John Gruber posted a fantastic analysis of the evolution of the iPhone — and the evolution of devices in general — on his always compelling Daring Fireball website. “Start with something simple and build it, grow it, improve it, steadily over time. Evolve it.” Read this. I think you’ll like it.
Lawyers, especially litigators, frequently need to calculate dates: a brief is due in 45 days, an appeal is due in 30 days, a contract or an order compels performance in 100 days, etc. I have been trying out some of the various date calculator apps for the iPhone for some time and I thought I would share my thoughts on three programs.
DaysFrom Date Calculator. This $0.99 app by Quinn McHenry of QD Ideas, LLC is my favorite of the bunch because it is simple and fast. At the top of the screen the reference date is listed — by default, it is the current date, and you tap to change it. Listed below are the resulting dates that are a certain number of days in the future (or past). What I love about this app is that the user chooses the date ranges at the outset, and then they are set for as long as you keep them (although you can always add or remove the date ranges). Thus, once I set up the app just once for the date ranges that I use the most, subsequent uses of the app are very fast. Just pick the starting reference date and the ending dates are automatically listed.
This app does lack more advanced features, such as the ability to only count business days. Quinn tells me that he first developed this app for his wife, a pharmacist who often needs to know what is 100 days in the future, and that while he has considered adding more advanced features such as excluding weekends, holidays, etc., he found that it just added too much complexity to the app. Frankly, I think that Quinn made the right call. Simplicity is a virtue, and being straightforward and quick is what makes this app great. And priced at only a buck, I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed with this app.
DateCalcPro. This $2.99 app from Adam Alexander has a few more features than DaysFrom. When you launch the app, the default start date is whatever date you used last in the app and the default calculation period is whatever you set the last time you used the app, which some might find to be a useful feature. You can count either a number of days, weeks, months, and/or years in the future or the past. You can also pick two dates and the app can tell you the number of days between those dates (or even the years, months, weeks and/or days between the dates). By default, the app counts every day, but you can also tell the app which days of the week to count, such as only Monday through Friday. That feature could be useful if you are in federal court and confronting a deadline of less than 11 days for which, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 6, you don’t weekends or holidays; the app won’t take into account holidays, but the app can handle the weekends for you. Frankly, for those 10 days or less periods I can just do the math in my head, but I can see this feature being very useful if you need to count business days for a longer period of time.
This app works well, and the author even has a Google Groups forum where you can discuss the app and request more features. The only reason that it not my favorite of the apps is that it is just a little too powerful for my needs. Because of all of the options, I find myself having to adjust several settings to get what I want, and DaysFrom just works faster for me with fewer taps. But if you have the need for more sophisticated date calculations, you will like this app.
Date Calc. This $4.99 app from Morgan Brown Consultancy, Ltd. is the most ambitious app of this group. It allows you to not only count calendar days and business days, it also allows you to choose from one of 16 different holiday calendars. The U.S. calendar, for example knows about 10 holidays: New Year’s Day, MLK’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. (Yes, that list complies with Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 6(a)(4)(A).) You have an option to either go to today when you launch the app or go to the last date that you entered. Like DateCalcPro, you can either pick one date and then count forward (or backward), or you can pick two dates and determine the number of days between them. The app even allows you to send your results via e-mail. So in terms of sheer number of features, Date Calc has the most.
As you can see, the interface of this app is unique and does not comply with the normal iPhone user interface (UI) standards. In one sense this is a plus; it is nice to see a calendar. On the other hand, the UI takes some time to get used to and the buttons are small and non-standard. Please be aware that there is one very important aspect of Date Calc that you must consider when using the app — currently, the app begins counting on the first date of a range. Thus, if your starting date is April 1 and you want the app to count forward 5 days, the app will tell you that the last day is April 5th, not April 6th. In other words, the app does not comply with Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 6(a)(1), nor the rules of most states, which tell you not to count the day that begins the period. (In Louisiana, for example, see La. C.C.P. art. 5059.) However, the author of the app, David Morgan-Brown, tells me that this will be addressed in an update to the app that should be released in May. He also plans to add the ability to save common offset calculations (15 days, 30 days, etc.) and larger fonts, which he tells me are two other features frequently requested by lawyers. Those additions would greatly improve this sophisticated app.
For me, the UI is a negative, but I realize that is purely a personal preference. Fortunately, the developer has made it easy for you to decide for yourself whether you like the UI becasue there is a free version of this app called Date Calc Free. This version only tells you the number of days between two dates that you select; you can’t pick one date and then have the app count a specific number of days in the future. The free version also lacks the holiday calendars. Nevertheless, if you are thinking of getting the full version of Date Calc, I encourage you to first try the free version just to get a sense of whether you like the interface.
Conclusion. These three apps take different approaches to calculating dates. All of them do the basic job of counting forward (or backwards) a number of days, and which you pick is really just a matter
of personal taste on factors such as the interface and simplicity versus features. DaysFrom is my favorite of the bunch because of the simplicity, but DateCalcPro is fantastic for its advanced features. Date Calc seems less useful for litigators right now because of the way it counts, but once updated in May, I suspect that some people will consider it the best because of all of the advanced features. It is nice to have choices, and I would be interested to hear from you on which one you like the best.
Click here to get DaysFrom ($0.99): 
Click here to get DateCalcPro ($2.99):
Click here to get Date Calc ($4.99):
Click here to get Date Calc Free (free):
Yesterday, two new apps were added to the iTunes app store that are incredibly useful and free — always a great combination.
First, Skype released an iPhone app. Why do you need Skype if your iPhone is already a cell phone? Because with Skype, you can make calls over a Wi-Fi connection, which means that you don’t use up the minutes on your plan, plus you can even make calls on your iPhone when you are in another country over Wi-Fi. Calling another Skype user is free; calls from Skype to a normal phone line cost about two cents a minute, or you can get unlimited calls to normal phone lines with a monthly plan. I have only tried the app for a few minutes, but it seems to work as advertised. Here are some of the better articles describing the app, although note that these are not reviews because they were written during the day on Monday and the app didn’t become available until late Monday night: Reuters, PC World, TidBITS. (Note that if you don’t have an iPhone but instead have an iPod Touch, you can plug a pair of earphones with a mic into your iPod Touch and use Skype to make calls. I’ve always described the iPod Touch as the “iPhone without a phone,” but now that there is a Skype app, even the iPod Touch can act somewhat like a phone, although I imagine you would have to have the app running to receive a call.)
[UPDATE: Skype sure is popular. The company says: “In less than two days, Skype for iPhone has been downloaded more than one million times – around six downloads every second.” Wow.]
Second, if you use DirecTV, then you should definitely get the free DirecTV app. The app allows you to view a guide directory, so you can browse all of the channels on a time and date or you can pick one channel and then scroll through the upcoming listings. You can also search for particular shows by program title, episode title, description, category, channel name or cast and crew. And once you find something that you like, you can use the app to tell your DirecTV DVR to record it. I have been using a DirecTV webpage to do these same things for a few months now; it worked, but it was slow and awkward. The iPhone app is beautiful, functional and fast. You can tap for more information on any listing, and there is often a picture that you can tap to see a roll of photographs — typically pictures of the cast members. With this great app, you can easily tell your DVR to record a show (or an entire series) whether you are in the office, on the road, or even across the country. Here are some of the better reviews of this app: DBSTalk (in the first post, download the PDF file for a comprehensive review), TUAW, Art of the iPhone. Here are a few pictures:
Click here to get Skype (free):
Click here to get DirecTV (free):
Within the last year, two documentaries about Apple have been released. I haven’t yet seen MacHEADS, which I understand focuses on Mac users, but I recently watched Welcome to Macintosh: The Documentary for the Rest of Us. It is a fun and informative 80 minute look at the last 20 years of Apple hardware, told through the voices of people with a long history with Apple. Some of the best include Andy Hertzfeld (co-creator of the Mac), Guy Kawasaki (former Apple Evangelist) and Wayne Wenzlaff (who placed the first order to sell Apple II computers at a chain of computer stores).
By far the most amusing interviewee is Jim Reekes, who worked at Apple from 1988 to 1999, during which time he wrote the Mac’s Sound Manager and other audio software for Apple. Reekes is perhaps most famous for creating the chime that plays when you start a Mac. It was first used in the Mac Quadra in 1991 and then became standard on all Macs after Steve Jobs returned to Apple. Describing the creation of this chime, Reekes says in the documentary that he realized that a user would hear this sound whenever the computer crashed, so he tried to design a “palate cleanser.” He describes the startup sound as a “widespread C major chord with a high E in the upper voice which, to me, just sounds more bright and sort of unresolved, but happy. It’s a happy chord.” Of course, that sound is now synonymous with the Mac, and I chuckled when I heard it in Pixar’s Wall•E movie (it played when Wall•E’s solar panels finished charging). Jim Reekes is a good storyteller, and his sarcasm is absolutely hilarious. He was a surprise star of this movie.
There is much to say about Apple history and a lot is, of course, not covered in this movie. There is little discussion of software, no discussion of former Apple CEO John Scully firing Steve Jobs in the 1980s, and a lot of classic stories are left out. One funny law-related story that I was surprised to see omitted was the story of “Sosumi,” a sound included with every Mac from the 1990s until today. Fortunately, this story is included in the great DVD extras as part of a 23 minute interview with Reekes. The background to the story is a 1981 settlement between the Beatles’ Apple Corps and Apple Computer whereby Apple Computer agreed to stay out of the music business. Ten years later when computers became powerful enough to create pretty good music, Apple Corps sued Apple Computer. At the same time, Reekes was developing new sounds to be included with the upcoming System 7, and one of the lawyers handling the lawsuit brought by the Beatles objected to the titles of some of his sounds as being “too musical.” Reekes describes what happened next:
Late at night, we were working, it was literally midnight or later, a few of us were sitting around and I walk into the group and I say, “I can’t believe that I just got this e-mail. The lawyers are saying the name of my new beep sound is sounding too musical and we’re going to have to take it out.” And I was like, “we’re not taking it out.” So I had to figure out what we would call it. And so I told the group, “I know, I’ll call it ‘Let it Beep.'” I thought that was actually brilliant. But it was too obvious. And so everyone was laughing, and then they thought I was serious. “No, you can’t do that,” and I’m like, “No, I’m not serious,” I’m like “so sue me.” And then, that is when it hit me, hey that would be a good name. I just have to spell it funny. So that’s why I said, I could spell it like it’s Japanese. Sosumi. And that is literally where it came from, just in the moment, exactly like that.
So then luckily, the director, Sheila Brady, of Software Engineering, was in the room at the time. And I said “Sheila, I need you to contact the lawyer, tell him we’re going to change the name of this dumb thing that sounds too musical, and don’t tell him what it is, but spell it for him. Because if you say it, he’ll get it. And I don’t think that lawyers have a sense of humor anyway, so they probably won’t get it if you just spell it and just tell him that it’s a Japanese word, it doesn’t mean anything about music.” So she did. She called him and left him a voice mail and said we got this new word, it’s a Japanese word, she misunderstood what I said and said it’s a Japanese word that literally means nothing musical. And so that actually became one of the urban legends. No, it’s just some nonsensical word that I made up.
Reekes says that he never disclosed the true story behind “Sosumi” until after he left Apple in 1999.
There are very few mentions of the iPhone in this movie (although it is discussed somewhat more in the DVD extras), but if you enjoy hearing Apple-related stories like the one about Sosumi, you should definitely watch this movie. You can buy the DVD directly from the filmakers at their website for $19.84. (Cute; the Mac was introduced in 1984.) You can also just rent it through Netflix. Here is the movie trailer:
The iPhone Blog has a nice post this week on how the new features in iPhone Software 3.0 will be appreciated by business users, which includes just about all lawyers who work at a law firm. Features discussed include anti-phishing in Safari, an improved call log, the ability to create meeting invitations, additional language support, LDAP support, notes sync, VPN on demand, etc. Many of these are features that I’m really looking forward to for me and my law partners who use iPhones. Click here to read the post.
With over 25,000 apps on the app store, it can be hard to decide which ones to download. Thus, I always find it helpful to see lists of the apps that others are using. I am currently working with a few prominent lawyer bloggers to complie a large list of suggested apps — hopefully that will be finished and posted here next week. But until then, here are a few other lists that are worth checking out.
Today, Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal posted this list of his favorite apps on the iPhone. His picks are Tweetie (a good Twitter client, but I currently prefer the free TwitterFon), Facebook, Kindle, ICE, Easy Wi-Fi (note that Apple may include some or all of the functions of this $2.99 app for free in the iPhone Software 3.0 coming out this summer), ReaddleDocs (I use MobileFiles Pro to do something similar), Quordy (I am addicted to the similar gave Wurdle) and Google Mobile (which I also love). Check out his column on the Wall Street Journal site (if you subscribe) or here on his free All Things D site for more info on his picks.
Last week, Virginia Lawyers Weekly ran this article by Justin Rebello with a list of recommended apps for lawyers. Picks include Jott, Air Sharing, Stage Hand, NumberKey, Recorder (note that Apple will include a free Voice Memo app in the upcoming 3.0), Datacase, 1Password and Evernote. As noted above, I use MobileFiles Pro which replaces the need for Air Sharing or Datacase.
California attorney Scott Wu also recently posted this list of over 30 favorite and free apps.
Want to quickly tell someone else where you are? Perhaps you and a friend are trying to meet up and you are having trouble describing your location. There are two free apps that do little more after you launch them than create an e-mail with the subject line “I am here” along with a link to Google Maps with a marker on your exact latitude and longitude so that the recipient can just click the link and see where you are.
To confuse matters somewhat, both apps are called the same thing: Here I am. One of them comes from Arboretum Software, and was recently reviewed by Macworld. The other one comes from Gareth Townsend. The core features are the same, but they have some slight differences. For example, the Arboretum app lets you set a default “to” address and subject line, useful if you will often be sending to the same person, plus it actually tells you your latitude and longitude before the e-mail is sent. But whichever you choose, both are fast and easy.
As noted, these apps can be useful to show someone else where you are. They might also be useful if you are at a location that you want to remember at a later date — just send the e-mail to yourself.
Click here to get Arboretum’s Here I am (free):
Click here to get Townsend’s Here I am (free):
Given the law focus of this website, it is pretty rare for me to discuss games, let alone link to sites like Joystiq (a leading videogame website). But something interesting caught my eye there last night regarding the popularity of the iPhone.
The growth in iPhone sales has, of course, been pretty astonishing. When Greg Joswiak of Apple discussed iPhone Software 3.0 last week, he noted that the iPhone is now in 80 countries and has sold 17 million units, using graphs like this one to show the increase in sales. (Note the huge increase in June of 2008 when the iPhone 3G was introduced.)
The success of the iPhone is often compared to other smartphones. For example, RIM currently sells more Blackberry smartphones (combining all the various models) than Apple sells iPhones, although of course RIM has been making Blackberries for a long time whereas Apple’s share of the smartphone market has already gone from zero to around 25% in a very short period of time.
Yesterday, however, the growth of the iPhone was put in a different context — gaming devices. This week is the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and the keynote address on Monday was given by Neil Young. No, not that one, but the one who used to work at gaming behemoth Electronic Arts and then left to start iPhone game developer ngmoco. That company has released numerous popular iPhone games including Topple, Rolando and Word Fu, and Neil Young was one of the developers showcased by Apple last week at the iPhone Software 3.0 announcement. Wired reports that in his keynote address, titled “Why iPhone Just Changed Everything,” Young said that the iPhone is “the beginning of something very special” and that the introduction of the iPhone was as “important a moment in the game industry as the introduction of the
(Atari) VCS, or the NES, or the Game Boy, or Xbox Live, or massively
multiplayer games” in part because “Apple has trained 30 million people to download and install
applications on their phone, wherever they are.” A Joystiq article about the presentation includes a slide that Young displayed containing data from Morgan Stanley
showing how the growth curve of the iPhone is more impressive than the
growth curves of the popular Nintendo DS and Sony Play Station Portable:
(Image from Joystiq)
I know that a lot of people love the iPhone for the games, and Young noted that 60% of the top 100 apps on the iTunes app store are games. Even so, it is not often that I think of the iPhone’s success juxtaposed with the success of popular game systems, so I find this slide and Young’s remarks interesting. Check out the Wired and Joystiq articles for more details.
If your law practice involves dealing with the U.S. Congress, you will want to read two recent reviews of the Congress in Your Pocket apps by Cohen Research Group. The company sells three apps. Congress is $0.99 and gives you basic information about every member of Congress. Congress+ is $9.99 and adds staff information, committee assignments and one free update of the database in 2010. CongressPro is $99.99 and the database in that version is updated throughout the year. (And if you practice in California, the developer also has California in Your Pocket apps.)
Congress+ was recently reviewed by Macworld. The reviewer liked the app, giving it a 4 out of 5 mouse rating and saying that the app is “indispensable” for those interested in Congress because of its “extensive database packed with information on congressional leaders,
their staffers, committee activities and the minutiae of the
legislative process.”
The website Apple iPhone Apps also recently reviewed Congress+ and also gave it a 4 out of 5 review, concluding that the app is “very well done app in function and form, contains loads of information
(contact or otherwise), and appears to has a responsive development
team (based on user comments) and my own experience.”
Older reviews of Congress+ can be found at AppCraver and AppleStoreApps.
I haven’t tested the app myself as I don’t do governmental relations work, but it might be worth checking out if you do. Here are a few screenshots from the app provided by the developer, and if you want more you should look at this page from the developer’s web site containing 45 screen shots.
Click here to get Congress ($0.99):
Click here to get Congress+ ($9.99):
Click here to get CongressPro ($99.99):
There have been quite a few articles this week about the implications of iPhones and similar devices in the courtroom.
The story that has perhaps gotten the most attention ran in the New York Times a few days ago: As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up. The article describes a Florida criminal trial in which a mistrial was declared after it was discovered that eight jurors had been researching the case on the Internet, a criminal trial in Pennsylvania in which a judge declared a mistrial after a juror posted updates on Twitter, and a civil case in Arkansas in which another juror posted updates on Twitter such as this one: “So Johnathan, what did you do today? Oh nothing really, I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.” MSNBC picked up on the story as did countless other news outlets.
Also this week, the National Law Journal posted a story about judges letting reporters use services like Twitter to live-blog the events at a trial. Some judges prohibit electronic devices in the courtroom, while other judges see no problem with it.
My initial reaction to these stories is that they were sensationalist. As Macworld joked when describing the New York Times article, when a journalist finds three cases of something — it must be a trend!!!
Upon reflection, however, I think there is something here. Jurors getting information from, or communicating with, the outside world is nothing new, nor are journalistic attempts to provide up-to-the-minute coverage of trials. (We all remember the O.J. Simpson trial.) But what is different is that small but powerful technology like the iPhone makes it so easy to get and send information that people don’t think twice about doing it. People are already using iPhones to broadcast all of the minutia about their lives, even what they had for lunch. Having something of true significance to share, like a trial, can somehow seem even more appropriate. And if you are used to using your iPhone to look up information whenever you have a question, wouldn’t it be easy to use your iPhone just to get a quick picture of the area where a crime took place, or to look up a legal concept, or to research a person or a company?
Last month, I had jury service in criminal court in New Orleans for six full days. Along with the feeling of civic responsibility came a lot of down time and boredom, and I found myself making extensive use of my iPhone. At one point, I was voir dired in a high-profile murder case, and I thought about how I could do a quick search on my iPhone and find out what the case was all about. I had to exercise quite a bit of self-control to not do so when I knew how easy it would be. (No, I wasn’t selected for that jury or any others … lawyers love to strike other lawyers from juries!) When the iPhone makes accessing the world to get or send information so darn easy, the temptation to do so can be hard to resist. Perhaps Macworld is right and this isn’t a “trend” per se, but surely an increasing number of courts will be forced to confront questions arising from the use of iPhones in court.
[UPDATE on 3-24-09: Here is a cute cartoon from Courtoons on this subject:]
