Ever wonder why there is an “i” in iPhone?

Apple has been using a lowercase “i” to begin many of its product names ever since Steve Jobs introduced the first iMac computer on May 7, 1998.  His explanation for the “i” at the time was as follows:

iMac comes from the marriage of the excitement of the Internet with the simplicity of Macintosh.  Even though this is a full-blooded Macintosh, we are targeting this for the #1 use that consumers tell us they want a computer for, which is to get on the Internet — simply, and fast.  And that is what this product is targeted for. 

“i” also means some other things to us.  We are a personal computer company, and although this product is born to network, it also is a beautiful stand-alone product.  We are targeting it also for education.  They want to buy these.  And it is perfect for most of the things they do in instruction.  It is perfect for finding tremendous sources of information over the Internet.  And we hope as you see the product it will inspire us all to make even better products in the future.

Internet.  Individual.  Instruct.  Inform.  Inspire.  Steve Jobs may have originally used those words to describe the iMac, but they sure do apply quite nicely to the iPhone, don’t they?

Of course, there was a long road from the “i” in iMac to the “i” in iPhone.  In July of 1999, Apple announced the iBook, Apple’s consumer laptop (which evolved into the current MacBook).  In October of 1999, Apple announced the iMac DV and introduced iMovie, Apple’s consumer video software.  On January 5, 2000, Apple released iTools (which evolved into the current MobileMe), iCards (now defunct) and iDisk.  On January 9, 2001, Apple released iTunes and iDVD. 

Later that year, on October 23, 2001, Apple introduced the iPod.  In Steven Levy’s book about the history of the iPod The Perfect Thing  — a great book that you should buy immediately if you would enjoy a behind the scenes look at Apple — he discussed the origin of the term “iPod” as follows:

It was Jobs who told everyone what the device would be called.  “He just came in and went ‘iPod,'” says one team member.  “We all looked around the room, and that was it.  iPod.  And we’re like, ‘Where did that come from?'”  (Excellent question, and one that proved increasingly elusive the more I pressed people at Apple about it.  Finally, I was able to corner Jobs on it and he said that to the best of his knowledge the name sort of emerged, not exactly in a form of immaculate conception but in a lengthy back and forth among him, his marketing people, and Chiat\Day.  “The ad agency loved it,” he told me.  But I got the distinct impression that the iPod moniker won out not because of its brilliance but because Jobs had had enough of the naming process and the hour was getting late.)  [pp. 46-47]

[UPDATE 11/29/11:  In the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, there is a single sentence describing the origin of the name:  “One of the copywriters suggested they call it a ‘Pod.’  Jobs was the one who, borrowing from the iMac and iTunes names, modified that to iPod.”]

After the iPod, other Apple “i” software products followed such as iPhoto and iChat in 2002, iLife in 2003, and iWeb in 2006.

Considering Apple’s long history of “i” products, it may now seem that it was obvious what Apple would call its phone.  But it wasn’t always clear that the iPhone would be the iPhone.  Before January of 2007,  there were rumors that Apple was working on a phone and speculation over what Apple might call it.  At the time, “iPhone” seemed like the logical front runner, but other names were rumored such as “iChat Mobile.” (Yuck!) 

Even after Apple announced in January of 2007 that it would ship the iPhone later that year, there was still some uncertainty about the name because Cisco insisted that it acquired the trademark to “iPhone” in 2000 when Cisco bought a company called Infogear Technology.  Just after Apple announced the iPhone, Cisco sued Apple.  Apple responded that other companies besides Cisco were using the term “iPhone” and that Apple was the first to use “iPhone” to refer to a cellphone.  (I doubt that Apple would still take the position today that anyone can use “iPhone” for a product.)  At the time, there was even recent precedent for Apple changing a product name to drop the “i” — on September 12, 2006, Apple announced a product that it called “iTV,” but then at the same Macworld Expo at which the iPhone was announced, Apple said that it would call the product Apple TV (presumably because Elgato was already selling a product called EyeTV.)  With all of this uncertainty, the first (and unfortunately, now gone) iPhone podcast called itself the “Apple Phone Show” instead of the “iPhone Show” in part because the show’s creator, Scott Bourne, wasn’t sure that Apple would use the name “iPhone” when the product shipped.

Eventually, of course, the uncertainty ended.  The Cisco-Apple lawsuit settled on February 21, 2007.  The terms were confidential, but Apple announced that the companies agreed that both companies could use “iPhone” and that they would explore opportunities to work together on issues like security and enterprise communications.  (And sure enough, there is a Cisco VPN client on the iPhone.)  By the time the iPhone was released on June 28, 2007, uncertainty about the name had already entered the history books.

So there you have it, a short history of the letter i.  If you want to return to those halcyon days of youth when Apple first announced the “i,” you can still watch a YouTube clip of Steve Jobs introducing the first iMac.  This was soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, and he had not yet started exclusively wearing his now trademark black turtleneck and jeans for his announcements.  But it was still vintage Steve Jobs, full of quips such as this one:  the back of the iMac looks better than the front of everyone else’s computers.  Here is the clip, which runs seven minutes:

In my post covering the announcement of the Palm Pre, I noted that Apple seems to be positioning itself to attack the Palm Pre as an infringement on Apple’s patents.  And Tim Cook said more on this in the recent Apple earnings call.  Nilay Patel, an attorney who writes for Engadget, and Mathew Gavronski, a patent attorney in the Chicago office of Michael Best & Friedrich, wrote a fascinating post on Engadget analyzing some of the patent arguments that Apple might make against Palm and some of the arguments that Palm might make against Apple. 

They note, for example, that Apple might not have a multi-touch patent as everyone seems to assume, but Apple does have patents on the way that the iPhone screen scrolls and bounces — features that the Palm Pre appears to copy.  They also note that Palm seems to have patents on some things that the iPhone does, such as automatically adjusting brightness, integrating a list of contacts into a phone, and adding an additional caller to an active phone call.

The Engadget article is a great read and I encourage any iPhone-using attorney to check it out:  Apple vs. Palm: the in-depth analysis.  And if you want to read more, PC World also has a recent article which asks:  Does Apple Own Touch Technology?

Does your iPhone sync with your law firm’s e-mail server?  Does your law firm (like most) use Microsoft Exchange?  If so, you might notice that your iPhone only keeps the last three days of e-mail on the iPhone.  That is the default setting when you set up your iPhone to work with an Exchange mail account.

But you can change this default setting.  Go to Settings –> Mail, Contacts, Calendars.  On the top portion of the next screen you will see your “Accounts” listed.  Tap on the entry for your Exchange e-mail.  Then on the bottom of the next screen, tap on the setting “Mail days to sync.”  Your choices are 1 Day, 3 Days (the default), 1 Week, 2 Weeks, 1 Month or No Limit.  Simply select “No Limit” and you will have unlimited e-mail.  Every e-mail that you see in Outlook will also sync to your iPhone.

You may notice at the bottom of the “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” screen that there is a setting under “Mail” called “Show” that allows you to show from 25 to 200 recent messages.  You might think that this means that you can only see up to your last 200 messages on your iPhone, but for Exchange mail accounts, this option is ignored.  This is a little confusing and it seems that Apple should tell you this — and they do if you know where to look; here is an Apple Knowledge Base article on the subject.  Thus, no matter what your “Show” setting, you will see anywhere from 1 day to 1 month to unlimited Exchange messages, depending upon what you set as your “Mail days to sync.”

Of course, the amount of e-mail you can store on your iPhone is subject
to how much free space you have on your iPhone.  But many companies
already impose a limit on the amount of e-mail you can store on your
Exchange server.  At my firm, that limit is 500 MB, and I consider it worthwhile to
devote up to one-half of one of the 16 GBs on my iPhone 3G to e-mail. 

Scrolling back through thousands of messages can take a little time,
but it is nice to know that the e-mails are there if you need them.  I wish that the Mail and Calendar apps gave you an option to jump to a specific date, and I also wish that you could search for a specific e-mail or search for a specific calendar entry — two features that would make it much easier to manage a large number of e-mails or calendar entries on the iPhone.  Hopefully this will be added in a future software update.

Thanks to my law partner Louis Lacour for mentioning the “Mail days to sync” option to me.

About two months after Apple released iPhone software 2.2, Apple today released 2.2.1 for the iPhone.  Apple says that the software update provides two fixes.  First, it improves the stability of the Safari web browser.  Second, it fixes some problems with saving pictures in an e-mail message to your camera roll.  Apparently the update does not add any new features to the iPhone, but it is always nice to improve the stability of Safari.

If you are interested in the history of Apple’s iPhone updates, there is a Wikipedia page that lists them all.  Looking at the most recent updates, the major release of the 2.0 software came out in July of 2008, followed by two minor bug fix updates in August, the major 2.1 update in September, the major 2.2 update two months later in November, and then today’s minor bug fix update two months later.  I wonder how long we will have to wait to see an update with new features?  Another two months?

To upgrade your iPhone, connect it to your computer, run iTunes, and click the Check for Updates button.

Last week, I discussed the iPhone-related portions of Apple’s latest quarterly earnings call.  One thing I did not mention was the very first analyst question.  It was a question about Steve Jobs’s health and whether Apple’s COO Tim Cook was the designated heir should Jobs not return.  I didn’t mention it because Steve Job’s health has been over-analyzed on so many other websites that felt no need to pile on here.

But a few days ago, I was listening to Ken Ray’s excellent daily podcast Mac OS Ken, and Ken read part of Tim Cook’s answer to that first question.  Hearing it again, it struck me that Cook wasn’t talking about Jobs as much as he was talking about Apple’s core values, the same values that led to the creation of (and improvements to) the iPhone. 

As I noted last week, you can download the audio of the entire earnings call on iTunes here, but even if you don’t listen to the whole thing, you might want to listen to just the short statement by Tim Cook on these Apple values.  I’ve excerpted just that part and you can click here to listen to the 1:42 clip.  Or if you don’t want to take the time to download that 1.6 MB file (or don’t want to make noise in your office when you really should be working!), here is the text of what Tim Cook said:

There is an extraordinary breadth and depth and tenure among the Apple
executive team, and these executives lead over 35,000 employees that I would call all wicked
smart.  And that’s in all areas of the company from engineering to
marketing to operations and sales and all the rest. And the values of
our company are extremely well entrenched.  You know, we believe that we’re on
the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing.  We’re constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the
complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary
technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in
markets where we can make a significant contribution.  We believe
in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on
the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in
deep collaboration and cross-polinization of our groups which allow us
to innovate in a way that others cannot.  And frankly, we don’t
settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company,
and we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage
to change. And I think regardless of who is in what job, those values
are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well. And
I would just reiterate a point Peter made in his opening comments that
I strongly believe that Apple is doing the best work in its history.

This is wonderful mission statement of Apple’s values. 

I see I wasn’t the only one who was struck by what Cook said.  Adam Lashinsky of Fortune magazine went so far as to label this statement the Cook Doctrine, remarking that “this shows an executive who has given tons of thought to what it means to lead Apple.”  As MacRumors.com notes, Lashinsky knows a little bit about Cook, having written a profile of him last November.  Others have also remarked on Cook’s statement, including Jason Snell of Macworld and Sam Diaz of ZDNet.

Whether you call it a “doctrine” or not, I was impressed by what Cook said.  As long as Apple’s executives and employees stay true to these values, Apple will be making great products for a long, long time.

David Mills is an appellate attorney in Cleveland, Ohio.  Last month he started a fun blog called Courtoons [UPDATE 5/18/09:  The site is now located at www.courtoons.net] where he posts a new legal cartoon every day.  There is not much of an iPhone angle here — David tells me that he uses a Blackberry — except perhaps that when you visit the website in Safari on your iPhone, the cartoons are a good size for an iPhone screen once you double-tap on a cartoon to zoom in.  Plus, it is Monday morning, which is reason enough for us all to deserve a chuckle.

I do a lot of appellate work, so I love that he has a lot of appellate humor here.  He also has a lot of funny cartoons related to criminal law.  You probably need to be a lawyer to get some of his jokes, but many have universal appeal.

His site is worth adding to your bookmarks for the next time you need a laugh.  Here are two of his recent cartoons that made me smile.

ABA TECHSHOW is a legal technology conference held in Chicago every Spring.  There are other small and large legal technology conferences, but I think this one is the best.  Unlike some other conferences, this one is not driven by companies trying to sell you something.  Of course, there is a great exhibit hall so you can see and try lots of new products, but the main focus is on the huge number of conference sessions, all of which are co-taught by dynamic lawyers and other legal professionals.

In 2008, I was invited to speak on two topics.  First, I spoke about preparing your law firm for disasters based upon my firm's experience with Hurricane Katrina.  (I practice in the New Orleans office of my firm.)  Second, I spoke about using a Mac to practice law when your firm uses PCs.  It was my first time at ABA TECHSHOW and I was blown away.  What a wonderful conference!  I learned so much from the sessions I attended and I met so many other attorneys who are interested in the law and technology.  I also met a lot of legal bloggers, and had I not attended, I might not have started iPhone J.D.

I am not a speaker this year, but once again the conference lineup looks great and I hope to be able to go.  I suggested to the ABA that they should include one or two full sessions on the iPhone.  They decided not to do that this year, but they are holding a roundtable session on Friday, April 3 from 12:30 to 1:30 called "Is that an iPhone in Your Pocket?" hosted by David Sparks, Ben Stevens and Reid Trautz.  With that great panel, it is sure to be a wonderful event.  I understand that they will discuss topics such as mobile access to files on your iPhone, references texts on the iPhone, mobile research on the iPhone, and many of the topics that show up on iPhone J.D.  I hope that the roundtable is well-attended in 2009 and that it expands to a full session or two in 2010.  This may well be your best opportunity in 2009 to talk with a bunch of iPhone-using attorneys in one room.

You can access a PDF file with the full conference schedule here.  The conference takes place April 2 through 4, 2009 at the Hilton Chicago.  Just to give you an idea of the breadth, the conference tracks (each of which has many sessions) are:

• A Day in the (Techno) Life
• E-Discovery Boot Camp
• E-Discovery Update
• E-Records Management
• Enterprise IT
• I'm a Mac
• Internet
• Large Firm / Corporate Counsel
• Paperless Practice
• Solo / Small Firm
• Tech for Client Development
• Tech for Financial Management
• Trial Skills
• Virtual Practice

If you are a lawyer or legal IT professional reading this blog, then I know that you are interested in legal technology and you would get a lot out of this conference.  Keep it in mind as you plan your CLE hours for 2009.  You can get more information at the ABA TECHSHOW website.

Yesterday, after the market closed, Apple held its First Quarter Fiscal Year 2009 Earnings Release Conference Call.  The purpose of the call was to announce Apple’s fiscal results for the last quarter and answer questions from analysts.  Apple announced that it had its best quarter ever, with revenue surpassing $10 billion for the first time in Apple history and record iPod sales.  I was especially interested to hear what Apple would say about the iPhone, and they said quite a bit.

Apple sold almost 4.4 million iPhones last quarter, which means that it has sold about 17,379,000 iPhones since they were first introduced.  Over 11 million of those are the current iPhone 3G model.  Tim Cook, the COO of Apple and the person currently running the show while Steve Jobs is on medical leave, said that numerous surveys report that the iPhone has the highest overall customer satisfaction.  Cook believes that the reasons for this are that the software on the iPhone is “still years ahead” of its competitors and that Apple has so many great third party apps available in the iTunes store.

Cook noted that the iPhone market is “clearly elastic” meaning that as the price has dropped, demand has increased.  Nevertheless, he suggested that $199 is currently the sweet spot, saying that Apple has no desire to play in the low end smart phone business and will let others do so.  “Our objective is not to be the unit share leader in the cell phone industry. It’s to build the world’s best phones.”  So I take that to mean that we won’t see an iPhone for cheaper than $199 for the foreseeable future. 

Cook also mentioned that as the economy slows down, sales in the smartphone market could decrease — especially since smartphones usually come with higher monthly fees.  Nevertheless, he said that Apple feels “very good about our competitive position as I said before and extremely good about our product pipeline.”  So you heard it here first, folks — Apple is planning to at some point release an updated version of the iPhone.

Cook was also asked to talk about the fact that iPhones are now for sale in Wal-Mart.  Cook responded:  “We just started working with Wal-Mart on iPhone at the very end of
December, and so we have not enough data to draw any conclusion about
performance. From a reach point of view, what Wal-Mart does is reach a
tremendous amount more people than we could reach in our stores.  Obviously,
they have over 4,000 or so storefronts and they are in areas of the
country that we have no Apple stores and so they provide a level of
reach beyond of what we would provide ourselves or beyond what AT&T
stores would provide. And so that’s the reason we’re there.”

Cook was also asked about the upcoming competitors to the iPhone, such as smartphones running Google’s Android operating system and the recently announced Palm Pre.  Cook said that one advantage for Apple is that the iPhone comes in just one model.  It is much harder for developers to create apps when there are “multiple variations of displays, multiple variations of resolutions and input methods, and many different forms of hardware.”  This indicates to me that Apple has a reason to keep future models of the iPhone similar to the current model, much like the original iPhone and the current iPhone 3G have similar screens with the same resolution and multi-touch features.

When I recently discussed the upcoming Palm Pre, I noted that the Pre software appears to copy a lot from the iPhone and I wondered whether Apple would assert infringement on its intellectual property, especially in the area of multi-touch.  Cook indicated that the answer is yes.  He first made the general statement that Apple likes competition, but only “as long as they don’t rip off our IP, and if they do we’re going to go after anybody that does.”  An analyst then followed up and asked if Cook was referring to the multi-touch interface on the Palm Pre.  Cook responded: 

I don’t want to talk about any specific company. I’m just making a
general statement that we think competition is good. It makes us all
better. And we are ready to suit up and go against anyone. However, we
will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we’ll use whatever
weapons that we have at our disposal. I don’t know that I can be
clearer than that.

I predict a lot of billable hours this year for IP attorneys representing Apple and Palm!

A few days ago, I noted Apple’s recent announcement that the iPhone now contains over 15,000 apps and that there have been over 500 million apps downloaded.  One analyst asked what percentage of those are paid apps and what percentage are free.  Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, responded that Apple is “thrilled” with the app store but wasn’t going to disclose that breakdown.

Those are the iPhone-related highlights from the call.  If you want to hear or read the entire earnings call yourself, you can do so.  First, you can click here to download the earnings call from iTunes.  (Apple usually only leaves them posted for about two weeks.)  Second, you can visit the Seeking Alpha website, which is where I got the above quotes.  Last year, Seeking Alpha started posting transcripts of Apple earnings calls about 5 hours or so after each call ends.  They create the transcripts using sophisticated text-to-speech software that is surprisingly accurate, but beware that the automatically-created transcripts do contain some errors.

My take on all of this?  Apple is doing incredibly well right now, and the iPhone is a major reason for that.  The iPhone will continue to sell very well this year, although current economic woes will limit that somewhat.  We will see another iPhone released this year, I predict this summer, and I expect that the cost and the basic iPhone shape and design will remain the same.  I expect that the next version of the iPhone will contain a few new hardware features and many new software features.  Hopefully for the 11 million iPhone 3G users, most of the software improvements announced later this year will also work on the current 3G model.  And when Palm is ready to release the Pre, Apple will be ready to sue Palm for IP infringement.

2009 will be an interesting year for the iPhone!

I know that many attorneys are interested in tracking their billable hours on their iPhones.  I understand this; your iPhone is with you virtually all of the time, so why not use it to keep track of what you are doing while you are doing it.  But for me, it just seems easier to wait until I am back in the office to enter my time directly into my law firm’s time entry system using my PC.  (My firm uses Elite.)  For that reason, I haven’t had the opportunity to take a close and real-world look at the numerous applications that exist for tracking your time. 

Nevertheless, I have kept tabs on these apps, mostly out of curiosity, and I thought that it might be helpful to post what I know about what is out there.  Little did I know when I started this post how many apps exist to track your time.  I found 17 on the iTunes store, and that was after excluding a few that seemed inappropriate or unfinished. [UPDATE on 2/5/09:  I found another one, Eternity Time Log, which you can read about here.] [UPDATE on 2/6/09:  There are also online options that work with the iPhone.] [UPDATE 4/15/09:  I have added a review of Time Master, another excellent time tracking app.]

The core features are similar across the apps.  The good ones offer you a choice to either use a timer to keep track of your time or to manually enter time if you are doing it at the end of the day.  The better ones let you edit time that was entered by the timer.  Most apps let you e-mail your time entries to yourself (or your secretary) to be added to a full time entry program.  Many apps have extra features which range from interesting to useless depending upon your needs — for example, a few let you prepare invoices on your iPhone.  All but one are under $10; the cheapest is $0.99 and the most expensive is $59.99.

My guess is that the first three apps listed below would be the most useful for many attorneys, but it really depends upon how simple or complicated you want the program to be.  I encourage any of you who have used one or more of these programs to post a comment to share your opinions with others.  Note that what I am providing today is just a survey of the available apps, not a review of any particular apps.  I only tried some of these, so most of my comments are based upon the description in iTunes and on the developer’s website and the comments on iTunes. 

The apps I am listing today are (in no particular order; this is not a ranking):

1. Billbull by Exparte Staffing
2. iTimeSheet by JF Grang softwares
3. Easy TimeSheet by Augustine Software
4. PocketPunchclock by EpIPhone Coders’ Guild
5. PunchClock by return7
6. My Time by Owen Shaw
7. Billable Hours by Jake MacMullin
8. Timewerks by Sorth LLC
9. TDF Time by Technical Data Freeway, Inc.
10. Jobs by Bjango
11. LionClock by Smart Software Development
12. ClockedIn by kyoobed, inc.
13. Time Tracker by SDK Innovation Ltd.
14. Time Tracker by Jens Eickmeyer
15. Time Keeper by iHarwood.com
16. Bill4Time Mobile by Broadway Billing Systems
17. 24hTrack by Roland Fieger

• Billbull by Exparte Staffing.  Exparte Staffing is a legal staffing agency in New York.  Alon Karpman, the Managing Director (and an attorney) wrote me a few weeks ago to tell me about this app and I have played with it a little.  To enter time you choose a client, then you can choose a matter, task and/or note, then you click a START button to start counting time, or alternatively you can just manually enter the time you spent.  To choose a client, the client must first be listed in the Contacts on your iPhone.  You can review lists of how much time you spent on different clients, matters, etc. and the app lets you send an e-mail with that data so that you or your secretary can enter it into your time management system.  There are only a few reviews on iTunes, but they are mostly positive, except that some people don’t like that a client has to be a preexisting entry in your Contacts.  Billbull is the only app I am listing today that appears to be specifically designed for attorneys, but I don’t know how much difference that really makes.  I had a few minor issues with the app.  For example, if you are reviewing your hours and then add another time entry for the day, you will be returned to the list but the time you just added doesn’t appear until you switch to another view and then switch back.  I also had some minor issues selecting clients.  But let me emphasize that I did not use this for my real world time tracking and my use was limited, so these may have just been one-time quirks.  Billbull costs $3.99 and you can download it here: 

  

• iTimeSheet by JF Grang softwares.  This
looks a great program by a French developer.  Like Billbull you can either use a timer to enter time, or you can enter time manually by telling the app how many hours you spent on a task.  One nice feature that seems to be unique to iTimeSheet is that you can add a picture to use as an icon for a client, which makes it easy to quickly see the different clients you worked for when you scan through a bunch of time entries.  The export function also
looks very nice — a nicely formatted Excel file that
you e-mail to yourself or your secretary.  Even better than just looking at the two pictures below, there is a nice 16 minute video on the developer’s website that shows you what the app does.  I think a lot of lawyers will really like this app.  There is even a free, Lite version of the app.  The
Lite version only allows for one project, but it allows you to get a
feel for how the app works.  iTimeSheet costs $5.99 and you can download it here:    If you want to try the free Lite version, you can download it here: 

  

• Easy TimeSheet by Augustine Software. I have only played around with this one a little bit, but it also looks like a nice app.  For each entry you can have a project name, a code and a comments field (which a lawyer can use to describe what you were doing).  After you record your time, buttons make it easy to adjust the time up or down in case you started or stoped the app’s clock at the wrong time.  You can e-mail a report of your time, although frankly the report looks a little cryptic.  I suppose you get used to it after a while.  Like iTimeSheet, there is a free Lite version that works with just one project so you can get a sense of how the app works.  Easy TimeSheet costs $2.99 and you can download it here:    If you want to try the free Lite version, you can download it here: 

  

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Ustream.tv allows anyone with a camera and an Internet connection to broadcast a live stream.  The streams on the website range from live coverage of concerts and political events to inane broadcasts by random people talking to the camera on their computer.

Ustream will be streaming the Barack Obama inauguration today on this page.  Until last night, that information would be useless for iPhone users, but last night Ustream announced that Apple finally added to iTunes the Ustream app — just in time for the inauguration.  So now, YES WE CAN view the live stream on our iPhones.

The Ustream Viewing Application doesn’t let you send video out to the world from your iPhone.  It is just a viewer app that allows you to watch any live or archived stream on Ustream.com on your iPhone.  You can also view and participate in a live text chat, which appears just below the video.  Note that Ustream sends a lot of data, and thus it requires a WiFi connection.  3G is not sufficient.  You can download the Ustream app for free on iTunes here: 

Here are my quick observations after my (very brief) testing of the app so far.  First, the audio seems to stream very well, but the video often gets choppy.  Second, the app is a little buggy and does crash. You can minimize those crashes by first turning off your iPhone (hold down the button at the top) and restarting your iPhone before using the app.  Third, you can turn your iPhone sideways to get a bigger picture.  Final observation:  how cool is it that you can watch live streaming video on your iPhone?  I noted the other day that Sling will soon allow you to stream your live TV to your iPhone, but that app won’t be out for a few months.  Ustream is the first to bring live video to the iPhone.

Here is what the Ustream app looks like when I was viewing the archive of Obama’s acceptance speech Monday night.  The quality of a still frame of video doesn’t look that great, but when the video is playing it is very watchable.

Thus, if you want to watch Barack Obama being sworn in live
as it happens on this incredibly historic day, but you don’t happen to be near a TV, just download the
Ustream app to your iPhone and stay close to a WiFi connection.

By the way, the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides:  “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January … and the terms of their successors shall then begin.”  Thus, the swearing in ceremony is at Noon Eastern time today.