I'm still on the fence on whether and when to get an iPad (and if so, whether to get the original or the 3G version) and I expect that many of you are in the same boat.  Thus, I'm always intrigued to read about how other lawyers are using an iPad to do things that they couldn't do with an iPhone.

Peter Summeril is a plaintiff's attorney in Utah with the firm Hasenyager & Summerill, and he also runs the website MacLitigator.  Summeril recently tried a case against a public golf course after his client's golf cart flipped in an area he alleged was steep, improperly banked and leaf covered.  The jury found the city 70% at fault and found damages to be $361,661.  But what really interested me about the trial is that he used an iPad to run his openings and closings, display admitted documents and display deposition transcripts during cross-examination.  As Summeril describes on his MacLitigator website, the iPad worked so well that his laptop "sat somewhat despondent at counsel’s table" only used once for a quick search during trial.

If you are an attorney trying to decide whether to get an iPad, or an iPad owner trying to decide how it can be used at trial, be sure to read Summeril's great post.

As someone who travels a fair bit, I often have layovers at an airport while I wait for the next flight.  Typically there is just enough time to get something to eat or buy something I need, but the time is tight enough that I need to be efficient in doing so.  GateGuru is a very helpful app that lets you make the most of your time in the airport.  It used to cost $1.99, but now it is free.

When you start the app, if you are at an airport the app quickly figures out where you are.  Otherwise, you can jump the last airport at which you used the app or you can select from a list of airports.

Once you select an airport, the app allows you to select a particular terminal or concourse and then shows you all of the establishments at that concourse.  You can filter the list to only display food options, shops or services.  Each entry displays the name, category and location so you know where in the concourse to find the establishment.

You can tap on an entry to get more information such as reviews.  I rarely find the reviews helpful, but sometimes they are, such as this review indicating that the particular restaurant is one of only two sit-down restaurants at the concourse.

In addition to limiting your search to a particular concourse, you also can search the entire airport.  For example, let’s say you are at the Atlanta airport (which has a great train making it easy to go from one terminal to another) and you feel like going to the Chick-fil-A.  Where is it?  GateGuru quickly tells you that it is on Concourse A, right next to Gate A10.  Instead of wasting time looking for a directory in the airport and then looking over other peoples’ heads as they also try to figure out where to go, you can just head straight to the A10 area.

I’ve done a lot of traveling over the last few months, and this app has been a big help.  GateGuru makes it easy to quickly determine restaurant options or find a service, from an ATM to a shoeshine.  I see that the app has several other features — for example, it allows you to add bookmarks, review establishments, suggest additional entries for the app — but I haven’t used any of them.  For me, the core function of the app, the ability to efficiently determine what is available at an airport, makes this a must-have iPhone app for the frequent or occasional traveler.

Click here to get GateGuru (free): 

I’ve been a Macworld reader and subscriber for as long as I can remember, and today the magazine and its website are perhaps the best source of iPhone news and reviews.  The first issue of Macworld was released on January 24, 1984, the same day that the Macintosh itself was introduced by Steve Jobs.  Last year, on the 25th anniversary of Macworld, the magazine’s current editor, Jason Snell, wrote about that first issue revealing, for example, that there is no date on the issue because nobody knew for sure which day the Macintosh would debut.  Kev Kitchens of Low End Mac wrote another good article about the first issue of Macworld, which apparently included an interview with Bill Gates.

One of the founders of Macworld magazine was David Bunnell, a media entrepreneur who founded other magazines such as PC World.  Earlier this month, he started a series of posts called “My Close Encounters with Steve Jobs” on his website in which he describes the origin of Macworld magazine.  The posts are very entertaining and include lots of humorous stories about Bunnell’s meetings with a much younger Steve Jobs.

If you enjoy reading entertaining stories about Apple history, you will love this series of posts.  Here is a link to Part 1, and from there you can page through his website to get to the most recent entry, although along the way you’ll have to skip through some other posts which are not part of the story.  Or, here are direct links to the entries so far: [I’ve updated this post to include links to all 15 parts.]

Part 1: Meeting Steve

Part 2: Seeing the Macintosh for the Very First Time

Part 3:  We Met with the REAL Steve Jobs and He Showed Us the Macintosh!

Part 4:  Steve Jobs Tells Us to “Belly Up to the Bar”

Part 5:  Steve Jobs Comes Up with a Weird, Outlandish, Bizarre, Puzzling and Stunning Ad to Introduce the Macintosh

Part 6:  Steve Jobs Poses for 1st Cover of Macworld, Then Changes His Mind, but…

Part 7:  Andrew Fluegelman Urges Apple to Delay the Mac’s Introduction

Part 8:  Pat McGovern Meets with Steve, the Deal is Done

Part 9:  Steve is F*cking Great!

Part 10:  Steve Thumbs his Nose at the Apple II

Part 11:  The Macintosh Speaks for Itself (literally)

Part 12:  The Fat Mac Saves the Day

Part 13:  Steve Brings Tina to the Macworld Dinner Party

Part 14:  Ella Fitzgerald Sings Happy Birthday to a “Young Man Named Steve”

Part 15:  Steve’s NeXT Big Thing

This is a great series of stories about Steve Jobs and the early days of the Mac and Macworld.

I’m attending the PLAC conference in San Antonio in a few days.  If you are also attending
and you want to meet up and talk about all things iPhone, send me an e-mail or just track me down at the conference.  I look forward to seeing some of you there.

The big iPhone story this week was the prototype iPhone purchased by Gizmodo for $5,000.  Heck, even I couldn’t resist talking about it twice.  But believe it or not, that wasn’t the only iPhone news of note.  Here is the other iPhone-related news that I came across and wanted to share with you.

• MacUser UK reports that Google announced yesterday that it plans to bring free turn-by-turn navigation to the iPhone, although it didn’t say when it would do so.  The free turn-by-turn directions that Google provides with its Android phones has gotten good reviews, so from that standpoint it would be nice to see it on the iPhone … unless you happen to be one of the developers of an iPhone app that does the same thing.  I imagine that the more expensive apps on the iPhone will continue to offer premium features, but it could make it difficult for some of the less expensive iPhone apps which have more limited features.  (Link via Chicago attorney Dan Saavedra.)  [UPDATE:  Now Google is saying that they didn’t really mean that it is coming to the iPhone, according to this report from PC World.  “We did not say we would bring it to iPhone, we said to date we’ve had
  
  it on Android and that in the future it may come to other platforms but
  
  did not confirm this will be coming to iPhone at all.”  Hmm.]
• If you are a tax attorney, you might be interested in two “Law ToGo” apps from Jade Nile, LLC that came out over the last month.  One contains the Tax Code and the other contains the Treasury Regulations.  You can see videos of each app on the Law ToGo website, and attorney Martha Sperry has a review on her Advocate’s Studio website that walks through the features of the app.
• Zusha Elinson writes for The Recorder / Law.com about Apple’s outside IP litigation counsel.  Weil, Gotshal is handling a counterclaim filed by Apple against Kodak last week, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr is handling a dispute with Nokia, and Kirland & Ellis is handling Apple’s patent offensive against HTC over Google Android phones.
• Speaking of lawsuits, Charles Starrett of iLounge reports on a new class action filed against Apple alleging false-positive readings on the iPhone’s moisture sensors.  I once stood in line behind someone at the Apple Store Genius Bar who was quite insistent that her teenage son had NOT gotten his iPhone wet and therefore it was still in warranty.  I didn’t buy her story at the time, but who knows.
• Earlier this week, I discussed Apple’s last fiscal quarter in which it sold a record number of iPhones.  Those sales benefited not only Apple but also AT&T, which sold 2.7 million of the 8.75 million iPhones last quarter.  Electronista has more details.
• Apple added a support article to its Knowledge Base warning people that if you jailbreak your iPhone, it may become unstable.  I agree, and that is why even though I know that there are some interesting things that you can do once you jailbreak an iPhone, I have never done so and I don’t recommend that you do so unless you fully appreciate and accept the risks.
• If you want a really thin battery case for your iPhone, for a long time the Mophie Juice Pack has been the product of choice.  However, Engadget reports that MiLi has come out with a similar case that is a twentieth of an inch less thick.  So there.
• Apple has been running some new ads for the iPhone, continuing its theme of showing off great apps.  You can see all of the latest ads on the Apple website right here.
• Marco Tabini of Macworld looks at the feature currently in the iPad in limited fashion, and coming to the iPhone in 4.0 this Summer, that allows you select a document in an app such as Mail and choose to open it in a third party app.
• Greg Lambert at 3 Geeks and a Law Blog writes about Thomson Reuters offering prizes for app developers.  The focus of this contest is apps for financial professionals, but I hope that the company is also working on a useful Westlaw app for the iPhone.
• Paul Miller of Engadget writes a good report on what we know about the hardware features of the “lost” prototype iPhone that Gizmodo purchased for $5,000.  I imagine that we will see most if not all of these features in the next generation iPhone that I expect Apple to debut in June.
• Infamous bank robber Willie Sutton has been widely (and perhaps falsely) quoted as answering the question of why he robbed banks by saying “because that’s where the money is.”  You might expect that Apple puts Apple Stores in the areas of the country where there are the most people who buy Apple products, but as Gary Allen of ifoAppleStore reports, this is actually not the case.
• Tony Bradley writes in his Tech Audit column at PC World that the upcoming 3G version of the iPad could be the ideal mobile business tool.  I’m still trying to decide whether to buy an iPad, but my current thinking is that the 3G version makes the most sense for lawyers.
• On the other hand, the Wi-Fi version of the iPad will work just fine if you have a portable Wi-Fi hotspot such as the MiFi.  The MiFi, which gets great reviews, typically sells for anywhere from $50 to $250, but Amazon is currently selling it for ONE CENT if you get a two year Verizon contract ($40 a month for 250 MB of access, $60 a month for 5 GB of access).  Sounds like a great deal.
• Jeff Smykil of Ars Technica reports
  
  on data from advertising group Chitika which leads them to conclude that over half of
  
  all iPad users use Windows at home.  The data source sounds a little
  
  unreliable to me, but the conclusion may well be correct.
• Bill Gates on the iPad, as reported
  
  by Phil Bronstein of the San Francisco Chronicle:  “It’s okay. The
  
  scenarios aren’t that clear. But it’s good looking.
  
  [Steve Jobs] does good design, and [the iPad] is absolutely a good
  
  example of that.”
• And finally, would you like to turn your iPhone into a retro phone?  Then you’ll want to get the iRetrofone Base being sold on Etsy for $195.00.  (Link via iPhone Savior)

Earlier this week I discussed the circumstances surrounding Gizmodo paying $5,000 for a prototype of a next generation iPhone that was lost in a bar.  As I noted in my earlier post, most of the Gizmodo articles say that the iPhone was “lost,” but after Apple sent Gizmodo a formal demand for the return of the iPhone, Gizmodo’s Brian Lam said to Apple:  “Just so you
know, we didn’t know this was stolen when we bought it.” 

Stolen?  I don’t practice law in California, but (non-attorney) John Gruber said on a podcast this week that he believes that this iPhone is “stolen” under California law, citing California Penal Code Section 485.  That provision states:

One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft.

You can imagine the argument that the person who found this iPhone in a bar knew who the true owner was and, by deciding to sell it for $5,000, appropriated the property without first making “reasonable and just efforts” to return the iPhone and, therefore, is guilty of theft.

What about Gizmodo?  Well, take a look at California Penal Code Section 496(a), which provides in part:

Every person who buys or receives any property that has been stolen or that has been obtained in any manner constituting theft or extortion, knowing the property to be so stolen or obtained, or who conceals, sells, withholds, or aids in concealing, selling, or withholding any property from the owner, knowing the property to be so stolen or obtained, shall be punished by imprisonment in a state prison, or in a county jail for not more than one year.

If the person who obtained the iPhone in the bar is guilty of violating § 485, then that means that the iPhone was “obtained in any manner constituting theft.”  Gizmodo bought that property for $5,000, so it would seem that it could be found guilty under § 496(a) … if Gizmodo knew the property “to be so stolen or obtained”. 

Did Gizmodo know that the prototype iPhone was stolen?  Gizmodo says that it learned that this iPhone was really an Apple product once it opened up the iPhone, but didn’t learn that the owner was an Apple employee until the afternoon of Monday, April 19, 2010.  Here is what Gizmodo currently says on its website, and note that much of this language — I believe the part that Gizmodo is now placing in italics — was added or changed in this post after it first went up on the Gizmodo website at 8:10 p.m. on the 19th:

Gizmodo got it for $5,000 in cash. At the time, we didn’t know if it
was the real thing or not. It didn’t even get past the Apple logo screen.
Once we saw it inside and out, however, there was no doubt about it. It
was the real thing, so we started to work on documenting it before
returning it to Apple. We had the phone, but we didn’t know the owner.
Later, we learnt about this story, but we didn’t know for sure it was [the Apple employee]’s phone until today, when we contacted him via his phone.

Gizmodo talked to Apple on Monday afternoon, so it appears that Gizmodo is taking the position that it didn’t “know” that this iPhone was stolen from an Apple employee until the afternoon of April 19th, and soon after that Gizmodo talked to Apple and made plans to return the iPhone.  But if Gizmodo learned days earlier, when it took apart the iPhone, that it was a real Apple device, and depending upon what Gizmodo was told before it paid $5,000 for the device in the first place, you can imagine the argument that Gizmodo had the requisite knowledge before April 19th.

So did the person who found the iPhone in the bar break the law?  Did Gizmodo break the law?  I don’t know, and none of us can know, without knowing all of the facts.  Indeed, the only facts that we have at this point are the facts
disclosed by Gizmodo on its website, and as noted above, Gizmodo has at
least once updated its post to change or add different facts. 
Presumably there is another side to this story, and we are not hearing
it.  Moreover, I don’t even know the law because I don’t practice criminal law in California.  There may be other applicable statutes that I am not considering.  If any California lawyers see something that I am missing, please let me know and I will update this post.

Apple now has the iPhone back in its possession.  Jason Chen of Gizmodo revealed on the Adam Carolla podcast that someone from Apple legal — perhaps Bruce Sewell himself? — came to Chen’s house on Monday night and picked it up.  Even if the law was broken, we don’t know whether Apple would press charges or pursue any civil remedies.  I can envision Apple deciding that it doesn’t make sense to go after a journalist, even though paying for stolen property may be different from a journalist paying for information or photographs.

If you want additional perspectives on all of this, be sure to check out this post on Technovia by Ian Betteridge and this post by John Gruber on Daring Fireball.  Neither are attorneys, but both seem to have a good handle on the legal issues, and Gruber has some unique insights on the facts.

[UPDATE 4/24/10:  CNET reports that local police are investigating to determine whether a crime was committed.]

[UPDATE 4/26/10:  Gizmodo reports that on Friday, April 23, police seized the computers at the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen, the person who obtained the “lost” prototype iPhone for Gizmodo after the company paid $5,000 for it.  Gizmodo reports that it wants to invoke the Journalist Shield Law.  John Gruber’s commentary on this is:  “Journalist
shield laws are about journalists being able to protect sources who
may have committed crimes. They’re not a license for journalists to
commit crimes themselves. Gawker is making an argument that is beside
the point. They’re arguing, ‘Hey,
bloggers are journalists.’ The state of California is arguing ‘Hey, you
committed a felony.'”]

Apple’s 2010 fiscal first quarter began on September 27, 2009 and
ended on December 26, 2009.  The second fiscal quarter ended on March 27, 2010.  Thus, Apple’s Q2 always falls after the big holiday sales season and before the big educational buying season, and historically, it is one of the lowest quarters for Apple.  But thanks to the iPhone, this year that is not true.  Last night, Apple announced its 2010 Fiscal Second Quarter results, and Apple had an amazing quarter of sales.

If you want to hear the full call yourself, you can download
it from iTunes or you can read
the transcript provided by Seeking Alpha.  You can also read a short Apple press release here.  But if you just want the iPhone-related highlights of the call, then you are in the right place.  As usual, the questions were answered by Apple’s Chief Financial Officer, Peter Oppenheimer and Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook.

• Oppenheimer said that Apple had an “outstanding March quarter” that “exceeded our expectations.”  He explained:  “Revenue was $13.5 billion, a 49% increase over the prior March quarter’s
  
  results. This very strong performance was due primarily to the more
  
  than doubling of iPhone sales and the strong momentum of our Mac
  
  products.”  The quarter before the last one (which included the holiday season) was Apple’s best quarter ever, but 2010 Q2 was the second best quarter in Apple’s history, and the best non-holiday quarter ever.
• The iPhone was a huge reason for Apple’s amazing quarter.  Apple sold 8.75 million iPhones during the quarter.  This is the largest number of iPhones that Apple has ever sold in any quarter, and was even 50,000 more than Apple sold last year in the 2010 Q1 holiday quarter (September 27, 2009 to December 26, 2009), which held the prior record for the most iPhones sold.
• Apple received, on average, about $620 per iPhone sold in the quarter.  (Carriers like AT&T subsidize the iPhone price so that consumers pay far less than $620, and AT&T makes up the difference through its monthly fees.)  
  
  This compares to the around $170 that Apple makes for each iPod sold and
  
  around $1,275 that Apple makes for every Mac sold.  (Apple
  
  make more when the sale is from an Apple store instead of a third party
  
  reseller.)
• The iPod touch — which many call the iPhone without the phone — also had a sales increase of 63% over last year.
• As a result, a full 40% of Apple’s revenue last quarter — $5.445 billion — came from the iPhone.  To put this in perspective, Apple’s Macintosh computer sales were up compared to this quarter last year, but as a percentage share Apple’s revenues Mac sales were down to 28% because of the phenomenal iPhone sales.  Nobody can dispute the significance of the iPhone to Apple.
• To further put this in perspective, this time last year Apple was thrilled and surprised to have sold 3.8 million iPhones during the quarter.  They more than doubled that this year.
• To further put this in perspective, although there was growth in the overall smartphone market this past quarter, the iPhone unit growth of 131% outgrew the market by three times.
• To further put this in perspective, check out the yellow line in this great chart prepared by Macworld in its excellent article on the conference call.  (You can also read a transcript of live chat by Macworld writers and a few others that took place during the call.)

• The iPhone is now sold in 88 countries and is available on 151 carriers.
• Customers once again ranked the iPhone #1 in the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 U.S. Wireless Smart Phone Customer Satisfaction survey.
• Apple is looking forward to the release of iPhone OS 4, which Oppenheimer said is coming “this summer.”  No specific date or month was revealed, and instead Oppenheimer merely confirmed that there will be two improvements to the iPhone
  
  this summer:  (1) software, the new iPhone software 4.0 that was recently
  
  previewed, and (2) hardware, the “new iPhones that will be coming
  
  this summer.”
• There have been over 4 billion apps downloaded from the App Store.  There are over 185,000 apps available, including over 3,500 for the iPad.  Apple confirmed that it operates the App Store, like its iTunes music store, at essentially a break-even point making only a small amount of profit.  The money that Apple makes from the App Store for the most part goes right back into improving the App Store because the primary reason for the App Store is to promote iPhone (and iPod touch and iPad) sales.
• Tim Cook answered a question about why Apple has multiple carriers in many countries but only one carrier in some countries, such as the U.S. which has only AT&T.  Cook said that every time Apple has changed a country from a single carrier exclusive to a non-exclusive with multiple carriers, iPhone growth has increased and market share has improved.  However, Apple does not believe that this would be the result in every country, and there re still three main counties with a contractual exclusive relationship:  the U.S., Germany and Spain.  Cook did not give any indication of when or whether the iPhone would ever become available on multiple carriers in those three countries.
• When asked about how the price of the iPhone affects sales, Oppenheimer said that even when the $99 version of the iPhone 3G came out last year, Apple was surprised at the large number of people who still opted for the more expensive iPhone 3GS.  Price is important, but Oppenheimer said that it is not the only factor that determines what people buy.
• There was also some discussion of the iPad on this call.  Apple did not reveal any specific iPad numbers because the iPad
  
  started shipping in April, after the 2010 Q2 quarter ended.  Nevertheless,
  
  Oppenheimer said that “we feel very, very good about the start of
  
  iPad.”  He also said:  “I think it is a new category and certainly it is early but we really,
  
  really like what we see right now.  We had what we thought were high
  
  hopes and it exceeded those.”  Tim Cook added:  “We will see where this thing goes but it has
  
  shocked us the level of
  
  demand at least initially.”
• When asked how an iPad compares to a netbook, Tim Cook said that there is no comparison.  “To me it is a no-brainer.  iPad/Netbook, it is sort of 100 to zero.  I
  
  can’t think of a single thing the netbook does well.  iPad does so many
  
  things very, very well.  I am already personally addicted to mine and
  
  couldn’t live without it.”
• Apple plans to open 40-50 new stores during fiscal 2010, half of
  
  those in international locations such as London, Paris and Shanghai.
• And finally, Apple was asked how much it spends on legal expenses, but
  
  Oppenheimer ducked the question, merely saying:  “We have certainly
  
  factored into the guidance we have given you for the
  
  June quarter and results we have reported for March our legal and other
  
  expenses.  Whatever we are incurring in that area is included.”

It really wasn’t that long ago that you frequently saw articles in the press about how Apple was dying as a company.  Many companies and law firms (such as mine) that had traditionally been all-Macintosh shops switched over to Windows.  But thanks first to the iPod, and now with the iPhone, Apple is stronger than ever.  Time will tell whether the iPad proves to be as important as the iPod and iPhone have been, but for Apple products as a whole, the future looks bright, and I can’t wait to see what Apple brings us next.

Apple is famously secret about the new features coming in its unannounced products.  As a result, there is always a lot of speculation about what is coming in its next generation products and a lot of (free) publicity for Apple when the product is finally announced, especially when Steve Jobs himself unveils the new product.  For example, everyone expects a new iPhone to be unveiled by Apple this summer, perhaps in late June, so normally we would expect a lot of speculation for the next two months, followed by the big reveal, followed by a ton of buzz and excitement.  Presumably, the end result would be a boost in sales of the next generation iPhone.

For this sequence to work best, Apple needs to keep the details of a new device secret.  It is difficult to generate buzz when people already know what is coming.  However, this past Saturday, Engadget posted blurry photographs of what it claimed to be the next generation of the Apple iPhone.  And then yesterday, Gizmodo revealed that it actually had the device in question because it paid $5,000 to a person who picked it up in a bar after an Apple employee mistakenly forgot the device on a bar stool.

The story that has unfolded over the last 48+ hours is fascinating, as reflected in the following:

1. Original Engadget story on Saturday with blurry pictures purporting to show the next generation iPhone.
2. Followup Engadget story on Sunday asserting that the pictures are real.
3. Monday morning post on Gizmodo revealing that the site had acquired the device, including video and photos of the device, and listing the new hardware features such as a camera on the front (presumably for video chat), a flash next to the camera on the back, a possible secondary mic on the top of the device for noise cancellation, split buttons for volume, and improved display, a flat back made of glass or ceramic, a larger battery and a more squared off design.
4. Monday morning tweet by Nilay Patel, an attorney who is an editor at Engadget, stating that “in California, the
   
   finder of a lost item is required to tell the police and turn it over
   
   to rightful owner.”  Patel subsequently tweeted that he was referring to Cal. Civ. Code § 2080.
   
5. Monday afternoon tweet from Nick Denton, head of Gizmodo’s parent company Gawker, confirming that Gizmodo had paid for the device.
6. Monday night post on Gizmodo identifying the Apple employee who they assert lost the device and the alleged details on how it was left in a bar on a bar stool by mistake.
7. Monday night AP story saying that Gizmodo paid $5,000 for the device.
8. Monday night online New York Times story (printed this morning on page B1 of the newspaper) outlining the sequence of events.
9. Late Monday night post on Gizmodo by Brian Lam stating that the Apple had called during the day to ask for the device back, Gizmodo responded it wanted a formal demand [in other words, something that Gizmodo could publish on its website], and that in response Apple’s Senior VP and General Counsel Bruce Sewell sent a formal demand letter.  Note that Brian Lam says in his reply to Apple:  “Just so you know, we didn’t know this was stolen when we bought it.”  Stolen?  By the way, if you want to know more about Bruce Sewell, I posted about him last September when Apple hired him as its new general counsel.

[UPDATE:  This is an interesting post by Ian Betteridge, who is not an attorney, about the potential civil and criminal liability of Gizmodo and the person who the site paid $5,000.  Link via Daring Fireball.]

Thus, it appears that the device that Gizmodo asserts was left in a bar on March 18, 2010 is indeed Apple’s property.  Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the device is exactly what Apple will reveal this summer.  It could be just one of several possible prototypes with some features that will not be included and missing other features that will be included.  One can only speculate.  But whether or not the device itself is what we will see this summer, I agree with John Gruber who noted on his Daring Fireball website that “the story behind this unit is almost certainly more interesting than the device itself. And the device
is fascinating.” 

And if the device really was mistakenly left in a bar by an Apple employee as Gizmodo asserts (although its latest post does say “stolen”), I feel bad for the Apple employee who made that mistake.  We’ve all had moments in our life when we wish we could go back and change just one thing that we did that causes a big fallout.  This would be one of those moments.

Lots of apps allow you to jot down a note on your iPhone, but the text is typically entered by using the virtual keyboard.  Note Taker is an app that allows you to jot down notes by using your handwriting — or perhaps I should say your fingerwriting.  The app allows you to create a blank page of notes, each page being approximately the size of an index card.  You use your finger to draw letters in red ink on the full screen, and then whatever you write appears in black text on the card as a whole.  This way, you can use the entire screen as a writing surface, but then what you have drawn only takes up a small part of the screen.  It’s a pretty ingenious system.

 

 

It’s a little hard to describe the process for writing notes, but this video shows you how it is done:

Buttons at the bottom of the screen let you move the blue box (which is the part of the card where what you write will appear), change to a larger or smaller pencil to draw on more on the card at once, erase using an eraser and delete the last letter that you wrote.  And you can tap the button at the bottom left to make all of the writing area disappear so that you can just see what you wrote.

 

The app keeps tracks of all of your notes and lets you name them or tag them.  When you are finished with a note you can e-mail it or save it to your Photos on the iPhone.

 

This is a really neat app but, for me at least, it doesn’t seem very useful.  I find that it is much slower to write text using my finger than it is to just type on the iPhone virtual keyboard, and thus I cannot see ever wanting to write out a note using this app instead of any of the countless apps that have a virtual keyboard such as the iPhone’s built-in Notes app.  But fortunately, the developer offers a free lite version (which is the version that I tried) that lets you create up to four notes, and then if you find the lite app useful you can upgrade to the full version which costs only $1.99.

One interesting tidbit about this app:  it was developed by Dan Bricklin.  In 1979, Bricklin was the co-creator of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program for a personal computer.  For a time in the early 1980s, VisiCalc was the #1 reason for many business to get a computer in the first place.  One might argue that the Apple II, and thus Apple itself, would not have been an early success but for VisiCalc.  There are not many iPhone app developers who can say that they also wrote software for the Apple II, and none who can say that they wrote software nearly as important.  Bricklin’s Note Taker app will not have the same impact on the iPhone as VisiCalc did on the Apple II, but it is great to see Bricklin still writing innovative software for Apple’s products over 30 years later.

If you think that you might enjoy the ability to write out, instead of type out, your notes, try the lite version and see what you think.

Click here for Note Taker Lite (free): 

Click here for Note Taker ($1.99): 

Sorry for the failure to post yesterday; it’s been a busy week for me at work.  And now as I catch up on iPhone news, there are bright lights coming through the window in my study because they are filming an episode of the great new HBO show Treme next door to me.  So in a few weeks, if you watch the show and you see a scene with someone writing a blog post in a house in the background, that’s me.  Hi Mom!  Anyway, it’s Friday, so that means it’s time for another installment of In The News — indeed, the 50th such installment, the golden anniversary, for those of you counting at home.  And yes I realize that we just did one of these.  Here we go again.

• Minneapolis attorney Barry Edwards explains why lawyers will like iPhone software 4.0, a topic on which I also have an opinion.
• Gizmodo has some screen shots of the current developer build of iPhone 4.0 if you want to get a sense of how the new features are likely to look when the final version comes out this summer.
• John Welch writes for Macworld about what iPhone 4.0 will mean for large companies with IT departments.  I count large law firms in that category.
• Gizmodo also has a review of the AT&T MicroCell, the $150 device that lets you use your broadband internet to improve AT&T 3G service, noting:  “It’s nothing short of revelatory, to suddenly have full
  
  reception where
  
  there was none, to make calls where one couldn’t before.”  If you find that your law office or home has poor AT&T reception on your iPhone, this looks like a good solution.  
• Tennessee attorney Mark Cowan wrote to me about a bizarre problem on his iPhone — suddenly, all of his third party apps started crashing when he tried to launch them.  What to do?  He finally located this comment on a blog post which explains that problems can happen if you lose Internet access while syncing your iPhone.  The solution is to download another app — any app, even a free one — on the iPhone to restore your iPhone’s ability to run any third party apps.  A strange problem and an non-intuitive solution, but now if you experience it yourself you will know what to do.
• I cannot count the number of times that people have written to me saying that they want to add an iPhone J.D. bookmark on their iPhone Home Screen but they are waiting for a nice custom icon.  (My inability to count them is related to the complete lack of any such requests.)  Nevertheless, the wish that you didn’t even realize that you had is now granted.  I’ve set it up so that when you are viewing the home page of iPhone J.D. on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, just tap the plus at the bottom of Safari and select Add to Home Screen, and you will get a custom iPhone J.D. icon with a shortcut to this website on your Home Screen.  Thanks to attorney Megan Erickson for the post on her great website, Social Networking Law Blog, which alerted me to this trick, and to Dan Dickinson for posting the technical information for how to make this work.
• For the Louisiana attorneys who read iPhone J.D., attorney Matt Miller is updating his iPhone apps containing Louisiana laws to version 2.0, adding the ability to change the font size and improving search and text readability.  The Civil Code app was updated in late March and the Code of Civil Procedure app was updated last night.  My review of the original version of the apps is here.  Click here to get La. Civil Code ($6.99): 

  

    Click here to get La. Code of Civil Procedure ($9.99): 

  

• And now for the iPad news of the week.  I had my first chance to play with an iPad earlier this week when attorney and app developer Dan Friedlander came to New Orleans and the three of us — me, Dan, and the featured guest, his iPad — met up for lunch.  Dan wrote the useful law-related iPhone apps Court Days, Workdays and myMCLE.  One of the most useful iPad apps that Dan showed me is GoodReader, and on his blog he explains why it is a must-have app for lawyers using an iPad.
• Jason Calacanis of Mahalo started a video podcast on the iPad, This Week in Pad (TWiiP).
• Attorney Brian Malcolm writes about the pros and cons of the iPad for lawyers on the Young Lawyers Blog.
• Utah attorney Peter Summerill bought an iPad and believes that is
  
  has potential, but recommends
  
  that lawyers wait to buy one:  “Bottom line: wait to buy the iPad.
  
  There is no specific ‘need’ for
  
  attorneys to have this device at this time. While the future of the
  
  iPad may hold magical and amazing things in store for attorneys, the
  
  inability to do any significant work and the complete lack of
  
  applications which support the workflow of an attorney” are reasons not
  
  to buy today.
• And finally, if you are looking for a sleeve-style case for your iPhone with a fun picture on it, check out the designs of Etsy merchant Coolbeans717 who offers lots of choices that cost $20 each such as the ones pictured below.  And for $26, she can even create a custom case for you with your own picture.