skype credit.  As any of you who try to call the U.S. from other countries know, you can easily spend over $4.00 for a single call.  Thus, as far as I was concerned, Skype allowed me to call home for essentially free.  Indeed, if I had called people who were using Skype, my calls would have been completely free, but I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone at home by making them use a computer or an iPhone to talk to me.

There is also a History button to see who you called and how long you were on the phone.  You can also get that same information on the Skype webpage by looking at your account.

Using Skype to make phone calls is so much like using the normal iPhone Phone app that there was even one time while I was talking to someone that I exited the Skype app to check something in an e-mail, only to quickly remember that while I can do this on a normal phone call, the iPhone doesn’t allow third party apps to run in the background, so exiting the Skype app caused my call to end.  Oops.  I quickly called back and apologized for dropping the call.

Note that I only used my iPhone to make calls on Skype, not to receive them.  The app does allow you to receive calls, but I would have had to run the Skype app when they called me, and especially with the time difference that was just not convenient.  Instead, I found myself checking my voice mail frequently, and after someone left me a message I would call them back.  Other times, I scheduled phone calls with people via e-mail, and then I was always the one to initiate the call.  Also, note that Skype on the iPhone cannot initiate or receive video; this is audio-only, just like using the normal iPhone Phone app.

If you plan to travel internationally and want to avoid expensive fees to call home, I strongly encourage you to download the free Skype app and purchase some Skype credits.  You will have to find Wi-Fi to use it, but you can usually find Wi-Fi somewhere when you are traveling.  Of course, you can also use Skype on a computer, but carrying a laptop with you while you travel is a pain, plus talking on a laptop is not natural.  Talking on an iPhone is very natural because it is, after all, a phone.

Click here to get Skype (free): 

Apple tells us that there are over 100 new features in iPhone Software 3.0.  One of them is the addition of the em dash.  I haven’t seen much discussion of the em dash feature on other websites—which doesn’t really surprise me—but because many lawyers appreciate precise legal writing, I thought I would discuss it here today.  And yes, I did just effortlessly use em dashes in my last sentence.  That’s just the kind of guy I am.

Let’s start by talking about the three kinds of dashes.  First, there is a hyphen, which purists will correctly note isn’t a dash at all, even though most of us think of it that way.  The hyphen is the key on your computer keyboard right next to the zero key. 
Hyphens are used to create some compound words (such as merry-go-round)
or to indicate subtraction.

Slightly longer than the hyphen is the en
dash, which is used to indicate a range of values, such as an
indication that a meeting is scheduled for 10:00–11:00 a.m.  The en dash is also used when indicating the vote of a court, such as: the Supreme Court affirmed in a 5–4 decision.  It sometimes helps to think of the en dash as a substitute for the word to.  The en dash
is roughly the width of the letter n. 

Finally, and slightly longer
than the en dash, there is the em dash.  An em dash is roughly the
width of the letter m and is used to set off an abrupt break or
interruption, such as this example from Strunk and White:  His first
thought on getting out of bed—if he had any thought at all—was to get
back in again.  An em dash is also used to indicate that a sentence has been interrupted and did not end.  For example, what if I said—

There is some disagreement on whether you should place spaces on both sides of an em dash.  You’ll find seemingly authoritative sources on both sides of the debate.  The Wikipedia entry on “dash” sums it up as follows:

According to most American sources (e.g., The Chicago Manual of Style) and to some British sources (e.g., The Oxford Guide to Style),
an em dash should always be set closed (not surrounded by spaces). But
the practice in many parts of the English-speaking world, also the
style recommended by The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, sets it open (separates it from its surrounding words by using spaces or hair spaces
(U+200A)) when it is being used parenthetically. Some writers, finding
the em dash unappealingly long, prefer to use an open-set en dash. This
“space, en dash, space” sequence is also the predominant style in German and French typography. 

If you want to read more on hyphens, en dashes and em dashes, click here for a short but good discussion in the Chicago Manual of Style Online.

I can’t say that I am religious about the hyphen, en dash and em dash, either on this website or in my legal writing.  Sometimes instead of the em dash I just use a double hyphen like this — which seems to get the point across just fine.  (Indeed, Microsoft Word will automatically convert two dashes to an em dash when you type the two dashes between words without using spaces.)  Sometimes I use the space, en dash, space sequence.  Nevertheless, it is nice to have the power to use a hyphen or a dash when you want to do so.  The iPhone has always included a hyphen, and in
iPhone Software 3.0, you can also now make the em dash.  To do so, just
hold down the normal hyphen key for a second or two and a pop-up menu will
appear that allows you to choose the em dash.

So now we can make the hyphen and the em dash.  What about the en dash?  The iPhone can certainly make the en dash
character, and if you want proof, just load up this webpage on your
iPhone and look at this:

• – hyphen
• – en dash
• — em dash

The iPhone can render the en dash correctly, but it is impossible to
type it on the keyboard.  There may be a way to type it from one of the many international keyboards on the iPhone, but if so I haven’t found it yet.  There is one workaround with the new copy and paste
function of 3.0: if you are desperate to use an en dash, you
can copy it from someplace else and paste it where you want it such as in an
e-mail.  For example, you could copy the en dash above from this web page, and I am happy to provide this service free of charge. 

[UPDATE: As pointed out by Jon and Fuzzy in the comments, Glyphboard is a free workaround for the missing en dash and many other missing characters on the iPhone keyboard.  [UPDATE#2: Glyphboard’s author Neven Mrgan tells me that he added the en dash to his app this morning after he saw the initial post here on iPhone J.D.  Thanks, Neven!]  There is a nice review of Glyphboard here on MacGeek Pro, and Steve Rubel has a quick video demonstration of it here.  To get it working, 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 en dash, as shown here:

You even get the Daring Fireball star-in-a-circle logo, and indeed John Gruber even linked to Glyphboard earlier this month when I was out of the country.  Note that if you paste these symbols in an e-mail, not all of them will display on all computers.  For example, I did a quick test and the en dash, the happy face, the heart, the music notes, the paragraph sign, the copyright sign and the spade displayed fine using Outlook on my PC running Windows XP, but the star-in-a-circle, the yin-yang, the umbrella, the check mark, the skull-and-crossbones, the snowman, the envelope and the Apple (it’s a conspiracy!) did not display on my PC.  Thanks again to Neven Mrgan for writing this very cool little app.]

Will Apple ever give us the en dash on the iPhone?  Maybe not.  I don’t own a copy of the AP Stylebook for journalists, but from what I have read (and confirmed here) the AP doesn’t even recognize the en dash and tells journalists to instead use the hyphen.  But I’d like to think that smart Apple engineers are hard at work on this feature right now, and at some point, perhaps in iPhone Software 4.0 next year, we’ll have an en dash option right next to the em dash when you hold down the hyphen key.  A boy can dream.

Quickword — which is just like the $19.99 Quickoffice app but only contains the MS Word features — is usually sold for $12.99.  But the app is currently on sale, and the next 1,000 customers can get it for only $4.99.  If you don’t need spreadsheet support, then Quickword is a great alternative to Quickoffice, and at this price I strongly encourage you to give it a spin.  My review of Quickword is here.  My review of the full Quickoffice app is here. 

Also, remember that today is the deadline for the discounted prices on DataViz’s Documents to Go.  If you buy today, you can get Documents to Go with Exchange support for $9.99, or without Exchange for $4.99.  My review of Documents to Go is here.

I think that many attorneys will want the flexibility of having both Quickoffice/Quickword and Documents to Go on their iPhones, and at these discount prices, it is very affordable to do so.

Click here to get Quickword (currently $4.99): 

Click here to get Documents to Go with Exchange (currently $9.99): 

Click here to get Document to Go without Exchange (currently $4.99): 

Tip Calculators have been on iTunes since Day 1, and there are currently almost 100 of them.  I must admit that I used to think that they were a little silly.  I can definitely see using an iPhone to help you figure out a tip, but can’t you just use the built-in Calculator app?  Last week the folks at Quetouch Apps sent me a review copy of their
$2 TipBox app, and I have to admit, I now understand that these apps can be useful.

The basic function of TipBox is to calculate a tip.  In the preferences, you set your preferred tip amount; I use 20%.  When you get your bill, just enter the amount of the bill and the app will tell you how much to tip.  It is fast and simple.  What I find even more useful is the easy ability to divide the bill between multiple diners.  Just tap to enter the number of
diners and the app will divide the bill for you.  For example, as this screen shows, if my bill is $156.84 it only takes me a second for TipBox to tell me that the three diners should each pitch in about $63.  It would have taken me a lot longer to figure that out in my head.

If you want to be complicated about splitting the bill, you can
also quickly use a slider to tell the app how much of your bill was for
drinks and the number of drinkers, and this way the drinkers can pay
their fair share of the food and drinks and the non-drinkers just pay
their share of the food. 

The app has other features, such as allowing you to compute a tip pre-tax and allowing you to enter a default tax rate, but those don’t strike me as things that I would use.

The drawbacks?  This app only works in landscape mode, and I wish the number keys were just a little bigger.  I took a quick look at some of the other tip calculators on iTunes (although I didn’t download any of them) and this app seems to include the same features that others have.  Many of the others are in portrait mode, so if that is your personal preference you might want to look at another one.  Other than that, TipBox is a nice app that I can see being useful the
next time you need to figure out the tip, especially if you are going Dutch* and want
to save yourself the trouble of doing math in your head after a nice
meal (especially one that involves a lot of drinks).

Click here to get TipBox ($1.99): 

_____________

* It never occured to me that there might be anything derogatory about the phrase “going Dutch” until I read the Wikipedia entry on the phrase.  Apparently the phrase was coined in England during the Anglo-Dutch wars based on a stereotype of the Dutch being selfish.  Ironically, in Egypt, the practice is called Englizy, which translates into “English style”.  Some of my best friends are from the Netherlands, so I certainly hope that I have never offended anyone by using the phrase going Dutch, and if I did they should just point out that in Thailand, the same pratice is called อเมริกันแชร์ which means “American Share.”  So there.

It was another busy week for iPhone news.  Here are some of the articles and other items that I have run across this week that you might find interesting.

• Would you like to upgrade from an iPhone 3G to an iPhone 3GS?  Would you like to pay only $15 to do so?  Attorney Aaron Street explains how he did so on his Lawyerist website.  [As kwg notes in the comments, Street had an older, out-of-contract iPhone.]
• Alan Cohen writes this article for Corporate Counsel magazine entitled “Tasty Apps to Add to Your iPhone.”
• Bill Nye the Science Guy explains to Gizmodo what it means for the iPhone 3GS screen to be oleophobic.
• AT&T is now selling a $10 a month app that provides turn-by-turn directions on the iPhone.  Harry McCracken reviews the app on his Technologizer site.
• David Pogue of the New York Times has a cute video comparing the iPhone 3GS to all other cell phones.  If you missed it when it came out last week, click here to see it via iTunes.
• If you own an Apple TV, thanks to recent updates to that product and the Remote app, you can now control your Apple TV with simple finger gestures on your iPhone.  Macworld has more on the new features of Apple TV software 2.4, and TechCrunch has a nice video showing how this works.  For the most comprehensive look at what is new in Apple TV software 2.4, check out this iLounge article.  I own an Apple TV, and I have to say that the iPhone makes an Apple TV many magnitudes better.  They are a great pair.
• Wild West Pinball is a beautiful pinball game with amazing graphics and very nice game physics.  The game is simple, but quite fun.  It used to cost $2.99 but is now free.  Click here to get Wild West Pinball (free): 

  

• I’ve written before about Dan Lyons, the technology writer for Newsweek.  This week, Lyons wrote an interesting article for Newsweek entitled “Why We Need Steve Jobs.”  Lyons has also resumed writing as Fake Steve Jobs on his funny blog The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.
• Is that Obama on your iPhone or are you just happy to see me?  The President in your Pocket is a $1 app from Cohen Research Group — the folks behind Congress in Your Pocket — that includes information (name, photo, title, address, phone, news, bio, etc.) on 100 of President Obama’s top administration officials and their key deputies.  I haven’t tried it yet, but the developer says that you can send an e-mail to potus@congressinyourpocket.com for a free four-week trial.  Click here to get President in Your Pocket ($0.99): 

  

• Now that the iPhone 3GS has given a million people the ability to take video and upload it directly to YouTube, Ars Technica reports that YouTube saw a 400% increase in mobile video uploads since last Friday.  I suspect that number will only grow.
• And finally, thanks to the new age restriction features of iPhone Software 3.0, Wired reports that Apple has finally started to allow adult apps on iTunes.  I thought we had a lot of apps on iTunes already, but I can only imagine what is forthcoming.  Indeed, just hours after this first app added adult content, the developer had to temporarily pull it due to his sever exceeding its capacity.

It is no exaggeration to say that I have been waiting for DataViz to release Documents to Go for the iPhone since the day that I first purchased my iPhone 3G last year.  And since February of this year, I have been waiting for the app to be released “any day now.”  DataViz has a long history of providing smartphones with excellent document management and editing abilities, and with the iPhone’s amazing screen and touch gesture interface, I’ve always thought that Documents to Go on the iPhone could be the best platform yet for DataViz.

Last week, DataViz finally released Documents to Go for iPhone and I immediately purchased it.  My high expectations and long anticipation made me somewhat afraid that no matter what the app could do, I would be disappointed.  But after using the app for several days now, I must say that DataViz has done an amazing job.  This is still a 1.0 product with lots of room to grow, but I think that it is already an essential app for almost every lawyer, especially any lawyer that uses Microsoft Exchange (Outlook) for e-mail.

It is impossible to review Documents to Go (which I will just refer to as DTG) without comparing it to its only real competitor, Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite, so I will do so throughout this review.  I love Quickoffice, but DTG is currently a better app in several ways that many attorneys will find significant.

Editing word documents

The killer feature of DTG is, of course, the ability to edit Word documents, and it does that quite well.  You can edit text and format it in many different ways, including not only adding (or removing) bold and italics, but also add or remove underlining (which Quickoffice currently lacks).  This is a key advantage because while caselaw is sometimes italicized in my documents, other times the case names are underlined in my briefs and I can see that in DTG but not Quickoffice.  Another huge advantage is the ability to see (although not add) footnotes (and comments, which are handled the same way as footnotes).  Just tap once on a footnote to see a pop-up balloon showing you what the footnote says.  In Quickoffice, the app simply ignores footnotes, and you don’t even see an indication that the footnote exists but is not being displayed.  Here is an example of a brief in DTG that has a footnote.  Tap on the footnote to see the pop-up baloon as shown on the right:

DTG also has a ton of other formatting options, made possible by the fact that the status bar at the bottom of the screen can be scrolled by simply swiping left or right.  That ingenious feature means that you can have lots of icons to tap to access features.  In Quickoffice, there are only six icons at the bottom, each of which triggers a pop-up menu for more options:

1. Character formatting (bold, italic, font type and size, text color and highlight)
2. Paragraph (allign left, center or right, add or remove indent, and bulleted list)
3. Keyboard (used to start typing)
4. Find
5. Cut, copy, paste, delete
6. Undo, redo

In DTG, there are currently 13 icons, each of which triggers a pop-up menu for more options, and DataViz has ample space to easily add many more in the future.  The current icons are:

1. Save, save as
2. Cut, copy, paste, select all
3. E-mail the current document
4. Character formatting (bold, italic, underline, text color, highlight color)
5. Paragraph (align left, center, right, full justification, or distributed across the page)
6. Bullets and numbering
7. Add or remove indent
8. Find and replace
9. Zoom (from 50% to 200%)
10. Go to the top, middle, or bottom of the document
11. Undo, redo
12. Word count
13. Document details (title, size, modification date)

I don’t see that you can change the font or font size in DTG, but other than that DTG includes all of the formatting features of Quickoffice and adds many more.  Both apps allow you to view or edit in portrait or landscape mode.  Quickoffice lets you zoom by simply pinching, whereas in DTG you have to tap the zoom menu button, but DataViz says that the 1.1 update will add pinch zoom.  Quickoffice also gives you the option to view a Word document full screen (without any menus taking up screen space) when in landscape mode.  This is currently missing from DTG but is said to be coming in the 1.1 update.

Like Quickoffice, DTG offers cut, copy and paste, but both of these apps currently only offer these features within the apps themselves.  Thus, you cannot copy text from a website and paste it into a Word document.  I presume that both Quickoffice and DTG will soon replace their proprietary cut/copy/paste features with the iPhone 3.0 built-in functions to solve this problem.  Indeed, I look forward to this because Apple’s cut/copy/paste implementation is much more elegant than the implementation in DTG, although Quickoffice’s implementation is much closer to Apple’s implementation.

DTG, like Quickoffice, also lets you create a new Word document.

Transferring documents to and from DTG

There are three ways to access files in DTG.  You can access files that are saved locally to the iPhone.  You can access files that are local on the iPhone but also synced with a computer.  And finally, you can access attachments to Exchange e-mails.

One of the most compelling features that DTG offers but Quickoffice lacks is the
ability to access attachments to your e-mails, assuming that you use
Microsoft Exchange.  DTG does this by essentially including a simple
e-mail app within the DTG app.  You have to first configure the e-mail app by giving it
your Exchange server information, name, password, etc.  I had some trouble
with this at first, but after I got it set up correctly it has been
working great.  You can tell DTG to access your e-mails from the last 1
day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks or 1 month.  Then you tap Attachments on
the main DTG screen, tap the sync button, and the app will go through
all of your e-mails from the specified time period and show you just
the e-mails that have attachments that can be viewed by DTG.  You can
then tap an e-mail and download the attachment.  You can also save the
attachment to the Local Files on the DTG app so that you will always
have the document locally even if you don’t have e-mail access or the e-mail has been moved or deleted.
After you edit the document, you can then send a new e-mail with the
revised document as an attachment, and this all takes place within the
DTG app without even launching the normal iPhone Mail client.  The
Exchange e-mail features are awesome and a huge advantage over
Quickoffice.

The other way to get documents to and from DTG is to use Wi-Fi to sync with a computer on the same Wi-Fi network.  If you previously used DTG on a Palm device, such as a Treo 650, this will all look very familiar.  Using a program on your computer (available for either Mac or PC) you identify files or entire folders to be synced with the iPhone.  Whenever the document is changed on the computer, a sync will send the latest version to the iPhone.  Whenever the document is changed on the iPhone, a sync will send the latest version to the computer.

I really like the ability of Quickoffice to act like an external drive on your computer so that you can just drag and drop files to the iPhone.  DTG cannot do that, but Quickoffice lacks the DTG syncing feature that you can use to keep the latest version of a document on both the iPhone and the computer.  Which approach is better just depends upon your personal preferences and how you plan to use the app.

DTG also lacks the ability to access documents in your MobileMe iDisk, another feature of Quickoffice.  But I suspect that most attorneys will find the ability to download attachments from an Exchange e-mail far more useful than the ability to access files on iDisk.

Excel, PowerPoint, etc.

You can also view Excel and PowerPoint files using the iPhone’s built-in viewer capabilities, but unlike Quickoffice, DTG cannot currently edit Excel files.  DataViz says that editing of Excel files is coming and will be a free upgrade when it is available.

You can also view PDF files, iWork ’08 files, web page (.htm or .html) files or image files (BMP, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, SVG and PNG).

Documents to Go vs. Quickoffice

Although DTG for the most part has more features, there are some things that I like more about Quickoffice.  First, Quickoffice seems faster to me.  DTG seems particularly slow when typing text.  I also like that Quickoffice has an option to require a PIN when launching the app.  I have added many sensitive files to my Quickoffice app, and in the event that someone else gets access to my iPhone — whether it be a thief or even just my three year old son who likes to play with my iPhone — he cannot get into my Quickoffice files and view or change them without the four digit PIN.

Although both apps can handle pictures, Quickoffice does a nicer job with them by including a slideshow feature and the ability to advance through pictures in a folder without having to go back to the folder list to select a new picture.

I am sure that as I continue to use both apps, I will find more aspects of each that I prefer over the other.  Both apps are cheap enough that I suspect that many attorneys will want to have both Quickoffice and DTG on their iPhones.  Each app has different strengths, and as both apps are improved and add new features over the coming months and years, there may be times when you prefer to use one over the other.

I have been raving about the Exchange e-mail capabilities, but for those of you who don’t use Exchange for your e-mail, you’ll probably prefer Quickoffice.  Quickoffice can send a file to your iPhone’s Mail app, so you can attach a file to an e-mail no matter what e-mail provider you use.  With DTG, if you don’t use Exchange, than you can’t attach a file to an e-mail.

Buy it now!

DTG is a great app that will only get better as it is updated.  If your law firm or company uses Microsoft Exchange e-mail (and I suspect that most readers of iPhone J.D. use Outlook as a mail client, so this means you) then I encourage you to buy this app immediately.  Even with great apps like Quickoffice and DTG, editing files on an iPhone (or any other smart phone) is not ideal.  For any real word processing, it is always better to use a real computer.  But you never know when someone will send you an e-mail with a Word file
attached and you will have the desire to make just a few edits to the file and then e-mail the file back or to another person.  With DTG, you can do this on your iPhone even if you are far away from your desktop or laptop computer.

Even if you don’t want to edit a Word file, both DTG and Quickoffice are great apps to just view Word files.  Of course, the iPhone can already view a Word file attached to an e-mail, but by opening the attachment in DTG you can easily zoom in or out to make the text more readable without needing to pan back and forth because DTG (like Quickoffice) automatically reformats the document margins as you zoom.

I especially urge you to buy the app now because until June 30, 2009, the app costs only $9.99.  Starting July 1, the price will increase to … well, I’m not exactly sure to what, but the full version of Quickoffice currently costs $19.99 so I would expect a similar price for DTG.  There is also a $4.99 version of DTG, but it lacks the ability to work with Exchange e-mails.

Click here to get Documents to Go with Exchange (currently $9.99): 

Click here to get Document to Go without Exchange (currently $4.99):