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Of course, I find it of interest given my article of iOS vs. Android OS so long ago. I received a number of emails from techies who swear up and down how much more secure their Droid’s are and yet those same people are nowhere to be found now. I will give you the Android marketplace is more open, but that is exactly what the problem is: anyone can write an app and put it in the marketplace without anyone vetting it. Here’s the article and you can judge for yourself:

Symantec this week published “A Window Into Mobile Device Security,” a 23-page document that details the security approaches employed by Apple and Google in their respective mobile operating systems. It also offers a closer look at past and possible future security holes found in the iOS and Android platforms. In a head-to-head comparison, Symantec found that Apple’s iOS is more secure than Google’s Android. Specifically, iOS was characterized as having “full protection” against malware attacks, while Android was deemed to have “little protection.” iOS also has more protection than Android against resource abuse and service attacks, data loss, and data integrity attacks. Apple’s platform was also found to have greater security feature implementation in the categories of access control, application provenance, and encryption. In fact, Google’s Android platform only topped iOS in one security category: isolation. There, Android received the highest marks, while iOS was said to offer “moderate protection.” In specifically discussing iOS, Symantec’s report concluded that Apple’s “provenance approach” acts as a strong security barrier, as every app that is to be released on the App Store goes through vetting procedures. This, according to the paper, has proved a deterrent against malware attacks, data loss attacks, data integrity attacks, and denial of service attacks.” The report characterized iOS as “well designed and thus far…has proven largely resistant to attack.”

However, Symantec did find vulnerabilities within iOS, namely 200 different security holes dating back to 2007. While any vulnerability is a weakness, the bulk of issues were found to be of lower severity, which, according to the report, would allow the assailant to “take control of a single process but not permit the attacker to take administrator-level control of the device.” The study did discover security concerns that could allow entry to administrator-level control, and were therefore of the highest severity. If an attacker had administrator-level control, it would reward them with access to “virtually all data and services on the device,” Symantec wrote in the report.

Synamtec’s report highlights what is likely the most public example of an iOS security breach, the iPhoneOS.Ikee worm released in November 2009. But that worm only affected devices that users have willingly “jailbroken,” a term used to describe a warranty-voiding process that allows users to install unauthorized software on their iPhone, and something that Apple explicitly tells its customers is a major security concern. Also highlighted in the report is iOSs isolation model. While iOS “totally prevents traditional types of computer viruses and worms, and limits the data that spyware can access,” Symantec said it does not “prevent all classes of data loss attacks, resource abuse attacks, or data integrity attacks.”

Lastly, iOSs permission model can safeguard access to the devices location as well as the SMS and Phone applications. This stops the attacker from knowing where you are, being able to send SMS messages, and phoning numbers without your consent. As for Android, Symantec found that although Google’s mobile operating system is a considerable improvement over traditional desktop operating systems, it has two extreme weaknesses. First, the provenance system in place “enables attackers to anonymously create and distribute malware,” they found. In addition, its permission system “relies upon the user to make the important security decisions,” and considering most of Android users are not of high technical capability, this causes problems.

During February this year, Sophos security researchers encouraged Google to cancel its over-the-air installation of apps. They urged Google because they expected it would allow the swift and quiet installation of malware to unsuspecting Android users. Sophos warned that as soon as the “install” button was pressed on the website, the application would be installed on the device in the background, without any input from the user.

The review concluded that “mobile devices are a mixed bag when it comes to security.” While they may have been built to be secure, they are made for the consumer market, which has has led to less security for more usability.

Source AppleInsider.

CALLOUTS AND SPLIT SCREEN

As mentioned in our review of Exhibit A, any app which attempts to call itself a trial presentation app has to do callouts. These are the zoom in boxes attorneys use to ‘callout’ certain areas of an exhibit, say paragraph 3 of a document, so that the jury can focus on a particular part of the exhibit. While Exhibit A was the first to offer this ability but did so with some bugs, TrialPad has executed this feature flawlessly. Callouts are as simple as selecting the callout tool from the toolbox menu at the top of the screen and using your finger to select the area to zoom in on. What sets TrialPad apart from Exhibit A is the ability to not only do multiple callouts on one document, but to do have two documents on the screen (split screen) and do callouts from each of the exhibits simultaneously. Each callout can be moved around to difference positions on the screen by dragging with your finger.

As you can see, this sort of thing is imperative if you want to compare and contrast two versions of a document, say a contract, and bring the difference between them to the jury’s attention. In the example above you will notice that the annotations made to the underlying exhibit are shown in the callout as well (this has been lacking in some other apps which do callouts).

One suggestion I have however is that because TrialPad automatically sizes the callouts to the width of the screen, it can be a bit confusing when you have two callouts from separate exhibits to know which document each came from originally (since they are both the same size). One solution might be to have the callouts downsized a bit and shifted either to the right or left depending on from which exhibit it was called out.

Bottom line is that this feature was executed perfectly with TrialPad 2.0.

VIDEO CLIPS

While I knew the ability to play video on TrialPad 2.0 was going to be available, what I didn’t know was that we would be able to make video clips using TrialPad 2.0. Calling up a video is simple as they are accessible in the left hand pane under the “Video” tab. Once a video is selected it is loaded into the presentation area and ready to play. I have so far loaded a 4 GB deposition into TrialPad 2.0 and it literally was brought up instantly and ready to play. Play controls come up over the video just like they would when watching any video on your iPad, along with the ability to ‘push’ the video out to an AppleTV.

What is a surprise however is that below the video are two new icons. One to take a snapshot of the video from wherever the playhead is and the other to create a clip of the video. This is nice if you want to create a snapshot of a part of a video or want to create a clip on the fly of a portion of a deposition. When you press the clip button a “filmstrip” of the video opens up with the standard yellow brackets used by iMovie and the built-in video function of the iPAd, allowing you to trim your video to only play a certain portion of the video. The only problem is that the size of the editing window is a bit too small and it takes a couple of tries sometimes to get the clip to “trim” to exactly where you want it. Once you’re done trimming the video though, the resultant clip is saved in your list of Videos as a clip and you can use the edit button to rename the clip to anything you want. This is a killer feature and to be honest, one I hadn’t thought of putting into a trial presentation app on the iPad for fear the hardware could not handle it (forgetting that the iPad already lets you trim videos in the Video app and iMovie already).

WHITEBOARD

The other nice addition to TrialPad 2.0 and one which is certainly available in other trial presentation apps is a blank whiteboard for drawing. This was a feature TrialPad had to include in the new version and it has all of the standard features you would expect: multi-colored drawing pens with variable widths, the ability to erase and undo drawings and the ability to save the whiteboard, email it or add it to DropBox directly from TrialPad 2.0. This feature is quickly becoming a standard feature in these apps and it’s good to see TrialPad getting on board.

KEYNOTE VIEWING

While most developers will not understand why, TrialPad’s new feature of allowing keynote presentations to be displayed in TrialPad 2.0 is probably one of the most welcome for me as a Mac-using trial lawyer and fanatic fan of Apple’s Keynote. I don’t know of any other trial presentation app which will allow you to bring in Keynotes into the app and display them (it shows them slide by slide), annotate on them and save them using the HotDocs feature, but I was really excited when I saw this ability in TrialPad 2.0. Now when I want to bring in portions of my opening and show them to a witness, to demonstrate the jury the credibility of exactly the slide I showed them earlier, I can open my Keynote in TrialPad 2.0 and mark on the actual slide, emphasizing certain parts, etc… this was a really nice touch and another I didn’t expect from the new version.

There are many other new features to TrialPad 2.0, such as importing of PowerPoint slides, multi-page TIF’s, list view of cases, exporting of pages as PDF’s with or without annotations, moving exhibits between cases, multi-colored laser tool (one of my favorites) to name but a few. TrialPad has just risen the bar for other trial presentation apps with all of these new features and it will be exciting to see what this new competition will foster in this growing market!

TrialPad’s initial cost is $89.99, which is certainly higher than any of the other trial presentation apps out there. However, given the attention to detail in the user interface, highlight readability, split screen feature, multi-callout functions, and the rest, $89.99 is certainly worth the cost of the app.

We will be going to trial with TrialPad twice in July so be sure to check back here as we put TrialPad through its paces in a real court-room setting. We are looking forward to what all of these apps have to offer and are now even more excited for the iOS 5 update to come out bringing with it wireless displaying of these apps on the AppleTV.

For my readers, I have obtained 4 free passes to my webinar. Simply email me at finis[at]TechnoEsq.com and the first four readers who email me. I look forward to seeing everyone there and should you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

While such lawyer referral services have been around for some with local bar organizations, this is the first I have heard of to offer such services in an app on a national scale. I’m not sure I would recommend using this app, but if an accused has either this or talking to the police on his/her own, it can’t hurt! Check out LawyerUp here.

We still have seats available for those interested. Tad Thomas will be speaking about the practical aspects of using an iPad in a paperless office while Mike Stevens gives us basic tech tips for non-geeks. We also have Benham Sims talking about using the iPad in a criminal practice, Larry Port talking about cloud computing, Bill Roach will present on affordable and EASY to use trial presentation programs for the PC, and I’ll be talking about litigation and trial apps for the iPad.

You’re really missing out if you don’t attend this seminar. More information can be found here.

I’ve spoken over 10 times this year at various seminars on how lawyers can use their iPads in their legal practice and I’m thrilled to announce my next speaking event on June 2, 2011. This will be a webinar so even if you can’t make it to one of my live “performances” you can see what all of the hoopla is about from the comfort of your desk! I have many new apps to discuss and am thrilled to be talking about some late comers to the legal iPad market as well as show some apps which aren’t even for sale in the iTunes store yet.

Join me for what is sure to be a great webinar at 3:00 EST on June 2, 2011. You can register here and also visit the link if you would like more information. This webinar is approved or is pending approval for credit in the following states:  AL, AR, BC, CA, CO, FL, IN, KY, LA, MO, MT, NE, NV, RI, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WI, WY and at only $129.00 is a steal. I hope to see you there!

I am speaking at 10:45 am at the ISTA Conference Center but make sure to check out the other great speakers, including Matthew Schad on Trial Presentations, paperless offices and other legal techie stuff.  It is one seminar you don’t want to miss and if you come, be sure to say hi if you see me!

There are 18 different educational tracks for lawyers, so you will have a diverse selection of sessions concerning attorneys and law firms using technology.  Be sure to visit the amazing exhibit hall where my favorite case management software Rocket Matter will have a booth along with many, many other amazing products.  You can download the conference guide here.