US Code for iPad

Back to our developer interview series! This time around, we are talking with Shawn Bayern, developer of the US Code app for iPhone and just recently released for iPad. I exchanged a couple e-mails with Shawn to learn more about his app, developing for the iPad and use of the iPad in the legal education market. Enjoy!

TL: So, how did you get into iPhone development?

Good question. It was haphazard but not really unpredictable. Before I started studying law, I was a computer researcher and programmer. I was involved with a variety of open-source projects at the Apache Software Foundation and helped write the specifications for several languages that are part of the Java web tier.

Anyway, I got an iPhone and, while using it, decided it might be fun to write something in a new language I didn’t know. Objective-C, the language Apple programmers need to use, is bizarre by modern standards, so that made it a minor challenge – something worth learning.

TL: Tell me about your US Code app.

It aims to provide an up-to-date copy of the official electronic version of the full US Code. The “official” version of the code is the one released by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives. It will lag a little behind the versions that are edited and annotated by others, like Lexis and Westlaw.

It’s an “offline” app, which means that it loads the whole US Code onto your device. This takes up space, of course, but most people don’t need the full storage on their devices, and the upside is that you don’t need a network connection to access the data. Of course, if you have a lot of music or videos, you might have to decide between that and the full text of the federal statutes! People who use iPod Touches and the non-3G version of the iPad tell me they particularly appreciate being able to access the US Code without a network.

TL: I have a wifi only iPad so I can see the benefit. Do you have plans for any other apps?

Not really. I may try, if I get time, to produce smaller, more targeted versions of the US Code app, like one for “criminal statutes and rules” or another for “tax statutes and regulations.” But it’s hard to know where that would end, and it might become difficult to keep all those applications up to date.

I do have an app I’ve already released that’s an iPhone interface to a website I set up back in 2000 called Time Cave. It lets you schedule email messages to yourself or other people in the future – like “Don’t forget your dentist appointment on Tuesday” or even, ten years from now, “I hope you haven’t sold out yet!” I’m planning an iPad version of that app too.

TL: Any special challenges you faced in creating an iPad version of your app?

Basically not. In submitting the updated version of the app — which works on both the iPad and the iPhone — Apple initially rejected it because a very small part of the interface didn’t conform with their interface guidelines. It wasn’t a big deal and took about two minutes to fix, but it held up the release by a few days. My sense, which may well be wrong, is that Apple is scrutinizing iPad apps more closely than iPhone apps at the moment.

That said, I haven’t been as critical as others of Apple’s process for reviewing apps. They’ve taken some bad press for it, but I imagine the process that Target uses to decide which jeans and mouthwash to sell would look similarly odd if it were more public.

TL: Anything you wanted to include in your app that you couldn’t because of iPad limitations or missing APIs?

Well, I initially wrote a search engine for the US Code app that was almost instantaneous – better than the current one that can sometimes take a second or two to produce its results. But because of an obscure bug in iTunes — not actually in the development APIs or the iPhone OS — it wouldn’t work. I had to rewrite it because of that, which was sad because the old technique was really much better.

TL: Do you have or are you contemplating any iPad specific features for your app? Why or why not?

I’d like to improve the interface over time – to take advantage of the iPad’s extra space to perhaps allow you to view code sections side by side, or take notes on statutes. But it all depends on whether I can find the time. I’d happily turn this into an open-source project if there are others who want to help contribute, but the logistics of that might be difficult at first.

TL: I understand you are a law professor. Many iPads among your colleagues? Your students?

There are a few iPhones among colleagues and students, but I’m struck whenever I leave Tallahassee (where I teach) at how much more common they are in the big cities. At the Oakland airport, everyone seems to have an iPhone.

I have yet to see an iPad in person other than my own. That said, I rarely seem to take mine out of the house, not really needing it when I’m around the city. I did bring it the other day to a very tedious eight-hour grantwriting workshop that my university required new professors to attend. When I got there, I found that the wireless network was apparently disabled, so I had to hack into it (which really just involved guessing a suitable IP address). I probably shouldn’t admit that, should I?

TL: What impact do you think the iPad will have on law schools / law students?

I may be a bit of a contrarian on this point; I’ve been skeptical for almost 15 years about how technology will change classroom education. There are broader but somewhat separate questions, of course, about whether and how the connectivity of the internet will provide alternatives to classroom education in the future. But I’m not so keen on using
technology in class itself. My best teachers in law school, only a few years ago, used essentially none.

I do let my students use whatever devices they want to take notes or even to browse the web; I tell them I relish the challenge of competing for their attention with the whole internet at once. But I find classwide tools like PowerPoint and mandatory discussions on courseware like Blackboard mostly distracting. Everyone learns differently, but I strongly suspect that taking notes by hand is more effective for most people in law-school classes.

Now, sure, maybe casebooks and other materials — commercial outlines? hornbooks? — will be available on the iPad. That would be great to save paper and perhaps to provide easier access, better searchability, and so on. But I don’t think it’ll change the classroom much — or at least I haven’t yet seen how it will. Honestly, in my own classes, the iPad’s biggest impact may come if I decide to use mine (plus a projector or big-screen TVs) to replace the whiteboard. That was one of my colleagues’ ideas, and it seems to make sense. If nothing else, I’ll inhale fewer marker fumes (which I’m sure is a good thing, even if they’re really “non-toxic”).

TL: Have you heard whether any case book publishers are eyeing the iPad as a distribution platform?

Great question. I haven’t been in touch with them yet about it. I don’t see why they wouldn’t want to consider it. I have to say, I love the video lectures available for free from many universities in iTunes, for both the iPhone and the iPad.

TL: Other than your app, any favorites you have on your iPad?

I’ve loved the new BBC News app. I watch British TV and follow their news — both UK news and the BBC’s coverage generally — and it’s nice to have it so conveniently on the iPad. I very rarely play computer games, but I downloaded a free game called Harbor Master HD after my family suggested it, and I thought it was remarkably well designed.

TL: Thanks, Shawn!

This time around in our developer interviews, I reached out to the good folks over at Clio to get their impressions about the iPad. SaaS applications seem like a natural fit for a mobile device like the iPad with its powerful mobile version of Safari.  Check out what they had to say:

TL: For those who may not know, give me a little background about Clio.

The idea for Clio came to us while we were working as consultants to the Law ?Society of British Columbia. Their practice standards division expressed ?concern that much of their solo-small firm membership were under-utilizing ?practice management technology for lack of sufficient technical or financial ?resources, and as a result were having higher rates of competence-related ?issues than their peers in larger firms. Inspired by this, Clio was designed ?to be a turn-key web-based solution that afforded solo & small firm ?attorneys a complete practice management system without the associated ?technical hurdles or financial burden common to the incumbent solutions. In ?our minds, Clio was an opportunity to level the playing field in favor of ?solos and small firms.

TL: Why did you decide to go the SaaS route as opposed to traditional ?installed software?

When we first conceived of Clio back in 2007, early SaaS products like ?Salesforce.com and 37signals’ Basecamp were storming onto the scene and ?legitimizing the web as a viable medium for delivering business-class ?applications. New web-based applications like Gmail and Google Maps were ?also proving that a rich, interactive, highly responsive experience could be ?delivered via the web. We really felt that the writing was on the wall: ?traditional desktop software was fading in importance, and the web was ?emerging as the new platform upon which an entirely new generation of ?applications would be delivered.

We also saw SaaS as a perfect fit for the needs of solos and small firms. ?For a typical 3 or 4 person firm, getting up and running with a traditional ?installed product would involve buying a server, buying multiple software ?licenses, hiring a consultant to install and configure a bunch of software ?and settings, and training staff on how to use and maintain this system. ?Aside from the time investment in setting this up, hard costs could easily ?run in the $5,000-$10,000 range. Clio, on the other hand, can be up and ?running in a firm in less than 5 minutes with no software purchases, ?hardware outlays, or consulting expenses. With SaaS lawyers can focus on ?practicing law and running their practice rather than wrestling with ?technology.

Aside from the platform benefits of the web, we saw building on the web as ?an opportunity to build a simpler, easier-to-use practice management system. ?We’re big believers in the “less is more” design ethos of 37signals, and we ?really built Clio with a “blue sky” approach – we threw out all the baggage ?of how existing desktop-based systems did things, and started from a blank ?slate. We build a solid foundation of base functionality based on what our ?early alpha and beta users wanted to see in the product, and have been ?iterating rapidly based directly on user feedback ever since. That formula ?seems to be working pretty well.

TL: What do you think the advances in mobile devices mean for the legal ?profession? To SaaS vendors such as yourself?

Our hope is that advanced mobile technologies will help to facilitate ?location-independent productivity that allows lawyers and other business ?professionals more readily achieve a work-life balance that isn’t strictly ?challenged by working location. When we were initially developing Clio I ?remember interviewing a lawyer that was taking the bus into work every ?Saturday – this was a two-hour round trip, by the way – to get to the ?computer that hosted his practice information. I knew then that something as ?simple as a laptop and a web-based practice management tool could have saved ?him hours on every weekend that he could have been spending with his family. ?Its situations like those that I hope technology like the iPad and Clio is ?able to solve.

TL: Lawyers are stereotypically very slow to adopt new technologies. Do you ?think this is accurate?

I think people are often too quick to target lawyers as the influence ?slowing the pace of technology adoption. Although the legal industry could ?be said to be very precedent-driven in its thinking, I think much of the ?blame for slow technology adoption ought to be borne by the legal software ?vendors themselves. When we entered the market in 2008 we were surprised by ?the seeming absence of anyone innovating in the practice management space ?along with a general lack of awareness by vendors to the undeniable ?importance of the web in the evolution of industries everywhere.
The same thing appears to be happening on the eve of the launch of the iPad. ?We’ve read hundreds of blogs and twitter posts by lawyers that are keen to ?use the iPad in their practices, but comparatively little from the vendors ?about how they intend to cater to this demand.

TL: It seems that your users are more technically ?sophisticated, but don’t you have to convert the technophobes to grow?

As is the case with all technologies, there will be the laggards and ?technophobes that are hesitant to ride the wave with the early majority, ?but, from our perspective, there’s plenty of technically-minded lawyers who ?have learned to leverage the value of new technology in their practices, and ?we’re more than happy to concentrate our efforts on this demographic – the ?rest will follow eventually.

TL: You currently have the web based product. Is it usable on mobile Safari ?(iPhone) or Blackberry browsers? Does a user suffer any limitations when ?using a mobile browser like on the iPhone or iPad?

Our mobile interface is fully compatible with most newer smartphones such as ?the iPhone, the Droid and the Palm Pre. The site has been optimized for use ?over mobile networks and allows users to access virtually all of the ?functions available via the standard Clio interface.

TL: Are you planning any apps for the iPad?

Our current Clio mobile interface will be compatible with the iPad, as will ?the standard interface. We are, however, looking ahead to leverage the ?opportunities the iPad will undoubtedly offer, and expect to be making some ?announcements regarding this functionality in the near future. We are big ?believers in the open web, and see the iPad supporting next-generation web ?technologies such as HTML5 as an indication of how instrumental Apple sees ?web applications to the success of the iPad.

TL: What will a device like the iPad bring to a Clio user?

I see the iPad as a companion device that virtually every Clio user would ?benefit from having on hand. I say companion because I don’t see the iPad as ?a desktop- or laptop-killer. It’s a device that you would have in addition ?to a primary desktop or laptop computer. It would, however, change the way ?your approach these devices – you’ll find yourself leaving your laptop on ?your desk more often, walking away with only your iPad to review case notes, ?read a document, check your schedule for the week, or update time entries ?for the day through the Clio iPad interface.

What I think will surprise many is how much less they’ll use their desktop ?or laptops once they’ve purchased an iPad.

Thanks to Clio for the perspective on the iPad and hints perhaps of things to come from Clio. Thanks!

If there are other app or SaaS developers you’d like to see featured in this series, drop me an e-mail.

I’m happy to introduce what I hope will be a recurring series here at Tablet Legal: Developer Interviews. I’m reaching out to developers of applications for the legal industry to see what they think of the iPad, how they are developing for the new device and what we might be able to expect once the iPad is released. To start us off, I contacted Cliff Maier to discuss his thoughts about the iPad. Cliff is the mind behind Waffle Turtle, developer for nearly 40 legal related applications. Cliff’s work has been covered well over at iPhone J.D. (where he has even been found to respond to user questions in the comments!).

My background is as an engineer. I have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and spent the first decade of my career as a microprocessor designer for companies like Sun and AMD.

As part of that, I picked up programming, and toward the end of my career most of my time was spent writing code – at AMD I was responsible for much of the software they used to do chip designs, and I wrote a lot of it myself. I went to law school while still working at AMD, and when I graduated I found that almost all of the software for lawyers was absolute garbage, so I started writing software for my own use. When I first saw the iPhone, I realized it was going to revolutionize the computing industry, and I immediately signed up as a developer (I was one of the initial round of third-party developers). I started by writing software I wanted to use myself, and there we are.

I started with apps I wanted myself – a lot of the I.P. law and Federal practice stuff.  Then I took polite requests.  That’s pretty much still how I operate, with the understanding that there are too many apps for me to constantly be updating them as statutes change – so I take requests there, too, updating what I can as often as I can.

It’s a far more capable of device, and much more is possible with it. The question is whether the form factor is such that it will lose the iPhone’s chief advantage – it’s always in your pocket.  As a developer, it’s not much different than coding for iPhone, but you need to rethink the entire user experience.

TL: Do you think the user experience needs for lawyers is different from that of other types of users? Put another way, what types of interface considerations do you have when building more of a “working” app as opposed to a “leisure” app?

Well, depends on what type of users you compare to, I suppose.  I think my approach is colored by my experience writing code for engineers.  I want to minimize the physical and mental effort involved in doing things, make features easily discoverable, etc.  I also think like an engineer, so to me statutes and rules are outlines, not a series of pages. This colors everything about my approach.  I also try to “fit in” with the platform – on iPad it’s not quite clear yet what the design aesthetic is, since we’ve seen only a few app demos.

Q: Have you downloaded the SDK?

Possible Configuration of Maier Applications for iPad

TL: What are the major advantages you see to developing for the iPad platform? Disadvantages? New challenges or opportunities?

The primary advantage is screen real estate.  This allows much more flexibility in what can be done.  Until I have an actual iPad in hand, though, I won’t know for sure what else is different.

TL: Any thoughts about how any of your apps might change for the iPad platform?

Sort of like buying a “library” instead of a particular book. What else are you looking at?

Absolutely.  I would love if Apple would provide some sort of “upgrade” pricing feature. I’d be happy to give iPad versions for free to everyone who has an iPhone version of my apps.  Apple has been fairly inflexible in allowing this sort of thing, and developers don’t even have anyway to know who has purchased our apps.  I’m thinking about what can be done, but I don’t have any clear answers yet.

I’d like to have at least one or two ready, but I don’t think I would release anything until I have a device in hand. As I mentioned, I need to see what the “look and feel” of all the built-in apps is so that I can fit it, and I need to check my performance and track down any bugs that may not turn up in the simulator.  I think it would be irresponsible to release an app without testing it on a device.

The top-of-the-line 3G model  I may need to get a wi-fi model, too, to have one for testing so I can release apps sooner.

Thanks to Cliff for doing this. You can find all his apps in the App Store (iTunes link).

Update (02/26/2010): I see that Jeff over at iPhone J.D. also did a great interview with Cliff back in late 2008. Tons of great details – check it out!.