I’ve been using Word for iPad almost every day since it was released two weeks ago.  I really like it, and I’ve now used it enough to write a full review.  (I wrote a first look post while I was at ABA TECHSHOW two weeks ago.)  As a litigator who works with Microsoft Word documents throughout the day, it is incredibly useful to have a sophisticated and full-featured version of Word on my iPad.  Word for iPad has easily become one of the most important and useful apps on my iPad, and I suspect that many other attorneys will feel the same way.  The app has some limitations, and a few of them are big and I hope that they are addressed in a future update, but for 1.0 version of an app, Microsoft really did a great job. 

And when I say “Microsoft” I’m specifically talking about the Mac folks at Microsoft, a group that for years was called the MacBU (Macintosh Business Unit), and just recently changed its name to Apex (Apple Productivity Experiences) to reflect that they are working on more than just Mac software.  Earlier this week, the Office for iPad team answered questions in a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, and it was revealed that the folks at Microsoft who designed the Office iPad apps are the same folks who create Office apps for Mac.

Indeed, the Word for iPad team revealed that they started with the Mac version of Word to create Word for iPad, and Erik Schwiebert, the principal software designer in the MacBU/Apex, said that the work that Microsoft has been doing on Office for iPad is actually going to also be used for an upcoming version of Office for Mac:

The code for Office for iPad and Office for Mac is shared, as the development platforms for both are very similar. 🙂 The iPad work required us to create an all-new UI and to redesign the interface between UI and the internal logic. That work actually helps us with de-Carbonizing Office for the Mac, instead of delaying or hindering it. We’re able to create new Cocoa UI on the Mac and tie it into the new logic interface now.

It must be interesting to be a person employed by Microsoft who spends all of his or her time working on Mac, iPad and iPhone apps.  Sort of like the folks who work at Apple on the iTunes for Windows software.  But based on this short, fun video prepared for the Reddit session, The Mac BU looks like a good group.

(Trivia for long-time Mac users:  many folks believe that Word 5.1 for Mac, released in 1992, was the best-ever version of Word on a Mac.  A Microsoft employee named “Rick” said in Reddit yesterday that he been working on Word for Mac since version 5.0 and now he is working on Word for iPad.  That’s quite a resume over a long stretch of time.  I’m guessing it is Rick Schaut, who wrote this interesting post about some of the early versions of Word for Mac.  UPDATE:  Yep, it is him.)

So now that we know who made Word for iPad, let’s talk about the app itself.

Importing Documents

Unless you are starting a new document from scratch, the first step is to get a Word document into the Word for iPad app.  Importing documents into Word for iPad from another app is fairly easy because you can use the standard iOS Open in… function.  For example, if someone emails you a Word document, you can simply hold your finger down on the Word document icon for a second or two, then when the Open in… selection appears you can simply select Word for iPad.

What if your document is instead located on a cloud service, such as Dropbox?  Word for iPad doesn’t have built-in support for any cloud services other than Microsoft’s own OneDrive service, but since all of those cloud services have their own apps, this is only a minor limitation.  For example, to open a document in a Dropbox folder, just use the Dropbox app to select the document and then Open in… Word for iPad.

And as noted, Word for iPad has built-in support for OneDrive, so if a document is located in one of your OneDrive folders, you can easily open it from within Word for iPad.  The app also has built-in support for documents stored on SharePoint 2010 or higher.

Basic Reviewing and Editing

The main thing that you want to do with a Word document on an iPad is likely to be (1) read it and (2) perhaps make some minor edits.  For these basic functions, Word for iPad works well, and is overall better than any other iPad app.

Viewing documents works very well because Word for iPad preserves all of the original document formatting.  This is no accident.  As Erik Schwiebert of the Mac BU noted in the Reddit session, Microsoft uses the same text layout engine in Word for iPad that is used in Word for Windows and Word for Mac.  (Another developer also said the same thing.) 

The only other iPad app I’ve ever used that also does an excellent job preserving Word document formatting is Reader 7.  My only real complaint with viewing a document in Word for iPad is that you cannot view a document full screen, which is a nice feature if all you want to do is read a document.  For this reason, I recommend that all attorneys also keep a copy of the excellent (and free) Reader 7 app on their iPads, which has a full screen view.

Basic editing of documents also works very well, which is no surprise because this is the one function that the otherwise limited Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone also does well.  So if someone sends you a brief and you want to add a sentence, delete a paragraph, move something from one section to another, Word for iPad works great.  You can edit the document without worrying about messing up the document properties so that it will look wrong when sent back to a computer.  And unlike the iPhone app, in Word for iPad you can also view, edit and add footnotes, a critical feature for litigators.

Typing on the on-screen keyboard works the same as most any other app.  This means, for example, that in addition to typing on the virtual keyboard, you can tap the microphone button (next to the space bar) to dictate, which Siri does quite well.  I often find that using Siri to take dictation is much faster than me tapping on a virtual keyboard when I just want to add a sentence or two.  Note that there are currently a few dictation bugs in Word for iPad — for example, you cannot dictate in a footnote — but Microsoft is aware of the issue and is working on a fix.

For more intensive editing, I recommend using an external keyboard.  I use the Apple Wireless Keyboard, but I know that some people prefer a smaller keyboard that also works as an iPad cover such as the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover.  With an external keyboard you can type much faster, plus you can use standard keyboard shortcuts to undo, repeat, cut, copy, paste, select all, and you can also quickly apply bold, italics or underline formatting.  Word also supports standard keyboard navigation shortcuts such as Shift-Option-Right Arrow to quickly select text one word at a time.  Click here for a full list of Word for iPad keyboard shortcuts.

Buttons and Toolbars

Word for iPad has a few buttons at the top left and right and toolbars in the middle.

The buttons on the left let you return to your file list, edit document properties and duplicate the document (i.e. “Save as…”), undo and redo.  The buttons at the right let you do a full text search, and if you tap the magnifying glass and then tap the gear icon, you can do a Find and Replace.  The button at the far right lets you share a document … more on that below.

There are five ribbons.  The Home ribbon includes all of your basic formatting such font, bold, text color and highlighting, text justification, line spacing, bullets, numbered paragraphs, etc.  The first button on the Home ribbon is for Styles, and I discuss that in more detail below.  The Insert ribbon lets you add page breaks, tables, pictures, shapes, a text box, a hyperlink, and a footnote.  The Layout ribbon lets you change the page layout and margins, including page numbers.  The Review ribbon lets you track changes, and I have more on that below.  Finally, the View ribbon turns spell-checking as you type on or off, turns a ruler on or off, and gives you a Word count (which includes Page count and character count).

Styles

I always use the Styles function in Word on my PC and Mac and I recommend that others do too.  For example, I have pre-defined styles for Text in a brief (indent paragraph, double-space, etc.), Block Quotes (indented on both sides, single space), the text that comes after a block quote when I am still in the same paragraph that I call Post Quote (same as the Text style but not indented), etc. 

The current version of Word for iPad has only limited support for styles.  First, you cannot create styles in Word for iPad.  So in a new document, if you want to indent, change line spacing, change the font, etc., you will need to do that manually.

Second, if you open a document that you created on your computer using styles, Word for iPad will recognize those styles and will correctly display the document formatting.  But you cannot easily use those styles in your document to apply them to more text.  While there is a Styles button in Word for iPad, it comes pre-loaded with 15 styles that are always there and cannot be changed (and which are mostly useless for legal documents).  The Styles button will not show you the styles that exist in your document, so you cannot use that menu to select a style that exists in the document and apply it to different text.

However, Microsoft did provide one partial work-around.  If you copy text in Word for iPad to which you had applied a style on your computer, and then you select a different string of text, Word for iPad includes an option to Paste Format.  That option will apply all of the formatting, including the style name, to the new text.  So for example, if you have a Block Quote style that you like to use, and you are editing a document that already has that style in use, you are in luck.  Just copy that paragraph and then paste the formatting to a different paragraph. 

Unfortunately, if the style that you want is present in the document but not currently being used, you can’t use it.  My hope is that better support for styles is a feature that Microsoft is working on for a future update.

Track Changes

One of the very best parts of Microsoft Word for iPad is the track changes feature.  I say this because most attorneys are unlikely to write a brief from scratch using Word on an iPad (although you could do so).  Instead, most attorneys will find Word for iPad most useful when they are using an iPad away from the office and they just want to suggest some edits to a documents someone else created on a computer.

For the most part, track changes works great.  Just turn it on, and new text is underlined and deleted text is stricken. 

There is one quirk that I don’t quite understand.  When you make an edit, it shows up in one color.  You can then change what you just did for about a minute, but sometimes (and not all of the time) after a minute the color changes.  When this happens, if you want to alter your edit, it shows up as a redline to your redline.  I can’t think of any reason that anyone would want their edits to show up this way.  The only workaround that I have discovered is to go to your original edit, select it and tap the icon on the ribbon to reject your first edit (so that you go back to the original text), an then edit again as you now want it to read.  Although this workaround works, it seems silly that you have to do it in the first place.

Other Advanced Functions

It comes as no surprise that there are many other advanced functions supported by Word on the PC or Mac that are not supported on the iPad.  Other than the ones listed above, I really don’t miss them.

For example, while you can check spelling in Word for iPad, you cannot check grammar.  But grammar checking is a function that annoys me in Word on my Mac and PC, so I always keep it turned off on my computers.  I don’t miss it on the iPad.

Word for iPad supports footnotes but has only limited support for endnotes, captions (numbered labels for objects), citations (the bibliography function), and Table of Contents — namely, you can view them if they are already in a document, but you cannot add or update them.  Again, I don’t miss these features in Word for iPad, and I suspect that most attorneys who use Word for iPad will feel the same.

Word for iPad doesn’t support macros.  I stopped using macros in Word documents a very long time ago because they were sometimes used to spread Word viruses.  If you like to use macros in your Word documents, you can do so on your computer but not in Word for iPad.

Word for iPad also doesn’t support split windows.  I sometimes find split windows useful on my PC and Mac, but in light of the smaller size of the iPad screen, I can understand why this feature was omitted.  Having said that, if Microsoft were to add this feature in the future, I might find it useful, especially when in portrait orientation.

Exporting Documents

So now you have edited your document and you are ready to move it off of your iPad.  What are the choices?  Word for iPad sometimes feels like it has the Hotel California problem; you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.  Word for iPad has many limitations that make it more difficult than I would have expected to get a document out of the iPad.

First, you cannot print … yet.  Although this has resulted in some bad press, I don’t see this as a major limitation.  Although I do sometimes print from my iPad to an AirPrint printer, I don’t do this very often, and I don’t really miss it in Word for iPad.  Moreover, PC World is reporting that Microsoft will add this feature in a future update, and Microsoft Principal Group Manager Sangeeta Mudnal said in the Reddit this week:  “Print is a high demand feature that we intend to introduce in due course.”  [UPDATE 4/28/14:  Version 1.0.1 came out today, and it adds the ability to print.]

Second, Word for iPad doesn’t support the standard iOS export functions to Open in… another app or to share with another user using AirDrop.  The Open in… omission is a huge limitation, and is so obvious of an omission that I can only conclude that Microsoft deliberately chose not to support the feature, perhaps as a way to encourage users to use OneDrive.  My #1 feature request for Word for iPad is that Microsoft reconsider this decision and add the ability to open a document in another app.  This would let folks save to Dropbox (by opening in the Dropbox app), convert to PDF (by opening in any of the apps that convert Word files to PDF), add the document to an iPad-based folder (such as folder in GoodReader), etc.

So what can you do right now with a document?  First, you can save the document to the iPad itself.  This works fine if you don’t have a lot of documents, but there is no support for folders so you just have to work with a big long list of documents.  There is a Recent button that lists in order of use, so at least it isn’t too hard to find a document that you worked with recently.

Second, you can email the document itself, or a link to the document.  More on this in a moment.

Third, you can save the document to OneDrive.  Indeed, everyone who uses Office 365 has a OneDrive account, so by definition if you have the full version of Word for iPad, you have a OneDrive account.  But for me, saving confidential attorney-client documents and/or work product — such as the drafts of virtually every document that I work on — to OneDrive is not acceptable.  I’m sure that Microsoft has good intentions, as does Dropbox and other cloud storage services, but I would rather keep my confidential documents under my control, which means only storing the documents on devices that I or my law firm own unless there is sophisticated encryption.

Note that if you do save to OneDrive, you can then use the free OneDrive app to access the document, but the OneDrive app also doesn’t support the standard iOS functions so you cannot use the OneDrive app to open the document in another app.  [UPDATE:  I missed it at first, but now I see that you can do this in OneDrive; when the document is being shown on your screen, tap … in the bottom right corner and select Open in Another App.]  You can, also work with documents in your OneDrive with other apps, such as Documents to Go or GoodReader.

Note also that if you choose to email a link to someone instead of emailing them the actual document, it appears that Microsoft first uploads the document to OneDrive and then sends a link.  So if you want to avoid putting a confidential document on OneDrive, I recommend that you email the file itself and not a link.

Finally, I see that the Word for iPad app supports Microsoft SharePoint.  I know that you can open documents from a SharePoint location, and according to Priyanka Sinha, part of the PowerPoint for iPad team, “Office for iPad supports opening, editing, saving from [on-premise] SharePoint 2010+.”  I don’t use SharePoint, but if your law firm does, this is good news.

Of all of these options, email is the only one that will be useful for most attorneys, unless your office has on-premise SharePoint.  Indeed, if you want to edit a document and then send the revised draft to another attorney or your secretary, email is a great option.  So thank goodness Word for iPad includes the option to email the document because for many attorneys, this may be the only option that they really need.

If you instead want to open a document in another app, you can use the email function as a workaround.  Email the document to yourself, then open up that email, then hold your finger down on the attachment and you can then open up the document in another app — for example, open in Dropbox to save it there, open in another app that will convert to PDF, open in the Transporter app to save it to a folder on your Transporter, etc.

Stability

I rarely have problems with iPad apps crashing, but sometimes it happens, and it can be very annoying.  One of the things that I have always liked about Pages, the word processor for the iPad made by Apple, is that it is rock solid.  I have used it to take notes in day-long meetings and depositions many, many times and it has always worked perfectly and I have never lost even a line of text.

I’ve only been using Word for iPad for two weeks, and while the app has not crashed on me yet, UPDATE: SEE BELOW I’ll have to use it much longer to conclude that it is as stable as Pages.  However, I have had one occasion when I was using Word for iPad (and one occasion when I was using Excel for iPad) when I got a “Not enough memory” error.  I tapped OK and continued to use the apps without incident, but the error did make me nervous.

[UPDATE:  So just a few hours after this post went live, I had my first crash.  Thursday morning I was taking a deposition of a plaintiff.  An attorney for a co-defendant went first and asked questions and I was taking notes of the questions and answers on my iPad.  I usually use Pages for this, but today I decided to use Word for iPad with an external keyboard.  I was also frequently switching between Word and other apps on my iPad such as GoodReader, Mail, Safari and Maps to look up various items that related to what the plaintiff was saying.  Every time I switched back to Word I had to wait a short moment to load the document back into memory … until one time, about 45 minutes into the deposition, when instead of loading my document I just saw the main screen of Word.  Where was my document?  I looked at the list of recent documents and it wasn’t there.  Ugh.  After trying everything I could think of to locate my document, I gave up and I started a new Word document and used it for the rest of the deposition and all was fine.  It did occur to me that with my first document I never saved it under a specific name.  (Tap the second icon on the left of the screen and then select name.)  I didn’t think that I needed to do so since Word for iPad kept telling me that it was auto-saving the document even without a name, but maybe if I had given the first document a specific name it would have showed up in my recents list after the crash?  I’ll have to explore this more, and it turned out that the first 45 minutes of my depo were just background information anyway so I didn’t lose anything of value, but it could have been a big disaster.  In the future, perhaps I will stick to Pages for taking notes until I feel that this has been fixed.]

In the Reddit earlier this week, Rick Schaut said:  “The biggest challenge [porting Word from the Mac to the iPad] was working within the resource constraints of an iPad vs a desktop Mac, and the issues span a wide gamut from memory to processor speed to battery usage. Getting Word’s scrolling to be so smooth as it is, for example, took a fairly impressive engineering effort.”  I know that Microsoft has to use some major tricks to get so much of the full version of Word to work within the memory constraints of an iPad.  Hopefully, Word for iPad will remain stable; nobody likes to lose work.

By the way, here is a picture that the MacBU/Apex team shared of the equipment that they use to test Microsoft Office for iPad on multiple different iPads with different configurations:

Pricing

Word for iPad is free*.  The * indicates that you can download the app from the App Store for free, and you can use the app to view Word documents, but if you want to edit Word documents you need to have an Office 365 account.  And here is where things get confusing.  I think the following description is correct, but I might be missing something about all of the different plans.

One option is to get an Office 365 Home Premium account, which is what I have been using for the past year.  That lets me install Office on up to five computers (Mac or PC) at my house and also lets me use Word, Excel and PowerPoint for iPad on up to five tablets.  It costs $9.99 month or $99.99 a year.

If you want your law firm to pay for Office 365, then you need an Office 365 for Business plan that supports desktop and mobile apps.  Options include Office 365 Small Business Premium for $150 per user per year, for up to 25 users.  If you are in a larger law firm, you may need Office 365 Midsize Business, which is $180 per user per year, for up to 300 users.  For larger companies there are different rates.  [UPDATE 9/8/14:  For more information on the Office 365 licenses that can be used by lawyers, read this post.]

Of course, your law firm probably already has some sort of license agreement with Microsoft, and if you don’t currently use Office 365, then you need to investigate what it will cost to add mobile support for your users.  Talk to your Microsoft rep.

I hear some people complain about the price, but for lawyers I have no doubt that this cost is worth it.  Whether you are paying $100 a year for several of your home computers and tablets or $180 or more a year for a single user license in a large organization, you are paying for both the computer software and the iPad software.  Considering how important Microsoft Word is to attorneys, this is a small but essential cost of doing business.

Conclusion

I have been using Word for iPad for two weeks, but I have been using Microsoft Word, in one form or another, for over 25 years.  I think that almost every attorney should have Word on the computer in their office, and similarly, Word for iPad is so good, and such an important app, that I think that every attorney who uses an iPad should get Word for iPad.  If nothing else, just use the free version of the app as a great document viewer.  But to do real work with the app, you’ll want to have an Office 365 account.

As noted above, this 1.0 version of the app has some limitations.  For an app that I really like, I’m surprised how many times I had to use the word “workaround” in writing this review.  Hopefully many of these limitations will be addressed in future updates.  On Reddit this week, a member of the Excel for iPad team stated:  “One of the great things about Office 365 being a subscription is that you can expect to get frequent updates, so stay tuned!  We think you’ll like them.”  And Rick Schaut from the Word for iPad team stated:  “I can’t say what will or will not be in the next version of Word, because those decisions are always in flux. I can say that we’re always thinking about what we should include, and we’re always working to find the best mix of features across our broad base of users.”

Word for iPad is already a fantastic app today, and I look forward to seeing how it is improved in the future.

Click here to get Microsoft Word for iPad (free): 

—–

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.

One of my favorite parts of ABA TECHSHOW a few weeks ago was a presentation that Ben Stevens and I gave on March 27, 2014 called iGadgets and iGear for the iLawyer.  In that session, Ben and I talked about and showed off some of our favorite iPhone and iPad accessories.  Most of them were items that we use in connection with our law practice, but some of them were just fun accessories that most anyone would like.  With more time we could have discussed so many more — there are just so many useful and/or fun things that you can buy to enhance your iPhone or iPad.

Here is a list of the items that we discussed.  I’ve added links for the ones that I have reviewed here on iPhone J.D., and for the others I added an Amazon link (when available) so you can see the item and get more information there.  A few of these will be the subject of upcoming reviews on iPhone J.D.  Some of my reviews were written a while ago and in some cases my views have changed, but suffice it to say that the fact that an accessory is on this list tells you that either Ben or I thought that it is still worth your consideration.

1. Wacom Bambo Stylus Duo
2. Pogo Stylus
3. LynkTek TruGlide Pro Precision Stylus [Amazon]
4. Adonit Jot Pro
5. Adonit Script [Amazon]
6. Adonit Jot Tote [Amazon]
7. Griffin No. 2 Pencil Stylus
8. iBoltz XS
9. iBoltz XL
10. Apple Lightning to USB Cable (2 m) [Amazon]
11. USB to dual Micro/Mini [Amazon]
12. ChargeKey
13. ChargeCard [Amazon]
14. iPhone 5s Dock
15. Apple 12W USB Power Adapter [Amazon]
16. Powerocks Magicstick 2800
17. iSound Portable Power Max
18. Griffin PowerDock 5 [Amazon]
19. Belkin WeMo [Amazon]
20. Kensington AbsolutePower 4.2 Dual Fast Charge for Tablets
21. Monster Outlets to Go [Amazon]
22. Stabile Pro by Thought Out
23. Apple Wireless Keyboard
24. Origami Workstation for iPad by Incase
25. Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover
26. Snugg Executive Case & Flip Stand [Amazon]
27. STM’s Studio Case [Amazon]
28. Aduro Rotata Folio
29. Snugg Squared Skinny [Amazon]
30. Snugg Ultra Thin Clear [Amazon]
31. Slim DODOcase
32. G-Form Extreme Sleeve
33. Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader [Amazon]
34. Lightning to VGA Adapter
35. Lightning Digital AV Adapter [Amazon]
36. Chef Sleeve
37. DryCASE
38. iShower
39. ECOXBT by ECOXGEAR [Amazon]
40. dockBoss Air by CableJive
41. iHome iDL100 [Amazon]
42. Lightning to 30 pin adapters
43. iPin
44. MOBiLE CLOTH
45. Transporter
46. Transporter Sync

As I mentioned last week, MyCase hired Stephanie Crowley to produce live murals based on what Ben and I were talking about during our presentation.  Here is what Crowley created:

 

I have been on the road a lot for the last 10 days, which means that I have had to work with quite a few Word documents, and even a few Excel documents, on my iPad.  The new Office apps from Microsoft have worked really well for me and I continue to be impressed.  Microsoft announced yesterday that 12 million people have downloaded the new Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps (most people would download all three, so I guess that means about 4 million users so far).  Macworld has good reviews of the new apps (Jeffery Battersby: Word; Rob Griffiths: Excel; Joe Kissell:  PowerPoint) and Julio Ojeda-Zapata offers a good overview of all three apps for TidBITS.  I don’t care that much about PowerPoint, but Excel is useful, and the Word app is the best new app on my iPad in a very long time.  And now, the recent iOS news of note:

• I saw South Carolina attorney Jenny Stevens working hard at TECHSHOW to find every cool swag item being given away by a vendor in the Exhibit Hall.  The result was a post on The Mac Lawyer called The Best Swag from ABA TECHSHOW.
• California attorney David Sparks reviews a USB cable from Skiva that has both a Lightning connector and a Micro USB connector.
• South Carolina attorney Justin Kahn of iPad Notebook lists the new improvements to Apple’s Pages, Keynote and Numbers apps.
• Jesse Landin of Law Technology News discusses apps with information on construction contracts, maritime emergencies and craft beer.
• Briana Boyington of US News mentions 11 apps for law students.
• John Edwards of Law Technology News discusses 12 iOS research apps.
• Serenity Caldwell of Macworld reviews the Pocket Tripod, a piece of plastic the size of a business card that creatively unfolds into an iPhone tripod.
• David Pogue of Yahoo Tech has tips for recovering space on your iPhone.
• Leah Yamshon of Macworld reviews iPhone cases that add features to your iPhone.
• Andy Ihnatko of The Chicago Sun-Times reviews the new Microsoft Office for iPad.
• Daisuke Wakabayashi of the Wall Street Journal shares stories of the development of the iPhone told by Greg Christie, a former Apple senior software engineer.
• Jeffery Battersby of Macworld reviews PDFpen for iOS.
• And finally, here is a fun video created by EasyExplainVideo that takes the audio from the 2007 introduction of the iPhone by Steve Jobs and adds new graphics to it.  (via The Mac Observer)

I like to take pictures with my iPhone.  When the lighting is good, the pictures can be really great.  When the lighting is poor,  and when I don’t try to go out of my way to take the best possible picture, the quality is less than optimal but the pictures are still nice to have just for the sake of the memories.  I say that because while I took a lot of pictures at ABA TECHSHOW last week, I didn’t take any special efforts to make them great pictures … and yet I’ve decided to post a few of them today anyway, because if you were at TECHSHOW with me, it might be fun to see yourself, and if you were not at TECHSHOW, maybe the pictures will give you somewhat of a sense of why so many people go back to TECHSHOW year after year.  Click on any picture for a larger size.

The Sessions

I sometimes take pictures of the audience when I give a presentation, and I did so at TECHSHOW for my three presentations.  On Thursday morning, I teamed up with Judge Hebert Dixon of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for iPad in Trial / iPad for Litigators.  Here is a picture I took of Judge Dixon and the audience when the judge was showing off using an iPad to give a wireless presentation.

You might notice that in the back of the room there is a large whiteboard.  For some of the TECHSHOW presentations, MyCase hired Stephanie Crowley to produce live murals based on what we were talking about during the presentations.  This is a fun idea that I had never seen before.  Here is Crowley’s drawing of my session with Judge Dixon:

My second session on Tuesday was with Ben Stevens of The Mac Lawyer.  The session was called iGadgets and iGear for the iLawyer, and it consisted of Ben and I showing off our favorite iPhone and iPad accessories.  I forgot to take a picture until just after the session ended, and I only took two pictures of the audience — which results in a horrible panorama — but I suppose it is good enough to get the idea, and to find yourself if you were in the room.

Once again, Crowley created a drawing of our presentation.

On Friday, I attended the Keynote address by Rick Klau of Google.  Before he became an Internet celebrity, Klau was a regular presenter at TECHSHOW, so it was nice to have him return.

On Saturday morning, I teamed up with Reid Trautz, Brett Burney and Chad Burton for the 2014 edition of 60 Apps in 60 Minutes.  (Here is a list of the apps we discussed.)  Unfortunately, Crowley wasn’t around on Saturday morning, but here is the audience.

As you can see, our room was pretty much at capacity with almost every chair taken, folks sitting on the side (you can just barely see one of them in the side of the picture) and folks standing in the back — more and more of them as our presentation progressed.  I was interested to see what kind of attendance we had for our presentation because at the same time that we talked about iOS apps, there was another session talking about Android apps, another session talking about Windows 8.1 apps and another session talking about BlackBerry apps.  To the extent that TECHSHOW is at all a cross-section of the legal technology community, what do the sessions tell us about what devices lawyers are using?

It turns out that legal technology consultant Adriana Linares had the same thought, so she took pictures of each of the four rooms.  Here is the picture that she tweeted from our packed iOS session:

#ABATECHSHOW Crazy packed room for iPad Apps w 4 handsome gents. Is there an app for that? pic.twitter.com/cmqjazBZDr

— Adriana Linares (@AdrianaL) March 29, 2014

Here is what she tweeted from the Android session, which looks like it had a few dozen people.

#ABATECHSHOW Android Tips Session @jeffrey_taylor and Dan Siegel pic.twitter.com/iRIAYkx51w

— Adriana Linares (@AdrianaL) March 29, 2014

Here is what she tweeted from the Windows session, which didn’t look to have much more than a dozen people.

#ABATECHSHOW Win8 Tips Session good job gents! @bschorr @TabletLawyer pic.twitter.com/2bFSe2shbY

— Adriana Linares (@AdrianaL) March 29, 2014

And here is what she tweeted from the BlackBerry session, which appears to have only three people in the audience.

#ABATECHSHOW BBerry Tips session with @DanPinnington doing what he can to keep the dream alive! pic.twitter.com/bukO13EiAv

— Adriana Linares (@AdrianaL) March 29, 2014

Unfortunately for BlackBerry, it gets worse.  One of the three people in the BlackBerry session was Sam Glover of Lawyerist.com who explained to Adriana that he was in the room simply because he “needed a quiet place to work,” and Sam tweeted that one of the other two people in the BlackBerry session was using an iPad to take notes.  We’ve come a very long way from past TECHSHOWs where it seemed like almost everyone was using a BlackBerry.

Here is a picture of the audience in the very last session of TECHSHOW called 60 Sites in 60 Minutes:

And finally, here is a picture from the night before TECHSHOW started when Dallas attorney Tom Mighell gave a presentation at the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue on how lawyers can get the most out of an iPad.  That is a huge Apple Store and it has a nice private meeting room at the top, which is where we were, in addition to the big theater on the second floor.

The Exhibit Hall

I didn’t think to take very many pictures of the Exhibit Hall, but it was very active this year, and it seemed like almost every booth was showing off some sort of mobile solution for the iPhone or iPad — a far cry from just a few years ago.  Here is Clio CEO Jack Newton showing how you can scan a document and then wirelessly send it to your iPhone to file away in the Clio document management system.

Here is the WordPerfect booth where they were showing off a new version of WordPerfect that works on the iPad, although you have to have Internet access for it to work.

One of the biggest topics at TECHSHOW was Microsoft’s announcement mid-Thursday that it was releasing Word, Excel and PowerPoint for the iPad.  There was a very small Microsoft booth at the back of the Exhibit Hall, but it was really just there to show off Windows Surface tablets.  I tried to get them to show me how the Word app on Surface is different from the new Word app on the iPad, but they really had no idea.  I found a few minor differences — for example, the Surface app checks both spelling and grammar while the iPad app just checks spelling — but the apps looked virtually identical. 

People

It is often said that one of the best parts of TECHSHOW is talking to the other people who attend, and I certainly agree with that.  Folks who I met at TECHSHOW gave me lots of idea of apps and accessories that I need to check out, and it was fun and educational to learn how other lawyers are using their iPhones and iPads. 

Wednesday night, I had a really fun dinner with Ernie Svenson, Tom Mighell, Dennis Kennedy, Allison Shields, Philippe Doyle Gray, Antigone Peyton, Adriana Linares and Jason Marsh.  Most of those folks are current or former TECHSHOW presenters from across the country (and in Philippe’s case — from Australia), and it was a great group of folks to be with for the start of TECHSHOW, especially considering the dinner wasn’t planned and just sort of happened as a bunch of us ran into each other.

On Thursday night, I hosted a dinner at Emilio’s Tapas (Sol Y Nieve) along with Brett Burney.  It turned out that Thursday was National Paella Day — which I never knew even existed — so the tapas restaurant gave us free paella, WestlawNext and Lit Software generously paid for the meal, and everyone there had a fantastic time and a lot of laughs.  In attendance were me and Brett Burney along with Casey Hall, Ian O’Flaherty, Julia Cornish, Jennifer Kooren, Tom Withers, Maureen Blando, Thomas Allen, Tim Sullivan and Robyn Elliott.

Friday night I attended the dinner hosted by Randy Juip and Ben Stevens.  I didn’t take a picture of the group, but Ben’s wife Jenny Stevens posted this one on Twitter.

‘Mac’ and Cheese dinner w/ all the guys @themaclawyer @rajuip @iPhoneJD @Wolf_Pinther pic.twitter.com/ZFucZSZPuJ

— Jenny Stevens (@MrsMacLawyer) March 29, 2014

The one person not shown in that picture is the person who took the picture, and he did something that I’ve never seen done before at a steak restaurant.  He ordered an uncooked steak.  I’m not talking about a steak cooked rare, or even Steak Tartare, I’m talking about straight from the refrigerator directly to the plate.  And he ate the whole thing.  Yikes.  I won’t post his name because I don’t want to be responsible for his health insurer dropping his coverage.

I’ll finish the people pictures with four pictures from a very swanky party thrown by Clio.  Here I am with Ian O’Flaherty and Tara Cheever of Lit Software (makers of TrialPad and TranscriptPad).  I see that Tara is holding a MOBiLE CLOTH with an iPhone J.D. logo on it, perhaps to provide some extra warmth along with that blanket on that cold Chicago night.  Thanks again to MOBiLE CLOTH for giving me so many of them to hand out to iPhone J.D. readers throughout the show.

Here I am with Adriana Linares and Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase.

Here are Chad Burton and I preparing (ahem) for our 60 Apps in 60 Minutes presentation.

And here I am with Joshua Lenon of Clio.

This past Saturday morning at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago, Brett Burney, Chad Burton, Reid Trautz and I presented the 2014 installment of 60 Apps in 60 Minutes.  We highlighted a variety of apps including some great new apps, some perennial favorites, and some that were thrown in mostly for the entertainment value.  Here is a the full list.  Many apps are free, but note that some of those require subscriptions or can have extra fees associated with them (e.g. the WestlawNext and Lexis Advance apps).  All of them are worth taking a look at.

Except for the Hangtime! app.  I don’t care what Reid said, I beg you to avoid that one.  Seriously, just don’t do it.

For the apps that I previously reviewed here on iPhone J.D., I added a link to the app name.

1. Microsoft Word for iPad – word processor (free): 

   

2. Reader 7 – document viewer (free): 

   

3. Fantastical 2 – calendar ($3.99): 

   

4. Week Calendar HD – calendar ($2.99): 

   

5. Mynd – calendar and reminder (free): 

   

6. Ita – list manager ($2.99): 

   

7. Gneo – task manager ($4.99): 

   

8. Vesper – notes ($4.99): 

   

9. GoodReader for iPad – manage, view, annotate documents ($4.99): 

   

10. Relativity Binders – e-discovery (free): 

    

11. Documents 5 – manage, view, annotate documents (free): 

    

12. PDF PROvider – convert to PDF, edit PDF ($6.99): 

    

13. PDF Wordsmith – convert from PDF to Word ($6.99): 

    

14. iAnnotate PDF – convert to PDF, annotate PDF ($9.99): 

    

15. PDFpen Scan+ – scan and OCR to PDF ($4.99): 

    

16. Boxer – email ($0.99): 

    

17. 1Password – manage passwords and secure info ($17.99): 

    

18. Box – cloud storage (free): 

    

19. Notability – take notes ($2.99): 

    

20. GoodNotes – take notes ($5.99): 

    

21. Penultimate – take notes (free): 

    

22. Adobe Ideas – draw on pictures (free): 

    

23. Barry – save full-length webpages ($1.99): 

    

24. Skitch – draw on pictures (free): 

    

25. Cycloramic – rotate iPhone to take 360° pictures ($1.99): 

    

26. TuneIn Radio Pro – radio ($3.99): 

    

27. Hourly News – radio ($0.99): 

    

28. Clio – practice management (free): 

    

29. Dkt – federal court PACER filings (free): 

    

30. Rulebook – statutes and other authority, including The Bluebook (free): 

    

31. WestlawNext – legal research (free): 

    

32. Lexis Advance HD – legal research (free): 

    

33. TranscriptPad – annotate deposition transcripts ($89.99): 

    

34. Dictate + Connect – dictaphone ($16.99): 

    

35. SpeakWrite – dictaphone and transcription (free): 

    

36. Pocket – news reader (free): 

    

37. Mr. Reader – news reader ($3.99): 

    

38. Zite – news reader (free): 

    

39. Readquick – news reader, one word at a time ($9.99): 

    

40. Voice Dream – news reader, out loud ($9.99): 

    

41. Ruby Receptionist – receptionist service (free): 

    

42. ZOOM Cloud Meetings – video conferencing (free): 

    

43. Hangouts – chat and video conferencing (free): 

    

44. Stitch It – combine text messaging screenshots ($2.99): 

    

45. LogMeIn – remote access (free): 

    

46. GoToMyPC – remote access (free): 

    

47. Cymbol – special character keyboard ($1.99): 

    

48. Launch Center Pro – shortcuts for launching apps ($4.99): 

    

49. IFTTT – automation (free): 

    

50. Fancy Hands – virtual assistants (free): 

    

51. Namerick – learn people’s names ($0.99): 

    

52. iExit – Interstate exit info (free): 

    

53. Kayak Pro – travel ($0.99): 

    

54. Duolingo – learn foreign language (free): 

    

55. Glasses.com – see what you would look like in new eyeglasses (free): 

    

56. Weather Line – weather forecast ($2.99): 

    

57. Felt Cards – mail handwritten notes (free): 

    

58. Nest Mobile – home automation (free): 

    

59. Alarm.com – home automation (free): 

    

60. Hangtime! – toss your iPhone in the air ($0.99): 

    

I’m at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago right now, and the big news on Thursday was that Microsoft released a version of Word (and Excel, and PowerPoint) for the iPad.  I have been kicking the tires on this app since it was released Thursday afternoon, and I am incredibly impressed.  Unlike Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone released last year, the new Word app for the iPad has virtually every feature that lawyers want to use.  Every attorney who uses an iPad will want to get this app.  [UPDATE:  Click here for my full review of Microsoft Word for iPad.]

Unlike the iPhone app released last year, this app works great with track changes (redline edits).  You can view redline edits, you can create  your own redline edits, and you can control how they display (inline with text or off to the side).  The app also displays footnotes.  And unlike some of the other apps that can revise Word documents, this app seems to preserve formatting.  Thus, someone can email you a document, you can read and edit the document, and then you can send it back to them, all using your iPad and not a computer.

So far, my only complaint with Word for iPad is that while it it easy to get a file into the app, it is difficult to get files out.  You can open a Word document attached to an email by simply holding down your finger on it to see the “Open in” menu and then selecting the Word app.  But once a file is in Word for iPad, you can only save it (to your iPad or to your Microsoft OneDrive) and the only way to get the document out of the app is to email it.  You cannot choose to “Open in” another app, nor can you print, nor can you save to DropBox, Box, or any of the other cloud storage services.  As a workaround, you can email to yourself, and from there you can work with the attachment to your self-directed email.

Anyone can download the app for free and use it to view Word files, and if you have an Office 365 subscription ($100 a year) you can edit and save files.  The release of this app is going to cause a huge number of attorneys to purchase Office 365 accounts.  And all of the third party apps that we have been using for years to view Word documents are going to have to find ways to distinguish themselves.  For example, Reader 7 does a great job of displaying your document full screen, an option not in the current version of Word for iPad.

I haven’t started looking at the new Excel and PowerPoint apps for iPad, but my hope is that they are as good as Word for iPad.

Kudos to Microsoft for releasing such an amazing iPad app that every attorney is going to want to have.

Click here to get Microsoft Word for iPad (free): 

I’ve heard from many iPhone J.D. readers who will be in Chicago for ABA TECHSHOW 2014 this week.  This will be my sixth TECHSHOW, and it is always a great opportunity to learn about technology from formal CLE sessions, vendors showing off cutting edge legal technology and (best of all) other attorneys who enjoy using tech.  This is the first year that TECHSHOW will have an entire track devoted to the iPad, and even outside of the iPad track I’m sure that there will be a lot of talk about the iPhone and iPad in other sessions.  Plus, I expect to see lots of vendors showing off iPhone and iPad related apps and accessories in the exhibit hall. 

Who wants free stuff?

I love to meet iPhone J.D. readers at TECHSHOW, and this year I have something special for you when you see me.  I’ve long been a fan of the micro material cloths sold by MOBiLE CLOTH because they do a fantastic job of keeping an iPhone and iPad screen clean.  I have one at my desks at work and at home, and I carry them around in my briefcase.  MOBiLE CLOTH now makes custom logo cloths, and the company was nice enough to send me dozens of them with iPhone J.D. custom logos to give out to iPhone J.D. readers at TECHSHOW.  Just introduce yourself to me as an iPhone J.D. reader and it is yours for free, thanks to MOBiLE CLOTH.  (Do me a favor, though, and try not to ask me for them right after I finish one of my presentations because that tends to be a time when there are lots of people trying to ask me questions.)  And whether or not you can make it to TECHSHOW this week, for a limited time, MOBiLE CLOTH is offering 25% off & free shipping on any custom package.  Just go to mobilecloth.com and use the promo code iPhoneJD when you order.  A big thank you to MOBiLE CLOTH for doing something nice for iPhone J.D. readers!

THE SCHEDULE

One of the best — and worst — things about TECHSHOW is that with seven different tracks going on at the same time, plus the exhibit hall, plus the concierge booth where lots of people hang out to chat during the day, there is just too much to choose from at any one time.  Here is where you are likely to find me at TECHSHOW, and these are the events that I recommend for iPhone J.D. readers.

Wednesday, March 26:

There are two compelling events at the same time Wednesday night, and I’m not sure which I’m attending yet.

6:00 – 7:00:  LexThink.1.  A fast-paced event at which 10 speakers each have 6 minutes to give presentations on improving the law.  Click here to get free tickets.

6:00 – 7:00:  Legal Networking presented by Tom Mighell, at the Apple Store located at 679 North Michigan Avenue.

Thursday, March 27:

This is the day of the iPad track, so you’ll find me in Salon A-5 most of the day.  All of the sessions are taught by experienced presenters who know a ton about the iPad and iPhone.

9:00 – 10:00:  iPad in Action presented by Jim Calloway and Tom Mighell.

10:15 – 11:15:  iPad in Trial / iPad for Litigators.  This is the first of three iPad-related sessions that I am doing.  Judge Hebert Dixon of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and I will provide advice and show off solutions for litigators who use iPads.

11:30 – 12:30:  This is probably when I’ll start to check out the endless booths at the Expo Hall.

12:45 – 1:45:  Luncheon / James I. Keane Memorial Award.

2:00 – 3:00:  iGadgets and iGear for the iLawyer.  This is my second session.  Ben Stevens of The Mac Lawyer and I will team up to discuss some great iPhone and iPad accessories.

4:00 – 5:00:  Advanced iPad: Working with Word and So Much More.  The timing of this presentation by Brett Burney and Mark Unger could be perfect, because as I noted last week, there are rumors that Microsoft will release Office for the iPad, including a version of Microsoft Word for the iPad, on March 27.  I’m sure that Brett and Mark will talk about that if it does happen, plus show off lots of other advanced iPad tips and tricks.

5:00 – 6:30:  Welcome Reception – EXPO Hall. 

7:00 – ???:  Taste of Techshow – iStuff (iPads and iPhones).  Brett Burney and I are hosting this Taste of Techshow dinner at Emilio’s Tapas (Sol Y Nieve).  (UPDATE:  Thanks to WestlawNext for sponsoring our dinner!)  The dinner was sold out soon after the ABA started taking reservations, but there is usually a waiting list just in case someone cancels so if you really want to join us, maybe you can still do so.  If you can’t, there lots of other great Taste of Techshow dinners where you can meet some great people and enjoy a great meal.

Friday, March 28:

8:00 – 10:00.  I still haven’t decided which sessions I will attend for the two morning sessions.  I might even use this time to see more booths at the Expo Hall.

10:00 – 11:30:  Concierge Booth.  The Concierge Booth is technically the place to go if you have any questions.  You can see the conference schedule, sign up for Taste of Techshow dinners, etc.  But the Concierge Booth also tends to be the central location where lots of people hang out to talk with others.  So whether you have a question or just want to talk about your favorite apps, I’m signed up to be there from 10:00 11:30 on Friday, and I’m likely to be there other times as well.

11:30 – 12:30:  Lunch ‘N Learn Sessions.  There are lots of great sessions where you can also get a free lunch.  I’ll probably attend the WestlawNext one.

12:45 – 1:45:  Keynote by Rick Klau.  Klau is now a partner at Google Ventures but few lawyers have been as involved in technology as Klau.  For example, Klau is one of the people responsible for Google Scholar.  This should be a great keynote — even though it will be tough to top the fantastic Keynote given last year by David Pogue of the New York Times (now of Yahoo Tech).

2:30 – 3:30:  I’m trying to decide between two sessions.  Lincoln Mead and Nerino Petro of the Utah and Wisconsin State Bars will present Road Tested: Gear, Gadgets & Guides that Smooth the Bumps in the Practice Road, which sounds interesting.  But at the same time, there is a session called Lone Wolf: Being the Only Mac in a PC Firm, presented by Randy Juip and Ben Stevens.  Even though I use a PC at my office, I do use a Mac when I work at home.  More importantly, not only is Stevens a great presenter, but Juip is often one of the funniest, most entertaining presenters at TECHSHOW, so any session that he does is worth seeing.

3:45 – 4:45:  Again, I’m trying to decide between two sessions.  Bill Latham and Catherine Sanders Reach will present Mobility Killed the PC-Star – Can A Tablet Replace the Attorney’s PC?  But at the same time, Tom Mighell and Reid Trautz will present Less Paper More Mobility as a part of the Paperless Track.

5:00 – 6:00:  60 Tips in 60 Minutes.  This fast-paced session is always full of great legal tech tips.

5:30 – 7:00:  Beer for Blawgers.  This is always a fun social event, sponsored by Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog.  You won’t see it on the official TECHSHOW schedule, but it should be in the Hilson’s Lakeside Green Lounge.

8:00 – 9:30:  I might sign up for a Taste of Techshow dinner this night, but if not I’ll probably attend Cocktails and Comedy. 

Saturday, March 29:

8:30 – 10:00.  Nixon’s Watergate Abuses: The Hackings That Forever Changed Legal Ethics, presented by John Dean, who was White House counsel to President Nixon.

10:15 – 11:15:  60 Apps in 60 Minutes. The room was packed when we did this presentation in 2010, 2011 and 2012.  Now it is back and better than ever.  This year, my co-presenters are Reid Trautz (Reid and I did the first two in 2010 and 2011), Brett Burney (Brett joined me for the 2012 version, along with Josh Barrett, who at the time published Tablet Legal) and Ohio litigator Chad Burton. 

11:30 – 12:30:  60 Sites in 60 Minutes.

Finally, if this will be your first TECHSHOW, or if you just want a refresher, New York attorney Niki Black has a great All You Need to Know post with details for preparing for, and getting the most out of TECHSHOW.  Also, Tim Baran of Rocket Matter wrote this post with tips for attending TECHSHOW.  The ABA itself has this guide for first-time attendees.  And Reid Trautz has a post recommending apps to use during TECHSHOW.

See you in the Windy City!

Horace Dediu of Asymco has an interesting chart showing iPhone share of phone industry shipments, revenues and profits from 2007 to today.  On all three scales, the iPhone started at 0% when it was introduced in 2007.  In terms of shipments, it has now made it up to 10% of all mobile phones.  But in terms of revenue, the iPhone now sees 30% of all mobile phone revenue.  And most importantly, the iPhone now sees over 60% of all mobile phone profits.  No wonder that Apple is now the most valuable company in the world.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Texas attorneys Carolyn Latimer & Patrick A. Wright interview Texas attorneys Erin Hendricks and Rick Robertson to find out how they use an iPad in their law practice in this article for Law Practice magazine.
• Massachusetts lawyer Heidi Alexander provides a few simple iPhone security tips.
• I’m sure that many of you have already upgraded your iPhone and iPad to iOS 7.1, but whether you have already upgraded or you plan to do so in the future, Rene Ritchie of iMore posted a great, extensive overview of everything that is new in iOS 7.1
• John Arlidge interviewed Jony Ive, the chief designer at Apple, in an article that appears in Time magazine.
• Geoffrey Fowler of the Wall Street Journal reviews and likes Sonos if you are looking for a sophisticated wireless speaker system for your iPhone.
• Nick Guy of iLounge reviews the Bad Elf Charge & Sync Cable, a Lightning to USB cable that has a bent end at the Lightning side that might make it the perfect cable for many situations, such as when your iPhone is in a windsheild mount.
• Do you want to hear what Siri sounds like in other languages?  Vocab Ninja has a page where you can listen to the famous movie line “Luke, I am your father” as said by all of the different Siri voices.  (via Cult of Mac)
• And yes, I realize that the line “Luke, I am your father” is never really said in The Empire Stripes Back, and much like “Play it again Sam” it is one of those lines that we all think that we remember from a movie.
• And finally, Jeffrey Stephenson created an enclosure for an iPad mini and a Jawbone Jambox speaker that is a throwback to a DuMont TV from the 1950s.  (via The Mac Observer)

Tom Warren of technology website The Verge reported on Monday that “Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans” have told him that Microsoft will release Microsoft Office for the iPad next week.  Microsoft recently promoted Satya Nadella to be its new CEO, and on Thursday, March 27, Nadella will hold his first press event as Microsot CEO.  Warren reports that Nadella will use the occasion to introduce Microsoft Office for the iPad.  I didn’t write about this rumor yesterday because we have been hearing rumors of an upcoming version of Microsoft Office for iPad since 2011.  But the more I look into it, I think that there might be something to this latest rumor.

First, rumors are generally most reliable when they predict something that is not very far away.  This rumor concerns something happening next week.

Second, the reporter who wrote the story for The Verge, Tom Warren, has credibility.  He is the Microsoft reporter for The Verge, he has been covering the company for years and he seems to know quite a bit about what is going on at Microsoft.  For example, on March 12, 2014, Warren reported that according to sources familiar with Microsoft plans, Microsoft would release OneNote for Mac in March … and sure enough, that software was released this week.  On September 9, 2013, Warren reported that according to his sources, Microsoft would reveal the Surface 2 on September 23, 2013 … and sure enough, it did.  On August 24, 2013, Warren reported that his sources were telling him that Windows 8.1 would be available to download on October 17, 2013 … and sure enough, it was.

Third, other experienced reporters are saying that their sources tell them the same thing.  Barb Darrow of GigaOm reported yesterday that her sources confirmed Tuesday morning that Office for iPad would be revealed next week.  Additionally, Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet, who has been covering Microsoft for decades, reports that “According to several sources of mine, Microsoft’s latest timetable calls for the company to finally introduce the long-rumored Microsoft Office for iPad suite of applications before the end of March 2014.  This March 27 event sounds like it might be the time and place.”

For these three reasons, I think that there may be something to this rumor that we will see Microsoft Office for iPad next week.  But in my mind the more important question is:  will it be a full-featured app or one of more limited usefulness?  Microsoft released Microsoft Office Mobile for the iPhone in June of 2013, and as I noted in my review, it is a mixed bag.  The good news is that you can read and edit Word documents without losing any of the document formatting.  So if someone sends you a draft of a brief, you can revise it and email it back without worrying about deleting some of the styles, messing up the fonts, etc.  Other iPhone apps — including Apple’s own Pages — are far less successful. 

The bad news is that the features in Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone are limited.  For example, you cannot see redline edits (tracked changes) in a document, nor can you see footnotes — two features that attorneys use every day.  You can view, but you cannot edit .doc files; the app only edits .docx files.  You also cannot change fonts, paragraph formatting (even simple formatting like a bullet list or a numbered list), line justification or indents.

Darrow and Foley’s articles say nothing about the features of the rumored app, and Warren’s article doesn’t tell us much more.  First Warren says that the “iPad variant of Office will be similar to the iPhone version,” which concerns me.  But then he says:  “We’re told that document creation and editing is fully supported.”  That certainly sounds good, albeit inconsistent with the first statement about the iPhone version.

For years now, the #1 iPad question that attorneys ask me has been what is the best way to work with Microsoft Word files on an iPad.  My fingers are crossed that Microsoft will unveil an app next week that satisfies the needs of attorneys.

According to the 2013 ABA Tech Survey, over half of all attorneys use iPhones, and over 90% use a smartphone.  When the 2014 numbers come out in a few months, I suspect that we will see even more lawyers using smartphones.  And of course, our clients are increasingly using iPhones and other smartphones too.  Virtually every law firm has a website (and those that don’t, should).  Considering that the primary visitors are clients (current and potential) and other lawyers, and that so many of them use mobile devices, I think it makes good sense for a law firm to have a mobile version of its website, one that is optimized for the smaller screen of a smartphone. 

For the past three years, the Law Firm Mobile website has conducted a study to look at mobile efforts by large law firms, including the number of AmLaw 200 firms with mobile websites.  The 2013 results were released in three parts (1, 2, 3) and the last part came out yesterday.  The results surprised me.

The first part of the report reveals that the number of AmLaw 200 law firms with mobile-optimized websites increases every year, but it is still less than half.  As of the end of 2013, only 85 of the AmLaw 200 law firms had mobile sites.

Source:  Law Firm Mobile Report for 2013

The report also reveals that if you look at the 2013 Global 100 list, only 39 (39%) have mobile sites. 

The upward trend for AmLaw 200 firms — 54 in 2012 and 37 in 2011 — is no surprise.  However, by now, I would have expected to see mobile websites from well more than 50% of the AmLaw 200 law firms.  I joked when last year’s report came out that my law firm, Adams and Reese, was #1 on the list, and we are still #1 this year — which sounds good until you realize that it is an alphabetical list.  But with still less than 50% of AmLaw 200 firms having mobile websites, every law firm on the list should be proud to be a member of this surprisingly small group.

What do good law firm mobile websites look like?  The second part of the survey explores that very issue, pointing out that some law firms aim for simplicity while others seek to do something creative for mobile devices.  By way of example, here is what my law firm’s mobile website looks like.  It comes up automatically when a mobile device goes to our website (or you can manually go there by going to m.adamsandreese.com, but mobile websites feel wrong on the large screen of a computer).

The third part of the report reveals that 36 (18%) of the AmLaw 200 firms create apps.  Virtually all of them are iPhone apps, but some law firms offer Android apps and very few offer BlackBerry apps.  As a general rule, I have a mixed feeling on a law firm creating an app.  A few are good, but many of them offer no real value over a website, require a lot of upkeep, and are unlikely to be downloaded by many people.  I think that most law firms are better served just by creating mobile versions of their websites, although I am certainly intrigued to see the rare law firm apps that are compelling. 

If your law firm doesn’t currently offer a mobile version of its website, I encourage you to consider creating one.  As this study reveals, doing so will help you to stand out in the crowd.