Lawyer strikes gold with iPhone apps

Michael Schneider

Michael Schneider is a lawyer by day, an iPhone application developer by night.

In the past two months, the intellectual property attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati has released three iPhone applications that have won him praise in the technology press, thousands of users and a nice little cash bonus.

Schneider's latest invention -- dubbed Touch Type -- allows iPhone users to compose e-mails by holding the device horizontally in order to easily type messages on a wider screen.

Since its debut earlier this month, more than 23,000 people have downloaded Touch Type, making it one of the top 20 most downloaded applications in Apple's App store.

At 99 cents per download, Schneider's moonlighting gig has turned quite prosperous.

In total, close to 30,000 people have downloaded one of his applications.

Not bad for a self-described "amateur programmer" who started tinkering with iPhone applications a few months ago simply because he wanted a challenging intellectual exercise.

"The two are kind of connected," Schneider said of practicing law and devolping mobile applications. "They kind of exercise different parts of your brain."

The Seattle attorney, who typically counsels video game and Internet companies, saw his first iPhone application released in mid-August.

Dubbed Direct Line, the 99 cent application allows iPhone users to quickly connect with live customer support agents at corporations without being held up in the automated phone system. TechCrunch called that one a "must have."

"It was just something I thought would be useful for me," said Schneider, when asked about the genesis of the idea.

Schneider's second application, Private-I, allows users to track the whereabouts of their iPhone if it is stolen. It does this by trying to trick the criminal into hitting a button labled "private," which when touched triggers an e-mail to the phone's rightful owner complete with GPS coordinates on a Google map.

So what's next for Schneider?

 He's got two new niche social networking applications, along with a customer service application in development.

"I've got a big backlog of things that I would like to try to do on the iPhone, so basically it is a matter of prioritizing which ones seem like the lowest hanging fruit," he says.

While Schneider spends nights and weekends dreaming up new iPhone apps, the 33-year-old attorney is not about to quit his day job. "My passion is the law," said Schneider. "This stuff just educates me and it helps me understand what my clients go through."