Lawyers frequently ask me whether they should get an iPhone or a Blackberry.  They usually know my bias for the iPhone, but are still interested in my reasons for picking the iPhone over the Blackberry, especially considering how common Blackberries are in law firms.  I’ve always thought that I could answer that question better if I could spend a month using both at once to really get deep into the advantages and disadvantages of each.

That is exactly what Galen Gruman, an executive editor at InfoWorld did, and he posted this comprehensive eight-part analysis of the pros and cons.  Any lawyer trying to decide whether to get Blackberry’s flagship product, the Bold, or an iPhone should read this entire article.  Even current iPhone and Blackberry owners should read this article to get a sense of what life is like on the other side.  (Thanks to Ben Stevens and his The Mac Lawyer site for bringing the article to my attention.) 

I won’t summarize the article because I urge you to read the whole thing, but here are some of his observations that caught my attention:

When discussing the ability to handle documents on the two phones, Gruman talks about using Documents to Go on the Blackberry Bold and Quickoffice on the iPhone.  We are still waiting for Documents to Go to show up on the iPhone — DataViz recently said that the app was submitted to Apple, but I have to wonder whether they are now waiting for the iPhone Software 3.0 to come out (any day now) before releasing this app.  I agree with much of what Gruman says about using Quickoffice on the iPhone. 

In fact, just a few days ago, Quickoffice was updated to version 1.2, and the update includes some major new features that would seem to justify more than just a .1 upgrade.  There are two huge improvements to Quickword.  First, the app now includes auto-correction.  Thus, while you are typing in a document, the app will automatically correct typos for you, the same way that the Mail app corrects typos while you are composing an e-mail.  I’ve always considered the iPhone’s auto-correction features to be essential to making the iPhone’s touch keyboard usable.  Second, you can now find text in documents.  This feature is very useful.  Now I can carry briefs, memos, etc. with me and quickly jump to a specific part of the document by doing a quick search.  There are other small new features that are also welcome, such as auto-capitalization, double-tap to create a period, set paragraph alignment, etc., plus there were important updates to Quicksheet such as landscape editing and copy and paste of columns.  Click here to see all of the new features.

On March 17, Apple previewed the next version of the operating system for the iPhone, iPhone Software 3.0.  I’ve previously noted a few of the features that lawyers will love about 3.0 (see also this follow up) but until last night, Apple wasn’t giving any indication of when 3.0 would be here except to say “this summer.” 

Summer may not officially begin until June 21, but last night Apple indicated that 3.0 is almost ready.  Apple updated iTunes to version 8.2, and the release notes say loud and clear:  “iTunes 8.2 now supports iPhone or iPod touch with the iPhone 3.0 Software Update,” as shown on this screen from my computer last night:

I can’t imagine that Apple would tell us that it was updating iTunes to support 3.0 unless 3.0 was right around the corner.  As I’ve noted before, this upcoming Monday June 8 — right around the corner — is the start of Apple’s Mac and iPhone developer conference, WWDC.  This seems like a natural time for Apple to release iPhone Software 3.0, and with the release of iTunes 8.2, it seems all but certain to me that we will see 3.0 next week.

My reaction to this news?  Yeah!!!  Last year’s 2.0 version of the iPhone software completely revolutionized the iPhone, adding third party apps, support for Microsoft Exchange (critical for all of the lawyers who work at law firms that use Exchange), and a ton of other new features.  The 3.0 software will also add major features, and I can’t wait to see all of the new things that our iPhones will be able to do in just a few days.  The already amazing iPhone is about to get a lot more exciting.

Two months ago, I wrote about some of the many issues associated with jurors having iPhones (or other smartphones) in court, including jurors live-tweeting about their jury experiences.  This issue got attention a few days ago thanks to NBC Today Show weatherman Al Roker.  Roker is an avid user of Twitter on his iPhone and he often takes pictures with the iPhone camera and then sends them to his Twitter stream using Twitpic.  If you click here, you will see many of the pictures that he has posted.  Most of them are fun behind the scenes pictures from the set of the Today Show, but sometimes he will take pictures elsewhere, such as these two of the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue near Central Park.

Last Thursday, Roker appeared for jury duty and, while waiting in the jury lounge, decided to upload some pictures taken with his iPhone to Twitter.  Although taking pictures during a trial, especially of jurors, is definitely a no-no, Roker didn’t see anything wrong with posting pictures of the jury lounge, although you could see the faces of some people in there (who presumably had yet to be assigned to a case).  Media outlets such as the New York Post, the New York Daily News and TMZ got wind of the tweets, resulting in some embarassment for Roker.  He removed the pictures from his Twitter stream (although you can still view them on those media sites to which I just linked), but his Twitter stream still contains these posts about the incident:

10:37pm I have jury duty tomorrow. Should be fun. Nighty night

6:11am Well, it’s Thursday and after a few wxcasts, I’m off to Jury duty dowtown. But before i go, here’s TODAY”s Tweather

6:44am I’m going for the free lunch

7:44am hafta be there at 8:45

[Tweets deleted containing pictures]

10:32am So everyone is clear, I am NOT taking pictures in the courtroom. I am in the jury lounge. So folks need to lighten up.

10:32am I’m not breaking
laws…just trying to share the experience of jury duty. One that I
think is important and everyone should take part in

10:34am Therre is something very cool about being here

11:04am And to be clear, no court official told me it was ok to take pictures, just that you couldn’t take pictures in the court room.

11:37am Heading to a courtroom. No pictures

3:01pm Must be a slow
news day. Was stalked by video-razzi from TMZ and the NY POST because I
posted a pic from the jury room on Twitter.

3:06pm Whew. Learned a
lesson. No, I repeat, no court personnel told me it was ok. Going back
into the courtroom, iPhone buried deep in my bag

6:08am Well, citizens of
the United States of Twitterville, it was a fun day yesterday, with
jury duty and twitpicking when I shouldn’t. Now onward

Notwithstanding the mini media frenzy, it seems that what Roker did was fairly innocent.  Had he not been a celebrity with over 20,000 Twitter followers, there would not have been a news story.  But what Roker did with his iPhone is what millions of people do every day — write publicly about what is going on in their daily lives.  Do a Twitter search for “jury duty” and you will see countless other people writing live about their jury service experiences.  And it is impossible to imagine this NOT happening when you have lots of people stuck somewhere with a lot of downtime, away from friends and family, carrying smartphones with the ability to broadcast to the world whatever is on their minds.

Lawyers handling jury trials are wise to think about the implications of their jurors (and potential jurors) having iPhones and similar devices including any impact that may have on their clients getting a fair trial.

By the way, if you use Twitter, feel free to follow me at @jeffrichardson.  I only tweet a few times a week so I won’t flood your Twitter stream with traffic, but I often tweet when a major post goes up on iPhone J.D. or when I run across an item of interest to attorneys using iPhones.

The annual D Conference, sponsored by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal, took place this week, which was an excuse for many tech companies to debut new and upcoming products, and there was much other iPhone news this week.  Here are a few of the highlights that caught my attention, plus I answer the burning question of “Where’s the beef?” (and the turkey) inside of Apple:

• South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens, who authors The Mac Lawyer, has long been a fan of Daylite, a Mac program that can be used for case management.  (See some of his discussions here: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5)  He’s not alone; I often hear Mac-using attorneys rave about that product.  Macworld has a review of the new companion iPhone app, Daylite Touch, which it says is “so rich and useful, it makes a compelling argument for jumping on the Daylite bandwagon.”
• Google previewed an upcoming product it is calling Wave, which allows web browsers to have live chats in which each word is transmitted as it is typed, character by character (instead of the “person X is typing” messages that you typically get with instant messaging) to speed up messaging, plus Wave allows live editing of documents by multiple people at the same time, and even includes real time translation.  Google says that Wave will work on iPhones.  Get more information from Engadget and CNET.
• Maryland attorney Lou Pettey pointed me to this funny Dilbert cartoon from March, joking that his wife has referred to his iPhone as his “girlfriend” for a few months now.  Since my wife is an iPhone-using attorney who has been known to read this blog, I’d like to take this opportunity to emphasize that she is “way better” than my iPhone.  Although the iPhone does have some really cool apps … um, I better move on to the next story before I get into trouble.

• Speaking of my wonderful wife, she shared this New York Times article with me about the etiquette of using a smartphone at the dinner table.  I presume that the article is interesting, but I only skimmed it because I was using my iPhone at the time.
• Keeping an eye on the upcoming competition to the iPhone, Jon Rubenstein and Roger McNamee of Palm previewed the upcoming Palm Pre at the D Conference.  It appears that the Pre will sync with iTunes and iPhoto, just like the iPhone.  I wonder whether Apple will try to block that.  I used the 1.0 version of iTunes on my Mac before there was an iPod; back then, iTunes synced with any MP3 player, and I used a Rio 600 that held about 15 songs at a time (and I am amazed to find a current Amazon link to it: Rio 600 32 MB Digital Audio Player

  

  ), but it has been a long time since Apple allowed iTunes to sync with any new non-Apple MP3 players.  Engadget has good coverage of the Pre announcements and I particularly enjoyed this photograph of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak sleeping through a portion of the Palm presentation.
• Apple’s retail stores are already fantastic, but over a third of them are about to be improved.  The definitive website on Apple Stores — ifoAppleStore — discusses a USA Today article which reveals that Apple will remodel 100 of its current 252 stores to display more computers and increase the size of the Genius Bar by 50% to accommodate more customers.  I have always had very positive experiences with the Genius Bar whenever I have had trouble with a Mac or an iPod.
• And finally, there was a brief time yesterday when you could type menu.apple.com into the Safari web browser on an iPhone and, for a brief second, see Apple’s web app for the cafeterias at each of five Apple campuses before the webpage pushed you over to www.apple.com (presumably after realizing that you were not accessing the webpage from within Apple’s employee network).  Macworld noticed it, as did I after I saw this tweet from Scott Kleinberg’s iPTIB Twitter account.  The Apple cafeterias are called Caffè Macs.  I ate at the Caffè Macs on Apple’s main Cupertino, CA campus a few years ago, and it was delightful — good food, nice tables where you could eat either inside or outside, and on the day I was there, I could look two tables over and see Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive eating lunch together.  (You can learn more about the cafeteria in this MacLife article.)  There are reports that Steve Jobs (who has been on medical leave) returned to Apple’s Cupertino campus this week, but since he is a vegan, he must have missed the daily specials, the roast turkey and the roast beef.  I presume they were delicious, but I will post updates as I get more news on this breaking story.  Here are a few screenshots from my iPhone if you want to see what you missed during yesterday’s rare peek inside of Apple:

Confirming rumors from last month, AT&T announced yesterday that it is doubling the speed of its 3G network from the current theoretical maximum of 3.6 Mbps to 7.2 Mbps.  The roll out will start this year and finish in 2011.

New hardware will be required to take advantage of this 7.2 Mpbs network, and perhaps this is a feature that will be included in the next version of the iPhone that many believe will be introduced on June 8th at Apple’s WWDC conference.  iLounge is suggesting that the next iPhone might come in two versions — a normal 3G version, and an enhanced 3G version that can take advantage of the 7.2 Mpbs networks.

AT&T also says that the existing 3G network will also be improved by “nearly doubling the wireless spectrum dedicated to 3G in most
metropolitan areas to deliver stronger in-building reception and more
overall network capacity.”  Better in-building reception would be a welcome improvement.

Note that these 3.6 and 7.2 numbers are theoretical peaks.  As AT&T cheerfully admits in the same press release:  “Typical real-world downlink and uplink speeds experienced by customers
with upgraded 3G will be less than the theoretical peak and will vary
based on a number of factors, including location, device, and overall
traffic on the local network at a given time.”  I have never seen anything close to 3.6 Mbps on my iPhone using 3G.  On Wi-Fi I can get around 3 Mbps but on the AT&T 3G network I’m usually at around 1 Mbps.  Nevertheless, if doubling the theoretical maximum were to mean that Wi-Fi speeds become possible on an iPhone using 3G, that would be very impressive.

AT&T also said that its 7.2 Mpbs 3G is just a stepping stone to even greater speeds using the even faster 4G LTE (Long
Term Evolution) network, which will be deployed starting in 2011.  LTE has a potential speed of 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps, and even if the real world results are far less, we are talking about serious broadband speeds.

Interestingly, LTE is also in Verizon’s future.  Both Jim Dalrymple (formerly of Macworld, now with CNET) and Om Malik of Gigaom have suggested that AT&T is working hard to improve its network to convince Apple to keep the iPhone exclusively with AT&T instead of opening it up to Verizon.  The iPhone has brought a staggering number of new customers to AT&T.  For example, a few months ago, AT&T released quarterly results stating that it had gained 2.1 million new customers and 1.9 million new iPhone accounts, 40% of which were new to AT&T, leading one tech commentator to joke that when it comes to AT&T’s profits, “Thank God for vitamin i, eh?”  But Verizon currently has a reputation for having a better network, and there have been rumors that Verizon is using its plan to shift to LTE more quickly than AT&T to lure Apple to bring the iPhone to AT&T.  As discussed during this week’s MacBreak Weekly podcast (show notes here), there are a ton of people who aren’t using an iPhone because they want to stick with Verizon because of the better network, and Apple would sell a huge number of iPhones if they were available on Verizon.  Indeed, many with a choice would pick a Verizon iPhone over an AT&T iPhone because of the Verizon network.

Regardless of why AT&T is doing it, it is nice to see AT&T improving its network, and I look forward to someday having an iPhone that can take advantage of these new speeds.

Bento 2 is a $50 powerful but easy to use database for the Mac.  It doesn’t have all of the features of a professional database program like its big brother FileMaker Pro.  For example, Bento is designed for a single user, not to be shared and updated by multiple users in an organization.  But if you use a Mac and you need to create a database to keep track of just about anything for yourself, Bento 2 is a great fit.  It is designed to look like iTunes, and is just as easy to use.

 

 

 

If you use Bento 2 on a Mac, then I strongly recommend that you spend $4.99 for the Bento iPhone app.  It is a wonderful companion to Bento 2 and it reminds me, once again, how much my iPhone allows me to easily manage important information in my life and keep it always within reach.  I see room for improvements in an update.  For example, the app occasionally crashed on me (although I never lost any data so it was just a minor inconvenience) and the app was sometimes slow to respond.  Also, while you can change the order in which fields are displayed, you cannot change the size or layout of the fields.  It would be nice to have the ability to have a picture field take up a larger portion of the screen, have one field stretch across two lines, have two other fields share the same line, etc.  But even this 1.0 version of the app is very useful and functional.  If you use Bento 2, you will love this app.

If you don’t use Bento 2 — for example, if you use a PC instead of a Mac — then you will have to spend a little more time to decide whether the Bento app is right for you.  I say so for two reasons.  First, while Bento is a jack of all trades, you might prefer a dedicated app that is specially designed for the task at hand.  For example,  instead of using Bento to track billable hours, you may be more happy with one of the many time tracking apps for the iPhone which have a layout customized for the task.  There are also a large number of dedicated “To Do Items” apps that you might prefer.  Having said that, the advantage of a true database app like Bento is that you can customize the fields to your heart’s content.  Not that any of us lawyers are control freaks.  If you want to set up a database on your iPhone with complete control over the fields but you want something easy to start using quickly, then Bento would be a good choice even if you don’t use Bento 2 on a Mac.

Second, while the Bento iPhone app is powerful enough to create a large and sophisticated database, doing so on an iPhone is inherently more cumbersome then using a computer with a large screen and keyboard.  If you don’t currently use any database program on your computer and if you use a Mac, then consider getting both Bento 2 and the Bento app.  But if you already use another database program on your computer, such as Microsoft Access or FileMaker Pro, you should check out apps such as HanDBase Database Manager, FMTouch and Database Viewer Plus that sync with those other programs (but which I have not yet tried).  Moreover, if use a Mac and want to track your books, DVDs, CDs or videogames, then you might be better off with the gorgeously designed Delicious Library program on your computer along with the companion iPhone app which will be released shortly.

Kudos to FileMaker for creating a great companion to Bento 2.  I now want to create even more useful databases on my Mac with the knowledge that I can always keep the databases with me on my iPhone.

Click here to get Bento ($4.99):  

The art on the cover of the June 1, 2009 The New Yorker magazine was created by artist Jorge Colombo using a $4.99 app on his iPhone.  The New York Times and countless iPhone sites reported on this over the long Memorial Day weekend, but the story is too cool for me to resist also mentioning it here.  Here is the cover he created:

Jorge Colombo is a Portuguese-born artist who has lived in the U.S. since 1989 and who currently lives in New York City.  He has worked as an illustrator, a graphics designer, a photographer, and more recently as a videographer creating a series of artistic digital shorts (many of which can be viewed here).  A few months ago, he bought an iPhone and the Brushes app, a sophisticated drawing app that allows one to use any color, realistic brushes, and extreme zooming, making it possible to create beautiful artwork using nothing more than the iPhone.  [UPDATE 5/28/09:  The New York Times has an interesting follow-up article about the developer of Brushes, who notes that The New Yorker’s cover boosted his sales from 60-70 copies a day to 2,700 this past Monday, a total of around 40,000 copies to date.]  Colombo created a number of New York street scenes, and he tells the Times that it is easy to paint using the iPhone because he doesn’t have to carry around pens, brushes and paper, plus he avoids the attention that typical artists attract; people just assume he is reading e-mails.  Another advantage, which Colombo mentioned to the New Yorker, is that he can draw at night without needing a flashlight or a miner’s hat.  Click here for a page on his website showing many of his fantastic New York street scenes (four of which are available for purchase on the 20×200 website).  The New Yorker cover only took him about an hour to create while standing outside of Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum on 42nd Street at Times Square.

A lot of people have created some great art using the Brushes app on their iPhone.  Click here for a Flickr group where thousands of these pictures have been uploaded, many of which I rather enjoyed viewing, such as these: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.  That last one was created by Steve Sprang, the author of Brushes.

One great feature of the Brushes app is that it records all of your actions when painting.  You can then use the free Brushes Viewer program on a Mac to replay the creation of the painting.  Click here to see a video on The New Yorker’s website which shows how the art on the cover was created, stroke by stroke.  I often find myself looking at great art and wondering “how did he do that.”  With this feature, you can actually see how the art was created — although frankly, instead of demystifying, the video only makes me more amazed at Colombo’s talent.  And apparently The New Yorker agrees; not only is Colombo’s art on the current print magazine cover, but they decided to feature a new drawing by Colombo each week on newyorker.com.  

Great art is great art regardless of the medium used to create it, but you have to admit that it is pretty cool that Jorge Colombo and others have created really great art just using an iPhone.

Click here to get Brushes ($4.99):  

The closer we get to June, the more rumors we hear on what will be in the next iPhone.  Faster?  A compass?  Video recording?  An OLED display?  A glowing Apple logo?  We are now getting close enough to the expected announcement date that some of the more respected websites are discussing what might be included in the next iPhone.  I still recommend viewing all of this with a high degree of skepticism, but if you want to read the rumors, Engadget rounds up some of them and John Gruber of the website Daring Fireball has made his predictions.  Switching from rumors and speculation to “real” news, here are some of the iPhone-related stories that caught my attention this week:

• 
  Apple continues to reject apps for baffling reasons.  First, Forbes has an interesting story on an app developer who tried to release an app based on the First Family’s new dog, but ran into trouble because Apple wouldn’t allow animations of Barack and Michelle Obama and because Apple didn’t like an advertisement that the app developer was making a charitable contribution.  Second, and far worse, Jason Snell notes on Twitter (and John Gruber notes on Daring Fireball) that Apple has rejected Eucalyptus, an app that allows you to find and download classic public domain books from the well-established Project Gutenberg.  According to the developer, Apple claimed that the app contained obscene content, but the app itself contained no such content.  Instead, Apple was objecting to the possibility that a person could use the app to enter a search on Project Gutenberg for the public domain text of the Kama Sutra.  Of course, this is just silly.  I can already use Safari on my iPhone to access the Guterberg page and view the exact same content.  And as the developer points out,  you can use the Kindle app to read the same book on the iPhone.  I can use Twitter clients to follow people who say lots of obscene things in their tweets.  And I can only imagine what some people are putting on Facebook pages that you can access using the Facebook app.  I can understand Apple making mistakes here and there — the company must be overloaded with app submissions — but there have been enough of these stories reported that it does make you wonder what the heck is going on.  [UPDATE 5/24/09:  The developer reports that Apple realized its mistake and accepted Eucalyptus.]
• To shift from rejected apps to the apps that Apple loves, we’ve all seen Apple’s “There’s an app for that” ads which feature varied third party apps for the iPhone.  The iPhone Download Blog reports that there is now a section on the iTunes App Store called “iPhone Apps from the TV Ads” that compiles all of the featured apps in one place. 
• AppleInsider discusses a new report by market research firm Gartner which concludes that Apple’s share of the global smartphone market has doubled since last year to over 10%.  This puts Apple in third place; Nokia leads with over 40% of the market, and Blackberry maker RIM has about 20%.
• Harry McCracken reports on his Technologizer site that Amazon has updated its iPhone Kindle app.  You can now read a book in landscape mode, change the color scheme, pinch to zoom in on pictures, and tap to advance to the next page (which saves your finger from the stress of swiping though page after page).  One new feature of this app that I wish other apps would include is the ability to lock the screen orientation, useful if you are reading with the iPhone tilted and don’t want the image to turn 90 degrees.
• Engadget reports that the Palm Pre, which has the potential to be a worthy iPhone competitor, will launch on June 6 for $199.  That’s just two days before Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which will kick off at 10am Pacific on June 8 with a keynote address by Apple’s Phil Schiller.  We don’t know what Schiller will reveal on June 8, but many speculate that this will be Apple’s announcement of the next generation of the iPhone, although it wouldn’t surprise me if the device is not actually available for sale until July.
• In addition to Apple’s new iPhone, we might get cheaper iPhone plans from AT&T according to a Reuters report.  Ralph de la Vega, the head of AT&T’s mobility and consumer business, said earlier this week that AT&T is considering offering cheaper data service plans with limited Web surfing.  Right now, the cheapest iPhone plan is $70 a month, but you get unlimited data.  I personally have no interest in a plan with limited data because I use the data portion of my plan far more than the talk minutes, but a discounted plan could be nice for those who don’t stream video or make other demanding uses of online data with their iPhone.

DataViz reported on its Twitter stream and on its Facebook page that Documents to Go was submitted to Apple’s iTunes App Store for approval and should be available in a few days.  As I’ve posted here and here and here, we don’t know much yet about the features, but presumably the app will allow you to view Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on an iPhone and edit Word documents and perhaps also Excel and PowerPoint documents.

The price has not been revealed yet, although the company says on its Facebook page:

And in response to a qustion on Facebook of whether there will be a discount for people who used Documents to Go on another platform such as Palm, the company says:  “Its priced so well you won’t need a discount!”

I’ve been very happy with QuickOffice on the iPhone, although that app still needs some work, such as the addition of autocorrect, underline and footnotes.  I’m very curious to see how Documents to Go stacks up to QuickOffice on the iPhone.

Having said that, I actually feel bad for both companies because these are both products that cry out for a copy and paste function that works across the iPhone so that you can copy from a webpage into a Word document, from a Word document into an e-mail, etc.  This feature won’t be available until iPhone Software 3.0 comes out this summer, but I understand that both companies felt the pressure to release their apps now.  It would also be great to be able to take a Word or Excel document that is attached to an e-mail and open it up in QuickOffice or Documents to Go.  Again, that just isn’t possible with the current iPhone operating system.

Since 1988, Wolfram Research has been selling Mathematica, a high-end computational software product that is used by scientists and mathematicians and sells for about $2,500.  For the last five years, Stephen Wolfram and his team have been looking at using the complicated math that can be done with Mathematica to answer questions by computing connections based on existing data.  A few days ago, this research culminated with the unveiling of the Wolfram|Alpha website.

Wolfram|Alpha is not a search engine.  When you run a search on a site like Google, Google tries to find your search terms on other web pages.  Thus, a search engine works best when you are trying to find information that someone else has already addressed on a web page.  For example, do a search for “iPhone lawyer” on Google and you will find this website and others that address the use of iPhones by lawyers.  If you have a question that someone else has already answered on a page of a website, then you should use a search engine to try to find that website page.

When you run a search on Wolfram|Alpha, the site does not link you to other websites.  Instead, it tries to compute an objective answer for you by accessing a vast database of data and then it displays that answer using organized tables, graphs, charts and/or pictures.  Type in “What is the weather in New Orleans” and Wolfram|Alpha will report the current New Orleans weather and the historical weather in New Orleans.  Type “number of lawyers” and the website will tell you that just over 500,000 people in the U.S. are lawyers, 1 in 242 people, with a median wage of $106,100.  Type “father’s mother’s sister’s son” and the website will inform you that you are talking about your first cousin once removed, give you a helpful family tree graph, and tell you that your blood relationship fraction is 3.125%.

Wolfram|Alpha is interesting when it makes connections between sets of data that you might not otherwise think of.  A good example is the website’s ability to analyze a name.  If I type as a search term “Jeffrey,” I will see a graph showing me that the number of people born that were named Jeffrey started to rise around 1940, peaked around 1969 (which just happens to be the year in which I was born) and then has declined since then.  Then, the site takes a look at mortality rates for people born in the years that people named Jeffrey were born and computes that there are almost a million Jeffreys currently alive, 1 in 256 people, with a large number of us in our late 30s to early 50s.  Enter your own name in Wolfram|Alpha to see your own statistics.

I’m just scratching the surface of what Wolfram|Alpha can do, and I encourage you to check out this page to get more examples of interesting searches that you can run.  You can also click here for an excellent video description of the website.  I also enjoyed listening to the last 30 minutes of the latest This Week In Tech podcast which includes an interview of Stephen Wolfram by Leo Laporte.  And Gina Trapani at Lifehacker has a nice post with good examples of Wolfram|Alpha search terms.

So what does all of this have to do with the iPhone?  Like many of you, I often find myself using my iPhone to quickly get answers, whether I am looking up a name in my Contacts, finding a place on a map, or running search terms on Google.  Wolfram|Alpha provides another way to use an iPhone to quickly find answers.  Just go to the Wolfram|Alpha website on your iPhone and you will see an iPhone-formatted screen  UPDATE 12/3/09:  According to App Advice, Wolfram|Alpha no longer has a specially formatted iPhone screen.  Instead, when you access the website from an iPhone, you are encouraged to buy the $50 app to get an iPhone interface.  You can still use the website on an iPhone, but you lose the nice screen.  On the left is what is used to look like, and on the right is what it looks like now when you access the screen from an iPhone:

Type in some search terms and let Wolfram|Alpha quickly do its thing.  The search result screens are not specifically formatted for the iPhone screen, but they are easy enough to view in landscape mode and easy to read by scrolling back and forth in portrait mode. 

I can imagine being in a deposition and learning that the witness had five drinks in two hours.  Was he too drunk to drive?  Run the search “BAC 5 drinks, 2 hours, male, 180lb” and you will learn that his blood alcohol content was 0.11%, and assuming a legal driving limit of 0.08%, the witness should have waited at least three and a half hours before driving.

Wolfram|Alpha is new, so many search terms don’t give you useful answers, but
you’ll only waste a few seconds giving it a try.  When this website works, it works well, and I’m sure it will only get better over time.  Thus, I recommend that you keep this website in mind when you are searching for information, whether at your desk or using your iPhone.