Today’s announcement of iBooks Author could be that big for lawyers. Historically, getting published has been a big deal. It’s typically a lot of work (and often luck) to make it happen. But the ability to reach more people with your message and raise your credibility has been worth it.

With the rise of e-publishing, the barrier to entry for publishing has never been lower. And iBooks Author may have just smashed that barrier down entirely. Creating a professional-looking iBook publication appears now to be as simple as making a Keynote presentation or Pages document.

If you’re a little technologically savvy and have the patience to sit and write, adding “author” after “J.D” to your C.V. just got a whole lot easier.

Second, I have learned just how many people had strong feelings for Steve’s contribution to society, myself and my wife included.  There was just something wholly magical and grand about Steve, but deeply human and flawed at the same time.

Third, I have come to realize just how generous Steve Jobs was of himself.  Some have tried to paint Steve as uncharitable.  His decision to end Apple’s charitable giving when he returned as CEO and failure to sign the Bill Gates Giving Pledge are often cited.

But consider this.  Steve Jobs had surgery to remove his pancreatic cancer in 2004.  He had to know then that the odds were stacked against him.  Only 4% of pancreatic cancer patients live even 5 years.  And half of pancreatic cancer patients don’t even live 5 months.

No one would have blamed Steve Jobs if he had just walked away after his diagnosis.  He was already fabulously wealthy.  Fortunate ranked him as the 74th richest American in 2004 with a net worth of $2.6 billion.  Far behind Bill Gates at $48 billion.  But more than enough for Steve to spend his remaining days in quiet solitude with his family.

Instead, Steve Jobs gave us seven more years of his brilliance and drive.  He set out to change the world:  iTunes, iPhone, iPad, Mac as a real option, and who knows what else in the pipeline.  We’ll probably never know how much Steve gave personally to charity.  And frankly, I don’t care.  Steve gave of himself, at a time when he truly didn’t need to and when many others would have stepped down.

Steve, your charity won’t be forgotten.  How can it?  You changed the world.

There are lots of ways to remember Steve.  Some will remember his as a visionary.  Others as a terrible person (yes, such comments are already appearing on message boards).

I admire Steve for all that he was.  For all the glory Steve gets as the “creator” of the iPhone and other neat gadgets, we shouldn’t forget that his first truly great achievement was Pixar.  Indeed, Steve’s most enduring legacy will probably be that he created the right environment for others to be visionary.

And sometimes being a visionary means cutting out that which holds you back.  When he announced his retirement, we heard the feel good stories such as the one about the color gradient in the Google logo.  But there are other stories too, some that you wouldn’t exactly call “feel good”.

And based on those stories, you might say that Steve was kind of a jerk at times.  But these stories were, in the end, about making products better.

I’ve learned a lot from watching Steve, Apple, and Pixar over the years.  And I will continue to learn from Steve long after he’s gone.

I just wish it hadn’t been so soon.

Thanks Steve, for everything.

But Mac OS X Lion was the big disappointment.  I expected to see more than an interface teaser.  I am not sure exactly what I was hoping for, but nothing excited me.  In fact, with the switch to an iOS apps-save-their-state paradigm, Lion raised more questions than anything.  Is every app going to need a major upgrade for Lion?  Memory is already at a premium (my tales of woe with Safari and 50+ open tabs could fill an entire blog).  Hopefully Lion will make better use of our limited resources, rather than requiring big memory upgrades (Vista anyone?).

Well, there’s always January.

We previously had been using iCal server on Mac OS X server.  But this setup limits us to syncing our shared events to our iPhones by plugging it in.  Two years ago, that wouldn’t have been a problem because my iPhone couldn’t last an entire day.  But batteries and cell efficiency are far better now.  My iPhone 3GS lasts a couple days without being plugged in.  And working off a two day old calendar is a big no-no.

So we’ve tried setting up a few shared calendars using the new MobileMe sharing, and it works pretty well.  I ran into one situation where I updated the text of an event and it didn’t sync to the “shared” computer.  But other than that one hiccup, the sharing has worked quite well.

We still have big plans for Mac OS X server, but right now it seems that the plug is being pulled on iCal server.

The main problem with Billings is that it is very inelegant at handling time from multiple workers.  It’s not even just that Billings runs on a single computer.  Billings simply doesn’t allow for multiple workers to be handled in a simple and transparent way.

Billings Pro aims to solve all of that, allowing multiple workers to enter their time from their OS X computer, via the web, and on their iOS devices.  But it’s not cheap.  Billings logs in at a svelte $39.95.  By comparison, Billings Pro costs $199.95 per user.

Given all that it Billings Pro does, the price is probably about right.  But small firms with only a couple of billing workers face a steep price climb by using Billings Pro, from $39.95 (lumping work for two people into one timesheet in Billings) up to $399.90 (managing two workers properly with Billings Pro).

But that one-time bump in cost may be worth it.  I’ll be checking it out over the next few weeks and report back.

There are a handful of developers, and the Omni Group is one of them, that are really pushing the envelope on the iPad.  I used Things for months on the desktop.  And when the iPad was released, I took it for a spin for a few weeks there too.  The iPad version was pretty much a well-executed port of the desktop version.  Except for the placement of buttons and some eye candy, Things looks and works fairly similarly on the desktop and the iPad.

Not so with OmniFocus.  The second you start up OmniFocus on your iPad and sync your data, you’ll see that the iPad application was designed from scratch with a smaller touchscreen in mind.  It’s absolutely gorgeous (dare I say, lickable?).  And from my limited use, I actually like it better than the desktop application.  It’s like the Omni Group redesigned OmniFocus from the ground up based on how the interface should work, completely disregarding the desktop version.

Some of the new features are just delightful.  I love the +1 day, +1 week, +1 month buttons on due dates.  I love the Forecast screen, allowing you to see how many tasks are coming due each day.  This was the one feature that I really started to feel like was missing from the desktop version as I transitioned to using OmniFocus for all of my task tracking.

And then there’s the new mapping feature.  OmniFocus for iPad allows you to associate a map location with a context.  I am sure someone will come up with an awesome way to use this feature (but right now it’s not coming to me).

The bottom line is that OmniFocus for iPad makes me want to use my iPad rather than my desktop when it’s time to sit down and plan my day or see what’s next.

EDIT:  MacSpark already has an in-depth review up (but frankly, he cheated a little because he was a beta tester).

The big news from today (apart from the news that will apparently be breaking tomorrow) is that the Library of Congress came out with its new list of DMCA exemptions (a task it takes up every three years).

The headline, that everyone is talking about, are the new rules on circumventing cell phone software to enable interoperability of software (a.k.a. jailbreaking).

As an IP lawyer who hasn’t jailbroken his iPhone, I latched onto a different change.  The Library of Congress now explicitly permits circumventing DRM on DVDs to incorporate short portions of the movie for “non-commercial” use.

This is highly interesting for two reasons.  First, they specifically named DVD and the CSS protection used by commercial DVDs.  That means this exemption does not apply to Blue-ray disks.

Second, the additional exemptions may usher in an era of legal de-CSS software.  Sure, DVD ripping software is fairly easy to find, and some of it can be purchased.  But the movie industry has been pursuing the companies that sell the software and winning lawsuits against them.

The threat of litigation may finally be over for vendors of DVD ripping software now that the Library of Congress has sanctioned such a broad-reaching use for the software.

Everyone now has the right to rip a movie to extract a few clips, mix them together, and throw the results up on their blog.  People have been doing that for years.  But it’s nice to know they now have the right.

OmniFocus for iPad has been submitted to the App Store! (Latest stats are that 85% of new apps are reviewed within 7 days.)

is it too much pressure to say that I am expecting OmniFocus for iPad to be a game changer in task managers?

Apple also updated the MobileMe iDisk app.  It’s a universal app, so it runs on both iPhone and iPad.  I hadn’t been looking for this app because we use DropBox rather than MobileMe for online backup, syncing, and storage.  But is seems like a fairly capable entry into the field, so it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Now if Apple would just release new iMacs already…