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From time to time, attorneys who read iPhone J.D. write to tell me how they are using their iPhone or iPad in their practice.  I love to read these stories, and with permission I like to share some of them here on iPhone J.D.  I recently heard from Will Harrelson, an attorney in Troy, OH with the law firm Faust, Harrelson, Fulker, McCarthy & Schlemmer who focuses his practice on business litigation, estate planning, collections, family, and employment law matters.  Will also recently joined Curo Legal on the Practice Operations team where he works with solo and small firms to implement cloud-based technology solutions to improve their efficiencies and better serve their clients.  I first met Will at the annual ABA TECHSHOW conference held in Chicago every Spring, and he generously agreed to share with iPhone J.D. readers his favorite iPhone and iPad apps.  Take it away, Will!

• DS file – Our offices uses a Synology NAS (a mirrored two-hard drive network file server with backups to the cloud) so I use Synology’s free DS file to access all of our files, including Word and PDF documents, where I then open them in other useful apps.
• Microsoft Word for iPad – I originally used Apple’s Pages for document editing because, before Word was released, it retained the .docx formatting the best.  Now, I have an Office 365 subscription and I use Word for iPad to draft and edit pleadings, correspondence, and other documents.  [Jeff adds: my 2014 review]
• PDF Expert and GoodReader – GoodReader and PDF Expert are the two apps that I use for PDF reading and annotation.  They both offer amazing features for annotation and the newest version of each app includes substantial integration with cloud services.  I do love the ability and ease of emailing a flattened PDF with my signature from PDF Expert.  On the other hand, GoodReader allows for some awesome annotation, file manipulation, and organization features.  [Jeff adds:  my 2012 review of PDF Expert; my 2014 review of GoodReader]
• Bamboo Paper – Because I sometimes like to take handwritten notes during a meeting, I use the Wacom Bamboo Paper app with the Wacom Bamboo stylus (or one of the Clio pen/stylus combos that I picked up at the ABA TECHSHOW) to record my thoughts.  [Jeff adds:  my 2012 review of the Wacom Bamboo Stylus duo]
• Evernote – When typing is more appropriate, I link up my Apple Wireless Keyboard that’s clipped to my Incase Origami case and use Evernote to type notes.  Hidden trick: even when I handwrite notes into Bamboo Paper, I upload those notes directly to Evernote so they are all in one place.  [Jeff adds:  my 2010 review of the Apple Wireless Keyboard; my 2012 review of the Incase Origami Workstation for iPad]
• Clio – For all practice management issues such as timekeeping, billing, contact lookups, etc., I use the Clio app that allows me to access all of my case data from the awesome Clio service.  [Jeff adds:  my 2013 look at the Clip app]
• Box – Though I keep all files in our private NAS and can access it via the cloud, I do have a Box account so that I can easily transfer certain sets of documents to third parties without having to configure it through our NAS.  It’s a lot simpler to tailor the access restrictions when it is just a few documents at a time.  I can use the Box app to manage my account and download files on the go. I often use it to upload files from a client’s computer instead of using USB flash drives.
• 1Password – This often praised password management app is the one I use to manage all of my accounts and to store various membership card information so that I can stop collecting that paperwork in my home office.  [Jeff adds:  my 2013 review of 1Password]
• Fantastical – I have recently replaced the standard Apple iOS calendar with Fantastical 2 and I love the ease of scheduling appointments with simple language (for example, typing “Meeting at Tom’s at his house at 9am” will turn it into an appointment called “Meeting at Tom’s” with “his house” being the location and “9am” being the time.  The visual aspect is much more pleasing to my sense of design as well.  [Jeff adds:  I haven’t posted a review of the current version, Fantasical 2, but here is my 2012 review of the original Fantastical]
• MindNode – There are many blog posts on the concept of “mind-mapping” but it isn’t on every lawyer’s radar.  It is simply the use of flow charts and webs to illustrate connections visually.  I use the MindNode app for sketching out ideas for blog posts, trial preparation, and when I’m working on product improvements for Curo Legal to better organize my thoughts.
• Launch Center Pro – This is a bit of a stretch for most non-tech types but Launch Center Pro is a really fascinating app that allows you to build a menu of complicated commands all in a one-button solution.  For example, I have built a command to launch my favorite radio app to open to a certain station without my having to launch the app, search for the station, and then press play.  It is a workflow solution if you are into the overly-nuanced solving of very unimportant problems.  [Jeff adds:  my 2012 review of Launch Center Pro]
• TranscriptPad and TrialPad – I use TranscriptPad every time I have to annotate a deposition transcript.  The features are endless and it helps me review and prepare deposition summaries in a fraction of the time it used to take.  TrialPad is a fantastic trial presentation app that allows me to manipulate exhibits and display them on a screen with ease from any spot in the courtroom, wirelessly from my iPad.  [Jeff adds:  my 2013 review of TranscriptPad]
• UberConference – I use UberConference for small conference calls because it is more reliable than a phone system and I can do screen sharing through their website if necessary.  I use a free account which is plenty for my needs.
• SignNow – When I engage a new client or need something with their signature, I send it to them using SignNow and they can sign it from their iOS device or computer and return it in minutes rather than me asking them to come to the office or both of us mailing copies to each other over the course of a number of days.
• Boxer – I’ve been fairly pleased with Apple’s default Mail app for most of my time being an iPhone and iPad owner but recently I tried both Mailbox and Boxer and I settled on Boxer as my permanent email replacement app.  It allows me to turn emails into tasks, send emails to Evernote, reply with a number of pre-written responses, and assign emails to contacts as a to-do.  It uses a Getting Things Done-type set of commands so I can use my inbox as an actual inbox instead of a giant pile of unsorted messages.
• Voice Memos – I use Apple’s built-in Voice Memos app for dictating messages to email or text to my assistant)
• Pocket – Pocket is a great app that I use to read certain articles later.  I often use Pocket by sending links from Twitter.
• Spotify and TuneIn Radio – I use both Spotify and TuneIn Radio for streaming great music on the go.
• Ruby Receptionists – The Ruby Receptionists app works with this great service that I use with Curo Legal as our virtual receptionists.
• Scanner Pro – Scanner Pro by Readdle is the best scanning app I have ever used.  [Jeff adds:  my 2012 review]
• Uber – Uber is the only way I get around Chicago, Nashville, and Columbus.
• Venmo – Venmo is a terrific money transfer app that I use with friends when I need to pay someone for my share of a dinner, for example.

Thank you so much, Will, for sharing this great list of apps.  There are some great apps on your list that I use all the time — including Word for iPad, PDF Expert, GoodReader, 1Password, Fantastical, Launch Center Pro, Transcript Pad and Scanner Pro.  But there are lots of others here that I haven’t tried out yet, so it is great to learn that they work for you.

If you are willing to share your own experiences using an iPhone or iPad in your law practice with other iPhone J.D. readers, I’d love to hear from you!  And in case you missed them, here are reports that I previously shared from other attorneys:

• William Axtell:  2/19/13
• Zane Cagle:  1/1/12
• Megan Erickson:  5/11/11
• Jeff Forbes:  3/21/13
• Tom Freeland:  7/13/10
• Cliff Maier:  12/22/08
• Lindsay Rakers:  12/18/12
• Alfred Saikali:  5/4/11
• Mike Schneider:  4/28/09
• Clark Stewart:  7/22/10
• Joe Suhre:  12/3/13
• John Walker:  7/2/13

Twenty years ago today, I started practicing law — at the same firm where I still practice today, Adams and Reese in New Orleans.  Well technically, I wasn’t sworn in as member of the bar for another two months, but my first day in the office was August 15, 1994.  Back then, Adams and Reese used Macs, and I was excited to be the first person in the office with a Power Mac 6100, the first Mac with a PowerPC chip.  My firm switched to PCs in the early 2000s, but thanks to the iPhone and iPad, some of the best (and certainly the most enjoyable) technology in my law practice is still made by Apple.  The 1994 version of me would have been floored by what you can do with an iPhone today.  Twenty years from now, perhaps the 2034 version of Siri will be smarter than all of us.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• John Edwards of Law Technology News recommends six iPhone productivity apps, including the Hours time-tracking app that I’ve heard good things about.
• Law firms have been focused on diversity and releasing diversity data for many years, and this week, Apple released lots of data about their workforce diversity and created this webpage with more information.  As Apple CEO Tim Cook says:  “We believe deeply that inclusion inspires innovation.”  That is certainly true in the practice of law, and it doesn’t surprise me that it also holds true for technology.
• Apple is known to have a sophisticated in-house education program, but most of the details have been held close to the vest.  Brian Chen of the New York Times managed to learn quite a bit about so-called Apple University and wrote this interesting article.
• My favorite external keyboard for the iPad is the one made by Apple, the Apple Wireless Keyboard.  It is nice to have an iPad stand that works with the Apple keyboard, and I have long used and recommended the Incase Origami Workstation.  Julie Strietelmeier of The Gadgeteer discusses five stands that work with the iPad and the Apple keyboard, including the Origami Workstation.
• Speaking of that 2034 version of Siri, some of the folks who invented Siri before it was purchased by Apple are now working on sophisticated artificial intelligence that is supposed to do a great job of responding to your questions.  Steven Levy wrote an interesting account of these efforts in an article for Wired.
• I recently reviewed the Lumsing Harmonica Style Power Bank, a 10,400 mAh external battery that costs $23.  Lumsing tells me that their 6,000 mAh battery, the Ultra Slim Portable Power Bank, is the subject of a promotion on Amazon; it costs $23.99, but today only you can use the code LUMSING6 at checkout to get $5 off, so that makes it only $18.99.  Click here for more details on Amazon.
• Do you hate having to crawl under a desk to reach an outlet?  Janet Cloninger of The Gadgeteer reviews the Wall Mounted Outlet Extender, an interesting $40 device from Hammacher Schlemmer that moves the outlet up to your desk height.
• If you can’t get enough of the law during your day job and you want to also play a lawyer on your iPhone or iPad, yesterday Capcom released the fifth installment of the Ace Attorney games:  Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies.  I haven’t played them, but I’m told that they are very popular, especially in Japan.  The game is free an includes the first episode, but the remaining episodes require an in-game purchase.  Jared Nelson of Touch Arcade has the details.
• And finally, do you want to charge your iPhone in your car, but do so with the flair of Doc Brown and Marty McFly in a time-traveling DeLorean?  Then you will want to check out the Flux Capacitor USB Car Charger.  Originally an April Fool’s gag, ThinkGeek manufactured the product and it will be released next month for only $24.99, the perfect device for all of you who still have fond memories of the Back to the Future series.  The device includes two 2.1 Amp charging ports (which can handle two iPhones or iPads), but most importantly includes a Flux Capacitor light sequence.  Have fun, but be careful when you hit 88 mph…

Of course I enjoy listening to music, but when I am driving to and from work or doing chores around the house, I prefer to use my iPhone to listen to the spoken word — specifically, either audiobooks or podcasts.  I’ve been listening to podcasts since Apple first supported them in iTunes 4.9 (released June of 2005), and if you don’t listen to podcasts, you’re missing out.  It’s essentially talk radio with a million different channels, as there are shows on just about any topic under the sun.  My favorite podcasts deal with technology (especially iPhones/iPads) and law — I know, big surprise, right? — but I often listen to podcasts relating to other subjects too.  In all of the years that I’ve published iPhone J.D., I’ve never once reviewed a podcast app, in large part because I never found one that I really liked.  And I’ve tried just about all of them.  So until recently, I found myself just using the built-in Podcasts app made by Apple, even though I always knew that there should be something better. 

Last month, Marco Arment released Overcast, an app that downloads and plays podcasts, and I’ve used it just about every single day since it has been available.  Overcast quickly became my favorite podcast app, so finally I have something to recommend to folks who are looking for a good one.  Instead of charging for the app, Arment made the app itself free so that anyone can download it and kick the tires a bit, but to enable the features that make the app so great, you need to pay a one-time in-app fee of $4.99.  So just think of it as a $5 app.

The main screen of the app lists your playlists, followed by each of your podcast shows.  Buttons at the top right let you create a new playlist or add a new podcast.  I myself just use a single playlist that I call “New” which includes all of my podcasts that are either new or that I haven’t finished listening to yet and sorts them in order from newest to oldest, because I usually want to listen to my most recent podcasts first.  But there are some podcasts that I always want to listen to first, even if I have something else that is newer, and Overcast has a very useful feature called Priority Podcasts where you can select one or more podcasts that will always rise to the top of the list, even if something else is newer.

 

To listen to podcasts, either select a playlist or an individual show.  I virtually always listen to a playlist, which I like because when one podcast ends, the next one starts to play automatically.

The interface when playing a podcast looks simple, but there is a lot of power in there.  Most of the screen is composed of the cover art for the podcast.  The orange bar at the top shows you how far you are into a podcast, and you can drag the bar at the end of the orange color to move to a specific location in a podcast.  The main button below the art is a big, easy to tap play/pause button.  To the left and right are buttons that you can tap to jump backwards (useful when you get distracted and then realize that you just missed something in the podcast) or forwards (useful for skipping commercials or otherwise skipping ahead).  I have mine set to 15 seconds back or 30 seconds forward, but you can adjust that in the app settings, accessible by tapping the overcast icon at the top left of the main screen.  (The choices are 7, 15, 30, 45 or 60 seconds.)

The Playback button at the bottom left lets you control what happens when this podcast ends (play next podcast or stop) and also lets you set a sleep timer.  But one of the coolest features of the app is the Effects button at the bottom right.  Tapping Effects gives you the option of speeding up the podcast, and what is neat is that you can do it in two ways.  First, you can adjust the speed using the slider, a traditional control which makes everything faster but does a good job of keeping the voices at the same pitch so that it doesn’t sound like you are listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks.  But even better is the Smart Speed button, which analyzes the sound waves in the podcast and appropriately shortens the silences — the space between words.  I’ve never seen this feature before in any other app, and it works really well.  The end result is that I can make only a slight increase to the speed — I usually just go one notch above 1x speed — plus use the Smart Speed button, and the end result is that you can listen to an entire podcast in much less time, but do so without the voices sounding obnoxiously fast.  It just sounds like you are listening to someone who speaks a little fast and doesn’t waste time between words.  Just above the Smart Speed button, the app tells you the net effect of these settings (which changes throughout the podcast, depending upon how long the pauses are in the speaker’s voice), but for me the net effect is usually around 1.3x speed.  So I typically listen to a 60 minute podcast in only about 45 minutes.

The faster speed is nice because you have more time for other podcasts, but I also like the faster speed because I find that it makes all of my podcasts even more engaging.  It’s like the difference between listening to an energetic speaker and someone boring who just drones on and on and on…

When you tap a playlist, you see a list of all of the episodes that are upcoming.  As noted above, any of your priority podcasts are automatically moved to the top.  But if you want to make further adjustments, you can also manually adjust the list to move any specific podcasts up or down by tapping the Edit button at the top right.

 

You can also tap the Info button to get information about a specific podcast.

As you can see from the above pictures, on just about any screen in the Overcast app, a bar at the bottom lets you control the currently playing podcast.

From the main screen, you can tap on any podcast show to see all of the episodes, either the ones that you have downloaded and haven’t played yet or all podcasts that are available to download.  You can also adjust the specific settings for that show such as whether to subscribe to all new episodes or just include the ones that you manually download, whether to give you a notification when a new episode has been downloaded, and how many unplayed episodes to keep.

 

One thing that Overcast cannot do is stream an episode that has not yet been downloaded — i.e., play it while it is also downloading.  I believe that this is because an episode needs to be downloaded first for Overcast to perform its Smart Speed magic, although I understand that Arment is considering adding streaming in the future.  But since Overcast automatically downloads all of my new episodes when I am using Wi-Fi and I am usually on Wi-Fi many times during the day, that’s not a problem for me.  Any episodes that have not yet downloaded, because the app is waiting for a Wi-Fi connection, can be viewed by tapping the download button at the top of the main screen.  By flipping a switch at the bottom of the screen, you can tell Overcast to go ahead and get that episode using your cellular connection if you don’t mind using up some of your monthly data allowance to do so.

Overcast includes all of the features that I have been looking for in a podcast app.  It does a great job of handling playlists, and while I like that I can rearrange the order of podcasts in a playlist when necessary, the great Priority Podcasts feature usually takes care of that automatically for me.  The controls for playing and skipping around in a podcast work great.  And the Smart Speed button is as useful as it is innovative.  Overcast is a fantastic podcast player, and is my #1 recommendation if you want to play podcasts on your iPhone.

Click here to get Overcast (free; $4.99 to enable all features): 

Thank you to Connected Data and Drobo, maker of the Transporter, for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month.  The Transporter is one of the most valuable technology tools in my law practice, and that is saying something because I surround myself with gadgets.  Simply connect a Transporter to your home or office network and you get a folder on your computer in which you can add sub-folders and documents.  The Transporter folder is synced across computers, so if you add a draft of a brief to the Transporter folder on your PC at work, you can access that brief at home in the Transporter folder on your Mac.  Similarly, on your iPhone and iPad, you can use the free Transporter app to access any of those files.  If you use Dropbox, this type of service probably sounds familiar, but Transporter is different because you own and have custody of your Transporter so all of your documents remains private.  You don’t need to worry about your documents being on the cloud and in the possession of a third party that hasn’t signed a confidentiality agreement with you.  If you store lots of files, a Transporter is also cheaper than Dropbox because you just pay once for the hardware and can select just about any capacity drive that you want, such as a 500GB Transporter for $199.  (That same amount of space on Dropbox would cost you $499, and that is a recurring charge that you have to pay Dropbox every year.)  If you want to put a large document, such as a big video file, on your Transporter but not have it take up space in the Transporter folder on your computers, the Transporter has a special Transporter Library folder where you can store items that are not synced to your computer but are still accessible from your computers, iPhones and iPads.

Connected Data has also provided developers with the tools to integrate Transporter access directly within their apps.  One recent example is the PDFpen app for iPad (which I reviewed in 2012).  But for apps that don’t have built-in Transporter support, you can simply use the Transporter app to select a document and then send it to another app.  Indeed, when you have Internet access, your Transporter gives your iPad and iPhone access to terabytes of files, for more than you could ever store on the iPad or iPhone.  And once you access a file from the app, the app remains downloaded so that you can access it again later, even if you don’t have an Internet connection.  (Just swipe to delete a file if you don’t want it, and the app asks whether you want to delete just the downloaded version or also delete it from your Transporter.)

As I mentioned a few months ago, a recent update to the Transporter app lets you tell the app to automatically upload pictures that you take with your iPhone and/or iPad to your computer.  It does so using location-based services, so for example, you can tell your iPhone to upload your photos when you are in your house, and when the app senses that it is at your home on your Wi-Fi network, the uploads occur in the background.  (Or you can manually tell the app to upload photos right now from wherever you are located.)  The next time you sit down at your computer, your pictures are already there waiting for you in the “Camera Uploads” folder of the Transporter.  I use this feature all the time to get the best of both worlds with my iPhone and iPad.  What I mean by that is that the iPhone is far better than the iPad for taking pictures, but when I want to view those pictures I’d rather do so on the larger screen of the iPad.  I take pictures with my iPhone, then the pictures are uploaded to the Camera Uploads folder on my Transporter, and then I can see and download those photos on my iPad.  A recent update to the app adds small thumbnail images next to each file name so that even if you have dozens or hundreds of pictures, you can quickly figure out which picture that you want.

When you buy a Transporter, you have lots of options.  You can spend $199 to $349 to get a Transporter with a built-in drive of up to 2TB.  Or you can spend just $99 for the Transporter Sync and add your own USB drive of whatever capacity you want.  They both work the exact same way, so it is just a question of whether you want the simplicity and elegance of a single device that looks like a cone, or you want the flexibility of a device where you can add any drive that you want but then you have two items on your desk, the Transporter Sync plus the drive.

As a part of its sponsorship of iPhone J.D., the company provided me with free Transporter back in early 2013 when I first tried it out.  But knowing how useful it is, I would buy one now immediately if I didn’t already have it.  This is one of those rare pieces of technology that I use just about every single day, just like my iPhone and my iPad.  In fact, you can buy two Transporters, keep them in different locations (such as your home and your office), and tell them to automatically sync to each other so that even if disaster strikes at one location and one Transporter is somehow damaged, you’ll still have a complete backup.  Having said that, even if you just own one Transporter, you always have a backup of all of your files on the Transporter folder of your computer(s) — except for those files that you put in the Transporter Library, which means you are explicitly telling the Transporter to only store the file there.

To get more information on Transporter and Transporter Sync, click here to access the Legal Solutions page of the Transporter website.

Last year, Apple announced the iPhone 5S on September 10, during the second week in September.  The year before, Apple announced the iPhone 5 on September 12, again during the second week of September.  John Paczkowski of re/code reports that sources tell him that this year, the iPhone 6 will be announced on September 9.  Paczkowski’s sources are usually pretty good on things like this, but frankly, he could have asked me and even I would have predicted a new iPhone announcement this year during the second week in September.  The big rumor this year is that the iPhone 6 will be larger than all of the prior iPhones.  That wouldn’t surprise me, and we’ll find out for sure around this time next month.  And now, the news of note from the last week:

• Tampa attorney Katie Floyd describes how she went from paying Verizon $10 a month for cellular data on her iPad to free 200MB of data a month using T-Mobile.
• California attorney David Sparks posted a really interesting interview with an airline pilot about the apps he uses on his iPad.
• If there is a desk or other location at your home or office that has an outlet nearby and you want to have lots of USB ports to charge your devices, one solution is to buy a USB charging station.  Oklahoma City attorney Jeffrey Taylor, who publishes The Droid Lawyer, recently reviewed the Inatech 5 Port USB Charging Station, a device that costs only $20 on Amazon which provides two 2.1 Amp ports for iPads and three 1 Amp ports for iPhones and other lower-power devices.
• Today is the last day to tell the ABA Journal which law blogs you think should be included in the 2014 Blawg 100.   Click on this link if you want to tell the ABA Journal editors about your favorite blog, whether it be iPhone J.D. or any other blog.
• If you are in the New Orleans area and you want to earn an hour of CLE over lunch while you learn more about using an iPad, I’m teaching iPad for Lawyers on Friday, August 22 from Noon to 1:00 at a CLE sponsored by the New Orleans Bar Association.  It is free for NOBA members.  Click here for more information and to sign up.  I hope to see you there.
• Documents to Go has long been an excellent app for viewing Word and other Microsoft Office documents on an iPhone or iPad.  Until recently, there were two versions:  a $9.99 standard version and a $16.99 premium version.  Yesterday, DataViz changed the name of its entry app to Documents to Go Free, and as the name implies, the app is now free.  If you just want to view and edit files, the Free version might give you all that you need.  There are three in-app purchases in the new free version to add additional features:  (1) cloud service support, (2) desktop file sync and (3) password protected file support.  Each of those features costs $6.99 to unlock, or you can unlock all three for $16.99 — which essentially turns the free app into the premium app.  On my iPad, I prefer to use the Microsoft Word and other Office apps to work with Office files, but on my iPhone, I still usually read Word documents using Documents to Go.  If you don’t already have a copy of Documents to Go on your iPhone, it is a great app, I recommend that you get it now that it is free.  Click here to get Documents to Go Free (free): 

  

• I noted last week that the Microsoft Word for iPad app now lets you export a Word document as a PDF file when you email the file to someone else.  The app doesn’t give you the option to export to Google Drive, but Alex Campbell of Macworld figured out a workaround; it’s a little complicated, but might be of interest to some of you.
• Alyssa Bereznak of Yahoo Tech provides tips for using Pages, Numbers and Keynote on a Mac, iPad and iPhone.  (Warning: video starts playing when the page loads.)
• GoodReader 4 is my favorite app for managing PDF documents on my iPad, and I also like to use it on my iPhone.  I reviewed GoodReader 4 a few months ago, and this week, Jeff Merron reviews the app for Macworld.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted this week that last month, Apple had its highest App Store sales ever.
• 9to5Mac notes that Apple is advertising a sale on productivity apps, and you can get great apps like Scanner Pro, Fantasical, Launch Center Pro and PDF Expert for a fraction of their normal prices right now.  Also, the amazing 1Password app is on sale right now.
• There is a guy named Sam Sung who used to work in an Apple Store in Canada.  “Sam Sung” in an Apple Store is sort of funny, and so the guy decided to auction off his badge and other items on eBay to raise money for charity.  As of last night, the bids were over $80,000.  Way to go, Sam!
• And finally, here is an interesting video to advertise Navdy, a $299 device shipping early next year that will provide a heads up display in your car that you control with your voice or hand gestures.  It looks sort of neat, and the video does a good job of showing it off:

The practice of law is certainly a profession that requires one to juggle lots of different tasks, which means that you need a way to keep track of those tasks.  Those are countless ways to do this with an iPhone or an iPad.  You can use the built-in Reminders app.  You can use a complicated and sophisticated app such as OmniFocus, which California attorney David Sparks shows off in these videos.  My wife is a long-timer user of Things, a very powerful app for the iPhone, iPad and Mac.  But for me, I’ve always preferred simple solutions for managing tasks.  I’ve been practicing law for 20 years this month, and for a good number of those years, my task management tools were simply a small legal pad and a pen; I would jot down a to-do item, and then scratch it out when it was done.  But for about a year now, I’ve been using the Ita app to manage my tasks and keep track of other lists, and the system has worked well for me.  (The developers say “Ita is pronounced like ‘Item'” so I presume that the name “Ita” is a play on the idea that your lists have multiple items. [UPDATE 8/8/14: one of the two developers of Ita tweeted that ita is a Latin word that means “thus” and is a possible origin of the word item; UPDATE 8/11/14:  the other developer of Ita then tweeted: “I know Ben said otherwise, but yeah I think of Ita as being the plural of items. —Bob”.])  A few days ago, Ita was updated to version 2.0, which has a new, clean interface that matches the look of iOS 7, so I figured that it is now a good time to talk about this app.

The main screen of Ita shows you all of your lists.  You can quickly create a new list by tapping the plus sign.

As you can see, in addition to creating a list of “Work To Do” items, I also have a list of file numbers for my most common matters.  That way, if I need a file number and can’t remember it, I can easily look it up in Ita.

If you want to change the order of your lists, simply hold your finger down on a list for about a second and then you can drag it up or down.  Tap a list to see the items on the list.  In one of my lists, I jot down the tasks that I need to do in my cases.  Obviously I can’t show you my real list of the tasks I need to do for my clients, so here is a fake one to give you a sense of the types of items that I typically put on a list:

To add a new item, just tap the plus sign at the bottom right.  Then type your items and hit DONE when you are finished.

 

New items appear at the top of the list, but you can easily reorder items just by holding your finger down on an item for a second and then dragging it up or down.  An item turns red while you are dragging it.

To edit an item, just slide it to the left to expose two icons:  edit and delete.  Or, you can tap the edit icon at the bottom, middle of the screen and then tap any item to start editing it.

When an item no longer needs to appear in the list, such as a task that you are finished, you have two choices.  As shown above, you can swipe to the left and then tap the trash can icon, which will delete it completely from the list.  Or, you can tap an item and that moves it the bottom and makes it gray, useful if you want to continue to see items even after you have marked them as done.

If you are using Ita to manage your work tasks, you probably won’t see a need to keep items on a list after you are done with them.  I simply delete a task item after I do it.  But for other kinds of lists, it is useful for the item to still remain visible even after you are done with it.  For example, you can make a list of the 15 items you need to remember to pack whenever you go out of town.  As you pack your suitcase you can tap each item to mark it as done.  Once you are finished, if you tap the icon at the bottom left (the box with an arrow) one of options is “Restore Completed Items” which will reset all of the items so that you are ready to mark them as completed again when you have your next trip.  (Note that to use this particular feature, you need to go into Ita’s settings. accessible by tapping the atom icon at the top left of the main screen, and then turn on “Show Restore Action”.)

I virtually always use this app on my iPhone, but it is a universal app, so it works on your iPad too.  You can use iCloud to sync items between your devices.

The developers of Ita mentioned on the Debug podcast in May of 2013 that they were working on a version of Ita for the Mac, but I don’t believe that has been released yet.

You can use Ita with Launch Center Pro to do some sophisticated automated tasks, such as appending the contents of the clipboard to a list.  You can also email a list, and if you send the list to someone else who uses Ita, they can import the list into their Ita app.  But I suspect that most Ita users don’t do anything fancy like that.  I certainly don’t.  The beauty of Ita is that it is such a simple app.  It lacks the bells and whistles of others task manager apps, such as assigning due dates, providing push notifications, etc., but that’s because Ita isn’t really a task manager app, even though I use it that way.  It’s just a list making app. 

If keeping simple lists is the way that you like to organize your life, then I think you will like Ita as much as I do.  It is simple to use, it has a clean interface, and I can use Ita very quickly to see the items on my lists and easily add or delete items.  If a simple list manager seems like the right fit for your lifestyle, Ita is a great app.

Click here to get Ita ($2.99): 

I’ve reviewed lots of iPad stands that are useful on a desk.  For example, I really like the Stabile PRO that I reviewed a year ago, and I use it on my desk in my office every single day.  And of course, many iPad covers have the ability to also work as a stand, such as Apple’s Smart Cover.  But if you are in bed, or if you are sitting in a big comfy chair or on a couch in your living room, those stands are uneven, unsteady and will fall over.  The tablift from nbryte is new kind of iPad stand that uses four strong but flexible legs so that you can adjust your iPad in just about any position.  The company sent me a free unit to test out, and I’ve been using it at home for the last few weeks.  It has worked really well for me.

The center of the tablift has three grooves, which lets you choose among three different angles for your iPad.  In this picture taken from the side, my iPad is in the middle groove:

The center also has an elastic strap with a clip at the end.  Place the clip around your iPad, and the strap will hold the iPad steady in place — even if you choose an angle that has the iPad leaning forward, the best angle if you are lying down in bed with your head on your pillow.  The elastic band stretches enough that you can use your iPad in landscape or portrait mode.  The groves are generous enough, and the band is flexible enough, that the manufacturer says that you can use the tablift with any model of iPad, full-size or mini, or just about any other tablet from another manufacturer.  Having said that, the tablift is unlikely to work when the iPad is in just about any case.

Coming off of the center of the tablift are four flexible legs, each of which has a soft rubber foot.  Because you can bend the legs into any position, the stand works well on lots of different surfaces.  Each leg extends about 14 inches from the base.

For many folks, the main value of the tablift will be that it gives you a way to lie on your back in bed and look at the iPad screen without having to hold up the iPad with your hand — something that makes your arm hurt after just a few minutes.  For this function, the tablift worked really, really well.  I have to admit that I felt a little silly when I first set up the tablift, positioning the four legs around my body in bed.  It sort of felt like I was positioning a big metal spider around me.  But I got used to it after a few minutes, and then once I started to watch a video on my iPad, I quickly found myself ignoring the legs and just paying attention to the screen.  I recently started watching the AMC show The Walking Dead, and I watched several episodes of Season 2 on my iPad in bed using the tablift.  The experience was great.  (As for the wisdom of watching a show about scary zombies immediately before going to bed, I’ll let you decide if that is right for you.)  Rather than make you look at a picture of myself in bed, here is a picture from the tablift website of a woman enjoying the product:

Note that this model is somewhat propped up in her bed with the iPad in the middle position, but you can put also the iPad in the front position so that it leans down, which works best when your head is on your pillow.

If you are sitting on a sofa, the tablift also provides a nice stand for the iPad.  And the four legs keep your iPad steady even on an uneven, cushy surface like a sofa.  It does make the iPad sit close to your lap, which can be useful depending upon your position on the sofa, and works well for typing. 

I found that I preferred to use the tablift in my living room when sitting in a big, comfy chair with arms.  I could spread out the four legs so that they were supported by the chair’s arms, and that placed the iPad height closer to my face.  It was nice to be able to read email, annotate a deposition, review and highlight documents, etc. from the comfort of that chair without having to worry about my arm getting tired holding up my iPad for a long time.

Although the tablift itself can seem somewhat large — and indeed, being able to stretch out the 14" legs so far makes the iPad stable and is one of the best parts of the product — fortunately you can fold up the legs to make the tablift only about 6" tall by 11" wide by 4" deep, which makes it small enough to easily slide under or next to your bed or tuck it away in some corner.  You could probably even fit it in a suitcase if you wanted to travel with it; perhaps stuff some socks in the center of the tablift to make the most efficient use of space.

Finally, note that you could use the tablift on a table if you want to do so, although it is large enough that you need a decent amount of space.  I wouldn’t use it regularly on my desk at work, but I found that I was able to place my iPad at the perfect height on a table at home for a FaceTime videochat when the iPad was in the tablift.

If you want to use your iPad while lying down in bed or while sitting in your living room, I don’t know of any stand that works as well as the tablift.  It does a fantastic job holding your iPad in position, it folds up for storage, and it is versatile enough that it can work with many different size iPads (and thus, is also likely to continue to work with future generations of iPads).  You’ll have to decide whether that convenience is worth $60 to you, but the tablift works as advertised, and does so quite well.

Click here to get the tablift from Amazon ($59.95).

UPDATE 8/6/2014:  Apparently, a lot of you bought a tablift from Amazon because Amazon is now out of stock.  But you can always order one directly from the manufacturer by clicking here.

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

Microsoft updated its Word, Excel and PowerPoint iPad apps yesterday.  My favorite new feature is that you can now export to PDF directly from the apps; when you email a document, the app asks whether you want to do so in the native file format (such as .docx) or as a PDF file.  The apps also have enhanced features for working with photographs in documents and better support for third party fonts.  If you use Excel for iPad, there are also lots of improvements for working with your spreadhseets.  Click here to read all about the new features in a blog post from the Office team on the Microsoft website.  And if you use Microsoft’s OneNote iPad app, it was also updated this week, as noted in this post on the Microsoft blog.  All of this reminds me of how happy I am that we now have such great Microsoft software for the iPad.  And now, the other news of note from this week:

• New York attorney Neil Squillante, publisher of TechnoLawyer, provides useful iPad tips in this post and associated video:  (1) a cool way to share web articles using the Reader button in Safari, (2) tips on creating contact entries and (3) tips on using an iPad instead of paper.
• South Carolina attorney Jenny Stevens reviews the InkFusion iPhone case on the MacLawyer website, a case that lets you use whatever picture you want on the back of an iPhone.  You can do something similar with the CaseMaker Pro, which I reviewed this past June.
• Attorneys Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell discuss the role that iPads play for lawyers in this episode of the Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast.
• AgileBits, developer of the amazing 1Password app, previewed in this post and video on the company blog how the iOS 8 version of 1Password will (1) work on other iOS apps, so you no longer have to leave an app, go to the 1Password app, copy your password, then go back to the app and (2) use Touch ID so that you can use your fingerprint as your password.  This all looks incredibly useful, and I cannot wait to try it when iOS 8 is released in the upcoming months.
• While Apple is renovating one of its stores in Switzerland, Apple moved the store into the middle of of the mall — the area where a person would typically walk from store to store.  John-Michael Bond of TUAW has some pictures of the interesting temporary store.  It reminds me somewhat of the open air feel of the Apple Store in Grand Central Terminal in New York City.
• Speaking of the Apple Store, Patty Ryan of the Tampa Bay Times explains how a criminal found a way to scam Apple Stores out of over $300,000.  This sounds like a silly scam that you might see in a B-movie, but apparently it worked … for a while at least.
• And finally, Matt Walsh (who you may know from HBO’s Veep) shows how easy it is to make your own iPad in this Conan O’Brien video:

When you are away from the office for an extended time, it is often useful to have a portable battery with you.  And nowadays, when many of us have both an iPhone and an iPad, it is even more useful to have a battery that is designed to work with either one.  Because the iPad has such a large battery, when you carry an external backup battery that works with the iPad, you always need to balance capacity versus the size and weight and cost of that battery.  The Lumsing 10400 mAh Harmonica Style Portable Power Bank strikes the right balance — large and heavy enough to get the job done, but small and sleek enough that you won’t mind carrying it with you.  Lumsing sent me a free unit to review, and I have been testing it for the last week.  I like it a lot.  This looks like a great battery to toss in your briefcase or purse when you are on the go, and it only costs $23.

Design and Features

My main concern with an external battery is simply that it work well, but since you are going to carry this thing around a lot, it is nice to have something that has a pleasing design.  I was very impressed with this device.  As the “Harmonica” in the name implies, this device is shaped like a long rectangular box which is curved on one long end and is tapered on the other. 

The Lumsing Power Bank is about 5.5 inches long, almost 2.5 inches deep, and is about .8 inches high.

The curve on one of the long sides of this device makes it feel good when you hold it in your hand.  A minor feature perhaps, but one that I liked.

The device weighs 8.35 oz.  (An iPhone 5S weighs 4 oz; an iPhone 4S weighs 4.9 oz.)  You probably won’t notice 8.35 oz. in a purse or briefcase, but you’ll definitely notice it if you slip it into the pocket of your pants.

The tapered end contains most of the inputs and controls.  First, there are two ports, one which provides 1 Amp and one that provides 2.1 Amps.  You can use either port with an iPhone, and as noted below, you will get a slightly faster charge with the 2.1 Amp output.  For an iPad Air, you’ll want to use the 2.1 Amp port.

Next there are a series of four blue lights, and then a long silver button.  If you press the button when you are not using the device, it will display 1, 2, 3 or 4 lights depending upon how much charge you have left.  When the device is almost out of power, only one light comes on and it flashes.  When you are charging the Lumsing Power Bank, you will see the lights come on in a sequence.  At first you see the first light, then two lights, then three lights, then four lights.  After 25% of charge the first light stays on and you just see the other three come on and off.  By the end, when all four lights stay on, the device is fully charged.  Finally, when you are charging an iPhone or iPad, the lights stay on to show you how much power is left in the battery.

As noted above, pressing the button when nothing is plugged in shows you the remaining power.  The button also serves to turn to device on, so to charge an iPhone or iPad you plug in a USB cord (such as the one that came with your iPhone or iPad) into one or both of the ports, plug in to your iPhone/iPad, and then press the button to start charging.

On the short side of the device, there is a Micro-USB connector.  The device comes with a Micro-USB to USB cord. 

Connect the cord to either your computer or any USB power supply.  I used the Apple 10W charger that comes with an iPad, and it took almost seven hours to charge the Lumsing Power Bank — longer than I had expected.  This is a device that you will most likely want to charge overnight.

The unit that Lumsing sent me is white, but I see that you can also get it in black or gold.

The unit comes with a carrying pouch.  I didn’t see any reason to use it.

Capacity and Charging

The Lumsing Power Bank has a battery capacity of 10400 mAh.  The iPhone 5S uses a 1560 mAh battery and the iPad Air uses a 8,827 mAh battery.  In theory, then, the Lumsing Power Bank could charge the iPhone 5S over six times and the iPad Air once with some to spare, but in reality you lose some of the charge to heat and other factors. 

In my tests this week, when I used with completely charged Lumsing Power Bank with an iPad Air that had gone down to 3%, I was able to charge it back to 80% before the Lumsing Power Bank ran out of power about four hours later.  It roughly added another 20% to the iPad every hour.

When I tested with an iPhone 5S that was at 3% or less power, the iPhone would be back to around 60% in an hour, and in just over two hours the iPhone was back to 100%.  It takes a little longer to charge at the end, so you see almost 1% of power added every minute, and then going from 98% to 99% to 100% takes longer.  Charging an iPhone with the 2.1 Amp port was slightly faster than using the 1 Amp port; a full charge took two hours with the 2.1 Amp port and about two hours and 10 minutes with the 1 Amp port.  So you get slightly better performance charging an iPhone with the 2.1 Amp port, but it doesn’t make a huge difference.  With a fully charged Lumsing Power Bank, I could charge an iPhone 5S from 3% or less to 100% four times, and then had just a small amount of charge left over.

As noted above, you can also use the Lumsing Power Bank to charge both an iPhone and an iPad at the same time.  When I did so, each device charged slower.  The iPad Air received on average an additional 13% to 15% per hour, in contrast to around 20% when it was plugged in by itself.  The iPhone 5S received anywhere from 20% to 38% of additional charge each hour, as opposed to around 57% when it was plugged in by itself.  And while I could completely charge in iPhone 5S from almost 0% to 100% in just over two hours when it was plugged in by itself, when both the iPhone and iPad were charging at the same time, two hours just brought me up to around 60% on the iPhone.

You can also charge the Power Bank while you are charging an iPhone and/or iPad.  Thus, you could plug in the Power Bank to a wall charger or computer and plug in an iPhone and iPad into the Power Bank to charge them all.  When doing so, the iPhone and iPad seemed to charge at the same rate as when the Power Bank was not plugged in to AC power.  Note, however, that at the outset when the Power Bank was close to empty, it would sometimes stop charging the iPhone and iPad for a short while so that it could charge itself, and then it would start charging the iPhone and iPad again (and I would hear them beep as if they were just plugged in).

Conclusion

There is something to be said for a smaller battery that is light and can be tossed in your pocket, like the Powerocks Super Magicstick that I reviewed a few months ago and which I see is now selling for only $19.50, $10 less than when I reviewed it.  Small external batteries are great for bringing extra life to an iPhone. 

But if you want to be able to charge an iPad, or if you want to be able to charge an iPhone over and over again, you need a larger battery.  I know that there are lots of large external batteries for sale, but after using this one extensively for the last week, I really like the Lumsing Harmonica Style Power Bank.  It is big, but not too big and heavy, and it feels nice in your hand when you carry it.  It has a large enough battery to charge your iPad or your iPhone — or both at the same time.  And best of all, it is a steal for only $23. 

Click here to get the Lumsing Harmonica Style Power Bank from Amazon ($22.99).

Most lawyers that I know give presentations from time to time, whether they be formal opening statements or closing arguments to a jury, teaching a CLE, client presentations or even just running a small meeting.  Considering this, you would think that most lawyers should be pretty good at it.  But I am amazed at the number of presentations I see in which lawyers use PowerPoint slides with almost every word of the presentation typed, typically in a small font to fit all of those words on the slide (so the audience can barely read them anyway), and then the presentation consists of little more than reading those slides.  Last week, California attorney David Sparks released his fifth book in the MacSparky Field Guide series, an ebook called Presentations.  It is a $10 book in the iBookStore that you read on an iPad.  I bought it when it was released last week so that I could write a review for iPhone J.D., and I assumed that the main value of the book would be to teach those PowerPoint-reading speakers how to do a better job with their presentations.  It certainly does that, but to my pleasant surprise, the book is packed with tips that even the most seasoned public speaker would find useful.  I learned so much reading this book, and I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I’m not sure if I would have purchased this book but for my intention of writing this review.  Thank goodness I did; I’ll be using the skills I learned in this book in all of my future presentations.  If you own an iPad or a Mac and you are an attorney or other professional who gives presentations, this book is easily worth $10 and I encourage you to get it.

The book is divided into five chapters but it has two main parts.  First, this is an excellent manual for using Keynote, Apple’s software for creating and presenting slides on either an iPad or a Mac.  (It works on an iPhone too, but that screen is too small for me to recommend using it to create presentations, although I have used my iPhone to make quick edits to a presentation when my iPad wasn’t close by.)  Second, this book gives advice on being a better public speaker.  Both parts of this book are excellent.

Keynote

For me, the best part of the book was the extensive and well-presented guide for using Keynote.  Sparks prefers to create slides on his Mac and that is the focus of this book.  I more often create slides on my iPad, in part because I use a PC in my office and thus can only use the Mac version of Keynote when I am at my house, and in part because I always use my iPad to run my presentations and it just seems more natural to me to create slides using the same hardware that I will use to present the slides to an audience.  But fortunately, almost everything that you can do in Keynote on a Mac you can also do in Keynote on the iPad, and Sparks also includes lots of iPad-specific advice in this book.  Thus, whether you use Keynote on a Mac, an iPad, or both, this book is for you.  And by the way, if you do own both an iPad and a Mac, Keynote makes it easy to go back and forth between the two when you are working on your slides.

Like all of the ebooks that Sparks has created for the iPad, this book is far more than just a book with words that you read.  Almost every time that Sparks tells you how (and why) to do something, he then includes a video that you can tap to watch a screencast.  This lets you listen to Sparks tell you what you need to do while you watch him do the task in Keynote.  It is a great way to learn the features of Keynote.

The Keynote portion of the book starts with the very basics — how to create a file, pick a template, etc. — so that even if you have never before used Keynote, this book will get you up and running.  But before long, the book shows how to do sophisticated things in Keynote such as complex animations, and includes lots of tips that were new to me.  For example, Sparks explains, in words and video, how to quickly make two objects the same size using Keynote on the iPad — a tip that I’ll now be using all of the time.

Of course Keynote lets you insert simple objects like squares, circles, etc. on a slide.  Sparks shows you how to create those, but then goes on to show you how to manipulate those objects to change and skew their characteristics, combine objects, and group them to create sophisticated graphics that not that long ago would require you to hire a graphics professional.  At one point in the book he groups together a bunch of shapes to make a lightsaber that would make Obi-Wan Kenobi proud.  It had never before occurred to me how much you can do with shapes in Keynote.

The book also includes great advice for creating a graphical representation of an object, a scene, etc.  Start with a picture or a PDF file, then place your shapes on top of that to reproduce the image using simple shapes, then remove the image so that you are left with a simple, clean graphic with perfect proportions to represent an item that is important to your presentation, whether it be the product at issue in a products liability trial or the accident scene.  What a great idea.

Here’s another simple tip I learned (on page 175).  When you are editing text in a text field using Keynote on an iPad, you can move the cursor/insertion point by swiping left or right.  That is such a simple and effective replacement for arrow keys on the iPad.  I hope that Microsoft copies this shortcut and adds it to Microsoft Word for iPad.  There are countless tips like this in the book, and even if you are like me and you already know most of them, you will appreciate learning the rest of them.  And if you are a novice Keynote user, you’ll be a pro after you learn everything in this book.

Although this book isn’t written specifically for lawyers, the fact that Sparks is a lawyer and has used Keynote in the courtroom results in his book being full of great advice for lawyers who use Keynote.  For example, he has sections that provide tips for presenting and annotating documents in a presentation, creating timelines, and zooming in on a location on a map — all of which I will be using in the future.

Public Speaking Tips

No matter how good your slides are, to be an effective public speaker you need to do a good job using those slides with your audience.  That is the other main focus of this book. 

Some of what he teaches is strictly utilitarian, such as a useful section on everything that you might want to bring to your a presentation in a toolbox.  As Sparks says, you may never need some of these items, and most of them you can just leave in the trunk of your car, but having them available eliminates any possible hiccups.  When Tampa attorney Katie Floyd, Sparks’s co-host on the Mac Power Users podcast, interviewed Sparks about this book, she suggested that he actually sell a tookbox that contains all of these items; she may have been joking but it actually isn’t a bad idea.  I already own and use most of these items that Sparks recommends, but there are a few more that I plan to pick up after reading this book.  Here is a fun graphic from two pages of the book that shows some of the items mentioned by Sparks; you can tap any plus sign for specific info on what the item is and how it can be used.

But Sparks goes further and offers specific tips on how to give your presentation, everything from what to do before your presentation, what to do with your hands during the presentation, how to handle questions from the audience, the importance of ending on time, etc.  While I happen to agree with Sparks on most of the advice that he offers in this part of the book, some of them are subject to debate.  Even so, reading this part of the book will definitely make you think about your own presentation style and what you can do to be an even better speaker.

Conclusion

While I focused above on the content, one of the best parts of this book is that the content is a joy to read because it is well-written, clear and quite often funny.  (For example, in a section providing lots of useful tips on using graphics in a presentation, I couldn’t help but smile when I read on page 206:  “Using pixelated, sad clip art in your presentation makes perfect sense so long as you live in 1993.”)  It’s also nice that the layout of this book is beautiful.  The book is over 400 pages, but I read it in just a few nights because I enjoyed reading it so much — including one night that I stayed up way too late thanks to Sparks and his interesting videos.

I frequently link to posts by David Sparks in my Friday In the news roundup, I listen to Mac Power Users, I’ve watched presentations given by Sparks at the ABA TECHSHOW conference held in Chicago every Spring, and I’ve read just about every book that he has ever written (and reviewed many of them on iPhone J.D.:  iPad at Work, Paperless, Email).  Suffice it to say that I am no stranger to his body of work.  But even considering all of it, I suspect that most iPad-using lawyers would agree with me that this is the best, most helpful publication that Sparks has ever produced.  If you ever have, or ever will, give a presentation, I strongly encourage you to get this book.  You will appreciate the videos just as much as the words, and you will learn a ton.

Click here to get Presentations ($9.99): 

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