For any attorney looking to use a tablet computer, the iPad Air 2 is the best device on the market today.  Apple started with everything that made the iPad Air such an excellent tablet, and then added a bunch of little features, each of which is nice on their own, and when taken together results in an amazing device. I wrote about the iPad Air 2’s major new features when Apple first announced the product.  I ordered one as soon as it was announced.  I have been using my iPad Air 2 since this past Thursday, and it has been a joy to use.  (I’m using the Wi-Fi (no cellular), 128GB, Space Gray model.)  I know that a large number of attorneys are using iPads that are two years or more old and are thinking about upgrading to something lighter and faster.  You are all going to love the iPad Air 2.  Here is why.

Touch ID

Since I first started using an iPad back in 2010, almost every single time that I have picked it up to use it, I have had to first type in my passcode.  I know that many non-lawyers turn off the passcode requirement to make it faster and easier to use the iPad, but that simply cannot be an option for attorneys who store privileged and confidential attorney-client communications and work product on their devices. 

I have loved using Touch ID on my iPhone 5s for the past year because it is so fast and easy to unlock the phone.  I press the home button to wake my iPhone, and in the time it takes to do that, the iPhone recognizes my fingerprint on the home button and also unlocks it for me.  So in one motion, I both awaken and unlock the iPhone.  It works a little differently on my iPad Air 2 because I use an Apple Smart Cover.  When I open up the cover, the magnets automatically turn on my iPad’s screen and I am immediately shown the keypad to enter my passcode.  Instead typing any numbers, I just place my finger on the home button and the iPad quickly unlocks.  Becuase I didn’t need to press the button to unlock the screen when I use the Smart Cover, Touch ID isn’t quite as magical on the iPad Air 2 as it is on the iPhone 5s, but it is still a time-saver and more convenient then entering my numbers.  And on those times when my iPad wasn’t covered with the Apple Smart Cover, the function works just like on the iPhone 5s — I press the button to turn on the screen and at the same time my fingerprint is scanned.  

By the way, the iPad Air 1 version of the Apple Smart Cover also works on the iPad Air 2.

Touch ID can also be used with apps on the iPad Air 2.  One of my favorite apps is 1Password, and Touch ID is amazing on that app.  Instead of typing my long master password every time I want to look up my username and password for a website or some other service, I can just place my finger on the Touch ID button and the 1Password app starts right up.  I still need to enter my full master password occasionally, such as after I reset the iPad, but 95% of the time, my fingerprint does it all.

I have yet to make a purchase using an iPad app that supports Apple Pay, but I presume that will work well.  I have purchased apps from the App Store using Touch ID and it works just as seamlessly as it has worked on my iPhone 5s for the last year.

So overall, Touch ID on the iPad Air 2 is somewhat less useful to me than Touch ID on my iPhone 5s or iPhone 6, in part because I use an Apple Smart Cover, and in part because you cannot make a purchase in a physical store using Apple Pay on an iPad the same way that you can do so with an iPhone 6.  But even though Touch ID on the iPad is not quite as useful as Touch ID on the iPhone, it is still a very nice feature that makes the iPad faster and easier to use, multiple times every day.  And as a bonus, you also feel like you are living in the future, which is always nice.

Better display

Apple has been using a great-looking retina display on the iPad since March of 2012.  The iPad Air 2 improves upon that display.

There are multiple technical reasons that the iPad Air 2 screen is even better than the iPad Air, but to my eyes, they both look like excellent screens and I really only notice one difference:  glare.  Previous models of the iPad Air had a glossy glass screen that easily reflected overhead lights.  I work in an office that has overhead fluorescent lights, and I frequently find myself having to adjust the angle of my iPad when it is reflecting an overhead light.  The iPad Air 2 substantially reduces glare.  You can see it for yourself in the following picture that I took with my iPhone:  the iPad Air 1 is on the left and the iPad Air 2 is on the right.

As you can see, the glare on the first generation iPad Air is such that you cannot really read text that is covered up by the reflection of the overhead light.  On the iPad Air 2, although I can still see the reflection, the reduced glare means that I can read the text.  I still might adjust my screen to get to an angle where I no longer see the overhead light, but unlike older iPads, I don’t need to do it on the iPad Air 2.

The reduced glare seems to also help somewhat if you are looking at an iPad outside in the sun, but that is not something that I ever do in real life so I only tried it once this past weekend to see what difference it might make.  Suffice it to say that the iPad is not a good tablet for reading outdoors, and that remains true with the iPad Air 2, even if it is a little easier to read outside.  If you want to read an e-book at the beach, get a Kindle Voyage.  Save the iPad for work and pleasure when you are indoors or at least on a covered porch.

The right size and weight

iPad Air 2 is the thinnest and lightest iPad ever.  To compare:

• iPad Air 2:  6.1 mm + 0.96 lb
• iPad Air 1:  7.5 mm + 1.034 lb
• iPad 3 and iPad 4:  9 mm + 1.44 lb
• iPad 2:  9 mm + 1.325 lb
• iPad 1:  13.4 mm + 1.5 lb

What do those numbers mean in the real world?  In my opinion, the iPad 1 through the iPad 4 were thick and heavy enough that they would start to hurt your hand when you held them for an extended period of time.  In a typical law practice you are dealing with cases, briefs, contracts, exhibits and other documents that are somewhat lengthy, so you need to hold an iPad for an extended period of time.  For that reason, I used to use both an iPad 3 and an (original) iPad mini, using the iPad mini for extended reading, but that carried with it the downside of being a smaller, non-retina display.  Last year’s iPad Air 1 was a major step forward in the size of the iPad.  For the first time, there was a full-sized iPad that was thin and light enough that I found it no longer necessary to use an iPad mini when I wanted to hold a tablet in my hand to read for an extended period of time. 

This year, the iPad Air 2 is a little lighter than the iPad Air 1, but in practice I don’t really notice the weight difference.  What I do notice is the thinness.  It’s not something that is easy to see.  The iPad Air 2 (in the left in this next picture) only looks slightly thinner than the iPad Air 1 (in the right):

But that slight difference is noticeable when you hold the iPad.  The 7.5 mm iPad Air 1 is thin enough that I don’t mind holding it for an extended period, but the additional thinness of the iPad Air 2 makes me feel that this is the right size, the thickness that the iPad has always wanted to have.  No prior iPad has been this comfortable to hold.  You feel more like you are holding a thick piece of glass than a tablet computer.  If you have an iPhone 6, you know how incredibly thin that phone is and how good it feels in your hand as a result.  But at 6.9 mm, the iPhone 6 is even thicker than the 6.1 mm iPad Air 2:

If you are already used to the iPad Air 1, this year’s iPad Air 2 feels like it weighs about the same but has a nicer feel in your hand.  If you have been using an iPad 4 or earlier iPad, the iPad Air 2 is a substantially lighter iPad that is considerably easy to hold.

More powerful

The iPad Air 2 has a brand new processor that Apple calls the A8X.  It is even more powerful than the A8 processor in the iPhone 6, and it is substantially faster than the processors in past iPads.  As I noted in my preview of the iPad Air 2, a faster iPad is a more powerful iPad.  You don’t see spinning circles or hourglasses on an iPad like you do on a computer, but when an iPad is faster it is more responsive, you can be more efficient and the experience of using the iPad is more pleasant. 

In real world use, this is a fast, responsive iPad.  I threw everything I could think of at the iPad Air 2, and it worked like a champ.  Scrolling and zooming in documents and webpages is more responsive than ever before.  Complicated spreadsheets scrolled like butter in Microsoft Excel for iPad.  I bought and tried the new Pixelmator for iPad app, an app that brings sophisticated desktop-class photo editing to the iPad, and I was easily and quickly erasing stray people from photographs.  And sophisticated, graphics-intensive games played with no stuttering.  Other reviewers, such as Brad Molen at Engadget, ran objective performance tests that show that the iPad Air 2 is significantly faster than any other tablet, and can perform complicated video editing tasks over twice as fast as the iPad Air 1.  Suffice it to say that the powerful processor in the iPad Air 2 will keep up with you.

The iPad Air 2 also adds support for the 802.11ac WiFi standard.  If you have a newer router that supports this new standard — such as the sixth generation AirPort Extreme released by Apple in June of 2013, which is what I am using at my house — you can get incredibly fast performance, plus you can get reception in areas where older iPads might have trouble getting a signal.  Last night, as I was watching the Saints play the Packers on TV, my iPad Air 2 was getting download speeds of up to 125 Mbps, which suffice it to say is more than enough Wi-Fi bandwidth for anything that I might possibly want to do with my iPad.

Etc.

I don’t have the cellular version of the iPad Air 2 so I cannot comment from personal experience on that one.  I will note, however, that while I previously said that you could use the new Apple SIM to switch back and forth between AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, I now see reports that once you activate with AT&T, AT&T locks the SIM to AT&T, so you would have to get different SIM to switch to Sprint or T-Mobile in a future month.  Suffice it to say that it is early days with the new Apple SIM and we are still learning what additional flexibility that it provides.

I also see that the iPad Air 2 is missing something that had been on every prior iPad: the switch on the side that you could configure to either mute or lock rotation.  Perhaps Apple couldn’t make it fit on the thinner iPad Air 2, but I’ll miss that switch.  I had mine set to lock rotation, which is a handy function when someone sends you a scanned document that is rotated incorrectly — just lock the rotation and then turn your iPad so that you can read the document — and is also handy when you want your iPad orientation to stay the same even though you may be leaning back on a sofa or in bed and turning your iPad in a way that makes it seem like you were trying to rotate the screen.  Fortunately the functions are still there; simply swipe up from any screen to bring up the Control Center, which on the iPad Air 2 has six buttons in the middle instead of traditional five buttons, and you’ll see both the mute and the lock rotation on-screen buttons.  Even so, I’ll miss having a physical switch on the side.

Conclusion

The iPad Air 2 is a nice improvement from the iPad Air in just about every way possible — easier to hold, faster and more responsive, and Touch ID is almost as useful on an iPad as it is on an iPhone 6.  I don’t think that many attorneys will see a need to upgrade from an iPad Air 1 to the iPad Air 2, but if you have an older iPad, you are going to love upgrading to the iPad Air 2.  And if you have been waiting to get your first iPad, now is an excellent time to do so.  Don’t get the 16GB model as that is probably going to be too tight to hold all of the apps and documents that you will want to use, especially if you also want to hold photos or videos.  Either the $599 64GB or the $699 128GB model would be great for any attorney.  (Add $130 plus a monthly carrier fee if you want a version that has cellular in addition to Wi-Fi.) 

Apple is now selling the iPad Air 1 at a discount — you can get a 32GB model for $449.  Even though that is a great price for a very nice tablet, I recommend that you spend the extra $150 to get this year’s model with twice as much space, a much faster processor, the thinner design and Touch ID.  You’ll likely use a new iPad for two years or more, and if you divide out $150 over 24 months you are only paying an extra $6.25 a month for a tablet that you will enjoy even more and that will hold up a lot longer.

An iPad is an incredibly useful tool for just about any attorney.  The iPad Air 2 improves upon everything that makes the iPad so great to begin with.  I recommend it without hesitation.

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

Folks who pre-ordered an iPad Air 2 last week started to receive them this week.  I received mine yesterday.  I’ll post my review after I have put it through its paces, but — spoiler alert — I can already tell you that this is an amazing device.  If you want to read other reviews, I recommend this one by John Gruber, plus there are good roundups of the early reviews (by those who received review units from Apple) on MacRumors and 9to5Mac.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Attorneys using iPads and iPhones need to think about when it is ethical to store confidential information using a cloud-based service.  New York attorney Nicole Black wrote about the latest New York ethics opinion on this topic in this article for The Daily Record.
• Last week, I provided tips for making sure that your iPad doesn’t ring in court, or any other time you want it to be quiet.  Utah attorney Peter Summerill has another recommendation — turn on do not disturb.
• GoodReader, one of the most useful iPad apps for any attorney, was updated to version 4.6 this week to support both iCloud Drive and Touch ID.
• Bill Roach of ExhibitView Solutions tells me that his ExhibitView iPad app, which you can use to present and annotate documents in court, was updated to version 5 this week.  This page of the ExhibitView website has a video that shows off the new features.
• Benjaim Mayo of 9to5Mac writes that the Dropbox app was updated this week to support the resolutions on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus and to add support for Touch ID.
• Fantastical is my favorite calendar app for the iPhone and iPad, and I use it about 10x more than I use the built-in Calendar app.  The app received a big update this week to version 2.2, adding interactive notifications and a great today widget that works in the pull down Notification Center.  Federico Viticci of MacStories wrote a good review of the new features in the app, which has a come a long way since I reviewed it in 2012.  Indeed, the new Fantastical widget quickly became my favorite iOS 8 widget.  I love that I can always just swipe down from the top to see my calendar.
• Judith Newman wrote a touching story in the New York Times about how her autistic son uses Siri.  A great read.
• In iOS 8, there is an option in Settings -> iCloud to turn on iCloud Photo Library (Beta).  The idea of the service is that all of your photos are uploaded and stored in iCloud, and then only the most recent photos live on your iPhone or iPad (to save space) but any photo is available to you if you have a network connection.  It’s a neat idea.  However, for now at least, if you turn it on, you will no longer be able to sync with photos on your computer.  If you only take photos with your iPhone, this is no big deal.  But if you are like me and you take photos with another camera, sync those photos to your computer, and then use iTunes to get those photos over to your iPhone and iPad, then you won’t want to turn on the iCloud Photo Library yet.  Early next year, Apple will have a new Photos app for the Mac that will work with the iCloud Photo Library.  (I’m not sure if Apple will ever offer a solution for Windows.)  Serenity Caldwell of iMore talks through all of this and even shows a few tricks for getting photos on your computer synced to your iPhone/iPad if you do have iCloud Photo Library turned on.  I look forward to using iCloud Photo Library, but I’m going to wait until the Photos app is available for the iMac I use at home before I turn on the service.
• Speaking of photos on the iPad, yesterday the $4.99 Pixelmator for iPad app was released.  If you watched the keynote at which Apple showed of the new iPad Air 2, then you saw a preview of this app.  It looks to be the most sophisticated photo editor on the iPad.  Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac wrote a good review of this app.
• John Brownlee of Cult of Mac writes that with the Simpsons Portal on the new FX Networks app, you can now watch any episode of The Simpsons — as long as your cable company is on board.  Unfortunately for me, DirecTV, my service provider, is not on board yet.  D’oh!
• On Wednesday, I wrote about using Apple Pay, a service that has continued to work really well for me this week.  Harry McCracken of Fast Company shared his experiences on using Apple Pay to make almost all of his purchases this week.
• Speaking of Apple Pay, David Pogue of Yahoo Tech wrote a great article on Apple Pay and, at the top of the article, provides the best video I’ve seen yet on how Appple Pay works.  Worth watching if you are curious about this new service.
• Another good Apple Pay article is the one written by Molly Wood of the New York Times.  She says that using the service is “convenient, problem-free and even fun,” and I totally agree.  She had less success using it to purchase items from within an app, which is something that I haven’t tried yet, and I presume will take some time before it starts to work flawlessly and in lots of different apps.
• The Joy Of Tech comic considers what it would be like if Apple products had online dating profiles.
• And finally, Dorothy by iStrategyLabs is an interesting, and certainly amusing, concept for an iPhone accessory.  You put a small device, the Ruby, in one of your shoes.  Then you use an iPhone app to configure what happens whenever you click your heels three times — such as sending a text message to a friend, triggering a fake call from your boss (to let you excuse yourself from an awkward situation), call a Uber vehicle to your current location, etc.  This video shows how it works:

Sharon Nelson is an attorney in Virginia who concentrates in electronic evidence law.  She just finished a one-year term as president of the Virginia State Bar.  Sharon and Jim Calloway, Director of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Management Assistance Program, team up to produce The Digital Edge, a great podcast that focuses on cutting edge legal technology.  Sharon and Jim recently invited me to join them on the 81st edition of their podcast to talk about the new iPhone 6, Apple Pay, the upcoming Apple Watch and a few favorite accessories.  We had a great time talking about the latest in Apple technology.

I’ve embedded the podcast below if you want to listen to it in your browser.  Or you can click here to launch the podcast in iTunes, or click here to download the episode as an MP3 file.  Click here for the show notes for the episode.  Thanks again to Sharon and Jim for inviting me to join them.

On Monday, Apple released iOS 8.1.  The latest update to iOS fixes some bugs, brings back the Camera Roll, improves Messages, etc. but the main new feature is that Apple Pay is now enabled.  If you have an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, that means that you can now quickly and securely pay for items using your iPhone.

These are early days so Apple Pay is only starting to be supported at stores, but over time I have no doubt we will see widespread support by merchants.  Right now, you can use it in places like Walgreens, Duane Reade, McDonalds, Subway, Chevron and Whole Foods.

Before you use the service the first time, you need to tell your iPhone which credit card to use.  You can quickly get started by telling the iPhone to use the same credit card that you already have configured for purchasing items from the App Store.  Adding additional credits cards is simple; either enter the information manually, or use your iPhone to take a picture of your credit card. [UPDATE 10/23: According to this post, you can add up to eight credit/debit cards.]  In the Settings app you can select Passbook & Apple Pay to tell your iPhone which card is your default card.

 

Making payments is incredibly fast and easy.  When you are at the store and get to the point in your transaction when you would normally have to hand over your credit card (or swipe it yourself), instead simply move your iPhone close to the reader while your finger is on the Touch ID sensor.  And that’s pretty much it;  you’ve paid.  Here is a video from Walgreens showing how the procedure works.  I used Apple Pay at my local Walgreens and the experience was pretty much exactly like this, although it seemed even faster than what happened in this video:

Note that if you want to use a card other than your default card, you simply move your iPhone close to the reader but don’t put your finger on the Touch ID yet.  Your iPhone will then let you select which card you want to use to pay, and then you can put your finger on the Touch ID.

Paying with Apple Pay is nice because it is so easy, fast and convenient.  But as an added bonus, it is also much more secure.  The merchant doesn’t get your credit card number when you use Apple Pay, and instead gets a separate Device Account Number that is unique to your iPhone, along with a transaction-specific dynamic security code.  So even if a thief was working at the merchant and he was able to get all of the information that you used to make your purchase, that information is useless and cannot be used to make other purchases.  And if a hacker is able to download all of the credit card information from a merchant — which we seem to read about in the news with increasing frequency lately — the hacker won’t get anything useful from your transactions that can be used to steal your credit card.

Apple Pay is also secure because it is tied to your fingerprint.  While someone could steal your credit card and potentially use it to make purchases, someone cannot steal your iPhone and use your Apple Pay because Apple Pay requires your fingerprint.

In addition to security, you can also get privacy with Apple Pay because the merchant doesn’t even see your name, driver’s license, zip code, etc. — although you can see from the above video that Walgreens encourages you to also use your Walgreens Reward Card when you make the purchase, which gives you some points but also gives the store your identity and a way to circumvent the inherent privacy with Apple Pay.  But importantly, you get to decide whether or not to circumvent that privacy protection.  If you don’t want Walgreens to know that you purchased an item, just don’t give them your Walgreens Reward Card and you will remain essentially as anonymous as you would have been if you had paid with cash.

You can launch the Passbook app if you want to see your credit cards that are associated with Apple Pay.  Tap the info button at the bottom right to get information on that specific card and a list of recent purchases — both purchases made with Apple Pay and made using the card the traditional way.  But you don’t need to ever open the Passbook app if you don’t want to do so.  As noted above, you don’t need to unlock your iPhone or launch any special app to use Apple Pay.

Although everything I’ve described above involves using Apple Pay at a physical store, you can also use Apple Pay when you make an online purchase using an app on your iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 3, once the app is updated to support Apple Pay.  This brings all of the same convenience, security and in some cases privacy advantages to online purchases that you make with your iOS device.

Apple Pay doesn’t yet work with every credit card, and for now only works in some stores.  As the service expands over time it will become more and more useful.  But whenever I am shopping somewhere that does support Apple Pay, I can’t imagine a reason that I would ever pay any other way.

Apple starts a new fiscal year at the end of September every year.  Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 20114 fiscal fourth quarter (which ran from June 29, 2014 to September 27, 2014) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results.  This is typically a transitional quarter for Apple considering that so many sales typically take place in Apple’s first fiscal quarter — the quarter that contains November and December holiday sales.  But this year, the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus went on sale on September 19, and even though that only accounts for eight days, there is always a surge in sales when a new iPhone first goes on sale.  As a result, Apple had a record-breaking fiscal fourth quarter, with quarterly revenue of $42.1 billion (compared to $37.5 billion this time last year) and quarterly net profit of $8.5 billion (compared to $7.5 billion last year).  If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the announcement conference call from iTunes, or you can read a rough transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha.  Apple’s official press release is here.  Here are the things said on the call yesterday that I think would be of interest to iPhone and iPad users:

iPhone

• During the past quarter, Apple sold 39.27 million iPhones, the most that Apple has ever sold in a fiscal fourth quarter.  10 million of those were iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus devices sold September 19-22, the first three days that they were on sale.  By comparison, in the 2013 fiscal fourth quarter, Apple sold 33.8 million iPhones. 
• Apple CEO Tim Cook said that demand for new iPhones has been “staggering” and “is far outstripping supply” and that Apple is seeing a “marked improvement” in iPhone sales in every country over the previous year. Cook added:  “I’ve never felt so great after a launch before.  Maybe that’s the best way to summarize it all.”
• By my count, as of September 27, 2014, Apple had sold over 590 million iPhones since they first went on sale in 2007.
• Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that “iPhone momentum in enterprise market remains very strong.  The latest data published by IDC indicates that iPhone has 69% share of the U.S. commercial smartphone market.”

iPad

• Apple sold 12.316 million iPads.  That’s a little less than Apple sold in the 2013 fiscal fourth quarter (14.1 million).  Indeed, Apple sold 67.9 million iPads in fiscal 2014 versus 71.1 million in fiscal 2013.  Cook noted that obviously he wished that Apple had sold more in 2014 versus 2013, but he sees this as just a “speed bump” because people don’t upgrade iPads as frequently as they upgrade iPhones.  He doesn’t believe that the iPad market is saturated because there are still so many first-time buyers.  Thus, Cook said that “over the long arc of time, my own judgment is that iPad has a great future.  How the individual 90-day clicks work out, I don’t know.  But I’m very bullish on where we can take iPad over time and so we’re continuing to invest in the product pipeline.”
• By my count, as of September 27, 2014, Apple had sold over 237 million iPads since they first went on sale in 2010.

The Future

• As for the products that Apple has planned for the future, Cook said:  “I am incredibly optimistic about the future.  We’ve already announced two new categories in the last 60 days or so, or less than 60 days, with Apple Pay and Apple Watch.  We start shipping the watch early next year, and obviously we’re working on other things as well, and to the degree that I can keep that in the cone of silence, I am going to do it.” 
• Cook also said that Apple is “the only company on the planet that has the ability to integrate hardware and software and services at a world-class level, and that in itself allows Apple to play in so many different areas.  And so the challenge becomes one of deciding which ones to say ‘no’ to and which ones to say ‘yes’ to, and one of focus, not one of do we have any great ideas.  We always have more ideas than we have resources to deal with.”

It’s been a very long time since I had a Saturday post on iPhone J.D., but I wanted to devote yesterday’s post to the new iPad Air 2.  I ordered one yesterday, and my receipt says that I could receive it as soon as Thursday, October 23.  That makes me believe that they will be available in stores by around Friday, October 24, for those of you who want to see one in person before buying one.  And now, the recent news of note:

• Derek Bolen of Clio notes six ways to use an iPad in a law firm other than the obvious ones.
• Drew Smith is a computer programmer and his father is Judge Dennis Neil Smith of the St. Louis County Family Court in Clayton, Missouri.  They worked together to create Form 14, a free app that helps you to navigate the complicated worksheet used to calculate child support amounts in the state of Missouri.  You can get more information about the app here.
• Massachusetts attorney Heidi S. Alexander provides iOS 8 tips in an article for Law Technology Today.
• This has nothing to do with iPhones or iPads, but the folks at my alma mater, Georgetown University Law Center, asked me to announce that GULC Center for the Constitution is looking for law school graduates who intend to pursue an academic career and who are interested in issues related to constitutional interpretation.  If that sounds like you, then you might want to apply to be a Fellow in residence at Georgetown for a two-year period, focusing on research and writing, as well as serving as a Visiting Lecturer.  You can get more information here.
• Jeff Gamet of The Mac Observer notes that this week Apple updated Pages, Numbers and Keynote — both the iOS and the Mac versions.
• As noted by Jason Snell on Six Colors, IDG announced this week that it is shutting down Macworld Expo, which had been an annual conference devoted to all things Apple.  Apple itself stopped attending the event five years ago, and nowadays with Apple announcements streamed live around the world, the Internet and Apple Stores, I understand that there is far less need for a Macworld Expo anymore.  But at its peak, the Macworld Expo was the place to be for anyone interested Apple technology, plus a great way to meet like-minded folks.  The most memorable Macworld Expo in recent memory was in 2007, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone.  I only got the chance to attend one Macworld Expo, the one in New York in July of 2000, the year that Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s Optical Pro Mouse (and even gave one to everyone in the audience; I still have it), a batch of colorful iMacs, and the distinctive G4 Cube. 
• Security expert Rich Mogull wrote a great article on TidBITS about the security challenges faced by Apple.
• Speaking of security, Josh Centers wrote an article for TidBITS about the activation lock feature of the iPhone and iPad.
• Mark Crump of GigaOm explains how you can read books from your local library on your iPad.
• I often link to stories about people using Find My iPhone to track down a lost or stolen iPhone.  But Mike Beasley of 9to5 Mac reports that a San Jose police officer used Find My iPhone to locate and rescue a woman who had been trapped in a 500-foot ravine for 17 hours.
• Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times wants Apple CEO Tim Cook to tuck in his shirt.
• And finally, the award for the silliest third party keyboard for the iOS 8 surely goes to keySonic, for the reasons set forth in this video:

Yesterday, Apple announced the 2014 update to the iPad, and the newest full-size iPad is called the iPad Air 2.  This is an incremental update, not unlike the update from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 5s, but it hits all the high notes for the iPad and looks like it will be a fantastic tablet for any attorney.  There is a 16GB model for $499 that you should NOT get, a 64GB model for $599 and a 128GB model for $699.  The 64GB model will be perfect for most attorneys, and the 128GB model is great for attorneys who want to carry around a lot of videos and pictures.  As before, an extra $130 gets you built-in cellular.

When I think of what makes the iPad great for attorneys, I think of four things: (1) it is thin and light, much lighter than a laptop, (2) it has a great screen, (3) it is powerful and (4) it is easy to use.  Those are the same four areas that Apple improved in the iPad Air 2, so the 2014 iPad has more of what makes the iPad so great to begin with.

Thinner and lighter

Before the Fall of 2013, I actually used two iPads.  I had a full-sized iPad, which was great for viewing websites and reading documents on a larger screen, and I had an iPad mini, which was great when I wanted something that was lighter and easier to hold.  But once I started using the iPad Air a year ago, it was light enough (1 pound versus the 1.4 pounds of the previous generation) and thin enough (7.5 mm versus the 9 mm of the previous generation) that I no longer felt the need to use my iPad mini.  The iPad Air was thin and light enough to hold for an extended period of time, plus it had the larger screen that I preferred over the iPad mini.

And to emphasize that which you already know, a thinner and lighter iPad is important.  When you are reading transcripts, caselaw, exhibits, pleadings, etc. you are going to be holding an iPad in your hand for a while.  If it is too heavy or awkward to hold for an extended period of time, that is a problem.

The new iPad Air 2 is 6.1 mm versus the 7.5 mm of the iPad Air 1 (or, as Apple describes it, 18% thinner).  That is really thin.  Even the new and thin iPhone 6 is 6.9 mm.  The iPad Air 2 is also slightly lighter at 0.96 pounds versus the 1 pound for the iPad Air 1 (or just a tiny bit heavier for both models if you got the versions with build-in cellular).  Based on what I read from folks who held one yesterday, the weight difference feels even more substantial because the iPad Air 2 is so much thinner than the iPad Air 1, and the thinner iPad 2 is also even easier to hold in your hand.

Suffice it to say that if you have an iPad Air 1, the iPad Air 2 will be slightly easier to hold.  But if you have any prior model of the iPad, which is true for so many attorneys, then the iPad Air 2 is going to be significantly easier to hold than whatever model iPad you have.  Indeed, you could stack two iPad Air 2s and they would still be thinner than one of the first generation iPads.  The thinness and weight will likely be the main reason that attorneys will love the iPad Air 2.

Better display

Apple has been using a great-looking retina display on the iPad since March of 2012.  The iPad Air 2 improves upon that display in two ways.

First, the iPad Air 2 display is laminated, which makes the screen look even better.  Jason Snell of Six Colors was able to try the new iPad yesterday, and here is how he described it:

But what I really liked about the iPad Air 2 was its display.  On these devices, the display is where the rubber meets the road.  The iPad Air 2’s display is laminated, eliminating the air gap between the glass and the screen – they’re attached together now.  This has the same effect it did when the iPhone switched to a laminated display – the pixels just feel that much closer to your finger when you’re touching the screen.  It’s a good thing.

The second improvement to the display is that Apple has found a way to reduce the glare.  Thus, bright overhead lights are less likely to interfere with using an iPad, and the iPad should be even more usable when you are outside.

More powerful

A faster iPad is a more powerful iPad.  You don’t see spinning circles or hourglasses on an iPad like you do on a computer, but when an iPad is faster it is more responsive, which lets you be more efficient and makes the experience of using the iPad more pleasant.  The iPad Air 2 has a new processor (the A8X), which like the processor in the new iPhone 6 (the A8) makes it faster.  Apple says that the CPU is up to 40% faster and the GPU is up to 250% faster with the iPad Air 2.  Another way to look at it is that the newest iPad has 12x the regular processor and 180x the graphics processor as compared to the original, 2010 iPad.

The iPad Air 2 (like the iPhone 6) adds support for the 802.11ac WiFi standard, which came out in 2013 but is starting to see more widespread adoption in 2014.  802.11ac can be twice as fast as the previous 802.11n standard.  It is also more powerful, so if there is a “dead zone” in your home or office in which you used to get a poor WiFi signal, you may now get a better signal when you use 802.11ac.  So if you have a newer router that supports 802.11ac, you should see better WiFi performance with the iPad Air 2.

I always get the WiFi version of the iPad, but if you pay the extra $130 for the version with built-in cellular, there is another new feature with the iPad Air 2.  Instead of coming with a SIM that works on only one carrier, you can now get the Apple SIM that can be used with AT&T, T-Mobile or Sprint.  As I understand it, you could try AT&T for one month, then switch to T-Mobile for the next month, etc.  I look forward to hearing about how this new feature works in practice.  Note that, so far, Verizon has not signed up, so you cannot use its service with the new Apple SIM (but you can get a Verizon-only SIM).

Easier to use, thanks to Touch ID

The final major change to the iPad Air 2 is support for Touch ID, Apple’s fingerprint sensor.  I’ve been waiting for this change for a year, ever since I started using Touch ID on the iPhone 5s.  I can’t even count the number of times that I unlock my iPhone and iPad every day, but this is no longer a problem on my iPhone because it recognizes my fingerprint almost instantly.  The iPad is going to get so much easier to unlock with the addition of Touch ID.  And of course, all attorneys need to be using a passcode lock on their iPads.  If you don’t have one yet, I don’t even want to hear your excuses, start doing so right now.  You don’t want someone else to pick up your iPad and have easy access to all of the confidential attorney-client communications and work product that is on every lawyer’s iPad.  But now with Touch ID, the passcode lock becomes much, much less of a burden.

And starting Monday when Apple Pay debuts, you will also be able to use Touch ID on the iPad to make secure purchases.  No, you won’t be able to walk into a store and tap your iPad on a sensor to make a purchase – which would, of course, look silly – but you will be able to use Touch ID to make secure online purchases with the iPad.

Better camera

For most attorneys, I doubt that the camera on the iPad makes much of a difference.  Even though I can understand in theory the advantage of taking a picture with an iPad because the large screen is a huge viewfinder, in practice it just seems ridiculous.  About the only thing I do with the camera on the back of my current iPad Air is that I sometimes scan a document.

But if the iPad’s back camera is important to you, you’ll be happy to learn that the iPad Air 2 has a better camera.  It is not quite as good as the camera in the iPhone 6, and it is not even quite as good as the camera on the iPhone 5s, but it is better than the camera on prior iPads.

iPad mini 3

If you are a fan of the iPad mini, you won’t be as impressed by the new iPad mini 3.  It adds Touch ID, but otherwise is the same size, weight and speed as last year’s iPad mini 2.  The only other difference is that you can now buy a gold version of an iPad mini.  (There is also a gold iPad Air 2.)

The new range of iPads

Apple is now offering a larger range of iPads than ever before becuase along with the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, Apple is continuing to sell many of the older iPads at reduced prices. 

You can now get the first generation iPad mini, the one that came out two years ago, starting at only $249.  I don’t recommend that any attorney do that because the retina screen on the iPad mini 2 and 3 is so much better, but it is interesting to see Apple selling any model of the iPad at a price that low.  Although I no longer use my iPad mini, my wife still uses it just to read books using the Amazon Kindle app.

The choice between the iPad mini 2 and the iPad mini 3 is tougher.  You pay an extra $100 for the iPad mini 3, but the only improvement (other than coming in gold) is Touch ID.  As much as I look forward to using Touch ID on an iPad, there is nothing unreasonable about saving $100 and getting the iPad 2.  You can even use that $100 savings towards a larger capacity or towards built-in cellular, two features that many will find more valuable than Touch ID.

If you want a full-size iPad, you can also save $100 by buying last year’s iPad Air 1, but I don’t recommend that you do so.  For all of the reasons that I listed above, the iPad Air 2 is easily worth an extra $100 for most any attorney.

Conclusion

If you already have an iPad Air that came out last year, there are some great new features in the iPad Air 2, but you are unlikely to upgrade unless you really want the latest and greatest and/or there is a really good home for your current iPad.  For example, my wife uses an iPad 2 and is ready to upgrade, so she has already called dibs on my iPad Air.  But if you are using an iPad 4 (which came out in the Fall of 2012) or earlier iPad, then you are going to really love the new iPad Air 2.  It has more of everything that you want in an iPad:  it is easier to hold, easier to see, more responsive thanks to the faster processor and WiFi, and easier to unlock thanks to Touch ID.

Apple is now taking online orders for the new iPad Air 2 (with delivery dates of Oct. 23-27), or you can pick one up in an Apple Store and other retailers starting some point later next week.

Today at 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern, Apple will hold an event on its campus in Cupertino, California.  This is a much smaller venue than the one used last month for the iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / Apple Watch announcement, so obviously Apple sees this as a less significant event.  Apple hasn’t said what it will announce, but for the reasons I noted last week, we will surely see a new iPad and iPad mini today, and I also expect to see a number of Mac announcements. 

Apple is providing a live video stream of the event on its website if you want to watch the announcements as they occur.  Otherwise, a few sites are providing live blogs of the event such as Jason Snell of Six Colors via Twitter, The Verge, and the folks at Macworld.

Last month, I reviewed the Maglus, an aluminum stylus created by ApplyDea that is larger than a normal stylus, flat on the sides and has built-in magnets.  I liked it.  It’s a too thick to be my preferred stylus for daily use, but it makes a nice alternative stylus for all of the reasons that I pointed out in that review.  I noted in the review that you can buy replacement tips for the stylus, not only the original rubber tip but also a microfibre tip.  The manufacturer subsequently sent me a free sample of the microfibre tip so that I could try it out, and I’ve been experimenting with it for a few weeks.  For anyone who owns a Maglus, I recommend that you spend the $11.99 to get the microfibre tip so that you have even more versatility with your Maglus stylus.

 

To replace tip on the Maglus, you pull on the silver metal band.  I find that it is easier if you first use your fingernails to separate the metal band from the aluminum body, but then once you get it out a little bit you can pull it off.  Then just push in the replacement tip.  In the following picture, the normal rubber stylus is on the left and the microfibre tip is on the right.

So how does it work?  Most styluses have a rubber tip, which provides good friction against an iPad screen.  A microfiber (or microfibre) tip typically has less friction, so it glides against the screen more quickly, although sometimes you have to press down a little harder for the iPad to sense it.  I found that unlike most microfiber styuses, I didn’t have to press down any harder with the Maglus microfibre tip to get my iPad to sense it.  Perhaps this is because the tip is larger, or perhaps this is because the Maglus is a little heavier than other styluses.  So the microfibre replacement tip gives the stylus a softer, more slippery feel.

Like the original tip, this microfibre tip is larger than the tips on many other styluses.  (See my original review for a picture of the Maglus compared to other styluses.)  And that is the main reason that the Maglus is not my preferred stylus.  I use a stylus primarily to take notes, and I prefer a smaller tip for that.  Having said that, if I am annotating or highlighting a case in PDF format that I downloaded from Westlaw, the larger tip doesn’t bother me at all and is actually sort of nice.  So I recognize that there is no one best size for an iPad stylus tip.

If I had to choose just one tip for the Maglus, overall I prefer the original one.  But it is nice that having this microfibre tip means that you can easily change the feel of the Maglus stylus whenever you are in the mood for something new, or whenever you are doing some task with the stylus for which you prefer being able to move the stylus against the screen more quickly.

Finally, I’ll note that since the time I posted my review of the Maglus last month, the company came out with new colors.  You can now get the original size in silver, black or blue on Amazon.  And if you want the smaller Maglus mini, you can now get it in silver or pink.

You can get replacement tips for the original Maglus tip on Amazon or directly from ApplyDea.  Right now it looks like you can only get the microfibre tip directly from ApplyDea, but I’m told that the following link will work on Amazon very soon if you prefer to buy from Amazon.

Click here to get Maglus Stylus Microfibre Tips from Amazon.

Click here to get Maglus Stylus Microfibre Tips from ApplyDea ($11.99).

I have a tip today that can help you avoid getting sanctioned by a judge when your iPhone rings in court, even though you flipped the switch to mute it, because it is ringing through your iPad.  But first, some background.

A neat feature in iOS 8 for folks who own both an iPhone and an iPad is Continuity, technology that lets you use an iPhone and iPad (and a Mac) almost interchangeably.  For example, one part of Continuity is Handoff, a technology that lets you pass documents from one device to another.  As I noted in my post on email improvements in iOS 8, you can start an email on your iPhone but then decide to finish it up on the iPad where you might have a Bluetooth keyboard attached.  Or you can start reading a webpage on your iPhone, but then decide to continue reading it on your iPad’s larger screen.  You can use Handoff with Mail, Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Maps, Messages, Reminders Calendar, Contacts and even some third party apps.

Another cool Continuity feature is that you can answer your iPhone from an iPad or a Mac.  Imagine that you are on your couch using your iPad while your iPhone is in a different room and a call comes in to your iPhone.  In iOS 8, you can answer the call on the iPad that is in your hand, without having to get that iPhone.  And once the next version of the Mac OS is released — and I’m sure we will learn that date this Thursday — you will also be able to answer calls on your Mac.  I’ve used this feature on my iPad a few times, and it is very useful.  You can even make a call from your iPad; just tap the phone icon next to a phone number in the Contacts app, and your iPad will work as an extension of your iPhone.  To use this feature, your iPhone and iPad must be using the same Apple ID account.

But the point of this post is not to praise the virtues of Continuity, but instead to provide a warning so that you don’t have the same problem that I did this past Friday.  I was in a meeting and my iPhone was in my pocket, but before the meeting started I had flipped the switch on the side to mute the iPhone.  During the meeting, I received a phone call, and because my iPhone was on mute it just vibrated in my pocket, without bothering anyone else in the meeting.  But then a second later, my iPad also started ringing, which caught me by surprise.  It was just a meeting at my law firm with other partners, so it wasn’t too embarrassing, but all I could think of was what if this had happened when I was in court?

Here are two ways to stop this from happening to you.  First, you can turn off this feature of Continuity completely, although it is not very obvious how you do so.  Go to the Settings app on your iPhone, but don’t go to Phone, where you might expect this to be located, but instead go to FaceTime.  Then turn off iPhone Cellular Calls.

 

Alternatively, you can keep the feature enabled on your iPhone, but go to the Settings app on your iPad, tap FaceTime, and turn off iPhone Cellular Calls just on your iPad.  That way, you can use the feature with your iPhone and your Mac, but not with that iPad.

A second solution is to keep the feature enabled, but remember to mute your iPad at the same time that you mute your iPhone.  You may be able to mute your iPad simply by flipping the switch on the side of your iPad, just like you can on the iPhone.  But note that you can control in settings whether the switch on the iPad acts as a mute switch or locks the rotation.  I keep my switch set on Lock Rotation, so I cannot use the switch to mute my iPad.

But there is another way to mute, even if the switch is used to lock rotation.  If you swipe up from the bottom of your screen to bring up the Control Center, there is a row of five icons in the middle, starting with Airplane Mode.  If the physical switch on your iPad is being used for the lock rotation function, then the last of those five icons will let you quickly turn mute on or off.  (If your physical switch is being used for mute, then that fifth icon toggles the lock rotation function.)  Note that you can mute your iPad from the lock screen; you don’t have to be actually using your iPad to mute it.

Two final notes.  First, note that Continuity only works for phone calls if your iPhone and iPad are on the same WiFi network.  If you are in a meeting, court, etc. and your devices are not connected to WiFi, then you won’t have to worry about your iPad ringing unexpectedly, even if you forgot to mute it.  But remember that iOS devices remember WiFi networks, so after you connect to WiFi the first time in a location, your iPad might do it automatically in the future without you even realizing that it happened.

Second, be aware that if you have an older iPad in your house that you are no longer using yourself — perhaps it has become an iPad for your kids — and if that iPad is also using your same Apple ID, that iPad will ring as well unless you go to the Settings app and disable iPhone Cellular Calls on that iPad.  Last thing that you want is for your six-year-old to answer a call that was intended for you.

Using Continuity for phone calls is useful enough that I’ll probably keep it turned on.  But hopefully after my experience this past Friday, I’ll remember that I now have two devices to mute when silence is required, not just one.  And hopefully you can learn from my mistake.

[UPDATE 10/20/14:  Utah attorney Peter Summerill points out another good solution: turn on Do Not Disturb.]