Apple Briefs

I was very excited in the days leading up to Apple’s event last week. But I didn’t get to follow a “live blog” of the event, and I haven’t had a chance to watch the presentation since. So I have been coming up to speed slowly. Looking at Apple.com. Reading news sites and blogs.

The experience has been quite a surprise for me. I expected some poor reviews and an unenthusiastic segment. But I never would have predicted the reception that the iPad received.

One group seems enthralled with the iPad. Count me in that corner (unashamed Apple fanboy here). But others think its an absolute dud, destined to live out its life in obscurity like the Apple TV.

The most common objections seem to be:

• It’s just a bigger iPod Touch!
• Netbooks are the same price, the same size, and so much better.
• There’s no camera (I won’t touch on this one, but I do find it interesting that so many people want to do video chats with a camera that sees up your nose and show mostly the ceiling).

The one comment that seems to appear more often than others is, “why would I need an iPad if I have an iPhone and a MacBook?” Of course, you can replace “iPhone” with any top end smartphone and “MacBook” with netbook.

But couldn’t we just as easily ask, why do I need a MacBook if I have an iPhone and an iPad?

Let’s set aside two types of users for the moment. First are the large firm business users. The road warrior who needs to use Exchange and Microsoft Word while flying from one city to another (because work never stops and IT said those are the applications we have to use). The iPad won’t replace the road warrior’s laptop. It almost certainly could — someday. But not today. Windows is too entrenched in the corporate culture for most businesses.

Second are the pro design users. The woman you see editing a video in Final Cut Pro at the local Caribou Coffee. Or the man you see designing a brochure in Adobe InDesign at Panera Bread. They won’t be selling their MacBook Pros anytime soon.

Now that we have those two groups out of the way, what about everyone else? Me, for example. I am occasionally in the second group, but most of that work is done in the office.

A MacBook, iPad, and iPhone all offer the same set of fundamental tools. Email. Web browsing. Chat and social media. Address book. Calendars and task management. Games. Movies.

The iPhone really runs into a wall in two places: (1) entering and manipulating data; and (2) reviewing large amounts of data. Add those two capabilities, and a device would meet the needs of most people.

I haven’t used an iPad yet, so this prediction is based entirely on Apple’s advertising and a few reviews from people who used one at the launch event. But it appears that the iPad takes a big step in the direction of satisfying those two capabilities.

When I first read about the iPad and watched the videos, I said to myself, “that looks great – wouldn’t be be amazing if it had iWork?” I look forward to seeing how well iWork really performs on an iPad. I do a lot of work in page layout mode. Will the iPad support that? Only time will tell. But the ability to do lightweight document drafting on the iPad will really cut down on the need for a laptop on many day trips or short overnight trips.

The iPad also has a screen large enough to comfortably review much more data than on the iPhone. Large webpages can be read on the iPhone by holding it 6 inches from my face. But almost every other app uses larger fonts and larger controls, limiting the amount that can be displayed.

But there’s an even more compelling thing about the iPad. It’s simplicity! Imagine device where you can do everything you’re used to doing on your computer…without any of the hassle of owning a computer.

Many people see this as a drawback. But it’s seen by some as a tremendous advantage.

The iPad is great for people who just want to do cool, useful things on a mobile device and don’t care about the underlying technology. Many of the criticisms seem based on the notion that the desktop metaphor we have been using the past 20 years is always superior. But maybe it’s time for something else.

And maybe – just maybe – that something else is the iPad.

I’m not one to get into rampant speculation. I’ve seen too many “credible reports” of future Apple products turn out to be completely wrong. But I had to link to this story about the Apple event scheduled for January 27th because it has one of the best photo Jobs I have ever seen.

What will the event bring? I am hoping it’s something closer to the iPhone than the MacBook Air. Depending on who you talk to, the MacBook Air was either revolutionary or evolutionary. It certainly had an amazing portability. But it didn’t quite reach revolutionary status for me because it was missing a certain something.

That “something” – found in the iPhone – is the ability to look back after you’ve owned the product for a while and say, “I never imagined that this feature would be so important to me; I can’t live without it.” If Apple does release a tablet on the27th, I hope it can lead to that kind of change in my life.

This year’s MacUpdate Promo Winter Bundle is here. I highly recommend this bundle to anyone who is a new Mac user. I regularly use Path Finder, Speed Download, DragThing, iRip, and GarageSale. The latter being much better than the very similar iSale. I also occasionally use Yep. I actually bought this bundle for the Socialite license and…because…well, you can never have too many Speed Download licenses.

The aforementioned five apps (plus Socialite) are really top notch applications. Most Mac users are going to find at least three of them very useful.

Disclaimer: I get absolutely no money if you click on the above link and buy the bundle. But I probably should, now that I think about it. Maybe next year.

I am a big fan of dictation. Why writing long documents I generally type. I am pretty fast with a keyboard and I can just cover more ground typing than speaking. But sometimes I need to write something that comes across as more casual…conversational. At those times, I find dictation to be a useful tool.

I have used the iPhone’s built-in Voice Memos application quite a bit. I’ll record some thoughts or dictate part of a document and transcribe it by hand later.

Of course, hand transcription is a fairly slow process. So I was quite delighted to hear about Dragon Dictation for the iPhone. My wife uses Mac Speech Dictate and really likes it (or should I say used? we lost the headset during an office reorganization). I figured that applying the same technology to the iPhone would be a sure winner.

But having used it, I am a little underwhelmed. Perhaps the microphone just isn’t up to the task. Or maybe it’s that – unlike Mac Speech Dictate – there doesn’t seem to be any learning going on. But, whatever the reason, the errors are plentiful. And strange enough that if you look at an email transcript a few hours later, you might not be able to figure it out.

And then there’s the time limit. You can only record for about 20-30 seconds in one go. That’s enough time for a few sentences, but not something as long as a letter.

Right now I place Dragon Dictation in the “novelty” category. I’d gladly pay for a good transcription app for the iPhone. But what I don’t want to do is pay per word. Hopefully someone will come out with a reliable dictation iPhone app that I can use for a one-time fee. If you know of such an app, I’d love to hear your recommendations.

I just finished reading through the materials for the presentation by Ben Stevens and David Sparks at the 2009 ABA Tech Show called “Got Apple Envy? Macs in a PC World.” It’s a great introduction to using Macs in any business, but with a special emphasis on the business of law.

Since I missed it the first time around (the tech show was in April), I thought I would add my input. What has changed since April? There’s new software, of course. And I also have seven months of additional experience to draw on. So here is what I would add to “Got Apple Envy?” given the chance.

Office Suites

Ben and David did a good job of laying out the office suite options. But there are plenty of good word processing options outside of the suites.

One of my favorites is Nisus Writer Pro. I love the interface. Nisus Writer Pro makes it very easy to work with styles. It’s much better than Pages’ combination of styles drawer and inspector.

I’ll also give a shout out to AbiWord. It has the advantage of being free. But the real reason it’s valuable is because it does a good job of opening Word Perfect files. The PC version of Microsoft Word can do this, but Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac OS X doesn’t appear to have this capability. So I keep a copy of AbiWord around for those occasional Word Perfect files (yes, firms still use Word Perfect).

Task Management

People using Entourage probably use its built-in task management tools. But anyone using Mail has to choose between iCal’s tiny capabilities and using a third-party solution. The good news is that there are plenty of good Mac applications for task management (aka Getting Things Done – GTD). My current favorite is The Hit List. But I have also used Omni Focus and Things at various times. I plan to make a final decision sometime in the next six months, but it’s difficult. They all have their strong points!

Databases

I have to disagree that Bento has limited usefulness for a law practice. For a hypothetical firm that has a large budget for database design (or purchase) and someone experienced in charge of processes? Yes, Bento has limited usefulness because it just isn’t very powerful.

But many firms are still using pen-and-paper or Excel spreadsheets to track client work. Bento could absolutely help these firms if someone with just a little knowledge helped them set something up. Bento would definitely be a step up for countless small firms.

Research Tools

Another category of software that might be useful to attorneys are the research tools. Applications like Yojimbo, DEVONthink, and Together come to mind. I don’t have much to say on these other than that I know they exist.

I have used each of them, but I just prefer keeping my research data in a folder hierarchy rather than a single application. Ok, there is one exception. I have taken a liking to Little Snapper. I find myself using it much more than Paparrazi.

Anything Else?

I’d love to expand on the existing topics into the other kinds of applications that I use. But I doubt that most attorneys enjoy dabbling in law / marketing / design / programming like I do. Still, if there is a category of application that you want an opinion on, all you have to do is ask.