Lawyering In The Cloud – iPad Is A Move In The Right Direction

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Like most tech geeks, I had planned to buy an iPad, but I also vowed to resist temptation and wait for the next generation of the device.  After all, I had my MacBook Pro, my iPhone and an iPod Touch.  I reasoned that I just didn’t NEED an iPad right now; I was going to wait to see what niche this device would fill.

Then, just prior to the NACBA conference in San Francisco, I had an opportunity to visit Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino.  (I’ll admit to being somewhat of an Apple Fanboy, having never owned a Windows machine.)  In the company store there, I touched it.  I held the iPad in my hands and I knew I had to have it, next generation or not.  Two days later, I was waiting in line with my friend, Jay Fleischman, and at 5:15 PM I held the box containing my 64gig 3G iPad in my hands.

Due to prior commitments, I didn’t have much time to do more than activate it through iTunes that night and fell asleep with it on the table next to my bed.  The next morning, I  vowed to use it during my all-day presentation at NACBA.

A Step towards the Clouds

This is truly an evolutionary device and a step closer to true cloud computing.  I quickly found out that there was no direct method of moving my outline of the NACBA presentation to the device.  The iPad doesn’t have a visible file and folder hierarchy like most computers. Instead, it is like the iPhone/iPod Touch in that you interact with your data through the apps.  The files holding your data are not visible.

Well, I had this PDF with the presentation outline.  How was I going to get my outline on it so I could use it during the presentation?  Quickly thinking back to the way I had previously used my iPhone in Court, I emailed the document to myself.  Opening the email, I could read the one page PDF outline right there in the Mail App.  Problem solved.  With the email open in front of me, I used the iPad all day in the five sessions I had.

Subsequently, I discovered there are any number of ways to view documents on the iPad.  You can view PDFs in Mail, Apple’s Mobile Me app, or use a PDF specific app like GoodReader, iAnnotate, ReaddleDocs or any number of apps.  There are multiple ways of moving files from your computer to the iPad, but a majority of them use the cloud as an intermediary step.  You upload the file to servers hosted by the program providers and access those files from the cloud and either read them there or pull them down to the iPad.  Time will tell which approach works best for you and whether the app does what you want with your files once you access them.

Not Quite There

On the following Tuesday, I appeared in Bankruptcy Court in Connecticut and used the iPad to draft the terms of a stipulation in a contested matter.  The eyes of the Courtroom and the Bench were on me as I read the stipulation into the record from the iPad.  The document was created in the Notes app.  The note file transferred to my laptop through the Mail app so I could move the outline to my client’s folder on the server as a text document.  I didn’t need the iPad to do what I did, I could have just as easily done this all on the MacBook Pro I always bring to court.

I said this device is evolutionary.  The iPhone/iPod Touch was revolutionary.  The touch interface was truly a new way to interact with a computer.  Now after three years, we get it.  No need to point and click with a mouse, just point with your finger.  No need for a stylus.  Swipe through your apps and interact with your data or consume the content from the internet.

But the iPad is not totally a cloud device.  When you first fire it up, you need to activate it through your iTunes account by connecting it to your computer.  You sync your data and apps through iTunes through the USB port.  A lot of content is stored on the device.  I have over 5,000 photos, numerous record albums (yes, I’m from the vinyl generation) and a few movies on it using about 10 % of the storage in my 64gig unit.

We haven’t made the complete move to cloud computing yet.  There are those who complain that you can’t use a mouse with the iPad.  Some are trying to use a stylus to write on it.  And yet others have jail-broken the operating system to move files and apps on and off the device through a file folder system.  I’ve used PhoneView to access those folders without jail-breaking.

Once the cellular phone companies complete the move to 4G using compatible technologies and online storage becomes accessible from anywhere, the iPad will become the device to use as we transition from desktop to the cloud.  I get it.  Apple’s vision of the future has us using apps on our machines and the data will reside ‘out there’.  Truly time to Think Different.

Eugene Melchionne is a Connecticut bankruptcy lawyer, President of the Bankruptcy Law Network, and a long-time Mac user.

Photo courtesy of ancawonka.

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