Jeff Richardson

Fitz Collings is a first year law student at William and Mary Law School.  He got his undergraduate degree in Biology at Cornell, his masters in biotechnology at Harvard, and he plans to practice IP law when he graduates.

In August of 2008, Fitz wrote some web apps (websites specially formatted for the iPhone) containing various federal rules.  He recently converted them to iPhone apps so that you can access the rules even when you don’t have an Internet connection.  Fitz calls his company The Law Pod and he currently has four apps:  the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy.

The apps are straightforward.  Start the app and you will see a list of rules, listed by number.  Tap on a rule number to see the title and full text of the rule.  When you are looking at a rule, you can tap a “Previous” or “Next” button to browse through the rules.  

  

The apps also contain a search box at the top of each page.  On the app’s home page, you can enter a term and the app will show you a list of the rules that contain your search term.  You can then tap on one of the rules in the list to see the full text of the rule.    To find a term within a rule, you tap the search area at the top of the screen of a rule, and then as you start to type your term you will see the instances of the word highlighted.

  

Yesterday, I discussed the similar legal reference apps sold by Cliff Maier.  How do Fitz’s Law Pod apps compare?  Each has different strengths. 

One major difference is the layout of the home screen of each app.  In Cliff’s apps, the home screen is a list of titles.  You need to click on a title to see the rules within that title.  In Fitz’s apps, you see a full list of the rules, by number only, on the home screen of the app.  Cliff’s layout is better if you don’t know the specific rule you want and want to browse by subject.  Fitz’s layout is better if you know the number you want and just want to go straight there.  As I noted yesterday, Cliff’s app now features a “Jump” button that lets you jump straight to a rule or statute, but you might find it easier to just see a full list of all of the rules so you can scroll and then tap on what you want.

   

Another major difference is that Fitz lists the entire rule on a single page while Cliff has each subpart of a rule on a different page.  For example, if you want to see Fed. R. Civ. Pro 26(a)(1)(A), in Cliff’s App you need to tap Title V –> Rule 26 –> (a) Required Disclosures –> (1) Initial Disclosure –> (A) In General.  That’s five taps to get there, and you are only seeing that one part of the rule.  Compare that to Fitz’s app, in which you just tap on Rule 26 and you are looking at the whole rule, including that first part.  In Cliff’s apps, you can browse through subsections using arrows, but you might prefer Fitz’s layout in which the whole rule is in front of you at once, reducing the risk that you will read Rule 26(a)(1)(A) but forget about something in Rule 26(a)(1)(B).

   

Those two differences I just noted are largely issues of personal preference, and depending upon what I am doing I sometimes prefer Fitz’s apps and sometimes prefer Cliff’s apps.  When it comes to search, on the other hand, Cliff’s apps are superior.  As noted above, when you search in a Law Pod app you just see a list of rules, and when you first tap on a rule the search term is not highlighted unless you do a second search within that one rule.  In Cliff’s apps, when you do a search, you see a both the title of the rule and a contextual excerpt with the search term highlighted.  Moreover, search itself is more sophisticated in Cliff’s apps because you can search for a phrase or do a search for both terms or either terms (AND and OR searches); in Fitz’s Law Pod apps, there is only a single term or phrase search.  (Look at yesterday’s post to see pictures of these search functions.)

Other advantages of Cliff’s apps:  Cliff’s apps allow you to e-mail the text of a rule to yourself or someone else.  Cliff’s apps include the “Jump” feature noted above.  Cliff has many more apps, and allows for inter-linking between apps.  When you restart Cliff’s apps, you return to the rule you were last viewing.

Cliff’s apps clearly have more features, but be aware that Fitz tells me that he has updates planned for his apps which will add better search capabilities, virtual tabbing/bookmarking of
frequently used rules or sections, cross-linked rules, the addition of
notes, and stored user preferences.  Also note that you pay a little more for Cliff’s apps:  Cliff charges $2.99 for the federal civil, appellate and bankruptcy rules and $8.99 for Title 18 (which includes both criminal law and procedure).  Fitz charges only $0.99 for his Law Pod federal rules apps.

So which should you get?  I think the choice is easy.  GET BOTH.  This is not just me being glib; I prefer to have both sets of apps on my iPhone.  Sometimes I want to take advantage of the advanced features in Cliff’s apps.  But for just a single buck more, I can also access one of Fitz’s apps for those times when I know the rule number and just want to quickly browse through the entire rule.  I recommend that you do the same — no matter what your billing rate, you’ll spend more than a dollar of your time trying to choose just one! 

You can download each of the Law Pod apps from iTunes using these links:

• Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure – $0.99 –

  

• Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure – $0.99 –

  

• Federal Rules of Civil Procedure – $0.99 –

  

• Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure – $0.99 –

  

Or just click here for a page in iTunes listing all of Fitz’s Law Pod apps:

I’ve previously mentioned the numerous legal reference apps (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Patent Rules, etc.) sold by Cliff Maier, and even posted an interview with Cliff.  Over the last few weeks, Cliff has updated most of his apps to add some great new features.  If you already have one or more of his legal reference apps, here is what you should look for.  And if you are a lawyer who hasn’t purchased any of them yet, with these new features you should give them another look.

My favorite new feature is the “jump” button.  The home screen on Cliff’s apps lists the names of the titles, and you click on a title to see the rules.  For example, here is the first screen in the FRCP app, and then when you click on Title V, you can see a list of the rules in that title:

  

This is great if you are browsing and don’t know the number that you want, but what if you start up the app and just want to jump straight to Rule 26?  Now you can.  On the Home screen of the app, tap the “Jump” button in the top right, and then a dial will come up where you can enter each digit of the number that you want:

You can only jump from the Home screen, but you can quickly get to the Home screen by tapping the “Home” button at the top right of most screens.  Note that the “Jump” feature is available in most of Cliff’s apps, but Cliff tells me that a few won’t have “Jump” for technical reasons.

My second favorite new feature is vastly improved search.  By default, if you type in two words the app will search for that phrase, but you can instead choose to search for the first term AND the second term, or the first term OR the second term.  The app starts to search even while you are typing, so you often only need to type the first part of a word to get the result you want.  After you have typed your terms, you can click the blue “Search” button at the bottom right to go to a full-screen mode where each hit is listed (and color coded white or gray to make it easy to see each hit) with your search terms highlighted.

  

Another nice new feature is inter-linking between the apps.  For example, if you are using the FRCP app and a rule has a reference to a statute that is in Title 28 of the U.S. Code, you will find a link at the bottom of the rule that you can tap to launch the Title 28 app (assuming you have it on your iPhone) and display that statute.  

  

Inter-linking works especially well because of another new feature:  when you leave an app and then return to it later, the app automatically takes you to the rule you were previously viewing.  So you can look at a rule, link to a statute, then go back to the FRCP app and see the rule again.  And even if you are not using inter-linking, it is nice to be able to use an app, then use some other apps on your iPhone, and then go back to the legal reference app and pick up right where you were.

There are also some user interface improvements to the apps, such as different font sizes based upon the indentation level, more use of bold and italics, arrows at the bottom of each screen that make it easy to browse forward or backward, plus a new color scheme (brown instead of the standard iPhone blue-gray).  And there are a few content improvements as well, such as indications of history and effective dates for many rules and statutes.

Not every one of Cliff’s apps has all of the new features I described in this post yet, but the new features are being rolled out in updates to almost all of Cliff’s apps.  Click here to see a page in iTunes listing all of Cliff’s apps, or here is the full list of his legal reference apps as of today, along with the price and a link to download in iTunes:

Federal Laws (except for IP):

• Bailout (the Economic Stabilization Act of 2008) – $1.99 – link
• Constitution – $0.99 – link
• Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure – $2.99 – link
• Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure – $2.99 – link
• Federal Rules of Civil Procedure – $2.99 – link
• Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure – $2.99 – link
• Federal Rules of Evidence – $2.99 – link
• Securities (Securities Act of 1933, Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Investment Company Act of 1940, Investment Advisors Act of 1940, Sorbanes-Oxley) – $4.99 – link
• Title 11 (bankruptcy) – $3.99 – link
• Title 15 Sorbanes-Oxley – $1.99 – link
• Title 18 (criminal law and procedure) – $8.99 – link
• Title 21 (Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act) – $3.99 – link
• Title 28 (civil procedure) – $7.99 – link

Intellectual Property Laws:

• CFR Patents – $7.99 – link
• Patent Cooperation Treaty – $7.99 – link
• Patent Local Rules N.D. Cal. – $0.99 – link
• Patent Rules – $2.99 – link
• Title 15 Lanham Act (trademark) – $1.99 – link
• Title 17 (copyright) – $2.99 – link
• Title 35 (patents) – $2.99 – link

State Evidence Rules:

• California Evidence Code – $1.99 – link
• Maine Rules of Evidence – $1.99 – link
• Michigan Rules of Evidence – $2.99 – link
• Nevada Rules of Evidence – $2.99 – link
• Oregon Rules of Evidence – $2.99 – link
• Pennsylvania Rules of Evidence – $1.99 – link
• Tennessee Rules of Evidence – $1.99 – link
• Washington Rules of Evidence – $2.99 – link

Other State Laws:

• Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure – $4.99 – link
• Delaware General Corporation Law – $1.99 – link
• Minnesota Uniform Commercial Code – $1.99 – link

I love having the rules and statutes that I frequently use at my fingertips, and with these new improvements, Cliff’s apps are sophisticated and polished. 

Ever wonder why there is an “i” in iPhone?

Apple has been using a lowercase “i” to begin many of its product names ever since Steve Jobs introduced the first iMac computer on May 7, 1998.  His explanation for the “i” at the time was as follows:

iMac comes from the marriage of the excitement of the Internet with the simplicity of Macintosh.  Even though this is a full-blooded Macintosh, we are targeting this for the #1 use that consumers tell us they want a computer for, which is to get on the Internet — simply, and fast.  And that is what this product is targeted for. 

“i” also means some other things to us.  We are a personal computer company, and although this product is born to network, it also is a beautiful stand-alone product.  We are targeting it also for education.  They want to buy these.  And it is perfect for most of the things they do in instruction.  It is perfect for finding tremendous sources of information over the Internet.  And we hope as you see the product it will inspire us all to make even better products in the future.

Internet.  Individual.  Instruct.  Inform.  Inspire.  Steve Jobs may have originally used those words to describe the iMac, but they sure do apply quite nicely to the iPhone, don’t they?

Of course, there was a long road from the “i” in iMac to the “i” in iPhone.  In July of 1999, Apple announced the iBook, Apple’s consumer laptop (which evolved into the current MacBook).  In October of 1999, Apple announced the iMac DV and introduced iMovie, Apple’s consumer video software.  On January 5, 2000, Apple released iTools (which evolved into the current MobileMe), iCards (now defunct) and iDisk.  On January 9, 2001, Apple released iTunes and iDVD. 

Later that year, on October 23, 2001, Apple introduced the iPod.  In Steven Levy’s book about the history of the iPod The Perfect Thing  — a great book that you should buy immediately if you would enjoy a behind the scenes look at Apple — he discussed the origin of the term “iPod” as follows:

It was Jobs who told everyone what the device would be called.  “He just came in and went ‘iPod,'” says one team member.  “We all looked around the room, and that was it.  iPod.  And we’re like, ‘Where did that come from?'”  (Excellent question, and one that proved increasingly elusive the more I pressed people at Apple about it.  Finally, I was able to corner Jobs on it and he said that to the best of his knowledge the name sort of emerged, not exactly in a form of immaculate conception but in a lengthy back and forth among him, his marketing people, and Chiat\Day.  “The ad agency loved it,” he told me.  But I got the distinct impression that the iPod moniker won out not because of its brilliance but because Jobs had had enough of the naming process and the hour was getting late.)  [pp. 46-47]

[UPDATE 11/29/11:  In the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, there is a single sentence describing the origin of the name:  “One of the copywriters suggested they call it a ‘Pod.’  Jobs was the one who, borrowing from the iMac and iTunes names, modified that to iPod.”]

After the iPod, other Apple “i” software products followed such as iPhoto and iChat in 2002, iLife in 2003, and iWeb in 2006.

Considering Apple’s long history of “i” products, it may now seem that it was obvious what Apple would call its phone.  But it wasn’t always clear that the iPhone would be the iPhone.  Before January of 2007,  there were rumors that Apple was working on a phone and speculation over what Apple might call it.  At the time, “iPhone” seemed like the logical front runner, but other names were rumored such as “iChat Mobile.” (Yuck!) 

Even after Apple announced in January of 2007 that it would ship the iPhone later that year, there was still some uncertainty about the name because Cisco insisted that it acquired the trademark to “iPhone” in 2000 when Cisco bought a company called Infogear Technology.  Just after Apple announced the iPhone, Cisco sued Apple.  Apple responded that other companies besides Cisco were using the term “iPhone” and that Apple was the first to use “iPhone” to refer to a cellphone.  (I doubt that Apple would still take the position today that anyone can use “iPhone” for a product.)  At the time, there was even recent precedent for Apple changing a product name to drop the “i” — on September 12, 2006, Apple announced a product that it called “iTV,” but then at the same Macworld Expo at which the iPhone was announced, Apple said that it would call the product Apple TV (presumably because Elgato was already selling a product called EyeTV.)  With all of this uncertainty, the first (and unfortunately, now gone) iPhone podcast called itself the “Apple Phone Show” instead of the “iPhone Show” in part because the show’s creator, Scott Bourne, wasn’t sure that Apple would use the name “iPhone” when the product shipped.

Eventually, of course, the uncertainty ended.  The Cisco-Apple lawsuit settled on February 21, 2007.  The terms were confidential, but Apple announced that the companies agreed that both companies could use “iPhone” and that they would explore opportunities to work together on issues like security and enterprise communications.  (And sure enough, there is a Cisco VPN client on the iPhone.)  By the time the iPhone was released on June 28, 2007, uncertainty about the name had already entered the history books.

So there you have it, a short history of the letter i.  If you want to return to those halcyon days of youth when Apple first announced the “i,” you can still watch a YouTube clip of Steve Jobs introducing the first iMac.  This was soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, and he had not yet started exclusively wearing his now trademark black turtleneck and jeans for his announcements.  But it was still vintage Steve Jobs, full of quips such as this one:  the back of the iMac looks better than the front of everyone else’s computers.  Here is the clip, which runs seven minutes:

In my post covering the announcement of the Palm Pre, I noted that Apple seems to be positioning itself to attack the Palm Pre as an infringement on Apple’s patents.  And Tim Cook said more on this in the recent Apple earnings call.  Nilay Patel, an attorney who writes for Engadget, and Mathew Gavronski, a patent attorney in the Chicago office of Michael Best & Friedrich, wrote a fascinating post on Engadget analyzing some of the patent arguments that Apple might make against Palm and some of the arguments that Palm might make against Apple. 

They note, for example, that Apple might not have a multi-touch patent as everyone seems to assume, but Apple does have patents on the way that the iPhone screen scrolls and bounces — features that the Palm Pre appears to copy.  They also note that Palm seems to have patents on some things that the iPhone does, such as automatically adjusting brightness, integrating a list of contacts into a phone, and adding an additional caller to an active phone call.

The Engadget article is a great read and I encourage any iPhone-using attorney to check it out:  Apple vs. Palm: the in-depth analysis.  And if you want to read more, PC World also has a recent article which asks:  Does Apple Own Touch Technology?

Does your iPhone sync with your law firm’s e-mail server?  Does your law firm (like most) use Microsoft Exchange?  If so, you might notice that your iPhone only keeps the last three days of e-mail on the iPhone.  That is the default setting when you set up your iPhone to work with an Exchange mail account.

But you can change this default setting.  Go to Settings –> Mail, Contacts, Calendars.  On the top portion of the next screen you will see your “Accounts” listed.  Tap on the entry for your Exchange e-mail.  Then on the bottom of the next screen, tap on the setting “Mail days to sync.”  Your choices are 1 Day, 3 Days (the default), 1 Week, 2 Weeks, 1 Month or No Limit.  Simply select “No Limit” and you will have unlimited e-mail.  Every e-mail that you see in Outlook will also sync to your iPhone.

You may notice at the bottom of the “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” screen that there is a setting under “Mail” called “Show” that allows you to show from 25 to 200 recent messages.  You might think that this means that you can only see up to your last 200 messages on your iPhone, but for Exchange mail accounts, this option is ignored.  This is a little confusing and it seems that Apple should tell you this — and they do if you know where to look; here is an Apple Knowledge Base article on the subject.  Thus, no matter what your “Show” setting, you will see anywhere from 1 day to 1 month to unlimited Exchange messages, depending upon what you set as your “Mail days to sync.”

Of course, the amount of e-mail you can store on your iPhone is subject
to how much free space you have on your iPhone.  But many companies
already impose a limit on the amount of e-mail you can store on your
Exchange server.  At my firm, that limit is 500 MB, and I consider it worthwhile to
devote up to one-half of one of the 16 GBs on my iPhone 3G to e-mail. 

Scrolling back through thousands of messages can take a little time,
but it is nice to know that the e-mails are there if you need them.  I wish that the Mail and Calendar apps gave you an option to jump to a specific date, and I also wish that you could search for a specific e-mail or search for a specific calendar entry — two features that would make it much easier to manage a large number of e-mails or calendar entries on the iPhone.  Hopefully this will be added in a future software update.

Thanks to my law partner Louis Lacour for mentioning the “Mail days to sync” option to me.

About two months after Apple released iPhone software 2.2, Apple today released 2.2.1 for the iPhone.  Apple says that the software update provides two fixes.  First, it improves the stability of the Safari web browser.  Second, it fixes some problems with saving pictures in an e-mail message to your camera roll.  Apparently the update does not add any new features to the iPhone, but it is always nice to improve the stability of Safari.

If you are interested in the history of Apple’s iPhone updates, there is a Wikipedia page that lists them all.  Looking at the most recent updates, the major release of the 2.0 software came out in July of 2008, followed by two minor bug fix updates in August, the major 2.1 update in September, the major 2.2 update two months later in November, and then today’s minor bug fix update two months later.  I wonder how long we will have to wait to see an update with new features?  Another two months?

To upgrade your iPhone, connect it to your computer, run iTunes, and click the Check for Updates button.

Last week, I discussed the iPhone-related portions of Apple’s latest quarterly earnings call.  One thing I did not mention was the very first analyst question.  It was a question about Steve Jobs’s health and whether Apple’s COO Tim Cook was the designated heir should Jobs not return.  I didn’t mention it because Steve Job’s health has been over-analyzed on so many other websites that felt no need to pile on here.

But a few days ago, I was listening to Ken Ray’s excellent daily podcast Mac OS Ken, and Ken read part of Tim Cook’s answer to that first question.  Hearing it again, it struck me that Cook wasn’t talking about Jobs as much as he was talking about Apple’s core values, the same values that led to the creation of (and improvements to) the iPhone. 

As I noted last week, you can download the audio of the entire earnings call on iTunes here, but even if you don’t listen to the whole thing, you might want to listen to just the short statement by Tim Cook on these Apple values.  I’ve excerpted just that part and you can click here to listen to the 1:42 clip.  Or if you don’t want to take the time to download that 1.6 MB file (or don’t want to make noise in your office when you really should be working!), here is the text of what Tim Cook said:

There is an extraordinary breadth and depth and tenure among the Apple
executive team, and these executives lead over 35,000 employees that I would call all wicked
smart.  And that’s in all areas of the company from engineering to
marketing to operations and sales and all the rest. And the values of
our company are extremely well entrenched.  You know, we believe that we’re on
the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing.  We’re constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the
complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary
technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in
markets where we can make a significant contribution.  We believe
in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on
the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in
deep collaboration and cross-polinization of our groups which allow us
to innovate in a way that others cannot.  And frankly, we don’t
settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company,
and we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage
to change. And I think regardless of who is in what job, those values
are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well. And
I would just reiterate a point Peter made in his opening comments that
I strongly believe that Apple is doing the best work in its history.

This is wonderful mission statement of Apple’s values. 

I see I wasn’t the only one who was struck by what Cook said.  Adam Lashinsky of Fortune magazine went so far as to label this statement the Cook Doctrine, remarking that “this shows an executive who has given tons of thought to what it means to lead Apple.”  As MacRumors.com notes, Lashinsky knows a little bit about Cook, having written a profile of him last November.  Others have also remarked on Cook’s statement, including Jason Snell of Macworld and Sam Diaz of ZDNet.

Whether you call it a “doctrine” or not, I was impressed by what Cook said.  As long as Apple’s executives and employees stay true to these values, Apple will be making great products for a long, long time.

David Mills is an appellate attorney in Cleveland, Ohio.  Last month he started a fun blog called Courtoons [UPDATE 5/18/09:  The site is now located at www.courtoons.net] where he posts a new legal cartoon every day.  There is not much of an iPhone angle here — David tells me that he uses a Blackberry — except perhaps that when you visit the website in Safari on your iPhone, the cartoons are a good size for an iPhone screen once you double-tap on a cartoon to zoom in.  Plus, it is Monday morning, which is reason enough for us all to deserve a chuckle.

I do a lot of appellate work, so I love that he has a lot of appellate humor here.  He also has a lot of funny cartoons related to criminal law.  You probably need to be a lawyer to get some of his jokes, but many have universal appeal.

His site is worth adding to your bookmarks for the next time you need a laugh.  Here are two of his recent cartoons that made me smile.

ABA TECHSHOW is a legal technology conference held in Chicago every Spring.  There are other small and large legal technology conferences, but I think this one is the best.  Unlike some other conferences, this one is not driven by companies trying to sell you something.  Of course, there is a great exhibit hall so you can see and try lots of new products, but the main focus is on the huge number of conference sessions, all of which are co-taught by dynamic lawyers and other legal professionals.

In 2008, I was invited to speak on two topics.  First, I spoke about preparing your law firm for disasters based upon my firm's experience with Hurricane Katrina.  (I practice in the New Orleans office of my firm.)  Second, I spoke about using a Mac to practice law when your firm uses PCs.  It was my first time at ABA TECHSHOW and I was blown away.  What a wonderful conference!  I learned so much from the sessions I attended and I met so many other attorneys who are interested in the law and technology.  I also met a lot of legal bloggers, and had I not attended, I might not have started iPhone J.D.

I am not a speaker this year, but once again the conference lineup looks great and I hope to be able to go.  I suggested to the ABA that they should include one or two full sessions on the iPhone.  They decided not to do that this year, but they are holding a roundtable session on Friday, April 3 from 12:30 to 1:30 called "Is that an iPhone in Your Pocket?" hosted by David Sparks, Ben Stevens and Reid Trautz.  With that great panel, it is sure to be a wonderful event.  I understand that they will discuss topics such as mobile access to files on your iPhone, references texts on the iPhone, mobile research on the iPhone, and many of the topics that show up on iPhone J.D.  I hope that the roundtable is well-attended in 2009 and that it expands to a full session or two in 2010.  This may well be your best opportunity in 2009 to talk with a bunch of iPhone-using attorneys in one room.

You can access a PDF file with the full conference schedule here.  The conference takes place April 2 through 4, 2009 at the Hilton Chicago.  Just to give you an idea of the breadth, the conference tracks (each of which has many sessions) are:

• A Day in the (Techno) Life
• E-Discovery Boot Camp
• E-Discovery Update
• E-Records Management
• Enterprise IT
• I'm a Mac
• Internet
• Large Firm / Corporate Counsel
• Paperless Practice
• Solo / Small Firm
• Tech for Client Development
• Tech for Financial Management
• Trial Skills
• Virtual Practice

If you are a lawyer or legal IT professional reading this blog, then I know that you are interested in legal technology and you would get a lot out of this conference.  Keep it in mind as you plan your CLE hours for 2009.  You can get more information at the ABA TECHSHOW website.

Yesterday, after the market closed, Apple held its First Quarter Fiscal Year 2009 Earnings Release Conference Call.  The purpose of the call was to announce Apple’s fiscal results for the last quarter and answer questions from analysts.  Apple announced that it had its best quarter ever, with revenue surpassing $10 billion for the first time in Apple history and record iPod sales.  I was especially interested to hear what Apple would say about the iPhone, and they said quite a bit.

Apple sold almost 4.4 million iPhones last quarter, which means that it has sold about 17,379,000 iPhones since they were first introduced.  Over 11 million of those are the current iPhone 3G model.  Tim Cook, the COO of Apple and the person currently running the show while Steve Jobs is on medical leave, said that numerous surveys report that the iPhone has the highest overall customer satisfaction.  Cook believes that the reasons for this are that the software on the iPhone is “still years ahead” of its competitors and that Apple has so many great third party apps available in the iTunes store.

Cook noted that the iPhone market is “clearly elastic” meaning that as the price has dropped, demand has increased.  Nevertheless, he suggested that $199 is currently the sweet spot, saying that Apple has no desire to play in the low end smart phone business and will let others do so.  “Our objective is not to be the unit share leader in the cell phone industry. It’s to build the world’s best phones.”  So I take that to mean that we won’t see an iPhone for cheaper than $199 for the foreseeable future. 

Cook also mentioned that as the economy slows down, sales in the smartphone market could decrease — especially since smartphones usually come with higher monthly fees.  Nevertheless, he said that Apple feels “very good about our competitive position as I said before and extremely good about our product pipeline.”  So you heard it here first, folks — Apple is planning to at some point release an updated version of the iPhone.

Cook was also asked to talk about the fact that iPhones are now for sale in Wal-Mart.  Cook responded:  “We just started working with Wal-Mart on iPhone at the very end of
December, and so we have not enough data to draw any conclusion about
performance. From a reach point of view, what Wal-Mart does is reach a
tremendous amount more people than we could reach in our stores.  Obviously,
they have over 4,000 or so storefronts and they are in areas of the
country that we have no Apple stores and so they provide a level of
reach beyond of what we would provide ourselves or beyond what AT&T
stores would provide. And so that’s the reason we’re there.”

Cook was also asked about the upcoming competitors to the iPhone, such as smartphones running Google’s Android operating system and the recently announced Palm Pre.  Cook said that one advantage for Apple is that the iPhone comes in just one model.  It is much harder for developers to create apps when there are “multiple variations of displays, multiple variations of resolutions and input methods, and many different forms of hardware.”  This indicates to me that Apple has a reason to keep future models of the iPhone similar to the current model, much like the original iPhone and the current iPhone 3G have similar screens with the same resolution and multi-touch features.

When I recently discussed the upcoming Palm Pre, I noted that the Pre software appears to copy a lot from the iPhone and I wondered whether Apple would assert infringement on its intellectual property, especially in the area of multi-touch.  Cook indicated that the answer is yes.  He first made the general statement that Apple likes competition, but only “as long as they don’t rip off our IP, and if they do we’re going to go after anybody that does.”  An analyst then followed up and asked if Cook was referring to the multi-touch interface on the Palm Pre.  Cook responded: 

I don’t want to talk about any specific company. I’m just making a
general statement that we think competition is good. It makes us all
better. And we are ready to suit up and go against anyone. However, we
will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we’ll use whatever
weapons that we have at our disposal. I don’t know that I can be
clearer than that.

I predict a lot of billable hours this year for IP attorneys representing Apple and Palm!

A few days ago, I noted Apple’s recent announcement that the iPhone now contains over 15,000 apps and that there have been over 500 million apps downloaded.  One analyst asked what percentage of those are paid apps and what percentage are free.  Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, responded that Apple is “thrilled” with the app store but wasn’t going to disclose that breakdown.

Those are the iPhone-related highlights from the call.  If you want to hear or read the entire earnings call yourself, you can do so.  First, you can click here to download the earnings call from iTunes.  (Apple usually only leaves them posted for about two weeks.)  Second, you can visit the Seeking Alpha website, which is where I got the above quotes.  Last year, Seeking Alpha started posting transcripts of Apple earnings calls about 5 hours or so after each call ends.  They create the transcripts using sophisticated text-to-speech software that is surprisingly accurate, but beware that the automatically-created transcripts do contain some errors.

My take on all of this?  Apple is doing incredibly well right now, and the iPhone is a major reason for that.  The iPhone will continue to sell very well this year, although current economic woes will limit that somewhat.  We will see another iPhone released this year, I predict this summer, and I expect that the cost and the basic iPhone shape and design will remain the same.  I expect that the next version of the iPhone will contain a few new hardware features and many new software features.  Hopefully for the 11 million iPhone 3G users, most of the software improvements announced later this year will also work on the current 3G model.  And when Palm is ready to release the Pre, Apple will be ready to sue Palm for IP infringement.

2009 will be an interesting year for the iPhone!