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.

 

 

Here is a very quick tip, probably something that you already know, but if not then now you do:  the way to redial a number on the iPhone.  This was one of the dozens of tips that Ben Stevens and I discussed last month during our ABA TECHSHOW presentation.  There are two ways to redial in the Phone app.

First, you can tap the Recents tab at the bottom.  This will show you all of the people who you have recently called or who have recently called you.  Just tap a name to call.

Second, you can redial from the keypad.  You won’t see a redial button on the screen, but if you don’t type any number at all and just hit the Call button, the iPhone will present you with the last number that you dialed.  Tap the Call button a second time and the iPhone will redial that number.  Thus, two taps of the Call button get you a quick redial of the last number that you called.

Apple has traditionally been reluctant to approve of third party apps that duplicate built-in functions on the iPhone, and thus Safari has been the only web browser on the iPhone.  There are third party web browsers in the App Store, and many apps include a built-in web browsing function, but all of those apps have used Apple’s WebKit, the same engine that powers Safari.

Late last night, that changed when Apple approved the Opera Mini web browser and added it to the App Store.  Just the fact that this app was approved in the first place is a significant event.  As noted in the New York Times back in 2008, Opera had started working on a web browser for the iPhone soon after Apple allowed third parties to write apps, but the company stopped development once it became clear that Apple would not approve an alternative to its own Safari browser.  But for whatever reason, Opera went ahead and wrote the app anyway and submitted it to Apple last month, Apple surprised everyone by approving the app yesterday, and now we have the free Opera Mini on the iPhone as an alternative to Safari.

The main advantage of Opera Mini is speed when you are connecting via Edge or 3G.  Unlike the Safari app which presents you with the “full internet” on the iPhone, when you request a web site in Opera Mini the request goes to the Opera server, which gets the page, compresses it up to 90%, reformats it for a mobile phone screen, and then sends it to the iPhone.  Because much less data is sent to the iPhone, pages display faster.

The difference is most notable if you are on an Edge connection, where Opera displays a website much faster than Safari; Opera claims up to six times faster.  On 3G, Opera still feels faster but the effect is not quite as dramatic, and on Wi-Fi there is virtually no speed advantage.  For example, Greg Kumparak of Mobile Crunch ran a speed test and found that on 3G, sites loaded two or three times as fast as Safari, but on Wi-Fi, sites loaded just about as fast on both Opera Mini and Safari although Opera Mini had a very slight advantage.  In addition to the speed advantage there is also a data advantage; if you are not on an unlimited data plan (for example you are traveling internationally), you will appreciate using less data to view the same website.

Unfortunatley, you pay a price for the speed and reduced data.  Pages frequently look worse in Opera than they do in Safari, with text not wrapping around graphics the right way or graphics not being sized correctly.  Websites are still completely functional, just sometimes not as pretty and less legible when you are viewing the entire page.  Here are two examples with Opera on the left and Safari on the right:

Although it is difficult to read a webpage in Safari in full page view, you can still double tap on a column of text (just like in Safari) to zoom and read that text.

In addition to the speed advantage on Edge and 3G, Opera has some other unique advantages.  First, the default blank page in Opera can hold shortcuts up to nine of your favorite sites.  Hold down on one of the icons and a pop-up menu will appear letting you change the shortcut.

Second, the app has an interesting method of using multiple tabs so that you can have different websites open at the same time.  Tap on the tabs button and a strip will pop up with overlapping square icons that you can tap to jump to a page.  Unlike Safari, which limits you to 9 tabs, you can open many more tabs in Opera Mini.  (If there is a limit, I haven’t figured it out yet.)  And switching between tabs in Opera Mini seems to be faster than doing so in Safari.  If you like tabbed browsing on an iPhone, I suspect that you’ll be a fan of Opera Mini.

Third, the app has some very useful tools that you access by tapping the wrench icon.  Three that I particularly like are (1) the ability to save a webpage so that you can instantly load it again later and (2) a useful Find in Page feature that gives you the ability to search for text within a webpage, with the terms highlighted and a Next button that lets you quickly find each instance of the word.

You can pinch to zoom in Opera, but unlike Safari where you can zoom to any level, in Opera you only have two zoom levels — the entire webpage, or zoomed in on the text.  You can select text, but the implementation is more cumbersome than in Safari; you have to hold down your finger, then choose select text from a pop-up menu, then drag to select the text.  And sometimes, the app doesn’t correctly register that you are trying to select text.  On the plus side, Opera does give you a fast option to run a Google search based on selected text.  When you scroll down a webpage, you will see that pictures further down are not fully loaded although they do load as you scroll.

The Settings screen gives you several options to make Opera even more efficient.  For example, you can adjust the image quality to make pictures load even faster (or turn off loading images completely).  If you use Opera on your desktop computer, you can also use Opera link to sync between the two (although I didn’t test that option).

Opera is new to the iPhone, but Opera Mini has been around on other smartphones for a while.  Indeed, the debut version of Opera Mini for iPhone is version 5.0.  While Opera Mini has been around the block and thus you would expect a solid app on the iPhone, I still consider Safari on the iPhone a much more polished browser overall.  Nevertheless, I encourage you to download Opera Mini, especially considering that it is free.  If you ever find yourself on a slow Edge connection, web browsing can be much faster on Opera Mini than on Safari.  If you ever want to save a bunch of webpages to view later (perhaps when you don’t have a web connection), Opera Mini lets you do that.  And the Find in Page feature is great, and I am sure that I will use Opera Mini at times in the future just for this feature — at least, until Apple adds it to Safari, which I hope that they do soon.  (Yes, I know that there are currently javascripts that you can use in Safari to find text in webpages, but they always feel like hacks to me.)  It is significant that Apple approved Opera Mini at all, and because of the unique features of Opera Mini, I am sure that lots of people will download it for occasional use at those times when the unique advantages of Opera make it a better choice than Safari.

Click here to get Opera Mini (free): 

The big news late last week was, of course, iPhone software 4.0, so I did not post an “In the news” segment this past Friday.  Thus, today is a special Monday version of the latest iPhone-related news that has caught my eye.

• Palm Beach, Florida lawyer Christopher Hopkins wrote a free app containing the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct, plus the Southern
  
  District guidelines and local bar rules for Broward/Fort
  
  Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach.  Click here for CLaw — Florida Rules of Professional Conduct (free):

  

• Today, Adobe is releasing Flash Professional CS5, software used to write Flash apps.  One of the marquee features of this new version was supposed to be the ability to write an iPhone app using Flash, but late last week Apple prohibited this in its developer rules.  John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote an interesting article speculating on why Apple was doing this, and according to Engadget, Steve Jobs himself seems to like what Gruber said.
• There are lots of different iPhone GPS apps out there to assist you when driving, and Engadget recently tested and rated some of the more popular ones.  Note that they did not test MotionX GPS Drive, the one that I have been using.
• Dan Moren of Macworld reports that actor Justin Long says that the “Get a Mac” ads that he does with John Hodgman may be over.
• Did you ever notice that all of the official Apple pictures of the
  
  iPhone display the time 9:42 and the official iPad pictures display
  
  9:41?  Have you ever wondered why?  iPhone developer Jon Manning ran
  
  into Apple Senior VP Scott Forstall at an Apple Store on iPad launch day
  
  and asked him. 
  
  To get the thrilling answer, read
  
  Manning’s blog entry, and then read Harry McCracken’s article on
  
  Technologizer for the rest of the story.
• I always enjoy reading stories of people using MobileMe to track down a stolen iPhone, and C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle has a new one.  Unfortunately, he also reports that iPhone crime is very frequent in San Francisco, and he quotes San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Brian Buckelew as saying:  “Probably half the
  
  robberies in the city are iPhones. Some days there are three iPhone
  
  robberies on the court calendar.”
• Last year, I reviewed Gogo, a Wi-Fi service that you can use with your iPhone on many airplanes.  If you travel often, you may be interested in this Electronista article which notes that you can now get a $35 per month unlimited plan that works on all Gogo flights, even services offered on different airlines.
• Marco Tabini of Macworld reports that the iPhone was easily the winner of the 2010 J.D. Power smarphone satisfaction survey.
• The Week has created a list of “The 10 Stupidest Apple Apps Ever.”
• The iPad continues to dominate the news, and here are a few iPad stories that I think are worth reading.  First. TUAW reports that someone placed an iPad for sale on eBay for $5,000 with the provision that the seller would personally deliver the iPad to any international airport in the world on April 3, the day that the iPad came out.  Apparently the offer appealed to someone who doesn’t live in the U.S. but wanted an iPad on Day 1, as the eBay listing shows that the item was sold for $5,000.  The TUAW article also reports that someone else in the UK reportedly spent $5,500 for an iPad.
• Dan Frakes of Macworld has an excellent post on how the iPad works with existing accessories that were made for the iPhone or iPod.
• Attorney David Shulman writes about the use of the iPad by lawyers.
• iPad Notebook is a blog about the iPad by lawyer Justin Kahn.
• Dr. Joel Topf speculates that the iPad may be the “next great thing” that Steve Jobs first spoke about in 1996.
• PC World stress tested the iPad and found it to be rather strong.  You can damage it by dropping it or getting it wet, but not by scratching it.  “Its well-coated screen is literally scratch-proof: We couldn’t
  
  produce any scratches on the display even when we tried to etch it with
  
  a nail; you definitely won’t need to buy one of those stick-on screen
  
  protectors.  The glass did start showing signs of physical
  
  damage after a couple of drops onto concrete. But even in those extreme
  
  circumstances, the screen cracked only after we dropped the iPad
  
  face-down onto the pavement.”
• Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times describes some of the best iPad apps.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball has an excellent review of the iPad.
• And finally, Blendtec answers the question, will the iPad blend:

Yesterday, Apple previewed the next version of the iPhone operating software, version 4.0, which is
due out this summer.  You can watch a video of the presentation by Steve Jobs on the Apple website.  Jobs announced that there are now over 185,000 apps in the App Store, that users have downloaded over 4 billion apps, and that Apple has sold over 50 million iPhones (plus another 35 million iPod touches).  Scott Forstall of Apple announced that over 80 of the Fortune 100 companies are using iPhones.

But the star of the show was the new features in iPhone software 4.0.  Apple says that there are over 100 new features for iPhone users, and here are the ones that I think that lawyers and other professionals using iPhones will really love.

1. Multitasking: fast app switching.  Instead of closing one app to launch another app, you can now quickly switch between apps with each app freezing its current state until you return.  This will increase your efficiency using multiple apps at the same time on your iPhone, such as switching back and forth between Mail, Safari and a third party app while you are drafting an e-mail, just to pick one example.
2. Multitasking: VOIP in the background.  With 4.0, Voice over IP will be supported in the background, which makes the
   
   Skype app 100x more useful.  With 4.0, while you are doing something else on your iPhone, Skype will still be able to ring you when a call comes in.  Plus, you can continue talking to someone over Skype while switching to another app, such as checking your e-mail or your calendar. 
   
   For people traveling internationally who want to use Skype to talk to
   
   people in the U.S. for pennies instead of paying expensive roaming fees,
   
   this is huge.
3. Multitasking: audio in the background.  The iPod app has always been able to play audio in the background while you use another app.  With 4.0, third party apps can do this too — making the Pandora app all the more useful.  
4. Other multitasking features.  Those first three multitasking features will probably be the ones that lawyers find most useful, but in addition it is nice that under 4.0 (1) apps will have improved abilities to send you pop-up notifications, (2) apps can complete certain tasks (like upload a picture or video) while you switch to another app, and (3) social networking type apps will be able to track your location even when the app is running in the background (and Apple will notify you of this so that an app cannot track your location without your knowledge).  These three features are less important for attorneys, but may be useful at times.
5. Mail: attachments and third party apps.  We spend a lot of time in the Mail app, so it is great to see some major improvements.  First, with 4.0 you will be able to open an attachment to an e-mail directly into a third party app.  I hope that this means that 4.0 will let you choose from among several possible apps, so for example if you have a Word attachment you can choose to open it directly from Mail into apps like Quickoffice or Documents to Go.  Those apps currently have creative work-arounds for accessing attachments to your e-mails, but direct access would be much more efficient.  I much prefer viewing Word, PDF and Excel files that are attached to an e-mail in Quickoffice or Documents to Go, so anything that makes it easier to do so is a welcome improvement.
6. Mail: unified inbox.  Most of us have multiple e-mail accounts such as Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc., and 4.0 will let you have a single Mail inbox to view all of your e-mails at once, much like the Mail application on a Mac does.  Or if you want to keep your accounts separate, 4.0 will give you much faster inbox switching.
7. Mail: threaded messages.  With 4.0 you can organize e-mails by thread, making it much easier to view an original e-mail and all of the replies.
8. Mail: better MS Exchange support.  Most large law firms, and many smaller ones, use Microsoft Exchange for e-mail.  iPhone software 4.0 adds support for Exchange Server 2010, plus adds the ability to access multiple Exchange accounts.
9. Mail: spell check.  Mail and other apps have spell check in 4.0. The iPad already includes a spell check feature, and I imagine that the feature will work the same way in 4.0 for the iPhone.
10. Mail and other apps: external Bluetooth keyboards.  If you need to write a long e-mail or a significant insert for a document on an iPhone, with 4.0, you can pair your iPhone with a Bluetooth keyboard to make it much easier to type all of those words.  This makes it easier to decide to leave your laptop at home and just travel with an iPhone and a small keyboard to use when you need to type something long on your plane or in a hotel room.  There are already many small, portable Bluetooth keyboards such as the iGo Stowaway Ultra-Slim Bluetooth Keyboard

    

    or even Apple’s own Wireless Keyboard

    

    , but I imagine that very soon we will see some nice portable keyboards specifically designed for an iPhone running 4.0.  This will make apps like Quickoffice and Documents to Go even more useful because, for the first time, you might actually decide to use those apps as word processors.
11. Organize apps into folders.  The only way to organize your apps now is to move them to separate pages, but this is not ideal when you have a lot of apps.  Under 4.0, you will be able to drag one app onto another one to group those apps into a folder, and then drag other apps into that folder.  Thus, you can keep all of your legal statute apps in a single folder, one which remains on your first or second home screen (or even in your dock) but which doesn’t take up numerous spaces.  I have been wishing for a feature like this for a long time, and I can’t wait to use it. 
12. Display more apps.  Folders are not just an organizational tool; they also let you display more apps on your iPhone.  If you are an app junkie like me with tons of apps, you know that the iPhone can currently display only 11 pages of 16 apps per page, which is 176 apps, plus the four apps at the bottom for a total of 180 apps.  You can store more than 180 apps on your iPhone, but they do not show up on your home page screens so you can only access them using search.  Jobs said that the folders in 4.0 allow you to display up to 2,160 apps on your iPhone.  (2,160 divided by 180 is 12; so perhaps that means that each folder can hold up to 12 apps.)
13. iBooks.  The larger iPad is far superior for reading iBooks, but if you have both an iPad and an iPhone, it will be useful to be able to read a book on the iPhone as well.  Your current page will sync, so if you are up to page 156 in a book on your iPad and then you have a few minutes of down time with your iPhone, you can read a few more pages and the iPhone will know where you left off.
14. Improved security.  Security is important for lawyers, and in 4.0, all of the e-mails and attachments on your iPhone can be encrypted with your PIN code.  (It was unclear whether this was automatic or a feature to be turned on.)  Plus, app developers will be given the tools to encrypt all data in their apps as well.  Another security enhancement in 4.0 is improved tools for a company to manage all of the iPhones used by employees.  Additionally, 4.0 supports SSL VPN for improved security in VPN sessions.

There are many other new features in iPhone software 4.0 that lawyers might enjoy, although they are unlikely to improve your billable hours.  For example, with 4.0 you can add a wallpaper to your home screen.  If you like games, 4.0 enhances support for multiplayer games and makes it easy for your friends to send you a message on your iPhone asking you to join a game, plus you can compare your high scores with those of your friends.  

If you like to take videos on your iPhone, with 4.0 you can tap to change the focus while you are recording a video.  If you take a photo in the wrong orientation, with 4.0 you can rotate a picture on the iPhone.

4.0 also supports a slick advertising feature that Apple calls iAds.  You may question whether adding ads to your iPhone is a “feature.”  As John Moltz humorously noted on his website:

iAds. AWESOME. Now we can watch ads on our iPhones. YES. At long last.
The feature we’ve all be asking for. Our long national nightmare is
over. All hail our wise corporate overlords who always have our best
interests at heart. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

The counter argument is that iAds will encourage developers to create more free, ad-supported ads.  Time will tell whether iAds bring us better free apps.

Note that not all iPhones will be able to support iPhone software 4.0.  It doesn’t appear that the original iPhone will run 4.0 at all.  [UPDATE 4/12/10:  Engadget reports that Steve Jobs confirms this.]  An iPhone 3G can run some features, but not the ones that require more horsepower such as multitasking.  An iPhone 3GS can take advantage of all of the features in 4.0.  If you don’t own an iPhone 3GS, 4.0 will be a compelling reason to upgrade once Apple releases the next version of the iPhone this Summer.  4.0 will also come to the iPad, but not until this Fall.

Developers can now download iPhone software 4.0, and as they tinker with it over the next few months, I’m sure that we will learn more about the great new features in 4.0.  But from what we learned yesterday about 4.0, it is clear that lawyers and other professionals using the iPhone will see a lot to love.

Apple is announcing details on the new iPhone Software 4.0 today at
10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern.  If you are in the Central time zone like I am, why not have lunch at your desk on Thursday and read about all of the exciting announcements as they happen.  Many websites will be providing live
coverage of the Apple event.  Here are the ones that I recommend, based on the quality of their prior coverage of similar Apple announcements, including the links to where the sites should provide their live coverage:

• Engadget
• GDGT
• Macworld
• Technologizer
• Gizmodo
• CNET
• Ars Technica
• TUAW
• TWiT (live video commentary)