Technology

Putting Time Entry in Its Place: A Watch

The new Apple Watch operating system could revolutionize timekeeping, and a few manufacturers have already unveiled their new apps.

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Mobile device manufacturers, such as Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Samsung Corp., have designed smartphones to be with you at all times. Now device makers want their watches on your wrist most all the time, unless the time pieces are recharging. Makers will soon demand other body parts, but I stay focused on the wrist for this post.

Pairing a smartphone with a watch via Bluetooth technology hit a high note for legal professionals when Apple announced the Apple Watch (affiliate link) in March. But if you were waiting for something more practical than a time piece with alerts, notifications, and a heart and health monitor, it will soon be here. Time-keeping software providers to business and legal professionals have announced new apps for the Apple Watch.

Tikit, part of the BT Group, announced on August 28 its Carpe Diem app for the Apple Watch. The announcement followed the company’s release in March of Carpe Diem Next Generation (CDNG) time-keeping software. CDNG uses an HTML5 interface to provide a consistent user interface to its enterprise recording software from multiple mobile device platforms and desktop clients.

Figure 1. Carpe Diem app for the Apple Watch, displaying the Digital Crown along the top, upper-right edge of the watch, with a haptic (tap) interface to reset or send a time entry to a recording server and dictate a voice note to attend the entry. 

Besides the HTML5 interface, the London-based company, with offices in Chicago, Montreal and Toronto, supports thick and thin clients. All Tikit’s client software supports different time capturing technologies, whether it’s a timer on a mobile device, a time sheet on the desktop, or contemporaneous capture keyed by some activity, such as engaging a telephone call with a client or responding to email.

Tikit’s HTML5 user interface (UI) was inspired by easy-to-use, mobile consumer apps that required little to no training. That UI inspiration has continued to the Apple Watch. The new, native app will be released in the fall and included with the Carpe Diem Mobile module.

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Like CDNG, the Apple Watch app is designed to provide a consumer experience for capturing time — easier to use than email. The workflow is simple: work, click, bill. The interface has a stopwatch, increment tracking and the ability to record a narrative time capture via voice, which is transcribed and reported back to the timekeeper on the watch for him or her to acknowledge and record.

Bellefield Systems announced on September 1 its iTimeKeep app for the Apple Watch. When Bellefield’s new watch app is released in the fall, the Sewickley, Pennsylvania-based company is aiming for a comprehensive release of new iTimeKeep features around its time-entry-as-a-service model (TEaaS).

The TeaaS model allows firms to start using time entry and recording technology without investing in infrastructure. With the iTimeKeep app, “Attorneys can now accurately record their time hands-free in a few seconds without needing their smartphones in hand,” said Gabriela Isturiz, cofounder and president of Bellefield Systems. ITimeKeep for the Apple Watch continues the company’s mission to deliver a simple and convenient way to make time entry on any device.

Like Carpe Diem, the iTimeKeep app will allow manual time entries via voice, which are transcribed to text for verification and transmission to the cloud-based recording software. It includes digital timers that show time expired in an activity ring.

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Figure 2. Bellefield Systems’ iTimeKeep app for Apple Watch with an activity circle reflecting time and a digital display of the total time entry.

The Carpe Diem and iTimeKeep apps will be available this fall when Apple releases watchOS 2, which delivers a smart watch, not just a watch paired with a smartphone and an iPhone app.

A SMART WATCH?

The app architecture on the first Apple Watch, running watchOS 1, primarily required a smartphone. A watch app under watchOS1 comprises an iPhone app UI and a WatchKit extension — both run on the iPhone. The WatchKit extension runs the app’s code and receives and sends output to the watch app’s UI on the same platform.

It made little sense for time-entry software providers to make apps under watchOS 1. It requires legal professionals to carry two devices for time entry, instead of one, and be within Bluetooth range to record time and activities. Burdensome on the one hand and limiting on the other.

Coming this fall, the new Apple Watch app architecture, watchOS 2, puts the WatchKit extension on the watch with its UI — thus enabling native apps that can run entirely on the watch — no iPhone necessary. With the UI and the back-end code on the same device, Apple Watch apps will have lower interaction latency and be more responsive to users. The more code programmers can fit onto the WatchKit extension, the more functionality a watch app will have without the iPhone.

Under watchOS 2, watch apps will have the capability to directly tap into the watch’s hardware. The apps by Bellefield Systems and Tikit will have programmatic access to the Digital Crown to make app selections, such as choosing a client or selecting an activity, while the entire watch interface is reserved to view the available options. The apps also have direct access to the iPhone’s microphone to record audio time entries and Apple’s Taptic Engine to receive haptic (taps) feedback from users.

As native apps, the new time-entry programs can tap the watch’s Wi-Fi interface to directly access Internet-based time-keeping servers rather than use the iPhone as a proxy to relay data to and from servers. Although no iPhone is wholly necessary for watchOS 2 apps, the device can share data already downloaded to the iPhone, such as clients and preset activities.

Data downloaded to the iPhone and shared with the watch will use Apple’s Keychain security framework. Programmers place data in the appropriate classification in the Keychain to share with the watch. While the watch is worn, the data is unlocked. When the watch is removed, the data is locked.

Keeping time is critical to professional services. When time entry is where it belongs, solely on a watch, I will look closely at the options for Google’s Android and Apple’s watchOS 2. A time-entry app may determine my next watch.

Attorney Sean Doherty has been following enterprise and legal technology for more than 15 years as a former senior technology editor for UBM Tech (formerly CMP Media) and former technology editor for Law.com and ALM Media. Sean analyzes and reviews technology products and services for lawyers, law firms, and corporate legal departments. Contact him via email at sean@laroque-doherty.net and follow him on Twitter: @SeanD0herty.

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