California attorney David Sparks converted his law practice from paper to paperless long before many other attorneys did so, and along the way, he discovered lots of tips and tricks for making the transition. He compiled all of his advice into an ebook called Paperless, which I reviewed back in 2012. It was a great resource, and I know that many lawyers found it valuable.
David has moved away from producing electronic books and instead he now produces a series of what he calls electronic field guides, which are videos devoted to a topic broken down into lots of sections and chapters. I prefer watching one of David’s video field guides over reading a book because he shares his screen, shows you what he is doing, and explains to you what he is doing as he is doing it. It is very easy to follow along. In the past, I’ve written about his iPhone Field Guide and his Photos Field Guide.
David has now returned to Paperless (the first book he ever self-published) and has released a new version of his Paperless Field Guide, this time as a video field guide. Of course, using mobile technology in a paperless practice is very different today than it was in 2012. The 2020 version is full of fantastic tips for reducing the paper in your life and going digital with the aid of an iPhone, iPad, and/or Mac. David shared a free preview of it with me, and it is excellent. If you want some tips for reducing the paper in your life, this is a fantastic resource that I am sure that you would find very valuable.
The video course includes 95 videos with nearly seven hours of content. David includes tips on converting paper to digital and then storing, editing, and sharing your digital documents. Although not written specifically for lawyers, he does include examples from his law practice.
The content is great, but I am equally impressed with how it is all presented. The video production quality is top-notch. Each video also includes a fantastic (optional) closed captioning system, which not only shows the words he is saying at the bottom of the screen but also lets you see all of the words in the video and jump to a specific part of the video. Plus, the full text of each lesson is presented below the video. This means that you can select a topic, skim the text of it, and then decide which topics you want to watch.
You can watch the videos on pretty much any device, but I liked watching it on my computer so that I can use my iPad at the same time to try out what David was describing. As you complete each segment of the course, a check mark indicates that you have completed a section. That way, you can feel free to jump around without losing track of what you haven’t seen yet.
One section of the course gives you the option to download a PDF file containing all of the text in the course, broken down by chapter and section. So if you wanted to read an ebook, much like the 2012 version, you could do so. He also provides an ePub version that works on an electronic reader device. You miss out on a lot by reading instead of watching the course, but the PDF document makes it easy to search across the course to find out what section you want to go watch.
The normal price of the Paperless Field Guide is $29, but for a limited time you can take advantage of a $24 introductory price. If you want a helping hand for reducing the paper in your life and for making the most of documents once they are in a PDF format, this is a great resource. And kudos to David for creating his best field guide yet.
This article won the TechnoLawyer Pick of the Week award on December 29, 2020. The editors of TechnoLawyer, a free weekly email newsletter for lawyers and law office administrators, give this award to one article every week that they feel is a must-read for this audience.
A scanning app is essential for any attorney using an iPhone and/or iPad. By converting a physical document into a digital form, you can read it on a back lit screen and zoom in to see the fine print, annotate it, share it, store it, etc. Back in 2012, I tried out the scanner app sold by Readdle called Scanner Pro after I heard so many other lawyers rave about the app, and I was very impressed. Although I’ve tried out other scanning apps, Scanner Pro has been my go-to app for many years because it works so incredibly well. I use the app extensively in my law practice, but I use it frequently in my personal life as well. For example, whenever I get a product that has a manual, I scan the manual and put it into a special folder on my home computer. If I ever need the manual again, I know exactly where to look. And during the pandemic, my wife has used Scanner Pro to digitize all of the recipes that she clipped and saved from magazines and other sources — in some cases, back in the 1980s.
Because this app is so useful to me, when Readdle signed up to sponsor iPhone J.D. this month, I was the one who asked to make its Scanner Pro app the focus of this month’s post. It just so turns out that this is a great month to mention the app because it was updated to version 8 on December 10, 2020. (I described the last big update, version 7, back in 2016.).
Here is why I find this app so useful, along with information on what is new in version 8. Note that I focus on the iPhone in this post because that is how I always use this app, but you can also use this app on an iPad.
Scanning
One of the things that I have always loved about Scanner Pro is how incredibly easy it is to turn a physical document into a digital scanned document. When you open the app, the app jumps right into scanning mode so you can immediately capture an image of the first page of the document. This makes it fast to start scanning. (You can turn off the Start with Camera feature in the Advanced Settings portion of the app, but I would never want to do so.) If you are already working in the app, you can start scanning by tapping the large plus sign at the bottom right corner of the app.
Hold your iPhone over the first page your document, and as soon as the app recognizes the four edges of the document, it will take the picture. You can turn off the Auto-Capture mode to put the app in manual mode, where you have to tap a button to take a picture, but it is much more convenient to keep Auto-Capture turned on.
Once the first page of a document is imaged, the app is ready to scan the second page and does so as soon as it sees the four corners. Then you can move on to the third page, etc. This process works well and is very fast. By simply letting the app take a look at each page of a document, the app scans the pages into a single PDF file. No need for you to tap any buttons between each page being scanned.
The quality of a scan created by Scanner Pro is excellent. Of course, you get best results if you scan a good version of a document when it has high-contrast around the edges (the document is against a surface with a different color) and the light is good. For example, a typical white letter-size sheet of paper is easy to scan against the darker background of a wooden table with overhead lights. But I’ve also had good luck with documents that are less than pristine. If a document is in very poor shape, such as crumbled up or folded, then I find that a flat-bed scanner works better because it can help to flatten the document. However, it is pretty rare for me to work with documents like that, so for virtually all of my other scanning needs, Scanner Pro works great.
Everything that I just wrote assumes that you are using an iPhone’s camera to scan a physical document. However, you can also tap the photos icon at the bottom right of the scan screen to instead select an image on your camera roll and scan that image to create a PDF document.
Editing a scan
Once all of the pages have been scanned, tap the thumbnail of the document at the bottom right to work with the document. Using icons at the top of the screen you can see each page of the document and select specific pages to act upon them, plus you can use other features like add annotations to the document, set a password, or delete. But I rarely use those options and instead I find the five tools at the bottom to be the most useful.
Add – this lets you add one or more pages to the document. If I have a poor quality document, I will sometimes scan just the first page, make sure that I am satisfied with the results, and then go back and add the additional pages.
Search – this lets you search for text within the document. The app will tell you which pages of the document contain the word, and then when you view that page, you can see the word highlighted on the page.
Share – use this option to share the document.
Edit – tap this button to edit the scan. You can rotate the document, adjust each of the four corners of the document if the app didn’t do so correctly (which sometimes happens when you place a white document on a white table), change the document size (such as letter, legal, A4, etc.), change the color of the scan (color document, black and white document, photo, grayscale), adjust the brightness or contrast, and turn automatic warp correction on or off. The app does such a good job that I often don’t need to enter the edit mode (except to change my mind about whether I want a color or black and white scan), but it is nice to have this much control.
Note that you can also set the document to color/black and white/etc. when you are in the scan mode, which saves you the trouble of later adjusting this in the edit mode.
Text – this is a new feature in version 8. Tap this button and the app will show you just the text that is in the document, without any of the formatting. Scanner Pro performs an OCR on every document that you scan, and that is how it knows which words are on each page of a document. The quality of the OCR depends upon the original that you are scanning. In my law practice, where I am often working with black text on a white page, Scanner Pro does a great job with OCR, except that sometimes it gets confused when there is something like a clerk of court stamp on top of typed words. For other documents, the quality of the OCR depends upon the source, but even a document with the plain text of only most of the words is easier to work with than a document with none of the text recognized.
In the Text mode, you can copy all or some of the text and share the text elsewhere. For example, you can scan a contract and then copy a paragraph of that document to paste that text into a block quote section of a brief you are drafting in Microsoft Word.
Languages
Although I typically scan documents written in English, Scanner Pro is smart enough to detect a large number of languages. If you have the Latin-based languages option turned on, the app will automatically recognize English, Catalan, Danish, German, Dutch, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Latin, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Filipino, and Turkish.
If you have Latin-based languages turned off, the app will recognize Czech, Chinese (Sim), Chinese (Tra), Greek, Estonian, Croatian, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, and Ukrainian.
Saving
Another feature that makes Scanner Pro work so well for me is that you can control how files are automatically saved after they are scanned, such as automatically uploading to a Dropbox folder. Scanned files are also accessible within the Scanner Pro app itself, where you can sort them, organize them into folders, and display them either as large or small icons. The options for organizing and browsing your files within the app improved quite a bit with the update to version 8.
By default, the files are saved with a filename in the format of YYYY-MM-DD Scan, with numbers added after the word “Scan” as needed. That’s very convenient for me because I simply change the word “Scan” to a title that I want to use, change the date if necessary, and then the filename is in the format that I prefer.
Scanner Pro also has a sophisticated Workflow feature. You can use this to change how files are named, automate what happens when you scan a file, etc.
Price
For the prior versions of Scanner Pro, you paid when you downloaded the app. Version 8 changes that. Now, you can download the app for free to give you a chance to try it out, but some of the advanced features are disabled. For example, OCR is disabled in the free version, and a Scanner Pro watermark is added when you share a file. To unlock all of the features in the free version, the app now uses a $19.99/year subscription.
What if you paid for the app in the past — perhaps as long as eight years ago like me? You can update your app to version 8 and take advantage of all of the current version 8 features without paying anything more. And Readdle says that you can continue to use those current features for as long as you want. However, in the future, Readdle plans to add additional features to the app, and you will need to upgrade to a subscription if you want to take advantage of those additional features when they are added. It is nice that Readdle is so generous to its long-time users. At the same time, I look forward to seeing what Readdle has planned for future updates.
Here is what Readdle’s Chief Product Officer and co-founder Alex Tyagulsky said about upcoming features for Scanner Pro:
We’ve invested heavily into exploring how recent advancements in AI and machine learning, as well as new APIs and services from the likes of Google and Microsoft, can be harnessed within Scanner Pro to help make life easier for the people who use it. The first fruit of this work is already live in the form of a new shadow removal algorithm. But that’s just the beginning — improved border detection, automatic document categorization, and tagging are just around the corner, while new neural network-based OCR for Latin languages is being rolled out today.
Conclusion
Scanner Pro is a fantastic app. The app gives you a fast and convenient way to use the device that is already in my pocket to turn a physical document into a PDF document, with OCR performed and saved in the location that that you designate. The app has been around for so long that it already has a robust feature set, and the app should only get better now that Readdle is announcing plans to add new features in the future. Thank you to Readdle for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month and for giving me an excuse to talk about an app that is incredibly useful to lawyers and anyone else who works with documents.
Click here to get Scanner Pro (free with subscription available):
Tom Vanderbilt of the Wall Street Journal Magazine has a very interesting interview with Jay Blahnik of Apple on the new Fitness+ service, which launches on Monday, December 14. That service costs $9.99/month, but it is also included with Apple’s Apple One subscription if you get the $29.95/month Premier plan — which also includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, 2TB of iCloud storage, and Apple News+, and can be shared with up to five other family members. If you are like me and you previously subscribed to some of those services separately, the Premier plan is great because, for about the same price that you were previously paying, you get Apple News+ and Apple Fitness+ for no additional charge. (For example, you would pay $35/month for your family to get just Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 2TB of iCloud storage.) And by the way, if you have Apple News+, that includes the ability to read Wall Street Journal articles — including the one that I linked to a few sentences ago. Just open an article on the wsj.com website on your iPad or iPhone, then tap the Share button, then share it with the News app. And now, the news of note from the past week:
California attorney David Sparks wrote a review of the WaterField Hitch Bag, which he uses to carry around his iPad, MacBook Pro, and accessories.
Apple gave a number of journalists a pair of the new AirPods Max headphones on Wednesday, and on Thursday a number of them posted their initial thoughts. Here are a few of the reviews that I thought were interesting. Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch found this product to be incredibly well-made using high-quality materials, but he did note that they are heavier than you might expect. He wasn’t a big fan of the case. He found the sound impressive and found the spatial audio feature particularly impressive.
Marques Brownlee created a video, noting that the AirPods Max seems very well made and its controls are easy to use. But he doesn’t like the case.
Attorney Nilay Patel of The Verge says that the sound is “crisp and bright, with a pleasingly wider soundstage than my Sony headphones, and no distortion at all, even at max volume.”
Judner Aura also showed them off in a video, and he was incredibly impressed with the noise cancellation and sound quality.
Justine “iJustine” Ezarik was perhaps the most enthusiastic of all in her video.
Michael Simon of Macworld reviews the iPhone 12 mini, calling it a “no-brainer purchase” for anyone wanting a small phone that is not underpowered or outdated.
Felix Richter of Statista created an interesting chart showing the growth of film camera and digital camera sales since 1951 — and then shows that after smartphones added cameras, that wiped out 40 years of camera industry growth.
Jason Cipriani of CNet has recommendations on 13 default settings to change on the iPhone 12. I myself don’t recommend changing all 13 of them, but I suspect you will find quite a few of them that are worth changing.
And finally, here is a clever promotional video for Apple TV+ that features some of their best shows. Which reminds me … one of my favorite Apple TV+ shows, For All Mankind, starts its second season on February 19, and it was revealed this week that the show was already picked up for a third season.
Apple announced the original AirPods on September 7, 2016, and for the past four years, this device has been one of the most beloved Apple products. If you use AirPods, you know why. It essentially weighs nothing, it sounds great, and it doesn’t get in your way when you are enjoying music, listening to a podcast, watching a movie, talking on the phone, etc. A year ago, Apple introduced the AirPods Pro, adding noise cancellation. At $250, the AirPods Pro is more expensive than any other headphone that I have ever used, but it works great. And during the pandemic this year, I have appreciated my AirPods Pro even more. The noise cancellation is great when you are stuck at home with other family members and want to tune out some of the surrounding noise, and they also work great on a videoconference. I even use them in my office, connected to my PC, when I am using Microsoft Teams or Zoom.
Yesterday, Apple introduced the latest member of the AirPods family: the AirPods Max. At a cost of $550, the price seems too steep for me, but I have no doubt that many folks will love this new product. It takes everything that you love about the AirPods and AirPods Pro, and puts them in an over-ear design.
Traditionally, over-ear headphones are known for providing even better sound and noise cancellation, so I assume that will be true with these as well. Apple believes that they do, stating: “AirPods Max use Adaptive EQ to adjust the sound to the fit and seal of the ear cushions by measuring the sound signal delivered to a user and adjusting the low and mid-frequencies in real time — bringing rich audio that captures every detail.” Traditionally, many people find over-ear headphones far more comfortable than in-ear headphones. We’ll have to wait for the first hands-on reviews to see if these traditional features exist on the AirPods Max, but I suspect that they will.
AirPods Max comes with virtually all of the features that people love in the AirPods Pro. They are wireless Bluetooth headphones that add all of the special Apple features, such as easy pairing to devices, fast switching between multiple devices, and spatial audio with dynamic head tracking (which makes it seem like sounds come from a specific direction). They also feature both noise cancellation mode and transparency mode. But of course, they add many new features.
Transparency mode is a great way to hear the outside world even though you are using AirPods Pro, and you can trigger this mode by squeezing on a stem for about a second. On AirPods Max, it is even easier to switch in and out of transparency mode by tapping a button.
With AirPods Pro, you can quickly squeeze a stem once, twice, or three times to do things like play/pause, fast-forward, or reverse. On AirPods Max, Apple has added a Digital Crown — similar to what is on the side of an Apple Watch — that can do all of this, plus you can turn the crown to adjust the volume, plus you can press and hold the crown to activate Siri.
AirPods Pro has a microphone on each stem and an inward-facing microphone. AirPods Max has nine microphones.
With AirPods Pro, you can use a small, medium, or large silicone tip to adjust the fit. With AirPods Max, you can move each ear cup around, extend the headband, and bend the mesh headband to get a good fit on your head. And the ear cushions attach magnetically and can be replaced.
AirPods Pro can last about four hours straight before needing to be charged, and you charge them by putting them in a case. Apple says that AirPods Max last 20 hours between charging (which you do via a Lightning-to-USB-C connector, like a modern iPhone). You can charge AirPods Max for five minutes to get another 90 minutes of use, according to Jason Snell. And when you are not using AirPods Max, you can put it in the included Smart Case, which starts a low power mode to extend battery life even more.
AirPods Pro comes in one color: white. AirPods Max comes in Space Gray, Silver, Green, Sky Blue, and Pink — very similar to the colors available for the new iPad Air. And because you can buy replacement ear cushions in those same colors, this would seem to give you the ability to mix-and-match colors.
Although this is a wireless headphone, you can plug in to an audio source if you want. To do so, you need to use a Lightning-to-headphone jack cord.
Apple released a video that does a great job of describing the AirPods Max:
Although this looks like a great, albeit expensive, gift for the holidays, you’ll find it incredibly difficult to find one in time to put it under a Christmas tree on the morning of December 25. You can pre-order them now from Apple, and technically they go on sale on Tuesday, December 15, but as I am typing this the Apple website says that delivery is now up to 12-14 weeks. However, you may be able to find them in a physical Apple Store starting December 15. And at least right now, if you decide to get them engraved, the Apple website says that they are available Dec. 30 to Jan. 7. (No, I don’t understand how getting engraving would make them available more quickly.)
I doubt that I will ever purchase an AirPods Max because the price would be hard to justify, although I reserve the right to lust after this new device. But I love that Apple is continuing to expand the AirPods family.
This week, Apple gave awards to the developers of 15 apps for making the App Store Best of 2020. The iPad app of the year is Zoom, and I’ve certainly used that app far more in 2020 than ever before. When we use Zoom as a substitute for family members getting together in person, I typically share my iPad screen to my Apple TV. That way, my immediate family can sit on the couch and see our relatives on a large TV screen, and with the iPad propped right in front of the TV, the other family members see us on the couch. The Apple TV app of the year is Disney+, and I bought a one-month subscription last weekend so that my son and I could catch up on Season 2 of The Mandalorian, which is excellent. I’m also looking forward to watching the new Pixar movie Soul on Disney+, which comes out on December 25. Fantastical won in the Mac app category, but I love to use that app on my iPad and iPhone. Congratulations to all of the winners. And now, the recent news of note:
In an article in ABA Journal, Danielle Braff discussed whether your law firm should create an iPhone app. With very rare exceptions, I don’t recommend it. Instead, use your time and money to create a good website that works well on computers, an iPad, and a smartphone. We updated my law firm’s website about two years ago, and it was a big improvement. Some of the bio pages even include a short video, which is a nice way for someone viewing the page to get a sense of the attorney. (For example, here is my own bio page.)
Although I use Zoom for many of the videoconferences in which I participate, we use Microsoft Teams at my law firm Microsoft recently announced some upcoming updates for the iPhone and iPad apps. There are new calling features, including CarPlay support (to make it easier to make and receive calls via Teams when you are in your car), and a new layout for the iOS apps.
In yet another useful Macworld article, Michael Simon recommends USB-C power adapters to use with an iPhone 12. I haven’t yet tried one of the relatively new gallium nitride (GaN) chargers, which are smaller and more powerful, but I hear great things about them.
Dan Moren of Six Colors shared a clever suggestion for using Siri and Shortcuts to make it easier to switch modes on AirPods Pro to pause your music and talk to people.
Here is a moving tweet with a picture of an unpredicted, but incredibly important, use for iPads.
The Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso is one of the highlights of 2020 for me — in a year that could use as many highlights as possible — and Michael Schneider of Variety interviewed most of the stars in a Zoom-style chat that is great fun to watch.
Almost 12 years ago, I wrote about appellate attorney David Mills because of his funny Courtoons website with legal-themed cartoons. He stopped sharing his cartoons on the site a long time ago, but he recently compiled those cartoons in a paperback book, and it is now available on Amazon for $20. Although I haven’t seen the book, I used to love the cartoons, so I suspect it would make a good holiday gift for an attorney with a sense of humor.
You might also get some lawyer legal tech gift ideas — or ideas for yourself — by listening to the latest episode of the Tech Savvy Lawyer podcast on which over a dozen attorneys (including me) share their favorite guilty tech pleasure. I mentioned using Twitter, but what I didn’t mention is that I rarely use the official Twitter app; I prefer to use the Tweetbot app.
And finally, at some point this month, Apple is going to introduce its new Fitness+ service. Here is a video from Apple to remind you of what this service is all about:
YouTube is full of useful and interesting videos. If you need to have one of those videos on your iPad for some reason, such as to view it when you don’t have Internet access or to use it as a part of a presentation, it used to be that there was no easy way to do so. But now, you can do so using the free app called a-Shell and two other free programs. This post gives you all of the steps for doing so. I realize that this post may look complicated at first, but I promise you that these steps are simple to follow.
But first, some kudos and a caveat. I first learned about this tip from a post by Federico Viticci on MacStories. He linked to a post by Greg Godwin on his website NonProfit Workflows, a website with advice for working in a non-profit organization. Although Greg’s post provides instructions, I modified his instructions for this post in a way that I think makes them easier to understand and follow. And finally, please note that you should only download a video from YouTube if you have an appropriate reason and permission to do so.
With that behind us, here are the step-by-step instructions. These instructions assume that you are doing this on an iPad, which has a larger screen and thus is better for viewing and working with a video, but I suppose these steps would also work on an iPhone.
The a-Shell app
The first thing that you need to do is download the a-Shell app from the App Store. This free app provides a text-based terminal window on your iPad — essentially taking your modern iPad and giving it the capabilities of a computer from the 1970s. Here are the first few steps to get this app and get it configured correctly.
1. Click here to download a-Shell app by Nicolas Holzschuch.
2. Open the Settings app on your iPad and scroll down on the left until you see the a-Shell app listed; tap on that. On the right, in the section called ALLOW A-SHELL TO ACCESS, make sure that Document Storage is set to On My iPad.
Download youtube-dl and FFmpeg
Next, we are going to download two free, command line, cross-platform, open-source software programs that can be used to work with video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. With a terminal like a-Shell on your iPad, you can use this software on your iPad instead of a computer.
1. Open the a-Shell app. The first time you do so, the app will ask if you want notifications. You don’t need to allow notifications for this project.
2. Type the following exactly as it appears and tap return:
pip install youtube-dl
“pip” is a package manager for the programming language Python. By typing that command, you are telling a-Shell to install the youtube-dl program. After you tap return, a-Shell will install the software and then tell you that it is successful.
[That link works great right now, but if for some reason it stops working in the future, go to this page to find the download link.]
Your iPad will ask “Do you want to download “ffmpeg.wasm”? and you should tap Download to do so. The download icon at the top of the Safari app will show you that the file is being downloaded to whatever the default download location is on your iPad.
Use the Files app
Next, you want to open up the Files app on your iPad. The left side of the app will list all of your locations — things like iCloud Drive, On My iPad, Dropbox, etc. Tap on On My iPad and you will see a list of folders on the right, folders that correspond to apps installed on your iPad. Near the top, you will see a folder for a-Shell. Tap that folder to open it.
Once that folder is open, tap the folder+ icon at the top right to create a new folder within the a-Shell folder. The Files app will do so and will give you the opportunity to name the folder. Call it: bin
Next, you want to move the FFmpeg app into that folder called “bin” that you just created. If you tap the Downloads tab on the left of the Files app, you will see the file called ffmpeg.wasm. Hold your finger down on that file for a second and a pop-up window will appear. Select “Move” — the third option. That will open up a window for you to select the destination. Tap On My iPad, then tap a-Shell, then tap bin, then tap Copy.
Note that you won’t need to directly use the FFmpeg app for the rest of this project. You simply need to have it saved in the “bin” folder because the youtube-dl app is going to take advantage of it from within the a-Shell app.
Now, you are ready to go. You won’t have to follow any of the above steps again. The next time that you are ready to download a video, just go to the next set of steps:
Use youtube-dl to download a video
Open the a-Shell app and type in a command to download a video from YouTube. The basic structure of the command that you will use is very simple, just the command “youtube-dl” followed by the URL of the YouTube video that you want to download. Note, however, that using this command will download a video in the .mkv video file format, which the iPad doesn’t know how to play unless you install an app that can do so.
A better approach is to tell youtube-dl to download the video in the .mp4 format, which the iPad can handle with no problems. And to do that, you add the following just before the URL: -f ‘(mp4)’
So to give you a specific example, let’s say that you want to download the video that I shared last year when I reviewed the Catalyst Waterproof Case for iPhone Xs. My review included a video that I posted to YouTube that I took using this waterproof case while I was in Hawaii. The short video includes some fun footage of turtles and tropical fish underwater. The YouTube link for that video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCqAKXpDIbA
So to download this video and convert it to .mp4 format, you would type the following in the a-Shell app:
If you want, you can copy the above text, open the a-Shell app, hold down on the flashing cursor for a second, and then select the paste function to save you the trouble of typing it.
The youtube-dl program will download the video and alert you to the progress while it is doing so. This one is a short video, so the process will be very quick.
Use your downloaded video
The video downloaded from within the a-Shell app is located in the a-Shell folder on your iPad. So open the Files app, tap On My iPad on the left, tap the a-Shell folder, and there is your video. You can tap it if you just want to play it — and since it is downloaded, you can play it even if you are in Airplane mode. Or, you can hold down your finger on the filename for a second and tap Share on the pop-up menu. From there, you can send the file to another app, or just tap Save Video to download it to your Photos app. Once it is in your Photos library, just about any other app will be able to access it. For example, you can put it in a Keynote video. Or you can use the iMovie app to take a clip from this video and add it to some other video.
Conclusion
Using a terminal window on an iPad may seem like the most un-iPad thing that you can do with an iPad. However, it gives you the ability to take advantage of free, open-source software like youtube-dl. After following all of the above steps, it will be quick and easy for you to download a YouTube video in the future. Just open the a-Shell app, and type in the command with the link to the video. That’s it.
Thanks again to Greg Godwin and Federico Viticci for making me aware of this great tip. And thanks to Nicolas Holzschuch for the powerful a-Shell app.
I’ve been using the black leather iPhone cases sold by Apple since 2014. When Apple started selling the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro on October 23, 2020, it did not yet have a leather case available, but they are available now and you can get one on Amazon for $59. The new leather case is similar to the ones I’ve been using for years in that is slim and the leather feels good. I fully suspect that, like Apple’s prior models, this year’s version will get even softer over time as you use it. The model that I purchased works with either the iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Pro. Apple also sells a smaller model for the iPhone 12 mini and a larger model for the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
The reason I started to use an Apple leather case six years ago with my iPhone 6 was that, unlike the iPhone 4, 4s, 5, and 5s, the iPhone 6 had a curved side, making it more slippery. I needed a case to make the iPhone less likely to fall and to give it some protection if it did fall. The iPhone 12 family brings back flat sides to the iPhone, which I find makes the new iPhone easier to hold securely in a hand. Thus, I don’t plan to use a case with my iPhone 12 Pro nearly as much as I did in the past. But I still think it makes sense to have a good case for those times when you will need a little more protection, such as when traveling … whenever we all feel comfortable doing that again.
My guess is that if you are thinking of getting an Apple leather case for your new iPhone, you have used an Apple leather case for a prior model. With that in mind, I’ll focus on what is different about this year’s model.
Colors
This year, the cases come in red, saddle brown, black, baltic blue, and California poppy. The red one is (PRODUCT)RED.
I always prefer the back model, and this year’s black leather looks the same as the prior models.
Flat sides
The flat edge on the iPhone 12 leather case definitely gives it a different feel from the prior models, and I like it. Between the flat edge and the friction that leather provides, an iPhone seems very secure in my hand when it is in this case.
The leather case rises up just a little bit higher than the screen. Thus, if you place your iPhone face down on a flat table when it is in this case, the screen will not touch the surface of the table, providing some protection. When I first started to use this case, I was immediately convinced that the edge on this year’s model must rise up higher than prior years because of how it felt. But when I compared it to the edge of the leather case on my iPhone 11, it looks the same. In the following picture that shows how much the lip goes up above the screen of the iPhone, the iPhone 11 in an Apple leather case is on the left and the iPhone 12 Pro in an Apple leather case is on the right:
Perhaps it just feels higher because this is a brand new case and the leather hasn’t been broken in yet.
Camera cutout
In prior years, the camera area of the Apple leather case was simply a cut-out. This year, Apple has added a very tiny plastic frame around the edges:
I presume that the purpose is to provide a little additional protection for the camera lenses. Even with this slight frame around that square, when an iPhone is in this case, it lays perfectly flat on a table. Thus, like prior models, this year’s leather case prevents the camera on the back of the iPhone from making the iPhone teeter when it is on a flat surface.
MagSafe
If you want to use a MagSafe device with an iPhone 12, such as a charger or Apple’s wallet accessory, a normal case between an iPhone and the MagSafe device could reduce the magnetic attraction. Apple solves that in its cases by adding a magnet in the case itself. It is a rather weak magnet — I could get a paperclip to stick to the magnet on the inside of the new leather case but nothing heavier — but I presume that it is strong enough to ensure that MagSafe devices work with it. (I don’t currently own any MagSafe devices, so I couldn’t try it out.)
You can see the circle of the MagSafe magnet on the inside of the case:
Note that because this case is itself a MagSafe device, when you first put your iPhone in the case, you see a short graphic on the screen alerting you that you attached a MagSafe device (along with a ring corresponding to the color of your case) with a short beep. If you don’t want to make a noise when you put your iPhone in the case, flip the silent switch before attaching the case.
I thought that the MagSafe magnet might make the case stick to the iPhone even more than prior models. But I haven’t noticed a difference. Apple’s leather cases have always provided a nice, tight fit that wasn’t going to come off unless you pulled it off. This year’s model is no different.
One more note about using MagSafe with this case. Because leather is not a hard surface, if you frequently use a MagSafe device with this case, you might start to see the an outline over time. As Apple explains on its website: “Leather is a natural material and like a fine leather belt, it may show creases, marks, or a patina over time. Interaction with MagSafe accessories will leave slight imprints (as shown in the last image of the gallery). If you are concerned about this, we suggest you use an iPhone 12 | 12 Pro Silicone or Clear Case.” In the pictures I included above to show the different colors, I used that last image for each of the iPhones, and that is why you see a slight circle around the Apple logo. I actually think that the circle looks sort of interesting, but if you don’t like it, either don’t use a MagSafe device when your iPhone is in this case or choose a different case.
Protection on all four sides
Ever since 2014, the Apple leather case has covered three sides of the iPhone, but the bottom was somewhat open. For example, here is the leather case on an iPhone 6:
But this year, the leather case covers all four sides, including the bottom:
This change has pros and cons. I’m sure that it provides more protection, which is the purpose of a case, so that’s good. But without the bottom covered, it is easier to swipe up from the bottom of an iPhone to show the Control Center or to unlock the iPhone. With this new case, the lip provides a very minor speed bump. I’m sure I’ll get used to it over time, but right now I miss the older design that I’ve been using for years.
As for the buttons on the sides of the new leather case, they work the same as the buttons on Apple’s prior leather cases: they work well.
Conclusion
Although the iPhone 12 version of the Apple leather case is different from the prior models in many ways, it is similar enough that if you have used and liked an Apple leather case in the past, you will like this one too. It feels great, it provides protection, and it is a great match for the iPhone 12. I don’t plan to use a case with my iPhone 12 Pro as much as I did with prior models, but whenever I do want to use a case, I’m glad that I have this one.
As 2020 continues to be even more 2020 every day, it’s nice to find something entertaining that lets you escape from the real world, even if for only a short while. If you are an Audible subscriber (or if you sign up for a free trial), there is a great title called Have a Nice Day by Billy Crystal. It was released two years ago, but I just learned about it from my wife this week, and given that it stars Kevin Kline playing the U.S. President, it could not be more timely. This is a stage production that lasts less than two hours and was recorded especially for Audible, so it is like an old-time radio drama, complete with live foley special effects. The actors involved are top-notch, including Billy Crystal, Kevin Kline, Annette Benning, Darrell Hammond, Rachel Dratch, Christopher Jackson (who played George Washington in Hamilton), and many more, with the amazing voice of Dick Cavett as the narrator. I listened to this on my iPhone and AirPods, and loved every minute of this funny and heartwarming play. And now, the news of note from the past week:
If you own a device in the iPhone 12 family and you have heard unexpected noise in one of the dozens of Made for iPhone hearing devices such as a hearing aid, Apple says that you should upgrade to iOS 14.2.1, which came out yesterday. That update also fixes some bugs with MMS text messages and the lock screen on the iPhone 12 mini.
If you are looking for an iPad stylus but the Apple Pencil is too expensive, Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reviews the $70 Zagg Pro Stylus, which has a fine-point active tip for writing, but then you can flip it over and use a larger capacitive tip for swiping. And it has magnets so it can attach to the top of an iPad (without charging). Interesting product.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote a very positive review of the HomePod Mini. In fact, I’ve seen nothing but good reviews about this product. If you are looking for a good $100 gift for an iPhone user, this could be the one.
iMore has announced the winners of its Best of 2020 Awards. Lots of great products on that list.
This is the first time I remember hearing about an app that is available only with a prescription. Malcolm Owen of AppleInsider reports that the FDA has approved an Apple Watch app called NightWare that helps reduce PTSD nightmares by vibrating to wake you up if it senses that you might be having a nightmare.
When Apple purchased the right to Peanuts for Apple TV+, many folks were upset that it would no longer be possible to watch the classic Thanksgiving and Christmas specials on free over-the-air TV. As Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac reports, Apple decided this week to also air the specials for free on PBS so that even more kids can watch them. You’re a good man, Tim Cook.
And finally, kudos to U.S. Fifth Circuit Judge Jennifer Elrod, Judge Charles Eskridge of the Southern District of Texas, and the others who created and performed this Hamilton-inspired song that describes oral argument in the age of COVID-19, We’ll Be Back. Bravo! Bravo!
Thank you to Readdle for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month. When Readdle was a sponsor last month, I provided an overview on their amazing PDF Expert app, which is one of the most useful productivity apps on my iPad and iPhone. It is a fantastic tool for working with PDF files in a law practice, and it is no exaggeration to say that I use this app on my iPad virtually every day, throughout the day. Every attorney should download the free app to explore how you can take advantage of it in your own law practice. Although the free app is very powerful, you can access advanced features if you purchase a $50/year subscription. In today’s post, I’m going to discuss some of my tips and tricks for using this app in a law practice.
View Settings
There are three different modes for reading a document in PDF Expert. Different modes are better for different situations.
Most of the time, I use the Vertical Scroll mode. That way, I can just use my finger to swipe up and down to move through each page of the document.
In the Horizontal Scroll mode, instead of swiping up and down to scroll through the document, you swipe left and right. But the method of swiping is not what makes this mode so useful. What makes this mode useful is that you can zoom out to see an entire page at once. (Often, I use my iPad in portrait mode when I do this so that there is minimal wasted space on the two sides of the document.) Then, just tap to the right or to the left of the document to move forward or backward. This page-at-a-time method of browsing a document is very useful in lots of situations.
For example, when I have finished drafting a brief, I use this mode to look at the brief, one page at a time, in an overview. When I do this, I pay some attention to the text, but this is also the best mode to make sure that the page breaks are occurring in places that make sense (something that I often miss when I am just working with a document in Microsoft Word), that there is uniformity throughout the document on things like block quotes, things like that. I’m double-checking how the brief looks more than what it says.
I also use this mode when I am working with large exhibits, such as a PDF file that has hundreds of pages in it. Swiping up and down to move through the document in Vertical Scroll mode is laborious. But in Horizontal Scroll mode, I can tap quickly on the right side of the screen to move through the large file with ease. Sometimes, if the document is large, I actually use two fingers and quickly go back and forth between tapping each one of them, which is a great way to zoom through a document very quickly.
The third mode is Two Pages. That mode works just like the Horizontal Scroll mode except that there are two pages on the page at one time. When I’m looking at a brief, I typically want to focus on one page at a time. But if I’m browsing through a very large file such as exhibits, I sometimes use the Two Pages mode to go through the document more quickly.
Thumbnail view
The Horizontal Mode and Two Pages mode is useful when I am working with a large PDF file containing exhibits and I want the exhibit to be large enough to see it, even if the words are very tiny. But sometimes I don’t need to read any of the words at all and I want to have more of a bird’s eye view of the pages in the document. That’s when I tap the icon at the top left with four mall boxes to switch into thumbnail view.
From here, the text is way too small to read, but I can see the overall shapes of the pages in the document. When I encounter a large PDF file containing multiple exhibits, it is usually easy to see where each new exhibit starts. When the PDF file contains a lot of pictures, this is often the fastest way to find a specific picture — or to jump to the first page before or after the pictures.
Highlighting text
When I review a document, such as a brief of opposing counsel, I often highlight the text to remind me that I want to address that point in my response. (Often, I also write a note to myself in the margin.) There are two different ways to highlight a document in PDF Expert.
If you have already done an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on the document (more on that in a moment), then you can use the Highlight tool to highlight text. This is the best way to highlight a document because the text remains dark, but it is surrounded by your highlight color, be it yellow or any other color that you want to use.
Sometimes I will highlight a full paragraph, and then I will use the Underline tool to underline the most important words within the full paragraph that I highlighted.
If the document is not OCR’d, then you cannot select or highlight specific words in the document. But you can still highlight part of a document in several ways. First, you can use the Marker tool. The Marker tool is similar to the highlight tool, but it applies a color over a part of the document. That means that whatever it is covering up becomes a little lighter (and sometimes harder to read). For example, in this next picture, I used the Marker tool to highlight the word Zablocki, and you can see that the text underneath the yellow is harder to read than the text in the paragraph below it, where I used the Highlight tool:
You can adjust the opacity of the Marker to make it easier or harder to see the underlying document. I virtually always consider the Marker tool to be an inferior method of highlight a document, but whenever you are in a situation in which you want to highlight something that is not text that has gone through OCR, then it is great that the Marker tool will work even if the Highlight tool will not.
A second option that I use when I want to mark something as important but the highlight tool is not appropriate for some reason is the Rectangle tool. It is an easy way to mark a part of a document as important:
I often use the rectangle tool when the document that I am working with is a statute. Sometimes I want to highlight individual words in a statute, but other times I just want to draw a box around a part of the statute. Perhaps § 32(B)(4) is the key part, so I will just draw a box around that part.
Once you have annotated a document, if you tap on the third icon from the top right (which looks like a book), you can select one of three tabs: Bookmarks, Outlines, or Annotations. If you tap on Annotations, you will see all of the parts of the document that you annotated. Here, you will see another advantage of using the Highlight or the Underline tool: You will see on the right the specific words that you highlighted or underlined. Simply tap on those words to go to that part of the document. When you use the Marker, Rectangle, or Pen tool, you can see that an annotation was made on a specific page, but you cannot get any sense of what it was that was annotated.
OCR
Because the Highlight and Underline tools are so powerful when you are reading a document, and because a document needs to have run through the OCR process to use those tools, I often perform an OCR on documents as soon as I receive them. When I am working on my PC in my office when I first receive a PDF file, I will typically just use my PC software to OCR the document. (We use Kofax Power PDF in my office, which works great for this task.) When I have a paper version of a document that I want to convert to a PDF, I typically use another Readdle app, Scanner Pro, to scan the document and do an OCR at the same time.
PDF Expert on the iPad/iPhone does not currently have the ability to OCR a PDF file, but Readdle has already announced that this is a feature that they are working on, and it will be included, at no additional charge, in the subscription package when it is ready.
Photo to PDF
Although most of my litigation practice is currently in the area of appellate law, I also do quite a bit of litigation at the trial court level. And sometimes, such as during the discovery process, I will be provided with photographs during litigation. I often find it useful to annotate those photos. For example, I may want to annotate a photo as I am deposing a witness when the witness identifies certain things depicted in the photograph. Here is how I do that. Note that you have to pay for the PDF Expert subscription to take advantage of these advanced features.
I start with the photos in my Photo library. (For example, if they are emailed to me at the start of a deposition, I just save them into Photos.) Next, in PDF Expert, I tap the My Files button on the top left of the file browser mode, and then I tap on Photo Albums at the very top. (If you don’t see this option, tap on the Settings icon — the gear — at the bottom left, then tap on File Manager, then turn on “Show Photos.”) Next, tap Select at the top right, and then tap on one or more photos to select it.
Next, choose from one of the two options at the left, “Convert to PDF” which will convert each photo into its own PDF file, or “Merge to PDF” which will combine multiple photos into a single PDF file. The PDF files that you create will show up in your My Files section. I typically find it more useful to have a single PDF file with multiple photos, each photo on a different page of the PDF file, so I find the Merge to PDF feature more useful.
After going through this process, you have a PDF file full of pictures that you can annotate just like any other PDF file. The Marker tool that I described above works particularly well if you want to circle something or write words on the photo because you can still see part of the photo underneath the marker (depending upon the level of opacity that you choose). For example, in a deposition, have the witness point to one part of the photo, identify that on the record as the part of the photo that you are circling and putting a 1 next to, have the witness point to another relevant part of the photo, identify that as a different color circle with the number 2, etc. When you are finished working with the document you can share the PDF file containing the annotated pictures with the other counsel in the case and the court reporter. This method creates a high-quality (trial-ready) exhibit that clearly displays each photograph and your annotations.
When I first started practicing law in the mid-1990s, I remember that working with photos in a deposition was a huge pain. You had to create large photos before you went to the deposition (which often meant a trip to the photo counter of a drug store), you had to use special pens that would write on a photo, and if you made a mistake while you were annotating, you often ruined the exhibit. Creating photographic exhibits during a deposition using PDF Expert is infinitely better.
For a twist on this, what if you want to ask a witness about something on his company’s website? You can visit the website page during the deposition and create a screenshot of the page by pressing the power and volume up button at the same time. Or, if you are using an Apple Pencil, a faster way to create a screenshot is to put the tip of the Pencil near the bottom left or bottom right corner of the screen and drag up about an inch. Save the screenshot to your Photos, and then use the steps I identified above to convert the photo(s) into a PDF to take advantage of all of the advanced annotation tools in PDF Expert.
Custom toolbar
I mentioned this last month, but because it is such a useful tip, I’ll mention it again. When you purchase a subscription to PDF Expert, you gain the ability to create a custom toolbar containing the tools that you find most useful in the order that you find most useful. In all of the screenshots above, you can see me using my Favorites tab as I add my annotations. I have pre-selected the pen widths that I find most useful, the colors that I prefer to use, and the other tools that I use most often. This makes me much more efficient when I annotate documents.
For me, the custom toolbar is the #1 reason to pay for the subscription. It makes this app a custom annotating tool that is configured exactly the way that I find it most useful.
Add a stamp
There are many reasons to add a stamp to a PDF document. You might want to identify a document as an exhibit. Perhaps you want to note that this is a draft document. Or perhaps you want to put some other marker on it. The stamp tool in PDF Expert has useful pre-made stamps, but it also makes it easy to create a custom stamp.
To add a stamp, just hold your finger down on part of a document to bring up the pop-up menu. The fourth option is to add a stamp.
If you tap the left tab in Stamps you can pick from among 20 ready-to-use stamps. Here are the choices:
Simply tap the stamp that you want and it will be inserted into the document. Note that the last stamp show above, the REVISED one, automatically includes the date and time.
If you select the second tab, called Custom, you can create your own stamp. There are two ways to do so. You can create a Text Stamp, which contains whatever words that you want to type with a green, red, or blue gradient background — either just the text, or you can include the date and/or time. You can create an Image Stamp, which just converts any image in your Photos library into a stamp.
For example, I have a simple image of an exhibit sticker that I turned in to a PDF Expert stamp. I can tap my exhibit stamp, place it wherever it belongs on my document, and then use the standard PDF Expert text tool to put a number or a letter on top of the sticker. When I export that PDF file with the annotations flattened, the exhibit sticker becomes a part of the document.
I learned while I was preparing this post is that another advantage of having a subscription to PDF Expert is that you can add any specific stamp to your custom toolbar. I just added my exhibit stamp to my toolbar, so now I can simply tap that tool — which even looks like my exhibit sticker — to place the stamp on a page. Then I just move the stamp to the bottom corner of a document and add an exhibit number, and I am done.
Conclusion
While these are some of the PDF Expert tips and tricks that I use the most often, there is so much more that this app can do. As I just noted, I just discovered a feature that was new to me as I was preparing this post — the ability to put a custom stamp in the toolbar. Working with PDF files is such an important part of every lawyer’s practice that you need to have a top-quality app for working with PDF files. I encourage you to download the free PDF Expert app to see how this app works. Once you start to use the app, you will see the advantage of paying for a subscription to access all of the advanced features that this app has to offer. Thanks again to Readdle for creating such a perfect app for lawyers and for sponsoring iPhone J.D.
There are twelve months in a year, twelve hours on a clock face, twelve jurors in a jury, twelve major Gods in Greek Mythology, twelve disciples of Jesus, twelve items in a dozen … those who are interested in numerology have lots of reasons to be excited about the number 12. I published the first post on iPhone J.D. on November 17, 2008, which makes today the 12th anniversary.
A milestone always seems like an appropriate time to step back and take a look at where you have been, so I do that every year around this time on iPhone J.D. As I look back at the almost 2,000 posts on iPhone J.D., I’m amazed at how far the iPhone and iPad have come, and I especially appreciate how useful they were during this past year. For example, when the pandemic made it necessary for my wife and two kids to spent 24/7 in the same house for many months, it was wonderful to pick up my iPad and my Apple Stylus and go find a quiet corner of the home where I could be productive. And with the vast reduction in face-to-face encounters, the communication capabilities of the iPhone and iPad have been more important than ever.
Popular posts this year. Every year on the birthday of iPhone J.D. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11), I find it interesting to look back and see which posts over the prior 12 months were the most popular. The fact that these posts were so popular often sheds some light on what has been on the minds of attorneys and other folks using an iPhone or iPad. Here, in order, are the top ten most viewed posts published in the last 12 months:
Microsoft Teams on the iPad and iPhone for videoconferences. Because of limitations on seeing each other in person, videoconferencing has become so much more useful during the pandemic. Thus, I suppose it should not surprising that a post about videoconferencing was the most popular post during the last 12 months. I have used videoconferences to meet with with others at my law firm, meet with clients and potential clients, attend trial court and appellate court hearings, and visit with family members. During the past year, “Zoom” has become a generic word. But for much of my professional work, I use Microsoft Teams. Teams on the iPad and iPhone is not quite as powerful as Teams on the computer, but the core features are there, and I have found it to be incredibly useful, whether I am using the videoconferencing feature or the chat feature.
How to make your Apple Watch speak the time out loud — or not do so. I usually keep my Apple Watch completely silent, although as I have been working at home even more during the pandemic, I’ve found myself turning sounds on more often. This post focused on one trick for using sound on an Apple Watch.
GoodNotes vs. PDF Expert / GoodReader. GoodNotes and PDF Expert get more use on my iPad than almost any other app. However, they both have the ability to do similar things, and in this post, I discussed how to choose the best app for specific tasks.
AirPods Pro issue with crackling or static sounds. I love my AirPods Pro, and that made it frustrating when I started to occasionally hear crackling or static sounds when wearing them. In this post from August, I discussed the problem and how I requested a replacement from Apple. As I noted earlier this month, Apple recently created a formal replacement service program because so many folks have experienced this same problem. It’s a shame that this problem cropped up, but it is nice that Apple has made it so easy to get replacements.
How to add memory foam to AirPods Pro. Depending upon the shape of your ear, you may find AirPods Pro to be even more comfortable if you add memory foam to them. I did so this past January, and I continue to use my AirPods Pro that way.
Review: Logitech MX Keys — full-size Bluetooth keyboard for computer, iPad, and iPhone. My review of the Logitech MX Keys was very enthusiastic, and I continue to love this keyboard. It is a fantastic keyboard to use with a computer, and that alone is a reason to get it. But in addition, you can tap a key to quickly switch between the computer, iPad, and iPhone. When it is this easy to use the keyboard that is already in front of me with my iPad and iPhone, I do so more often, and that makes my iPad and iPhone even more useful. For example, when I am using my computer and iPad to get work done and I need to chat with someone using the Messages app, I use my iPhone to do so and I tap one key on the keyboard so that I can type my text message using a real keyboard. This makes it faster and easier to text in complete sentences. And of course, using a keyboard with an iPad is useful for lots of reasons. Even if you don’t think that you are in the market for a new keyboard, I strongly encourage you to think about checking out this keyboard. It is wonderful.
Review: eero Pro 3-pack — blanket your home with fast Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is always important to have no matter where you are, but the pandemic made it clear that it was time to upgrade the Wi-Fi in my house, and I’m so happy that I did. The eero Pro has worked incredibly well for me and all of the members of my family. A new version, the eero Pro 6 was announced after I wrote that post, so I went back and updated the post about two months ago to explain what is new. Keep in mind that the eero Pro 6 may be overkill for many right now. For example, Texas attorney Tom Mighell recently posted a thread on Twitter warning that you can only take advantage of the increased speed of an eero Pro 6 with the newest devices, such as an iPhone 11 or iPhone 12. Having said that, starting this week, you can get an eero Pro 6 3-pack for $100 more than the eero Pro, and you might want to spend the extra money to future-proof your system. But whether you get the regular eero, the eero Pro, or the eero Pro 6, this is a fantastic mesh Wi-Fi system that I highly recommend.
Why lawyers will love the new iPad Pro (2020 editions: 12.9" 4th Generation and 11" 2nd Generation). The iPad Pro is already an incredible device, and it gets better every time Apple updates it. I wrote this post earlier this year when Apple released the 2020 version of the iPad Pro. However, if you are currently thinking about getting a new iPad Pro, I actually encourage you to think about whether you can wait a little longer. When Apple announced the iPad Air (4th generation) two months ago, Apple did such a good job of making the iPad Air almost as good as the current iPad Pro that I have to think that the next update to the iPad Pro is going to be significant so that there is, once again, a big reason to pay more for the iPad Pro.
Review: Anker PowerLine+ III USB-to-Lightning cable. A good Lightning cable is always a useful iPhone accessory, and the newest edition to the Anker line of cables is an impressive product. I’ve been getting a lot of use out of my Anker PowerLine+ III cable and I love how durable and useful it is. Having said that, Anker sells lots of other Lightning cables too, which offer different features at different price points. In this post, I explained what is different between each of the different types of Anker cables.
Visitors to iPhone J.D. Every year, I use this post to share some statistical information on iPhone J.D. visitors, to the extent that I can figure it out using the tools at my disposal — specifically, the Google Analytics service.
During the past 12 months, about 55% of readers visited iPhone J.D. from an iOS device, 22% used a Mac, and 16% used a PC. What about the other 7%? With some minor exceptions (such as 17 people who used a BlackBerry to read iPhone J.D.), virtually all of the remaining visitors during the past year used Android. Perhaps some of them are current Android users who are thinking about making the switch to iPhone. Safari was by far the most popular browser used to access iPhone J.D., which comes as no surprise, but about 28% used Chrome, which was higher than I expected. Firefox is my browser of choice on my PC and my Mac, but only about 2% of iPhone J.D. readers in the past year used Firefox.
About 57% of iPhone J.D. visitors during the past year were in the U.S., which is the lowest percentage I ever remember seeing. Over 10% of readers are in the U.K. Canada (6%) and Australia (4%) make up another 10%. Virtually all of the other countries are less than 1% each. Suffice it to say that the lawyers and others who use an iPad or iPhone live all around the world. And I always love it when lawyers from other countries reach out to tell me about how they are using an iPhone or iPad in their law practice.
Every year, I also look at the top cities for the folks who visit iPhone J.D. New York has been #1 every year except for 2015, when there were a few hundred more visitors from London. This year, London is back on top again, once again just barely beating out New York by just a few hundred visitors during the past year. Australia has two spots on the Top 10 list with Sydney and Melbourne in 4th and 5th place. The State of Texas is also well-represented with Dallas and Houston taking 9th and 10th place:
London
New York
Los Angeles
Sydney
Melbourne
Chicago
Singapore
Toronto
Dallas
Houston
Other cities that have previously made the Top 10 list, but did not this year, include Atlanta (#11 this year), San Francisco (#12), and Washington D.C. (#17). I live in New Orleans, which dropped to #53 this year, just below Edmonton, Canada, and just above Raleigh, NC on the list. #1000 on the list is Manchester, England. #2500 is Saint-Eustache, Canada. This year, the seaside resort of Rimini, Italy — which Wikipedia tells me was founded by the Romans in 268 BC — is at the bottom of the list, with only 7 visitors in the past year. I had actually planned to take a vacation in Italy this past summer, but my wife and I had to cancel the trip due to the pandemic.
Thank you to all of you, from around the world, who have posted a comment, sent me an email, stopped me to say hello, or who have just been regular visitors of iPhone J.D. over the past year. Hopefully, the next twelve months will be better for all of us!
