Yesterday, Apple announced that it will live stream an Apple Event on Tuesday, October 13 at 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern. Apple didn’t say what it will be announcing but we all know that the focus will be the 2020 version of the iPhone. The last time that Apple announced a new iPhone in October was the iPhone 4s, announced on October 4, 2011. (That was the iPhone that first added Siri.) From 2012 to 2019, Apple announced new iPhone models every September so that there would be plenty of time to get them into the market for the end-of-the-year holiday buying season. This year, on the other hand … well, we all know what affect the year 2020 has had on normality. Apple alerted everyone in early August that the new iPhone would come out a little later this year, and here we are.
The invitation for the Apple Event features the phrase “Hi, Speed.”
I presume that is a reference to the next iPhone being faster, not only because of the new A14 processor (that we heard about last month in the new iPad Air (4th generation)), but also because many expect this to be the first iPhone to work with the new 5G networks. So far, most of the reports that I have seen is that 5G is not yet ready for prime time — it is a big drain on battery life, it is sometimes slower than 4G, and it is only available in limited areas. It will be interesting to see if the 5G version of the iPhone has these same shortcomings.
By the way, if you visit this page on Apple’s website using a modern iPhone or iPad and tap on the graphic in the middle of the page, you will see an interesting AR/VR advertisement for the event.
I could not be more pleased to welcome Readdle as a new sponsor of iPhone J.D. I have been using their iPhone and iPad apps for as long as I can remember, and they have created and improved some of the very best productivity apps. For example, I can count on one hand the apps that I consider essential to my law practice, and PDF Expert is unquestionably on that list. Every lawyer works with PDF files, and PDF Expert is a fantastic tool for working with PDF files in a law practice. The app itself is free, plus you can access advanced features if you purchase a $50/year subscription — which I consider a no-brainer for any attorney looking to be more productive with their iPad. The app works great on an iPhone too, but I’m going to focus on the iPad today because the larger screen is infinitely better for working with PDF documents.
Viewing documents
PDF Expert does an excellent job of displaying PDF files. Indeed, especially for large files, I find that PDF Expert on my iPad Pro is faster and better than even the PDF software that I use on the PC in my office.
Pages load quickly and it is fast to go back and forth between pages. Swipe a finger up and down to read a document in the default Vertical Scroll mode. You can tap the thumbnail icon at the top left to see an overview of all of the pages, making it quick to find your way through a very long document.
Normally, a menu bar appears at the top of the screen, but you can tap of the middle of the screen to make the menu bar disappear, which means that the entire screen is devoted to your document. An indicator at the bottom right shows you what page number you are viewing in the document, although you can turn that off in the app settings or choose to have it appear and disappear automatically.
If you tap the view settings icon at the top right, you can switch to a Horizontal Scroll mode. I find this mode useful when I am reviewing the final draft of a document before I file it with a court. It lets me focus on each page, one at a time, to make sure that everything looks right. The Two Pages mode is also a great way to quickly look through the entire document at a higher level.
There is also a Crop mode switch that you can use on documents that have been OCR’d, letting you hide the margins so that it is easier to make the text part of the document bigger and easier to read.
To quickly scroll through a document, you can grab the small tab on the right side and move up and down. In an earlier version of PDF Expert, the app used a tiny gray rectangle that was harder to grab, but in the current version it is easy to use.
I often need to find the part of a document that mentions a specific word. If you tap the magnifying glass icon at the top right, you can enter words to search for, or you can see your recent searches and tap one of them to do the same search again. This is fast and works very well.
Every time that you open a PDF file, it opens in a new tab. That way, you can work with multiple PDF files at once, and just tap another tab to jump back and forth between different documents. PDF Expert also has full support for multitasking if you want to run two apps side-by-side.
When I am working with longer documents — such a volume of a record for an appeal — I find that it is useful to use the bookmark feature, accessed by tapping the Bookmarks icon at the top right. For example, I will place bookmarks to note the first page of the most significant documents in the record so that I can quickly jump to those specific parts of the volume in the future.
Tapping the Bookmarks icon gives you access to two other useful functions. First, there is the Outlines tab. Although you can add your own Outlines to a document if you want, the primary way that I find this feature valuable is to take advantage of an outline that is already contained in a document. For example, when federal district courts create the appeal record in a case, each volume of the record contains an outline that corresponds to the document number. So if I know from the index that I want to jump to Document 172, I can just access the outline and jump straight there.
The other function accessed in this area is the Annotations tab, but before I discuss that tab, let’s talk about annotating documents.
Annotating documents
At the top middle of the toolbar, there are tabs that you can tap to see different annotation tools. For example, the first tab called “Annotate” includes tools for highlighting, underlining, writing, drawing shapes, adding comments, etc.
Tap on a specific tool to use it. If you have an Apple Pencil 2, you can double-tap the Pencil to turn a specific tool on and off, making it quick and easy to switch between browsing through a document and then highlighting a sentence or adding some other annotation.
After you have made an annotation, and when you don’t have any specific tool turned on, you can tap on the annotation to change it. For example, you can change the ink color of something that you wrote, make the pen ink thicker, change the opacity, delete the annotation, etc.
Let’s return to the Annotations tab on the right side that I mentioned above. This view shows you on the right every single annotation that you have a document, making it quick to jump to a specific part of the document that you annotated. For some annotations, like highlighting or underlining text, you can see the actual words to which you applied the annotation, which is helpful. If you handwrote something, you only see a pen icon to show you that you did so on a specific page.
In 2019, Readdle updated PDF Expert to add a feature that vastly improves the experience of annotating a document: the ability to customize the toolbar. You need to pay for a subscription to use this feature, but I would do so even if this was the one and only feature included with a subscription. Creating a custom toolbar means that you can select the specific tools that you enjoy using the most, and place them in an order that makes the most sense to you, to maximize your productivity when annotating documents.
I currently have my tools set up so that the first three tools are fine point pens (black, blue, red) with a 1 point thickness. Then, as a separator, I have the highlight tool — which may be the tool that I use the most. Next, I have five medium point pens with a 1.5 point thickness for when I want my annotation to be a little bit bolder, and I have five different colors: black, blue, red, green, and purple. Toolbars in other PDF apps typically only give you two or three colors by default; to access more colors, you have to dig into sub-menus, which requires extra steps so I normally just skip it. But because I could create my own Favorites tap with the tools that I selected, all five pen colors are just a tap away, so I can use more easily use different colors to mean different things in my documents, making my annotations more valuable to me.
When you share a file, you have a choice of sharing the original document (with annotations that can be further edited) or a flattened copy (which means that the annotations cannot easily be edited by someone else, and the annotations are virtually guaranteed to be seen no matter what PDF program someone else is using to view the document).
Managing files
While viewing and editing documents is critical, the file management feature is also an important reason that PDF Expert so useful for my law practice. I carry around thousands of documents on my iPad so that everything that I might possibly need is there.
A Sidebar Menu on the left side lists sources of documents on your iPad, such as folders that are synced or local documents. Files that you accessed recently are just a tap away. A list of Connections provides access to cloud sources such as Apple’s built-in Files app, Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive.
At the bottom part of the Sidebar Menu, you can show folders or files that you have marked as favorites. When there is a matter that I am actively and extensively working on — such as an appeal that I will be working in for the next few months – I will typically make the folder associated with that project a favorite so that I can get to my work more quickly.
In the main part of the screen on the right, you see a list of folders and files. Tap on the three dots at the end of a row to see a menu of options such as move, rename, duplicate, zip, etc. You can apply a color to a folder if you want it to stand out more.
If you hold down your finger on a file name for a second, you can then drag-and-drop that file to another location. Whether you are using drag-and-drop or just browsing through your folders, you can long press on the Back button at the top left to see all previous subfolders, making it faster to jump to the specific folder that you want.
Etc.
Although these are the most useful parts of the app for me, there are lots of other features. You can zip and unzip files. You can view file types other than PDF files, although you cannot annotate other file types such as Microsoft Word files. You can fill out PDF forms. I mentioned above that you can search within a document, but you can also search the contents or filenames across all of your documents.
Pricing
The app itself is free, and for many attorneys, the free version will provide you with everything that you need. But if you upgrade to a PRO subscription, which costs $50/year, you get much more. I’ve already mentioned the custom toolbar feature, which I use every single day. That feature alone makes the experience of using this app much better. Additionally, a subscription also gives you the option to:
Sign documents
Merge PDF files
Add, delete, and extract pages from PDF files
Password-protect PDF files
Redact text in a PDF file (either with black bars or to make the text disappear)
Edit PDF text
Edit PDF images
Add links to PDFs
Convert Word files, Excel files, and images into PDF files
Reduce PDF file size by selecting one of four different document quality settings
All of these can be useful, but I find the options to merge PDF files and add/delete/extract pages from PDF files are particularly useful in my law practice. For example, I will extract pages to create exhibits. The reduce file size option can be useful when a file would otherwise be too large to attach to an email, although how well it works depends upon the specifics of the file that you are working with. I don’t use the other features very much, but it is nice that they are there. For example, when I need to convert a Microsoft Word file to PDF, I usually just use Word itself to do so.
Conclusion
Although I’ve written about PDF Expert several times in the past (such as 2/21/19, 8/27/19, 11/21/19), I appreciate Readdle sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month to give me an excuse to talk about this essential app again including some of the latest improvements. If you use an iPad, there is no excuse for not having the free version of this app on your iPad. Start using it in your law practice and see what you think. If you find the app as invaluable as I do, you will likely want to subscribe to the PRO version, like I did last year, to take advantage of all that the app has to offer.
One of the interesting new features in iPadOS 14 is Scribble, the ability to use an Apple Pencil to write text into a text field instead of using the on-screen keyboard. I wasn’t sure how useful the feature would be when it was announced, but now that I’ve been using it, I really like it. I often have the Pencil in my hand as I am reading and annotating briefs, caselaw, exhibits, etc. in an app like PDF Expert (which is a sponsor of iPhone J.D. this month) or when I am taking handwritten notes in GoodNotes. When I then need to enter some quick text — such as to search for something in Safari or Mail — it is incredibly convenient to just write a few letters or words with the Pencil that is already in my hand. Alexander George of Popular Mechanics interviewed Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, to discuss the new Scribble feature. If you haven’t tried it out yet, I encourage you to do so. It is yet another reason that the Apple Pencil makes me more productive in my law practice. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Apple has brought its new map data (that it is building in-house with its own vehicles equipped with cameras) to Ireland and the United Kingdom, according to a report by Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac. And the Apple Look Around feature of Maps now works in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.
I’m a big fan of the Deliveries app, a centralized place to track any packages that you are receiving or sending. My family has been purchasing even more items online as a result of the pandemic, and it is nice to have one place to go to find out where items are and when they should arrive. As Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports, the Deliveries app was updated to add a new design and new features. The app is also switching to a subscription service, so instead of costing $4.99 to purchase, the app is now $4.99/year, with complimentary subscriptions of four months (for long-time users) up to 18 months (for newer users).
The GoodNotes app updated its shape and line tools so that you no longer have to tap on a different tool to draw a perfect shape or line. The new features are explained in this post on the GoodNotes blog. I’ve used this quite a bit, and it is a great improvement.
Now that it is so easy to use a keyboard and a mouse with your iPad, you may want a good way to carry them around. A keyboard cover is a good idea to protect the keyboard; you don’t want to shove it into a briefcase and have something catch a key and pop it off. For over three years, I’ve been a happy user of the Canopy by Studio Neat, which is not only a keyboard cover but a stand to prop up your iPad. But if you want something different that also holds a mouse, I see that Waterfield now has a Dash Sleeve for Magic Keyboard, and it looks nice. They also have a version for the Magic Trackpad 2.
The new spatial audio feature for AirPods Pro is really neat, creating the illusion that different sounds are coming from specific locations. You can use it with some TV shows, such as the fabulous Ted Lasso on Apple TV+ — which just realized its amazing Season 1 finale. Brent Dirks of AppAdvice reviews a free app called SpatialBliss which creates rich environments with 3D sound but you get to control where each sound comes from. Definitely check this one out if you own AirPods Pro.
And finally, if you are looking for something fun to watch, a week ago, my wife and I watched the debut of the new short move Father of the Bride Part 3 (ish). We both enjoyed it. It features the actors from the prior movies — Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, etc. — as well as some surprise new actors, and it is well-done and funny. (I didn’t realize that their son from the movies, Kieran Culkin, is the same actor who now plays Roman Roy on HBO’s fantastic show Succession.) The writer and director of the movie, Nancy Meyers, wrote an article for the New York Times to explain how the actors used iPhones to film their parts in the movie, which Meyers then turned into the final movie. The article is spoiler-free so you can read it before or after you watch the movie. And the movie is free to watch, part of a fundraiser for the great World Central Kitchen. You can watch the 25-minute movie on YouTube, or I’ve embedded it below:
Yesterday afternoon, I was the guest on this month’s episode of Tech Talk Law, a show hosted by Washington, D.C. attorney Melissa Kucinski and Florida attorney Brian Karpf. We discussed both general technology topics and specific tips on using an iPad and iPhone in your law practice. Melissa and Brian did a great job coming up with questions and selecting questions from the live chat for folks who were attending via Zoom. And our discussion was very timely, including topics on the intersection of law, technology, and the pandemic.
Thanks to everyone who submitted questions, and thanks to Melissa and Brian for inviting me. It was great fun, and I think that you will enjoy watching it. You can watch the episode on the Tech Talk Law website, or on YouTube, or I embedded the video right here:
Have you upgraded to iOS 14 and iPad OS 14 yet — or, for that matter, iOS 14.0.1, the latest release that came out yesterday with some bug fixes? If so, you are starting to experience all of the new features. I had planned to write a post this week about widgets, one of the most obvious new features because once you add them to your home screen, you can’t miss them. It’s a great addition. But almost every day, I find myself changing how I use them, plus app upgrades with widget support are still coming out every day, which changes how I use widgets. And that is just one of the many new features in iOS 14. And now, the news of note from the past week:
One of the apps that I’ve been using the longest on my iPhone and iPad is Fantastical, a better calendar app. I was excited to see the app updated to add widget support this week. California attorney David Sparks explains how he is using the new Fantastical widgets. I’m enjoying the Fantastical widget on my iPhone, but on the iPad, there are some things I prefer about the built-in Calendar app’s widget. This is a perfect example of how I’m still trying to make up my mind on which widget setup I like the best.
Some of the initial reviews are in on the Apple Watch Series 6, and several reviewers are unsatisfied with the blood oxygen sensor. Geoffrey Fowler of the Washington Post says that some of his readings are erratic, and perhaps more importantly, he didn’t see the value in getting the results.
Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal had a similar reaction. She thinks it is a better idea to just use a more accurate finger oximeter, which you can get for $60.
Even if you don’t have a new Apple Watch, you can get new features on your current Apple Watch by upgrading to watchOS 7. Alex Guyot of MacStories wrote a good review of watchOS 7.
One nice change in watchOS 7: you can finally adjust your green circle (exercise) and blue circle (stand) daily goals, as John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes.
Apple CEO Tim Cook was interviewed at The Atlantic Festival. Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac has some of the highlights, along with a link to the full video.
I’m a huge fan of the eero Pro that I installed in my home a few months ago. This week, Amazon released the eero Pro 6, a more expensive version that supports Wi-Fi 6, which means that, in some circumstances, it can be even faster. I updated my review of the eero Pro to discuss the differences.
The new 2020 emoji should be coming to iOS 14 in the next month or so, and I gave you a preview of some of the new ones back in July. But we now have a final list of the 217 new emoji for 2021, and Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia has the full story. We will have to wait for Summer 2021 to start to see some previews of how Apple will draw these new 2021 emoji.
And finally, even though the blood oxygen sensor may not be as good as a dedicated oximeter, there is still a lot to like about the Apple Watch Series 6. Here is a video showing off some of the features prepared by Apple called It Already Does That:
Back in June, I previewed some of the great new features coming to the iPhone and iPad in iOS 14, as well as new features coming to the Apple Watch in watchOS 7. Both updates came out yesterday, so this is a good time to look back at those posts again to start to understand what is new. (I did that myself as I was downloading the updates.) I’m still trying to figure out the best ways to use widgets on my iPhone and iPad, but I can already tell that I’m going to like that new feature. The iPad interface improvements are also really nice, such as the new sidebar in the Photos app. And if you haven’t used the Pinned Conversation feature in the Messages app, check that one out right away. Just find a conversation with a person or group that you text with a lot, hold down and pick Pin, and then you can always quickly jump to that conversation by tapping an icon at the top instead of scrolling around to look for the conversation. And there are so many more nice new features, which I’m sure I will be writing about on iPhone J.D. as I discover more delightful new additions. And now, the news of note from the past week:
California attorney David Sparks updated his Shortcuts Field Guide this week. Last year, I reviewed the version for iOS 13. The latest update adds 16 videos and over 45 minutes of new content to address new iOS 14 features. If you click here you can, for a limited time, get a $5 discount. Shortcuts is such a powerful app, and it has some major updates in iOS 14, so if you want to get more out of your iPhone or iPad I absolutely recommend this video field guide.
Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories describes the new Spatial Audio feature in iOS 14 for the AirPods Pro. This is really fascinating technology. If you own the AirPods pro, use them to watch an episode of Ted Lasso (a show that supports Spatial Audio) on an iPad or iPhone, and then move your head around while you are watching. The sound truly seems to come from the iPad/iPhone instead of from the speakers in your ears. The audio also just sounds better. I cannot wait to see more of this. Voorhees also points out that, for any model AirPods, you no longer have to manually connect when you switch devices. Start using an iPhone, and your AirPods pair to the iPhone. Put the iPhone down and start using the iPad, and the AirPods pair to the iPad. I’ve only been using that feature for 24 hours but so far it has worked incredibly well.
Speaking of Ted Lasso, I was wrong when I said last week that there are only eight episodes this season. There are ten. And the eighth episode that was released “today” (I watched it at 11pm Central last night) is excellent.
Voorhees also wrote an article to explain how CARROT Weather — my favorite weather app — was updated in numerous ways to take advantage of all of the new features of iOS 14 and watchOS 7.
Yesterday, I discussed the new versions of the Apple Watch Series 6 and the Apple Watch SE, which go on sale today. Apple provided review units to a few members of the press, so you can now read some early initial impressions on these devices. For example, if you want to see the Series 6 in action, Marques Brownlee shows it off in this video.
Caitlin McGarry of Gizmodo says that the 2.5x brighter display when the Series 6 is inactive makes a big difference when outside or when working out, but also says that the Apple Watch SE is also quite good and shares many of its best features.
Jason Cross of Macworld provides some details on the new A14 Bionic processor that powers the new iPad Air — and which I presume will also power the new iPhone that Apple will introduce in a few weeks.
Apple also announced Apple One this week, a bundle of up to six Apple services. Benjamin Mayo explains how you can use this upcoming service to save some money. I certainly will. Ever month, I currently pay Apple $14.99 for Apple Music for me and my family, $9.99 for 2 TB of iCloud storage, and $49.99 a year for Apple Arcade for my kids which works out to just over $4 a month. And when Apple starts to charge for Apple TV+, that will be another $5 a month for a service that I will want. So that’s $34 a month. With the $29.95 Apple One Premiere bundle, I can save $4 a month, get all of those same services, and also get Apple News+ (normally $9.99) and the upcoming Apple Fitness+ (which will also be $9.99) for free. Spend less money than I am paying now, plus get two additional services? Count me in.
tvOS 14 also came out this week. As Mayo explains, it adds better HomeKit support, support for 4K YouTube videos, and multi-user support for Apple Arcade and Game Center, and better Picture-in-Picture.
This week, Apple introduced two new Apple Watch models, the Apple Watch Series 6 and the Apple Watch SE. Both look like excellent devices. Since Apple is continuing to sell the Apple Watch Series 3 that it introduced three years ago as a low-cost alternative, and since there are lots of options within each of the three Apple Watch lines now being sold, you now have lots of choices at lots of different prices points if you are looking to purchase your first Apple Watch or upgrade from an older model. Here are the features that jumped out at me for Apple’s newest models of the Apple Watch.
Apple Watch Series 6
Ever since Apple introduced the original Apple Watch in 2015, and since then, through a series of updates, the device has become even more useful. Often there are only one or two major new features in each new model, but when you look at all of the improvements over time, it is impressive how much the device has evolved. In 2016, Apple introduced the Series 2, which added GPS, the ability to get wet, and a somewhat faster processor so that it wasn’t painfully slow. Series 3 in 2017 added cellular and even more speed. Series 4 in 2018 introduced a slightly larger screen that could show a lot more because the unused space on the edges got thinner (the same thing that Apple has been doing with the iPad over the years), fall detection, an EKG, and was the first Apple Watch to be fast enough that you no longer really thought much about the speed of the device. The Series 5 in 2019 added an always on display so that you can just glance down at your watch to see the time and other information without having to lift your wrist to turn on the display.
This year, the major new feature in the Apple Watch Series 6 is a blood oxygen sensor. By shining red and infrared light on your arm and measuring how it bounces back, the sensor can determine the color of your blood, which indicates the amount of oxygen in your blood. Blood oxygen has become a bigger topic during the COVID-19 pandemic because a pulse oximeter — a small device that you place on your fingertip to shine lights and measure blood oxygen — can be helpful for folks who are asymptomatic or have mild COVID-19 to watch for early signs that the disease is getting worse. Apple notes that this sensor is not being added to the Apple Watch as a medical device — its website says that “[m]easurements taken with the Blood Oxygen app are not intended for medical use and are only designed for general fitness and wellness purposes” — but it can be a key indicator of your breathing and blood circulation, and thus your overall cardiac health. By measuring your blood oxygen throughout the day (and night if you sleep with the watch), the Apple Watch Series 6 has the potential to give you an early warning if something doesn’t seem right. It reminds me of the EKG added to the Series 4 in that it is yet another sensor to give your Apple Watch an even better overall sense of how you are doing.
The Series 6 also charges 20% faster. It adds an Apple U1 chip that helps other devices to know more precisely where your Apple Watch is located. (Apple has been mostly quiet about the U1 chip in the past, but at some point soon, perhaps next month, I expect Apple to announce new features for devices with a U1 chip.) Like the Series 5, the Series 6 features an always on display. But now the screen is 2.5x brighter when your wrist is down, making it easier to glance and see the time and other information when you are outdoors. Series 6 also has an altimeter that is always on to sense your elevation throughout the day. (For someone like me who lives in the flat, and in some cases, below sea level City of New Orleans, I don’t need this feature to tell me that my average elevation is zero.) And the new S6 processor is up to 20% faster than the S5 used in the Series 5. And the Wi-Fi in the Series 6 supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, whereas all earlier models only support the 2.4GHz band.
You can get the Series 6 in Aluminum in five different colors starting at $399 for 40 mm / $429 for 44 mm, or if you add cellular, for $499 / $529. Or you can get the Stainless Steel (which includes cellular) in three different colors starting at $699 / $749, or Titanium (with cellular) in two different colors starting at $799 / $849.
I currently use, and love, my Apple Watch Series 5. The additional new features in the Series 6 are not enough for me to upgrade this year, but whenever I do next upgrade, it will be nice to have those new features plus whatever comes next. If you currently use an old model of the Apple Watch and are ready for an upgrade, you are going to love having an always on display — I’ve appreciated that new feature every day for the past year — and I’ll be slightly jealous of you when that your always on display works even better for you when you are outside.
Apple Watch SE
If you want to spend less money, I suppose that the Apple Watch SE is currently the mid-range model considering that Apple is continuing to sell the Series 3 without cellular for $199 / $229, but I do not recommend that you purchase the Series 3 because you lose out on so many features that have been added since 2017. On the other hand, I do recommend that you consider the Apple Watch SE as an alternative to the Series 6. The Apple Watch SE is only available in Aluminum and costs $279 / $309, or if you add cellular, $329 / $359. Thus, you are saving $120 off of the price of a similar Apple Watch Series 6 if you get the version without cellular, or $170 if you are getting the version with cellular.
Here is what you miss out on when you save $120/$170 to get the Apple Watch SE versus the Series 6:
No always on display. So in this way, it is similar to the Series 4
You get the S5 chip used in the Series 5, not the 20% faster S6 chip in the Series 6
No EKG, like the Series 3.
No blood oxygen sensor, like the Series 5.
No U1 chip, like the Series 5.
No 5GHz Wi-Fi, only 2.4GHz Wi-Fi like the Series 5.
I certainly don’t consider any of these to be essential features, so Apple did a good job of pulling out less important features to reduce the price. But as noted above, I really love the always on display; it is one of the best features of the Apple Watch for me. If I were buying a new Apple Watch today that I was going to wear for the next few years, I would think long and hard about paying the extra money to get the always on display, with the other extra features listed above just being a bonus. For me, the always on display is one of my favorite features of the Apple Watch Series 5.
New Watch Bands
The new watch bands this year are the Solo Loop and the Braided Solo Loop. They don’t have buckles — you just slip them on your wrist — but this means that you need to measure your wrist to select the right band.
Conclusion
It is nice that there is so much choice in the Apple Watch line. I recommend that you ignore the $199 starting price for the Series 3 and instead focus on the $279 starting price of the Apple Watch SE as the minimal Apple Watch to consider purchasing. From there, you can decide what features you want, whether you want cellular, pick a case, pick a band, etc., which may cause the price to increase from $279 up to $1249 — or $1,499 if you get an Hermès band. But whatever model you pick, you will get the core features that make the Apple Watch so useful, such as the notifications (including silent notifications by discretely tapping on your wrist), fitness features, and the information that is most important to you available by just glancing at your wrist. If you are ready to get a new Apple Watch, both new models are available starting tomorrow.
The iPad Air is the mid-range of the iPad line — more powerful than the entry-level “iPad” but typically lacking the latest-and-greatest features of the iPad Pro. Although the iPad Pro was last updated on March 18, 2020, the third generation of the iPad Air was announced a year earlier on March 18, 2019. That is a nice version of the iPad Air (my wife uses hers every day), but after 19 months, Apple decided it was time for an upgrade. And boy did the iPad Air get an upgrade. Yesterday, Apple held an online event in which it had lots of new announcements such as two new Apple Watch models, a new entry-level iPad, new services, and more. I’ll be discussing these announcements in the coming days, but today I want to focus on one that will be of interest to many lawyers: the new fourth-generation iPad Air. It has a lot more in common with the current version of the 11" iPad Pro than it does the third-generation iPad Air that it replaces, and it will be a great device for many lawyers.
Screen
The physical size of the new iPad Air is virtually the same as both the 11" iPad Pro and the third-generation iPad Air: 9.74" x 7" x .24". And all three of those devices weigh a pound. I think of this as the traditional iPad size and shape. It isn’t huge like the 12.9" iPad Pro. And it isn’t small like the iPad mini.
Because of larger bezels, the third-generation iPad Air had a 10.5" (diagonal) display. The new iPad Air has a 10.9" display — almost as large as the 11" display on the iPad Pro. Like the iPad Pro, the new iPad Air has a Liquid Retina display — which is excellent, although not quite as good as the OLED display on the most expensive iPhones.
The new iPad Air isn’t quite as bright as the iPad Pro (500 nits versus the iPad Air’s 600 nits), and the iPad Air lacks the ProMotion technology that makes moving items on the iPad Pro screen seem even smoother. Thus, side-by-side, you will almost certainly be able to tell that the iPad Pro screen is better. But the iPad Air screen should still be so good that most people won’t notice the difference in regular use.
Touch ID
The larger bezel on the third-generation iPad Air provided space for a home button with Touch ID. The iPad Pro uses a thinner bezel without a button to provide more screen, so it uses Face ID to unlock. The new iPad Air uses a third technology: a Touch ID fingerprint scanner built-in to the power button. Some Android phones already feature a fingerprint sensor in the power button, and my understanding is that people like them. Hopefully that means that Apple has a good solution here.
Indeed, every time I try to unlock my iPhone while I am wearing a mask, I wish that I had a fingerprint sensor on it somewhere. Hopefully, it will not be too much longer before we can safely return to a life without masks, but in the interim, I find myself somewhat jealous of devices that use Touch ID instead of Face ID.
Pencil
The Apple Pencil is a fantastic accessory for attorneys. You can annotate documents, take handwritten notes, and more. The prior iPad Air supported the original version of the Apple Pencil, but the new iPad Air now supports the second-generation Apple Pencil, which is a big improvement. It adds the ability to tap on the side to switch tools, a flat side that you can use to magnetically attach the Pencil to the iPad to charge it (and to stop the Pencil from rolling off a desk), and even more precision. Apple Pencil 2 compatibility used to be an important reason to splurge for an iPad Pro, but now you can get that same power with a mid-range iPad.
Performance
Apple’s newest processor is the A14 Bionic, and the first device announced by Apple to use it is the new iPad Air. You cannot even buy an iPhone with an A14 yet, although I expect that to change within a few weeks. Apple says that this new processor will provide a huge leap in performance, and I’m sure that is true.
How will the A14 in a new iPad Air compare to the A12Z in the version of the 11" iPad Pro that came out earlier this year? That’s a good question, and we should have an answer just as soon as folks gets these new devices in their hands. The A12Z has a few features that may make it better for some uses, such as some graphics, than the version of the A14 in the new iPad Air. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t surprise me if tests reveals that the two devices have similar performance — or maybe the iPad Air will be better.
Accessories
I already mentioned the Apple Pencil 2, but the new iPad Air also works with another accessory that used to require an iPad Pro: the $299 Magic Keyboard for iPad. This is the new keyboard introduced earlier this year, which includes an excellent trackpad and uses magnets to let your iPad float above the keyboard. This Magic Keyboard is a little costly and a little heavy, but I’ve heard from many attorneys who really love this device for typing on their iPad. It is nice that you can now use this accessory without having to purchase an iPad Pro.
The new iPad Air also features a USB-C port on the side instead of a Lightning port, another feature that used to be unique to the iPad Pro. Apple moved to USB-C on the iPad Air in late 2018, and until now, the iPad Pro had been the only iPad/iPhone sold by Apple to use USB-C. After using USB-C for two years, I’m a big fan of the technology. It is easier to find USB-C accessories than it is to find Lightning accessories, and the port is just as small and useful as a Lightning port.
iPad Air versus iPad Pro
If you are an attorney looking to get an iPad, should you get an iPad Pro or the new iPad Air? If you want the larger screen of the 12.9" iPad Pro, then you will definitely want to get the iPad Pro. I love that larger screen for reading documents, and the extra space means that there is enough space to run two apps at once without being too cramped. Plus, the extra space is wonderful for taking handwritten notes, watching videos, viewing webpages — more is better.
But if you prefer a more traditional iPad size, then you need to compare the fourth-generation iPad Air with the second-generation iPad Pro 11". Although you can buy a 64 GB iPad Air for $599, I don’t recommend that size for professional use because you are going to run out of space as you load it up with documents. But the 256 GB size is a great size, and at that size, you can get the iPad Pro for $899 or the iPad Air for $749. (If you want even more space — 512 GB or 1 TB — then you will need to get an iPad Pro.)
The additional $150 for the iPad Pro gets you a slightly better screen, an additional ultra wide angle camera that is compatible with portrait mode pictures along with a better flash, four speakers instead of two, and a LiDAR scanner which improves augmented reality. I suspect that none of those will make a big difference to most attorneys. And while I would normally think that any iPad Pro would be faster and more responsive than any iPad Air, with the new A14 processor in the iPad Air, I’m not so sure about that … and we’ll have more information when the new iPad Air becomes available in October. Plus, you get more color choices with the iPad Air. In addition to the silver and space gray available for the iPad Pro, the iPad Air is available in rose gold, green, and sky blue.
If you can wait a few weeks before you buy, let’s see what the hands-on reviews say before you choose between these two devices. Nevertheless, at this point, I suspect that I will recommend that most folks wanting an iPad that is around 11" get the iPad Air for $150 less and use the savings to get a $129 Apple Pencil — unless you know that 256 GB won’t be enough space for you. But I’ve been using a 256 GB iPad for a long time now, and while I sometimes have to delete some large items that are unnecessary to make space, such as a movie that I downloaded, 256 GB is big enough for me and I load lots and lots of things on my iPad. (I see that I currently have 10 GB free.)
Screenshot
The fourth-generation iPad Air will be available in October, and it looks fantastic. It is an iPad that a lot of lawyers will love, whether they are being productive with, or being entertained by, their new device.
The Apple world was relatively quiet this week as everyone is looking forward to the Apple Event scheduled for September 15. The prevailing speculation continues to be that we will see a new Apple Watch and a new iPad Air. Will there be anything else? Yesterday, Kyle Bradshaw took a look at the code for the latest update to the Apple Music app for Android and saw a reference to “Apple One,” which is rumored to be a new subscription service from Apple that allows you to pay one price for multiple Apple services. But you never know what Apple has up its sleeve. And now, the news of note from the past week:
California attorney David Sparks reviews the Eufy line of wireless cameras, which work with Apple’s HomeKit. Unlike many other home security cameras, this one doesn’t try to get you to pay for an online subscription.
Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac warns of a recently discovered flaw in Bluetooth that would potentially allow a hacker to connect to a device without authentication. Fortunately, built-in protections on Apple’s mobile devices protects against this sort of flaw — for example, your iPhone asks for your permission before connecting a Bluetooth device — but this is still something to be aware of.
I mentioned on Wednesday that you can see an Augmented Reality version of Apple’s invitation for its event next week if you load the event page using an iPhone or iPad and then tap the blue graphic. If you want to see more high-quality AR examples, Apple has a page on its developer website with lots of 3D models that you can play around with.
If you have the Apple TV+ channel and you are not watching Ted Lasso yet, do yourself a favor and start watching it now. The penultimate episode of the first season came out a few hours ago, and the first season wraps up in a week. I was afraid that it would be like other silly comedies inspired by SNL skits, and boy was I wrong. The show is genuinely funny and has a great heart that will leave you smiling after every episode — something that all of us can use in 2020. I cannot say enough good things about this one.
And finally, here is a short video walk-through from CNA, an English-language news channel based in Singapore, of Apple’s stunning new Apple Store Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, an Apple Store that floats on water and opens to the public today. Just like the iconic Apple Store Fifth Avenue in New York, this store seems destined to become a big tourist attraction.
Two days ago, Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac reported that Apple seemed to be running out of Apple Watch Series 5 models at the various places that you can buy an Apple Watch. It appears that now we know why. Yesterday, Apple announced that it will hold an Apple Event on Tuesday, September 15, at 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern. In a normal year, I would think that this is an announcement of a new iPhone. From 2012 to 2019, Apple announced a new iPhone every September. But remember, Apple announced over a month ago that this year would be different (presumably because of COVID-19, although Apple didn’t say) because this year the new iPhone will go on sale “a few weeks later” than normal, which likely means that the new iPhone will also be announced a few weeks later — perhaps October 2020.
So what will Apple announce next week if not a new iPhone? The tagline that Apple is using for next week’s event is “Time Flies.” As John Gruber of Daring Fireball speculates, the word “time” almost certainly indicates that Apple is ready to announce the next version of the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch Series 5 was announced this time last year (and the Apple Watch Series 4 the year before that), so Apple may now be on a yearly refresh cycle for this product. Also, there is a rumor that Apple is close to releasing a new version of the iPad Air (last updated in March 2019), so that could be part of next week’s event as well.
Because of COVID-19, this will not be a typical event in which members of the press are in the audience and Apple executives are on stage. Instead, Apple will stream video of the event for anyone to watch.
As we wait for the next Apple Event, if you want a cheap thrill, use an iPad or iPhone to load the event page and the tap the blue graphic to see an animated AR version of the graphic.
