I’ve had an iPhone and an iPad since each device was first offered for sale.  I do love both of these incredible electronic computers/phones/do-it-alls.  Today at lunch two of my long-time former law partners showed me their new first time-user iPhones and they asked me what apps to get.  Which apps to get from iTunes is something that comes up a lot with me and my friends.   Here is a list of my favorite iPhone & iPad apps for lawyers, attorneys, law firms and other iPhone and iPad users:

Productivity

  • Dragon Dictation – free.  This is a must have app because it is a great tool for converting your voice to text which you can then send as a text message, email, make a copy, send to Facebook or Twitter.  It’s conversion of your voice to text is very accurate.  You can also edit the text to make corrections or additions.  A great tool for sending your thoughts to yourself or secretary.
  • TurboScan –  Use your iPhone to scan any type of document.  Once scanned you can email it as text, a pdf or a jpeg.  You can also open the document in pdf, print it or save it to your iPhone camera roll.  I checked the app on iTunes today and it had 2,285 five star ratings.
  • HP 12C – $13, but it is two great calculators, a standard calculator when held vertical, but it changes to the HP financial calculator when the device is held horizontal.  P.S.  It uses reverse polish notation logic.  Use the financial calculator to find loan payments based on the loan amount, interest rate and number of payments.
  • Google – free.  Touch the microphone icon and speak your search words.  This app then quickly does a Google search and displays the results.  My lunch group buddies crack up every time they ask me to do a Google search such as who do the Arizona Cardinals play next week?
  • PDF Reader Pro – free.  Allows you to open pdf documents.
  • Fake a Call – free?  Maybe this should be in a different category, but you can use it to get out of a meeting.  Set it to fake an incoming call during a meeting so you can excuse yourself.
  • Travel Track Pro – $.  Great for trips.  Enter all of your trip information into this app such as airline flight information, hotel and car rental info and reservation numbers.  All information is then at your fingertips when needed.  It will tell you if your flight is delayed and when it will arrive.  Lots of great information for trips.

News Apps

  • Wall St. Journal – free, but I pay $9 a month to get all of the paper on my iPhone & iPad
  • Los Angeles Times – free
  • New York Times – free app, but $ to get access to all of the content
  • USA Today – free and no charge for a lot of well organized content
Social Media
  • Facebook – free
  • LinkedIn – free
  • YouTube – free
  • Videos – free.  A great way to watch the music, TV show and movie videos you buy from iTunes

Games

  • Solitaire City – $.  21 different solitaire games.  At one time everybody in my family was hooked on Alternations, a great solitaire game.
  • W.e.l.d.e.r. – $.  A fun word spelling game.
  • Wurdle – $.  Another fun word spelling game.
  • Tetris – $  Years ago in the days of playing games on the PC I wasted too much time playing this classic game.
  • Scrabble – $.  The tech version of a board classic.  Play the computer, a random live opponent, friends or join a local multiplayer game.  Way better than the board game.
  • Monopoly – $.  The Parker Brothers classic.  I like to play against two computer opponents and have all the cards dealt at random to the players.

Miscellaneous Apps

  • iPhone Secrets – free.  A great way to learn all the hidden secrets of the iPhone.
  • iBooks – free.  A great place to get ebooks (low cost best sellers and many free books).  I’d rather read a book on my iPad or iPhone than hold it in my hands the old fashioned way.
  • Instagram – free.  It’s Twitter for pictures, no text.  In five seconds you can take a picture and post it to your Instagram account and all of your followers can see your pictures on their Instagrams.  Great for a family.  Make your profile private then only allow your family members to follow you.  Whenever anybody who you follow posts a picture you can see it immediately and so can all all of the other people who are following the picture taker.  You can add captions to your pictures and people can like and comment on other people’s pictures.
  • Facebook Camera – free.  This is Facebook’s version of Instagram, but it integrates seamlessly with Facebook to put your photos on your Facebook timeline.  It is Instagram created specifically for Facebook.
  • Zinio – free.  This is a magazine reader app.  You purchase subscriptions to your favorite magazines and read them on your iPhone or iPad.  Reading magazines on the iPad is awesome.  Links on pages are hot and take you to another part of the magazine.  My favorite magazine is PC Magazine, but a few years ago it stopped making prints and went entirely digital through Zinio.  I love reading PC Magazine using my Zinio reader.  Every issue is retained on Zinio unless I delete it.
  • RedLaser –  free.  This is a must have app.  It scans bar codes on products and then gives you a list of websites that sell the same product and the price of the product.  If you finder the product cheaper online you can quickly buy it using your iPhone or iPad.  Barcode scans can be emailed, sent to Facebook or Twitter or turned into a text message or added to a favorites list.  RedLaser will also scan QR codes and interpret them.
  • Amazon Mobile – free.   This app also scans bar codes, but it only give prices for the products sold on Amazon.  I love this app because Amazon has very low prices.  If you have an Amazon account like me you will be able to instantly purchase a product after you scan and get the results.  Slick.  It has a camera feature that lets you take a picture of the cover of a book, CD, DVD or video game and get Amazon’s price for the item.
  • Yelp – free.  Find local business such as restaurants and read reviews written by customers.  Write your own reviews.
  • iPhoto – free.  PC Magazine’s May 2012 issue gave this app its Editor’s Choice award for being an excellent iPhone/iPad photo editor.
  • Shazam – free.  If you hear a song you like but don’t know its name let Shazam listen to the song.  It will not only tell you the name, but if the sound quality is good it can distinguish between different artists singing the same song.  You can also buy the song from iTunes.
  • Flixster – free.  Great for checking the movies playing at your local theaters.  Lots of information about each movie including start times.
  • Pandora – free.  Create a “radio station” for your favorite recording artist.  Pandora will then play songs by that artist mixed with other artists is selects that have a similar sound.  It’s a great way to listen to your favorites and find other artists and music.  If you don’t like a song press the thumbs down button and you will never hear that song again.  Give your likes a thumb’s up.  If you hear a song you like you can buy it from iTunes at the click of an icon.
  • Sex Offenders – free.  Not an app I use much or that has much value, but it will amaze you when you ask it to search your surrounding area and list all the registered sex offenders.  Here in central Phoenix where I live there are literally thousands of them.  The app shows their locations on a map and via a list ordered by closest to farthest away.  Click on a person on the list and it tells you that person’s address and conviction(s) including a picture.

What are your favorite iPhone and iPad apps?  Please tell us by making a comment.

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