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Two lawyer smartphone surveys show iPhone way ahead
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: June 6, 2014
Two recent surveys have shown that, while the Android platform may have up to 70 percent of the new smartphone market in the general populace, it is the iOS platform that dominates the legal profession. The same seems to hold true in the tablet computing world, as well.
The surveys, conducted by the ABA and the legal practice management software company Clio, show the same trends, with slightly different numbers.
For starters, over 90 percent of lawyers now use smartphones, and half of all lawyers now use tablets in their work. So that trend is pretty clear.
Windows is on the outside looking in. The three primary platforms that even make a dent in the legal industry at this point are iOS, Android, and Blackberry. Windows has yet to get a sniff at the mobile law biz.
Overall, the Android smartphone platform accounts for about 70 percent of that market worldwide. It is installed on over 750 million devices.
But well over 60 percent of lawyers use Apple smartphones, according to both surveys.
Interestingly, Blackberry still has a place in that market, although only 16 percent, down from over 30 percent in the previous year’s survey. That brings Android in in the 20s—a stat that is consistent through the last couple of years.
Blackberry will soon be disappearing completely, of course. Since Android use has held pretty steady over the last couple of years—Apple has taken most of the market share from Blackberry.
There are at least two reasons for lawyers’ iOs preferences. This first is the cross-platform iOS capabilities. Apple has always done this, with the Mac, iPad, and iPhone. This is what Windows 8 is trying to do, so we’ll see how that goes into the future. The second is that lawyer-dedicated apps seem to be better, and available quicker, on Apple products.
And, while half of all lawyers use tablets, only 9 percent of those are Android.
Developers go to Apple first because that’s where both the lawyers and their money is. But there are over 1.2 million apps in the Google store, and they are generally less expensive than Apple’s.
So let’s see where this goes in 2015 and beyond.