Using the gTablet to Recreate a Scene in a Deposition

Both the iPhone J.D. and WalkingOffice have these great posts (here and here) on how to do some cool tricks with the iPad to take screenshots and present them for use in court proceedings. In fact, iPhone J.D.s post is so cool, it emphasizes exactly why the iPad is taking over the market for attorneys.

One of the biggest bummer features of the Android OS is the lack of the native ability to actually take screenshots with your device. The simple screenshot feature on the iOS ROCKS (Google, get with the program).

After reading iPhone J.D.s post, I had to get me some on my gTablet. The simple question was, how. Well, a short time later, heres how to do it:

Screenshot apps on Android require root. Since the gTablet is pretty much useless before rooting, mine was already in that state. Note, there is a method that does not require you to root your device, but its anti-mobile, which is the very essence of iPhone J.D.s post.

The next step is to find a comparable screenshot app to the one discussed. The app recommended in the forums, screenshot, didnt work for me. The only screenshot was a black screen. Not very useful for anything. This might be a flaw in my version of the Android OS. I settled on Screenshot It, a great app that worked out of the box. I paid $4.33 for the pro version.

The application has a feature in the settings that allows you to dock the app in your notification bar. This lets you take the screenshot from the application youre working in, as opposed to quickly finding the screen before your timer runs out. Of course, if you dont want to root, the easiest screenshot may come from your desktop (PrtScn on Windows, then paste into Paint, save as .jpg or other picture format) which you upload to Dropbox.

Finding a photo editing program, such as Adobe Ideas, was the easiest part. I settled quickly on an app called, Cavnas Pro. The app is $2.99, and well worth the price. This application allows you to edit pictures like Adobe Ideas, and save them. Following the save (mine goes top level to sdcard/pictures), you can use a File Manager program to find the picture and send to a variety of places (remember to long press on the screen to pull up the menu options).

Finally, I installed the Google Earth App, but you can use the native Google Maps feature.

Follow iPhone J.D.s steps to get the same results. This is one more reason why the Viewsonic gTablet starts to compare to the iPad.

Get the apps here:

Screenshot It ($2.99)

Canvas Pro ($4.33)

Google Earth (Free)