Speaker 1: Facebook under fire for its data sharing practices, the best
Speaker 1: smart speaker, the one plus sixty, gets high marks for
Speaker 1: its cameras, and Twitter now reveals more about you when
Speaker 1: you tweet what's going on. I'm Rich Dimiro. This is
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech, the longer form version of the podcast
Speaker 1: where I talk about all the stuff I think you
Speaker 1: should know about this week in technology. There's a lot
Speaker 1: going on, and this is not everything that happened in tech.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of like the little things that I
Speaker 1: think you should know about. And last week I talked
Speaker 1: about how someone had texted me on Instagram and told
Speaker 1: me they had an idea for the name of this show,
Speaker 1: and I finally found that little message that was sent
Speaker 1: to me by Bob Hardy. Bob Hardy twenty seven on
Speaker 1: Instagram said Hey, Rich, I have an idea for what
Speaker 1: you can call your extended podcast show on Fridays. He says,
Speaker 1: call it Richer on Tech, and I wholeheartedly agree. I
Speaker 1: love the name. Don't know if that's going to be
Speaker 1: the full name, but he says too much Apple stuff
Speaker 1: for my liking, lol, but still love the show. Prefer
Speaker 1: more Android stuff. And Bob, I hear you. The thing
Speaker 1: about Apple versus Android. Here's the deal. So Apple gets
Speaker 1: all of the attention in the press for one big reason.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people out there that have iPhones,
Speaker 1: and not just that, there's a lot of people out
Speaker 1: there that don't understand how to use the iPhone. There's
Speaker 1: just so many little features on there, and Android's kind
Speaker 1: of the same way. But here's the big difference Android.
Speaker 1: There are so many different manufacturers, there are so many
Speaker 1: different types of phones out there that one news story
Speaker 1: cannot fit all. Even like my tips, I did the
Speaker 1: book one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone.
Speaker 1: Everyone's asking, Rich, where's the Android version? Well, you can't
Speaker 1: do an Android version like that because there is no
Speaker 1: Android operating system that is the same on millions of
Speaker 1: different phones. The closest thing we have is Samsung. With
Speaker 1: that said, Samsung did just recently change up their user interface.
Speaker 1: I've been testing this out on the Note nine. It's
Speaker 1: called one UI and it's actually quite slick. So maybe,
Speaker 1: just maybe I'm not promising anything here. Maybe I will
Speaker 1: do something on Android. But folks, I love Android, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, Like I really love Android. So I
Speaker 1: usually carry around two phones one, Android one iPhone, and
Speaker 1: it's just I haven't figured out a good way to
Speaker 1: do things on Android that kind of work across all
Speaker 1: the platforms realistically. Realistically, when you want to do that,
Speaker 1: you almost have to talk about apps on Android and
Speaker 1: what they can do versus kind of the features of
Speaker 1: the operating system. But if I were to do something,
Speaker 1: it'd probably be on the Samsung devices. So let's start
Speaker 1: with Facebook this week, because Facebook, uh man, they just
Speaker 1: this is a company that just wants twenty eighteen to
Speaker 1: go away because they cannot catch a break. They are
Speaker 1: under fire this week because the New York Times did
Speaker 1: an article saying, Hey, Facebook, why are you sharing all
Speaker 1: this personal data that folks post with All these companies
Speaker 1: including Apple, BlackBerry, Yahoo, Netflix, New York Times, Pandora, Spotify,
Speaker 1: and Facebook came out with the blog post and said, look,
Speaker 1: we get it. You have a lot of questions about
Speaker 1: how we're sharing our data, but let us explain. And
Speaker 1: what they explained is that number one, these were older
Speaker 1: features that Facebook was testing out. Some of them were
Speaker 1: integration partners. And the whole big thing about the way
Speaker 1: they were sharing the data is specifically on Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry,
Speaker 1: and Yahoo, is that you would log in on those
Speaker 1: platforms so that you could see your Facebook posts, or
Speaker 1: you can see the various stuff that you did on
Speaker 1: Facebook on a different platform, so you can access that
Speaker 1: through Yahoo or through your BlackBerry. So it wasn't as
Speaker 1: nefarious as New York Times made it out to be.
Speaker 1: And I'm not defending Facebook here. They're trying to appeal
Speaker 1: to a wide amount of people, and basically the way
Speaker 1: you appeal to a wide amount of people is that
Speaker 1: you scare them, right, And so if you really die
Speaker 1: deep into what Facebook was doing, it doesn't sound as
Speaker 1: scary as the New York Times made it out to be.
Speaker 1: So number one, they say that these partnerships wound down
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen. Let's just be clear about Facebook. We
Speaker 1: are not posting private information on Facebook, and if you are,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be. Facebook is not a private place. It
Speaker 1: never has been. It should not be construed as a
Speaker 1: private place. And I get it. There was one thing
Speaker 1: that they scared people about, which was private messages, and
Speaker 1: they said that websites like Netflix, New York Times, Pandora,
Speaker 1: and Spotify had access to people's private messages. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they were doing a test where you can access your
Speaker 1: private messages through these different platforms, and I get it.
Speaker 1: That does sound scary, but you have to understand anything.
Speaker 1: And let me just say this clear. Anything you do
Speaker 1: on Facebook could be seen by someone else. Anything you
Speaker 1: send through Facebook could be seen. Anything you do there
Speaker 1: will be used to market stuff to you. So just
Speaker 1: understand that and if you do, you'll have a better
Speaker 1: experience on it. Any of these sites that you're getting
Speaker 1: for free, unless you are paying them money, there should
Speaker 1: be absolutely no thought that you're getting something that is private,
Speaker 1: that is personal, that is safe, that is encrypted, that
Speaker 1: is not easily viewable by anyone else. So just keep
Speaker 1: that in mind. And you can still have fun on Facebook.
Speaker 1: You can still post your pictures there, but you just
Speaker 1: have to remember anything that you do there, especially if
Speaker 1: it's free. Look, it's not going to be private. And
Speaker 1: I understand you can have your setting set to where
Speaker 1: certain people can't see stuff, but the reality is there's
Speaker 1: always that potential and always that possibility. And Facebook is
Speaker 1: not here for our health. Facebook is here to market
Speaker 1: stuff to us and to help companies market things to you.
Speaker 1: Just keep that in mind. If you're posting pictures of
Speaker 1: your cat and your family and all the things you're
Speaker 1: doing your vacation. I mean, come on, you have to
Speaker 1: understand they're doing They're not doing you a service. You're
Speaker 1: doing them a service by upload your stuff and then
Speaker 1: they get to find out a lot of data about you.
Speaker 1: So I know a lot of people are deleting Facebook.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say one hundred percent recommend that
Speaker 1: just yet, because Facebook has really done an amazing job
Speaker 1: at connecting people. I mean, think about it. Think about
Speaker 1: back when you really had a lot of fun on Facebook,
Speaker 1: like connecting with new people. They did a pretty darn
Speaker 1: good job of that. And I understand they're trying to
Speaker 1: find their way in this world where they want to
Speaker 1: make a lot of money and they're making it off
Speaker 1: of your data. That's the way their business was written.
Speaker 1: That's what's happening here, folks. So just remember that, keep
Speaker 1: that in mind, and don't post anything stupid. Right if
Speaker 1: you think your employer can't see it, or if you
Speaker 1: think you know a company can't see it, or it's
Speaker 1: not being used to market to you, then you're totally
Speaker 1: you're just not getting it, because that's what's happening there.
Speaker 1: Speaking of data privacy, this one's great Amazon Alexa user
Speaker 1: receives seventeen hundred audio recordings of a stranger through quote
Speaker 1: human error. So if using one of these smart speakers
Speaker 1: at home, you gotta understand that, yes, they are recording
Speaker 1: every single thing that you say to them, not everything
Speaker 1: all the time. Now, they are listening all the time,
Speaker 1: but theoretically they're only activated when they hear that keyword.
Speaker 1: So what happened was the story out of the Washington
Speaker 1: Post says a person in Germany requested an archive of
Speaker 1: their recordings and they got a link to seventeen hundred
Speaker 1: audio files from someone else's Lexa. So imagine the surprise
Speaker 1: of this person. And of course, if you're a regular person,
Speaker 1: if you're an average person, you're going to start listening
Speaker 1: to some of these recordings on there because you're curious.
Speaker 1: And so the person did, and he listened to another
Speaker 1: man speaking inside their home with a female companion. Apparently
Speaker 1: one of these recordings was also in the shower I heard,
Speaker 1: which was kind of interesting. Amazon said, quote, this is
Speaker 1: an unfortunate case of human error and an isolated incident.
Speaker 1: So let me explain. When you talk to Alexa, I'll
Speaker 1: call her that not to activate yours. There's a recording
Speaker 1: of that, and Amazon uses these recordings to improve what
Speaker 1: she can do. And according to Amazon's help page, we
Speaker 1: keep the recordings associated with your account to improve the
Speaker 1: accuracy of the results provided to you and to improve
Speaker 1: our services. And you do have the option to delete
Speaker 1: these recordings. But guess what, Amazon says, it may degrade
Speaker 1: your experience using the device. Now, I think that's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a scare tactic because I don't think
Speaker 1: it's gonna it will degrade a certain amount, but I
Speaker 1: don't think that your one hundred percent experience of of
Speaker 1: Lexa is based on what you've said to her in
Speaker 1: the past. Some of these things are, but I think
Speaker 1: that they aggregate a lot of this stuff and use
Speaker 1: it to improve the service. I mean, this is bad.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to think that the recordings that they made
Speaker 1: with their smart speaker is going to be sent to
Speaker 1: someone else. And Amazon says this was a one time error,
Speaker 1: but of course it could easily happen again. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting because you can access your recordings of Lexa on
Speaker 1: the web, So if you want to do that, you
Speaker 1: can go to the Lexa app or the Alexa privacy
Speaker 1: page and go to settings Lexa Account and then Lexa
Speaker 1: Privacy and you can see all of your recordings and
Speaker 1: delete them. Amazon dot Com slash Alexa Privacy is the
Speaker 1: website to go to. I would recommend just taking a look.
Speaker 1: Just go in there. If you use one of these things,
Speaker 1: go in there and just see kind of what recordings
Speaker 1: you have on Google on your computer. You can go
Speaker 1: to Google Account, then you go to Navigation Panel, Data
Speaker 1: and Personalization, then in Activity controls voice and audio activity. Now, personally,
Speaker 1: I think that you should just be able to search
Speaker 1: on Google and say show me my voice recordings, and
Speaker 1: that should bring it onto you bring it right onto
Speaker 1: your page. But it sort of does. It brings you
Speaker 1: to a help page, but it doesn't bring you to
Speaker 1: the page that you need, and it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: there's a really simple way to get you there. But anyway,
Speaker 1: you can go into your Google recordings and hear what
Speaker 1: you've said to Google as well. And sometimes it's pretty
Speaker 1: eye opening because you hear exactly what you sounded like,
Speaker 1: whether it was in the morning, you know, when you're
Speaker 1: driving a work in your car and you said something
Speaker 1: to Android Auto. But it's really interesting you could hear
Speaker 1: the kids in the background. So, but it's not easy
Speaker 1: to get to. Wow, there's a lot of stuff to
Speaker 1: get to see your voice and audio activity on your
Speaker 1: Android phone. Open your device's settings, and then go to Google.
Speaker 1: Let me do this right now. I'm gonna bring up
Speaker 1: my Android phone. Let's go. So I'll go to settings
Speaker 1: and then we'll go to Google, and then we'll go
Speaker 1: to Google Account. Okay, there it is now at the top.
Speaker 1: Tap data and personalization. There it is. I see that
Speaker 1: under activity and timeline. Type my activity or tap my activity. Okay,
Speaker 1: where's my activity? There it is. Okay, I got it.
Speaker 1: Under the search bar, tap filter by date and product.
Speaker 1: So let's tap filter out. There we go, and now
Speaker 1: uncheck the box next to all products. Check the boxes
Speaker 1: next to assistant and voice and audio assistant and voice
Speaker 1: and audio. Wow. Okay, Now we can press apply and
Speaker 1: there comes some recordings. Okay, oh wow, this is great.
Speaker 1: So here's the stuff it said. Okay, so let's see
Speaker 1: show my agenda. Uh play the butt song yesterday at
Speaker 1: six oh three pm. Okay, clearly my kids have been
Speaker 1: playing with this thing. Wake me up in one hour,
Speaker 1: so let's hear it. Hey, Google. Oh wow, it activated
Speaker 1: my phone. Wake me up in one hour. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: wake me up in one hour. So there you have it,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. And then you can go through and
Speaker 1: actually delete these things. I said eighteen things to Google yesterday.
Speaker 1: Here's another one that I said, turn off all the
Speaker 1: lights in the office, turn off the Christmas tree. So anyway,
Speaker 1: you'll have a lot of fun. I'll put the links
Speaker 1: in the show notes so you can see exactly where
Speaker 1: that stuff is and listen to some of your recordings.
Speaker 1: Speaking of us smart speakers, Loop Ventures did their annual
Speaker 1: smart Speaker IQ test. Kind of interesting as you might expect.
Speaker 1: Who came out on top. Of course, Google Assistant answered
Speaker 1: eighty eight percent of questions correctly, Siri seventy five percent,
Speaker 1: Lexas seventy three, Kortana sixty three and some big improvements here.
Speaker 1: So Google Assistant last year got eighty one percent. Siri
Speaker 1: huge improvement fifty two percent last year versus seventy five
Speaker 1: this year, so she's gotten a lot better. Lexas sixty
Speaker 1: four percent versus seventy three percent this year, and Kortana
Speaker 1: fifty six percent versus sixty three. So they asked these
Speaker 1: things eight hundred questions, including local questions like where is
Speaker 1: the nearest coffee shop, commerce questions, can you order me
Speaker 1: more paper towels? Navigation, how do I get to uptown
Speaker 1: on the bus? Information, who do the Twins play tonight?
Speaker 1: And then a command remind me to call Steve at
Speaker 1: two pm today. So also important to note that they
Speaker 1: asked the questions on these smart speakers, not on the phone.
Speaker 1: They are slightly different when you ask these questions on
Speaker 1: a phone versus the speaker. So the biggest thing that
Speaker 1: tripped these things up was something that involved a proper noun,
Speaker 1: often the name of a local town or a restaurant,
Speaker 1: although I found that Google is really good at figuring
Speaker 1: out these names, especially when you say proper names of restaurants.
Speaker 1: So again, they did get eighty eight percent right, so
Speaker 1: that's pretty darn good. Google Home has the edge in
Speaker 1: four out of five categories, but fell short of Siri
Speaker 1: in the command category. And it's really interesting that they
Speaker 1: said that, because it's funny. As bad as some people
Speaker 1: say Siri is, it's actually really good when you're talking
Speaker 1: about doing things like email and messaging, like especially text messages,
Speaker 1: you can ask her to read your unread text messages
Speaker 1: or reply to someone, and she's really good at that stuff.
Speaker 1: Google not so much. And the challenge with Google is
Speaker 1: that it integrates with a lot of different apps on
Speaker 1: your phone. And that's the big problem is that Siri
Speaker 1: only really integrates with the iPhone native apps. She's getting
Speaker 1: a little bit better with some of the extensions that
Speaker 1: they've added to Siri, but for the most part, people
Speaker 1: are using Siri to interface with native apps on the iPhone.
Speaker 1: The largest disparity, according to loop Ventures, exists in the
Speaker 1: commerce section. You would think Alexa would dominate that, but
Speaker 1: Google Assistant actually did really well. Knows a lot of
Speaker 1: product information, where to buy certain stuff. Google Express just
Speaker 1: as capable as Amazon in terms of purchasing stuff or
Speaker 1: restocking common goods you've purchased before. Alexa's surprising commerce score
Speaker 1: is explained by an example in our test so question
Speaker 1: how much would a manicure cost? Alexa said, the top
Speaker 1: search result for manicure is this pedicure kit. It's sixty
Speaker 1: dollars on Amazon, which you like to buy it? That
Speaker 1: doesn't really help you at all. Google Assistant said, on average,
Speaker 1: a basic manicure will cost you twenty dollars. However, special
Speaker 1: manicure like Acrylic Jail, Schillac, Gel Shillac, and no Chip
Speaker 1: range from twenty to fifty depending on the salon. So
Speaker 1: as you can see, Google is much better at parsing
Speaker 1: information from the web and delivering that to you, and
Speaker 1: that's definitely my experience one of the reasons I really
Speaker 1: like Google Assistant. In fact, I like all these things
Speaker 1: for various reasons. Alexa or Alexa is really good at
Speaker 1: knowing your shopping history on Google. Alexa is really good
Speaker 1: at knowing your shopping history and the stuff you've ordered
Speaker 1: on Amazon, so she's really good at answering questions about
Speaker 1: that and re ordering similar items. Where I find Google
Speaker 1: Assistant to just be really solid in a wide variety
Speaker 1: of categories. But when it comes to controlling my phone,
Speaker 1: absolutely I think that Siri does a much better job.
Speaker 1: But again we're talking about smart speakers here, not just
Speaker 1: the smartphones. One Plus sixty a big Android phone that
Speaker 1: launched this year from the Chinese startup one plus, So
Speaker 1: getting the latest camera reviews from dxomar, it actually did
Speaker 1: really well. It got good performer So the one plus
Speaker 1: six T is a very solid Android device if you
Speaker 1: want sort of the best bang for your buck when
Speaker 1: it comes to Android devices. You're talking a phone that's
Speaker 1: about five hundred and fifty dollars and it checks off
Speaker 1: all the marks. It's got great hardware, it's got excellent software,
Speaker 1: it's got a really nice camera. And the surprising part
Speaker 1: about this review is that the one plus sixt has
Speaker 1: the same camera as the one plus six. It's got
Speaker 1: a sixteen megapixel main camera, twenty megapixel secondary module for
Speaker 1: digital zooming, and according to DxO mark it says that
Speaker 1: their tests show that firmware changes have the six T
Speaker 1: doing a little bit better than its predecessor, the six.
Speaker 1: So how does this thing score? Overall? Ninety eight points,
Speaker 1: which ties it up with the Google Pixel two, which
Speaker 1: is a very good camera. It holds tenth place in
Speaker 1: Dxo's mobile rankings. So when you think about the ten
Speaker 1: smartphone cameras out there, let's just take a look at
Speaker 1: the list right now. Number one Huawei P twenty plus
Speaker 1: are Peak twenty pro, which not really for America, but
Speaker 1: it's available in the international version. Number two Apple iPhone
Speaker 1: ten s Max, Number three HTCU twelve plus, Number four
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy Note nine, Number five Jaumi me Mix three.
Speaker 1: Then you have the iPhone ten are Google Pixel three
Speaker 1: and the Samsung Galaxy S nine, so a lot of
Speaker 1: huaweis on there. A lot of Chinese manufacturers also the
Speaker 1: HTC phones that are not very common here in America.
Speaker 1: So for the one plus sixty to get down there
Speaker 1: under the one plus, the Google Pixel two or tying,
Speaker 1: that is pretty good. One plus six t I think
Speaker 1: people will be very happy with. Let's see. The reviewers
Speaker 1: liked its wide dynamic range, pleasant colors, good detailed preservation,
Speaker 1: and the autofocus was reliable and quick. On the downside,
Speaker 1: zoom shots show less detail than competitors, and many HDR
Speaker 1: shots show artifacts such as ringing, ghosting, or halos. So
Speaker 1: kudos to one plus for launching the sixte. They also
Speaker 1: have the McLaren addition of the one plus sixty, which
Speaker 1: has got ten gigabytes of RAM, which is just insane.
Speaker 1: To give you a little basis of that, the iPhone
Speaker 1: has four gigabytes of RAM on board, and we're not
Speaker 1: talking memory, that's you know, how much storage is on board,
Speaker 1: but it does have a lot of that as well.
Speaker 1: But it does have a ton of RAM, which you know,
Speaker 1: speeds things up. Speaking of Apple, according to a new report,
Speaker 1: they're going to launch an iPad Mini five and an
Speaker 1: entry level ten inch iPad next year. I already thought
Speaker 1: they had an entry level iPad, but that's the one
Speaker 1: for three thirty nine. Maybe they're making or three twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're making a cheaper one. But the iPad Mini
Speaker 1: five is very interesting to me because I bought this
Speaker 1: for my kids, and I cannot believe they have an
Speaker 1: update since twenty fifteen. I bought the iPad Mini for
Speaker 1: my kids right when it came out, so I guess
Speaker 1: that was in September, three years ago. I can't believe that.
Speaker 1: But they're saying. Mnchi Quo is a reliable Apple analyst.
Speaker 1: He says they're working on a new version of the
Speaker 1: iPad Mini, which would be great because it's a perfect
Speaker 1: iPad for kids. My kids have had theirs in their
Speaker 1: outer boxes for three years now and they've been great.
Speaker 1: They haven't really slowed down too much. They work great
Speaker 1: for the kids. There's you know, they just they're just
Speaker 1: a solid performer and you get all the apps that
Speaker 1: you need on that device. So I will happily upgrade
Speaker 1: my kids and sell their old ones on eBay or
Speaker 1: maybe give them to a family member when I upgrade.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people have been waiting for a
Speaker 1: fifth generation iPad Mini. They say they're going to launch
Speaker 1: it in the first half of twenty nineteen. This is
Speaker 1: according to a Apple supply chain I guess a report
Speaker 1: by the China Times. So I'm all for it. I'm
Speaker 1: ready to upgrade, and I think the iPad Mini is
Speaker 1: a great one. It's a nice size for kids especially,
Speaker 1: And I get a lot of questions about people saying
Speaker 1: should I get the iPad Mini. Well, they don't really
Speaker 1: ask about that. They just say should I get the
Speaker 1: iPad or should I get some other tablet? And you know,
Speaker 1: I always recommend the iPad because the apps are just
Speaker 1: so much better than what you get on Android. When
Speaker 1: it comes to tablets and especially kids apps, this is
Speaker 1: where the developers really put a lot of their efforts.
Speaker 1: And I get it. If your kid's just watching Netflix,
Speaker 1: sure the Amazon Fire tablet is going to be just
Speaker 1: fine for them. But when it comes to these educational apps,
Speaker 1: some of these things are really only available on the iPad,
Speaker 1: and I just find that the quality and ease of
Speaker 1: the iPad is just so much better and again, look
Speaker 1: at mine has lasted three years. It's in an outter box.
Speaker 1: I definitely got my money's worth out of this thing.
Speaker 1: It has saved us many family dinners, many meltdowns, many
Speaker 1: rides in the car. And don't get don't get on
Speaker 1: me about screen time, but I really like the iPad.
Speaker 1: I just think it's a very solid device for the kids,
Speaker 1: and you don't want them just watching nonsense on Netflix
Speaker 1: all day. Like some of these educational apps are pretty
Speaker 1: darn good on the iPads. New feature on Twitter. First
Speaker 1: noticed it on Android. Now it's coming to iOS. But
Speaker 1: when you tweet, it's now going to show folks what
Speaker 1: and how you're tweeting from. So right by the time
Speaker 1: and date stamp, there is now a new little piece
Speaker 1: of information that says the app or the platform that
Speaker 1: you are tweeting from. So if you're using Twitter for Android,
Speaker 1: it will say Twitter for Android. If you're using Twitter
Speaker 1: for iPhone, it'll say Twitter for iPhone. If you're using
Speaker 1: Twitter Web app or tweetbot or any other way of tweeting,
Speaker 1: folks will actually now get to see how you are tweeting.
Speaker 1: So if you're trying to hide how you're tweeting the
Speaker 1: secrets out, So if you go into any tweet, just
Speaker 1: tap it to see kind of like a bigger version
Speaker 1: of it. You can see right in the timeline or
Speaker 1: right on that thing how people are tweeting, so it'll
Speaker 1: say you know the time, the date, and then for instance,
Speaker 1: Twitter for iPhone and I can just go down the
Speaker 1: list here Twitter for iPad, This person just tweeted Twitter
Speaker 1: for iPhone. Long story short, You can now see more
Speaker 1: information about how someone's tweeting and why is this coming
Speaker 1: handy Well, it's kind of interesting just to see if
Speaker 1: you're like a celebrity, you're trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: they're tweeting what they're tweeting from how you know, often
Speaker 1: people will schedule their tweets. You can out tell if
Speaker 1: they're scheduling their tweets because it will come from some
Speaker 1: sort of Twitter platform, not necessarily the app. So that's
Speaker 1: one way. Also a lot of these tech companies get
Speaker 1: burned because they will tweet about let's say the new
Speaker 1: Samsung phone and guess what the celebrities tweet that's saying
Speaker 1: how great this phone is comes from an iPhone. That's
Speaker 1: kind of weird, right, So it used to take something
Speaker 1: like tweet Deck to track that information down. Now you
Speaker 1: can just look right in the Twitter app on your
Speaker 1: iPhone or Android and see exactly how folks are tweeting,
Speaker 1: and sure, if you look at mine, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: catch me in anything. I do schedule a lot of
Speaker 1: my tweets, and I also will I will also tweet
Speaker 1: from both Android and iOS depending on how I'm feeling
Speaker 1: that day. So sometimes I'm on Android, sometimes I'm on iOS,
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm on the web. Sometimes I'm using Buffer, which
Speaker 1: is a great social media app that helps you schedule
Speaker 1: some of your tweets. So what happens is I don't
Speaker 1: like to slam people with tweets all day long, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I don't like to have like twenty five tweets
Speaker 1: go out at once, because you know, they're kind of ephemeral, right,
Speaker 1: they just kind of disappear after a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: So I like people to have them kind of spaced
Speaker 1: out through the day. So if it's not something that
Speaker 1: necessarily has to go out at that exact moment, I'll
Speaker 1: just kind of space it out a little bit and
Speaker 1: use Buffer. So when you look at my tweets, if
Speaker 1: you see something that comes from buffer, chances are i'd
Speaker 1: schedule that out from a while back. Sometimes. Also, I
Speaker 1: do a lot of my tweeting very early in the morning,
Speaker 1: like four to nine AM, so rather than just send
Speaker 1: everything out during those hours, I'll kind of space it
Speaker 1: out throughout the day. Everyone has a different theory on
Speaker 1: this stuff, but that's kind of how I do it.
Speaker 1: And let's talk about this NASA engineer. We talked about
Speaker 1: this on TV. I don't know if you saw maybe
Speaker 1: the YouTube video, but it was a glitter bomb. It
Speaker 1: was basically a viral video about porch pirates and this
Speaker 1: NASA engineer, Mark Rober He made a YouTube video with
Speaker 1: a glitter bomb it. It was a package that he
Speaker 1: outfitted with all these special electronics. When you take the package,
Speaker 1: when you steal it, it follow They follow you home
Speaker 1: with GPS, they can see where you were, and when
Speaker 1: you open the package, it explodes with all this glitter.
Speaker 1: So I had this debate with my producer. I was like,
Speaker 1: there's no way that's real. There's no way he actually
Speaker 1: got people to steal these packages in a certain timeframe
Speaker 1: and then recorded them and then was able to edit
Speaker 1: it all on a nice YouTube timeline and get it
Speaker 1: up to YouTube and rack up millions and millions of views.
Speaker 1: In fact, when I showed the video on TV, it
Speaker 1: had six million views. Business Insider is saying it racked
Speaker 1: up forty million views in about three days. And now
Speaker 1: the NASA guy, Mark Rober, who I've interviewed before, by
Speaker 1: the way, is coming out and saying, Okay, it was fake.
Speaker 1: So the package wasn't fake, but the payoff was. Was
Speaker 1: there anyone who actually stole this package and they tracked
Speaker 1: back to their house? Don't I don't know. It doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like it. Two of the so called thieves were
Speaker 1: actually in on the prank. They were roped in by
Speaker 1: a friend of a friend who offered to place the
Speaker 1: package on their porch, and Rober said, I'm really sorry
Speaker 1: about this. I'm responsible for the content that goes on
Speaker 1: my channel. I should have done more. I can vouch
Speaker 1: the reactions were genuine when the package was taken from
Speaker 1: my house. I know my credibility is sort of shot.
Speaker 1: So Mark Rober is He's done a lot of great
Speaker 1: videos for YouTube. They're often a mix of sort of
Speaker 1: engineering and surprise, and he does a great job not
Speaker 1: discounting the fact, but YouTube is entertainment and a lot
Speaker 1: of the stuff that you see on there you gotta
Speaker 1: kind of take with a grain of salt, because how
Speaker 1: is he able to get a porch pirate to steal
Speaker 1: these packages and then also sign off and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm willing to let this video be on YouTube. No,
Speaker 1: definitely definitely made me think twice. So clearly it was fake,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't take away from the fact that he
Speaker 1: still did something really funny, which were these packages that
Speaker 1: would explode into glitter and also a let's just say
Speaker 1: it smelled like someone was passing gas when this thing
Speaker 1: would open up in your house. So great idea, but
Speaker 1: not necessarily real. And by the way I said, I
Speaker 1: interviewed Mark Roeber back in the day. The first time
Speaker 1: I met him, he was doing a he came to prominence.
Speaker 1: He was a JPL NASA guy, and he came to
Speaker 1: prominence doing these shirts for Halloween. They were like costumes
Speaker 1: and they would have a little cutout right in the
Speaker 1: middle of the shirt that you would put your iPhone
Speaker 1: and back in that day, I think it was an
Speaker 1: iPod actually iPod touch. You would put that in there
Speaker 1: and it would have like some sort of video on there.
Speaker 1: So if it was like a scary shirt, it had
Speaker 1: like a big mouth that was like all bloody and
Speaker 1: stuff and like screaming, so that would be like that
Speaker 1: would ate the mouth on the shirt. And then it
Speaker 1: had like a fireplace, so it had the shirt had
Speaker 1: a big fireplace on it. And then where you put
Speaker 1: your iPod in, it was like a crackling fire video
Speaker 1: on your iPod video right, iPod I guess video what
Speaker 1: was it called? iPod touch had the video. So you
Speaker 1: got to give him. You got to give him credit.
Speaker 1: The guy has done a lot of cool stuff in
Speaker 1: his career, and he's a smart guy. Clearly. I think
Speaker 1: this was a small stumble for him. He was very
Speaker 1: excited to get this video out there and it was
Speaker 1: a cool concept. But you got to tell people when
Speaker 1: these things are fake. I don't think it would have
Speaker 1: taken away from the video. I think he could have
Speaker 1: put that in the comments or the description. It would
Speaker 1: have been just fine. Let's talk about my book one
Speaker 1: and one handy tech tips for the iPhone. I gotta say,
Speaker 1: I cannot believe the response to this. It is now
Speaker 1: currently on at least oh my gosh, almost a two
Speaker 1: week wait on Amazon, which is really unfortunate because a
Speaker 1: lot of people were ordering it for the holidays. If
Speaker 1: you got it in early, hopefully you got it in
Speaker 1: time for the holidays. But if you're trying to order now,
Speaker 1: it is on like a two week delay. And the
Speaker 1: reason for that is that I self published through Amazon,
Speaker 1: and they don't know what the reaction is going to
Speaker 1: be to any book that someone self publishes, so they
Speaker 1: probably when I've first launched, you know, maybe print a
Speaker 1: couple of them, a couple dozens so that they can
Speaker 1: keep up with orders. But then as my orders are
Speaker 1: coming in, which we're in the thousands every day, they
Speaker 1: all of a sudden realize, oh, oh no, we got
Speaker 1: to print a lot more of these things. And it
Speaker 1: takes a long time to print a book. I think
Speaker 1: I know the ones that I ordered. I ordered some
Speaker 1: press copies for myself, they call them author copies, and
Speaker 1: I can order those in bulk, and it was taking
Speaker 1: like two to three weeks to get those things delivered
Speaker 1: to me. So it takes Amazon a while. And I
Speaker 1: don't think they care about me as much because I
Speaker 1: get a little discount on mine when I order them,
Speaker 1: versus the average person. That's ordering just one copy. Thank
Speaker 1: you to everyone who has purchased one of these. The
Speaker 1: reviews are starting to come in, and I would say
Speaker 1: a majority of them are very positive, so that's reassuring.
Speaker 1: And for everyone that reviews them on Amazon, I get
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of emails and tweets and texts from
Speaker 1: people that personally text me and let me know how
Speaker 1: much they're loving the book. And I think another part
Speaker 1: of this is that folks are ordering two or three
Speaker 1: or four or even six copies of the book at
Speaker 1: a time, and that means that they're sharing them with
Speaker 1: their friends. They're really liking them, and I love that,
Speaker 1: so thank you so much to everyone who's ordered one.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to read a few of the reviews.
Speaker 1: This was from Jeff h. He said, this is a
Speaker 1: great book with great helpful tips. I bought one for
Speaker 1: myself and a couple others for gifts. Highly recommend. Thanks again,
Speaker 1: Rich for all that you'd help us with tech and
Speaker 1: I think I've read this one before. If you're ever
Speaker 1: in the Pomona area, you got a free lunch coming
Speaker 1: your way. I think I read that on the podcast,
Speaker 1: but I like it, so thank you. Jeff and Let's
Speaker 1: see Lone Star ten said, I thought I knew everything.
Speaker 1: I thought I knew a lot about my iPhone ten
Speaker 1: s until I read Rich's book. This book is filled
Speaker 1: with tips to help you get the most out of
Speaker 1: this eleven hundred dollars phone. I would definitely agree. Steve
Speaker 1: Zweig says this book answered several questions that had been
Speaker 1: puzzling me for years. Example, app management, which was formally
Speaker 1: done through iTunes but is now done through the App Store.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. Lots of other juicy little plums
Speaker 1: in here. Highly recommended. Steve Zweig. La T. Pavicek said
Speaker 1: this is perfect, so much information. I gave up the
Speaker 1: BlackBerry and started with the iPhone four, then five, six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight and seven plus and eight plus and I'm still
Speaker 1: learning new things with this book. Great gift. Wayne Ben says,
Speaker 1: just receive my iPhone ten are This book helped me
Speaker 1: quite a bit. I learned a lot from it. The
Speaker 1: tips are very good and will use this as a reference.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to everyone who has left a review
Speaker 1: for my book. If you bought the book and you're
Speaker 1: enjoying it, please leave a review on Amazon that will
Speaker 1: help others discover it and also sort of better understand
Speaker 1: because if you're living in other parts of the country
Speaker 1: where you may not know rich on Tech or rich Demiro,
Speaker 1: you see this book, it's the number one seller as
Speaker 1: an iPhone guide, and you're wondering if you should buy it.
Speaker 1: Your review will definitely help more folks purchase it that
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know who I am and see me on TV.
Speaker 1: So thanks in advance for leaving your positive review on Amazon.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate it. If you do want an autographed
Speaker 1: copy gumroad dot com slash rich on Tech, gumroad dot
Speaker 1: com slash rich on Tech. I'm selling personalized signed copies
Speaker 1: of the book, So if you want to give one
Speaker 1: as a gift to someone, or if you want to
Speaker 1: get one for yourself, it's a couple bucks more than
Speaker 1: you get it on Amazon, just because I have to
Speaker 1: do the work of shipping it out myself. So if
Speaker 1: you're sort of into that thing and you want a
Speaker 1: signed copy. Gumroad dot com, slash rich on Tech. All right, yes,
Speaker 1: and Lester's asking on the Facebook Live is there an
Speaker 1: ebook version of your book? Yes, there's an ebook version.
Speaker 1: You can get it on Kindle, so also on Amazon,
Speaker 1: just grab the Kindle version. And I also got a
Speaker 1: lot of questions from people asking me if the Kindle
Speaker 1: version works on other places. It said, rich I don't
Speaker 1: have a Kindle, so I can't listen to it or
Speaker 1: read it rather on the Kindle, and I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can download the Kindle app for the iPad, you
Speaker 1: can download it for iPhone, you can download it for Android,
Speaker 1: so you can get the Kindle version anywhere. And in
Speaker 1: many cases, it's kind of funny because I noticed that
Speaker 1: Amazon is actually pushing the Kindle version because the other
Speaker 1: one's sort of out of stock it at this point,
Speaker 1: so they're like, hey, why not get it faster and
Speaker 1: just read it on the Kindle, which is kind of funny.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. I really
Speaker 1: do appreciate it. Everything I talk about here I will
Speaker 1: put in the show notes, so check it out there,
Speaker 1: or you can go to rich on Tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Instagram. I think I'm gonna do more
Speaker 1: on Instagram in the new year, So Instagram, I am
Speaker 1: at rich On Tech. Do appreciate you listening. Have a
Speaker 1: fantastic holiday. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be doing
Speaker 1: this podcast until the New Year, so I may take
Speaker 1: a week off next week for the holidays. I've got
Speaker 1: family in town, so if you don't hear from me,
Speaker 1: have a fantastic holiday, Christmas, whatever else you celebrate, plus
Speaker 1: New Year's and happy twenty nineteen. I will see then.
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Jimiro. I will talk to you real soon