Jeff Richardson

[UPDATE:  For my latest post on Anker cables dated August 19, 2020, click here.]  The 2018 versions of the iPad Pro have a USB-C port instead of a Lightning port, so when I bought my new third-generation 12.9″ iPad Pro last month, it was time to get some USB-C cables.  I’ve been very happy with the Anker Lightning cables which I have purchased in the past (my reviews:  1, 2), so when I was looking to get a long USB-C to USB-C cable for charging purposes, I purchased the Anker PowerLine+ C to C 2.0 cable (6ft) from Amazon for $15.97.  The first version I purchased had a problem, but Anker’s customer service was fantastic, and the replacement cable Anker sent me is exactly what I was looking for and I highly recommend it.

USB-PD

The 2018 iPad Pro ships with Apple’s 18W power adapter.  If you want to charge an iPad Pro (or a newer iPhone) as fast as possible, you want to use a power adapter that supports USB-PD (USB Power Delivery), which can transfer up to 29W of power to an iPad Pro, and thus can charge an iPad Pro from 0% to 50% in about 60 minutes.  (USB-PD can charge a newer iPhone from 0% to 50% in about 3o minutes.)  Note that while you can use a USB-PD power adapter that supports more than 29W of power, such as Apple’s 87W power adapter designed for the MacBook Pro, it doesn’t charge any faster than a 29W USB-C adapter when used with the 2018 iPad Pro.  Apple used to sell a USB-C 29W power adapter, and you can still find it in some stores; I bought mine in 2016 (my review).  Apple has since replaced it with the Apple’s USB-C 30W power adapter ($49.97 on Amazon).  From the standpoint of an iPad Pro, there is no difference between using a 29W or a 30W power adapter, but Apple’s 30W adapter does support some additional voltages so it works better with certain other devices like an iPhone 8.

In my office, I have a power strip on the floor next to my desk.  My Apple USB-C 29W power adapter is plugged in to it, and I previously used an Apple 2m USB-C to Lightning cord so that I had something long enough to reach up to my desk, where I could fast charge either my iPad or my iPhone.  (Currently, only Apple sells a USB-C to Lightning cord, but there are reports that Apple will allow other companies to sell them in 2019.)  That was the cord that I wanted to replace with a USB-C to USB-C cord so that I could charge my third-generation iPad Pro 12.9″ at maximum speed. 

There are three reasons that this Anker cord was perfect for my needs:  length, durability, and cost.

Length

First, it is a long cord.  Six feet is long enough to reach from the floor next to my desk to the devices on my desk with room to spare.  Also, when I travel, it is nice to have a longer cord, whether I am in a hotel room or a conference room.  Six feet is about six inches shorter than Apple’s 2m USB-C to USB-C cord (two meters is about 6.56 feet) but I haven’t really noticed that small difference in length.

Durability

Second, I like the PowerLine+ cords from Anker because they are very durable.  As I just noted, I will take this cord around with me a lot, whether I am traveling out of town or just going to work someplace else in my own office, so I prefer a power cord that will stand up to abuse.  The PowerLine+ line from Anker features a double-braided nylon exterior, which protects the cord and makes it almost impossible for the cord to get tangled up.  The PowerLine+ cords also have a tough fiber cord and strong connectors at both ends.  After using both Apple and Anker cords, I find that the Anker ones hold up better.

Cost

Third, Anker cords are inexpensive for the quality that you get.  Apple sells its 2m USB-C to USB-C charge cable for $19.  This Anker cable is $15.97 on Amazon.  I wouldn’t mind spending $3 more than the Apple cable just to get the additional durability of the Anker Powerline+ cable.  Getting all of that for $3 less than the Apple cable is a great deal.

Sync speed

Note that this cable uses USB 2.0 speed, so if you are using this cable for syncing, you only get normal syncing speeds of 480 Mbps.  A USB 3.0 cord can give you faster sync speeds of 5Gbps, and a USB 3.1 Gen 2 cord can give you sync speeds of 10Gbps — assuming that you are connecting to another device that supports the higher speed.  For example, at my home I use an older iMac which only supports USB 3.0, so when I sync my new iPad Pro to that computer I use the Anker USB Type C Cable, Powerline USB C to USB 3.0 Cable (3ft).  You might think, why not just get a long six-foot cable which also supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 so that you get a long length plus the fastest sync?  Good idea, but such a cable doesn’t exist right now.  Here is what Sarah Witman of Wirecutter said about such a cable after talking to a representative from Anker:  “It’s not impossible to make such a cable—according to [the USB Implementers Forum], a USB-C cable of any length can be certified as long as it passes all performance tests.  But it might be bulkier than most people would want.  A rep at Anker told us that the company’s engineers have found that a 6-foot cable with full USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds would just be too thick.”  If you are like me and you want a longer cord just to charge your 2018 iPad Pro, then sync speed doesn’t matter.

Customer support

For all of these reasons, the Anker PowerLine+ C to C 2.0 cable seemed perfect to me.  Unfortunately, I encountered some bad news when I purchased this cord from Amazon, but it quickly turned into good news.  When I received my cord, I plugged it in and started using it right away.  And almost right away, I noticed that something wasn’t right.  When I plugged it into my iPad Pro, the iPad beeped to indicate that it was starting to charge, then it would beep again and stop charging, then it beeped again, then again, and it went back and forth a few times before finally starting to charge.  At the same time, the battery icon would flash green and then black and then back again.  Clearly, there was a problem.  It wasn’t a consistent problem — over the course of a few days, it worked great maybe 50% of the time — but for it to happen at all told me that something was amiss, and I had the same problem when I used the cord with different power adapters.

Anker advertises having good customer service, so I decided to contact Anker and take advantage of it.  Anker was incredibly responsive.  They quickly asked me for the serial number for the cable, which was located on a sticker wrapped around one end of the cable — which I had removed and discarded immediately when I unpacked the cable — and was also located on the box, which I still had.  Anker said that if I couldn’t find the serial number, I could simply take a picture of the cable with my iPhone so that they could make sure that they understood the model that I had.  I provided this information and explained the problem, and Anker immediately shipped me a replacement cable.  That replacement cable has worked perfectly, every single time.  Obviously, it would have been better to never have a problem in the first place, but the fact that Anker customer support was so fast and responsive actually resulted in me being even more impressed with Anker.

Conclusion

This Anker USB-C to USB-C cable has been perfect for my needs.  When I’m working at my desk, my iPad often sits in a Thought Out Simplex Tablet iPad Stand (my review) and with the Anker cord plugged in the side, I can keep my iPad fully charged while I use my iPad, so it always has a full charge when I pick up my iPad Pro to walk away from my desk.  When I travel, I use this cord with an older Anker product called the PowerPort+ (my review), which has since been replaced by the PowerPort Speed PD 5.  That device includes a USB-C port which supports USB-PD for up to 30W charging, plus it has four traditional USB ports which support 2.4A charging. 

If you have a new iPad Pro with a USB-C connector, the six foot version of the Anker PowerLine+ C to C 2.0 cable is a great cord for your charging needs.  If all you need is three feet, you can save a few bucks on the shorter version of this same cord. Both lengths come in gray or red.

Click here to get Anker PowerLine+ C to C 2.0 cable (6ft) from Amazon ($15.97)

Click here to get Anker PowerLine+ C to C 2.0 cable (3ft) from Amazon ($13.99)

There is an interesting article in the New York Times this week by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Natasha Singer, Michael H. Keller and Aaron Krolik about how an iPhone can track, and unfortunately sometimes share, your current location.  The article is interesting, but the way that it is presented on the page is also very interesting with lots of graphics that change as you scroll through the article.  Virginia attorney Sharon Nelson discusses the article on her Ride The Lightning blog, noting that while the companies collecting location data claim to keep the data anonymous, she has her doubts.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reports on the latest update to the fantastic CARROT Weather app (my review). In the new version, you can select your weather source — Dark Sky, The Weather Channel, AccuWeather and Aeris Weather — plus there are no Apple Watch complications, support for certain personal weather station data, and more.
• I use my Apple Pencil with my iPad Pro pretty much every day that I am at work, but I realize that some folks have not yet realized for themselves how useful this device is.  In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell explains how the second generation version has finally turned him into a believer in the Apple Pencil.
• Amie Tsang and Adam Satariano of the New York Times report that Apple is going to build a $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas.
• Christina Farr of CNBC reports that Apple has hired dozens of doctors — sometimes secretly — to work with Apple to improve the Apple Watch and other health technology.
• If you use Philips Hue lights, you already know that if you lose power in your home, the lights come back on at full brightness with power is restored — which can be rather alarming.  Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reports that the latest version of the Philips Hue app fixes this so that lights can be configured to return to their previous states when the power comes back.
• If you use HomeKit-compatible smarthome devices, HomeRun is a great Apple Watch app for controlling your devices.  Ryan Christoffel of MacStories reports that the app can now create custom complications.
• If you want a HomeKit-compatible outdoor outlet, I’m still enjoying the iHome iSP100 which I reviewed earlier this year.  Christopher Null of TechHive reviews a more expensive competitor, the iDevices Outdoor Switch.
• The Apple Watch Series 4 now support the ECG/EKG function.  But it also can do a better job checking your heart rate.  Apple recently updated a support page to explain:  “To use the electrical heart sensor to measure your heart rate, open the Heart Rate app and place your finger on the Digital Crown. You will get a faster reading with higher fidelity — getting a measurement every second instead of every 5 seconds.”
• Andrew Orr of The Mac Observer lists all of the shortcuts you can do with a keyboard connected to an iPad using Apple’s apps.
• Starting next week, you will be able to use an Amazon Echo with Apple Music, as reported by Federico Viticci of MacStories.
• David Griner of AdWeek runs down the 25 best ads of 2018.  Three of them are Apple ads, including #2 on the list.
• And finally, here is a video Apple released a few weeks ago to show off many of the features of the iPad Pro called Five Reasons iPad Pro Can Be Your Next Computer:

The iPhone remains, by far, the most popular smartphone for attorneys.  Nevertheless, in 2018 an all-time high of one-quarter of all attorneys reported using an Android phone, and that increase is mostly attributable to sole practitioners, where iPhone-to-Android use is a 2-to-1 ratio.

Every year, the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center conducts a survey to gauge the use of legal technology by attorneys in private practice in the United States.  The 2018 report (edited by Gabriella Mihm) was recently released, and as always, I was particularly interested in Volume VI, titled Mobile Lawyers.  No survey is perfect, but the ABA tries hard to ensure that its survey has statistical significance, and every year this is one of the best sources of information on how attorneys use technology.  Note that the survey was conducted from June to October, 2018, so these numbers don’t reflect any changes in what attorneys started using when Apple introduced the 2018 versions of the iPhone or iPad Pro. This is the ninth year that I have reported on this survey, and with multiple years of data we can see some interesting trends.  (My reports on prior ABA surveys are located here: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.)

Over two-thirds of all U.S. attorneys use an iPhone, and Android use hits all-time high

The 2o18 survey revealed that around 95% of all attorneys use a smartphone to get work done out of the office.  For attorneys using a smartphone, over two-thirds use an iPhone, and for the first time ever more than 25% report using an Android, with the highest Android use among solo attorneys.

The survey asks each attorney “Do you use a smartphone (e.g. iPhone, Android) for law-related tasks while away from your primary workplace?”  Back in 2010, the number of attorneys answering “no” was around 12%. That number decreased over the years to 2017 when it hit an all-time low of only 4.4%.  This year, the number increased only slightly to 4.9%.  We can still say that over 95% of all attorneys use a smartphone to get work done.

In 2013, the big news was that, for the first time, over half of all attorneys were using an iPhone.  In 2014 and 2015 the percentage was around 60%.  In 2016, there was a big increase up to 68.4%.  In 2017, the number was up to 74.9%.  In 2018, the number is down slightly to 72%.  Taking into account that 4.9% of all attorneys are not using a smartphone, we can say that 68.4% of all attorneys in private practice in the U.S. are using an iPhone in their law practice, which is the same percentage as 2016.  According to the ABA 2018 National Lawyer Population Survey, there are 1,338,678 attorneys in the U.S., which suggests that there could be over 916,000 attorneys in the U.S. using an iPhone.

If 68.4% of all attorneys are using an iPhone, and 4.9% of attorneys are not using any smartphone, what are the others using?  Most of them are using an Android smartphone, around 25.4%.  That is an all-time high for Android, so 2018 marks the first year in which more than one-quarter of all attorneys are using an Android phone.

Back in 2011, 40% of all attorneys used a BlackBerry, and there was a time when it was incredibly common to see another lawyer with a BlackBerry.  However, BlackBerry use by attorneys has dropped sharply since 2011.  In 2018, the number reached a new low of only 1.5%.  According to the survey, the most significant use of BlackBerry devices this year is in law firms with 50-99 lawyers; in those firms, 100% of the attorneys are using a smartphone, and while iPhone use is a little higher than the national average at 72.7%, Android use is down to 18.2% and BlackBerry use is at 9.1%.  If you are looking for an attorney who is still using a BlackBerry phone, your best bet is to look at a law firm with 50-100 attorneys.

If you are looking for an attorney who is using an Android phone, your best bet is to look for a sole practitioner.  Only 91.4% of solo attorneys use a smartphone, fewer than the statistic associated with any other firm size.  60.1% of solo attorneys use an iPhone, and 30.4% of solo attorneys use Android.  So for solo attorneys, almost 1/10 are not even using a smartphone, and for those who do, Android is half as popular as iPhone.  That’s still a large number of solo attorneys using an iPhone, but it is interesting that Android phones are more popular with solo attorneys than with attorneys who work with other attorneys at a law firm.  I just did a quick search and couldn’t find recent numbers, but historically I know that almost half of all attorneys are sole practitioners, so that is a big market.

Finally, there are almost 1% of attorneys using some sort of Microsoft Windows operating system on their smartphone in 2018, and another almost 0.7% say that they don’t know what kind of smartphone they are using. 

If you add the numbers, you’ll notice that they add up to over 100%.  But it makes sense for the number to be slightly over 100% because I know that a small number of attorneys use multiple smartphones.

The following pie chart is somewhat imprecise because, as I just noted, the actual numbers add up to just over 100%, but it gives you a general, graphical sense of the relative use:

To place these numbers in historical context, the following chart shows lawyer smartphone use over recent years.  The two dramatic changes in this chart are of course the plunge in BlackBerry use and the surge in iPhone use.  There has been a more gradual, but noticeable, decrease in the number of attorneys not using a smartphone at all.  As for Android use, there was a slight increase from 2011 to 2015, then a slight decrease for two years, and then the all-time high this year.  The “Other” category in this chart includes Windows, something else, and those who don’t know what smartphone they are using.

Almost 40% of U.S attorneys use an iPad

Apple introduced the original iPad in 2010, and for the first few years it resulted in a surge in lawyer tablet use.  In 2011, only 15% of all attorneys responded that they use a tablet.  That number more than doubled to 33% in 2012, and rose to 48% in 2013.  Since 2013, the number has stayed between 48% and 50%; in 2018, it was 48.5%.  Suffice it to say that about half of all U.S. attorneys in private practice currently use a tablet, and that has remained true for the last five years.

It used to be that around 90% of attorneys using a tablet were using an iPad.  It was 89% in 2011, 91% in 2012, and 91% in 2013.  From 2014 to 2016, that number stayed around 84%.  In 2017, that number dropped to 81.3%, and in 2018 it is at 78.1%. 

It looks like the very slight drop in attorneys using iPads is mostly attributable to slightly fewer overall attorneys using tablet devices.  Android and Windows tablet use by attorneys has really changed very much.  That surprises me on the Windows side because I do seem to hear more attorneys talking about using a Windows Surface device.

Here is a historical chart of attorney tablet use:

Popular apps

The survey also asked attorneys to identify apps that they use.  I want to start by making the same objection that I have been making for many years now:  I don’t like how the ABA asks the question.  The ABA first asks “Have you ever downloaded a legal-specific app for your smartphone?”  In 2018, 49.4% said yes.  When I see the word “smartphone” in this question, I think of my iPhone, not my iPad.  Then the next question asks:  “What legal specific app(s) did you download?”  When I read the questions in that order, I’m thinking of the apps that I downloaded on my iPhone, not my iPad.  But others must be reading the question differently because I see TrialPad and TranscriptPad in the answers, and those apps exist only on the iPad, not on the iPhone.  I would have never mentioned those apps when answering the question, even though I use them on my iPad, and TranscriptPad is one of my favorite legal specific apps.

So while I question how much value you can put in these answers, for what it is worth, the top 13 apps listed are, in order of the percentage of attorneys mentioning them:

1. Fastcase
2. Westlaw
3. Lexis Advance
4. A legal dictionary app
5. TrialPad
6. TranscriptPad
7. Clio
8. LexisNexis Get Cases & Shepardize
9. LexisNexis Legal News
10. Courtlink
11. Casemaker
12. Westlaw News
13. HeinOnline

Congrats to Ed Walters and the team at Fastcase for moving up to the #1 spot this year. 

The ABA then asked about general business apps, and the questions have the same ambiguity:  the ABA first asked if the attorney ever downloaded a general business app to a smartphone (50.2% said yes in 2018), and then the ABA asked which apps were downloaded, without making it clear whether the question was asking about the iPhone and iPad.  The answers provided were, in this order:

1. Dropbox
2. LinkedIn
3. Evernote
4. LogMeIn
5. Documents to Go
6. GoodReader
7. Box
8. QuickOffice
9. MS Office/Word
10. Notability
11. QuickBooks

It amazes me that Microsoft Word is so low on this list (only 4.5% report using it).  I consider Word an essential app for attorneys using an iPhone or an iPad.

If you are using a Series 4 Apple Watch in the U.S., Apple has now turned on the ability to use your Apple Watch to do an EKG/ECG.  Just update to the latest version of watchOS, 5.1.2, to start using the feature.  When you first configure the ECG app, you are also given the option to turn on having the Apple Watch do additional periodic checks on your heart.  Apple points out that this feature can only do so much, and it is certainly no substitute for talking to your doctor if you are not feeling good.  Nevertheless, it is fascinating to see how far Apple has extended the health capabilities of the Apple Watch in the short amount of time that the product has been available.  I’m sure that Apple has much more planned in this area, and Alex Fitzpatrick of TIME magazine interviewed Apple CEO Tim Cook and others to discuss this brave new world.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Michael Payne of Legaltech news discusses the end of paper as attorneys move from a legal pad to an iPad.
• Nazia Parveen of The Guardian reports on the trial of a pharmacist in the UK who was convicted of murdering his wife, in part due to evidence obtained from his iPhone and his wife’s iPhone providing evidence of heart rates and moving around at specific times.
• Zac Hall of 9to5Mac has some good suggestions for using HomeKit to automate your holiday lights.  My advice:  if you do nothing more than this, adding a smart plug to a Christmas Tree is a huge improvement.  It is much less awkward than reaching behind a tree to plug it in, may give you the ability to dim your tree, allows you to have the tree turn off automatically at a certain time, etc.  And the ability to tell Siri to turn on your tree lights is really useful.
• Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal recommends the best mesh Wi-Fi systems.  And as usual, her article has a great video to accompany it.
• Jonny Evans of Computerworld has 12 Siri tips that you might not know about.
• Dave Mark of The Loop notes a few new iPad Pro hardware tricks (such as the ability to spin your Apple Pencil — I figured out that one too) based on a video from DailyTekk.
• Active military personnel and veterans can now get a 10% discount on Apple products, as noted by Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac.
• iOS 12.1.1 was released this week.  It improves RTT/TTY support, which is a form of texting used by individuals who have difficulty making audio phone calls.  As each letter is typed on one screen, it appears on the other person’s screen.  Chance Miller of 9to5Mac explains this feature and how RTT/TTY is improved in iOS 12.1.1.
• And finally, in this video, which Apple calls Real Stories, four people share stories of how an Apple Watch helped to save their life.

This week, I was the guest on the Gen Why Lawyer podcast, a podcast hosted by California patent attorney, and millennial, Karima Gulick.  I talked about why I started iPhone J.D., and I also provided some general tips for attorneys, especially younger millennial attorneys, about using an iPhone and iPad in a law practice.  Karima does a great job with this podcast, and as enjoyable as it was to be a guest, I have also enjoyed listening to — and learning a lot from — the other episodes of this podcast.

Click here for the page on the Gen Why Lawyer webpage for this podcast.  Or you can use these links to listen in your podcast player of choice:

• Overcast link
• Apple Podcasts link
• Stitcher link

Microsoft Word is unquestionably one of the most valuable apps on my iPhone and iPad.  I often use the app on my iPhone to review a document and make quick edits.  On my iPad, I can get more substantive work done on a document, especially if I am using an external Bluetooth keyboard.  When I am done working with a document, most of the time I want to email that document to someone — sometimes myself.  You can do this with Word, but it takes a few steps.  And due to a recent update, it now takes more steps than ever.  Here is what you need to do to email a document using Microsoft Word on an iPhone or iPad.

1 + 2:  Share and invite people.

The first step is to tap the share button at the top right of the iPhone or iPad screen — a box with an arrow coming out of it.  In the past, there was an icon with an outline of a person and a + button, and that has been replaced by a share button. 

What you see after you press the button has changed as well.  In the past, the second step was to select an option to email the file as an attachment.  Instead, you now need to select Invite People.  That change seems strange to me because you are not really inviting anyone to do anything if you are just emailing a document. 

 

3 + 4: Send a copy with another app.

After you tap the button to Invite People, the app next presumes that you want to share using a cloud service.  However, at the very bottom, you will see an option to Send a Copy.  Tap that.

The fourth step is to make selections on the Send a Copy screen, and this step is similar to before.  Decide whether you want to send in Word format or PDF format, and then decide if you want to use Microsoft’s own Outlook app for iPhone/iPad or Send with Another App.  I don’t use Outlook on my iPhone or iPad — and I’m sure that most of you don’t do so either — so you will want to tap Send with Another App.

 

5 + 6:  Select the Mail app and send your email.

The fifth step is to select what you want to use to send the Word file.  If you are just sending to another one of your own devices, or the device of someone else in the same room, you can skip email completely and use AirDrop.  But most of the time, this will be the step when you tap the Mail app.  If your Mail app is not currently your first option, you may need to scroll to the right to find it.  Once you do find it, you can drag it left to make it the first option in the future.

The sixth step is to create your email and then send it.

 

Depending upon your particular situation, there may be other, faster ways to email your file.  For example, if your Microsoft Word document is stored on a cloud service that works with iOS, such as Dropbox or iCloud, or in certain other apps that work with the Files app, you can add an attachment from directly within an email.  To do this on the iPhone, tap the flashing cursor in the body of an email message to bring up the editing menu.  Then tap the right arrow until you see Add Attachment.  To do this on the iPad, you don’t have to tap the cursor at all; instead tap the paperclip icon just above the keyboard on the right side.

This brings you into a version of the Files app.  If the Browse tab is selected at the bottom, you can select a service such as Dropbox and then tap your file.  If the Recents tap is selected at the bottom, you can quickly see some of the files that you recently used and tap the one that you want.

 

Click here for more information from Apple on using the editing menu to attach files to an email.

I hope that in the future, Microsoft Word for iOS adds full support for the Files app.  If this happens, you should be able to skip many of the six steps I mentioned above when a file is stored locally on your iPhone or iPad.  For now, however, you just need to do a whole lot of tapping to get that Microsoft Word file from your device to an email attachment.

We are now in prime holiday season.  If you are shopping online and having packages delivered, I’m a big fan of the Deliveries app (my most recent review) to track your passages.  Ryan Christoffel of MacStories discusses an update to the Deliveries app to support Siri Shortcuts.  If you are heading out to the mall or flying to bring gifts to your loved ones, here is a list of airports and malls in which Apple’s Maps app has indoor maps.  And now, the recent news of note:

• California attorney David Sparks discusses his attempts to customize the Infograph watch face on the Apple Watch Series 4.  I’ve spent a little time with this one myself, but couldn’t find a configuration that I wanted to keep, although for me that was mostly because I prefer the digital time over analog time and the other features of the face weren’t compelling enough.
• This week, ABA Journal released its list of the 2018 Web 100, with lots of recommendations for legal blogs, podcasts, Twitter accounts, and more.
• In an article for LegalNews.com, Matt Chaney discusses an update to the DoNotPay app which allows users to file a lawsuit without the use of an attorney.  One of my law partners, Lucian Pera, provides some thoughts on the app in that article.
• Apple was before the Supreme Court this week for oral arguments in an antitrust dispute.  Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog offers this analysis.
• Ben Thommpson of Stratechery is not a lawyer, but he does offer an interesting analysis of that antitrust lawsuit against Apple.
• Dan Moren reports on an interview of Apple’s CEO Tim Cook by Axios.
• Zac Hall of 9to5Mac offers advice for making an Apple Watch Series 4 last for a long run.
• Zac Hall also discusses using the Nomad USB-A to Lightning Key cable, plus a small adapter, so that you can charge your iPhone from your new iPad Pro.
• And finally, the iPhone now supports Group FaceTime, and Apple teamed up with Elvis, and Elvis, and Elvis, to show it off in a video called A Little Company:

For many iPhone users, it would be far more accurate to call the device an iCamera because the camera function is used much, much more often than the phone function.  On the popular photo sharing site Flickr, the top five camera models used for uploaded pictures are all different models of the iPhone.  And while iPad users may use that device far less often to take photos, it is a fantastic device for reviewing and editing photos thanks to the large, beautiful screen.  Suffice it to say that the Photos app on the iPhone and iPad is a pretty important app.

Apple tries to make the Photos app easy to use, but it has a lot of power in it that you may not see unless you know what to look for.  Friends and family who know that I am an iPhone nerd will often ask me to show them something interesting on their iPhone, and there are tons of features that I can show off in Photos that impress people such as Memories, looking at the Places album to see lots of photos taken in an interesting location over the years, and the ability in Photos on iOS to combine search terms (such as searching for a person’s name, then adding the search term “snow” to see just photos of that person in the snow).

How do you discover all of these great features?  You need a good guide.  And one of the best is Jason Snell.  Snell has been covering Apple technology as a reporter since the 1990s, and he possesses a skill that many great lawyers use to their advantage:  the ability to explain complex subjects in simple, friendly terms.  That’s why I love reading articles that Snell writes on his Six Colors website and I love listening to him on his numerous podcasts, which range in subject matter from technology to TV shows to even space.

A few days ago, Snell released a new ebook called Take Control of Photos.  Take Control ebooks have been around since 2003 and they cover dozens of different topics, all produced with the aim of being “highly practical ebooks that cover much more detail than a magazine article but that are shorter, more focused, and more timely than a typical printed book.”  I was provided a free copy of this $14.99 book for review purposes, and I read it cover-to-cover last night.  I loved this book, and even as someone who considers himself pretty knowledgeable when it comes to the ins-and-outs of the Photos app, I learned quite a few tips that I started to use right away.

When you purchase the book, you can download it in multiple formats.  I found it easiest to just download the PDF version, which I read using Readdle’s PDF Expert app.  (They gray outlines that you see in the pictures in this review are from me taking a screen shot in PDF Expert, not from the book itself.)  You can also download in epub or mobi format if you prefer to use a book reader to read the book.  The PDF file doesn’t have a password or DRM or anything like that, so once you buy it you can read it on pretty much any device that you want.

This book covers Photos on both iOS and the Mac, and you will definitely get the most out of this book if you use both platforms.  (I use a PC at work, but I have a Mac at home, which is where I keep my 47,000 photos.)  For example, Snell explains that on iOS (but not the Mac) you can use the rich search feature and can see Memory Videos, whereas on the Mac (but not iOS) you can create Smart Albums (although Snell gives advice for creating a Smart Album on a Mac and then transferring it to your iPhone or iPad).  But even if you don’t use a Mac, you will still get a lot of out of this book because the book covers both and the apps are similar on both platforms.

This book is over 150 pages and it covers all of the important topics, including importing photos, managing your photo library, navigating the Photos interface, finding and naming people in your photos, using the search feature, using the Memories feature and editing Memory Videos, creating albums, syncing with iCloud, editing photos to make them look much better, and sharing your photos.  Each chapter is full of pictures so you can see exactly what Snell is describing — and because he is using his own personal photos to show off the Photos app, you will see enough picture of his (attractive) family members that by the end of the book, you may feel like you are part of the Snell family too, or at least a distant cousin.

In addition to walking you through all of the different topics, there are lots of small side articles on narrow topics, much like you see in a magazine.  For example, here is a small article on looking at photos on the Apple Watch:

If you want to get a sense of how valuable this book is, I have two recommendations.  First, Snell recently took a chapter of this book discussing how to make books and calendars using Photos on a Mac and turned it into an article for his Six Colors website.  Now that you can no longer order photo books from Apple, Snell has some good recommendations for what other services to use, so that article is both useful and a good way to get a sense of the book.  Second, if you go to the Take Control website page for this book, look at the picture of the cover of the book on the left and you will see the words “Free Sample” on what appears to be a post-it note.  Click that to download a generous 46-page sample of the book, with the full index and selections from many different chapters.

One nice feature in all Take Control books is that the author has the ability to update the book after it is published — a nice advantage of ebooks over printed books.  There is a link you can tap on the cover of the book that will take you to a website letting you know if there are any updates available.  For example, the last time that Jason published a book on Photos in early 2015, it was originally called Photos for Mac – A Take Control Crash Course.  Here was my review.  Then he updated the book in the Fall when Apple updated the Mac operating system.  Then he updated the book again in September, 2016, changing the title to Photos: A Take Control Crash Course and including both iOS and Mac.  So after spending $10 in early 2015, I received two major updates for the next year and a half.

This is a brand new book on Photos — part of the full Take Control series, not just a crash course.  It is twice as long as Snell’s previous book, and this new book covers all of the latest changes to Photos on both the Mac and iOS.  Thus, if you purchased the prior book in early 2015, this is a new book to purchase, but considering all that you get, it is pretty cheap at $15.  And perhaps this book will also get updates like Snell’s last book on Photos did.

I can pretty much guarantee that if you purchase this book, you will learn much more about using the Photos app on your iPhone and iPad, and on your Mac if you have one of those.  Thus, unless you are the rare iPhone user who doesn’t take pictures, I think that most everyone would enjoy reading this book and find it very helpful.

Click here to get Take Control of Photos by Jason Snell ($14.99)

For the last week or so on Twitter, I’ve suddenly seen a lot of folks talking about how cool it is that you can easily move the cursor around the screen on an iPhone when you want to go back and change some text.  I’ve even had several folks email me to make sure that I know about the tip.  (Thanks!)  To use this feature, just hold down on the space bar for a second, and then the keyboard changes to a trackpad.  Or, if you have an iPhone which supports 3D Touch, you can instead push down a little on the keyboard to switch to the trackpad.  It’s a very useful tip and I use it all the time, but I’m still not sure what made the tip go viral last week.

One good part about that tip going viral is that it prompted lots of other folks to suggest some other iPhone and iPad tips that might not be so obvious but are quite useful.  Here are two of the best that I recommend to you.  Perhaps you already know about some of the tips, but you probably don’t know all of them.  First, if you want to read some tips, check out 9 Hidden iPhone Features That Make Your Life Easier by Jason Snell on Tom’s Guide.  Great stuff.  Second, if you prefer to just sit back and watch to learn some tips, check out this very useful video by Rene Ritchie, part of his Vector video podcast:

I charge my iPhone every night on the nightstand next to my bed using the Material Dock by Studio Neat using an Apple cable and an Apple charger.  Recently, I woke up and reached for my iPhone XS only to discover that the screen was completely black and would not come on when I touched the screen or pressed any of the side buttons.  At first, I thought that perhaps the battery was completely dead — which would be odd because it had been on a charger all night — but even after I plugged the iPhone in to a different charger, it did not come back to life.

That led me to believe that that iPhone had crashed and needed to be restarted.  It has been many years since this last happened to me, and at the time I was using an iPhone with a home button.  To restart an iPhone 6s or earlier, you hold down the Home button and the sleep/wake button for a long time until the iPhone restarts.  But what do you do on an iPhone, an iPhone XS, or a new iPad Pro which doesn’t have a home button?

Apple provides the answer on this support page, and it is nothing that I would have guessed.  If you are using an iPhone 8 or later, you press and quickly release the Volume Up button, then you press and quickly release the Volume Down button, and then you press and hold the Side button on the iPhone (or the Power button on the iPad Pro) until the device restarts.  The first time I tried this with my iPhone XS, nothing happened.  But the second time I tried this strange combination, it worked and my iPhone restarted.  And sure enough, upon restart I saw that it was fully charged – so this was some sort of a crash, not a dead battery.

As that support page also notes, if you are using an iPhone 7 or an iPhone 7 Plus, the solution is to press and hold both the Volume Down button and the Side button until you see the Apple logo indicating that the device is restarting.

When you use this method to restart your iPhone, you shouldn’t lose any data.  You are just forcing the iPhone to shut down and then start up again.

Hopefully it will be a long time before I need to do something like this again, but at least I now know what to do.  And so do you.