iPhone 4S–after a few weeks

Having had a few weeks to work with the Apple iPhone 4S, I can report that I am very happy I made the decision to upgrade from my old iPhone 3G.

Back in 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone. During this introduction he said:

We want to reinvent the phone. What’s the killer app? The killer app is making calls. It’s amazing how hard it is to make calls on phones. We want you to use contacts like never before.

Jobs was right then, and the iPhone 4S continues to boast the best damn cell phone in the business. I’ve had cell phones going back 15 years or so, and the iPhone is the only phone I’ve actually wanted to use (or even carry with me). The iPhone 4S is no different. It’s notable that Apple has not changed the phone app since it was introduced four years ago. It works great, and that’s all there is to say about it as a phone.

Siri has been the subject of most articles regarding the iPhone 4S. In my experience, Siri works well if you have either a Wi-Fi connection or a really good 3G cell signal. If you’re not in a 3G-served area, forget it. AT&T’s Edge network is just too slow. I haven’t taken to Siri the way some have. It’s probably more an issue of making a new habit. I will do some things, like type out a message, and then realize I could have used Siri instead. I need to also spend some time learning just what all Siri can—and can’t—do. If Siri can add appointments to my calendar, she’ll be my new best friend. 🙂

The new camera in the iPhone 4S gets some attention, and I can attest that it’s a great camera. I just spent a little over a week with the family at Walt Disney World. During that time, I took over 550 pictures with my iPhone. The 8 megapixel camera in this phone has amazing quality, enough to make my wife (who is a far better photographer than I am) lament the 6.3 megapixel Canon EOS 10D she has. The digital zoom on the camera is not as good as a true zoom lens, especially as you increase the zoom. Still, a zoom power of 2.0 or less has little to no impact on image quality.

In the final analysis, I’m very pleased with this product, and I’m going to look for more ways to use it as a tool in my law practice.

iPhone 4S: taking the plunge

I’ve had an iPhone 3G (not 3GS) since whenever the darn things came out back in the summer of 2008. Over the years, I’ve had a number of cell phones, but they were all real clunkers in many ways. When the opportunity came up to get into the world of iPhones, I entered. Wow—what a difference a good device and OS makes! I remember watching the keynote when Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone back around the start of 2007. One thing he said stuck with me: the killer app on the iPhone is the ability to make calls.

Steve was 110% correct. All the cell phones I’d had before had crappy keypads, tiny screens, and if you wanted to put a name in your phone book, well, be ready to spend a little while tapping the 2 key three times to get to the letter C. The iPhone’s phone app was clean, intuitive, very Mac-like. Almost all cell phones before my iPhone usually ended up collecting dust. I didn’t want to carry them around, I didn’t want to use them. I’d leave them in the car’s glove box in case of an emergency (along with a charger that plugged into the car).

The iPhone, however, was a joy to use. It was the first phone I ever had that I actually wanted to use. The other apps were simply icing on the cake. Its camera was good enough that I finally understood why a camera in a cell phone could be a good idea. (Having a child a year later makes a camera phone almost a necessity–I’m not one of those parents who photographs everything, but having it comes in handy.)

My iPhone 3G is about to retire. I’ve never had a single problem with it, no battery has died, the screen is still almost pristine. But it’s a bit slow after a couple of iOS upgrades. When the iPhone 4 came out, I upgraded my wife’s iPhone 3Gs to a 4. I did that largely because of the better camera as she was taking photos of our son regularly. Still, I figured I’d wait until the next revision came out.

This week’s introduction of the iPhone 4S has been met with some degree of disappointment by many. I also felt like the new iPhone didn’t live up to the hype created by all of the speculation and rumor sites. There wasn’t any of the “holy cow I gotta have this!” excitement that accompanied other product introductions from Apple. I appreciated the increased speed and souped up camera/video capabilities, but that was about it. Maybe I’d wait until the iPhone 5 that many were expecting.

But as I thought about it during the week, I realized that it is time to upgrade my current iPhone. Who knows when the iPhone 5 may come around, and the ability to take plenty of good pictures and HD video will come in very handy during our upcoming vacation. Those who own iPhone 4 devices really don’t have much need to upgrade (other than the desire to have the latest version), but older models are going to be challenged by iOS 5. So, last night I decided I’d go ahead and take the plunge. Looking back, this is the point where I must have gone insane.

Late in the day I read about when the iPhone 4S would go on sale for pre-order: midnight on Friday the 7th, Cupertino, California time. That’s 3 a.m. for me. The Cult of Mac web site had an article to instruct folks how to make sure they would successfully order one when the iPhone 4S became available. I read the advice carefully, set my alarm for 2:45 a.m., and went to sleep.

When you hear the phrase “dead of night,” it means setting your alarm for 2:45 a.m. I’m convinced of that now. That is the time when you wake up, no other sentient being in the house is even close to being conscious, and you wonder what the hell you were thinking. Still, I was up. I picked up my iPad, fired up the web browser, and then spent the next two hours banging on the Apple and AT&T web sites trying to place an order.

The many problems I encountered are documented around the web, so I won’t bother to detail them here. Suffice it to say that some time after 5:00 a.m. (when I’d normally be up anyway) I finally managed to place my order. All indications are that the new iPhone will ship to arrive on October 14, but nothing is guaranteed.

Why on earth would anyone try to be among the first to order a new iPhone? Having been through the process, I have no idea. My only concern was that waiting until later in the morning might mean the new phone wouldn’t arrive before vacation. There are legends that speak of Apple shipping times slipping back by several weeks within hours of a launch of a new iPhone or iPad. I didn’t want to be in that situation.

Although I had to wake up early (and will be desperately wanting a nap around lunch time), at least I know I won’t have to stand in line at an Apple Store next weekend and pray the store has phones in stock. Would I do it again? Only if the arrival schedule somehow matters. This experience has none of the excitement of standing in line to buy concert tickets or camping out overnight before Notre Dame football tickets go on sale to students. It’s a lonely process (unless you’re at an all-night coffee shop with free Wi-Fi and a group of other people banging away on their iPads and laptops), and one I can’t recommend as a matter of practice.

Tim Cook, if you happen to be reading this, please figure out a way to stop this insanity. 🙂

iPad (and iPhone) security: passcodes

During an interview with Jenny Montgomery of the Indiana Lawyer, she posed a question to me that started me thinking. While I won’t go into the discussion we had (lest I say anything here that the Indiana Lawyer will include in its article), it seems to me that it is worthwhile to spend some time discussing the security on iOS devices.

We lawyers all know that we have an obligation to maintain client confidences and avoid their disclosure. Even something as seemingly benign as a calendar entry could be enough to reveal that a client is even consulting with an attorney. iPads and iPhones are small enough that they can be misplaced or even stolen, so owners should take some definite steps to prevent someone from accessing the data. (Even if you don’t have client information on your device, you may not want a prankster colleague to post the latest photos of you wearing a coconut bra and grass skirt on Facebook.)

The first step to securing your iOS device is to use the Passcode Lock feature. You can find this in the Settings app, under General. Passcode Lock should be turned on. In addition, you should turn off the Simple Passcode setting. Apple will let you use Simple Passcode’s four-character passcode, but that is not the wisest move. When you tap your passcode into the iPad or iPhone, your finger leaves a trace of oil behind on the screen. Considering that there are only four digits allowed, and your fingerprints may point to the four numbers you have in your passcode, it doesn’t take much to realize that there are only 256 possible combinations that might unlock your device. Someone might just get lucky and guess your passcode. (You could reduce this risk by wiping your screen clean on a frequent basis, but usually it’s the people with a form of OCD who are best at using that tactic.)

One way you can mitigate this risk is by turning the Erase Data feature on. With this turned on, all data on your device is erased after ten failed passcode attempts. While a thief still might get lucky and guess your code on the 7th try, using Erase Data increases the odds in your favor. Of course, if your device erases itself, you’ll want to have a very current backup of the device’s data stored on your computer.

Instead of using the four-digit simple passcode, turn that feature off and use a longer passcode. I happen to use a nine-character passcode that includes capital letters, numbers, and symbols. I also have the data erase feature turned on, so any thief is going to have to be incredibly lucky to guess the passcode within ten attempts.

At first, using a passcode longer than four characters may seem a hassle, but after a while it’s not even noticeable. Even so, the minor inconvenience is small compared to the potential loss of sensitive data—or worse, having to respond to a disciplinary complaint filed by an angry client after his information was lost or revealed.

In forthcoming posts, we will look at more security issues involving our favorite mobile devices.