Jeff Richardson

I realize it is a little cliché for my first post of a new year to be about a fitness program.  Nevertheless, I’ve been using Apple’s new Fitness+ service ever since it debuted on December 14, 2020, and after doing 17 of the workouts over the last three weeks, I have used this new service enough to write this review.  My bottom line:  this service is excellent.  Fitness+ does a great job of using your Apple Watch to help you to improve your fitness.

What you need

The minimum requirements for using Fitness+ are an Apple Watch and an iPhone, but I think you will enjoy many of the workouts more if you use a larger screen such as an iPad or an Apple TV.  The Fitness+ service is built-in to the Fitness app on the iPhone and Apple TV.  If you use an iPad, you currently need to download the Fitness app from the App Store.

Some of the workout programs either require or allow you to use extra equipment.  For example, you need a treadmill, an indoor bike, or a rowing machine to use the Treadmill, Cycling, and Rowing programs.  For the Strength and High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) programs, many workouts encourage you to use dumbbells, but they are not required, and for some of those programs they are not used at all.  For other workouts like Yoga and Dance, you don’t need any extra equipment, although you might want a yoga mat if you have a hard floor.

For the next few months, you can try the Fitness+ service for free.  Everyone with an Apple Watch can use it free for one month.  If you buy a new Apple Watch, you currently get three free months.  And if you purchase a new Apple Watch from Best Buy, you can currently get six months for free.

If you decide to keep using the service after the free trial, the Fitness+ service costs $9.99/month, or you can save by paying $79.99 for a year.  You can share the service with up to six family members.  I get the Fitness+ service as a part of paying $29.95/month for the Apple One Premier plan, which includes Fitness+, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and 2TB of iCloud storage.  If you use lots of Apple services, the Apple One Premier is a good deal.  I was already subscribed to the Apple Music family plan, 2 TB of iCloud storage, Apple TV+, and Apple Arcade, and paying for those services individually would cost $35/month, so I saved $5/month by selecting this bundle while also getting access to Fitness+ and News+ for no additional charge.

Selecting a program

Fitness+ currently offers eight types of workouts:  HIIT, Strength, Yoga, Dance, Core, Cycling, Treadmill, Rowing.  There is also a ninth option, called Mindful Cooldown; I’m not sure that I would call it a “workout,” but it is definitely helpful for fitness.  Each Mindful Cooldown session features guided stretching and meditation exercises.  That one is especially useful as a way to stretch and relax after another workout.  The classes last from 5 to 45 minutes.

Once you select a type of workout on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV, you can select a specific workout program.  You can filter all of the available programs by length, trainer, or type of music.  New workouts are released every Monday.

At first, I picked out my workouts based on the type of music that I liked, but I soon discovered that the music genre does not matter much to me.  Even when I used a workout with a genre that is not normally my cup of tea, I found that the instructors did a great job of selecting music that fit with the particular workout.

I’ve now done workouts with nine of the 21 different trainers, and they have all been excellent … not that I’m surprised that Apple hired some of the very best trainers.  They do a great job of talking to you throughout the workout to guide you through what you are doing, what you may be feeling (such as the part of your body that you are stretching), and what is coming next.  They also do an excellent job offering encouragement at just the right time, causing me to push myself harder than I would have on my own.

All of the workouts offer descriptions and short video previews so that you can decide whether you are interested in a specific program.  You can also see a playlist of the music used in the workout if that makes a difference to you (and if you really like the playlist, you can open it in Apple Music if you subscribe to that service). 

Many of the workouts that I did were treadmill workouts.  For those, you can select whether you want to run or walk.

The Fitnesss+ app also includes a section called Workouts to Get Started, which are specially designed for folks who are new to, or just want an introduction to, a particular type of exercise.  For example, if you are new to yoga, you can do a 10-minute beginner session with the trainer Dustin, and after that, you can move on to a 20-minute beginner session with trainer Molly, and then move on to the regular yoga workouts.

Once you have selected the workout that you want to do, your iPhone or iPad or Apple TV will establish a connection with your Apple Watch.  Once that happens, you tap a big button on your Apple Watch or on the screen you are using to begin the workout.

Doing a workout

In most of the workouts that I tried, the trainer began by leading you through a few stretching exercises and explaining what you would be doing in the workout, and then the session begins.  There are typically three trainers on the screen at one time.  The trainer in the center is the one who does virtually all of the talking, the one who guides you through the program.  The trainer on the left does a modified, more simple, version of the same workout.  For example, in the Treadmill workout, the primary trainer will run but the trainer on the left will walk.  In one Strength workout that I did, the primary trainer used dumbbells but the trainer on the left did not.  The trainer on the right does a modified, more complex, version of the same workout. 

Note that in the Mindful Cooldown sessions, there is just a single trainer.  Also, there is just a single trainer in the beginner workouts.

In all of the workouts that I did, the primary trainer did an excellent job of coaching to all levels.  For example, in a treadmill workout, the trainer will tell you which incline percentage to use based on whether you are walking or running.  Also, in treadmill workouts, the trainer will help you at the beginning to find your “easy” pace and your “base” pace and then will guide you through increasing speeds by using subjective words describing how much you should be pushing yourself, and then will tell you to return to the base or easy pace.  As a result, I very much felt like each treadmill workout was tailored to me, even though the trainer was speaking to a wide range of skill levels.

But my favorite part of these workouts – and a key thing that makes Fitness+ different from the workout videos that you can find for free on YouTube or that you can pay for from other services — is the integration of the Apple Watch.  In the past, when I have used a treadmill, I’ve always found it a little awkward to have to raise my wrist to look at my statistics, and if I wanted to look at how I was doing with closing my circles it is even more awkward to have to switch screens on the watch while I am walking or running.  But with Fitness+, everything that you need to see is right there on the screen.

At the top left, you can see either the elapsed time or the time remaining in the workout.  (You can adjust the Metrics to set this option before you start a workout.)  Either way, you will also see a yellow circle that gives you a graphical representation of how much longer you have to go in the workout.  For treadmill workouts, you will next see your elapsed distance (estimated from your Apple Watch, not from your treadmill).  Next, you see your heart rate.  I really loved seeing this live information because it helped me to determine how much more I wanted to push myself.  Finally, you see the number of calories that you have burned so far during the workout.  At the top right, you see how you are doing on your activity rings, and you are rewarded with a short animation if you close your rings during the workout.

For HIIT, treadmill, cycling, and rowing workouts, you can also optionally choose to display a Burn Bar below the other numbers on the top left.  This gives you a sense of how you are doing versus other people who have done the same workout, based on the past two minutes.  It adds a bit of competition (albeit anonymous competition) that might help to encourage you to push yourself harder.

The trainer doesn’t change what he or she is saying during the workout based on your specific numbers.  I suppose Apple could add something like this in the future, although I’m not sure how useful it would be.  However, the trainer will sometimes direct you to focus on one of the metrics, and when that happens, the specific metric with your data will often become more prominent.  For example, if the trainer encourages you to focus on your heart beat, the other metrics on the top left will disappear for a few seconds and the display will instead focus on your current heart rate (while also showing your low and high during that workout).

Also, in many classes, the trainer will encourage you to push yourself for a limited period of time, such as keeping up a high pace for 60 seconds.  Whenever this happens, a countdown timer will show up on the top left above the other numbers.  This is a great way to encourage you to push yourself with the knowledge that the end of that intense segment is getting closer.

Subtitles are available if you want to turn them on.

When the next song starts playing during a workout, the title and artist are briefly displayed at the top right of the screen.

When you are done with your workout, you can see a summary of the workout either on your screen or on your Apple Watch with all sorts of statistics such as the total time, calories, and average heart rate.  And if you used the Burn Bar, you will see how you did compared to all of the other people who did the same workout.

 

If you want to go straight to a Mindful Cooldown session after a workout, there is a button to make it easy to jump right there.

The Fitness app also keeps track of all of your workouts, so it is easy to see all of the workouts that you have done in the past.

Additionally, when you are looking at all of the available workouts in the Fitness+ section of the Fitness app, a checkmark is placed in the corner of every workout that you have already completed.  Thus, it is easy to select a workout that you haven’t done yet.

What I love

I love getting all of the metrics that I want right there on the same screen that I am watching during a workout.  It makes the service much more engaging.  And it is infinitely better than having to look at your wrist while you are working out.  It is also nice that you don’t have to stop the workout on your Apple Watch at the end of the workout — that happens automatically.  They may sound silly, but when I’m sweaty and tired after a workout, it is sometimes a pain to have to tap and swipe to end, and it is always a pain when I forget to end the workout only to have my watch tap me a few minutes later to ask if I’m done.  There are none of those concerns with Fitness+.

I also love that the quality of each video is amazing.  And the streaming quality is also excellent:  crisp images with no compression artifacts.  If you watched any of the Apple keynotes that were done during the pandemic in 2020, you know how good Apple is with streaming video.  

I’ve been especially happy with the trainers in the videos.  They do an excellent job of explaining the workout as it is occurring, and the tips that they offer are very helpful.   And it is smart to show three trainers at once geared at different skill levels.  I like that I can look at either the middle or left trainer to see what I should be doing.  (No, I am not nearly good enough to ever keep up with the trainer on the right.)  And seeing three trainers also feels like you are part of a team, especially after you have done multiple workouts and you start to recognize the trainers on the left or right from other workouts that you did when they were the lead trainer. 

I also love that Fitness+ gives you a high-quality workout at home.  Of course, that is especially nice during this pandemic when going to a gym is unsafe and probably prohibited your area.  But even if I could go to a gym right now, the time, cost, and inconvenience would be a deterrent for me.  Plus, there is the intimidation of being in a public setting.  But with Fitness+, I was happy to try out some Dance workout videos, secure in the knowledge that nobody — not even the trainer — could see what a poor job I did following most of the moves.  I realize that this is nothing new; people have been Sweatin’ to the Oldies with Richard Simmons on VHS tapes and doing similar programs since at least the 1980s.  But this formula has been around for a while because it works, and Apple has definitely put a very polished and high-tech spin on at-home workouts.

If you like a particular workout session, you can save it to your favorites to make it easier to do it again.  For some workouts, like the Dance workouts, I can definitely understand the value in repeating them.  But I like the fact that there are lots of different workouts, with new ones added each week so that there is always something fresh to experience.

What I don’t love

I’ve only experienced one problem with the Fitness+ service, something that I think is some sort of bug.  Although Fitness+ always worked great with my iPad, I found that if I used Fitness+ on my Apple TV (I have the “Apple TV HD” model, which was introduced in 2015) while I was also using my AirPods Pro, the Apple TV would sometimes lose the connection to the Apple Watch shortly after I started a workout.  A few minutes later, the workout would end because of that lost connection.  To be precise, this happened to me during two of six workouts that I did while wearing my AirPods Pro.  I think that this problem may have something to do with using my AirPods because, so far, I have never experienced the problem when I was just using my normal TV speakers with the Apple TV, only if I was using my AirPods Pro.  Is the Apple TV having trouble communicating via Bluetooth with two devices at once — my Apple Watch and my AirPods Pro?  Hopefully, this is a bug that Apple will soon fix.

Conclusion

I mentioned above that because I already pay for the Apple One Premier service, it felt sort of like I was getting Fitness+ for free.  But after using this service for the past few weeks, I now see that this is a service that I would pay for separately even if it was not already part of my Apple One bundle.  Fitness+ is that good. 

And the service is still in its first month.  Over time, there will certainly be more workouts to choose from.  And because Apple is a technology company, perhaps we will see other improvements to how the service works with your Apple devices.

If you own an Apple Watch and you are interested in personal fitness, I encourage you to take advantage of the free trial and give Fitness+ a chance so that you can discover whether you like it as much as I do.

I’ve been using Apple’s AirPods Pro for almost a full year, and they are one of my all-time favorite Apple products.  I use them every single day to listen to music, listen to podcasts, participate in videoconferences, and conduct phone calls, and I love doing so.  And that really says something about this product because I love them even though I’ve had two problems.  First, I started to hear some weird crackling noises with them — a problem that Apple appears to have now fixed.  Second, when I use the silicone tips that Apple includes with AirPods Pro, they AirPods don’t stay in my ears very well. 

As a solution to that second problem, I added added some memory foam to to the silicone tips in early 2020.  I explained the process for doing so in this post, and that made a huge difference in getting the tips to stay in my ears.  But over the course of this year, I’ve had to replace the memory foam once or twice as it has fallen apart, and that has been a bit of a pain.

A few weeks ago, California attorney David Sparks mentioned on the 2020 Holiday Gift Guide episode of the Mac Power Users podcast that there are now vendors who do a good job of combining memory foam with silicone, and he recommended a product by Foam Masters called the Hybrid Silicone-Memory Foam Ear Tips.  They are only $15.99 on Amazon, and the product listing says that there is a 30-day money-back guarantee, so I figured that I had nothing to lose by trying them out.  I’m glad that I did because I find these even more comfortable than the ones that I created for myself, and they come ready-to-use with no assembly required.

Apple gives you three sizes of tips when you purchase AirPods Pro, and Foam Masters does the same thing.  Thus, when you purchase this product, you will get the tip size that works best for you no matter what size you prefer.  They come with a small clear plastic case that you can use to store any tips that you are not using.

You connect these tips the same way that you connect the Apple tips:  just push them on.  When you connect Apple’s tips, you feel a slight little click.  I didn’t feel that same slight click when I connected the Foam Master tips, which made me concerned that they were not connecting correctly.  Indeed, there were two different occasions when I removed the AirPod from my right ear and the tip became unattached and stayed in my ear.  Ugh.  I reached out to Foam Masters to ask about getting a replacement, and the company quickly wrote back to say:

I totally understand what you mean.  I can send you replacements, but I know exactly how to solve this problem.  The ear tip just needs to be pressed in harder for a nice secure fit.  Can you try using a toothpick to clean any possible debris around the bracket on the AirPods Pro itself?  And THEN connect the ear tip to the AirPods Pro.

I followed these instructions, and it turns out that there was debris around my AirPod bracket — ear wax can be sort of gross — and I was able to get it off using a toothpick, using the magnification feature on my iPhone so that I could make sure that all of the debris was gone.  And sure enough, this was a perfect solution for this problem.

The overall size of the replacement tips are the same size as Apple’s tips.  Thus, even with the large size attached, my AirPods Pro were still a perfect fit for the charging case.

Note that if you don’t want the silicone on the tips, Foam Master also sells a version of its tips with just the memory foam.  I didn’t try those because I prefer the feel of the silicone that you get with the hybrid model, plus the silicone cover makes the tips more resistant to sweat.  Perhaps that is the same reason that Apple decided to include silicone tips with the AirPods Pro, not memory foam.

Thanks to this inexpensive product, my AirPods Pro fit and feel better than ever.  I’ve used them when sitting down, when walking around, and when using my treadmill and getting sweaty (thanks to Apple’s new Fitness+ service).  No matter how active I am, the AirPods stay in my ears and sound great.

If the tips that Apple includes with AirPods Pro already are already perfect for your ears, then perhaps you don’t need to change anything.  And I’m a little jealous of you.  But if you have ever wished that your AirPods Pro fit and/or stayed in better, I encourage you to to check out these replacement tips and see what you think.  Hopefully you will work just as well for you as they do for me.

Click here to get Foam Masters Hybrid Silicone-Memory Foam Ear Tips for AirPods Pro from Amazon ($15.99).

This is the final In the news for 2020, and given everything we have gone through this year, I — like pretty much everyone else — am very much looking forward to the future.  But of course, there are always folks thinking about, and looking forward to, what the future may hold.  A few days ago, an iPhone J.D. reader shared an article with me from the April 11, 1953 edition of The Tacoma New Tribune in which Mark Sullivan, the president of Pacific Telephone & Telegraph, made this bold, and very accurate, prediction:  “In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today.  It probably will require no dial or equivalent, and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk.”  I was curious if this was real, but it is confirmed by Snopes and has been discussed elsewhere in the past, such as this article by Jason Kottke.  I’m impressed that someone could look at the rotary telephone of the 1950s and foresee the iPhone.  As I glance at my iPhone 12 Pro, I honestly have no idea what phones will look like and do 67 years from now, but I hope that it won’t be called the iPhone 79 Pro.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• New York attorney Nicole Black recommends holiday gifts for lawyers working remotely on the MyCase blog. 
• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reviews the Level Touch, a HomeKit-compatible smart lock that looks like a normal lock.
• This week, Apple added cardio fitness notifications to the Apple Watch.  Alex Guyot of MacStories explains what that means and how you turn it on.
• Photographer Erin Brooks shows off the advantages of the camera on the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
• Apple released iOS 14.3 this week, and one of the new features is support for the ProRAW format for the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max.  Photographer Austin Mann does a great job of explaining and showing what you can do with ProRAW that you couldn’t do before.
• Juli Clover of MacRumors explains another new feature iOS 14.3:  you can ask your iPhone what hundreds of animals, musical instruments, and other items sound like.  This amused my kids, for a few minutes at least.
• Another new feature of iOS 14.3 is support for Apple Fitness+.  Todd Haselton of CNBC wrote a good review of the Fitness+ service.  I started using it this week, and so far I’m very impressed. 
• Apple CEO Tim Cook discusses using Apple technology for health and fitness — and just for being outdoors — in a good interview on an episode of the Outside podcast.
• Apple updated its map of Canada, and Justin O’Beirne does a great job showing examples of what has changed.
• MacStories named the winners of its MacStories Selects 2020, recognizing the best apps of the year.  There are some great apps on that list.
• Clare Duffy and Shannon Liao of CNN decided to figure out how much you would have to spend if you want to get the best versions of all of Apple’s current products.  The figure they came up with is about $80,000, but about $70,000 of that was devoted to a desktop and laptop computer.  So if you don’t need a new computer, just think of all of the money you can save.
• And finally, this week Marques Brownlee had an opportunity to ask Barack Obama a question about how he and his team embraced technology, and it is a pretty fascinating video Q&A:

California attorney David Sparks converted his law practice from paper to paperless long before many other attorneys did so, and along the way, he discovered lots of tips and tricks for making the transition.  He compiled all of his advice into an ebook called Paperless, which I reviewed back in 2012.  It was a great resource, and I know that many lawyers found it valuable.

David has moved away from producing electronic books and instead he now produces a series of what he calls electronic field guides, which are videos devoted to a topic broken down into lots of sections and chapters.  I prefer watching one of David’s video field guides over reading a book because he shares his screen, shows you what he is doing, and explains to you what he is doing as he is doing it.  It is very easy to follow along.  In the past, I’ve written about his iPhone Field Guide and his Photos Field Guide.

David has now returned to Paperless (the first book he ever self-published) and has released a new version of his Paperless Field Guide, this time as a video field guide.  Of course, using mobile technology in a paperless practice is very different today than it was in 2012.  The 2020 version is full of fantastic tips for reducing the paper in your life and going digital with the aid of an iPhone, iPad, and/or Mac.  David shared a free preview of it with me, and it is excellent.  If you want some tips for reducing the paper in your life, this is a fantastic resource that I am sure that you would find very valuable.

The video course includes 95 videos with nearly seven hours of content.  David includes tips on converting paper to digital and then storing, editing, and sharing your digital documents.  Although not written specifically for lawyers, he does include examples from his law practice. 

The content is great, but I am equally impressed with how it is all presented.  The video production quality is top-notch.  Each video also includes a fantastic (optional) closed captioning system, which not only shows the words he is saying at the bottom of the screen but also lets you see all of the words in the video and jump to a specific part of the video.  Plus, the full text of each lesson is presented below the video.  This means that you can select a topic, skim the text of it, and then decide which topics you want to watch. 

You can watch the videos on pretty much any device, but I liked watching it on my computer so that I can use my iPad at the same time to try out what David was describing.  As you complete each segment of the course, a check mark indicates that you have completed a section.  That way, you can feel free to jump around without losing track of what you haven’t seen yet. 

One section of the course gives you the option to download a PDF file containing all of the text in the course, broken down by chapter and section.  So if you wanted to read an ebook, much like the 2012 version, you could do so.  He also provides an ePub version that works on an electronic reader device.  You miss out on a lot by reading instead of watching the course, but the PDF document makes it easy to search across the course to find out what section you want to go watch.

The normal price of the Paperless Field Guide is $29, but for a limited time you can take advantage of a $24 introductory price.  If you want a helping hand for reducing the paper in your life and for making the most of documents once they are in a PDF format, this is a great resource.  And kudos to David for creating his best field guide yet.

Click here for the Paperless Field Guide by David Sparks.

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This article won the TechnoLawyer Pick of the Week award on December 29, 2020.  The editors of TechnoLawyer, a free weekly email newsletter for lawyers and law office administrators, give this award to one article every week that they feel is a must-read for this audience.

A scanning app is essential for any attorney using an iPhone and/or iPad.  By converting a physical document into a digital form, you can read it on a back lit screen and zoom in to see the fine print, annotate it, share it, store it, etc.  Back in 2012, I tried out the scanner app sold by Readdle called Scanner Pro after I heard so many other lawyers rave about the app, and I was very impressed.  Although I’ve tried out other scanning apps, Scanner Pro has been my go-to app for many years because it works so incredibly well.  I use the app extensively in my law practice, but I use it frequently in my personal life as well.  For example, whenever I get a product that has a manual, I scan the manual and put it into a special folder on my home computer.  If I ever need the manual again, I know exactly where to look.  And during the pandemic, my wife has used Scanner Pro to digitize all of the recipes that she clipped and saved from magazines and other sources — in some cases, back in the 1980s.

Because this app is so useful to me, when Readdle signed up to sponsor iPhone J.D. this month, I was the one who asked to make its Scanner Pro app the focus of this month’s post.  It just so turns out that this is a great month to mention the app because it was updated to version 8 on December 10, 2020.  (I described the last big update, version 7, back in 2016.).

Here is why I find this app so useful, along with information on what is new in version 8.  Note that I focus on the iPhone in this post because that is how I always use this app, but you can also use this app on an iPad.

Scanning

One of the things that I have always loved about Scanner Pro is how incredibly easy it is to turn a physical document into a digital scanned document.  When you open the app, the app jumps right into scanning mode so you can immediately capture an image of the first page of the document.  This makes it fast to start scanning.  (You can turn off the Start with Camera feature in the Advanced Settings portion of the app, but I would never want to do so.)  If you are already working in the app, you can start scanning by tapping the large plus sign at the bottom right corner of the app.

Hold your iPhone over the first page your document, and as soon as the app recognizes the four edges of the document, it will take the picture.  You can turn off the Auto-Capture mode to put the app in manual mode, where you have to tap a button to take a picture, but it is much more convenient to keep Auto-Capture turned on.  

Once the first page of a document is imaged, the app is ready to scan the second page and does so as soon as it sees the four corners.  Then you can move on to the third page, etc.  This process works well and is very fast.  By simply letting the app take a look at each page of a document, the app scans the pages into a single PDF file.  No need for you to tap any buttons between each page being scanned.

The quality of a scan created by Scanner Pro is excellent.  Of course, you get best results if you scan a good version of a document when it has high-contrast around the edges (the document is against a surface with a different color) and the light is good.  For example, a typical white letter-size sheet of paper is easy to scan against the darker background of a wooden table with overhead lights.  But I’ve also had good luck with documents that are less than pristine.  If a document is in very poor shape, such as crumbled up or folded, then I find that a flat-bed scanner works better because it can help to flatten the document.  However, it is pretty rare for me to work with documents like that, so for virtually all of my other scanning needs, Scanner Pro works great.

Everything that I just wrote assumes that you are using an iPhone’s camera to scan a physical document.  However, you can also tap the photos icon at the bottom right of the scan screen to instead select an image on your camera roll and scan that image to create a PDF document.

Editing a scan

Once all of the pages have been scanned, tap the thumbnail of the document at the bottom right to work with the document.  Using icons at the top of the screen you can see each page of the document and select specific pages to act upon them, plus you can use other features like add annotations to the document, set a password, or delete.  But I rarely use those options and instead I find the five tools at the bottom to be the most useful.

Add – this lets you add one or more pages to the document.  If I have a poor quality document, I will sometimes scan just the first page, make sure that I am satisfied with the results, and then go back and add the additional pages.

Search – this lets you search for text within the document.  The app will tell you which pages of the document contain the word, and then when you view that page, you can see the word highlighted on the page.

Share – use this option to share the document.

Edit – tap this button to edit the scan.  You can rotate the document, adjust each of the four corners of the document if the app didn’t do so correctly (which sometimes happens when you place a white document on a white table), change the document size (such as letter, legal, A4, etc.), change the color of the scan (color document, black and white document, photo, grayscale), adjust the brightness or contrast, and turn automatic warp correction on or off.  The app does such a good job that I often don’t need to enter the edit mode (except to change my mind about whether I want a color or black and white scan), but it is nice to have this much control.

Note that you can also set the document to color/black and white/etc. when you are in the scan mode, which saves you the trouble of later adjusting this in the edit mode.

Text – this is a new feature in version 8.  Tap this button and the app will show you just the text that is in the document, without any of the formatting.  Scanner Pro performs an OCR on every document that you scan, and that is how it knows which words are on each page of a document.  The quality of the OCR depends upon the original that you are scanning.  In my law practice, where I am often working with black text on a white page, Scanner Pro does a great job with OCR, except that sometimes it gets confused when there is something like a clerk of court stamp on top of typed words.  For other documents, the quality of the OCR depends upon the source, but even a document with the plain text of only most of the words is easier to work with than a document with none of the text recognized.  

In the Text mode, you can copy all or some of the text and share the text elsewhere.  For example, you can scan a contract and then copy a paragraph of that document to paste that text into a block quote section of a brief you are drafting in Microsoft Word.

Languages

Although I typically scan documents written in English, Scanner Pro is smart enough to detect a large number of languages.  If you have the Latin-based languages option turned on, the app will automatically recognize English, Catalan, Danish, German, Dutch, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Latin, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Filipino, and Turkish.  

If you have Latin-based languages turned off, the app will recognize Czech, Chinese (Sim), Chinese (Tra), Greek, Estonian, Croatian, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, and Ukrainian.

Saving

Another feature that makes Scanner Pro work so well for me is that you can control how files are automatically saved after they are scanned, such as automatically uploading to a Dropbox folder.  Scanned files are also accessible within the Scanner Pro app itself, where you can sort them, organize them into folders, and display them either as large or small icons.  The options for organizing and browsing your files within the app improved quite a bit with the update to version 8.

By default, the files are saved with a filename in the format of YYYY-MM-DD Scan, with numbers added after the word “Scan” as needed.  That’s very convenient for me because I simply change the word “Scan” to a title that I want to use, change the date if necessary, and then the filename is in the format that I prefer.

Scanner Pro also has a sophisticated Workflow feature.  You can use this to change how files are named, automate what happens when you scan a file, etc.

Price

For the prior versions of Scanner Pro, you paid when you downloaded the app.  Version 8 changes that.  Now, you can download the app for free to give you a chance to try it out, but some of the advanced features are disabled.  For example, OCR is disabled in the free version, and a Scanner Pro watermark is added when you share a file.  To unlock all of the features in the free version, the app now uses a $19.99/year subscription.

What if you paid for the app in the past — perhaps as long as eight years ago like me?  You can update your app to version 8 and take advantage of all of the current version 8 features without paying anything more.  And Readdle says that you can continue to use those current features for as long as you want.  However, in the future, Readdle plans to add additional features to the app, and you will need to upgrade to a subscription if you want to take advantage of those additional features when they are added.  It is nice that Readdle is so generous to its long-time users.  At the same time, I look forward to seeing what Readdle has planned for future updates.

Here is what Readdle’s Chief Product Officer and co-founder Alex Tyagulsky said about upcoming features for Scanner Pro:

We’ve invested heavily into exploring how recent advancements in AI and machine learning, as well as new APIs and services from the likes of Google and Microsoft, can be harnessed within Scanner Pro to help make life easier for the people who use it. The first fruit of this work is already live in the form of a new shadow removal algorithm. But that’s just the beginning —  improved border detection, automatic document categorization, and tagging are just around the corner, while new neural network-based OCR for Latin languages is being rolled out today.

Conclusion

Scanner Pro is a fantastic app.  The app gives you a fast and convenient way to use the device that is already in my pocket to turn a physical document into a PDF document, with OCR performed and saved in the location that that you designate.  The app has been around for so long that it already has a robust feature set, and the app should only get better now that Readdle is announcing plans to add new features in the future.  Thank you to Readdle for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month and for giving me an excuse to talk about an app that is incredibly useful to lawyers and anyone else who works with documents.

Click here to get Scanner Pro (free with subscription available): 

Tom Vanderbilt of the Wall Street Journal Magazine has a very interesting interview with Jay Blahnik of Apple on the new Fitness+ service, which launches on Monday, December 14.  That service costs $9.99/month, but it is also included with Apple’s Apple One subscription if you get the $29.95/month Premier plan — which also includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, 2TB of iCloud storage, and Apple News+, and can be shared with up to five other family members.  If you are like me and you previously subscribed to some of those services separately, the Premier plan is great because, for about the same price that you were previously paying, you get Apple News+ and Apple Fitness+ for no additional charge.  (For example, you would pay $35/month for your family to get just Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 2TB of iCloud storage.)  And by the way, if you have Apple News+, that includes the ability to read Wall Street Journal articles — including the one that I linked to a few sentences ago.  Just open an article on the wsj.com website on your iPad or iPhone, then tap the Share button, then share it with the News app.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• The Lit Software blog shares how Atlanta attorney Elissa Haynes used the TrialPad app on the iPad in a trial.
• California attorney David Sparks wrote a review of the WaterField Hitch Bag, which he uses to carry around his iPad, MacBook Pro, and accessories.
• Apple gave a number of journalists a pair of the new AirPods Max headphones on Wednesday, and on Thursday a number of them posted their initial thoughts.  Here are a few of the reviews that I thought were interesting.  Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch found this product to be incredibly well-made using high-quality materials, but he did note that they are heavier than you might expect.  He wasn’t a big fan of the case.  He found the sound impressive and found the spatial audio feature particularly impressive.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes that the weight will have an impact on how people use the AirPods Max.
• Marques Brownlee created a video, noting that the AirPods Max seems very well made and its controls are easy to use.  But he doesn’t like the case.
• Attorney Nilay Patel of The Verge says that the sound is “crisp and bright, with a pleasingly wider soundstage than my Sony headphones, and no distortion at all, even at max volume.”
• Judner Aura also showed them off in a video, and he was incredibly impressed with the noise cancellation and sound quality. 
• Justine “iJustine” Ezarik was perhaps the most enthusiastic of all in her video.
• Michael Simon of Macworld reviews the iPhone 12 mini, calling it a “no-brainer purchase” for anyone wanting a small phone that is not underpowered or outdated. 
• Felix Richter of Statista created an interesting chart showing the growth of film camera and digital camera sales since 1951 — and then shows that after smartphones added cameras, that wiped out 40 years of camera industry growth.
• Jeff Benjamin of 9to5Mac reviews the new Apple MagSafe Duo Charger, which can charge both an iPhone and an Apple Watch.
• Jason Cipriani of CNet has recommendations on 13 default settings to change on the iPhone 12.  I myself don’t recommend changing all 13 of them, but I suspect you will find quite a few of them that are worth changing.
• Doug Aamoth of Fast Company shares some tips for using Siri.
• Kenny Wassus of the Wall Street Journal writes about people wearing AirPods in the shower.  Wait … in the shower?  No.  No no no.  Do not do that.
• And finally, here is a clever promotional video for Apple TV+ that features some of their best shows.  Which reminds me … one of my favorite Apple TV+ shows, For All Mankind, starts its second season on February 19, and it was revealed this week that the show was already picked up for a third season. 

Apple announced the original AirPods on September 7, 2016, and for the past four years, this device has been one of the most beloved Apple products.  If you use AirPods, you know why.  It essentially weighs nothing, it sounds great, and it doesn’t get in your way when you are enjoying music, listening to a podcast, watching a movie, talking on the phone, etc.  A year ago, Apple introduced the AirPods Pro, adding noise cancellation.  At $250, the AirPods Pro is more expensive than any other headphone that I have ever used, but it works great.  And during the pandemic this year, I have appreciated my AirPods Pro even more.  The noise cancellation is great when you are stuck at home with other family members and want to tune out some of the surrounding noise, and they also work great on a videoconference.  I even use them in my office, connected to my PC, when I am using Microsoft Teams or Zoom.

Yesterday, Apple introduced the latest member of the AirPods family:  the AirPods Max.  At a cost of $550, the price seems too steep for me, but I have no doubt that many folks will love this new product.  It takes everything that you love about the AirPods and AirPods Pro, and puts them in an over-ear design.

Traditionally, over-ear headphones are known for providing even better sound and noise cancellation, so I assume that will be true with these as well.  Apple believes that they do, stating:  “AirPods Max use Adaptive EQ to adjust the sound to the fit and seal of the ear cushions by measuring the sound signal delivered to a user and adjusting the low and mid-frequencies in real time — bringing rich audio that captures every detail.”  Traditionally, many people find over-ear headphones far more comfortable than in-ear headphones.  We’ll have to wait for the first hands-on reviews to see if these traditional features exist on the AirPods Max, but I suspect that they will.

AirPods Max comes with virtually all of the features that people love in the AirPods Pro.  They are wireless Bluetooth headphones that add all of the special Apple features, such as easy pairing to devices, fast switching between multiple devices, and spatial audio with dynamic head tracking (which makes it seem like sounds come from a specific direction).  They also feature both noise cancellation mode and transparency mode.  But of course, they add many new features.

Transparency mode is a great way to hear the outside world even though you are using AirPods Pro, and you can trigger this mode by squeezing on a stem for about a second.  On AirPods Max, it is even easier to switch in and out of transparency mode by tapping a button.

With AirPods Pro, you can quickly squeeze a stem once, twice, or three times to do things like play/pause, fast-forward, or reverse.  On AirPods Max, Apple has added a Digital Crown — similar to what is on the side of an Apple Watch — that can do all of this, plus you can turn the crown to adjust the volume, plus you can press and hold the crown to activate Siri.

AirPods Pro has a microphone on each stem and an inward-facing microphone.  AirPods Max has nine microphones.

With AirPods Pro, you can use a small, medium, or large silicone tip to adjust the fit.  With AirPods Max, you can move each ear cup around, extend the headband, and bend the mesh headband to get a good fit on your head.  And the ear cushions attach magnetically and can be replaced.

AirPods Pro can last about four hours straight before needing to be charged, and you charge them by putting them in a case.  Apple says that AirPods Max last 20 hours between charging (which you do via a Lightning-to-USB-C connector, like a modern iPhone). You can charge AirPods Max for five minutes to get another 90 minutes of use, according to Jason Snell.  And when you are not using AirPods Max, you can put it in the included Smart Case, which starts a low power mode to extend battery life even more.

AirPods Pro comes in one color:  white.  AirPods Max comes in Space Gray, Silver, Green, Sky Blue, and Pink — very similar to the colors available for the new iPad Air.  And because you can buy replacement ear cushions in those same colors, this would seem to give you the ability to mix-and-match colors.

Although this is a wireless headphone, you can plug in to an audio source if you want.  To do so, you need to use a Lightning-to-headphone jack cord. 

Apple released a video that does a great job of describing the AirPods Max:

Although this looks like a great, albeit expensive, gift for the holidays, you’ll find it incredibly difficult to find one in time to put it under a Christmas tree on the morning of December 25.  You can pre-order them now from Apple, and technically they go on sale on Tuesday, December 15, but as I am typing this the Apple website says that delivery is now up to 12-14 weeks.  However, you may be able to find them in a physical Apple Store starting December 15.  And at least right now, if you decide to get them engraved, the Apple website says that they are available Dec. 30 to Jan. 7.  (No, I don’t understand how getting engraving would make them available more quickly.)

I doubt that I will ever purchase an AirPods Max because the price would be hard to justify, although I reserve the right to lust after this new device.  But I love that Apple is continuing to expand the AirPods family.

This week, Apple gave awards to the developers of 15 apps for making the App Store Best of 2020.  The iPad app of the year is Zoom, and I’ve certainly used that app far more in 2020 than ever before.  When we use Zoom as a substitute for family members getting together in person, I typically share my iPad screen to my Apple TV.  That way, my immediate family can sit on the couch and see our relatives on a large TV screen, and with the iPad propped right in front of the TV, the other family members see us on the couch.  The Apple TV app of the year is Disney+, and I bought a one-month subscription last weekend so that my son and I could catch up on Season 2 of The Mandalorian, which is excellent.  I’m also looking forward to watching the new Pixar movie Soul on Disney+, which comes out on December 25.  Fantastical won in the Mac app category, but I love to use that app on my iPad and iPhone.  Congratulations to all of the winners.  And now, the recent news of note:

• In an article in ABA Journal, Danielle Braff discussed whether your law firm should create an iPhone app.  With very rare exceptions, I don’t recommend it.  Instead, use your time and money to create a good website that works well on computers, an iPad, and a smartphone.  We updated my law firm’s website about two years ago, and it was a big improvement.  Some of the bio pages even include a short video, which is a nice way for someone viewing the page to get a sense of the attorney.  (For example, here is my own bio page.)
• Although I use Zoom for many of the videoconferences in which I participate, we use Microsoft Teams at my law firm  Microsoft recently announced some upcoming updates for the iPhone and iPad apps.  There are new calling features, including CarPlay support (to make it easier to make and receive calls via Teams when you are in your car), and a new layout for the iOS apps.
• Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that if use the Family Sharing feature to share apps with other family members, you can now share some subscription apps as well.
• Michael Simon of Macworld discusses the Wristcam, a band for the Apple Watch that includes two cameras.
• In another article for Macworld, Michael Simon and Jason Cross identify some of their favorite cases for the iPhone 12.
• In yet another useful Macworld article, Michael Simon recommends USB-C power adapters to use with an iPhone 12.  I haven’t yet tried one of the relatively new gallium nitride (GaN) chargers, which are smaller and more powerful, but I hear great things about them.
• Dan Moren of Six Colors shared a clever suggestion for using Siri and Shortcuts to make it easier to switch modes on AirPods Pro to pause your music and talk to people.
• Moren also wrote a favorable review of the new HomePod mini from Apple.
• Here is a moving tweet with a picture of an unpredicted, but incredibly important, use for iPads.
• The Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso is one of the highlights of 2020 for me — in a year that could use as many highlights as possible — and Michael Schneider of Variety interviewed most of the stars in a Zoom-style chat that is great fun to watch.
• Almost 12 years ago, I wrote about appellate attorney David Mills because of his funny Courtoons website with legal-themed cartoons.  He stopped sharing his cartoons on the site a long time ago, but he recently compiled those cartoons in a paperback book, and it is now available on Amazon for $20.  Although I haven’t seen the book, I used to love the cartoons, so I suspect it would make a good holiday gift for an attorney with a sense of humor.
• You might also get some lawyer legal tech gift ideas — or ideas for yourself — by listening to the latest episode of the Tech Savvy Lawyer podcast on which over a dozen attorneys (including me) share their favorite guilty tech pleasure.  I mentioned using Twitter, but what I didn’t mention is that I rarely use the official Twitter app; I prefer to use the Tweetbot app.
• And finally, at some point this month, Apple is going to introduce its new Fitness+ service.  Here is a video from Apple to remind you of what this service is all about:

YouTube is full of useful and interesting videos.  If you need to have one of those videos on your iPad for some reason, such as to view it when you don’t have Internet access or to use it as a part of a presentation, it used to be that there was no easy way to do so.  But now, you can do so using the free app called a-Shell and two other free programs.  This post gives you all of the steps for doing so.  I realize that this post may look complicated at first, but I promise you that these steps are simple to follow.

But first, some kudos and a caveat.  I first learned about this tip from a post by Federico Viticci on MacStories.  He linked to a post by Greg Godwin on his website NonProfit Workflows, a website with advice for working in a non-profit organization.  Although Greg’s post provides instructions, I modified his instructions for this post in a way that I think makes them easier to understand and follow.  And finally, please note that you should only download a video from YouTube if you have an appropriate reason and permission to do so.

With that behind us, here are the step-by-step instructions.  These instructions assume that you are doing this on an iPad, which has a larger screen and thus is better for viewing and working with a video, but I suppose these steps would also work on an iPhone.

The a-Shell app

The first thing that you need to do is download the a-Shell app from the App Store.  This free app provides a text-based terminal window on your iPad — essentially taking your modern iPad and giving it the capabilities of a computer from the 1970s.  Here are the first few steps to get this app and get it configured correctly.

1. Click here to download a-Shell app by Nicolas Holzschuch.

2. Open the Settings app on your iPad and scroll down on the left until you see the a-Shell app listed; tap on that.  On the right, in the section called ALLOW A-SHELL TO ACCESS, make sure that Document Storage is set to On My iPad.

Download youtube-dl and FFmpeg

Next, we are going to download two free, command line, cross-platform, open-source software programs that can be used to work with video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams.  With a terminal like a-Shell on your iPad, you can use this software on your iPad instead of a computer.

1. Open the a-Shell app.  The first time you do so, the app will ask if you want notifications.  You don’t need to allow notifications for this project.

2. Type the following exactly as it appears and tap return:

pip install youtube-dl

“pip” is a package manager for the programming language Python.  By typing that command, you are telling a-Shell to install the youtube-dl program.  After you tap return, a-Shell will install the software and then tell you that it is successful.

3. In Safari on your iPad, click on this link to download FFmpeg from the GitHub page:  https://github.com/holzschu/a-Shell-commands/releases/download/0.1/ffmpeg.wasm

[That link works great right now, but if for some reason it stops working in the future, go to this page to find the download link.]

Your iPad will ask “Do you want to download “ffmpeg.wasm”? and you should tap Download to do so.  The download icon at the top of the Safari app will show you that the file is being downloaded to whatever the default download location is on your iPad. 

Use the Files app

Next, you want to open up the Files app on your iPad.  The left side of the app will list all of your locations — things like iCloud Drive, On My iPad, Dropbox, etc.  Tap on On My iPad and you will see a list of folders on the right, folders that correspond to apps installed on your iPad.  Near the top, you will see a folder for a-Shell.  Tap that folder to open it.

Once that folder is open, tap the folder+ icon at the top right to create a new folder within the a-Shell folder.  The Files app will do so and will give you the opportunity to name the folder.  Call it:  bin

Next, you want to move the FFmpeg app into that folder called “bin” that you just created.  If you tap the Downloads tab on the left of the Files app, you will see the file called ffmpeg.wasm.  Hold your finger down on that file for a second and a pop-up window will appear.  Select “Move” — the third option.  That will open up a window for you to select the destination.  Tap On My iPad, then tap a-Shell, then tap bin, then tap Copy.

Note that you won’t need to directly use the FFmpeg app for the rest of this project.  You simply need to have it saved in the “bin” folder because the youtube-dl app is going to take advantage of it from within the a-Shell app.

Now, you are ready to go.  You won’t have to follow any of the above steps again.  The next time that you are ready to download a video, just go to the next set of steps:

Use youtube-dl to download a video

Open the a-Shell app and type in a command to download a video from YouTube.  The basic structure of the command that you will use is very simple, just the command “youtube-dl” followed by the URL of the YouTube video that you want to download.  Note, however, that using this command will download a video in the .mkv video file format, which the iPad doesn’t know how to play unless you install an app that can do so. 

A better approach is to tell youtube-dl to download the video in the .mp4 format, which the iPad can handle with no problems.  And to do that, you add the following just before the URL:  -f ‘(mp4)’

So to give you a specific example, let’s say that you want to download the video that I shared last year when I reviewed the Catalyst Waterproof Case for iPhone Xs.  My review included a video that I posted to YouTube that I took using this waterproof case while I was in Hawaii.  The short video includes some fun footage of turtles and tropical fish underwater.  The YouTube link for that video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCqAKXpDIbA

So to download this video and convert it to .mp4 format, you would type the following in the a-Shell app:

youtube-dl -f ‘(mp4)’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCqAKXpDIbA

If you want, you can copy the above text, open the a-Shell app, hold down on the flashing cursor for a second, and then select the paste function to save you the trouble of typing it. 

The youtube-dl program will download the video and alert you to the progress while it is doing so.  This one is a short video, so the process will be very quick.

Use your downloaded video

The video downloaded from within the a-Shell app is located in the a-Shell folder on your iPad.  So open the Files app, tap On My iPad on the left, tap the a-Shell folder, and there is your video.  You can tap it if you just want to play it — and since it is downloaded, you can play it even if you are in Airplane mode.  Or, you can hold down your finger on the filename for a second and tap Share on the pop-up menu.  From there, you can send the file to another app, or just tap Save Video to download it to your Photos app.  Once it is in your Photos library, just about any other app will be able to access it.  For example, you can put it in a Keynote video.  Or you can use the iMovie app to take a clip from this video and add it to some other video. 

Conclusion

Using a terminal window on an iPad may seem like the most un-iPad thing that you can do with an iPad.  However, it gives you the ability to take advantage of free, open-source software like youtube-dl.  After following all of the above steps, it will be quick and easy for you to download a YouTube video in the future.  Just open the a-Shell app, and type in the command with the link to the video.  That’s it.

Thanks again to Greg Godwin and Federico Viticci for making me aware of this great tip.  And thanks to Nicolas Holzschuch for the powerful a-Shell app.

I’ve been using the black leather iPhone cases sold by Apple since 2014.  When Apple started selling the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro on October 23, 2020, it did not yet have a leather case available, but they are available now and you can get one on Amazon for $59.  The new leather case is similar to the ones I’ve been using for years in that is slim and the leather feels good.  I fully suspect that, like Apple’s prior models, this year’s version will get even softer over time as you use it.  The model that I purchased works with either the iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Pro.  Apple also sells a smaller model for the iPhone 12 mini and a larger model for the iPhone 12 Pro Max.

The reason I started to use an Apple leather case six years ago with my iPhone 6 was that, unlike the iPhone 4, 4s, 5, and 5s, the iPhone 6 had a curved side, making it more slippery.  I needed a case to make the iPhone less likely to fall and to give it some protection if it did fall.  The iPhone 12 family brings back flat sides to the iPhone, which I find makes the new iPhone easier to hold securely in a hand.  Thus, I don’t plan to use a case with my iPhone 12 Pro nearly as much as I did in the past.  But I still think it makes sense to have a good case for those times when you will need a little more protection, such as when traveling … whenever we all feel comfortable doing that again.

My guess is that if you are thinking of getting an Apple leather case for your new iPhone, you have used an Apple leather case for a prior model.  With that in mind, I’ll focus on what is different about this year’s model.

Colors

This year, the cases come in red, saddle brown, black, baltic blue, and California poppy.  The red one is (PRODUCT)RED. 

I always prefer the back model, and this year’s black leather looks the same as the prior models. 

Flat sides

The flat edge on the iPhone 12 leather case definitely gives it a different feel from the prior models, and I like it.  Between the flat edge and the friction that leather provides, an iPhone seems very secure in my hand when it is in this case.

The leather case rises up just a little bit higher than the screen.  Thus, if you place your iPhone face down on a flat table when it is in this case, the screen will not touch the surface of the table, providing some protection.  When I first started to use this case, I was immediately convinced that the edge on this year’s model must rise up higher than prior years because of how it felt.  But when I compared it to the edge of the leather case on my iPhone 11, it looks the same.  In the following picture that shows how much the lip goes up above the screen of the iPhone, the iPhone 11 in an Apple leather case is on the left and the iPhone 12 Pro in an Apple leather case is on the right:

Perhaps it just feels higher because this is a brand new case and the leather hasn’t been broken in yet.

Camera cutout

In prior years, the camera area of the Apple leather case was simply a cut-out.  This year, Apple has added a very tiny plastic frame around the edges:

I presume that the purpose is to provide a little additional protection for the camera lenses.  Even with this slight frame around that square, when an iPhone is in this case, it lays perfectly flat on a table.  Thus, like prior models, this year’s leather case prevents the camera on the back of the iPhone from making the iPhone teeter when it is on a flat surface.

MagSafe

If you want to use a MagSafe device with an iPhone 12, such as a charger or Apple’s wallet accessory, a normal case between an iPhone and the MagSafe device could reduce the magnetic attraction.  Apple solves that in its cases by adding a magnet in the case itself.  It is a rather weak magnet — I could get a paperclip to stick to the magnet on the inside of the new leather case but nothing heavier — but I presume that it is strong enough to ensure that MagSafe devices work with it.  (I don’t currently own any MagSafe devices, so I couldn’t try it out.)

You can see the circle of the MagSafe magnet on the inside of the case:

Note that because this case is itself a MagSafe device, when you first put your iPhone in the case, you see a short graphic on the screen alerting you that you attached a MagSafe device (along with a ring corresponding to the color of your case) with a short beep.  If you don’t want to make a noise when you put your iPhone in the case, flip the silent switch before attaching the case.

I thought that the MagSafe magnet might make the case stick to the iPhone even more than prior models.  But I haven’t noticed a difference.  Apple’s leather cases have always provided a nice, tight fit that wasn’t going to come off unless you pulled it off.  This year’s model is no different.

One more note about using MagSafe with this case.  Because leather is not a hard surface, if you frequently use a MagSafe device with this case, you might start to see the an outline over time.  As Apple explains on its website:  “Leather is a natural material and like a fine leather belt, it may show creases, marks, or a patina over time.  Interaction with MagSafe accessories will leave slight imprints (as shown in the last image of the gallery).  If you are concerned about this, we suggest you use an iPhone 12 | 12 Pro Silicone or Clear Case.”  In the pictures I included above to show the different colors, I used that last image for each of the iPhones, and that is why you see a slight circle around the Apple logo.  I actually think that the circle looks sort of interesting, but if you don’t like it, either don’t use a MagSafe device when your iPhone is in this case or choose a different case.

Protection on all four sides

Ever since 2014, the Apple leather case has covered three sides of the iPhone, but the bottom was somewhat open.  For example, here is the leather case on an iPhone 6:

But this year, the leather case covers all four sides, including the bottom:

This change has pros and cons.  I’m sure that it provides more protection, which is the purpose of a case, so that’s good.  But without the bottom covered, it is easier to swipe up from the bottom of an iPhone to show the Control Center or to unlock the iPhone.  With this new case, the lip provides a very minor speed bump.  I’m sure I’ll get used to it over time, but right now I miss the older design that I’ve been using for years.

As for the buttons on the sides of the new leather case, they work the same as the buttons on Apple’s prior leather cases:  they work well.

Conclusion

Although the iPhone 12 version of the Apple leather case is different from the prior models in many ways, it is similar enough that if you have used and liked an Apple leather case in the past, you will like this one too.  It feels great, it provides protection, and it is a great match for the iPhone 12.  I don’t plan to use a case with my iPhone 12 Pro as much as I did with prior models, but whenever I do want to use a case, I’m glad that I have this one.

Click here to get Apple’s iPhone 12 leather case from Amazon ($59.00)