Speaker 1: Facebook. Let's you turn off those creepy ads for the
Speaker 1: stuff that you just looked at online. Apple and Samsung
Speaker 1: duke it out. That's nothing new, but there is a
Speaker 1: new part to that, a way to get free calls
Speaker 1: and texts, Yes, including cellular service and the Peloton experience
Speaker 1: for half the price. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro.
Speaker 1: This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk
Speaker 1: about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
Speaker 1: Plus it is the exclusive place where I answer the
Speaker 1: questions that you send me. Joining me as producer Megan
Speaker 1: as always. Hey, hey, oh it's back and we have
Speaker 1: a guest as well. Will is shadowing for the day. Welcome,
Speaker 1: how's it going.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I heard that you just recently switched from Android to iPhone.
Speaker 2: This is true.
Speaker 1: Why did you do that?
Speaker 2: Let's see. So I'd had my Samsung Galaxy S seven
Speaker 2: for a little bit and I just decided to see
Speaker 2: what was going on with uh on the Apple side
Speaker 2: of stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, I made the switch. And interesting. Will is a
Speaker 1: student in high school and you're just doing kind of
Speaker 1: a career week where you're shadowing different people to see
Speaker 1: what you might want to do in the future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how's it going so far today at the TV station?
Speaker 2: It's been pretty fun, just getting ah, you know, quick
Speaker 2: rundown of how things operate a little bit.
Speaker 1: How would you describe in two words what the atmosphere
Speaker 1: here is like besides tense?
Speaker 2: Oh boy? Uh I guess last minute?
Speaker 1: Oh nice?
Speaker 3: What does that say about?
Speaker 1: That's good? Last minute is because TV is like always changing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially with news where it's like constantly running. It's
Speaker 2: always it's interesting to see how like parts that you'd
Speaker 2: think would be you know, planned out for over like
Speaker 2: a long period of time has to be carried out
Speaker 2: in like you know, very you know, crunch time, Yes, situations.
Speaker 1: It is. And that's the beauty of news is that
Speaker 1: if you like change, if you like being on the
Speaker 1: edge of your seat all day long, then this is
Speaker 1: a really good business because nothing is like you're not
Speaker 1: just sitting around twiddling your thumbs waiting for the clock
Speaker 1: to hit five o'clock. Ever, for us, when we're watching
Speaker 1: the clock, it's because we have a deadline at five
Speaker 1: am or six am or seven fifteen or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: So that's a nice part about it. And do you
Speaker 1: like the iPhone so far? I do? I do.
Speaker 2: It's it's nice because I have a MacBook Pro at
Speaker 2: home that I use for school and whatnot, so it's
Speaker 2: nice to have, you know, a more like seamless integration
Speaker 2: of like texts and FaceTime and whatnot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the one thing I noticed is when
Speaker 1: I try to go back to Android, is that the
Speaker 1: way Apple just gets you in with everything working so well,
Speaker 1: it's really tough to go back between air Drop and
Speaker 1: I Message, even though I love Shotgram. But let's start
Speaker 1: with our first story and we'll feel fit to chime
Speaker 1: in whenever you want, as long as I'm not talking nice. Actually,
Speaker 1: this is a new thing from Facebook. So you've been
Speaker 1: on Facebook, you know that a lot of times you're
Speaker 1: on there and you see ads for stuff that you
Speaker 1: literally just looked at online. So you're shopping for a
Speaker 1: toothbrush and I feel like we've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but you're shopping for something online, and next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: all your ads on Facebook and by extension, Instagram become
Speaker 1: ads for these things that you just recently looked at.
Speaker 1: And the way they do that is because every website
Speaker 1: that you go to is sort of reporting back to
Speaker 1: Facebook that you visited. So that they can sell ads
Speaker 1: against your visit. They say, oh, we just had Megan
Speaker 1: come here and we know that she almost bought a toothbrush,
Speaker 1: So if we show her two more ads on Facebook,
Speaker 1: maybe she'll be pushed over the edge and buy that toothbrush.
Speaker 1: And that's what happens. That's the new advertising world we
Speaker 1: live in. And I did a blog post about this
Speaker 1: on my website, rich on tech dot tv, as well
Speaker 1: as a little video that shows you how you can
Speaker 1: now turn this off. And this is part of Facebook
Speaker 1: trying to be more trained parent. Facebook trying to make
Speaker 1: us feel like we have some control in our lives,
Speaker 1: which we really don't. But they have this new tool
Speaker 1: called off Facebook Activity and when you toggle there's two
Speaker 1: things you can do. You can just view your activity.
Speaker 1: You can clear that activity out so they will show
Speaker 1: you all. When I looked at mine, it was I
Speaker 1: think they show you the last six months, but it
Speaker 1: was every app that I opened on my iPhone, like
Speaker 1: even my workout app Aptive. It was like, oh, it
Speaker 1: sent information to Facebook that I just worked out. You know,
Speaker 1: every little app sends information every website. There was no
Speaker 1: surprises in there. I mean everything I saw I was like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I visited those sites, some of the little sites that
Speaker 1: my kids visit on my phone, some of the games
Speaker 1: they play. Of course they were reporting back information. But
Speaker 1: again it's all to build this profile of you so
Speaker 1: that advertisers can target their ads. And it totally makes
Speaker 1: sense from an advertising standpoint, because do you want to
Speaker 1: sell your ads to someone who's interested or expressed interest
Speaker 1: in toothbrushes, like Megan because she just visited a toothbrush website,
Speaker 1: or do you just want to put your toothbrush ad
Speaker 1: out there for everyone and hope that people are in
Speaker 1: the market for a new toothbrush, which is the way
Speaker 1: broadcast TV in the past has worked, and also magazines
Speaker 1: and newspapers. But this is why people love internet advertising
Speaker 1: because it's been so targeted. Now you can turn that
Speaker 1: off if you go to a section of Facebook under
Speaker 1: the site. It's really complicated, but you go. It's easy
Speaker 1: to do, but a hide it. You go to settings,
Speaker 1: You go to Facebook your Facebook information and then tap
Speaker 1: off Facebook activity and under that you can tap clear
Speaker 1: history to delete out the data. Or if you don't
Speaker 1: want websites setting information in the future, look for the
Speaker 1: option labeled manage future activity and you can toggle that
Speaker 1: blue switch off. I know this a podcast. You're not
Speaker 1: writing this all down. Just go to my website rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot tv. I wrote all of the steps
Speaker 1: out very clearly, so you can do this and you'll
Speaker 1: see less ads that are super targeted because they just
Speaker 1: won't have as much data on you. They'll still get
Speaker 1: all the data about what you're doing on Facebook, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's the whole reason they had you like stuff
Speaker 1: like your favorite bands, like your favorite TV shows, so
Speaker 1: they could build a profile about you. Now it's just
Speaker 1: gotten to the point of anything you do online reports
Speaker 1: back to Facebook. But you can turn that off now.
Speaker 1: So good to know off of Facebook activity, Megan. First question.
Speaker 4: Okay, so if you want to send in your question
Speaker 4: to Rich, go to his website rich on tech dot
Speaker 4: tv and hit the contact button to send your question.
Speaker 4: Our first question today comes from and Hi, Rich, I
Speaker 4: suspect that someone is reading my texts by using spyware
Speaker 4: of some kind. Is there a way to protect against this?
Speaker 4: I know it's illegal, but what can I do?
Speaker 1: I wonder why she thinks she's being stocked her text?
Speaker 3: Also, how do you get spyware to read people's text.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what I'm trying to think. I would think
Speaker 1: on Android it would be well, we know that Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos had his phone packed, so if it can happen
Speaker 1: to him, we've talked about this, it can happen to anyone.
Speaker 1: I often get this question in various forms, and I
Speaker 1: think what it comes down to, there's several ways that
Speaker 1: people can do this. If you have an iPhone, the
Speaker 1: easiest way is if they have access to your iCloud.
Speaker 1: So a lot of couples will share iCloud login information
Speaker 1: and sometimes that will also give deliver your text messages
Speaker 1: realistically your I messages to their phone and vice versa.
Speaker 1: A lot of families tell me this, They say, oh,
Speaker 1: I've got my whole family signed up on the same iCloud.
Speaker 1: We're not using separate accounts. We just all sign in
Speaker 1: with one account, and a lot of information gets shared
Speaker 1: between the phones that is meant to be for one person.
Speaker 1: So I would say that's probably the first way, is
Speaker 1: that someone might be logged in with her iCloud account
Speaker 1: and looking at her messages in the cloud. That could
Speaker 1: be one way. I don't know of an app, like
Speaker 1: if they installed spy were on her phone, I think
Speaker 1: it'd be really tricky because umber one, Apple doesn't really
Speaker 1: give you access to text messages on the iPhone no
Speaker 1: matter what I mean. You'd have to be a real
Speaker 1: hacker to get into those. Now, if she's on Android,
Speaker 1: it's much easier, and there's a lot of different ways
Speaker 1: you can do it on Android because pretty much any
Speaker 1: app that you download can have access to your text
Speaker 1: messages on Android if you grant that access. So someone
Speaker 1: could have installed an app that's lurking in the shadows
Speaker 1: on her Android and reporting all those texts back to them.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is, I don't think any of
Speaker 1: this is happening. It might be something that she thinks
Speaker 1: is happening, right, because she.
Speaker 4: Said, I suspect that someone is reading my text.
Speaker 1: But those are the scenarios that I think could lead
Speaker 1: to someone looking at her text right right. And if
Speaker 1: you do suspect this, I would go with the nuclear option,
Speaker 1: which is reform at your phone and just clear everything
Speaker 1: off and start over and sign in with a new account.
Speaker 1: Whether it's Google or Face or Apple, just sign up
Speaker 1: with a new account, and that way, no one's going
Speaker 1: to be able to get access to those new messages
Speaker 1: unless they're getting access to them at the network level,
Speaker 1: which would be really tricky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's intense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really intense first question, I like.
Speaker 4: To start it off. Yeah, really really intense question.
Speaker 1: So this kind of plays into what we just talked
Speaker 1: about with Will and switching from Android to iPhone, and
Speaker 1: it's something that I recently did as well with the
Speaker 1: iPhone eleven. I went kind of all in when I
Speaker 1: got the iPhone, and I usually switch phones several times
Speaker 1: a year, but I've pretty much been with the iPhone
Speaker 1: exclusively for a while now, and it's kind of crazy
Speaker 1: because there's not much on Android that's like trying to
Speaker 1: get me back. I love the way Android is super flexible,
Speaker 1: and I love the control I have over my Android.
Speaker 1: But at this point, between the Apple Watch and the
Speaker 1: AirPods and the iPhone and my Mac, everything just sort
Speaker 1: of works together. And I really like that aspect. And
Speaker 1: when I go back to Android, I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: cobbling together in experience that's trying to match what Apple has,
Speaker 1: and that means even something as simple as my remind
Speaker 1: I'll sit there and I'll say, Hey, Siri, remind me
Speaker 1: to do this and on Android you can do that,
Speaker 1: but you have to find an app to do it with,
Speaker 1: and it's not as integrated with your computers. You have
Speaker 1: to now download that app. With all that said, Apple
Speaker 1: is really selling a lot of iPhones. To the tune
Speaker 1: of I usually said they sold about fifty five to
Speaker 1: sixty million in a quarter. That's three months or no,
Speaker 1: a quarter is what? Yeah? Three months? Yeah, they sold
Speaker 1: seventy two point nine.
Speaker 3: Million four months, because there's four four.
Speaker 1: Quarters, so it'll be three months in a quarter. Oh yeah, right,
Speaker 1: I always get that confused. And apparently Samsung only sold
Speaker 1: about seventy million Galaxy phones, which is still Both of
Speaker 1: those are very respectable numbers, but it's wild that that
Speaker 1: is a lot of phones and Apple kind of beat
Speaker 1: Samsung in the last quarter, which historically Samsung usually beats
Speaker 1: Apple because think about it, Samsung on a global level, right,
Speaker 1: probably sells more phones. In the US were very iPhone centric,
Speaker 1: but in the rest of the world it's very Android
Speaker 1: and Samsung centric. So this is kind of big and
Speaker 1: I just find it very telling that when I saw
Speaker 1: the iPhone eleven come out, I called it, and you
Speaker 1: probably remember this, I said, this is a killer device. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it hits every single point that people have wanted with
Speaker 1: their devices. It came at a time when people were
Speaker 1: kind of growing tired of Android and all these promises
Speaker 1: that you would get from the thing like the Pixel four.
Speaker 1: Everyone wanted the Pixel four to be this amazing phone
Speaker 1: and it comes out and immediately every tech person was
Speaker 1: disappointed because it didn't have the wide angle lens, the
Speaker 1: camera didn't really improve very much, and it's slow, it's laggy.
Speaker 1: The apps just don't have the same support. And I
Speaker 1: feel like what I'm hearing over and over from people
Speaker 1: is they're saying, Rich, I'm going to the iPhone because
Speaker 1: I feel like it's the experience that people just talk about.
Speaker 1: It's that iPhone experience, and I'm not going to sit
Speaker 1: here and extol the virtues of iPhone. I still love
Speaker 1: Android for the fact that you can set default apps.
Speaker 1: When I want my links to open up in a
Speaker 1: web browser of my choice, I can do that on
Speaker 1: the Android when I this is my thing. I feel
Speaker 1: like on the iPhone it's almost like landmines. Like I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there and I'm like, oh, I can't click the
Speaker 1: map link in Yelp because that's gonna take me to
Speaker 1: Apple Maps and I don't want to go there, or oh,
Speaker 1: I can't open this in Safari because it's not gonna
Speaker 1: work nicely with it, you know. I'm always trying to
Speaker 1: use Chrome or whatever. So it's just this experience on
Speaker 1: the iPhone that's really good, but it's very siloed, right,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what I love about Android. But anyway,
Speaker 1: but people are loving the iPhone, and that's clearly happening
Speaker 1: because they overtook the Samsung sales for the first time
Speaker 1: in a while.
Speaker 4: And you suggest to most people when getting the iPhone
Speaker 4: to go with the eleven, right, yes, if you don't
Speaker 4: need uh, you don't need.
Speaker 1: The eleven Pro. For most people, I don't think they
Speaker 1: need the eleven Pro because with the eleven you get
Speaker 1: the wide angle lens, which is the cool new feature.
Speaker 1: You just don't get the zoom line. Now, if you're
Speaker 1: taking pictures of your kids at their holiday play or
Speaker 1: some sort of recital, the zoom is always nice, but
Speaker 1: the zoom is not enough to warrant itself because most
Speaker 1: people just pinch to zoom anyway, and they're getting like
Speaker 1: really close in on their kids and it's not a
Speaker 1: good picture no matter.
Speaker 4: What, you need a really nice and that's the only
Speaker 4: difference besides this and the screen, the screen, and yeah,
Speaker 4: that's basically it now or something.
Speaker 1: Battery I believe is better on the pro. And we've
Speaker 1: talked about this before on the podcast, where at this
Speaker 1: point battery is not even a thing on the iPhone,
Speaker 1: Like it's just so good. It's so good. I went
Speaker 1: through CS literally not even thinking about my battery. See yes,
Speaker 1: the big convention in Vegas, and I just didn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't even a thought in my head that I was
Speaker 1: going to run out of a battery at all.
Speaker 2: That's really impressive.
Speaker 1: At night I go to sleep again, my phone is
Speaker 1: at like seventy five percent most nights.
Speaker 3: Is that from charging a little bit?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Sometimes, but still most people are near an outlet
Speaker 1: at least sometimes. I was saying, I don't, it's not
Speaker 1: even a thought anymore in my head of oh am,
Speaker 1: I gonna run out of battery, Megan, I think it's
Speaker 1: your turn for a question. Okay.
Speaker 4: Our next question is from Mona. The eb photo storage
Speaker 4: you mentioned, I got one and downloaded all my photos.
Speaker 4: Is it safe to delete them now? From the iCloud
Speaker 4: I need to free up space for backups.
Speaker 1: Mona is referring to the EB storage device we talked about,
Speaker 1: which is pretty much a hard drive with Wi Fi
Speaker 1: connected to it, and at night, it has an app
Speaker 1: that goes on your phone at night when your phone
Speaker 1: is charging. It takes all the pictures off your phone,
Speaker 1: and not off it just makes a copy of them
Speaker 1: to the EB. And so she's asking if she can
Speaker 1: now delete those off her phone. My recommendation is no,
Speaker 1: because you want your pictures backed up in two places.
Speaker 1: And if she's saying she wants to free up her
Speaker 1: iPhone storage and her iCloud storage as well.
Speaker 3: Because no, I think she just needs space in her iCloud.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that means she's had to delete them out
Speaker 1: of her eCloud as well, which you can't do. You
Speaker 1: need your photos in two places, and so just having
Speaker 1: them on that hard drive on EB. Let me just
Speaker 1: give you a scenario. Let's say God forbid, your house
Speaker 1: burns down and the EB is in it. Now you've
Speaker 1: lost all your pictures. That's not a good solution for backup.
Speaker 1: Let's say there's a flood and all the in that
Speaker 1: hard drive gets messed up. Now you have no pictures,
Speaker 1: so you always want your pictures in two places. Now,
Speaker 1: if she wanted to do this, if she wanted to
Speaker 1: buy a second EB and set it up at a
Speaker 1: friend's house and she has one at her house one
Speaker 1: at a friend's house, I would say that's probably fine
Speaker 1: because if something happened to your house, you can be
Speaker 1: like a friend, I need that EB with all my
Speaker 1: pictures on it. That's kind of funny, but you can't
Speaker 1: just have it in one place. You have to have
Speaker 1: your photos in two places.
Speaker 4: And to buy some more storage, I mean, isn't it.
Speaker 4: The hundred gigabytes is like one dollar.
Speaker 1: I pay three dollars for two hundred gigs. Okay, three
Speaker 1: dollars a month. Now, over the long term, you know,
Speaker 1: three dollars a month is a lot of money when
Speaker 1: you think about that's thirty six dollars a year. Two
Speaker 1: years is seventy two dollars. A hard drive with like
Speaker 1: two terabytes of data is about fifty nine dollars on Amazon.
Speaker 1: So it is expensive, but you're not What you're paying
Speaker 1: for is that peace of mind and the fact that
Speaker 1: Apple is maintaining these servers. It's off site, it's a
Speaker 1: secondary backup the other options I would tell her is
Speaker 1: just put your photos in Amazon Prime Photos. If you
Speaker 1: have a Prime account, is that free, totally free, unlimited.
Speaker 3: Okay, I have a Prime account, Yeah, you can.
Speaker 1: Totally free and unlimited. Now the trick with that is
Speaker 1: that if you cancel Amazon Prime now, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: your pictures are in danger because you have to pay up.
Speaker 1: Or you can just switch to something else. Google Photos
Speaker 1: is totally free. You can use that. But again, pick
Speaker 1: two either iCloud and your phone, your phone and eb
Speaker 1: iCloud and eb eb and Google Photos. Just pick two
Speaker 1: things and get on with your life. New app that
Speaker 1: is really cool for the iPhone eleven is called double Take.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of phone with this app. What
Speaker 1: it does is it gives you a two camera shoot
Speaker 1: with just one phone. So if you have an iPhone eleven,
Speaker 1: it takes advantage of all of the cameras in that phone,
Speaker 1: the wide angle lens, the telephoto lens, the ultra wide
Speaker 1: and the selfie camera. So when you turn on this app,
Speaker 1: you get an option with those four cameras, it shows
Speaker 1: you a live feed of all four. You pick two,
Speaker 1: any two you want, and now you can record both
Speaker 1: of those feeds at the same time, you can merge
Speaker 1: them into one video, so you can have side by side.
Speaker 1: So let's say for me personally, I think and I
Speaker 1: might start this as a thing. I interview a lot
Speaker 1: of people for TV. A lot of those interviews go
Speaker 1: to waste because we only use you know, thirty seconds
Speaker 1: forty seconds on TV. Well, these people have a lot
Speaker 1: more to say that's interesting. So if I can stand
Speaker 1: there with my iPhone, have a mic on them, a
Speaker 1: mic on me, a camera, one camera facing me, one
Speaker 1: camera facing them, I do a quick five minute interview
Speaker 1: and now I've just created something in real time that's
Speaker 1: easily postable to YouTube, and it shows my reaction, my questions,
Speaker 1: and also them and their reaction and their answers. That
Speaker 1: is something that is really cool. Yeah. Again, it's something
Speaker 1: that used to take two cameras to do.
Speaker 4: Do you think it looks funny if you have the
Speaker 4: camera close to your face though.
Speaker 1: Well, you have to figure out I was thinking about Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Was gonna say, maybe it's like you need a third
Speaker 4: person to hold it so like it kind of balance
Speaker 4: it out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking about the setup, and I think
Speaker 1: you can get it right with a tripod. If you
Speaker 1: put a tripod in between you and you stood in
Speaker 1: one place because as the interviewer, you have to stand
Speaker 1: back because the iPhone camera is so close up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you just have to stand back and kind of
Speaker 1: stay there and then the other person. You know, depending
Speaker 1: on the lens you use, you could be close up, wide, whatever.
Speaker 1: It's just a really cool app. It's called double Take.
Speaker 1: It's free. It's from Filmic, which they're known for making
Speaker 1: a really high end recording app for the iPhone, and
Speaker 1: eventually this will be built into the Filmic app, but
Speaker 1: right now it's a standalone app. You can do side
Speaker 1: by side, you can do picture and picture, or you
Speaker 1: can do yeah, those two things. It's really cool. Have
Speaker 1: you seen this app? Well, actually, it's really fun because
Speaker 1: as a journalist that's been doing this for so long,
Speaker 1: to get the two shots at once on a smartphone
Speaker 1: is just something that is just such a cool idea.
Speaker 1: And I think it opens up an entirely new genre
Speaker 1: of interview style where you're just kind of like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're on the street and I'm talking to you, and
Speaker 1: you see both of us at the same time. The
Speaker 1: idea here is that there's minimal effort, and you know,
Speaker 1: usually minimal effort means crappy. But this is kind of cool.
Speaker 4: And I'm still waiting for the story that we do
Speaker 4: that we shoot just on an iPhone.
Speaker 1: We've done it. I did it, did it with the yes,
Speaker 1: with the what was the story Microsoft Surface? I went
Speaker 1: to New York City by myself and shot that all
Speaker 1: on my iPhone true, And it was, well, you're going.
Speaker 3: To be shooting were iPhone though.
Speaker 1: No, it's the new iPhone, my iPhone eleven. Yes, oh okay,
Speaker 1: but you're going to be shooting when you come up
Speaker 1: to San Francisco with me. Yes, you're going to be
Speaker 1: shooting the Samsung event on probably an iPhone. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we're going to do that. So we'll see what that's like.
Speaker 1: I mean, it works. It's so good nowadays that you
Speaker 1: can't really tell the difference. There are certain certain situations
Speaker 1: where a real camera is better, right for nine to
Speaker 1: nine percent. I mean, look at people are on TikTok
Speaker 1: watching videos all day that are shot on cell phones,
Speaker 1: so the bar is pretty low at this point. Of course,
Speaker 1: high production quality is always going to have a place,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty nice that you can just do the
Speaker 1: stuff on your phone, Megan, all right.
Speaker 4: This next question comes from Debbie. My granddaughter is a
Speaker 4: Roadblocks gamer. For Christmas, I purchased two twenty five dollars
Speaker 4: Apple gift cards so she can make in app purchases.
Speaker 4: The problem is, no one can seem to figure out
Speaker 4: how to apply the card totals into our app store
Speaker 4: account so she can access the funds.
Speaker 3: So right now we.
Speaker 4: Have fifty dollars of useless plastic.
Speaker 3: Can you help me please?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think that they're useless, so yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm well, okay, First, will do you know what Roadblock says?
Speaker 1: I do? Can you describe what that is? Because my
Speaker 1: kids play this. I've seen it, but I don't really understand.
Speaker 1: It looks like a lot of different worlds or something
Speaker 1: that people create.
Speaker 2: From my understanding, it's like people can create different like
Speaker 2: worlds that are like I guess, accessible online, and I
Speaker 2: guess they can create different like scenarios you play little
Speaker 2: games on them.
Speaker 3: What kind of a world like underwater world?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of you haven't played Block is
Speaker 1: the Limit?
Speaker 2: No, But I've watched my younger brother who's been playing
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a younger kid thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're young, but this is like super young. My kid's
Speaker 1: like eight and he plays.
Speaker 2: It's more like that age range as opposed to like
Speaker 2: teenage audience.
Speaker 1: I think let's go through how to redeem a gift
Speaker 1: card on the iPhone, so the number one thing you
Speaker 1: want to do. These gift cards aren't worthless. You just
Speaker 1: have to know how to redeem it. You open up
Speaker 1: the app store on your iPhone. You tap your little
Speaker 1: profile picture in the upper right hand corner. Megan you
Speaker 1: following along? Here are you just on Instagram?
Speaker 3: I'm just on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Then there's an option that says redeem gift card or code.
Speaker 1: You tap that, and there's two ways of doing it.
Speaker 1: You can do it manually, which I've not done in
Speaker 1: a long time, because the camera works so well. You
Speaker 1: tap used camera and you hold just for a split second,
Speaker 1: your camera over this little code on the back of
Speaker 1: the card. And have you ever done this? It's so easy.
Speaker 1: It immediately finds the code on the card and boom,
Speaker 1: puts on the screen and you're says fifty dollars or
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars has been added to your account.
Speaker 4: I haven't gotten an iTunes gift card in like maybe
Speaker 4: ten years.
Speaker 1: Oh, my kids love them, so that's like the only
Speaker 1: thing they want for Christmas. iTunes gift cards so cute.
Speaker 1: And at sometimes at Costco they'll have like a one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars worth of iTunes gift cards for ninety dollars
Speaker 1: ten bucks, So you buy that. Yeah, but it's also
Speaker 1: I think it's misleading that they call iTunes gift cards
Speaker 1: because most people are thinking it's the app store that
Speaker 1: they're buying stuff for, right, So, and.
Speaker 3: It's not called iTunes anymore?
Speaker 1: Well is it? I think it is on your iPhone.
Speaker 4: Let's see, I deleted that apps.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not. I don't know, it's just music. Still
Speaker 1: have iTunes? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's just like the wider like web of like
Speaker 2: stores is maybe I'm not.
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, exactly, like it's kind of the whole encompassing kurn.
Speaker 1: Yeah because when that when iTunes went away, Boy did
Speaker 1: we hear about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a scary times for some people.
Speaker 1: Let's see what else should we talk about next? Let's see, Oh,
Speaker 1: how about this uh an unlimited? Okay, So I take
Speaker 1: back what I said about the story being dumb. My
Speaker 1: friend Jefferson Graham in USA today did a feature piece
Speaker 1: on an app called text Now. It's been around for
Speaker 1: a while, but they have this new feature where you
Speaker 1: can get a personal phone number and also phone calls
Speaker 1: and texts one hundred percent for free every month. And
Speaker 1: the way you do this is you pay ten dollars
Speaker 1: for a text Now SIM card that you pop into
Speaker 1: your phone, and now you have a phone line as
Speaker 1: well as these texts and calls the catches. You can't
Speaker 1: serve the Internet for that price. This is just texts
Speaker 1: and calls. And so I said, this is dumb, but
Speaker 1: I thought about it more and I realized this is
Speaker 1: brilliant for a kid's phone line. So now you can
Speaker 1: give your kid. You're old. It has to be a
Speaker 1: Sprint or Verizon phone, so you know, let's say you had,
Speaker 1: you know, if an iPhone. Most iPhones these days are
Speaker 1: unlocked anyway, so if you but if you have a
Speaker 1: Sprint or a Verizon phone, you pop this text Now
Speaker 1: sim into there and for ten dollars, now your kid
Speaker 1: can have texts and calls. Which for my kid, that's
Speaker 1: all I want them to have, because.
Speaker 2: You know, he's only eighty to get in contact with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I mean the main thing is, like with school,
Speaker 1: it's like I'm gonna pick you up at this time
Speaker 1: today or I'm going to pick you up at this time.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like just giving them. It's not
Speaker 1: information they have to have. And believe me, kids survive
Speaker 1: for many years without knowing when their parents were going
Speaker 1: to pick them up from school. I did, I think,
Speaker 1: did you couldn't walk home? I mean no, really, I
Speaker 1: mean you weren't allowed to.
Speaker 3: It was like ten blocks away.
Speaker 2: Oh come on, No, I didn't start walking home from
Speaker 2: school until later.
Speaker 3: I guess your kids walk home.
Speaker 1: No, but I walked. I walked to all three of
Speaker 1: my schools growing up, and my high school. I'd be curious,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm actually gonna look about how far this
Speaker 1: is because I'm curious how far I had to walk
Speaker 1: every day.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna go ahead and feel like a long walk?
Speaker 1: Did it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: I mean sometimes it depends if you have like after
Speaker 1: school activities, Like a lot of time I played tennis,
Speaker 1: so I had, you know, i'd go to like the tennis.
Speaker 4: I lived in a different house when I grew up,
Speaker 4: like elementary school, and that was I feel like it
Speaker 4: had to be a mile and a half away.
Speaker 1: Okay, mine is two miles away. Wow, let me see
Speaker 1: by walking, maybe that's shorter. Yeah, two miles wow, so
Speaker 1: that's that's a pretty good walk. Maybe I didn't walk
Speaker 1: every time. I'm trying to remember now. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: definitely walked home, but maybe I don't. Yeah, that's don't forget.
Speaker 1: You also drive in high school a little bit, like
Speaker 1: after maybe this second year, so maybe obvious a junior
Speaker 1: when I got my license. But anyway, so text now,
Speaker 1: I think this is actually kind of cool. So if
Speaker 1: you want a super cheap phone line that is free,
Speaker 1: it is nine ninety nine to buy the sim. You
Speaker 1: pop it in your phone. It works, and as far
Speaker 1: as I'm seeing, there's really no catches here. The only
Speaker 1: thing is you have to have some ads on your
Speaker 1: text messaging app, so I guess they use a special
Speaker 1: app display ads. You don't have to listen to them
Speaker 1: before making your receiving phone calls, which would be kind
Speaker 1: of weird. But here's the thing. At this point, phone
Speaker 1: phone calls and texts are commodity anyway, They're not what
Speaker 1: people are buying their phone line for it's the data.
Speaker 1: So and text now knows that eventually you're going to
Speaker 1: grow tired of just having texts and phone calls and
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to pay, and they have upgrades where
Speaker 1: you can pay for the data.
Speaker 4: But let's say like one of your kids, they would
Speaker 4: just need to get on the Wi Fi and then
Speaker 4: they could use all the data they wanted.
Speaker 1: I'm actually thinking that this might be something I get
Speaker 1: because I was trying to think the way I would
Speaker 1: get my kid a phone, because most of the plans
Speaker 1: are like minimum forty dollars, Like Verizon has a you know,
Speaker 1: kid's only plan and I think it's about thirty five.
Speaker 1: I don't want to quote.
Speaker 3: Myself, and Visible is forty dollars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Visible is forty dollars. So the Verizon just Kids
Speaker 1: plan is, let's see, do they even tell you how
Speaker 1: much it is? I think it's about thirty five a month.
Speaker 1: So long story short, that's a lot. Ten bucks, ten
Speaker 1: dollars one time is like, that's now you're talking, and did.
Speaker 3: You get a phone? How old were you?
Speaker 1: I was eleven?
Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, that's about the going I think I was
Speaker 4: that age too, eleven.
Speaker 1: My kids, they asked me for a phone every day.
Speaker 1: They have iPads. They asked me for a phone every day,
Speaker 1: and a dog. But the phone thing they so they
Speaker 1: go to Google on you know, if the goole home thing.
Speaker 1: They ask every day a million questions Google what age
Speaker 1: can a kid have a phone? And it's like, according
Speaker 1: to the website parenting dot com, thirteen. I'm like, ha,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say eleven, but Google said thirteen. So
Speaker 1: now that's what you get for asking googleme. You gotta
Speaker 1: wait two more years now, kid?
Speaker 3: You call your kids kid?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know their names.
Speaker 3: So it's just it's easier that way.
Speaker 1: Ye, it's so easy, and they both answer it's so
Speaker 1: hard to keep track.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: Our next question comes from Karen hi Rich. I have
Speaker 4: Windows seven. I know there is no longer support for it,
Speaker 4: but what are the dangers of not upgrading to Windows ten.
Speaker 4: I'm not very techie and I use my PC for
Speaker 4: only minimal things like emails, Google search, limited, banking, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Do I need a whole new system?
Speaker 1: Well you don't, but you are taking a risk. And
Speaker 1: what she's talking about is Windows seven. We've talked about.
Speaker 1: This is done. That means that Microsoft is no longer
Speaker 1: putting out software updates. Security updates for Windows seven, specifically,
Speaker 1: those are the ones you should be concerned about. Now.
Speaker 1: What's funny about this is right after they announced they
Speaker 1: were going to stop doing this, they put out an
Speaker 1: emergency update because there was a problem that I guess
Speaker 1: they deemed big enough, and it was kind of in
Speaker 1: the same week, so like, you know what, we'll let
Speaker 1: this one more slide through. So I actually got emails
Speaker 1: from people saying, Rich, you said there would be no
Speaker 1: more updates for Windows seven, and I just got one,
Speaker 1: and I had to look online, and sure enough Microsoft
Speaker 1: had put out this like little tiny update, just like
Speaker 1: one more. They're like, fine, one more update, just one
Speaker 1: one more, So what do you lose? The main thing
Speaker 1: is you have to be concerned about security. You did
Speaker 1: say that you do your banking on there, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that your computer is not going to work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that your computer is insecure inherently already.
Speaker 1: But if a bad guy finds a way to break
Speaker 1: into a Windows seven computer some sort of hack, it's
Speaker 1: not going to be patched with an update because Microsoft
Speaker 1: said there's no more updates. That's what you have to
Speaker 1: kind of know. So can you use your computer? Yes,
Speaker 1: do I recommend you think about upgrading? Probably, And according
Speaker 1: to a lot of websites, you can still get a
Speaker 1: free Windows ten upgrade. Apparently Microsoft did not turn off
Speaker 1: one of these little websites that lets you upgrade. I
Speaker 1: think they're doing it for people that really want it.
Speaker 1: If they find this website and they find that upgrade path,
Speaker 1: then they're like, sure, go ahead, because they gave you
Speaker 1: a long time to upgrade to Windows ten for free.
Speaker 1: Now it's like one hundred and thirty nine dollars to
Speaker 1: do it. But I'm looking at the c neet article
Speaker 1: and it says if you go to the go to
Speaker 1: the download Windows ten website, create Windows ten installation media
Speaker 1: and next thing you know, you can actually do this.
Speaker 1: So they have a download Windows ten disk image file.
Speaker 1: So and apparently people I was talking to said, if
Speaker 1: you have an activated version of Windows seven, like a
Speaker 1: legitimate version of Windows seven, when you try to upgrade
Speaker 1: with this Windows ten, it will take. So I would
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, I don't know how old our computer is,
Speaker 1: but that's that's something you should probably do. Well.
Speaker 3: Do you have a Windows I do not.
Speaker 2: I primarily just use my MacBook.
Speaker 1: Yeah cool, MACI Mac all right. I think this is
Speaker 1: kind of a neat feature coming to Google Nest thermostats.
Speaker 1: I have one of these at home. I can't say
Speaker 1: I'm super impressed with the Nest thermostat. I don't think
Speaker 1: it saves me money in any way. But I do
Speaker 1: get a check for twenty five dollars every couple of
Speaker 1: months from my energy company because I guess I'm on
Speaker 1: the plan where they can control my usage from their end.
Speaker 1: So they say in the summer, like, oh, the you
Speaker 1: know a lot of people are using their air conditioning,
Speaker 1: so we're going to turn yours up to seventy two
Speaker 1: degrees or whatever it is. My wife always changes anyway.
Speaker 1: She likes it cold. I really don't care. I don't
Speaker 1: even think about the air most of the time.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize the setup was quite easy.
Speaker 4: I mean not easy, but I watched a video how
Speaker 4: they make how they put.
Speaker 3: It in, so yeah, it looks so straightforward. I was like,
Speaker 3: maybe I just spent one of these for my parents.
Speaker 1: You connect a few wires. Yeah. Now. The only thing
Speaker 1: is you have to keep in mind if your system
Speaker 1: at home can handle the Nest. There are some and
Speaker 1: you have I believe your parents have an older home,
Speaker 1: right it some of the systems that are installing those
Speaker 1: older homes. It doesn't accommodate. Oh okay, super easy. You
Speaker 1: go online. I think what you do is, it's been
Speaker 1: a long time since I did this, but you just
Speaker 1: I think you pop the thing off the wall, the
Speaker 1: old one. You look at the cables, you pop them
Speaker 1: into the.
Speaker 3: Website, put the correct cable into.
Speaker 1: The but it'll tell you, based on those cables if
Speaker 1: it can control your system. Okay, And I just assumed
Speaker 1: you know that my house, it wouldn't work, and sure
Speaker 1: enough it does. It's great. I did it a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. I haven't thought about it since and
Speaker 1: it just kind of does its own thing. And anyway, yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: it's so Nest thermostat a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: people have them, and now they have a feature. They
Speaker 1: didn't say they're using AI, but I assume they are
Speaker 1: using some sort of AI. But your Nest thermostat can
Speaker 1: now identify potential issues with your heating, ventilation and air
Speaker 1: conditioning systems. If a potential issue is detected, they're going
Speaker 1: to send you alert via email. So how do they
Speaker 1: know that something's wrong. Well, if ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: people when they turn the thermostat down a degree, it
Speaker 1: takes forty minutes to cool down their house, but your
Speaker 1: house takes two hours, they're going to notice that pattern
Speaker 1: and they say, Okay, we think that there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with your air conditioning. I think that's how they're doing it.
Speaker 1: They don't describe how they're doing it, but I'm guessing
Speaker 1: they're looking for patterns in the way most people's air
Speaker 1: conditioning works, and then if yours doesn't work that way,
Speaker 1: they're going to say something's wrong. You might want to
Speaker 1: take a look at this, which I think is pretty smart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now here is the thing that they're doing though, which
Speaker 1: of course they don't just do things for fun. They
Speaker 1: do things because it might make them money at some point.
Speaker 1: So you will get a link to a person that
Speaker 1: can fix your air conditioning. They've partnered with this website
Speaker 1: called handy which I actually interviewed them a while back.
Speaker 4: I use this site to hire a hand Yeah, you can.
Speaker 1: Hire like a handyman to do stuff, and so they'll
Speaker 1: send you a link, and of course if you book
Speaker 1: I'm sure Google gets a little cut of the commision
Speaker 1: of whatever that service costs. But it's brilliant and I
Speaker 1: think it's smart's. I think that it's giving people information
Speaker 1: that they may not think about or you know, ponder
Speaker 1: or whatever. And it's just like, especially if you are
Speaker 1: single or you're older and you just don't know about
Speaker 1: this stuff and you get an alert and you're like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: I should look into this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: Next thing, you know, you're spending ten thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: a new system.
Speaker 3: That's always really fun to do.
Speaker 1: My favorite and this is I replaced my air conditioning
Speaker 1: and it was a lot of money, but it was
Speaker 1: And I call all repairs. There's a certain category of
Speaker 1: repairs that get you back to the place you were,
Speaker 1: Like a car repair. Nothing was wrong with your car.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, the check engine light comes on.
Speaker 1: You spend three hundred bucks, like, oh, we found this
Speaker 1: thing in the back. We had to replace it. You're
Speaker 1: just back to where you were. Your car is not
Speaker 1: any better. Yeah, you're just still driving the same car.
Speaker 1: It's like a cell phone. Your screen gets cracked, you
Speaker 1: pay two hundred bucks to fix the screen. Your phone's
Speaker 1: not any better. You're just back to where you were
Speaker 1: before your screen crack and now you're out two hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: Same thing with air conditioning. I mean in my house, Yes,
Speaker 1: the air got a little bit better when we upgraded it,
Speaker 1: but it's not like it changed our lives. So I
Speaker 1: call those repairs. You're just back to where.
Speaker 3: You to where you were just a little bit baseline, baseline, but.
Speaker 1: Your your bank account is not in the same place
Speaker 1: it was. I love those, and you know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. There're just there's a million examples of those
Speaker 1: where it's just like, okay, what do we have the
Speaker 1: other the other day we had one, Oh it was
Speaker 1: what do we pay Oh, our dryer? So all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, my wife puts in some laundry and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it's like, do you hear that. I'm
Speaker 1: like nope, And of course I always say that for everything.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't hear that. It's fine, it's fine,
Speaker 1: And I go in and it sounds like sand is
Speaker 1: just like it's like like the way it's just it's
Speaker 1: something's grinding up against like two parts are just grinding,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, call a guy three hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we can fix it, and I've got the
Speaker 1: part in the van. Three hundred dollars later, we're back
Speaker 1: to exactly where we were when I woke up on
Speaker 1: Saturday morning, before my dryer was not working.
Speaker 3: You had three hundred dollars and the dryer.
Speaker 1: Was working just fine, and now it's like okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the only thing that changed was the amount of
Speaker 1: money that went from my account to his account. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I want to become a handyman so I can just
Speaker 4: like fix stuff and not have to ever pay for
Speaker 4: it to be done.
Speaker 1: They they you know what, those guys. I give them
Speaker 1: credit and Gallas, I actually haven't had a girl come
Speaker 1: to the house as a handy person, but I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: could be out there. They're out there. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: give those people credit. And every time, except for the
Speaker 1: one time I got ripped off for they replaced a
Speaker 1: flap in my toilet for eighty five dollars, which the
Speaker 1: next guy came and actually taught me how to do it,
Speaker 1: and he said, here's where you go. He showed me.
Speaker 1: He goes, you take the flap off, you pop this in.
Speaker 1: It'll cost you six dollars and he goes, I'm not
Speaker 1: charging you, and I said, now you are awesome.
Speaker 3: That is a saint.
Speaker 1: I go and you'll get my business next time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you?
Speaker 1: I haven't had another toilet problem, but I went to
Speaker 1: the little place, I replaced it myself, and I that's
Speaker 1: I was smiling after that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: Great, You're smart somewhere across town smiling all right.
Speaker 4: This next question comes from Anne. I was wondering if
Speaker 4: you have an opinion on upgrading to Catalina.
Speaker 3: So she has a MacBook Pro fifteen inch.
Speaker 4: She bought it in mid twenty fifteen, and she said
Speaker 4: she's looked at some reviews and some are saying that
Speaker 4: it has slowed down their computers a lot. So do
Speaker 4: you think that she should upgrade to Catalina?
Speaker 1: I would say, in this case, if your system is
Speaker 1: working out for you, which I think the one before
Speaker 1: Catalina was Mojave, yeah Jave, right, Mojave. I think it's
Speaker 1: v mojave, mojave Desert. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: all these California things. I didn't grow up learning California.
Speaker 1: I learned. I can tell you New Jersey.
Speaker 3: Did you guys have a dessert? And I'm just kidding
Speaker 3: Jersey Shore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I would say, if it's working for you,
Speaker 1: you don't have to upgrade. I Catalina was the first
Speaker 1: Mac operating system that I actually waited a couple of months.
Speaker 1: I think it was three months before I upgraded, because
Speaker 1: I don't see the need like the Mac operating system
Speaker 1: is not. It changed a lot with Catalina, especially because
Speaker 1: they got rid of iTunes and separated it out, but
Speaker 1: that's only for Apple's benefit. They wanted to be able
Speaker 1: to watch Apple TV Plus shows on your computer and
Speaker 1: sell you more stuff. So I don't see the benefit
Speaker 1: of necessarily upgrading right away. If it's working for you,
Speaker 1: will your computer slow down? Usually yes, And it's not
Speaker 1: because your computer is slowing down or Apple's doing something
Speaker 1: to slow you down. It's mainly because these these programs
Speaker 1: require more horsepower because they're written for newer computers. They're
Speaker 1: not writing a program today in twenty nineteen or twenty
Speaker 1: twenty for a twenty fifteen computer. They're writing it for
Speaker 1: today's processors in today's memory. And I would say just
Speaker 1: hold off if you don't need it, unless there's a
Speaker 1: reason why you need Catalina. If there's a there was
Speaker 1: one feature that I thought was kind of cool, called
Speaker 1: which you can put your iPad next to your computer
Speaker 1: and wirelessly put your I think is it wireless or
Speaker 1: is it Yeah? I think it's wireless. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: can just put make that part of your display. I
Speaker 1: thought that was kind of cool. I did. I did
Speaker 1: want to try that out, so I downloaded it for that.
Speaker 1: But there's not a feature on Catalina that I can
Speaker 1: tell you that I use, And I'm like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is why I downloaded it.
Speaker 3: That's a good point.
Speaker 4: I feel like I haven't really noticed much.
Speaker 1: Are there any major security updates with I'm sure there are,
Speaker 1: but but I think Apple is still supporting the last one.
Speaker 1: So as long as you're still supporting the security updates,
Speaker 1: you're fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And I'm like ninety nine percent sure that the old
Speaker 1: one is getting security updates.
Speaker 2: Especially because it's not like super old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a couple of years. Let me just talk
Speaker 1: about one more thing before we go, because this is
Speaker 1: something that I want to purchase. It's on my wish
Speaker 1: list and I'm just sharing it with you because I
Speaker 1: imagine there's someone else out in the world that wants that.
Speaker 1: Peloton kind of experience in their house, but doesn't want
Speaker 1: to pay twenty five hundred dollars for the Peloton, which is,
Speaker 1: I love the Peloton, but do I need to pay
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred dollars for a bike that is also
Speaker 1: fifty dollars a month for the Peloton app.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: But I saw this at CS and I fell in
Speaker 1: love and I probably will buy it soon. I'm just
Speaker 1: waiting for the official okay for my wife. But it's
Speaker 1: called the Bowflex C six Indoor Cycling Bike, and it's
Speaker 1: a spin bike just like the Peloton. But the difference
Speaker 1: is is that it has a place for an iPad
Speaker 1: instead of a giant screen. So you take an iPad
Speaker 1: that you already have, you pop it in the holder,
Speaker 1: and now you can download the Peloton app or any
Speaker 1: other app that you want to use for your workout.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of biking apps out there. They
Speaker 1: mention a bunch of them, Swift whatever. And the cool
Speaker 1: thing is that you're like, well, what do I lose
Speaker 1: by not having the Peloton experience. The main thing you
Speaker 1: lose is the leaderboard because the bluetooth on the bike
Speaker 1: reports back to the app, the Peloton app, so it
Speaker 1: will still be able to see how hard you're going
Speaker 1: on the bike. It will be able to see your
Speaker 1: cadence whatever. But the main thing that according to Bowflex
Speaker 1: when I interviewed them, is that you don't get the leaderboard,
Speaker 1: which I know a lot of people that have the
Speaker 1: Peloton that is the future that they love the most
Speaker 1: is the leaderboard, which I'm just not that competitive. I
Speaker 1: don't really care. Like I'm doing my workout for me,
Speaker 1: I don't really care if I'm on a leaderboard. In fact,
Speaker 1: i'd rather not be. When I did a Peloton workout,
Speaker 1: when I saw that my name was on like the
Speaker 1: little side thing, I was like, Eh, that's kind of weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't need that. I think this is great. And
Speaker 1: the Peloton app is like thirteen dollars a month versus
Speaker 1: forty or fifty for the the other one. And it's,
Speaker 1: by the way, nine hundred dollars. So nine hundred dollars
Speaker 1: for a bike not bad, No, not bad at all.
Speaker 1: And you might be thinking, oh, come on, rich Bowflex.
Speaker 1: Aren't they the people that did all those like commercials
Speaker 1: on TV and like who are they? Well, they also
Speaker 1: own Shwin, so they know something about bikes and I
Speaker 1: trust them, so again, it's about the size of a peloton.
Speaker 1: It looked very solid. I got on the thing at
Speaker 1: CS and I think it's a winner. For nine hundred
Speaker 1: dollars versus twenty five hundred, I think for the peloton
Speaker 1: that's significant.
Speaker 3: Are you going to do the shoes?
Speaker 1: I well, that's the other thing about this. This has
Speaker 1: dual link pedals which lets you put your feet in there,
Speaker 1: or the shoes. If I had this thing at home,
Speaker 1: I'd probably go for the shoes.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right now, I've done the spinning classes at the gym
Speaker 1: and I don't have the shoes, but our gym just
Speaker 1: upgraded to it. Used to be the little shoes were
Speaker 1: really tricky to get on because they would you have
Speaker 1: to pull them like almost like a zip tie off
Speaker 1: the side. Now they made it really easy. Just pull
Speaker 1: up on the top and it sinch is closed. She
Speaker 1: almost don't need the spin shoes anymore. But if you
Speaker 1: really want to get into spinning, apparently you have to
Speaker 1: have the shoes. And I'm a runner, not a spinner,
Speaker 1: but I do enjoy a bike spin workout every once
Speaker 1: in a while.
Speaker 3: I'm as flywheel.
Speaker 1: I know that was your place. That was your jam.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then they got rid of it.
Speaker 1: No more flywheel yeah, bumber.
Speaker 3: Oh well oh soul cycle butt that's yeah. That's a
Speaker 3: little a little, a little expensive, a little much.
Speaker 1: Well, that's gonna do it for the show, Can you
Speaker 1: believe it? I went by so fast, by so fast
Speaker 1: I think because Will was here. Yeah, Will, what'd you think?
Speaker 1: I thought it was a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, cool,
Speaker 1: good time, Megan, No fun, no fun, no fun. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the rich on Tech podcast. If you
Speaker 1: have not subscribed yet, go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
Speaker 1: The best thing you can do is tell your friends
Speaker 1: about this show. Don't keep it a secret. I know
Speaker 1: you want to have all these little things that I
Speaker 1: tell you, So you can tell your friends about the
Speaker 1: double Take app and the new bike from Bowflex that's
Speaker 1: half the price. But don't keep this a secret. Tell
Speaker 1: your friends, let them listen, and then you can discuss Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that will be more fun than trying to like
Speaker 1: one up them with like the new app that you've
Speaker 1: heard me talk about on here. You can get in
Speaker 1: touch with me on Instagram. I am at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: And you can also rate this podcast at a website
Speaker 1: called rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech Meghan,
Speaker 1: I think we are actually holding steady at close to
Speaker 1: five stars.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a little bit less. How can folks get
Speaker 1: in touch with you, Meghan?
Speaker 4: I'm on Twitter at producer Megan and also on TikTok.
Speaker 1: Are you Have you done a new video?
Speaker 3: No need to do that with Will today?
Speaker 1: Are you doing one? Are you on TikTok? Way?
Speaker 2: On TikTok, I've resisted. I've resisted.
Speaker 1: Five point zero rating.
Speaker 3: By the way, Wow, you got to have a party.
Speaker 1: One hundred and forty nine, so be the one hundred
Speaker 1: and fiftieth. Will's not on TikTok. I am rich on Tech,
Speaker 1: but I haven't done anything on there yet. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening on behalf of myself and everyone that
Speaker 1: helps get this podcast to your ears. Have a great day.
Speaker 1: Oh bye,