I admit that during the Easter of 2008 I met, and fell in love with, my brother’s iPhone.  Like star-crossed lovers we stole furtive moments together over the long weekend, entwined in sun-dappled corners of empty rooms.  In my heart of hearts I knew the relationship was doomed to failure because I knew I wasn’t ready to leave my service provider.  The poignancy of what we were doing was as painful as it was inevitable.  I can still remember, as if it were yesterday, the snow swirling in the rural dusk of Easter Monday; the darting, searching looks we exchanged, each glance weighted with more suppressed emotion than a library of Barbara Cartland novels.  Thus we parted, reluctantly going our separate ways.  Sure, we met occasionally over the coming months but it was never the same.  What remained unsaid between us was deafening, but what was done could not be undone.  It was one of the most painful moments of my life.

But then, in the depths of 2009 when I thought my iLife was not to be, I was introduced at a party to the beautiful 32Gb iPod Touch and what was dark became light, what was miserable became jubilant (and, best of all, I didn’t have to tell my service provider).  Of course, I soon outgrew my Touch and was only too ready to consign it to love’s unkind dustbin when its 64Gb younger sister came of age.  Looking back now, I have no regrets.  The old model is still with me, kept busy working away in my kitchen, and I still occasionally update its apps –  it’s not like it’s all over between us.  But the months from the summer of 2009 to the spring of 2010 were heady indeed, full of the laughter of two hearts beating as one.  We faced the world and won, time and time and time again!  Nothing could come between us.

The iPad is an insidious thing.  It has a way of demanding your time, assuming priority over all other demands.  Before you know it you’re shacked up together in an exclusive relationship of its own making.  But I love it like I have never loved anything before (thankfully, my wife doesn’t read legal journals).

So, I am clearly an iAddict, but will any of this change the practice of law?  Honest answer?  I don’t know, but I’m convinced it’s a definite maybe.  What I do think about this iTechnology, and I have thought this since I first saw it in 2008, is that this represents the most amazing and fundamental change to the way in which we interact with computers and the way in which they respond to us, and that it affects everyone, not just lawyers.  I have long thought that hardware has been the main limiting factor to the growth of technology.  Apple have taken us to the basement of the next level up and that I find very, very exciting.  I expect the next few years will bring with them some remarkable developments.

So, iPad, iPod or iPhone?  I ran out of space on my 32Gb iPod Touch and jumped on the 64Gb version when it came out a few months after I bought my 32Gb one.  The 64Gb is now also full, with nearly 7000 tracks and 208 apps (all my iThings are jailbroken – not dependent on finding and loading everything through iTunes) so I can add non-Apple-approved apps and greatly expand what my iThings look like and how they work).  It is increasingly being demoted to the role of simple music player as I gain more experience with my iPad.  However, the jury is still most certainly out on this as the iPod is so much easier (and less pretentious) to whip out in public.  My iPad, by the way, is the WiFi only, 32Gb model (I didn’t want to splurge too much on it to start with).

I find I am using my iPad for the internet much more than I do my laptop at home as it is much quicker to get to a browser because it is always on.  It is also very sexy to use, no doubt about it.  The screen resolution is superior to that of my not-so-old Toshiba Vista laptop, as well.  Partly because of the quality of the screen, partly because of the innovative controls and partly because of the quality of the games I also use it quite a lot for playing games during my commute home.  I read books on it on the way in as I have a few book reading apps that I am trying out.  I see my iPad playing a huge role in my reading habits, both with traditional books and multimedia magazines/newspapers.  Its size and shape lend it to these functions well.

On the business front I have bought a presentations app called Keynote, which can play PowerPoint shows (as well as its own).  Slide transitions and the clever use of graphics (by example) make my slides stand out.  I have on order a cable to allow me to output to standard projectors but what is proving great is that when I am talking to people about what I do I can show them then and there a few illustrative slides in Keynote in an intimate presentation. I am trying out a WP app called Pages (a sister app to Keynote) but it is early days (and I haven’t yet invested in the iPad’s external keyboard). 

I have installed Citrix and GoToMeeting but have not yet tried them out in earnest (but the interesting thing is that they exist).  We don’t use a real-time time recording system like Carpe Diem but I have bought an app called Time Master that allows me to do that (I first got it on my iPod) and to produce exports/reports that then have to be keyed into our system.  LinkedIn, Skype, Twitter all have apps and I know there is at least one UK law/statute app and 7Safe, an edisclosure and forensic IT company, have released a review app for their customers using an iPad or iPhone.  They are, I think, the first to do so.  Software house CompanionLink have a free app called DejaOffice which purports to bring together in one place the iPad’s different apps for contacts, calendar, to dos and so on but, again, it is early days for me.  I have double-entried my work and personal diaries for so long now I don’t think twice about it

By the way, many iPhone and iPod Touch apps will work on the iPad but, if not upgraded, will appear iPhone/iPod size on the iPad’s screen (although there is a zoom facility to make them appear somewhat like native iPad apps).  There are concerns about connectivity that are probably real in relation to unjailbroken iPads but I have so far got around those by using email.  For instance, I get my PowerPoint slide shows into Keynote by mailing them to my home email address and uploading when I get home.  That will, I‘m sure, lead to interesting discussions around client/commercial confidentiality issues in the future.

I can certainly see me wandering around flicking through pages of legal reference material and electronic evidence as if on a clipboard (the iPad offers a delicious page curling – not just page turning – effect which is soooo like the real thing and zooming in and out is efficient).  I can certainly see me wowing people with the sheer fun and novelty of the thing (which may make arranging meetings easier – there is a US edisclosure company offering free iPads to customers) and, like a snazzy car, it does attract  a crowd whenever it appears.

My conclusion?  I don’t know, but I’m convinced it’s a definite maybe!  (One thing I do know is  that I’m going to be Mr Popular when it’s time to allocate our first project to collect data from an iPad.)  People have likened the iPad to Marmite.  I think it’s more complex than that: there are those who cannot see the point, there are those who worship anything Apple, there are those who can see an immediate business use for it and those who are prepared to take a leap of faith in case a business use appears.  I am the latter.