Yesterday, Apple announced new versions of the iPad Pro, and more importantly, announced updates that will allow current iPad owners to take better advantage of a mouse or trackpad with their iPad.  And most importantly of all, thank goodness we have something to talk about other than the Coronavirus.  Apple last updated the iPad Pro in late 2018, and for any attorney looking to get a new iPad, now you can get the 2020 version.  It’s not a major change versus the 2018 version, but if you have an older iPad and are ready to upgrade, now is a good time to do so.  I’ll begin today by talking about this new model, then I’ll talk about the new external keyboard, and I’ll finish by talking about the new features that you may get even if you don’t buy anything new.

The 2020 iPad Pro

I have been using the 2018 version of the 12.9" iPad Pro for 16 months now.  I loved that version when I wrote  my hands-on review, and 16 months later I continue to love this device.  I love that Apple reduced the bezel in the 2018 model to make the screen even larger, and the second generation version of the Apple Pencil is a fantastic upgrade over the original version. 

Apparently, Apple agrees, because the 2020 version of the iPad Pro retains all of those great features.  Whether you get the 12.9" or the 11" model, the 2020 version of the iPad Pro is the same size, has the same small bezels, is approximately the same weight, and works with the same accessories including the second generation Apple Pencil.

Of course, Apple has included some new features in the 2020 version, but only a few of them will make a difference for most attorneys:

Processor.  The 2020 models use an A12Z chip, versus the A12X chip.  I suspect that when we see tests, we will see that the new chip is faster, making the new iPad Pro even more responsive.

Capacity.  The entry-level model of the new iPad Pro has 128GB, versus 64GB for the 2018 version.  But I don’t expect this to make a big difference for most attorneys because both of those are a little small for the needs of attorneys who plan to store a lot of large PDF files and also some videos.  I recommend that most attorneys spend the additional $100 for the 256GB model.

Radios.  The 2020 model is slightly better than the 2018 model when it comes to radios.  It adds support for 802.11ax, which works better than 802.11ac when you are in crowded areas with lots of people using Wi-Fi.  It also supports 30 bands of LTS instead of the 29 bands supported by the 2018 version.

Those are not major changes versus the 2018 version of the iPad Pro, so I doubt that any attorney using a 2018 iPad Pro would want to upgrade.  But if you have an older iPad and you have been waiting to upgrade, you can now do so and take advantage of these new features.

But that’s not all.  There are other new features in the 2020 iPad Pro that probably won’t help you write your next brief, but they do make this a better iPad and will be particularly useful to certain users.

Cameras.  The 2020 iPad Pro adds a new Ultra Wide camera on the back, much like the iPhone 11 that came out in September 2019.  While I love having that Ultra Wide camera on my iPhone, I almost never take pictures on my iPad Pro.  But if you do so, this is a nice feature.

LiDAR Scanner.  Apple is investing a lot of resources into AR (augmented reality), the ability to view the outside world through your iPhone or iPad and see additional virtual elements just as if they are in your real world.  The new iPad Pro is the first Apple product to include a LiDAR scanner, which users lasers to scan the outside world so that the screen of the iPad Pro can more quickly display the outside world along with more accurate graphics simulating an object added to the outside world.  For now, AR remains mostly just a cool gimmick, but Apple is planning for the day when AR is a huge part of our everyday life.  Watch almost any science fiction show, such as the newest season of Westworld that just started on HBO, to see the potential of AR.

Better microphone.  The new iPad Pro features an improved microphone array.  This may be important to folks creating media, but won’t be a big change for attorneys.

Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro

One of the big advantages of the 2020 iPad Pro is that it works with Apple’s new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro.  The 2018 versions of the iPad Pro also work with this device, which is good news for many attorneys who own that model.

The engineers who came up with this new keyboard were very creative.  The keyboard folds around the iPad Pro to act as a case, which is nothing new.  But when you unfold it, it has an interesting design that allows the iPad Pro to float in the air above the keyboard.  This means that you can adjust the viewing angle of the iPad as a screen when you are using the keyboard.  Better yet, the hinge to this keyboard cover contains a USB-C port, giving you a more elegant spot to charge your iPad Pro while you are using it, eliminating the need for a charging port coming out of the side of the iPad.  Alternatively, you can charge while using the USB-C port on the keyboard and use the iPad Pro’s built-in USB-C port on the side for some other accessory, such as a thumb drive.

But the biggest new feature of the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro is that it includes a trackpad, the first trackpad that Apple has ever supported for the iPad.

The trackpad means that when are using your iPad on the keyboard, you often won’t need to reach up to touch the screen.  Instead, you can select objects and changing the cursor for editing just using the trackpad.

The new keyboard includes backlit keys so that you can see what you are typing even if the lights are dimmed, and features “real” keys with a traditional butterfly-mechanism keyboard.  Once reviewers start to test this new keyboard, I suspect that they will be impressed.

The new keyboard will not be cheap.  Apple is selling it for $300 for the 11" model and 350 for the 12.9" model.  If you are like me and only use a keyboard occasionally with your iPad, then you probably don’t want to have a keyboard built-in to your case.  But if you frequently use a keyboard with an iPad, this looks like an amazing solution, even though it is costly.  Of course it works with the new 2020 iPad Pro models, but it also works with the 2018 iPad Pro models.

Note that if you don’t have an iPad Pro, Apple worked with Logitech to create another keyboard, the Logitech Combo Touch.  This $150 keyboard includes a trackpad and it works with the 7th generation iPad introduced in September 2019, the iPad Air (3rd generation) introduced March 2019, and the iPad Pro 10.5" introduced in June 2017.

Mouse and Trackpad support in iPad OS 13.4

For me, the very best announcement that Apple made yesterday was that iOS 13.4 is coming out next week (March 24, 2020) with vastly improved support for a mouse or trackpad.  You can currently use a mouse with an iPad, but it is clunky, as discussed in a post last October.  Nevertheless, using a mouse with an iPad can be so useful that I still to it a few times a month, even though it currently doesn’t work great.

It looks like Apple is going to vastly improve mouse support in iOS 13.4, and also create support for a trackpad — not only the trackpad included with Apple’s new Magic Keyboard, but also the Magic Trackpad that Apple has been selling with its computers for ten years. 

First, Apple has done some creative things with the cursor.  When you use a mouse/trackpad, the cursor is usually a small circle but it changes to other shapes as you move over objects.

Second, just like on a computer, the cursor changes based upon what you are doing.  For example, when over text, it changes to an I-beam to edit text. 

In a video from Apple supplied to the Six Colors website, Apple VP for Software Engineering Craig Federighi shows how this works:

This looks fantastic, and I cannot wait to start trying it next week.

The new iPad Pro is great for folks looking to upgrade, the new keyboards with trackpads are great for iPad users who get a lot of use out of a keyboard, and the new support for a mouse or trackpad in iPad OS 13.4 is great news for almost anyone who uses an iPad to get work done.

As COVID-19 has increased the need for remote computing, more attorneys will need to work with the federal court CM/ECF (PACER) system using an iPad.  If you are away from your computer and the CM/ECF system sends you an email to alert you that a new document was filed in the federal district court in a case that you are handling, you will often want to see the document right away without waiting until you return to your computer.  Unfortunately, currently, the links do not always work in Safari on an iPad.  Sometimes you can click the document number and a PDF file will open as it should.  But other times, it doesn’t work.  I was recently asked on Twitter if I knew of a workaround.  I do have one, but it is not perfect.  I’ll share what I’m currently doing, but if someone out there has a better solution, let me know and I’ll update this post to share with everyone.  [UPDATE:  I did receive two great suggestions, and both are below.]

The problem

When you are enrolled as counsel of record in a federal court case and a new document is filed, the CM/ECF system sends an email to you to inform you that the new document was filed.  Typically, you can click the document number link to view/download a copy of the document in question.

But currently, when you click that link on an iPad (or an iPhone), instead of a PDF file you will instead see a graphic of the first page of the document, something like this:

If the document is only one-page long, perhaps you can live with this because you are viewing the entire document.  But if you wanted to save a copy of the PDF into your document management system, you are out of luck.  And if it is a multi-page document such as a brief, then just seeing the first page can be useless.

To make matters worse, the PACER system only gives you one free look at a document.  Thus, if you are unsuccessful in accessing the PDF file on your iPad and you later use a computer to try to click on a link in the same email, you will be prompted to login so that you are charged to download the document.  Ugh.

Secondary email for CM/ECF communications

Before I discuss my solution, my first piece of advice is to associate more than one email address with your CM/ECF account.  This way, even if you have already utilized the free look associated with an email to your primary email account, you can then find the similar email that was sent to your secondary email account and you can use the free look associated with that secondary account.  In other words, you are giving yourself two free looks instead of one.

Login to the CM/ECF page associated with a federal district court.  At the top of the screen, click on Utilities.  Then, under Your Account, click on Maintain Your Email.

This will bring you to a screen where you can create one or more secondary email addresses.  Some folks already use that to send an email to their secretary/paralegal at the same time that an email is sent to the attorney.  You can still do that, but you can add another secondary email address for yourself.  I’m not aware of any limit on the number of secondary email addresses that you can associate with an account.

Partial workaround

=UPDATE 3/16/2020 11am=

Before discussing the workaround that I originally shared in this post, I want to share a suggestion I received in response to this post from Boston attorney Jake Walker.  I like his solution even better than my original solution.

When you tap the link in the email and Safari opens to an image of the first page of the document instead of the PDF file, hold your finger on that image of the first page for a few seconds.  This will open the share menu with three options:  Share, Add to Photos, and Copy.  Tap on copy.  When you do this, you are copying a URL (not the document).  Next, go to the address part of Safari and paste that URL and tap go.  This will often load the PDF version of the document, giving you exactly what you wanted in the first place.  This workaround hasn’t worked for me every time, but it has worked for me more than once, so it is probably just as good of a solution as what I describe below, and it is faster because it doesn’t involve using a third-party app (PDF Expert).

=UPDATE 3/16/2020 9pm=

California Judge Jack Lucky provides another tip.  When you hold down your finger on the image of the first page, when the image starts to lift off the page and you see that share menu with the three options, keep your finger down on the screen and drag it up to the top.  You can let go when you see a green plus sign, and you can do so either in the address bar or in the tab bar.  If you let go on the address bar, the PDF file will replace the image of the first page.  If you let go in the tab bar, you will open up a new tab with the PDF file. 

This tip works with federal court systems, and also works with some of the California court systems too.  Great tip, Your Honor!

=ORIGINAL POST=

Here is what I have figured out as a partial workaround to successfully open the PDF file associated with an email from the CM/ECF system.  This workaround uses PDF Expert (my review), so you have to have that app installed.

Instead of tapping on the document link in the email, hold your finger down on the document link for a second.  This will trigger a pop-up menu with some options.  One of the options is Copy Link.  Tap on Copy Link quickly, before the page loads in the preview window.

Next, open a blank page in Safari.  In the address bar, paste the link that you have just copied, but DO NOT hit tap the GO button yet.  Instead, navigate your cursor to the beginning of the URL, and just before the “https://” part you need to type pdfe.  This tells the iPad that instead of opening up the URL using Safari, you want to open up the URL using PDF Expert.

The iPad will ask you to confirm that you want to open the link in PDF Expert.  Tap Open to confirm.  Next, one of two things will happen.  When this workaround works, you will see the PDF file that you wanted n PDF Expert.  You can view the document, save it to a folder, export it to another app, etc. 

When this workaround doesn’t work, you will see a screen indicating that you need to login to PACER to pay to view the document.  At this point, the free view associated with the email will no longer work — even though you never got a chance to use that free view — and that is why I hope that you also had a copy sent to a secondary email address so that you can try again.

This is an imperfect solution, but it has worked for me enough times that I am comfortable recommending it.  But my hope is that either Apple will fix Safari or the federal government will fix CM/ECF so that this problem goes away.  In the meantime, if you have a better solution, please let me know and I will share it here.

And remember, regardless of this workaround, it is always nice to have a secondary email address for your CM/ECF account.  If you try to view a document on your iPad, you can try again (using the email sent to the secondary email address) on a computer, where hopefully everything will work well.  Otherwise, you can always access the document using PACER, but you will have to pay to do so.  Or you can access PACER documents using another service.  For example, you can use the Dockets feature on Westlaw to access any PACER document, and you may or may not incur an additional charge for that depending upon your billing arrangement.

Click here to get PDF Expert by Readdle (free): 

There is not much news for this week’s issue of In the news because the Coronavirus has so completely dominated the news this week.  But of course, in some ways that makes the iPhone and iPad even more valuable, whether you are using them to work remotely as I discussed earlier this week or you are using them for entertainment purposes since so many sports and entertainment options outside of the home are shut down in much of the United States right now.  If you are looking for a great TV show to watch on your iPad (or iPhone if you don’t mind the smaller screen), I highly recommend Counterpart, which recently became available on Amazon Prime.  There are only two seasons of 10 episodes each so it won’t take you long to get through the entire show, and it is a fantastic spy thriller with a science fiction twist featuring amazing acting by J.K. Simmons and others.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Sometimes you have the need to change the case of a block of text.  If you want a utility to help you do that faster, you should consider Text Case, a $2.99 utility.  Brett Burney of Apps in Law explains how attorneys can use the Text Case app, both in an article and in a video at the top of his article.
• For those with a deep interest in law and technology, Georgetown University Law Center (where I went to law school) announced this week that it is starting two new programs.  For attorneys, there is a new LL.M. program called Masters of Laws in Technology Law and Policy.  For non-attorneys, there is a new Master of Law and Technology program.  The programs will go deep on critical issues like “data security, privacy, surveillance, artificial intelligence, fintech, intellectual property, and emerging technologies” according to Georgetown Law Professor Paul Ohm.  Click here for more information.
• Following up on the topic I discussed earlier this week about cleaning an iPhone or iPad screen to ensure that it is free of germs, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal wrote a detailed article on this topic.  Even if you don’t read the article (because, for example, you don’t subscribe to the Wall Street Journal), the video at the top of the article is worth watching.
• Jason Cross of Macworld recommends his favorite wireless chargers for the iPhone.
• If you have a third-generation iPad Air and the screen goes blank, it may be because of a manufacturing defect that occurred in a limited number of those devices.  Click here for more information from Apple for how to get the problem fixed free of charge.  My wife recently started using this most recent version of the iPad Air, and it is a very nice device — as long as you don’t have one with this defect.
• And finally, about a month ago, New York-based filmmaker Junting Zhou visited with his family in China for Chinese New Year.  His family was under voluntary quarantine because of the Coronavirus, and Zhou used his iPhone to create a short film.  You can watch the film and read the associated story in an article on the New York Times, plus I have the video embedded below.   I started watching the eleven-minute film not intending to watch the whole thing, but the film is so fascinating that I loved it all the way to the end.  It is interesting to see what real life in China is like during this time, and his mother is a real hoot.  Worth watching:

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is on the minds of countless people around the world right now.  While this is a rapidly developing issue, fortunately there are some good resources for information such as the excellent webpage created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  It is not surprising that a potential pandemic would touch virtually every part of life, and this includes the iPhone and iPad.  Today, I’m discussing two such topics.  First, the use of an iPad and iPhone if you are forced to work out of the office.  Second, new information on cleaning an iPad and iPhone screen to protect against the COVID-19 virus.  Of course, COVID-19 has additional iPhone and iPad implications that I’m not discussing in this post, such as the recent Bloomberg report that Apple has warned its retail employees to expect shortages of replacement iPhones due to the impact of the coronavirus on the supply chain.

Remote computing

The iPhone and iPad have always been powerful tools for remote computing.  As lawyers and many other professionals prepare for the possibility of quarantine, either voluntary or mandatory, now is a good time to think about the technology that you can use if you are not able to work in your office.  There is obvious value in a laptop computer, but an iPad is sometimes a better solution.  Federico Viticci, the creator of the MacStories website, explained in an article that he wrote last year that when he was being treated for cancer, the iPad was a much better solution than a laptop computer:

My iPad journey began in 2012 when I was undergoing cancer treatments. In the first half of the year, right after my diagnosis, I was constantly moving between hospitals to talk to different doctors and understand the best strategies for my initial round of treatments. Those chemo treatments, it turned out, often made me too tired to get any work done. I wanted to continue working for MacStories because it was a healthy distraction that kept my brain busy, but my MacBook Air was uncomfortable to carry around and I couldn’t use it in my car as it lacked a cellular connection. By contrast, the iPad was light, it featured built-in 3G, and it allowed me to stay in touch with the MacStories team from anywhere, at any time with the comfort of a large, beautiful Retina display.

The tipping point came when I had to be hospitalized for three consecutive weeks to undergo aggressive chemo treatments; in that period of time, I concluded that the extreme portability and freedom granted by the iPad had become essential for me.

Even if you are not bedridden or so sick that you are weak, the iPad can be a great tool for getting work done, either as your only computing device or as an occasional alternative to a traditional computer.  I love that I can use my iPad at a desk with a keyboard, but I can just as easily use my iPad on the sofa with a stylus.

Make sure that you have the right apps installed on your iPad if you are going to use it for mobile computing.  If your law practice is anything like mine, you spend a lot of your day working with documents, so I encourage you to install Microsoft Word on your iPad.  Although you can do a lot with the free version, you can access all of the features such as creating and reviewing redline edits if you or your law firm has an Office 365 subscription, which typically costs around $70 a year, although you get a family plan for $100 a year.

Of course you will also want to access email from your iPad or iPhone.  I’m sure that you already have that configured, but just in case you only have it on your iPhone but not an iPad, this is a good time to get that set up.  Depending upon your law firm or company, that might involve the use of Mobile Device Management (MDM) software and/or an authenticator app or device.

If your law firm uses Citrix Workspace, you should download the Citrix Workspace app for your iPad.  That way, even if you are out of the office, you can access and use Windows software on your firm’s network.  With this app, I can do virtually anything that I could do sitting in one of my firm’s offices using a firm-issued computer. 

Alternatively, if your own personal computer is running in your office and you are out of the office, if you have remote access software installed such as LogMeIn, you can access your work computer even if you are at home and nowhere near your work computer.

If your office uses a document management system, check to see if there is an iOS app that you can use on your iPad or iPhone.  That way, you can access your files from anywhere.  Alternatively, if your office uses Citrix or some other remote access solution, you can use that to access your document management system.

Clean your iPhone or iPad

When I hear someone talk about a virus on a computing device, I think of hackers.  But you also don’t want to have an actual virus on the surface of your iPhone or iPad.  In addition to telling you to wash your hands regularly, the CDC recommends that you “[c]lean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe.”  For a long time, Apple has discouraged the use of any sort of disinfectant on an iPhone or iPad screen because of the risk that it would damage the oleophobic (oil-repellent) coating on the screen.  But yesterday, in light of COVID-19, Apple updated its webpage on cleaning Apple products and now says that you can use a disinfectant such as Clorox Disinfecting Wipes (but not bleach) on the screen:

Is it OK to use a disinfectant on my Apple product?

Using a 70 percent isopropyl alcohol wipe or Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, you may gently wipe the hard, nonporous surfaces of your Apple product, such as the display, keyboard, or other exterior surfaces. Don’t use bleach. Avoid getting moisture in any opening, and don’t submerge your Apple product in any cleaning agents. Don’t use on fabric or leather surfaces.

Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal ran some tests, and she found that using disinfecting wipes on an iPhone screen a large number of times did not do any damage to the oleophobic coating:

Using a brand-new iPhone 8, I wiped the screen 1,095 times with Clorox disinfecting wipes. Why so many? I figured that’s the equivalent of wiping down your phone every day for the three years you might own it. Even after all that wiping, the coating was still in good condition. My fingers, on the other hand, not so much.

Of course, as Stern points out in her article, actually finding Clorox Disinfecting Wipes may be difficult right now.  They are largely out of stock on places like Amazon.  But I can see the value in using these.  It would be a shame to have germs on your fingers that you transfer to your iPhone screen such that even after you wash your hands, your fingers come in contact with the germs again after you touch your screen again.

Moreover, I can see this being an even bigger issue if you have an iPhone or iPad screen that is touched by multiple people.  Just yesterday, I was picking up a to-go lunch at a great spot in New Orleans, St. James Cheese Company.  Like many other vendors, they use an iPad-based cash register system so when you pay with a credit card you sign your name using a finger on the iPad screen.  Yesterday, I noticed in that restaurant a sign that they have disabled the signature requirement to reduce the risk of spreading the COVID-19 virus:

That was a risk that had not even occurred to me before seeing that sign.  An article by Betsy McKay in the Wall Street Journal yesterday says that, according to the World Health Organization, a “recent review of 22 studies found that coronaviruses can last on surfaces such as metal, glass or plastic from two hours up to nine days.”  I never realized that, in touching a public iPad screen, I might be touching germs from anyone else who had touched the same device within the past nine days.

Of course you don’t want to panic, and I’m not suggesting that you go crazy with cleaning the screens of all of your devices.  Nevertheless, it is always good to know what you can do to be prepared and play it safe, whether you are using your on iPhone or iPad or you are touching the screen of a device that belongs to someone else.

ABA TECHSHOW took place in Chicago last week.  I missed it this year due to a family vacation over the Mardi Gras holidays, but MyCase posted the visual notes that it had artist Leah Silverman create during some of the sessions this year.  These are always fun to look at, and they give you a sense of what you missed if you did not attend a session.  (Here is one from a session I did last year with Virginia attorney Sharon Nelson.)  iPhone J.D. readers are likely to be particularly interested in the graphical representation of the session on iPhone and iPad apps by Brett Burney and Paul Unger.  And now, the recent news of note:

• If you are a solo or small firm attorney looking to improve your law practice, you should consider attending the Small Firm Bootcamp program in New Orleans that Ernie Svenson has run for the last few years.  This year it is May 7-8, and it features a lot of fantastic speakers including David Sparks of MacSparky and the Mac Power Users podcast and Brett Burney of Apps in Law.  Ernie himself is a dynamic speaker and great teacher; he was one of the very first legal bloggers (and encouraged me to start iPhone J.D. back in 2008), and every time I have co-presented a CLE with him, the session has gone really well.  I see that the discounted (and refundable) early bird pricing for the program ends in just a few days.
• Speaking of California attorney David Sparks, he recently explained why he has enjoyed the Apple Arcade service during its first six months.  I don’t play a lot of games, but I signed up for the service for my kids — giving them access to lots of high-quality games without any in-game ads or in-game purchases — and they really like the games.  (This week, my son has been playing Crossy Road Castle.)
• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reviews abode iota, a HomeKit home security system that he says works well and can be controlled in many different ways.  It can be used with or without a monthly monitoring plan.
• The coronavirus has had an impact on numerous aspects of our lives, including Apple products.  Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reports that Apple has warned its retail employees to expect shortages of replacement iPhones due to the impact of the coronavirus on the supply chain.
• Christopher Close of iMore describes the top HomeKit smart light switches.  I’m a big fan of the iMore staff favorite pick, the Lutron Caséta devices that I reviewed in 2015 and 2019.
• Buster Hein of Cult of Mac reports that Amazon added HomeKit support to its Eero Wi-Fi routers.
• Apple recently had a contest to find the best pictures taken with the Night Mode features of the iPhone 11, and the results were posted this week.  These pictures are stunning.
• David Gelles of the New York Times published an interesting interview with Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs.
• Joe Rossignol of MacRumors shares the story of the Troyer family of Montana.  They lost an iPhone 11 (containing lots of vacation pictures) at Disney World when it fell into the Seven Seas Lagoon.  But two months later, the iPhone was discovered by Disney’s scuba divers, and the iPhone still worked and was returned to the family.  That’s impressive water resistance.
• And finally, the newest music video from Lady Gaga is a for song called Stupid Love.  I mention it today because it was filmed using an iPhone 11 Pro.  So if you already own an iPhone 11 Pro, all you need is Lady Gaga and then you too can create a YouTube video with over 30 million views.

In 2013, Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Office Mobile app for iPhone.  It was the first official Microsoft app that allowed you to view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents on an iPhone.  Unfortunately, it was so incredibly limited (for example, it didn’t support redline edits) that I concluded my review by saying that the app was unsatisfying and making a wish that it was the first step towards something better.  Fortunately, that’s exactly what happened.  A year later in 2014, when I was attending ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago, Microsoft surprised me and countless other attorneys by releasing a powerful version of Microsoft Word for the iPad (along with Excel and PowerPoint).  Later in 2014, Microsoft updated the app to work on the iPhone as well.  Since 2014, the Microsoft Word app has been one of the most useful apps on my iPhone and iPad, and I know that many other attorneys feel the same way.  I use it all the time to review documents sent to me by others, revise my own documents, convert Word files to PDF, review redline edits made by others, and countless other tasks.  It is an important part of my law practice.

A few months ago, Microsoft announced that it was once again bringing an Office app to the iPhone.  The app was officially released a few weeks ago — once again, around the same time as ABA TECHSHOW.  When I first heard about this app, I wasn’t very enthusiastic.  In part, this was because I had not forgotten about the disappointing 2013 version of Office for iPhone.  But also, I was confused about the purpose of this app.  We already have a Microsoft Word app for the iPhone; why do we need an additional Microsoft Office app that combines Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a single app?  However, now that I’ve used this app for a while, I see that there are some nice features in this app.  And it doesn’t cost anything extra for you to use the app, so I encourage you to download it and try it out.

Why one app?

I’ll address what I like about this app in a moment, but I’ll begin by saying that, even after using this app for a while, I still don’t understand the value of having a single Office app that handles Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.  Microsoft says that it takes less space on your iPhone to have a single app, but given the capacity of modern iPhones, nobody will ever notice that small file size difference. 

Microsoft also says that having a single app “simplifies the experience with fewer apps to download or switch between.”  That doesn’t make any sense to me.  If I want to work with a Microsoft Word document, it is 100% obvious that I want to use the Microsoft Word app to work with that document.  I’m never confused about whether I should use the Word app or the Excel app or the PowerPoint app to open a Word document.  Moreover, if I’m working with a Word document, how does it help me to have that exact same app also be the app that I use to work with an Excel document?  Indeed, it makes it worse to use a single app for these different types of documents.  With separate Word and Excel apps, I can switch back and forth between the apps to consult a spreadsheet while working on a Word document.  But with a single app, it takes many more steps to close and then open another document.

While I don’t understand the advantage of combining multiple apps into one, I suppose I don’t see any major disadvantage.  Microsoft says that its new Office app has “virtually all the capabilities of the existing mobile apps people already know and use.”  As noted below, so far I’ve only discovered one missing feature.

Working with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents

The new Office app works well when you want to work with a Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document.  Much like the stand-alone apps, the Office app has a main screen that lists apps that you have recently opened, plus a file browser that you can use to access documents saved on your iPhone or on a cloud service such iCloud, Dropbox, SharefFile, OneDrive, Box, NetDocuments, etc.

 

When you open up a document, you can review the document or edit it.  I had no trouble opening up and editing a PowerPoint file that I created back in 2001 for a presentation on how to make the most of a Palm organizer in a law practice.  (I’ve been using Keynote on the iPad for all of my presentations for such a long time that I had to dig back into ancient history to find one of my PowerPoint documents.)  I also worked with a spreadsheet that I created to compute legal interest. 

 
But most importantly for me, the Office app works well with Microsoft Word documents.  Documents automatically open in the mode that formats the text so that you can more easily read the words on a small iPhone screen, but you can switch back to a full-page mode if you want.  You can edit the document, search for words in a document, create or review redline edits (if you subscribe to Office 365), etc.

So far, I’ve only discovered one difference between working with a Word file in the Office app versus the Word app.  In the Word app, when you tap on text to start editing it, the bottom half of the screen shows editing options.  When you are done editing, you can tap the icon showing a keyboard with a down arrow to make the editing features go away so that you can use all of the screen to view the document.  In the Office app, that icon is missing.  Once you start editing a document, the only reliable way I could figure out to go back to a full-page mode is to close the document and then open it up again.  It is also possible to zoom out the document and then tap at the bottom to return to a full-page view, but that approach fails to work far more often than it works.  I’m not sure if this omission is a bug or if Microsoft somehow considered this feature unnecessary and intended to remove it, but for now, it is a reason that I plan to stick with the Word app on my iPhone.  In the following pictures, the Word app is on the left and the Office app is on the right:

By the way, for now, the Microsoft Office app only works on an iPhone (or the iPhone app mode of an iPad), but Microsoft says that it is working on a version of the Office app that is designed for the iPad.

Use of the camera in the Office app

The new Office app doesn’t just incorporate the features of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  It also makes good use of the camera on the iPhone by incorporating features of the Microsoft Office Lens app, which has been available for iPhone since 2015.  The Lens app allows you to take a picture of a document, and then it performs an OCR to read the text and then allows you to export to another app such as Word.  With the new Office app, you can choose to create a Word document by first taking a picture of a paper document.  Office then creates a Word document with that text so that you can start editing the document that you just scanned.  This is a situation in which I do like having multiple functions (the Lens app + the Word app) in a single app, and it is very nice.

In my tests, the OCR feature was far from perfect, so I needed to clean up the text after scanning.  Obviously, you get better results with better quality documents.  But I like that if someone hands you a paper version of a proposed contract, you can use the Office app to scan the document, convert to Word, and then you can modify the document and create a new version that contains the additional terms that you need.

The Office app also includes a function that lets you take a picture of a table and then turn that into an Excel spreadsheet.  The Excel app has the same feature, but for it to work you need to already have a spreadsheet open and then you can insert what you scanned into that document.  I prefer the approach of the Office app in which you start by taking a picture and then use that as the basis for a new spreadsheet document.  (In theory, you can also insert what you scan in to an existing spreadsheet in the Office app, but for some reason the feature never seemed to work for me when I tapped the button.  I presume that this is just a bug that will be fixed.)

Notes

The new Office app also gives you the ability to create a note.  When you do so, that note will be listed along with your other recent documents.  I myself don’t see any value in creating notes in the Office app considering that it lacks many of the features in Apple’s own Notes app that is built-in with the iPhone.  But the feature is there in the Office app if you see some value.

Price

The Office app is free, and the free version allows you to do many things including view and edit a Word document.  But for more sophisticated features, such as the ability to create and approve redline edits in a document (the track changes feature), you (or your law firm) needs to have an Office 365 subscription.  The price of a subscription varies depending upon the features; you can get a personal version for $69.99/year, or for $99.99/year you can get a family plan that works for up to 6 people.  If your law firm or other company already subscribes to Office 365, then you should not have to pay to unlock the app on your iPhone, but even if you do, you may be able to take advantage of the Microsoft Home Use program, which offers a discounted price.  

All of this is no different for the Office app than it is for the stand-alone Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps.

Conclusion

I don’t know if Microsoft intends to continue to maintain the stand-alone Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Lens apps while also supporting this new Office app.  If it does, then the existence of this new Office app is nothing but good news.  You can now decide whether you prefer to use different apps depending upon the type of document you are working with, or whether you prefer to use a single Office app for all of your Microsoft document needs.

If Microsoft plans eventually get rid of the stand-alone apps and focus only on the Office app, I suppose that would be fine as long as we don’t lose any features.  As noted above, the main difference I’ve noticed so far is that icon to hide the keyboard.  (I noted above that it is missing when you are working with a Word document, but Office is also missing the same icon when you are working with an Excel or PowerPoint document.)

Whether you are a subscriber to Office 365 or you just use the free version, every single attorney should have either the Word or the Office app on your iPhone, if for no other reason so that you can quickly review a Word document that someone else emails to you.  You might as well get both the Word app and the new Office app since there are some differences.  That way, you can use the one that you prefer depending upon the task at hand.

Click here to get Microsoft Office for iPhone (free): 

Today is Mardi Gras day in New Orleans.  Technically, it has been Mardi Gras season since January 6 (King’s Day), but most of the festivities began on Friday, February 14, when we started the first of the two big weekends of parades.  My family and I had a great Mardi Gras season.  Hopefully some of you had the opportunity to enjoy it as well, but if not, I encourage you to plan a trip to New Orleans in the future.  Happy Mardi Gras!

The Look Around feature in Apple Maps is similar to the Street View feature in Google Maps, but I find that it works much better with higher quality pictures and smoother transitions when you move around.  However, it is only available in a small number of cities including New York and San Francisco.  Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac reports that the feature is now available in Washington, D.C., Boston, and Philadelphia.  So now, you can easily see the United States Supreme Court and other important and historical locations from the Maps app.  (When Look Around is available, you will see an icon with a pair of binoculars near the top right of the screen.  Just tap that ot enter the Look Around mode.)  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• The most recent episode of the Mac Power Users podcast — hosted by California attorney David Sparks along with Stephen Hackett — is called State of the iPad.  It includes a great look at what is great about the iPad, especially the iPad Pro, and a nice look at what might be coming in the future.  I enjoyed the episode.
• In the latest episode of the Apps in Law podcast, Brett Burney interviews Kentucky attorney Stephen Embry to talk about the CES conference and consumer technology that is of interest to attorneys.
• Photoshop has been around for 30 years, and to mark the anniversary, there is a new version of the Photoshop iPad app.  Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories describes what is new.  I pay for a Photoshop subscription, mostly so that I can use it on my Mac but also to use the app on my iPad.  It is very powerful, but I still find it somewhat confusing — largely because I haven’t been using Photoshop for decades like some other folks.  One of these days I’d love to find a good, simple tutorial on how to make the most of the iPad version of the app, but for now, I’m figuring out how to get things done.
• Jason Cross of Macworld reviews five good weather apps for the iPhone.  Most of the time, I use Carrot Weather, but sometimes I instead use Dark Sky — especially if I want to view a weather radar, which I think that Dark Sky does better than any other app.
• If you have a camera in your home that works with HomeKit, you should definitely check out HomeCam.  The app was updated to version 2.0 this week, and based on this review by Bradley Chambers of 9to5Mac, it sounds quite powerful.
• As noted by Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac, watchOS was updated this week to version 6.1.3 to fix a bizarre bug:  irregular heart rhythm notifications were not working for certain Apple Watch owners in Iceland.
• This week, Apple announced that it will make less money this fiscal quarter than it had previously announced because of COVID-19, the Coronavirus.  As a result of the virus, (1) Apple is not able to manufacture iPhones in China at the pace it had expected, and (2) Apple expects to sell fewer iPhones in China.  
• I haven’t tried this yet myself, but I can see how this could come in useful.  You can connect an iPhone or iPad to a TV in a hotel by using an HDMI cable and a dongle on your iPhone or iPad that connects to HDMI.  That way, you can show video from your device on the larger TV, useful for streaming video from a service like Netflix.      But some hotel TVs restrict access to the HDMI port, presumably to encourage you to watch their TV service and pay for pay-per-view.  Charlie Sorrel of Cult of Mac shares a tip from Deviant Ollam on Twitter:  just disconnect the phone-like cable on the back of the TV, restart the TV, and then it works like a normal TV and you can plug in your HDMI cord.
• And finally, this video from Apple is part of its Shot on iPhone series.  It is called Powder:  Backcountry Snowboarding at Baldface Lodge, and it includes some amazing snowboarding video:

Just about every lawyer I know uses some system to keep track of tasks that need to be done, and often they do so using an iPhone.  There are tons of great apps to use for this, from the built-in Reminders and Notes apps to numerous third-party apps.  (I use the app Things.)  But there are some tasks that we all do with some regularity that don’t need to be done at a specific time or date; nevertheless, it is often nice to know when you did it last.  For example, you might not have a strict schedule for tasks like getting a haircut or washing your bed sheets, but it would be nice to have a quick way to see when you last did it, not to mention a way to see how often you usually do that task.  When Did I…? is an app designed for this need.  It works very well and I think that most anyone would find a good way to use this app on their iPhone.

The main screen of the app lists whatever actions you want to track.  Tap the plus sign at the top left to add a new action, give the action a name, and then select an Emoji that you want to associate with the action.  Once the action is in your list, all you need to do is tap the action and your iPhone will record that you just did that task.  When you come back in the future, you can then easily see at a glance when you last did the actions that you are tracking.

Tap the arrow to the right of each action to see a lot of whenever you did those actions. 

If you forgot to log something, or if you are using the app for the first time so there is no history, you can go back and add past events.  Just tap the three dots at the top right to do so. 

If you recorded an action by mistake, just swipe right to left to delete the action.  Or you can tap the three dots at the top right, tap Delete Events, and then you can easily delete multiple events at once.

Those three dots also give you a way to add a specific action to Shortcuts.  Tap that button and give Siri a specific phrase — such as “when did I last wash my car” — and then whenever you ask Siri that question, Siri will determine the answer from the When Did I…? app and then will tell you the answer.  You can also configure a Shortcut so that when you say a certain phrase to Siri, the When Did I…? app will log that you just conducted one of your activities.

I really like this app because there are so many ways that it can be helpful.  When did I last change the batteries in my smoke detector?  When I did last replace a light bulb?  When did I last have lunch with my college roommate?  When did I last get flowers for my wife?  When did I last charge the battery of the jump starter that I keep in my trunk?  The ways that you can use this app are limited only by your imagination. 

I do wish that this app would add one feature.  Once you have logged a number of entries for an activity, the app could easily determine the average interval between each time you do the task.  It would be nice if the app had a way alert you to this interval on the main page, perhaps by telling you that you normally do this task once every X months/days, or perhaps by suggesting that you are X days away (or past due) from when you would normally do this activity again.  Perhaps this will be added in the future.

I like this app, and the more that I use it, the more useful that it becomes.  I think this app is well worth the $2.99 price.

Click here to get When Did I…? ($2.99): 

Today’s In the news post comes on Saturday instead of Friday thanks to my busy schedule at work plus lots of activities in my life as we started the prime portion of the Mardi Gras season here in New Orleans.  Last night, I used my iPhone 11 Pro to take lots of pictures of friends and family at a nighttime parade, and Night Mode did an amazing job using the limited light available to produce pictures that I would have never been able to take before.  Not every picture came out great — the ones with lots of motion got blurred — but I knew that would happen so I just took lots of pictures.  After deleting the ones that didn’t work, I’m left with a great set.  Night Mode is really a fantastic feature.  I wish my iPhone pictures from previous years were so good.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks created an interesting home screen for his iPhone using Shortcuts.
• Edmund Lee of the New York Times reports that Judge Victor Marrero of Southern District of New York rejected a challenge by 13 attorneys general to the T-Mobile and Sprint merger, clearing the way for the merger to go through.
• I love my iPad Pro.  It debuted in October 2018, but it works so well that I don’t have many good ideas of what would make it better.  But there are rumors that a new iPad Pro is coming out soon, and in an article for Macworld, Dan Moren has a few ideas for what might be included.
• I don’t edit podcasts, but it amazes me that this complicated task can be done on an iPad Pro, and it can be done quite well using an app called Ferrite Recording Studio along with an Apple Pencil.  Jason Snell of Six Colors shows how Ferrite works, and even if your primary interaction with podcasts is just listening to them, you will find this interesting.  In addition to showing how the app works, Snell shows how the content of podcasts is edited to make the final product sound more professional.
• TJ Louma reviews Bobby, an iPhone app that you can use to track your subscription services.
• Microsoft Word for iOS was updated to version 2.34 this week.  The release notes say:  “Redesigned From Scratch: We have redesigned the app to be simpler, faster and more beautiful than before.”  That sounds like it would be significant update, or at least a noticeable update, but so far I’m having trouble seeing what is new on my iPad.  And I use Word on my iPad almost every day, so I would think I would notice.  According to Erik Schwiebert, the Principal Software Engineer in the Apple Productivity Experiences group at Microsoft, this update is part of an effort to increase mobile productivity that was described by Jon Friedman, the head of Microsoft Office Design, in this article from December 2019.
• As reported by Samuel Axon of Ars Technica, Google announced that Gmail for iOS was updated this week to support the Files app.
• Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that a woman in Oklahoma credits the Apple Watch for figuring out that her 13-year-old son had an unusually high heart rate and need to go to the emergency room to have a procedure that took over seven hours.  I know that many schools, especially middle schools, don’t allow electronic devices like an Apple Watch during the day, and there are good reasons for that, but it worked out well for this boy that he was able to wear his during school.
• Emanuel Maiberg of Motherboard posted a review of the iPhone 6s.  Yes, the 6s, which was released in 2015.  You certainly cannot say that he rushed this review.
• And finally, travel photographer Harshit Vora created this fantastic video of Egypt using his iPhone 11 Pro: