Cover via Amazon

In case you missed it, you can now lend certain Kindle eBook titles (via a Kindle or iPad app or otherwise) to other Kindle users for 14 days. Of course, unless all of your best friends are Kindle users, this feature is essentially useless.

Fortunately, a new website quickly sprang up that facilitates the lending and borrowing of Kindle books amongst strangers. It’s called Kindle Lending Club. It matches Kindle book lenders to borrowers.

All you do is create an account, then lend or borrow books. If you would like to borrow a book, you simply search for the book and if it is loanable via Kindle, you click on the “borrow” button. You’ll either be placed on a waiting list if a loanable copy is not immediately available or advised that the owner of the loanable book will be notified.

Shortly thereafter you’ll receive an email that the owner has approved the lending of the book and will be provided with a link to follow to complete the transaction. The book can then be downloaded to your Kindle or Kindle app and you’ll have 14 days to read it. It will then automatically be removed from your device upon expiration of the 14-day time period.

To lend a copy you simply type in the title of the book. If someone is on a waiting list for the book, you get to choose who to lend it to. You then are given their email address and you head over to the management section of your Kindle account and lend the book to that person using the Kindle interface. (While the book is being loaned, it will appear in the archived section of your Kindle and you won’t be able to access the book.)

If no one is in line, you’re advised that you’ll be notified when someone signs up to borrow it.

It’s that simple. And, it’s a great idea. Give it a try.

Image via Wikipedia

There are two more iPad presentation apps available, in addition to TrialPad, that I wanted to bring to your attention.

First there’s the RLTC Evidence app (website, iTunes link) which costs $9.99. Then there’s Exhibit A (iTunes link), which costs $4.99.

While I haven’t yet had a chance to try out all 3, Ted Brooks—a legal technology trial consultant whose role could arguably be limited by apps like these down the road—provides very extensive reviews of all 3 products here and here.

Given that all 3 of these products are new to the market, there is certainly room for improvement and there are bound to be glitches. That being said, for solo and small firm practitioners, these apps and those that will follow are ideal.

During the first 8 years of my legal career, I spent a lot of time in the courtroom and would have loved to have had tools like this available as I tried cases. This type of technology would have been ideal for criminal trials and for personal injury trials.

Back then, this type of technology wasn’t even feasible. And, even today, for most solos and small firms, hiring a costly trial technology consultant is likewise not feasible in most cases. Most cases tried by most lawyers aren’t multi-million dollar cases—they’re criminal trials, personal injury matters and small business contract disputes. BigLaw can afford expensive trial consultants; most solos and small firms cannot.

These apps fill that void, leveling the playing field and making solos and small firms more competitive. As these apps improve and new features are added, they will undoubtedly become valuable tools in the arsenal of solo and small firm litigators.

Image via CrunchBase

     I just created a running list of iPad apps developed specifically for lawyers. I’ll update it as new apps come to my attention.

     You can find that page here.

     Aside from a few big aggregators, I didn’t include apps for federal and state codes, laws, regulations, etc. simply because there are far too many of them.

     The prices of the apps are accurate on the date that the date that the app was included on the list, but may have changed since then, so be sure to check the iTunes store for the most up-to-date pricing.

     If you know of an app that’s missing, feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to consider adding the app.

Image via CrunchBase

     I think this summer will be the tipping point for iPads. Why do I say that? Well, for a number of reasons.

     First, over Easter weekend, a number of friends and family members were considering buying iPads and asked me for my opinion regarding specs, etc. These are people who are not particularly techie. To me, the fact that so many people unrelated to one another and from different walks of life were simultaneously researching and buying iPads—just a few months after the iPad 2 was released—is a definite sign that iPads are beginning to have mass appeal.

     Another reason I think we’re reaching the tipping point for iPads—lots of famous people are getting them—from the President of the United States and the Queen of England, to celebrities like Kate Hudson to Justice Scalia. And all sorts of institutions are using them, from law firms  and hospitals to preschools to grade schools, high schools, colleges and law schools. Soon the iPad will be ubiquitous in every setting.

     They’re already showing up quite frequently in all of the places I predicted they would just over a year ago: in airports, on trains and at coffee shops. That’s because iPads are supplanting the use of other devices in those settings—smart phones, eReaders and laptops. In fact, based on a recent Nielsen study, some are asserting that, based on recent sales figures, iPads are replacing those devices.

     As I’ve often said in the past, I don’t think that iPads will replace those devices in all settings—in the business setting, laptops and desktops aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Instead, iPads fill a niche that many weren’t aware of until they got their hands on one. iPads are the perfect device for content consumption—and content creation, in a pinch.

     Whether iPads will rule the tablet computer market down the road remains to be seen. I think that Android-based tablets, like Android-based phones, will ultimately take at least half of the market share. But, for now, iPad sales have eclipsed the sales of all other tablet combined.

     Either way, tablet computers, led by the iPad, are about to reach a tipping point. Come fall, I think that my prediction will have come to pass and it will be evident that tablet computers are undoubtedly the next stage of computing for the everyday consumer.

     What do you think? Let me know at the Legal iPad Facebook page.

I brought home my iPhone 4S last week and am impressed by the Siri Assistant and the built in dictation system, which I demonstrate in a video in this earlier post.

When I tried to use Siri, I encountered an error that appeared intermittently, but seems to have subsided. Disconnecting and re-connecting to my wifi connection usually solved the issue. The Siri fail is shown in the video below:

I also figured out that I could require my phone to refer to me using something other than my name, and it now calls me “Sexy Mama,” to my endless amusement. If you’d like to do that, just tell Siri “Call me ‘X’” and voila! (If you ever send your contact info. to others from your iPhone, I would avoid this, since it adds your nickname to your contact profile.)

This particular command can result in a funny Siri Fail, as seen below:

Below are screenshots two of my more memorable interactions with Siri:

(In case you were wondering, Siri wasn’t able to perform the web search because my iPhone is password protected and I hadn’t yet unlocked the phone by entering my password. Sometimes Siri will prompt me to do so if issue a command that can’t be performed if the phone is still locked; other times, it won’t).

Image by William Hook via Flickr

Since upgrading to the iPhone 4S, I’ve encountered a number of problems with the messaging functions of the phone. And, I’m not the only one. A number of my friends have encountered similar issues, as have many others, judging from the results of a Google search for “iPhone 4S texting issues” or “iMessage issues.”

I thought I’d post about the issues I was having and let you now what I did to address the issue, simply for posterity’s sake, if nothing else, since it seems the issue is memorialized primarily in online forums versus blogs or other mainstream sites.

The main problem that I encountered was that I simply wasn’t receiving texts that were being sent to me. After much research and confusion, I determined that it only occurred when receiving texts from other iPhone users and appeared to have something to do with the new iMessage feature.

If you’re not already aware, iMessage is the new messaging system rolled out with the new iPhone operating system IOS 5.  iMessage allows IOS 5 users to send messages to other IOS 5 users across all devices,  including iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Unfortunately, it’s a bit buggy at this point.

Some people, like me, have had issues receiving messages. Other have had issues with the group messaging function.  I’m still unsure whether the issue is related to the IOS 5 operating system, my carrier (AT&T), or is limited to iPhone 4S users. In any event, thus far, the only solution for me is to simply turn iMessage off. Since I pay for unlimited texting and am grandfathered in to the unlimited data plan, the fact that I can’t use iMessage isn’t an issue for me.

But for others, iMessage offers a way to get around the text limit caps and data limit caps when sending multimedia messages via text. Unfortunately, that benefit is lost if iMessage can’t be used due to its inherent unreliability. Hopefully Apple fixes this annoying issue soon. Let me know over at the Legal iPad Facebook page if you’ve had similar issues and if so, if and how you fixed them.

Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and GigaOM Pro Analyst. She co-authors the ABA book Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, co-authors Criminal Law in New York, a West-Thomson treatise, and is currently writing a book about cloud computing for lawyers that will be published by the ABA in late 2011. She is the founder of lawtechTalk.com and speaks regularly at conferences regarding the intersection of law and technology. She publishes four legal blogs and can be reached at nblack@nicoleblackesq.com.