Tag Archives | Text

Air Dictate: Harnessing Siri for Dictation on your Mac

By on December 23, 2011 in Apps, Legal Workflows, Reviews

Lawyers who use Macs and prefer to dictate will be excited about Air Dictate (iTunes link), the new app from Portland, Oregon developer Avatron. Air Dictate uses Siri technology plus a small receiver app to turn your iPhone 4S into a dictation device linked to your Mac. Any text that you dictate into Air Dictate is automatically transcribed into text on your Mac (so long as both devices are on the same wireless network). This entire post was dictated using Air Dictate (though I made transcription corrections and added links manually). I am very impressed with the app’s design end ease-of-use.

Old school users of dictation (dictators?) may need to adjust some habits in using Air Dictate. You can’t “rewind” to edit over previously dictated text. Also, Air Dictate transcribes what you say faithfully which can be a setback if you are used to dictating instructions to your assistant. My old dictation habit of saying “strike that…” quickly reemerged while I was using Air Dictate (I haven’t dictated in years).

That said, being able to see the results of your dictation on screen immediately made composing the rest of my dictation much easier. Using Air Dictate I was able to walk around while dictating and see the results on my large computer screen while I worked. While you can capture your dictation on the iPhone 4S using any app that accepts text input, Air Dictate puts your dictation where you want it the first time be it a text editor, Pages, Microsoft Word, Excel, Firefox, OmniFocus or other Mac app.

Air Dictate faithfully dictates small and large blocks of text. The delay in transcribing the text onto your Mac is very short. In the amount of time you would stop to compose your next thought, Air Dictate has transcribed your previous thoughts on screen. You can dictate into any text field whether the open page of a text editor or the search box in your browser. Air Dictate seems like a must have app for any lawyer who uses a Mac and an iPhone 4S.

Air Dictate is currently $.99 in the App Store. Highly recommended.

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TouchBase: Calendar Alternative for Busy Lawyers

By on December 22, 2011 in Apps

I’ve been trying out a newish calendar app for iPhone called TouchBase (iTunes link). This app from Tomo LLC supplements the standard calendar with features designed for the constantly mobile worker. I know more than a few lawyers whose work keeps them constantly on the move so I thought I’d give it a try.

TouchBase puts tools for connecting with people and places right in your calendar. For example, say I have an appointment for “Lunch with Jeff Richardson at Babbo” TouchBase gives me one tap shortcuts to confirm my lunch with Jeff, tell him I am running late, ask to postpone or send a custom message of my own by text or email.

Connect directly through calendar by text, email or phone.

The predefined “running late” buttons adjust based on context. If an appointment is in the next few minutes, the buttons offer 5, 10 or 20 minute delays. If the appointment is a few hours or more off, the time frames are longer, 15, 30 or 60 minute delays. The option to postpone a meeting is always available as is the ability to create a custom message. The custom messages can also be edited to reflect the text of your choosing.

Customize predefined messages.

The work of associating an appointment with a contact is partially on the user and partially handled by TouchBase. If your appointment is “Lunch with Jim”, TouchBase will ask which Jim in you contacts you are meeting with (if there is only one Jim in your contacts, it will be associated). If your appointment says “Lunch with Jim Smith”, TouchBase will associate all of Jim’s contact info with the appointment. The more detail you add when you create an appointment the more useful TouchBase will be to you. In my tests, TouchBase struggled with location data but always offered me the ability to do a one Map search based on the location name or address.

The app is very tastefully designed but only has a list view of appointments. There is no week, month or day view. While I think that the list view is best for when you have lots of appointments, I wish these other views were available for planning purposes.

At this writing, TouchBase is on sale in the App Store for $2.99. If you have a very busy schedule and you are constantly touching base with those in your agenda, this might be a useful app for you.

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Siri Dictation and TextExpander

By on November 8, 2011 in Tips

While I try to keep this mostly an iPad focused blog, I’ve been experimenting a bit lately with Siri on the iPhone 4S. Specifically, I’ve been looking into whether Siri can be used to activate TextExpander Touch shortcuts. I’ve found some success, but Siri seems to be even more tempermental than usual in this application. For example:

  • Expansion only seems to work when the snippet is only thing dictated. In other words, expansion doesn’t seem to work when a snippet is included in the context of a longer bit of dictation.
  • Triggers seem to work best with normal, full words, preferably those without homophones or subtle plurals. My initial tests attempts tried Merlin’s “Q” trick, but I couldn’t get it to work consistently.
  • Many apps automatically capitalize at the beginning of a new line or after a period. Because expansions are caps sensitive, you may need capitalized and noncapitalized snippets for the same expansion.

The fact that you have to start and stop dictation before and after a snippet makes it mostly unusable for doing most expansions since you could type the trigger faster than coaxing Siri to understand your trigger syntax.

That said, I’m looking at the list of apps on the Smile website that support TextExpander differently now. Perhaps someone with greater nerd credentials than I can cook up some useful or fun Siri activated snippets. Anyone else been playing around with this?

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TabletLegal Favorites from 60 Apps in 60 Minutes

By on October 20, 2011 in Apps, Lawyers Using iPad, Tips

As I mentioned the other day, I recently co-presented another another 60 Apps in 60 Minutes CLE webcast along with co-presenters Jeff Richardson of iPhone JD, Reid Trauts of Reid My Blog! and Tom Mighell of iPad4Lawyers. Rather than posting the full 60 app list, I decided to list just my favorites and share a few words that might help you use the app better.

Word Processing. Compatibility with Microsoft Word is still king. From my past tests (general formatting, pleading formatting, business agreemetn formatting), only two of the four major contenders in this area are worthy of consideration. Your choice between the two really comes down to your workflow needs.

  • Documents to Go. A key differentiator of this app is its support for footnotes. It also has some decent bullet and numbered list options in the app. My main gripe is that the interface is unattractive and file management is a bit difficult.
  • QuickOffice. Where Documents to Go wanes, QuickOffice shines with an easy to use file manager.

My workflow doesn’t depend on footnotes. So, I prefer QuickOffice because the easy to use file manager saves me taps and I feel more comfortable saving and moving files. That said, if I needed bulleted list creation tools or footnote compatibility, Documents to Go would be the only way to go.

Calendars. Lawyers live by their calendars. While the calendar app built into the iPad is OK, developers have come up with some great alternatives. We covered to in the CLE and both are worth looking at.

Both of these universal apps offer navigation and event imput advantages (fewer taps) over the default Calendar app. I prefer the how the design Agenda is designed to be used with one thumb while holding your iPhone. I also think Agenda is faster than Calvetica when you have multiple calendars displayed (Home, Work, Kids, Soccer, etc.).

Here’s a tip. If you aren’t using multiple calendars to manage the different contexts of your life, consider giving it a go. At the very minimum, the different colors associated with your calendar gives you extra data about your day with just a glance (I know when there is a light blue blob in the middle of my afternoon, that means I am picking up the kids that day). Calendars can also be turned on and off for different views. For example, my wife and I share a couple calendars that appear on both of our iPads but my client related calendar is only visible on my devices.

PDF Tools. This area has really grown since the iPad was introduced. I think every iPad toting lawyer needs two PDF related tools : a PDF annotation app and a PDF creation app. My two favorites in these categories come from the same developer, Readdle:

  • PDF Expert. This annotation app recently stepped up to 3.0 with a bunch of new features that bring it on par with the features I use in my desktop PDF annotation application.
  • PDF Converter. While there are a number of apps that can create PDF from other file formats, this one does it simply through the “Open in…” button available in any app that uses files.

Whatever your preferred PDF annotation and creation combo, I think they must include the following features to meet a typical lawyer’s needs:

  • basic annotations include highlighting, strikethrough, underline and notes
  • integration with Dropbox
  • ability to act as wi-fi USB drive
  • interface for signing documents and managing frequently used signatures
  • rearrange, rotate, delete and insert pages
  • ability to create bookmarks and tables of contents
  • makes “flattened” PDFs so annotations can’t be changed
  • will generate an annotation summary
  • attractive and easy to use interface

I’ve closed business transactions with this combo of documents. Word files attached to an email were converted to PDF using PDF Converter. Once those new PDF files were opened in PDF Expert, the parties could review and sign the documents. With multiple contracts reaching into 100s of pages, I didn’t want to email the full document set. PDF Expert allowed me to extract the signature pages only from the various contracts and send them along via email.

Touch is Better than Mouse. Two productivity apps come to mind as amazing examples of how the touch interface is sometimes better than a mouse and keyboard.

  • Keynote. This presentation creation and delivery app is on another world compared to the PowerPoint compatible apps in the App Store. Tons of power just a few taps away.I think using your hands to manipulate text and images simply results in better designs and better presentations. I create all my presentations on Keynote for iPad even when I have my computer available. With a VGA or HDMI dongle and Keynote Remote on your iPhone, you are ready to present from any conference hall or courtroom.
  • iThoughts HD. Like Keynote, this mindmapping application allows you to get hands-on with your ideas. Your freeform mindmap can then be exported in a truckload of different formats – with more being added all the time – so you can continue working on your ideas in another mindmapping app or your favorite word processor.

Sometimes a mouse and keyboard is better, sometimes not so much.

A Few More. A couple more of my favorites from the 60 in 60 CLE.

  • JotNot. This iPhone app is like having a flatbed scanner in your pocket. Quickly convert paper to PDF files and then email to colleagues or upload to the service of your choice.
  • Reeder. My preferred RSS browsing app. The quick and clean interface lets you consume hundreds of your selected news articles in minutes.
  • LogMeIn Ignition. Pair this app with a free download to each of your computers and then travel in confidence knowing that all your Mac or PC files and applications are a tap away with this remote desktop client. I also like the file manager which allows transfer of confidential client files to your iPad from your work computer without using cloud services.
  • PlainText. A text editor for when you want to write. Save the formatting for when you are back at your desk and use apps like PlainText to write.
  • PhotoSync. Use this app to quickly move photos from one of your devices to another via wifi or bluetooth. Sync entire albums or just move a single picture from your phone to your iPad quickly and easily.

That’s it. Thanks to my co-presenters for another successful webcast!

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ABA Techshow: 60 Apps in 60 Minutes

By on April 18, 2011 in Apps

Last week I presented the very popular 60 Apps in 60 Minutes section of the ABA Techshow with Jeff Richardson of iPhone J.D. and Reid Trautz of Reid My Blog! The presentation was very popular – standing room only. Listed below are the apps from that presentation along with links to the App Store. Lots of great apps in there and many of them are free. I’ve generally linked to the iPad version of these apps, but many are universal or have an iPhone app as well.

Productivity

  • Calvetica (iTunes link). Fast alternative calendar app for iPhone.
  • Keynote (iTunes link). Presentation design and delivery app.
  • Penultimate (iTunes link). Handwritten notes in notebooks.
  • iThoughts HD (iTunes link). Mindmapping with great export options.
  • PDF Expert (iTunes link). PDF annotation.
  • Documents to Go Premium (iTunes link). Microsoft Word and Excel compatible file editor.
  • Dragon Dictation (iTunes link). Dictation.
  • Satchel (iTunes link). Tool for using Backpack from 37Signals.
  • Plaintext (iTunes link). Text editor that syncs with Dropbox.
  • TextExpander Touch (iTunes link). Utility that expands text snippets into full words, sentences or more!
  • CarbonFin Outliner (iTunes link). Hierarchical outliner.
  • Minimal Folio (iTunes link). Presentation delivery alternative for images and PDF.
  • Mind Meister (iTunes link). Mindmapping.
  • GoodReader (iTunes link). File manager and PDF annotation.
  • Note Taker HD (iTunes link). Handwritten note taking, PDF annotation.

Utility

Camera and Camera Utilities

  • ProHDR (iTunes link). Better than built in HDR in iPhone 4.
  • Prizmo (iTunes link). Scan and OCR text.
  • Price Check (iTunes link). Scan a bar code in a store to check if you are getting the best deal.
  • Photosync (iTunes link). Easily move photos between iOS devices, dropbox, your computer.
  • Eyeglasses (iTunes link). Read the small print.
  • Skype (iTunes link). Voice and video chat.
  • Photogene (iTunes link). Photo editor.
  • JotNot (iTunes link). Document scanner and optimizer.

Remote Access

Law

  • Black’s Law Dictionary (iTunes link). Dictionary.
  • Book of Jargon (iTunes link). Financial terms glossary.
  • TrialPad (iTunes link). Exhibit presentation and annotation app.
  • FastCase (iTunes link). Legal research.
  • Court Days Pro (iTunes link). Calculate days between dates, can customize with rules.
  • WordPerfect Viewer (iTunes link). View WordPerfect files.

News and Social

  • Appolicious (iTunes link). Keep abreast of new apps.
  • Flipboard (iTunes link). Presents your social feeds in glossy magazine style.
  • Zite (iTunes link). Pandora for news.
  • Reeder (iTunes link). RSS feed reader, syncs with Google Reader.
  • Instapaper (iTunes link). Store web articles for reading later.
  • Trickle (iTunes link). Passive twitter consumption tool.
  • Groupon (iTunes link). Coupon app.
  • Hootsuite (iTunes link). Social media management and aggregation.

Entertainment

  • Infinity Blade (iTunes link). Dungeon crawl game with amazing graphics.
  • Garage Band (iTunes link). Make music.
  • TuneIn Radio (iTunes link). Find, organize, listen and record your favorite radio stations.
  • iType2Go (iTunes link). See where you are going while texting.
  • iMovie (iTunes link). Make movies on your iPhone or iPad.
  • Atari’s Greatest Hits (iTunes link). Games from your youth.
  • Food Truck Fiesta (iTunes link). Find lunch fast.

Translation

  • Google Translate (iTunes link). Translation app works over the internet.
  • Jibbigo (iTunes link). Translation app with dictionaries installed on phone.
  • Word Lens (iTunes link). Translation with augmented reality.

This was my first Techshow and it was a lot of fun to meet the folks I share the blogosphere with. Thanks to Jeff and Reid for helping make a great presentation!

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Roundup of iOS Text Editing Apps

By on February 21, 2011 in Apps

Great round up of text based note taking apps by Dr. Drang comparing Simperium’s Simplenote (iTunes link) , Hog Bay Software’s Plaintext (iTunes link) , Second Gear Software’s Elements (iTunes link) and Nuclear Element’s Nebulous Notes (iTunes link). His comparison looks at cost, sync, support for Smile Software’s TextExpander Touch (iTunes link), fonts, searching, sorting, full screen mode, word count and misc. features. While he is evaluating these apps on the iPhone, his comments are generally applicable to the iPad versions of these apps as well.

I use a combination of these apps. I use PlainText for most of my legal writing and note taking on the iPad. When I’m writing for this blog, I use Elements because it previews HTML and Markdown. Simplenote is on my iPad, but I don’t write with it much. I’ve found the sync dodgy from time to time but I can’t isolate why – may be all in my head. I will copy and paste text into Simplenote on my desktop browser as a way to quickly sync that text to my iPad.

(via Daring Fireball)

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