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When I talk about how attorneys can use an iPad in court, I’m usually referring to litigators.  However, Judge Dan Hinde of the 269th District Court of Harris County in Houston, Texas recently took the time to share with me how judges are also using iPads in the courtroom.  He was kind enough to let me share his thoughts here.  Here is what Judge Hinde told me:

The “Judicial” iPad

As courts go, the civil district courts in Harris County, Texas are relatively high-tech.  We have fairly modern audio-visual equipment in each courtroom.  Lawyers can electronically file documents, and since around 2008, all of the courts are “paperless.”  By this I mean that our case files are now kept electronically.  Electronic filings go straight to the file without being printed out, and paper filings are scanned into each case file.  Thanks to the District Clerk’s Office, lawyers can access documents in case files on the internet.

This has greatly diminished the volume of paper handled by the courts.  But it does not mean the judges have less to read.  (The number of new cases in Harris County have actually risen since 2008.)  Instead, it has led us judges to change how we read, absorb, and analyze materials submitted for our consideration.  We all pretty much read case files on our desktop computers.  We can also access our files remotely on laptops via several options for secure access.  And a few of us our now using iPads to review briefs and motions.  But I think this is just the start.

I received my iPad 2 in April and have worked with the IT departments of the courts and the clerk’s office to find some great ways to securely access briefs and exhibits in an organized, efficient way.  I can now download all the briefs and exhibits related to any motion on my docket onto my iPad to review later using GoodReader.  I can access our network for any additional materials securely through a VPN as well as a Citrix client app.

Legal research will become even more efficient.  I now have the entire set of Texas statutes, including the Texas Constitution, all of the Texas codes, and the Revised Civil Statutes, on my iPad using RealTek’s Texas Statutes app.  (The printed volumes take up about 8-10 bookshelves in my office.)  So instead of having to run back to my chambers in the middle of a hearing to look up an obscure statutory reference (or instead of logging onto Westlaw or Lexis), I can simply open up this app and look up the statute being cited to me.

Similarly, Fastcase’s iPad app provides quick access to cases, albeit without any headnotes or subsequent history information.  I have also bookmarked the websites for the Texas Administrative Code and Westlaw for access to other materials.  While the Black’s Law Dictionary app is a little pricey for me (I tend to download only free apps or iBooks), I do have Nolo’s free law dictionary for use when I need to know the difference between a cestui que use and a cestui que trust.

Of course, I have downloaded one of the free Constitution apps available on iTunes.  And through iBooks, I have a free copy of certain secondary authorities, like The Federalist Papers and Democracy in America.

But I see so much more potential for this device.  As lawyers and parties look for ways to reduce costs, I think videoconferencing may become more prevalent.  Before the iPad, the equipment costs made videoconferencing cost-prohibitive under our tight budgets.  But now it is an option worth considering for hearings and status conferences given the number of videoconferencing apps like FaceTime, Skype, WebEx, and Yahoo Messenger, among others.

District judges in Texas have a very small staff.  Few, if any, have a secretary, so having speech-recognition software like Dragon Dictation’s iPad app could help us draft materials more quickly.  The various note-taking apps give us the opportunity to take notes on the bench or at home while listening to arguments and testimony or reading briefs and keep these notes in an organized manner and close to hand.

These are just some of the uses I see for the iPad as a judge.  I am sure there are more on the way.  I look forward to exploring them.

– – – – –

Thank you to Judge Hinde for sharing his iPad experiences with the readers of iPhone J.D.  With a population of 4.1 million, Harris County has (according to Wikipedia) the third largest population of any county in the United States.  It is great to hear that courts in that large and important jurisdiction are making the most of technology.  You can learn more about Judge Hinde in his biography on his court’s website, you can follow Judge Hinde on Twitter (@JudgeDanHinde), or you can see him in person on the 13th floor of the Harris County Civil Courthouse in Houston, Texas.

Back in 2009, I was on a plane that offered free use of the Gogo Inflight Internet service so I tried it out and wrote about my experiences, which were positive. Gogo provides Wi-Fi on many different airlines including Air Canada, AirTran, Alaska Airlines, AmericanAirlines, Delta, Frontier, United, US Airways and Virgin America — currently over 1,000 different airplanes.  Since my original post in 2009, many people have told me, wrote to me, or posted a comment on that original post saying that they have had disappointing experiences with Gogo, so I have been curious to try it again.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been on twelve different Delta flights (three trips with connections on both sides of the trip).  Knowing that I would have several trips in June, I paid for 30 days of service on June 1 to give Gogo a more comprehensive test.  Once again, my experience was for the most part quite positive.

Unlike the last time that I tried the service, there is now a Gogo app that works on the iPhone or iPad to help you sign on to the service.  You don’t need the app (you can sign up using a web browser) but the app saves you the trouble of typing in your username and password every time you use the service.

Signing in to Gogo Inlight Internet

The procedure for using Gogo is as follows:

1.  Wait for the flight attendant to announce that you have reached 10,000 feet and you are allowed to use electronic devices.  On your iPhone or iPad go to Settings –> Wi-Fi and select the Gogo service.

2. Wait a few seconds for the Wi-Fi icon to appear at the top of the screen.

3. Launch the Gogo app.  You will see one of the following screens.  If you didn’t wait long enough, you will be told that the service is unavailable (the first picture below).  But if all goes well you’ll see something like the second picture below.

4. If you need to sign up for the service, you will be given several different priced options.  The current prices for the iPhone or iPad are as follows.  (Service for a computer is slightly more expensive.)

• $4.95 for a flight that is up to 90 minutes (650 miles)
• $7.95 for a flight that is over 90 minutes (over 650 miles)
• $19.99 for 30 days of service on a single airline

There are several other packages with different prices.  For example, if you pre-purchase Gogo before you are on your flight, you can pay $34.95 for a month of service on any plane from any airline.  Better yet, if you use this link on the Delta website you can currently get that service for only $24.95.  You can also pre-purchase a 24 hour pass on the Gogo website for $12.95, and Delta is currently selling the 24 hour pass at a discounted price of $11.00.

5. If you already have an account with a username/password that is saved in the Gogo app, then after you tap the sign in button, you see the following screen at which you need to type the characters shown on the screen.  I presume that thi step is designed to make it harder for someone to hack into the service, but it sure is annoying.

 

6. Finally, you wait for the service to start, which usually takes about 5 seconds or so.  The app tells you when the service is ready.

All of the above screenshots are from an iPhone, but if you are using the app on an iPad, the steps are the same.  The Gogo app only works in portrait mode on the iPad (I can’t imagine a reason for that limitation), but the process works the same, and you see screens like this:

 

Speed of Gogo Inflight Internet

Once you are connected, you can exit the Gogo app and use your iPhone or iPad like normal.  You can only use your account on one device at a time, but you can easily go back and forth — you just log in from the new device and the account becomes inactive on the other device.

The question most people ask me is:  how fast is the service?  My qualitative answer is:  fast enough for e-mail, simple web browsing, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  To give you a quantitative answer, I used the Speedtest.net app to test Internet speeds on each flight.  The results from my 12 flights ranged from 0.31 Mbps to 0.81 for download speeds and from 0.18 to 0.88 Mpbs for upload speeds. The speed varies throughout each flight (and I’m sure was dependent on who else was using the service) but most of the time the speeds were around .70 Mbps download, with the following picture showing a typical result:

 

When I use my iPhone on the Wi-Fi at my home, I can easily get 10 Mpbs or more for download speeds.  Data speed using AT&T 3G on my iPhone varies greatly; it can sometimes be 1 Mbps download or slower, other times it is 3 Mbps or much higher.  So in other words, Gogo is likely not as fast as the Wi-Fi you use at home or your office, but it does feel similar to what you see over 3G on those occasions when 3G is working but is on the slow side.  You need to wait for screens to load, but they do load before too long.

I did have one occasion on a flight from Atlanta to New Orleans when the Gogo service didn’t work at all.  Other people on the plane noticed the same thing, so I asked the flight attendant if there was a way to reset the system, and she said no.  Nevertheless, about halfway through the flight I tried it again, and it was working.  This only happened to me once over those twelve flights and at the time I didn’t have a pressing need to use the Internet so it was not a big deal, but I’m sure that if I had pre-purchased service for that one particular flight, I would not have been pleased.

Usefulness of Gogo Inflight Internet

Is it worth it?  For me, it was, mostly because of emails.  First, Gogo can create billable hours.  For those of you who are attorneys who bill by the hour, I presume that your billing rate is much higher than the cost of Gogo.  Of course, there are other ways to bill, such as bringing documents that you can read, but I have many days that a big part of my billable hours involves working through e-mails, and it is nice to be able to do that on the plane.  Second, Gogo avoids e-mail pile up.  I hate getting off of a flight only to see that I have dozens of e-mails to work my way through.  By keeping up with the e-mail during the flight, I avoid seeing those large double digit numbers in the red circle above my Mail icon when I turn on my iPhone after the plane has landed.  Third, Gogo helps you to stay in touch.  It is often helpful to be able to immediately respond to e-mails in real-time, especially when they are time-sensitive questions from clients.  Fourth, even if you are not working, it is enjoyable to have Internet access if (like me) you enjoy reading Twitter or using an RSS reader to read the latest news from the websites of your choice.

I have also used Gogo to use the LogMeIn app on my iPad to access my office when I realized that I left a file on the desktop of my office computer that I had intended to read on the plane.  The ability to access that file in my office from 30,000 feet was not just useful — it made me feel like I was living in the future.  (Hey, aren’t we all supposed to have jetpacks by now?)

I don’t plan to use Gogo every time I travel in the future.  $5 for a single flight that only lasts about 90 minutes will often seem like too much — although of course at an airport you can spend that much on a coffee or just a part of your lunch, so in that context perhaps it feels less expensive.  On the other hand, if I have several trips in a month, $20 is much easier to justify.

Note that even if you don’t pay for Gogo, you can use Gogo for free to access an airline website or use an airline app on your iPhone or iPad.  Thus, during your flight you can look up your gate of arrival, the gate of your next flight, find out whether flights are delayed, etc.  And every once in a while you will see other specials.  This past March, I saw that you could access Twitter for free using Gogo.  This month, on Delta flights, you can use Gogo for free to access the Zappos.com website — perfect for when you have an emergency need for shoes at 30,000 feet.  You can read the Gogo blog to keep up with the latest deals and learn other travel-related tips.

Gogo Inflight Internet is relatively slow compared to what you normally see on your iPhone or iPad, but for most tasks it is fast enough to get the job done, at a price that is somewhat high but often something that you can justify.  My tests over the last few weeks confirm that — just as was the case when I first tried this service back in 2009 — Gogo can be a valuable service for those looking to get work done with an iPhone or iPad on a plane.

Click here to get Gogo Inflight Internet for iPhone and iPad (app is free; service has costs): 

Click here to get Speedtest.net (free): 

I’ve been thinking about all of the new features coming to the iPhone when iOS 5 is released later this year, and the more I do so the more I really look forward to the update.  Features like iCloud have the potential to fundamentally change the way that we work with our iPhones, plus the update will provide numerous small improvements and fixes that will make the overall experience of using an iPhone much, much better.  Here are the news items of note from the past week:

• Speaking of iCloud, New York attorney Niki Black discusses a proposed North Carolina bar opinion restricting cloud computing.
• Virginia attorney Rob Dean shares his initial thoughts on iCloud on his WalkingOffice site.
• It has been 10 years since Apple opened the first Apple Store, and Apple prepared an interesting poster regarding the perspective gained during those 10 years.  Gary Allen has details on his ifoAppleStore site.
• Attorney Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer discusses apps for taking handwritten notes on an iPad.
• Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times reviews apps that help you order sushi.
• Roy Furchgott of the New York Times reviews the JBL On Air Wireless AirPlay Speaker Dock, a speaker that can play music from an iPhone or iPad without you having to dock the device.
• Evan Anderson, a law student working as a law clerk, wrote me to say that he was looking for a good iPhone app to use to track his hours.  Obviously there are many choices in the App Store (I surveyed the field two years ago, and the choices have exploded since then), but Anderson said that he really likes HoursTracker.  Click here for HoursTracker ($2.99): 

  

• Leander Kahney writes that two iPhone 4s will be loaded on the last Space Shuttle mission to go to the International Space Station.  Finally, I can stop drinking Tang and eating freeze-dried ice cream just to feel like an astronaut.
• This talk of astronauts reminds me of my fascination of space when I was a child, and also reminds me of this recent tweet that I saw by Matt Watson:  “I kind of miss when a built-in crayon sharpener was the most amazing technology in the world.”  Funny.
• And finally, WWDC wasn’t the only presentation by Steve Jobs this week.  He also gave a presentation to the Cupertino City Council on a proposed new building for Apple employees.  The building itself is very impressive — a huge circle, larger than the Pentagon, on a site with tons of green space — but even more impressive was the presentation by Jobs.  New Orleans attorney Ernie “the Attorney” Svenson wrote a good post on why the presentation serves as a master class in persuasiveness and is worth watching for any attorney.  Here is the video:

Sorry for the lack of real posts yesterday and today.  I’ve been traveling and rather busy at work. But if you are looking for something good to read today, and if you are at all curious about the new iCloud offering that was announced by Apple earlier this week, Macworld published a comprehensive guide to everything that we currently know about iCloud, all in an easy-to-read question and answer format.  Check it out.

Yesterday, Steve Jobs and other Apple executives previewed iOS 5, the next version of the operating system for the iPhone and iPad.  Due to be released this Fall, this is a major update that provides incredible enhancements.  Apple says that there are 200 new features, and highlighted a sampling of them yesterday.  Here are the features that I think lawyers will really love about iOS 5 on their iPhone or iPad.

1. Better e-mail.  The Mail app is probably the most important app for most lawyers, and thus I am thrilled to see that it will receive many improvements.  First, your messages will look better with support for bold, italics, underline, indents, etc.  Second, you’ll be able to drag an address between the fields, making it simple to change someone from a “to” to a “cc” or vice versa.  Third, on the iPad a new split screen keyboard will make it easier to use your thumbs to type, much like you do an on iPhone.  Fourth, the Mail app (and other apps) will include a dictionary, making it easy to look up what a word means.  Fifth, you will be able to flag messages so you know to follow up on them later.  Sixth, you can now search the contents of messages (even older messages on your server not yet downloaded to the iPhone), making it much easier to locate an older message just by looking for a word that appeared in the message.  (Right now, you can only search the “to” “from” and “subject” fields.)  Seventh, in portrait mode on the iPad, you’ll be able to swipe from the side to see your inbox list.  Eighth, you be able to send and receive encrypted e-mails if your company supports S/MIME.  Ninth, there will be better offline support in Mail.  Tenth, iOS 5 will support custom keyboard shortcuts.  For example, you can tell your iPhone that every time you type p-c it should automatically change it to “Privileged and Confidential.”  This is an amazing set of improvements to what I consider the most important app on the iPhone.
2. iCloud.  This free service will automatically sync your contacts, calendar entries,  mail, Safari Bookmarks and iBooks across devices, replacing the current $99/year MobileMe service.  Once a day, iCloud will also backup your data over Wi-Fi.  If  you ever lose your phone and need to get a new one, just log in on the new iPhone to quickly restore from the last automatic backup.  iCloud should also make it simple to share documents and photos between your iPhone, iPad and computer (both Mac and PC).  The document syncing service could be particularly useful to attorneys, addressing the constant problem of what is the best way to get a document from your computer to your iPad.  Many attorneys currently use Dropbox for this; we’ll have to see how iCloud compares, how Apple handles document security, etc.  Apple only showed the sharing of iWork files (Pages, Keynote and Numbers); I want to know about sharing Word and PDF files.  You can also use iCloud to share calendars, so for example you can set up a calendar with activities relating to your kids.  Every new calendar entry that you add automatically goes via iCloud to your spouse’s iPhone and vice versa.  I have a feeling that iCloud will become one of the best parts of iOS 5.
3. Music.  iCloud’s treatment of music deserves special mention.  Songs that you buy from iTunes will automatically sync to all of your iOS devices.  You can buy a song on an iPad and then quickly listen to it on an iPhone.  Additionally, if you have music that was not purchased from iTunes (such as music that you ripped from a CD), you can pay Apple $25 a year to have the rights to download or stream those songs to any of your devices.
4. Redownload of apps.  iCloud will make it easier to re-download an app that you previously purchased (or, for free apps, previously downloaded).  Part of this feature is actually working already.  Go to the App Store on your iPhone right now, tap on the Updates button at the bottom right, and then tap the new “Purchased” link at the top.  You will see a list of all apps currently on your iPhone and all apps that you previously purchased which are not on your iPhone with a link to tap to redownload the app.  (By the way, the iTunes app on the iPhone also now allows you to redownload songs that you previously purchased.)
5. Improved notifications.  The current notification system on the iPhone has shortcomings.  Currently, if you miss a call or a text message, a notice appears on your iPhone.  Often however, I pick up my iPhone and swipe to unlock only to realize too late that there was a notification there, which I have now missed.  Plus, it can be cumbersome when you have multiple notifications build up.  Also, if you are using your iPhone, notifications currently interrupt what you are doing.  iOS 5 has a Notification Center that stores all notifications in a single place.  As new notifications come in, that just appear in a small bar at the top for a few seconds and then they go away.  You can access your notifications at any time just by swiping your finger down from the top of the phone.  You can even see your notifications when the iPhone is locked.  It looks very slick.
6. Reminders.  Apple’s new Reminders app will allow you to create multiple to do lists, including tasks with due dates.  The app will even be location aware, so you can tell your iPhone to remind you to get the milk when the iPhone sees that you are at the grocery store, and you can tell your iPhone to remind you to call your spouse when it sees that you have left your office.  Reminders will also sync your to do lists with Tasks in Outlook.  The Reminders app looks to be really useful and I suspect that a lot of lawyers will use this one all the time.
7. Newsstand.  If you subscribe to a magazine or newspaper on the iPad or iPhone, all subscriptions will appear in a new location called the Newsstand.  Best of all, new issues will download automatically in the background.  Thus, whenever you are ready to read, the latest issues are already on your iPad or iPhone.
8. Safari improvements.  You can tap a button to make the text of an article on a web page more readable (removing the ads and side columns), similar to what you can do with Readability (my review is here).  You can also start reading a webpage on one device, such as an iPhone, and then save it to a Reading List so that you can continue to read it later on your iPad or computer.  Safari in iOS 5 will also have tabbed browsing.
9. Text messaging improvements.  Instead of just using the Messages app on the iPhone to handle text messages, a new iMessage app for the iPhone or iPad will support realtime messages of text, photos, videos or contacts using 3G or Wi-Fi without using your phone company’s text messaging service.  This looks similar to the messaging system on BlackBerries, but it has a lot more enhancements.  You can even get delivery and read receipts, the messages exist on both the iPhone and the iPad, and the system is secure encrypted for privacy.
10. Faster, better pictures.  Currently to take a photo on the iPhone you need to swipe to unlock the screen, then launch the Camera app, then take a picture using the on screen button.  With iOS 5 you’ll be able to launch the Camera app directly from the lock screen by double-tapping the home button, and you’ll even be able to press the volume button to take a picture.  All of this will make it much faster to take a picture with your iPhone.  Plus, the Photos app will include some simple editing tools so that you can crop, rotate, remove red eye and enhance the photo.
11. No computer necessary.  No longer will you need to connect to a computer running iTunes to first use an iPhone and to update the system software.  With iOS 5 this can all happen over Wi-Fi.
12. AirPlay mirroring.  If you want to show off to others what is on your iPad 2 screen, you will be able to do so wirelessly if the TV is connected to an Apple TV (which is so small that it is easy to take to any meeting).
13. Wi-Fi iTunes sync.  You won’t have to plug your iPhone into your computer to backup and sync with iTunes.  With iOS 5 you can do so over Wi-Fi.
14. Twitter.  For those of you who use Twitter, it will be tightly integrated into iOS 5, making it easier to share a photo, webpage, map location, etc.
15. Switch apps quickly.  A new multitouch gesture will let you swipe to switch between different apps, which should be faster than double tapping on the home button to do so.
16. FaceTime improvements.  The video quality in FaceTime is improved, and you’ll be able to receive FaceTime call invitations even if you are currently on a FaceTime call with someone else.
17. Games.  Improvements to the Game Center feature will enhance the ability to play games with other people.
18. And more.  Apple did not provide many details, but additional improvements in iOS 5 include alternate routes in maps, persona directory support (whatever that means), hourly weather forecasts, new typing shortcuts, custom vibration patterns, real-time stock quotes, an option to speak text, improved PDF support, and the ability for the LED light (the flash next to the camera) to blink when you have a phone call or an alert.

In addition to providing a preview of iOS 5 yesterday, Apple announced some updated numbers that demonstrate the strength of the iPhone and iPad:

• Apple has sold over 200 million iOS devices to date, about 44% of the mobile market.  (Android has 28%, RIM has 19%, and all the rest are 9%). 
• Apple has sold 25 million iPads since they first came out 14 months ago. 
• Apple has sold 15 billions songs on the iTunes music store, making it the #1 retailer of music in the world. 
• Customers have downloaded 130 million iBooks. 
• The App Store now has over 425,000 apps, 90,000 of them designed for the iPad.  Over 100,000 of the 425,000 apps are games.
• Over 14 billion apps have been downloaded since the App Store launched less than three years ago.  
• Apple has paid iOS developers over $2.5 billion.

iOS 5 will be a major release that will provide some amazing enhancements to the iPhone and iPad.  The only bad news is that we need to wait until this Fall to get it.  I can’t wait.

At 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern today, Steve Jobs will give the keynote address at WWDC, Apple’s developer conference.  The focus is supposed to be the next version of the iPhone and iPad operating system (iOS 5), the next version of the Mac operating system (Lion) and a new cloud storage system called iCloud.  We’ll find out in a few hours what Steve Jobs has to say about iCloud today, but if you want to see what he said about something similar 14 years ago, check out this video of Steve Jobs talking at WWDC back in 1997.  This was just a few months after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, before he became CEO and when his only role was to be an advisor.  Around the 16 minute mark, Steve Jobs says:

In the last seven years, do you know how many times I have lost any personal data?  Zero.  Do you know how many times I’ve backed up my computer?  Zero.  I have computers at Apple, at Next, at Pixar and at home.  I walk up to any of them and log in as myself.  It goes over the network, finds my home directory on the server, and I’ve got my stuff, wherever I am.  And none of that is on a local hard disk.

Jobs also admitted that he wasn’t a fan of the Newton, but he did see a future for a small connected device in an interconnected world.  You can see around the 1:03 mark that Steve Jobs is starting to think about what will one day become the iPhone:

To me, the high order bit is connectivity.  The high order bit is being in touch, connected to a network.  That’s why I bought the Envoy, it had a cellular modem in it.  I don’t think the world is about keeping my life on this little thing and IR’ing it into to my computer when I get back to my base station.  To me what I want is this little thing that I carry around with me that’s got a keyboard on it, because if you do e-mail you need a keyboard, until you perfect speech recognition.   You need a keyboard.  You don’t sit there and write stuff.  You need a keyboard.  And you need to be connected to the net.  So if somebody would just make a little thing where you are connected to the net at all times, you’ve got a little keyboard like an eMate with a modem in it, my God I’d love to buy one.  But I don’t see one of those out there.

Watch the full keynote to see more vintage Steve Jobs, saying many things that are still relevant today:

(Link via TiPb and The Tech Bench.)

Next week, Apple is hosting WWDC, its annual conference for the developers who write software for Apple products.  Monday at 10 Pacific, Steve Jobs will give a keynote address.  Although Apple typically keeps the content of keynote addresses secret, this year Apple announced that it will discuss (1) iOS 5, the next version of the iPhone / iPad operating system, (2) iCloud, presumably an online storage option that you can use with your iPhone, iPad and your computer, and (3) Lion, the next version of the Mac operating system.  Much of the iPhone and iPad-related articles from this past week were just speculation on what Apple will announce, but other than those predictions I ran across the following news items of note form the past week:

• I’ve seen several CLEs, and many other events, over the past few months in which an iPad or iPhone was a free giveaway to one lucky participant.  According to Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune, Apple is now trying to stop these promotions as a violation of Apple policies, presumably based on the fear that these free giveaways diminish the Apple brand.
• In April I reviewed Google Authenticator, a method of verifying particular computers, iPads, iPhones, etc. that are authorized to use your Google account.  The idea is that even if a bad guy gets your Gmail password, he cannot access your Gmail account from another computer until that computer is authenticated.  Underscoring the reason to use this free service, Amir Efrati and Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal reported this week on an announcement by Google that bad guys in China recently hacked into many Gmail accounts, including accounts of some prominent individuals.  Google noted that those using the Google Authenticator service were protected.  To be honest, Google Authenticator can be a little tricky when you initially set it up, but there is a good reason for you to do so.  If you use Google services, check out my article from April.
• The federal government has typically been very conservative on the use of technology, with BlackBerries typically approved but not other smartphones.  But as I have noted in the past, even President Obama now uses an iPad, and many congressman use iPhones or iPads.  Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post reported on the increasing acceptance of iPhones and iPads by the federal government.
• If someone e-mails you a ZIP file, how do you open it on an iPhone or iPad?  Tom Mighell reminds us on his iPad4Lawyer site that you can use the great GoodReader app to unzip the files.  My review of GoodReader from last month is here.  I consider it an essential app on my iPad.
• I’ve written in the past about expensive apps for the iPhone.  The most that Apple allows someone to charge for an app is $999.99, and I’ve noted in the past that one such app is BarMax, a bar review course.  David Murphy of PC Magazine writes about BarMax and two other $999.99 apps.
• Last week, Amazon promoted its MP3 download service by selling the new Lady Gaga album for only 99¢.  Ed Christman of Bilboard reports that Amazon sold about 440,000 copies at that price, and since Amazon made up the difference, the promotion to spread awareness for purchasing MP3s from Amazon is estimated to have cost Amazon a few million dollars.  But what struck me as really interesting is that even with this promotion, iTunes still sold about 200,000 copies of the album at full price according to Billboard.  Amazon all but gave the album away for free, and that many people still bought the album from iTunes?  Wow.  For what it is worth, I buy my music from both Amazon and iTunes.  iTunes tends to be my default store, but I’ll often look to see if something is cheaper on Amazon and if so I’ll get it there.
• Macworld offers some useful tips for those who travel with the iPhone or iPad.
• And finally, Adam Rosen of Cult of Mac reports on an app developed by the University of Iowa that lets students learn all sorts of information about what is happening at the school, and the app even includes a feature that lets students see which washing machines and dryers in their dorms are available — and for those which are not available how long before the cycle is finished.  Too funny, but now that I think about it, an app that I certainly would have used as a college freshman.  Best of all (ahem) I see that the app is a free download for anyone, so if you are really bored at work today, you can launch the app and find out how many washers are free to use in Burge South, the third floor of Mayflower, or the Slater Basement.  Click here to get University of Iowa (free): 

  

  

Microfiber cloths are nice to have to keep your iPhone or iPad screen clean.  C.T.A. Products, LLC makes the Cloth Addiction Microfiber Cloth, and I noticed earlier this year that New York attorney Niki Black posted a favorable review (including a video) on her Legal iPad site.  The company recently sent me a free review unit, and I have been trying it out for a few weeks.

As I noted earlier this week, my favorite microfiber cloth is the MOBiLE CLOTH and the new MC Nano.  The MOBiLE CLOTH cleans screens faster and better than any other cloth that I’ve ever tried.  The only disadvantage of the MOBiLE CLOTH is that it is thick.  Perhaps that is what makes it work so well, but sometimes you want something very thin so that you can toss it in your pocket without taking up any real space.  The Cloth Addiction Microfiber Cloth is incredibly thin — thinner than the similar microfiber cloths that you typically find in stores that sell eyeglasses or sunglasses — but the thin size doesn’t stop it from doing the job.

The cloth comes in a plastic pouch so it is easy to carry around.  I see on the website that if you purchase the 8.75 x 12 inch version for $8.95, you get the 7 x 7 inch version (the version that was sent to me) for free.

The Cloth Addiction Microfiber Cloth does the job without taking up much space.

Click here to get the Cloth Addiction Microfiber Cloth from the manufacturer’s website ($8.95).

Apple’s Keynote, Pages and Numbers apps on the iPad have long been not only useful apps, but symbolically important apps.  The apps are useful because they all do a good job of creating documents.  Additionally, these apps demonstrate that the iPad can be used to create work-related documents.  Especially when the iPad was originally introduced, these apps proved that the iPad was not just a toy or a content consumption device.  These apps have received good reviews and I use all of them on my iPad from time to time.  Indeed, there have been several times when I have found it easier to create a presentation in Keynote on my iPad than to create a presentation running PowerPoint or Keynote on my computer.

Yesterday, Apple updated all three of these apps so that they now run on the iPhone.  (They work on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and the third- and fourth-generation iPod touch.)  These are universal apps so if you already have them for your iPad, the same apps will now run on an iPhone.  These three apps can handle not only documents created in Keynote, Pages or Numbers on the Mac or iPad, but can also read and edit Microsoft Office documents (PowerPoint, Word and Excel).

These apps are useful on an iPad, but is the same true on the iPhone with its much smaller screen?  Because the apps are brand new it is a little early to tell.  I can imagine situations in which the Keynote app would be useful.  Creating a presentation on the iPhone seems cumbersome, but if you create a Keynote presentation on the computer or iPad I can see it being useful to (1) make some quick edits on the iPhone, (2) review your presentation on the iPhone as you rehearse in an environment (such as on a plane) where you don’t want to use your computer or even an iPad, and (3) run your presentation by connecting a cable from the iPhone to a projector or monitor.  Note that Keynote is, I believe, the first Apple app that runs only in landscape mode.

As for the Numbers and Pages apps, I find it hard to envision spending much time using these apps on the iPhone.  Pages is a star on the iPad when you want to create a document with a nice layout, but the iPhone screen is too small to really appreciate a layout on a document.  I would prefer to use a program like Quickoffice or Documents to Go, apps that focus on making the text easy to read without an undue emphasis on preserving full-page formatting.  And any Numbers spreadsheet with more than a few columns and rows is going to be difficult to work with on the iPhone screen.  Curiously, Numbers only works in the portrait mode, even though many spreadsheets seem more suited for a landscape view.

  

Although I am currently skeptical that I will use Pages or Numbers on the iPhone very often, I must admit that when iMovie was released for the iPhone, I doubted that the app would be very useful on the small screen.  My opinion has changed over time becasue I have frequently recorded some videos on the iPhone and then used iMovie to quickly turn them into something more professional by merging and editing clips and by adding some titles and a soundtrack.  Perhaps over time I will find circumstances in which creating or editing documents in Pages or Numbers makes sense on an iPhone.

It is certainly impressive that Apple found a way to make these sophisticated apps usable on the small iPhone screen.  For example, as Dan Moren of Macworld notes:  “To ease working with the smaller screens, a Smart Zoom feature for Pages and Numbers automatically follows the cursor while you’re editing text or data, then zooms back out to give you an overview when you’re done.”  If nothing else, having these apps installed on your iPhone will make it easier to view documents created in Keynote, Pages or Numbers on an iPad or desktop when someone e-mails them to you.

Click here to get Keynote ($9.99): 

Click here to get Pages ($9.99): 

Click here to get Numbers ($9.99): 

Early this year, I posted a review of the MOBiLE CLOTH, a microfiber cleaning cloth made by Hartigan Industries that does an amazing job of cleaning an iPod or iPhone screen, not to mention other surfaces such as a computer screen or eyeglasses.  The MOBiLE CLOTH is thicker than other cloths and has a special weave that allows it to quickly clean surfaces even without any cleaning fluid.  It is by far the best cleaning cloth that I have ever used.  My only reservation about the original MOBiLE CLOTH was the size.  9 x 9 inches is a fine size to use at your desk, but if you are traveling and just want something small to stick into a pocket, because the MOBiLE CLOTH is somewhat thick it is rather large when you fold it up.  The solution is a brand new 4 x 4 inch version of MOBiLE CLOTH called the MC Nano.  It goes on sale next week and the manufacturer sent me a free MC Nano to review. 

I’ve been using the MC Nano for a few weeks and I really like it because of its portability.  It is easy to fit into any small pocket in a briefcase, purse or even just the pocket on your pants.  As you can see from the below picture, it is about the same size as the length of an iPhone.  It is made of the same material as the large MOBiLE CLOTH so it does just as good a job. 

For the iPhone screen, the small size works great.  For the larger iPad screen, when I use the MC Nano I miss the larger size of the original product because it takes a little longer to clean the whole iPad screen with the small MC Nano.  Nevertheless, the trade-off is worth it to have something that fits into any small pocket.  When I am at my desk and have both to use, I always prefer using the full size MOBiLE CLOTH, but the MC Nano is great for traveling.

My only complaint is that it would be better if the MC Nano came in a nice carrying case of some sort.  It comes in a Ziploc-style bag, which you can certainly reuse but it is not very durable.  Most microfiber cloths that I see come in a thick plastic pouch.  You certainly can just toss an MC Nano into a pocket without anything around it, but it seems that there should be some protection for something that you will use to clean your screen.  About 10 years ago, I put a regular microfiber (without a case) in a pants pocket that apparently had some sand in it.  I used the cloth to clean my glasses without knowing about the sand and I quickly scratched the surface of my glasses, requiring an immediate trip to the store to purchase new lenses.  I suppose the same thing could happen to the MC Nano, and because the MC Nano is made to be portable it is more likely to be accidentally exposed to something like sand.

Having said that, it is easy to find something small in which the MC Nano will fit (such as the case that typically comes with a normal microfiber cloth).  I’m using one such case for this MC Nano, and with a case I really love the MC Nano. 

The cost is the same for either the full size MOBiLE CLOTH or the MC Nano:  $2.99 for one, $5.99 for two, $9.99 for five and $13.99 for seven.  If you want to use a premium product to keep your iPhone or iPad screen clean, than you’ll want to do what I do and have a few on hand to have one at the office, one at home, an MC Nano in a briefcase, etc.

You can purchase the original MOBiLE CLOTH directly from the manufacturer at the MOBiLE CLOTH website.  The MC Nano starts shipping next week and can be pre-ordered now on that website.