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I always feel like a kid in a candy store whenever I look at the MobileFun.com website.  The company sells a huge number of iPhone and iPad accessories — chargers, docks, automobile kits, cases, you name it.  I still love the DODOcase HARDcover for iPad mini that I reviewed early this year.  MobileFun recently sent me a free review unit of the iT7x Premium Wireless Bluetooth Headphones and I’ve been testing them for the past month.  I’ve been a happy user of Apple’s $80 ($60 on Amazon) in-Ear Headphones for over four years now, so I’m very used to having a pair of white cords dangling out of my ears, and I wasn’t sure how much of an advantage it would be to use wireless headphones.  But soon after I started usig the iT7x, I realized that wireless headphones are both useful and fun.  If you listen to just about any audio from your iPhone or iPad — music, audiobooks, podcasts, movies — you’ll enjoy using this product.

Before talking about the product, a brief word about the packaging.  Apple is famous for creating an amazing unboxing experience.  It only takes a few minutes to open a box containing an iPhone or an iPad, and after you do so you may never look at the box again, but the care and attention that goes into the packaging signals to you from the outset that you are about to use a premium product.  I won’t ruin the surprise by posting pictures of the iT7x packaging, but suffice it to say that it is delightful.  If you decide to give this as a gift, your recipient will appreciate the quality even before first pairing the headphone with an iPhone.

The iT7x is an over-the-ear style headphone, which means that it isn’t small.  Frankly, the last time that I regularly used this style of headphone, it had a curly black cord and I connected it to the amplifier in my room to listen to my record player as a child in the 1970s.  I was happy to discover that the iT7x is quite comfortable to wear.  The cushioned speakers surround each of your ears, the padded headband feels good, and you can adjust the size to ensure the best fit whether you have a small or a big head.  (Yes, I realize I’m setting myself up for a joke there.)

The Bluetooth pairing is simple.  Just hold down the large button on the side of the right ear speaker for a few seconds as you turn on the unit until a blue light flashes, then pair using the Settings app on the iPhone or iPad.  You will then start to hear all audio through the iT7x.

And the audio sounds quite good.  Nice highs and lows, and decent thumps from the bass that are enjoyable without being overpowering.  My music sounded beautiful and the audio portion of videos sounded great.  (I’m currently catching up on Breaking Bad; I’m in the middle of Season 4, so no spoilers in the Comments please!)  I only have two minor complaints about the sound.  First, when no sound is playing (such as between songs) I can hear a slight hiss in the background.  It’s not unpleasant, but it is noticeable.  Second, about 10 seconds after you pause or stop audio on your iPhone/iPad, the iT7x enters into standby mode, after which you no longer hear that slight hiss or any other sound — and as it goes into standby mode you hear a slightly startling pop sound that I did find somewhat annoying.  But those complaints are minor, and overall I was very satisfied with the sound on the iT7x.

There are controls on the side of the right speaker that make it largely unnecessary to touch your iPhone or iPad.  There are buttons to increase the volume, decrease the volume, skip to the next track and go back.  If you hold down the next track button the music will speed up but there doesn’t seem to be a way to return the speed to normal, which seems like a bug either with the iT7x or iOS 7.  You can tap the large power button in the middle to trigger Siri, making it easy to tell your iPhone to call someone, ask Siri the current time, etc.  One obvious omission — there is no play/pause button.  Instead, there is a mute button that stops the sound as long as you hold it down, useful if you want to talk to someone for a few seconds (sound keeps playing on your iPhone but you just don’t hear it), but I’d find it more useful for that to be a play/pause button.  You can press the large button and tell Siri to “pause music” but that’s not as fast as pressing a pause button.

I mentioned that you can tell Siri to call someone.  The iT7x includes a built-in microphone.  It is invisible — there is no boom mic coming out of the side or anything like that — but in my tests it worked well for making phone calls with the iT7x, and as noted, it lets you give instructions to Siri.

You charge the iT7x with a cable that plugs into USB on one side and plugs into the bottom of the right speaker on the other side.  A charged iT7x lasts for about five hours.  The iT7x also comes with a cord so that you can plug it in to a headphone jack if you want to do so, although that obviously defeats the purpose of a wireless headphone.

You can fold up the iT7x to make it a little more portable for travel,
which works well if you are putting them in a suitcase but I still found
them a little large for a briefcase.

The iT7 Audio line is part of British company Bluechipworld and is named for Ian Taylor, who Wikipedia tells me is a retired English soccer player best known for playing for the Aston Villa Football Club in Birmingham.  With that background, it comes as no surprise that one target market for this product is folks who are working out or otherwise involved in physical activity where wires can get in the way.  I prefer to use my Nike Plus enabled iPod Nano when I run so I didn’t test that use of the iT7x, but I found many other great uses for wireless headphones.  When I was cutting the grass or doing other yard work, or doing other chores around the house, it was great to be able to slip my iPhone in my pocket and wear the iT7x without any risk of a headphone cord getting caught up in whatever I am doing.  When I watched those Breaking Bad episodes on my iPad at night, it was nice to not have to worry about a cord dangling down across the iPad screen.  (And even though the headphones were plenty loud enough for me, they are designed to make very little noise for others so there was no risk of waking my wife in bed.)

I see on the Bluechipworld website that the company makes other iT7 products, such as the newer iT7x2 (which comes in different colors and can go longer between charges, but I don’t believe is for sale in America yet), plus the website says that the iT7i and iT7Pro are “coming soon” with other features.  But I’ve been very happy with the iT7x.  Other than the minor inconvenience of no play/pause button (which also appears to be missing on the iT7x2), these headphones have worked well and have shown me how useful and fun it is to have wireless, great-sounding audio.

Click here to get the iT7x from MobileFun.com ($200.99).

A few months ago, Microsoft released a version of Microsoft Office for the iPhone.  That app lacks many of the important features of Office on the PC or Mac, but the app does let you read and modify a Microsoft Word document without losing any of the formatting in the document, which is sometimes all that you want to do on a mobile device.  The app itself is free, but you can only use it if you pay $10 a month or $100 a year to subscribe to Office 365, which also gets you the current version of Microsoft Office for the PC or Mac.  My review of Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone is here. 

However, what I and most other attorneys want is a full-featured version of Microsoft Office — especially Microsoft Word — that works on an iPad.  Yesterday, at a Gartner event in Florida, Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer announced that Microsoft is working on a version of Microsoft Office for the iPad, and said that it will be released when Microsoft finishes working on a touch interface to Microsoft Office which will also be incorporated into the Windows version of Office.  Tom Warren of The Verge has details in this article. 

I’m thrilled to see some official confirmation from the top executive that this app is coming, but that doesn’t mean that it is coming soon.  A Microsoft spokesman told The Verge in November of 2012 that Office was coming to iOS, and it was seven months before we saw that limited version of Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone that I mentioned above.  And back in December of 2011, Matt Hickey of the now defunct publication The Daily reported a rumor that Microsoft was “actively working” on Microsoft Office for the iPad.  Moreover, even when Microsoft does eventually release Office for the iPad, it will be interesting to see whether it includes sophisticated but important features such as track changes and styles.

In the meantime, my current favorite app for working with Microsoft Word documents on the iPad is Documents to Go by Dataviz.  It does a nice job of showing footnotes, track changes redline edits and comments in a Word document.  If I need to create redline edits in a Microsoft Word document, I think that Apple’s Pages app is currently the best solution, but unfortunately when you convert a document from Word format to Pages format and then back to Word format some of the formatting can sometimes get lost.  I also like Quickoffice, an app that was recently purchased by Google and as a result is now a free app.  Quickoffice can show and create redline edits, but unfortunately it doesn’t show footnotes, which is usually a deal-breaker for me because I always have footnotes in my legal documents.  Office² is also a good word processor for the iPad, although sometimes I have problems with the app crashing when I work with larger briefs.

My hope is that we do not have to wait long to see Microsoft Office on the iPad, and I also hope that it is a full-featured app, unlike the app recently released for the iPhone.  There are lots of reasons that it is in Microsoft’s own interests to release such an app, as noted here and here by California attorney David Sparks.  Indeed, while Microsoft surely prefers that you run the desktop version of Word on a PC and the portable version of Word on a Microsoft Surface tablet, Microsoft has been selling Word for Macintosh since 1985, so there is nothing unusual about Microsoft selling Word and the other Office applications on an Apple platform. 

In the meantime, here are links to download the apps I mentioned above:

Click here to get Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone (free, with subscription): 

Click here to get Documents to Go Standard by Dataviz ($9.99): 

Click here to get Pages by Apple ($9.99): 

Click here to get Quickoffice (free): 

Click here to get Office² HD ($7.99): 

It is finally starting to get easier to buy the new iPhone 5s.  If you are still on the fence about whether to get one, here are two more good reviews to read.  First, Rene Ritchie of iMore wrote an extensive, comprehensive review of the iPhone 5s.  Second, I enjoyed reading the review of the iPhone 5s by Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times.  Finally, if you are on the fence about upgrading and you have reached the end of your two year contract, New York attorney and TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante explains that you are wasting money if you don’t get a new phone.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• San Francisco attorney Marcia Hofmann considers the Fifth Amendment implications of the new fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5s in an article for Wired.  Interesting.
• The next time that you need to make an important decision, did you know that you can ask Siri to flip a coin for you?  California attorney David Sparks figured that out based on a post by David Chartier.
• Jordan Redavid, a law student at the University of Miami School of Law, asked me to announce that he wrote an iPad app to aid in jury selection called, appropriately enough, Jury Selection.  The app is free to use for 10 days so you can try it out; after that it costs $19.99 for unlimited use.  Click here to get Jury Selection (free): 
• North Carolina attorney Brian Focht of The Cyber Advocate reviews the Jury Selection app.
• Vicki Voisin, Kathy Miller and Karen Trumpower discuss top apps for paralegals on the latest edition of The Paralegal Voice podcast.
• In our work and personal lives, we are all dealing with information overload.  How do you keep track of everything?  My tips for doing so with an iPhone or iPad are in a recent article that I wrote that was published in the TechnoLawyer SmallLaw newsletter.  If you missed it, that article is now online.
• If your company uses the Good service to provide greater security for your iPad, this week Good added support for a version of the iAnnotate app that I recently reviewed and really like.  Sean Doherty of Law Technology News has the details.
• Are you having trouble sending iMessage text messages with iOS 7?  It has worked fine for me, but I’ve seen reports of others having trouble.  The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is aware of the problem “that affects a fraction of a percent of our iMessage users” and is working on a solution.
• If you upgraded to iOS 7 and only see the first names of people in the Mail and Messages app, that is because your iPhone/iPad has the Short Name preference turned on.  Allyson Kazmucha of iMore explains how to turn it off.
• And finally, I’ve linked in the past to videos from magician Simon Pierro who does really fun things with his iPad, but here is another one, apparently from 2011, that I just saw.  It isn’t in English, but you won’t have any trouble understanding what is going on, and it is amusing:

Whether it is music, an audiobook, a podcast, audio from a movie or a game or any other audio coming from an iPhone or iPad, the quality of audio is much, much better when coming from a nice external speaker instead of the small built-in speaker on those devices.  In January of 2013, I reviewed the dockBoss air, a great device that adds Bluetooth to an older speaker with a 30-pin connector designed to work with the iPod and the pre-iPhone 5 versions of the iPhone.  I love that product because it lets me use my new iPhone (or iPad) with my Bose SoundDock Portable speaker, a great portable speaker that has a 30-pin connector.  Indeed, even if my iPhone 5s could physically connect to the Bose SoundDock, I prefer to have a wireless connection so that I can keep the iPhone close to me to use it and to control the audio.

Last month, CableJive improved the dockBoss air, and the company sent me a free review unit to test it out.  The improvements are really nice, enough to justify this second look at the product.  Before I go on, however, you might want to start by reading my review from earlier this year because almost everything that I said back then applies to the new version of the dockBoss air.  Today, I will focus on what is improved.

Better sound.  CableJive says that the new version offers clearer audio, and in my tests this was definitely true.  I will admit that I never noticed a real problem with the last version of the dockBoss air, but comparing the two, I can tell that there was a slight hiss in the background with the old dockBoss air — most noticeable between songs or during a quiet portion of music.  I don’t hear any hiss at all with the new dockBoss air.  I’m not sure what CableJive did to achieve this, but it is a very nice improvement in sound quality. 

CableJive also says that you get more volume with the new version.  Both versions were more than loud enough for me, but if volume makes a difference to you, then that’s another advantage of this version.

Easier pairing.  With the prior version of the dockBoss air, you had to enter a code — 0000 — every time you paired your iPhone to the device.  The new version eliminates that requirement.  Just select the dockBoss air in your Bluetooth preference, and the devices connect.  If you leave the room and get far enough away to be out of range and lose a connection, the connection occurs automatically when you get back in range. 

Sometimes the pairing is almost too good.  Earlier this week, I was upstairs in my house listening to a podcast on my iPhone when suddenly I couldn’t hear anything.  Upon looking at my iPhone screen I saw that the iPhone had found the dockBoss air located downstairs, connected, and was playing my podcast through the speaker that was so far away that I couldn’t even hear it.  It was easy enough to change the audio output back to my iPhone, but I’m surprised that the Bluetooth connection even worked that far away.

Remote control.  My BoseSoundDock has a remote control with eight buttons:  Off, play/pause, volume up, volume down, next song, previous song, next playlist and previous playlist.  With the prior dockBoss air, the buttons that controlled the Bose itself worked fine (off, volume up, volume down) but no controls were passed through to the iPhone.  With the new dockBoss air, play/pause, next song and previous song are all transmitted via Bluetooth to your iPhone. (There is no support for the next playlist or previous playlist buttons — which, by the way, are buttons that I have never wanted to use anyway.)

If you keep your iPhone in your pocket when you are listening to a speaker, you really don’t need a remote control because you can control everything from your iPhone.  But there are also times when you want to keep your iPhone someplace close to your speaker — for example, you may want to be able to walk outside or far away but not have a connection lost between your iPhone and the speaker, which is annoying to anyone else listening — and in those circumstances it is useful to have the remote in your pocket instead of the iPhone.

Other changes.  The old version of the dockBoss air didn’t make any sounds to provide feedback for what it was doing.  The new version includes pleasant sounds as indicators of activity.  There is a short series of tones when you first connect the device to your speaker, there is another one when you connect via Bluetooth, and another one when you disconnect.  I like those short audio cues just so that I know that everything is working.  Physically, the newer version is slightly larger than the older version, and on the back it says “8.13" to signify that the new version came out in August of 2013.  In the following pictures, the new model is the one on the right:

CableJive refers to this model as V2, which I suppose means version 2, of the dockBoss air, but I think that this is actually the third version.  As I noted in my prior review, the original dockBoss air had trouble working with some Bose speakers (including mine) but a revised version fixed that problem.  But whether this is the second or third version, just make sure you buy the model that is advertised as having better sound, easier pairing and support for remotes and you’ll be sure that you are getting the right model.

The dockBoss air was already a really useful product, one which gives new life to older speakers with 30-pin connectors — great news for those who previously spent hundreds of dollars on a nice speaker.  The improvements in this new version of the dockBoss air make it an ever better product.  Indeed, if you can find an older iPod/iPhone speaker on sale now that companies are starting to come out with speakers with Lightning connectors and built-in Bluetooth, it might even be a better deal to get a discounted older speaker and a dockBoss air instead of a more expensive newer speaker.  I’m including both an Amazon link and a CableJive link below; the Amazon description says that it is this newer version (“New model as of August 28th, 2013.”) so you should be safe buying it from Amazon.

Click here to get the dockBoss air from CableJive ($34.95).

Click here to get the dockBoss air from CableJive via Amazon ($34.95)

It is always useful to have an external battery just in case your iPhone or iPad is running low, but many external batteries are large and heavy.  Sara Austin, an attorney in York, PA, recently told me about a small, $40 charger that she purchased called the Halo Pocket Charger 2200.  It is only 4 inches long and 3/4 inch in diameter.  It has a 2,200 mAh battery and comes with a USB charging cable, a carrying pouch, and three interchangeable adapter tips:  30-pin, mini USB, and micro USB.  The 30-pin connector is designed to work with older iPhones and iPads.  The Halo Pocket Charger 2200’s cord doesn’t come with a Lightning adapter tip so you cannot use the included cord with a newer iPhone or iPad, but there is a standard USB plug on the side of the Halo Pocket Charger so you can use the Lightning-to-USB cable that came with your device to charge.  Or, this seems to me to be a perfect use for a tiny USB to Lightning cord such as the iBoltz XS that I reviewed yesterday.

Sara Austin (pictured at right) gave me permission to share here on iPhone J.D. what she wrote to me about the Halo Pocket Charger 2200 on so that others could learn about this compact charger.  I appreciate her doing so because it sounds like a useful product, and but for her reaching out to me, I’m not sure that I would have known about it.

– – – – –

I ordered the Halo Pocket Charger 2200 [from the manufacturer, Halo2Cloud.com].  Timely delivery.  The site says it’s smaller (or as small as) a tube of mascara. As you can see from the picture below, that is not really true.  It is not as tall but definitely wider (which can make a difference if it needs to fit into a slim space).   

The Halo Pocket Charger 2200 arrived fully charged with a double-tipped USB cord and several adapter plugs and a small carrying bag.  It took my iPhone 5 about 1:20 to go from 28% to 84% and used about 1/2 the Halo charge.  Pretty good!  In another test, it charged my iPad 2 from 66% to 84% in 2:11 and took 1/2 the Halo’s charge.

Then, with the Halo Pocket Charger 2200 plugged into my PC, it took about 5 hours to recharge the Halo Pocket Charger 2200 from 1/2 to full.  Not bad, because someone will usually then be using the newly-recharged product while the Halo can recharge.  The cord even allows the Halo to be recharging while another item (iPhone, iPad, etc) is also charging from the Halo, although you will need to use a 30 pin to Lightning adapter to do so with the latest models of the iPhone and iPad.

The product comes in black, silver, purple or pink leopard.  I like the purple so I don’t confuse it with anything else.  [Jeff notes:  here is a picture of the pink leopard version from the Halo website; I certainly wouldn’t confuse that color with anything else in my briefcase.]

My verdict at this early stage: thumbs up.  The Halo Pocket Charger 2200 will be handy and is a good value for the cost.

– – – – –

Although Sara Austin purchased the Pocket Charger 2200, which costs $40, I see that the company also sells a Pocket Charger 2800 for $50.  That model is the same physical size but includes a larger 2800 mAh batter to give you a little bit more power.

Thanks for sharing your review, Sara!

Click here to get the Halo Pocket Charger 2200 from the manufacturer ($40.00).

iPhones and iPads come with a 1 meter long white USB cord.  For all of Apple’s latest devices, the cord has a USB connector on one end and a Lightning connector on the other end.  The 1 m length works well for most tasks, but sometimes you want something shorter or longer.  CableJive launched the iBoltz XS and the iBoltz XL to address that need.  Both cables are white, just like the Apple cables, and both cables are Apple certified.  (You can buy cheaper, no-name cables on places like Amazon that claim to work with the Lightning connector, but they are not Apple certified and I would be nervous about using them with my expensive iPhone or iPad.)

The iBoltz XS is the short version, only five inches long.  It is virtually identical to a product that CableJive had been selling, the the LightLinez from Kenburg Technology, and which I reviewed earlier this year.  As I noted earlier this year, the shorter length is perfect if you want to connect your iPhone to your laptop; there is no reason to have them very far apart.  I also find that a short cable is perfect for any of the external batteries that you can use to charge an iPhone or iPad; using the regular 1 meter cable results in a lot of extra cable.  The short length of the iBoltz XS also makes it easy to pack for travel.

The iBoltz XS costs $18.95.  That is essentially the same price as Apple’s $19.00 1 meter Lightning to USB Cable (to the extent that you ever need to buy an extra one; remember the 1 meter version comes with your device), but the point of the iBoltz XS isn’t to pay less but instead to have a short cord that is perfect for tasks for which 1 meter is just too long and awkward.

On the other hand, sometimes the standard 1 meter cable is not long enough.  I suspect that every iPhone and iPad owner has had at least one occasion in which they were just a little too far from an outlet or a USB port.  This often happens to me in a hotel room where the outlet is just far enough away from a table or nightstand that the regular cord cannot reach, so I have to leave my iPhone or iPad on the floor while it charges, and then I’m afraid that I will forget it is there and step on it.  A longer cord can also be useful at your desk in your office when the outlet is just a little too far away.  This is where the iBoltz XL is useful; it is just like the standard cable, but twice as long.  2 meters instead of 1 meter — or, to do the conversion for you, about 6 and a half feet instead of just over 3 feet.

Even Apple sees the need for a longer cord, and Apple sells a 2 meter version of the Lighting to USB cable for $29.00.  The advantage of the iBoltz is simply price; it is $24.95 so you save about $4.  And if you are ordering online, iBoltz XL cables are eligible for Amazon Prime free shipping, so you also don’t have to pay the $4.00 that Apple charges for shipping and handling at the online Apple store.  (Apple doesn’t currently sell the 2 meter version on Amazon.)

The Lightning connectors at the end of the iBoltz cables are small enough that they should work even if your iPhone or iPad is in a case, but note that they are just a tiny bit larger than the Apple 1 meter cable.  In the following picture, the Apple 1 meter cable connector is at the left, the middle is the iBoltz XS and the right is the iBoltz XL.  Blown up this much, the size difference is noticeable, but in real life I doubt you will notice the difference.

I’ve been happy with the quality of other CableJive products, and these Apple certified cables seem like great solutions if you are looking for a short cable (which Apple doesn’t sell at all) or if you are looking to save a few bucks on a longer cable.  If you decide to get both iBoltz cables, you can save a little more because CableJive is currently running a promotion where you can save $2 if you order two iBoltz cables.  You need to use coupon code iBOLTZ, and you have to order from the CableJive website.

Click here to get the iBoltz XS from CableJive ($18.95).

Click here to get the iBoltz XS from Amazon ($18.95).

Click here to get the iBoltz XL from CableJive ($24.95).

Click here to get the iBoltz XL from Amazon ($24.95).

 

One year ago, Apple proudly announced that it sold five million iPhone 5 devices the first weekend that it went on sale and that 100 million people had updated to the new iOS 6.  This week, Apple announced that it sold nine million new iPhones.  That incredible number includes both the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c, but I suspect that the large majority of the early adopters bought the iPhone 5s.  Apple also said that over 200 million iPhones are now running the brand new iOS 7.  This is an incredible response to Apple’s new hardware and software, but frankly is not all that surprising considering that both have been so well reviewed.  The iPhone 5s reviews have been incredibly positive, and while iOS 7 takes a little while to get used to the new look, it has so many improvements that I still find myself discovering new things every day.  Here is the news of note from the past week:

• Tampa attorney Katie Floyd reviews the Nest Thermostat, a sophisticated way to adjust the temperature in your home that you can control with your iPhone.
• The reviews of the iPhone 5s continue to come in.  I’ll note a few.  First, here is the review by California attorney David Sparks.  His impressions are very similar to mine.
• Jason Snell of Macworld wrote this review of the iPhone 5s, and it is a delight to read.  For example:  “Adding
  
  a fingerprint sensor was an audacious move by Apple; this is weird,
  
  sci-fi technology that could make the iPhone a laughingstock if it
  
  doesn’t work right. Not only does it work, but Apple has also shown
  
  great restraint in making the entire process feel normal. There are no
  
  bright animations or wacky sounds when Touch ID is in use. Sure, you’re
  
  unlocking your 64-bit pocket supercomputer with just a fingerprint, but
  
  that’s no reason to get excited.”
• My favorite part of this iPhone 5s review by Victor Li of Law Technology News is the last sentence.
• GDGT gave the iPhone 5s a score of 97, the highest-ever score for a cellphone on GDGT.
• James Galbraith of Macworld ran some tests to figure out how fast the iPhone 5s is.  The title of the article gives away the results:  “iPhone 5s lives up to the hype.”
• Allyson Kazmucha of iMore tests LTE speed on the iPhone 5s on AT&T and finds that it is faster than the iPhone 5.  I haven’t noticed much of a difference myself, but I’m happy to learn that it could be faster.
• Rene Ritchie of iMore reviews the leather case that Apple sells for the iPhone 5s.
• There have been news stories that one person figured out how to fool the fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 5s, but the steps involved are so complicated that in my mind it doesn’t make me any less impressed by this technology.  I agree completely with the perspective offered by David Pogue of the New York Times on the issue, and you should read that article if you have any concerns.  If a criminal is dedicated (and lucky) enough, I’m sure he can figure out a way to pick the locks on your house, use social engineering to get past the receptionist in your office, and tap your phone line.  You simply cannot eliminate all risk.  But you can take reasonable precautions, and the fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 5s makes it convenient to use increased security, such as requiring a passcode every single time that the device is woken up, and that makes it a great feature for everyone, especially attorneys.
• Josh Centers of TidBITS offers a 39 word review of that $39 iPhone 5s case.
• If you buy a red iPhone case — or any other red product from Apple — the company makes a donation to (PRODUCT) RED, the organization that fights AIDS.  Bono recently announced that Apple has so far raised $65 million for the organization.
• Last week, I linked to an article based on interviews by Sam Grobart of BloombergBusinessweek of Apple executives Jony Ive, Craig Federighi and Tim Cook.  He has since posted the full text of the interviews, and frankly they are far more interesting than the article.  Here is the Tim Cook interview; here is the Ive/Federighi interview.
• When I fly, I often find it useful to use the Gogo in-flight Internet service, especially the new plan that offers 30 minutes of access for just a few bucks — enough time to catch up on your emails so that you don’t have 100 unread messages when you land.  This week, Gogo announced a partnership with Allstate that will offer 30 minutes of free in-flight Internet access during weeken flights.  The Gogo Blog has more details.
• When I fly, I often wish I didn’t have to turn off my iPhone and iPad during takeoff and landing.  That may soon change.  The FAA recently created a 28-member committee to study the situation, and yesterday that committee released its recommendation that the FAA change its policy and allow the use of personal electronic devices during takeoff and landing, as noted by AppleInsider.  Hopefully the recommendation will be accepted and the policy will change soon.
• Before iOS 7, if you had to open a .zip file on an iPad or iPhone, the best solution was typically GoodReader, an app that I recommend anyway to every attorney.  But as Serenity Caldwell of Macworld notes, in iOS 7, the Mail app knows how to open .zip files.
• If you want a USB car charger that will quickly charge an iPad and an iPhone, Karissa Bell of The Wirecutter says the best model is the Scoosche reVOLT c2 which costs about $20 on Amazon.
• The Onion offers its own take on the new features of iOS 7.
• And finally, last week I ended with a funny clip from Conan O’Brien about the gold iPhone 5s.  In light of the gold iPhone shortages, here is the follow up video:

Professor Dane Ciolino teaches at Loyola Law School in New Orleans, LA.  He is the author of the book Louisiana Legal Ethics: Standards and Commentary (2013), publishes the blog Louisiana Legal Ethics, and is widely regarded as an expert in legal ethics.  He also has an interest in technology, and I have enjoyed teaching CLEs with him over the years.  He recently wrote about the ethics of lawyers using public Wi-Fi, an issue that lawyers with an iPhone or an iPad frequently encounter in airports, coffeshops, etc. 

Prof. Ciolino was kind enough to give me permission to republish his article for iPhone J.D. readers:

—–

Rule 1.6 of course requires a lawyer to maintain the confidentiality of client information. But does it require a lawyer who digitally stores and communicates information to use über-security measures like encryption or multi-factor authentication? Does it prohibit a lawyer from using a public Wi-Fi network at Starbucks or at an airport?

A September 10, 2013 decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals should give comfort to even the most confidentially-minded of lawyers. In Joffe v. Google, Inc., the Ninth Circuit considered whether the federal Wiretap Act covers communications over Wi-Fi networks. That act imposes liability on anyone who “intentionally intercepts . . . any wire, oral, or electronic communication,” subject to some exceptions. See 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(a). Google argued that one of those exceptions carved out public Wi-Fi networks because they were, among other things, “accessible to the general public.” The court rejected Google’s argument and held as follows:

Wi-Fi transmissions are not “readily accessible” to the “general public” because most of the general public lacks the expertise to intercept and decode payload data transmitted over a Wi-Fi network. Even if it is commonplace for members of the general public to connect to a neighbor’s unencrypted Wi-Fi network, members of the general public do not typically mistakenly intercept, store, and decode data transmitted by other devices on the network. Consequently, we conclude that Wi-Fi communications are sufficiently inaccessible that they do not constitute an “electronic communication . . . readily accessible to the general public” under 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(g)(i) as the phrase is ordinarily understood.

This decision not only is sensible, but also has important implications for lawyers. The rules of professional conduct require only that a lawyer “make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.” See ABA Model Rule 1.6(c). In the wake of the Joffe v. Google opinion, it is now “reasonable” for a lawyer to assume that the communication of client information over a Wi-Fi network is “confidential” — after all, any interception by a would-be interceptor would violate the federal Wiretap Act. Therefore, it is no less reasonable for a lawyer to communicate over (now) federally-protected Wi-Fi networks than to communicate over federally-protected wireless phone networks, landlines and fax lines. In all cases, of course, fit the means of communication to the sensitivity of the information.

So, relax, take slurp of that venti double chocolate chip mocha Frappuccino, and send your email. It’s okay.

Thank you to Clio for once again being a sponsor of iPhone J.D., and this week there is big Clio news to announce:  a brand new iPhone app, and a really great one at that.  As you may already know, Clio offers web-based practice management, time & billing and client collaboration services (including document management) for small and mid-sized law firms.  When you use Clio, your important client data is securely accessible anywhere that you have Internet access.

You have always been able to access Clio from a web browser, including Safari on an iPhone.  I discussed that interface earlier this year.  But Clio surveyed its users and learned that close to 70% of mobile Clio use was on an iPhone, and thus they worked hard to develop a native iPhone app.  Yesterday, it became available on the app store, and it is now a free download that can be used by anyone with a subscription to Clio.

Given the recent release of iOS 7, the timing of Clio’s app release could not be better.  The Clio app has a beautiful and easy to use interface that fits like a glove with iOS 7.  The graphics are clean and modern, and you will see the same icons that Apple uses in its own iOS 7 apps.  Jack Newton, the CEO and co-founder of Clio, explains:  “We designed the Clio iPhone app from the ground up to take full advantage of the new features and visual language of iOS 7, and deliver an unparalleled user experience as a result.”  The app also works with iOS 6 if you haven’t yet upgraded.

Start the app and you are asked to enter your pin for security.  You then see your information in Clio.  For example, one view shows you a list of your open matters.

 

If you tap on a matter you get more information, such as basic information about the matter, or an interesting timeline view which presents a graphical view of all of the activity on the file.

 

From any screen, you can swipe to the left or to the right to expose other panels. Swipe the screen from left to right and you see tabs for each function of the app:  Matters, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Time Entries, Documents and Settings.  Swipe from right to left and you see what Clio calls the Awesome Bar Awesome Dashboard [UPDATE: one of the software developers at Clio, Tys von Gaza, tweeted that they are instead calling it the Awesome Dashboard].  At the top of the Awesome Dashboard is a timer that you can start with the tap of a button to have your iPhone monitor and track your billable time on a matter.  The Awesome Dashboard also shows you your upcoming events and tasks.

 

When you display Contacts you are shown all of your Clio Contacts.  You can tap the + to add a new contact.  If you tap the word Clio Contacts at the top of your screen you can then switch to a view of all of your iPhone contacts — the contacts in the iPhone’s built-in Contacts app — and with a simple tap you can upload any contact on your iPhone directly to your Clio Contacts.

 

When you display the Calendar you see all of your events in Clio for that day.  Tap on the event to change any information about the event, such as the start and end time, whether it is a recurring event, who is attending the event, the matter to which the event is billed, etc.

 

When you display Documents you see a searchable list of your Clio documents.  Tap on any document to view it.  The app lets you select and copy text in the document, but unfortunately there is currently no option to send the document to another app.

 

Perhaps one of the most useful reasons to have Clio on your iPhone is the ability to create time entries as they occur, even when you are away from your computer.  There are multiple ways to enter time.  First, you can simply swipe the screen from right to left to bring up the Awesome Dashboard and start a timer to have the iPhone determine how long you are working on a matter.  A blue bar appears at the top of the screen (as shown on some of the above images) when your iPhone is tracking your time.  Second, in the Matters view, you can tap the three dots to the right of a matter name and a pop-up menu will apeal; tap + Time to enter time for that matter.  Third, you can swipe the screen from left to right to display Time.  From there, you can manually enter a time entry, including selecting a matter and entering the amount of time spent.  Right now the interface requires you to tap a button to manually display the Description and or Notes fields, but I’m told that this might change in the future.  The Description field is a list of activities that you can edit on your computer so that on your iPhone you can simply tap a selection such as “Research” or “Meeting.”  The Notes field allows for a more traditional text entry, such as “research motion for summary judgment.”

 

For more information on how this app works, here is a short two minute video from Clio that shows the app in action:

As you can tell, this 1.0 version of the Clio app is already quite impressive.  Massachusetts attorney and prolific blogger Bob Ambrogi says that “Clio’s iPhone app is the most highly functional and highly intuitive practice-management app I’ve seen.”  And fortunately, it will get better.  Minneapolis attorney Sam Glover of Lawyerist.com reports that the Clio app was developed in-house and there are six full-time developers at Clio working on the app.  The folks at Clio tell me that fresh on the heels of this 1.0 release, the team is already working on features for the next version.

If you already use Clio in your law practice, then you’ll want to download this app today to take advantage of the convenient interface to the Clio service.  If you are an iPhone-using attorney at a small or medium sized law firm and you don’t currently use law firm mangement software, you’ll definitely want to take a look at Clio.  The web-baed tools are powerful, and the new iPhone client makes the service even more useful.

Click here to get Clio (free): 

Knowing that the iPhone 5s is currently in limited supply, I arrived at my local AT&T store early Friday morning to get in line.  Supplies were indeed limited, and about 30 minutes before the store opened at 8 am I was reminded of the quote from Henry Ford that “Any customer can have a [Model T] car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black” when the AT&T employees announced that they were not provided with any white or gold iPhones.  I wanted a 64 GB black model anyway — technically called “space gray” — so the announcement did not affect me, but others in line were disappointed.  Indeed, according to ifo Apple Store, no carrier stores received any gold iPhones, and even Apple-owned stores only received two to five gold phones per store.  I understand that no store currently has an iPhone 5s of any color in stock, and it will be October before orders start to be filled.  So that is a long way of saying that if you don’t already have an iPhone 5s, you may have to wait a few weeks to get one — especially if you want gold.

But let me tell you, the iPhone 5s is worth the wait.  After three days of extensively using mine, I love it.  It combines everything that I loved about the iPhone 5 — the great size and weight, the longer screen, the speedy 4G LTE — and adds three great new features.

Security and Convenience

The marquee feature of the iPhone 5s is the Touch ID fingerprint scanner.  Apple has managed to take a very complicated technology and make it work so well that it seems like magic.  The scanner always works, and it works so quickly that I find it hard to believe that my finger was scanned at all. 

One advantage is convenience.  I cannot even count the number of times that I pick up my iPhone every day to use it.  In the past, I would have to first press a button to wake the screen and then swipe to unlock the iPhone, and then if I had not used the iPhone in 15 minutes I would have to enter the four digit pin.  But with the iPhone 5s, I just press and release the home button and leave my finger on top of the button for the shortest of time — like a quarter of a second — and my finger is scanned and the iPhone is unlocked and I can use it.  Even if you never use a password on your iPhone, it is faster to use the home button plus fingerprint scanner than to first press a button to wake up the screen and then swipe to unlock.

But of course, you should use a password on your iPhone (and if you are a lawyer, I would say that you MUST use a password on your iPhone) and yet the iPhone 5s manages to combine convenience with security, concepts that are virtually always at odds with one another.  As I just mentioned, in the past I would only require a password on my iPhone every 15 minutes because it was just too inconvenient to have to enter a password every time.  I knew I was giving up some security, but I hoped to be lucky.  But with the iPhone 5s, I now tell my iPhone to require a passcode immediately every time someone tries to use it (Settings -> General -> Passcode & Fingerprint) because it never slows me down to have my fingerprint scanned so why not have the most security.  This gives me much more protection if someone else were to accidentally or maliciously pick up my iPhone and try to use it.  And given the amount of confidential information on my iPhone, making a passcode/fingerprint a constant requirement makes me feel much better about satisfying Rule of Professional Conduct 1.6(c): “A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.”

I also love the fact that I can use my fingerprint to buy apps or music on my iPhone.  Apple now has strong security requirements for an Apple ID password:  “Your password must be at least eight characters including a number, an uppercase letter, and a lowercase letter. You cannot use spaces, the same character three times in a row, your Apple ID, or a password you’ve used in the last year.”  I support the idea of strong passwords, but we all know what a pain they are to type.  It is infinitely easier to simply place my finger on my home button for a fraction of a second to approve a purchase.  I cannot wait for Apple to expand this feature to other iPhone apps that have a username and password requirement.

In short, the Touch ID fingerprint scanner is a great feature for anyone who uses an iPhone, but it is an especially great feature for anyone who keeps private information on their iPhone, which of course includes all attorneys.  You get both greater security and greater convenience at the same time.

Camera

I have a nice Nikon SLR camera that takes beautiful pictures and video, but I still take a large number of pictures and video with my iPhone just because I always have it with me.  One of the secrets to taking great pictures with my Nikon camera is to take a ton of pictures.  There are always going to be some bad ones because a subject blinks or looks to the side, but if I take a bunch in a row, I usually get at least one that works well.  My Nikon 5100 can take 4 frames a second in burst mode if I hold down the button, which helps to get the perfect picture.  The iPhone 5s can take an amazing 10 frames a second when you hold down the button (either the on-screen virtual button or the physical volume button, which is what I prefer to use).  I’m sure that I will get used to this over time, but right now, every single time I hold down the button I am again astonished at how quickly the iPhone 5s can take pictures.

The Camera roll keeps all of those burst mode pictures together in a bundle so they take up just one square on your grid of pictures.  You can do nothing more and simply keep all of those pictures, which makes sense if you want to look at all of them on the large screen of your computer at a later date to select the best one.  Or you can tap on the bundle and then tap on the word Favorites to select the one or more that you want to save (the iPhone 5s helps you by selecting the one that it likes best, and in my tests it usually made good picks) and then delete the rest of the pictures in the bundle all at once.

I tested this burst mode over the weekend with the toughest subjects I know — my kids.  Having a five and seven year old both look at the camera at the same time without making a goofy face can be one of life’s greatest challenges, but with 10 pictures snapped every second, it was far, far easier to get a picture worth keeping.  And when I took pictures of my son playing soccer this weekend, the burst mode made it so much easier to get just the right shot when there was a lot of activity.  The burst mode is amazing and I’m going to use it all of the time.  The new slow motion mode is also really fun, resulting in some ESPN-worthy videos of my son kicking the soccer ball.

Apple has some amazing sample pictures taken by an iPhone 5s on its website.  Here are two pictures that I took of some flowers.  Click each picture to see it full-size:

There are other things I like about the iPhone 5s camera.  It has a new f/2.2 aperture and other improvements to make each picture more sharp, even in limited light.  And while I hate to use a flash on any iPhone, the iPhone 5s flash is actually not that bad, thanks to the new dual-LED lights (one white LED, one amber LED) which are used in different combinations to cast the best color on your subjects.

Just yesterday, during the halftime of the Saints football game, my kids and I heard music outside of our house.  We ran outside to investigate, and a few blocks away found a street parade.  (You never know when you will run into a parade in New Orleans.  I later discovered that this one was the Young Men Olympian, Jr. 129th Annual Anniversary Parade.)  We listened and danced along to the music for a few minutes and I shot two quick videos, which I quickly trimmed and merged into a single movie using the powerful iMovie app on my iPhone and then uploaded the movie to YouTube.  Here is the result:

As always, the best part about the iPhone camera is that it is always with me.  Improvements to the camera hardware and software are always appreciated because it means that those unanticipated moments are preserved that much better.

Speed

The final advantage of the iPhone 5s is speed, thanks to the new A7 64-bit processor.  Many features of the iPhone 5s such as the ones I described above — the fingerprint scanner, slow motion video and the burst mode — wouldn’t be possible without that fast processor.  (If I hold down the button on my iPhone 5, I get closer to one frame per second.)  The processor also helps to make the iPhone 5s as a whole feel more zippy and responsive.  

I also used the Safari app to load lots of webpages on both my iPhone 5 and my iPhone 5s at the same time.  The iPhone 5 was no slouch, but even so, the iPhone 5s typically loaded pages about twice as fast.

I also look forward to seeing what app developers can do when they have more powerful resources to work with, and in the coming months I expect to see apps that really show off the power and speed of the iPhone 5s.

Conclusion

The jump from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 5s does not feel quite as substantial as the jump from the iPhone 4S to the iPhone did last year, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a real leap forward.  And I’m not the only one who feels this way.  As I noted last week, the reviews from those who received early review units from Apple were almost universally glowing.  The subsequent reviews have been just as positive.  For example, I see that the website The Verge (which reviews every major smartphone) rated the iPhone 5s an 8.8.  Only once before has The Verge ever rated a smartphone that high; it was the iPhone 5 this time last year.

The improvements to security, convenience, photography and speed result in an iPhone that is a joy to use every single day.  The iPhone 5s is a fantastic device that any lawyer would appreciate using.