Speaker 1: Walmart adds a new perk to its membership program. One
Speaker 1: of the best deals in wireless is gone. If you
Speaker 1: use a VPN on iOS, you probably want to do
Speaker 1: this first. Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich dmiro and this is Rich on Tech, the
Speaker 1: podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
Speaker 1: you should know about. It's also the place where I
Speaker 1: answer the questions you send me. I'm the tech reporter
Speaker 1: at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Hope you are
Speaker 1: having a fantastic day, week, month, year. Can you believe
Speaker 1: that we are more than six months into the year.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I said that. I just looked
Speaker 2: at the data as I said that, I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, wait a second, We're like, we're more like eight
Speaker 1: months into the year, almost nine months into the year.
Speaker 2: But here's the deal I was.
Speaker 1: I keep thinking about the fact that we are in
Speaker 1: this gentle slide into the holidays, and I don't wanna
Speaker 1: I don't want to get you like, you know, freaked
Speaker 1: out or.
Speaker 2: Anything like that.
Speaker 1: But the reality is, in my world, we just had
Speaker 1: the Samsung release. Now we've got Apple, then we have
Speaker 1: Google and you know, so all these things sort of
Speaker 1: happened throughout the holiday season, and it's it's really like
Speaker 1: a little gentle slide into the holiday shopping season, and
Speaker 1: then you have Thanksgiving and then you have just a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks of shopping until the holidays, and then
Speaker 1: you've got cees. So my entire like rest of the
Speaker 1: year is all sort of figured out. And in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm already there. I'm like, it's twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: So I don't wanna I don't want to alarm you.
Speaker 1: You do not have to feel that way. You do
Speaker 1: not have to think that way. I'm just saying for me,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of what I do is planning.
Speaker 1: You know, it's planning to have coverage of the various
Speaker 1: gadgets and things that are coming out, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot in the next.
Speaker 2: Couple of months. One of the gadgets I've been playing with.
Speaker 1: Are the Samsung Galaxy let me get this name right,
Speaker 1: Galaxy Buds to Pro. And these are the follow up
Speaker 1: to the Galaxy Buds Pro and these are the best
Speaker 1: earbuds that Samsung has ever made. Oh the music was
Speaker 1: still playing, there we go, That's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2: So I don't say that lightly.
Speaker 1: Now, I will tell you I've done several workouts with
Speaker 1: these EarPods.
Speaker 2: Are these earbuds?
Speaker 1: I should say, I'm mixing air pods and earbuds and
Speaker 1: my own number one.
Speaker 2: The case is awesome. It's this nice rubbery, grippy case.
Speaker 1: My only downside of the case is that there is
Speaker 1: no pairing button on it and I really have grown
Speaker 1: to dislike that. And i'll tell you why. There's a
Speaker 1: pair of Samsung earbuds that I disabled the touch controls
Speaker 1: because I didn't want them on the earbuds, and next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, I put them in the case and I
Speaker 1: had to pair them with a new phone. And the
Speaker 1: way that you do that is there's like a button
Speaker 1: that you press or I'm sorry, not a button, but
Speaker 1: you press and hold the two earbuds like the touch
Speaker 1: area on them for a couple of seconds to get
Speaker 1: it into pairing mode. Well, guess what, since I had
Speaker 1: disabled the earbuds, you know, touch areas, that didn't work,
Speaker 1: and so it was kind of a pain. I had
Speaker 1: to find a Samsung phone, install the app on it.
Speaker 1: Make sure that you know there, it was just a
Speaker 1: whole thing. So anyway, I like the pairing button because
Speaker 1: it's just simple.
Speaker 2: It's easy.
Speaker 1: There's no directions necessary. You want to pair these with
Speaker 1: a new device, you just press the button. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how you pair these the two phones that I've
Speaker 1: paired them with. Both times, i'd kind of opened the
Speaker 1: lid and next thing you know, they showed up in
Speaker 1: the pairing So maybe they automatically pair. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: But the actual case is awesome. You open it up
Speaker 1: and the earbuds themselves same grippiness, so it's like kind
Speaker 1: of the same exact material that the case is in.
Speaker 1: But on the earbuds they're nice and grippy, they're the
Speaker 1: perfect size, they fit into your ear really well, and
Speaker 1: for the most part, they do not fall out. Now,
Speaker 1: there is a little creepage where you know, I was
Speaker 1: on the treadmill and it you know, you're running really hard,
Speaker 1: there might be a little bit of that sensation where
Speaker 1: it's kind of falling out and then you push it
Speaker 1: back into your ear. And what I don't like about
Speaker 1: the touch, and this is why I disabled it on
Speaker 1: the previous pair, is that I don't like the fact
Speaker 1: of feeling like I can't push the earbuds back into
Speaker 1: my ear without pressing the touch area. So just looking
Speaker 1: through some of the materials that Samsung sent by, let's
Speaker 1: see does I have a listening time on these things.
Speaker 1: So it's fifteen percent smaller than the Buds Pro. It's
Speaker 1: got twenty four bit high fi sound. That's only if
Speaker 1: you're using it with a Samsung device that supports that.
Speaker 1: It's got three sixty audio. The noise cancelation on these
Speaker 1: earbuds is absolutely fantastic. I was using them in a
Speaker 1: gym with very loud music and I'm not kidding. You
Speaker 1: put these things in and immediately everything fades away.
Speaker 2: I'm very, very impressed.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't have that feeling where your ears are
Speaker 1: super sealed up, which.
Speaker 2: I'm not really a fan of.
Speaker 1: So I like the fact that somehow they got the
Speaker 1: ambient noise reduction or they sorry the noise cancelation to
Speaker 1: be really good even without feeling.
Speaker 2: Like my ears are clogged up with cotton. So that's
Speaker 2: really cool.
Speaker 1: There's a way that you can find these if they're lost,
Speaker 1: even if they're out of their case. So it's got
Speaker 1: this feature called smart Things Fined, and you can basically
Speaker 1: find these as long as the battery is alive. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how they're doing that. I don't think the
Speaker 1: little buds have GPS in them, so I guess maybe
Speaker 1: they're pinging other Bluetooth devices, other Samsung devices. They come
Speaker 1: in graphite white and Boora purple. It's interesting that they
Speaker 1: don't say how long the battery is rated for. But honestly,
Speaker 1: I think the batteries on these wireless earbuds have gotten
Speaker 1: so good that I don't put any thought into it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just charge them, you know, once in
Speaker 1: a while, if you think about it, you plug them in. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: the buds, you know, they last pretty long. Then the
Speaker 1: case recharges them. But I've got to say, so far,
Speaker 1: I'm very impressed with these, this Galaxy buds too. Pro So,
Speaker 1: if you're in a situation where you are making a
Speaker 1: purchasing decision, I think that you will be uh, you'll
Speaker 1: be very very impressed with the quality of these. Now,
Speaker 1: the price tag on these two hundred and twenty nine dollars,
Speaker 1: which you know, that's expensive, that's that's very expensive. But
Speaker 1: the thing about these is that you basically shouldn't be
Speaker 1: buying them unless they are on some sort of deal
Speaker 1: and so I'm just looking like just when you go
Speaker 1: to the website for Samsung, immediately it's like, are you
Speaker 1: a first responder? Are you a you know, a teacher.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of ways to get deals on
Speaker 1: these things. I'm sure there are special codes out there.
Speaker 1: You can also get kind of a credit. I mean,
Speaker 1: let's see recycle. Look at this, save up to seventy
Speaker 1: five dollars recycle or trade in an audio device. So
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty interesting. You could save seventy five dollars.
Speaker 2: Sort off the bat and is the case why I
Speaker 2: did not test this though? I did not test to.
Speaker 1: See if the case supports wireless charging. And I'm oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, I feel like I should know this. It
Speaker 1: says you can get a wireless charger with it, so
Speaker 1: I assume that the case would support wireless charging. So
Speaker 1: should do a little bit more homework on that. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Galaxy Buds too pro I give them two thumbs up
Speaker 1: in my book. I'm very very impressed with what Samsung
Speaker 1: did there. All right, let's get to the first question
Speaker 1: of the show. Let's see no name on this one,
Speaker 1: but rich I will be traveling to Ireland and the
Speaker 1: UK in about a month. According to my carrier, T Mobile,
Speaker 1: I have unlimited international data, which would include using my
Speaker 1: phone as GPS. I don't plan on making any calls,
Speaker 1: so the higher cost per minute does not come into play.
Speaker 1: Could you explain the advantage, if any, of getting an
Speaker 1: e SIM for my iPhone. I've never used an international SIM,
Speaker 1: so I'm not real clear on how they operate if
Speaker 1: you choose to do so, could you recommend a company?
Speaker 1: Thank you, your segments always contain us full information.
Speaker 2: Yes, so here's the deal.
Speaker 1: Since I just went to Italy and used my first eSIM,
Speaker 1: it was a very very smooth process. And let me
Speaker 1: explain what you get over T Mobile now, I think
Speaker 1: this really comes down to what do you need?
Speaker 2: So if T Mobile, if.
Speaker 1: Your plan and T Mobile has a bunch, you know,
Speaker 1: depending on the plan you're on, you get something different.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you're on an old plan,
Speaker 1: if you're on a new plan, but find out exactly
Speaker 1: what you get with your plan. But I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you the generics of sort of what's included, what's not included. So,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, let me just give the example of
Speaker 1: what they give you right now.
Speaker 2: So right now.
Speaker 1: If you're on a Magenta Max plan, you get five
Speaker 1: gigs of high speed data in two hundred and fifteen countries.
Speaker 1: If you're on the Magenta plan, you get five gigs
Speaker 1: of high speed in eleven European countries. And the data
Speaker 1: they say is two times faster than before. So I
Speaker 1: don't know what the speed is exactly. Let's see if
Speaker 1: they say it on here see full terms, Uh five
Speaker 1: speed that okay? It so it's high speed data, which
Speaker 1: I assume is just like no limit. But then after
Speaker 1: that it's unlimited up to two hundred and fifty six
Speaker 1: kilobits per second, which is super duper slow. Now it
Speaker 1: is two times faster than before, which was one twenty eight,
Speaker 1: which was basically worthless except for like checking your email.
Speaker 1: But two fifty six you might be able to do
Speaker 1: some stuff with that. I personally would never want that
Speaker 1: limitation because I just couldn't imagine being in a different
Speaker 1: country and trying to do anything on two fifty six
Speaker 1: K versus you know, anything other than maybe maybe Google maps,
Speaker 1: maybe a quick Google search. I'm not even sure those
Speaker 1: would work. I mean, that's really for like push email,
Speaker 1: like that's it. So you know, If you're gonna use
Speaker 1: more than five gigs of high speed data, then I
Speaker 1: would consider an e SIM.
Speaker 2: If you're not, then just stick to what you got. Now.
Speaker 1: The other thing you could do, and you probably should
Speaker 1: do this, is just go ahead and use your five
Speaker 1: gigs of high speed data. See how far that gets you,
Speaker 1: and don't limit yourself. Because these e sims are so cheap,
Speaker 1: it's not even a big deal to worry about how
Speaker 1: much you're going to spend on one.
Speaker 2: So use your five gigs of data.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that T Mobile at the end of that
Speaker 1: five gigs is going to text you and say, up,
Speaker 1: you are at your five gig limit. Now you have
Speaker 1: unlimited basic data for two fifty six. And at that
Speaker 1: moment I would go on an app called.
Speaker 2: Er low Ai r Alo Ai r Alo.
Speaker 1: And I would go ahead and buy a simpack or
Speaker 1: an e SIM for Ireland. And Ireland is going to
Speaker 1: cost you. Let's see, five gigs for thirty days is
Speaker 1: thirteen dollars. If you want to go big time, you
Speaker 1: can go ten gigs for thirty days, which is twenty
Speaker 1: two dollars. And you buy that right from your phone,
Speaker 1: right from your iPhone, you activate it right from your phone.
Speaker 1: You do need a connection to do that, but once
Speaker 1: you do that, it's phenomenal and you're gonna have high
Speaker 1: speed data for that entire ten gigs twenty two dollars for.
Speaker 2: That for that data.
Speaker 1: I think it's well worth it. But again, use what's
Speaker 1: included first. Now you said the other thing is that
Speaker 1: you do not need texting.
Speaker 2: You do not need calling.
Speaker 1: So texting is included on T mobiles plan, which I
Speaker 1: think is also really cool. But if you want to
Speaker 1: call anyone, that's where you're gonna get hit with a
Speaker 1: twenty five cent per minute charge. And the texting situation
Speaker 1: is a little weird with the eSIM because texting is included,
Speaker 1: but only I message right, Like, you're not going to
Speaker 1: get a phone number, so there's gonna be no text messaging,
Speaker 1: you know, historic text messaging. And there's also gonna be
Speaker 1: no phone calls with the SIM.
Speaker 2: So what I did was.
Speaker 1: I just flipped my phone into airplane mode. For those
Speaker 1: two things, I turned off. What I do I turned
Speaker 1: off Oh. I think once you have an eSIM you
Speaker 1: have the ability to turn off your other SIM. So
Speaker 1: I just turned off my other SIM completely, And like
Speaker 1: I said, use the five gigs first, then then go
Speaker 1: into purchasing the eSIM. But fun times ahead. That's exciting
Speaker 1: to be going over to Europe. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: so much on the news is about the luggage and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, but once you're there, it's such a
Speaker 1: fantastic experience. You are going to have such a great time.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about what do we want to
Speaker 2: talk about? First?
Speaker 1: Android thirteen. So Android thirteen was sort of a dropped
Speaker 1: on everyone as a surprise. And I know that iPhone
Speaker 1: commands all of the attention in the world, but there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people that run Android. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Android updates are not as big of a
Speaker 1: thing as they are for iOS. And the reason being
Speaker 1: is that iOS launches entirely new features that are core
Speaker 1: to the phone, which Android does too, but not in
Speaker 1: the same way like Android. If you want a new feature,
Speaker 1: you just go on the app Store and you download
Speaker 1: an app that ninety nine percent of the time will
Speaker 1: solve or give you the feature you need. But some
Speaker 1: of the features do have to be baked into the
Speaker 1: operating system, and so we get new operating systems, they
Speaker 1: take a lot longer to kind of percolate through the
Speaker 1: lineup of phones, like I have a Pixel six Pro
Speaker 1: sitting here and it still hasn't gotten the Android thirteen update.
Speaker 1: And that is one of like that's like a dev phone,
Speaker 1: Like that's a phone that developers would use to sort
Speaker 1: of test their software. Now, if you're doing that, you
Speaker 1: probably download the BEATA. But still my point is the
Speaker 1: way Apple does it is they released the software and
Speaker 1: everyone gets it pretty much at the same time, which
Speaker 1: is I guess, good and bad.
Speaker 2: So let me go over some of the features.
Speaker 1: I have not played with Android thirteen just yet, because,
Speaker 1: like I said, I did not get it on my phone,
Speaker 1: and once you get it on the Pixel you can't
Speaker 1: go back to twelve. So I figured, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to force the issue because maybe they're,
Speaker 1: you know, working out some little random bugs and things
Speaker 1: and that's why they're not setting out to that many
Speaker 1: phones right at once. But okay, so a couple things.
Speaker 1: Google did a list of what they do thirteen. Let
Speaker 1: me guess, oh, had I guess thirteen things that they
Speaker 1: like about Android thirteen. I'm not going to go over
Speaker 1: all of them, but I think some of them are
Speaker 1: pretty cool. So number one you can assign a specific
Speaker 1: language to an individual app.
Speaker 2: That is really really cool.
Speaker 1: And this what I love about Google's mission and Android
Speaker 1: is that they sort of like to bring the entire
Speaker 1: world together. So if you want one of your apps
Speaker 1: to be in you know, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: a supported language, but Chinese, and you want another app
Speaker 1: to be in English, you can say, Hey, every time
Speaker 1: I open up we Chat, I want the whole app
Speaker 1: to be in Chinese. And every time I open up
Speaker 1: you know, Facebook Messenger, I want the entire app to
Speaker 1: be in Italian.
Speaker 2: Or Facebook whatever. That's a really cool feature.
Speaker 1: There's a media player that's updated. It looks and feels
Speaker 1: based on the music or podcast you're listening to.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: Android thirteen allows you to customize your bedtime mode with
Speaker 1: wallpaper dimming and dark theme that sort of happened with iOS.
Speaker 1: These screen options help you help your eyes adjust to
Speaker 1: the dark when you're about to go to bed and
Speaker 1: go back to sleep. If you wake up and check
Speaker 1: your phone in the middle of the night. That is
Speaker 1: very true because I often do that with my iPhone
Speaker 1: and Android thirteen, you can select only the specific photos
Speaker 1: and videos that apps get access to. Again another I'm
Speaker 1: not going to compare everything to iOS, but yeah, these are.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like.
Speaker 1: iOS and Android are getting aligned in a lot.
Speaker 2: Of different ways with some of these features.
Speaker 1: But you can say, like if you down load a
Speaker 1: app that you're kind of thinking is a little sketchy,
Speaker 1: like one of those like profile maker apps or something,
Speaker 1: and you say, I just want to give it access
Speaker 1: to one of my pictures because I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: servers these pictures are going to. You can now do that.
Speaker 1: This is interesting. The clipboard.
Speaker 2: If you copy sensitive data to it, like an email.
Speaker 1: Address, a phone number, or log in credentials, Android automatically
Speaker 1: clears it after a certain period of time, So that's
Speaker 1: pretty smart. The apps you download now have to get
Speaker 1: your permission to send notifications, rather than being allowed to
Speaker 1: send notifications by default. That's a huge change, something that
Speaker 1: Apple had years and years ago. Spatial audio is now supported.
Speaker 1: You can stream your messaging apps directly to a Chromebooks.
Speaker 1: You can send and receive messages from your laptop. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how useful that is. I'm also just not
Speaker 1: really understanding why Google is so hesitant to come out
Speaker 1: with an easier way to use messages on a like
Speaker 1: a you know, a Mac computer. I guess you have,
Speaker 1: you know, the web app, but why can't they just
Speaker 1: come out?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's fine. I guess I just want like a real app.
Speaker 1: But I guess the web apps are fine, you know what.
Speaker 1: I use web apps for Google Photos. I use a
Speaker 1: web app for Outlook, and they're just fine. I mean
Speaker 1: they're they're really you can't really tell them apart from
Speaker 1: the actual app. Most of the time, you can copy
Speaker 1: content like a URL, picture, text, or video from your
Speaker 1: Android phone and paste it on your tablet.
Speaker 2: So kind of this. There's this little app called is
Speaker 2: it called clipped.
Speaker 1: It's made by OnePlus actually, and it's a great little
Speaker 1: app Clipped c l i PT is it still around,
Speaker 1: And it's a great little app that lets you copy
Speaker 1: and paste from Android to any computer, whether it's an
Speaker 1: iOS or sorry, whether it's Android or a Mac or
Speaker 1: Android or Windows. So that's c l I p T.
Speaker 1: It's a really cool little app and it uses your
Speaker 1: own Google Drive, so I feel like it's pretty safe.
Speaker 1: Let's see what else do we have that's it? Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's the only thing I thought was pretty interesting. Again,
Speaker 1: I haven't played with it. I feel like this is
Speaker 1: one of those incremental updates, but I will. I will
Speaker 1: check it out in more detail. Android thirteen is rolling
Speaker 1: out to rolling out the worst Words to a Nerd,
Speaker 1: rolling out to Pixels today, and then later this year,
Speaker 1: Android thirteen will roll out to Samsung, Galaxy Asus, Nokia,
Speaker 1: Motorola one Plus, Oppo, real Me, Sharp, Sony, Shoomi, and more.
Speaker 1: The sad part is in the US, the only Android
Speaker 1: phones that matter are Samsung and Pixel in one plus.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: And Motorola is like, I don't even know if that's
Speaker 1: a blip on the radar, but that's it. I mean,
Speaker 1: all these brands that you that people like look to
Speaker 1: in other countries. It's just Android is huge in other places.
Speaker 1: I've talked about this. In the US, it just it's
Speaker 1: it's just not as popular as I as Apple. Although
Speaker 1: I will say when you leave the Los Angeles area,
Speaker 1: I immediately see an uptick in a lot of the
Speaker 1: non Apple phones like the Android devices. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. Let's get to the next question, Paul says, Rich,
Speaker 1: do you remember monocle on yelp?
Speaker 2: We need something like that again.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Paul, Paul, of course, I remember the monocle
Speaker 1: mode on Yelp. This was one of those features that
Speaker 1: was way before its time, way before kind of like
Speaker 1: the whole augmented reality thing took off. And what monocle
Speaker 1: was is you would open up Yelp, you'd go into
Speaker 1: the settings and there was a feature called Monocle and
Speaker 1: you would tap it and then hold your phone up
Speaker 1: and you can look through your phone's camera at the
Speaker 1: viewfinder and see like the real world, like a street
Speaker 1: in front of you, and the Yelp reviews would be
Speaker 1: overlaid on the businesses down the street, so you can say, OK,
Speaker 1: is there a good coffee place around here? Let me
Speaker 1: look up coffee, and then overlay and oh, it's that way.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I just thought about this the other day.
Speaker 2: Where was I.
Speaker 1: I was in Sacramento, and I was like, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to walk too far for a coffee place, so
Speaker 1: I wanted to see if there was one really close.
Speaker 1: And so that's what I did. I use that little
Speaker 1: I wanted to use the monocle on my phone. I
Speaker 1: was like looking for it. I'm like, where is that feature? So, Paul,
Speaker 1: I think you're reading my mind, because I was literally
Speaker 1: looking for that feature the other day and sadly it
Speaker 1: seems to be gone.
Speaker 2: But we'll see, we'll see if.
Speaker 1: If maybe you know, someone brings I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: think it would be too much for Google to bring that.
Speaker 1: I've This is the funny thing too, I've gotten more
Speaker 1: used to now using Google for my restaurant recommendations than
Speaker 1: anything else. Yelp is now sort of a cross reference
Speaker 1: and mostly to see menus and pictures, whereas it used
Speaker 1: to be the other way around. I would use Yelp
Speaker 1: first and then cross reference on Google. Now Google has
Speaker 1: gotten so good with the restaurant recommendations. They have that
Speaker 1: little thing that says your match, So when you look
Speaker 1: up a restaurant, it says how much that restaurant matches you,
Speaker 1: And you know, like this place I'm looking at as
Speaker 1: a seventy eight percent match, This food Trucks is seventy
Speaker 1: five percent, tie place is seventy four percent. Then this
Speaker 1: Tratoria is ninety two percent. So I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I never heard of this place, but you know what,
Speaker 1: I might try it because Google, let's be honest, knows
Speaker 1: exactly the types of restaurants that you are frequenting. And
Speaker 1: if you don't think they do, yeah, they do because
Speaker 1: they see that your phone is in there for a
Speaker 1: longer period of time. They see that you went in there.
Speaker 1: And so Google has this rich data set and I
Speaker 1: know it's scary, it's privacy, oh my gosh, but it's
Speaker 1: actually quite useful. And when I'm in different cities now,
Speaker 1: I'm almost exclusively using Google Maps to research almost everything
Speaker 1: about my trip. And quite honestly, it is I would
Speaker 1: say it's right ninety nine percent of the time.
Speaker 2: Like this stuff that it tells me.
Speaker 1: I'll like, they sort of nail it, and the locations
Speaker 1: of things, the proximity of things. It's all very very good.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm and I love making the lists. So
Speaker 1: I make a list for a city before I go,
Speaker 1: and I do it all on Google Maps. That to
Speaker 1: do is all in there. I mean, it's really really phenomenal.
Speaker 1: How much information's in there. So good question, Paul, And yeah,
Speaker 1: let's they should bring it back. All right, Let's get
Speaker 1: to some sad news. Visible was one of the best
Speaker 1: deals in wireless. They had a plan that was forty
Speaker 1: dollars all in and they run on Verizon, so it's
Speaker 1: a really good network. But they had this thing called
Speaker 1: party pay, and party pay if you got I think
Speaker 1: it was like three or four people on your plan,
Speaker 1: not a family plan, but all you had to do
Speaker 1: was link up with them. You could then pay twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars a month for unlimited service on Verizon. I'm
Speaker 1: talking unlimited calls, texts, and data. And it was a
Speaker 1: really really good deal. But now that deal is gone
Speaker 1: because Visible has raised their prices. Well they actually lowered
Speaker 1: they you know, these all these companies kind of use
Speaker 1: a little bit of trickery, but they they lowered some prices,
Speaker 1: but they raised their base price of their main plan
Speaker 1: is now forty five dollars. It includes a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff that it didn't before, and then the cheaper plan
Speaker 1: is now thirty dollars. They kind of split the difference
Speaker 1: between twenty five and forty.
Speaker 2: So for thirty.
Speaker 1: Dollars you still get a pretty good plan. Okay, pretty
Speaker 1: pretty pretty good. You get unlimited talk, text and data
Speaker 1: five G and four four G. You get unlimited mobile hotspot.
Speaker 1: Obviously the hotspot is limited to a certain megabits per second.
Speaker 2: I think it's five.
Speaker 1: And then you get the extras which is unlimited talking
Speaker 1: text to Canada, Canada, Mexico and Canada. That's thirty dollars
Speaker 1: a month, which is still really good. Now they have
Speaker 1: Visible Plus which is forty five dollars a month, and
Speaker 1: this gives you the same data, but you also get
Speaker 1: five g UW which is you know, Verizon's super duper
Speaker 1: fast stuff. And then a premium network experience whatever that means,
Speaker 1: unlimited mobile hotspot. And then you get the extras include
Speaker 1: the unlimited talking text to Mexico and Canada, unlimited talking
Speaker 1: text and data roaming in Mexico and Canada, international calling
Speaker 1: from the US to thirty countries, international texting from the
Speaker 1: US to two hundred countries. So and you can add
Speaker 1: a smart watch for five dollars. So again, if you
Speaker 1: if you have the Party play, it's not going away
Speaker 1: for you, you are grandfathered in. But for new customers,
Speaker 1: it's going away. Let's see when is it going away on?
Speaker 1: It doesn't really say when it's going away, but you
Speaker 1: are you can let's see. You can now refer new
Speaker 1: customers and receive twenty dollars off your next month of service.
Speaker 1: You can bank up to twelve months at a time,
Speaker 1: so if you refer twelve friends, you can get two
Speaker 1: hundred and forty dollars off your bill for the year.
Speaker 1: So twenty dollars off of thirty is really actually cheaper.
Speaker 2: So that's ten dollars.
Speaker 1: You just have to bring someone in every month, which
Speaker 1: is kind of a lot.
Speaker 2: So let's see when does this go away.
Speaker 1: I don't know when it goes away, but basically, you
Speaker 1: can't sign up for a new Visible plan at the
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars. And the whole trick of the twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars party play our party pay is that you
Speaker 1: didn't have to sign up up with your friends. You
Speaker 1: could literally go on Reddit or any you know, anywhere,
Speaker 1: find a link to a party plan and just join in.
Speaker 1: And so some of these plans had like twenty five
Speaker 1: hundred people on them that didn't know each other, but
Speaker 1: they were all paying twenty five dollars, and so this
Speaker 1: was something that you sort of needed to know how
Speaker 1: to do to get it. And I asked Visible when
Speaker 1: I did a story on this, I said, Hey, this
Speaker 1: is this legit, Like, are you guys okay with this?
Speaker 1: And they said, eah, we're sure, we're fine with that.
Speaker 1: But I guess now they're saying, our members love the discounts,
Speaker 1: but not the hoops they had to jump through to
Speaker 1: get it. So okay, I mean hoops they had to
Speaker 1: jump through, they had to sign up one time. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's not that.
Speaker 2: Big of a deal.
Speaker 1: By the way, existing members, if you have Visible, if
Speaker 1: you want to move to one of these new plans,
Speaker 1: you can do so, but you have to get a
Speaker 1: new sim because Visible's network is expanding and evolving with
Speaker 1: these new plans, which should provide you with improved speeds
Speaker 1: and latency. So Visible is still fantastic. I have been
Speaker 1: testing out Boost Wireless Boost Mobile with their new twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars unlimited plan, and it's been really, really good.
Speaker 1: I only had one problem with it at the beach
Speaker 1: where I've really had like zero signal, and it was
Speaker 1: kind of a problem, like I couldn't use my phone
Speaker 1: at all, Like it was just really really bad. And
Speaker 1: that's the only place that I've had an issue. But
Speaker 1: the beach historically has, you know, depending on your carrier,
Speaker 1: has connection issues anyway, because there's not that many cell
Speaker 1: towers on a beach, and so it's not like I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna.
Speaker 2: Give Boost a total like f because of that.
Speaker 1: So far, I've been very impressed with their service, and
Speaker 1: for twenty five dollars unlimited everything, I'm pretty impressed with
Speaker 1: that as well. So it just depends what you want.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the next question of the show.
Speaker 1: This comes from Bob says, Hey, Rich, which is the
Speaker 1: best streaming device, Roku or Fire? Thank you, Bob, Ooh wow,
Speaker 1: you're really trying to ask me the tough questions here.
Speaker 1: So I think this is really a matter of personal preference,
Speaker 1: and it also kind of depends on your setup. So
Speaker 1: if you have one of the TCL series TVs that
Speaker 1: has Roku built in, which I highly recommend the TCL
Speaker 1: six series, go with Roku.
Speaker 2: It's built into the TV. It's gonna be great, you know.
Speaker 1: Less cables, less fuss, it starts right up, you know,
Speaker 1: it gets pretty decent software updates, I would assume, and
Speaker 1: the apps are nice and updated because they're all Roku apps.
Speaker 1: So and Roku has pretty much every app available. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that there's an app that's not available a
Speaker 1: popular streaming apps that's not available on Roku. So what
Speaker 1: I don't like about Roku is pretty much, you know,
Speaker 1: the maybe the presentation. There's a lot of ads on
Speaker 1: the screen, and that's basically it. I mean otherwise, I
Speaker 1: think Roku's fantastic. I think people that have it, they
Speaker 1: love it. I've yet to meet a person who doesn't
Speaker 1: like their Roku. So Roku's great. And they've got the
Speaker 1: you know, the free stuff. I mean, they've got a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff on there. I think at one point
Speaker 1: Roku had everything represented on theirs when some others did not.
Speaker 1: But now I think the streamers pretty much all have.
Speaker 2: The same stuff available.
Speaker 1: But okay, so then when it comes to fire TV,
Speaker 1: now this, you know, some people might have a problem
Speaker 1: with it because it's Amazon, and not everyone wants to
Speaker 1: support Amazon or likes Amazon. I'll be honest, I love Amazon,
Speaker 1: but I'm noticing that a lot of my income is
Speaker 1: going to Amazon, and it's a little scary. Like the
Speaker 1: other night, we were eating Amazon pizza, opening up an
Speaker 1: Amazon package, watching an Amazon movie, buying stuff from the
Speaker 1: Amazon website, and it just gets a little weird.
Speaker 2: Drink in Amazon water.
Speaker 1: Now, I kind of joke we weren't doing all those
Speaker 1: things at the same time, but it's kind of a
Speaker 1: reality in my house when I look around I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of Amazon, and when you factor in
Speaker 1: the Amazon Fresh, like their grocery service, if you're buying
Speaker 1: like their brand, it's called a Plenty, which is, by
Speaker 1: the way, fantastic. It's a really great brand. But it's
Speaker 1: just weird that you're eating like Amazon pizza. Like we
Speaker 1: had an Amazon Truffle mushroom pizza the other night and
Speaker 1: it was delicious. But I'm sitting there like this is weird.
Speaker 1: But is it weird that I'm eating a Kroger pizza
Speaker 1: or a Walmart pizza? Which maybe I would need a
Speaker 1: Walmart pizza, But you know, like there's these different brands
Speaker 1: out there, all the companies, all the grocery stores have
Speaker 1: their own house brand. So what's the difference, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm eating a Target pop tart, you know, versus
Speaker 1: a pop Tart pop tart, which probably is better, by
Speaker 1: the way, although I haven't had a pop tart in
Speaker 1: many years. It's one of those things that I really
Speaker 1: really want. But I have to draw the line somewhere
Speaker 1: with like junk food, Like this morning, I had a
Speaker 1: pumpkin spice donut and it was fantastic. It was just
Speaker 1: so good, But you know, someone brought them into work
Speaker 1: and I ate it and I didn't even know it
Speaker 1: was pumpkin spice.
Speaker 2: It just picked it out because it looked good and.
Speaker 1: I took a bite and I'm like, oh, first pump
Speaker 1: can spice products or the season. It was delicious. But
Speaker 1: you know, again, I wouldn't have I would like to
Speaker 1: seek that out, but for health reasons. I would rather
Speaker 1: be presented with a donu and say, oh, how can
Speaker 1: I resist this, Dona?
Speaker 2: I mean you brought them into work, thank you, So
Speaker 2: that's what I did. But at home, if.
Speaker 1: I'm buying stuff, I'm trying to buy the healthier version
Speaker 1: of stuff, so which is why I don't have pop
Speaker 1: darts anyway. How does that have anything to do with
Speaker 1: Roku and Amazon? Let me remember so Amazon. Yeah, people
Speaker 1: might take, you know, take a problem or have a
Speaker 1: problem with the fact that it's Amazon, and they're like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to support Amazon. So that's fine, that's
Speaker 1: within your right. What I like about Amazon is I
Speaker 1: think their firesticks are pretty good for the price, and
Speaker 1: the software is updated on a regular basis.
Speaker 2: I like the presentation.
Speaker 1: Amazon keeps trying to tweak their presentation because you know,
Speaker 1: Amazon is riding this fine line kind of like Roku.
Speaker 1: Of you know, they get paid for a lot of
Speaker 1: the placements on that screen, like whether it's an ad,
Speaker 1: whether it's a movie, whether it's a service, so they
Speaker 1: want to make it useful, but they also want to
Speaker 1: introduce stuff that you wouldn't typically see otherwise because they
Speaker 1: want you to click it and they want you to
Speaker 1: watch it. Same thing with Roku. Apple TV does not
Speaker 1: do that. They don't have any sort of ads on
Speaker 1: the home screen, and it's very much like it. Once
Speaker 1: you set it up, if you never go in the
Speaker 1: app store again, you may never discover anything ever again
Speaker 1: on that thing. So it's just a different way of
Speaker 1: doing things. But I like the movie selection. I think
Speaker 1: the Amazon is fast. It's got Alexa or the A
Speaker 1: word built in, so if you need that a assistant
Speaker 1: that's built in, so if you're used to that, that's
Speaker 1: kind of cool.
Speaker 2: I just like it.
Speaker 1: That's my personal preference. I use a combination of Apple
Speaker 1: TV and fire TV. I do not actively have a
Speaker 1: Roku set up. I have in the past and it's fine.
Speaker 1: Throughout the pandemic, I had one set up and I
Speaker 1: was watching it every single day to monitor the newscast
Speaker 1: while I was on.
Speaker 2: Air, and it was fine. I mean, it works.
Speaker 1: The only thing I didn't like was that it didn't
Speaker 1: have a photo slide show. And I think that they
Speaker 1: have fixed that. I think we talked about it on
Speaker 1: this podcast that they fixed it. So, Bob, I can't
Speaker 1: make your decision for you, but I hope that those
Speaker 1: little differences help you make your own decision. Oh, speaking
Speaker 1: of Walmart, Walmart, if you are a Walmart Plus subscriber,
Speaker 1: this is sort of their answer to Amazon Prime. You
Speaker 1: probably want to activate this new perk. It's Paramount Plus.
Speaker 1: So they're giving Walmart Plus subscribers Paramount Plus for free.
Speaker 1: Say that ten times fast. So Walmart Plus is, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, their answer to Amazon Prime. It's ninety
Speaker 1: eight dollars a year or thirteen dollars a month, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people, by the way, pay for these
Speaker 1: things monthly. So I feel like, if you're thinking you're
Speaker 1: gonna stick with it, honestly, I just just try to
Speaker 1: pay it yearly because twelve ninety five a month.
Speaker 2: Let's just do the math. So that's thirteen times twelve.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: More Okay, do not pay for Walmart plus month to
Speaker 1: month twelve ninety five a month or ninety eight dollars
Speaker 1: for the year. So if you're paying by the month,
Speaker 1: you are paying an extra fifty eight dollars a year.
Speaker 1: That's more than fifty percent. So I would not pay
Speaker 1: for this monthly. Now I know that Amazon also does
Speaker 1: a monthly plan and it's I think it's up to
Speaker 1: is it fifteen dollars a month? Now fifteen dollars a
Speaker 1: month or one thirty nine a year, So if you're
Speaker 1: paying fifteen times twelve, that's eighty So it's thirty dollars
Speaker 1: more to pay it by month. So let's divide that
Speaker 1: by month or sorry, oneint eighty minus one thirty nine
Speaker 1: forty one dollars more. Okay, so it's not as big
Speaker 1: of a deal there, but it's still three dollars and
Speaker 1: forty one cents extra a month.
Speaker 2: And that may not seem like a big.
Speaker 1: Deal, but that's a third of Spotify, that's half of Hulu.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can put that money towards other things.
Speaker 1: So this is not a financial podcast. I'm not telling
Speaker 1: you how to run your financial life. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you're sticking with things in the long term, Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, I was paying for Google Cloud Storage by
Speaker 1: the month. It was twenty five dollars a month for
Speaker 1: five terabytes, And the two hundred and fifty dollars was
Speaker 1: really scary because I was like, that's a lot of
Speaker 1: money all at once to pay in one fell swoop
Speaker 1: for this cloud stage. But I'm like, rich, you're paying
Speaker 1: this every month no matter what I get that two
Speaker 1: fifty is a lot scarier than twenty five, but you're
Speaker 1: wasting money every month, Like you're going to spend that money.
Speaker 1: You're going to spend a year with Google Cloud service,
Speaker 1: So why are you doing this? And so I did.
Speaker 1: I ended up just you know, I ended up just
Speaker 1: paying for the two fifty and you know, I haven't
Speaker 1: looked back, and it's it's much better because you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do the math again and bore
Speaker 1: you with math on the show.
Speaker 2: But it's a better deal. So anyway, ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Dollars a year paramount plus you're getting the Essential plan,
Speaker 1: which is fifty They say it's fifty.
Speaker 2: Nine dollars a year.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that's the case because paramount, I know
Speaker 1: you can prepay for the year and I think it's fifty.
Speaker 1: So realistically, no matter what, it's still a pretty good
Speaker 1: deal because you're paying ninety eight and you're getting a
Speaker 1: fifty dollars item right off the bat, So really you're
Speaker 1: paying forty eight dollars for this, So that's pretty good
Speaker 1: if if you need Paramount Plus, I wouldn't join Walmart
Speaker 1: Plus four Paramount Plus, But if you're thinking of it,
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, well I get uh and what else
Speaker 1: do you get? By the way, you get savings at
Speaker 1: the gas pump, and if you're filling up at Walmart,
Speaker 1: you get faster delivery, you get this grocery delivery service,
Speaker 1: and also six months free of Spotify, So there are
Speaker 1: some perks. I don't live near a Walmart, so it's
Speaker 1: tough for me to have a Walmart Plus subscription. I
Speaker 1: know that American expressed the Platinum card, which is very expensive,
Speaker 1: just added it, which.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I don't you know.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's like it's so weird to me
Speaker 1: because the AMEX Platinum has a credit for Equinox, which
Speaker 1: is the most expensive gym in your entire life, Like
Speaker 1: you don't even want to look up how much that
Speaker 1: gym costs you can't find anywhere online because they don't
Speaker 1: want to publish the prices because they're so expensive. It's
Speaker 1: like two hundred and something dollars a month for that gym. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's more expensive gyms, but it's it's insane.
Speaker 1: And I can say that because I was.
Speaker 2: A member for a while.
Speaker 1: Uh and you know much, you know for a while,
Speaker 1: and it's like, once you realize just how expensive that is,
Speaker 1: you're just like, Okay, never mind, I can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very nice gym, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2: But on the one.
Speaker 1: Side, you know, the Platinum card from Amex has an
Speaker 1: Equinox membership, you know, or an Equinox twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: a month credit. On the on the other side, they've
Speaker 1: got Walmart plus a free membership to that. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of weird. It's like it's like two extremes Walmart
Speaker 1: an Equinox. I don't see those two brands in the
Speaker 1: same place, but they're both. I I like them both.
Speaker 1: I mean, Equinox is amazing, and I personally I love Walmart.
Speaker 1: If I'm if I'm near a Walmart, I'm going in.
Speaker 1: My wife she's always like ugh, do we have to.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, I love Walmart's. When you're in a Walmart,
Speaker 1: the price is going there's no fooling around.
Speaker 2: The price you.
Speaker 1: See is going to be the cheapest price for that item.
Speaker 1: It's just that's the way it is. That's the way
Speaker 1: it's always been. Whereas when you're in Target, and I
Speaker 1: love Target, but you can tell that they're playing with
Speaker 1: the prices. Some things are really expensive, some things are
Speaker 1: really cheap, some things are in the middle, some things
Speaker 1: are like a dollar or two more, so they.
Speaker 2: They kind of fiddle with the prices a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Whereas Walmart, no matter what you're getting, it's going to
Speaker 1: be the cheapest. And that's what I appreciate about it
Speaker 1: because they don't fool around, and I feel like they
Speaker 1: respect me with their pricing, and that's that's something that
Speaker 1: builds loyalty for me.
Speaker 2: All Right, Janet says, good evening.
Speaker 1: I have a question. I've always been an Android user.
Speaker 1: I have the Samsung Galaxy S twenty two Ultra. My
Speaker 1: grandson is trying to talk me into an iPhone. In
Speaker 1: your opinion, which is better? I take lots of pictures.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Janet.
Speaker 1: Oh Janet another million dollar question. Why is everyone asking
Speaker 1: me a million these these really really deep tech questions?
Speaker 2: What's next? Mac versus PC? So here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The Samsung Galaxy S twenty two Ultra is an amazing phone.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite Android phone of the year. It is
Speaker 1: the best Android phone, yes, even over the pixel because
Speaker 1: the pixel is great, the software is amazing, but the
Speaker 1: full package leaves at a little bit to be desired.
Speaker 2: Whereas the Samsung S twenty two Ultra.
Speaker 1: My biggest downside is I just wish they made it
Speaker 1: in a handheld size. The S twenty two Ultra is
Speaker 1: so big that it's like I don't even want to
Speaker 1: put a screen protector in a case on it because
Speaker 1: it's like it's just gonna make it bigger. But I
Speaker 1: wish they would make this in a in different models
Speaker 1: like the iPhone this year came out in the iPhone
Speaker 1: thirteen Pro and Pro Max identical hardware specs. I mean,
Speaker 1: minus the battery obviously, minus the screen size obviously. But
Speaker 1: you know, the cameras are the same, the processor is
Speaker 1: the same, everything's the same except the size. One of
Speaker 1: them is a lot easier to hold than the other.
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy S twenty two Ultra is an amazing device,
Speaker 1: but they make you pick do you want the most
Speaker 1: amazing phone Samsung has to offer, or do you want
Speaker 1: a more pocketable phone, which is the S twenty two
Speaker 1: Plus or the S twenty two, which are not as good.
Speaker 2: They're not the same phone.
Speaker 1: It's not the same phone across the lineup, and so
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things that makes life just
Speaker 1: a little bit trickier. So, with all that said, do
Speaker 1: you get a new iPhone and switch from the S
Speaker 1: twenty two Ultra. So I don't really feel like you
Speaker 1: need to unless there's something that's lacking in your relationship
Speaker 1: with this phone. So if everyone you text is a
Speaker 1: blue bubble and you feel like you're being left out
Speaker 1: and you feel like you want to be on that
Speaker 1: train and people are giving you a hard time, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe you want to switch. I hate that peer pressure,
Speaker 1: and so I don't think that's a good reason because
Speaker 1: that's sort of an Apple manufactured reason, And I don't
Speaker 1: think you should. You should, you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: that should make you go over to the other side.
Speaker 2: Camera.
Speaker 1: I think the camera on the S twenty two Ultra
Speaker 1: is excellent I think that the video on the iPhone
Speaker 1: is is a little bit better, maybe maybe even more better,
Speaker 1: maybe even a little bit better than better, Like I
Speaker 1: like to me, it's tough to trust any other video
Speaker 1: on any other phone, but this Samsung is excellent. The pictures,
Speaker 1: I would say, are both on par with each other.
Speaker 1: I think that the iPhone is maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: easier sometimes because there's less features, But there are so
Speaker 1: many cool features about the S twenty two Ultra, like
Speaker 1: the customization. Everything that you're used to as an Android user.
Speaker 1: A lot of that stuff goes away when you're an
Speaker 1: iPhone user because iPhone you're not able to customize as much.
Speaker 1: So it's just the way the phone works and taking
Speaker 1: pictures of let's see your grandson. So if you take
Speaker 1: a lot of pictures, it depends are you're taking pictures
Speaker 1: of people? Are you taking pictures of things? So I
Speaker 1: think that it sort of depends. It's just how do
Speaker 1: you feel. Do you feel like you're ready for something new?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you want to stick with what
Speaker 1: you got? You've got the newest, latest, greatest Android, so
Speaker 1: you're in a pretty good position if you feel like
Speaker 1: you're taking pictures and you know, fifty percent of them
Speaker 1: are not very good, then maybe you switch over and
Speaker 1: see what the deal is on the other side with
Speaker 1: the iPhone. But good question, Thanks for asking it, Janet.
Speaker 1: All right, speaking of iOS, if you're using of VPN
Speaker 1: on iOS and I get a lot of questions about VPNs,
Speaker 1: you know, VPNs are basically small software applications that tunnel
Speaker 1: your Internet connection through them to hide your activity from
Speaker 1: other people, like anyone that might be on the line,
Speaker 1: which is pretty rare, but if you're on a Wi
Speaker 1: Fi network, perhaps that can happen. Or maybe you know
Speaker 1: you want to access a website and you don't want
Speaker 1: your ISP, your Internet service provider to see that. That
Speaker 1: is how a VPN can protect you. And you know
Speaker 1: VPNs for work, they help you access your corporate servers
Speaker 1: from a regular consumer device. And the way that does
Speaker 1: that is that it kind of fakes the connection. Imagine
Speaker 1: you took a long Ethernet cable from your workplace and
Speaker 1: dragged it to your house, like, stretched it all the
Speaker 1: way to your house and then plugged it into your phone.
Speaker 1: That's basically what your work VPN does, except it does
Speaker 1: it wirelessly.
Speaker 2: It kind of creates that secure.
Speaker 1: One to one connection with your work computers that allow
Speaker 1: you to access things you can't access on the open web.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of the same thing with just websites.
Speaker 1: So if you're going to websites, nobody else can see
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Now the caveat is if you're using
Speaker 1: your corporate VPN, I would not use that for personal
Speaker 1: because your work can see everything that you do on there.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to a VPN, you want to
Speaker 1: choose one that is a no log VPN and don't
Speaker 1: use the free ones. They're not very good as far
Speaker 1: as many of the researchers have told me. So with
Speaker 1: all of that said, a security reacher has said that
Speaker 1: Apple's iOS devices don't really work that well when it
Speaker 1: comes to VPNs, So there could be a potential security
Speaker 1: issue because you would think when you activate the VPN,
Speaker 1: all of your connections would now go through that VPN,
Speaker 1: But it turns out, due to iOS architecture, some connections
Speaker 1: to apps and websites and things they sort of stay
Speaker 1: persistent and they aren't rerouted through the VPN when you
Speaker 1: activate it, which is kind of a surprise. You would
Speaker 1: think that wouldn't happen. Oh, the solution apparently by the way,
Speaker 1: it's been going on since May twenty twenty. Solution and
Speaker 1: it's pretty effective, is that you want to open up
Speaker 1: your VPN, then you want to turn on airplane mode
Speaker 1: and then turn it off and then that should you know,
Speaker 1: like basically switch airplane mode on and off and that
Speaker 1: should help. Now here's the caveat to all this. Do
Speaker 1: not use the airplane mode that is in your control center.
Speaker 1: So that's the one that you pull down from the
Speaker 1: upper right hand corner of your phone and then you
Speaker 1: press a little airplane icon.
Speaker 2: If you do.
Speaker 1: That, that does not necessarily turn off all of your
Speaker 1: connections because it typically leaves Bluetooth.
Speaker 2: And Wi Fi on.
Speaker 1: So that you can continue connecting the things. Depending on
Speaker 1: the situation, like if you're on an airplane, sometimes airplane
Speaker 1: mode will actually leave Wi Fi on or bluetooths that
Speaker 1: you can continue listening to your headphones or you can
Speaker 1: connect to the Wi Fi on the plane. So what
Speaker 1: you want to do is go into settings and once
Speaker 1: you go in the settings, you can activate airplane mode
Speaker 1: there and that actually turns off the Wi Fi. Oh well,
Speaker 1: it left Bluetooth on, so what do I know? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's odd. So it left that's weird. So that's strange.
Speaker 1: Why would it do that? Why would it leave the
Speaker 1: bluetooth on? So I guess it turned off Wi Fi
Speaker 1: and cellular, which are the two important ones for the VPN.
Speaker 1: But that's what I would do if you're using a
Speaker 1: VPN as just kind of flip the airplane mode on
Speaker 1: and off, and that should give you a little bit
Speaker 1: more security. And it's not foolproof, but hopefully it should
Speaker 1: be pretty effective. All right, let's see Octavio says, hey,
Speaker 1: Rich for iPhone thirteen, do we even need a phone
Speaker 1: protecting case anymore?
Speaker 2: Have you seen their video? Yes?
Speaker 1: I have, And I know that Apple came out with
Speaker 1: a commercial that is saying that the iPhone is super durable.
Speaker 1: I think it falls falls over and it you know,
Speaker 1: it's like this great thing, you know, falls off the table.
Speaker 1: But the reality is I still think that you need Look,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you what to do with your phone.
Speaker 1: I will tell you what I like.
Speaker 2: And I like my.
Speaker 1: Phone after a year of use to look like new
Speaker 1: and so for that reason, and I hate cracks on
Speaker 1: my phone. I hate scuffs on my phone. I don't
Speaker 1: want any of that stuff on my phone at all,
Speaker 1: because if I ever have a rough edge on my phone,
Speaker 1: what does my hand do all day on that edge?
Speaker 1: It feels the rough edge I bought Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: it was so long ago, but I bought the They
Speaker 1: used to come out with these oh gosh, I can't
Speaker 1: even remember what they called it, but it was like
Speaker 1: a basically a pixel version before it was called the
Speaker 1: Pixel of the Samsung phones. And so they would come
Speaker 1: out with the Samsung but then I know, this is
Speaker 1: so wild to think about, but they would come out
Speaker 1: with another version that is it was completely a Google
Speaker 1: kind of you know, I think they call it ASoP,
Speaker 1: which it's just like the Android that is not affected,
Speaker 1: Like there's kind of the pixel as we know it
Speaker 1: like just a standard operating system where it's not you know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing you know, flavored about it. You know, they
Speaker 1: don't put any software on it, they don't put any
Speaker 1: extra apps.
Speaker 2: It's just like the Plaine Vanilla Android. Right.
Speaker 1: And so I bought that phone one time from Samsung
Speaker 1: and it was like, you know, whatever it was back then,
Speaker 1: six hundred bucks and like literally day two, I'm putting
Speaker 1: it in my pocket, and then you know that little
Speaker 1: like that little gene like that little what's it like
Speaker 1: that little metal piece on your jeans, like on the
Speaker 1: pocket that I don't know what it does, like a mallet.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they call it, but it kind
Speaker 1: of holds your genes together. I guess it's like almost
Speaker 1: like a giant ring kind of staple. I know there's
Speaker 1: a term for it. I just can't think of it.
Speaker 1: But I scratched the screen on there like the second day,
Speaker 1: and I was so annoyed because there's nothing I could do.
Speaker 1: I hadn't put on a screen protector, and it just
Speaker 1: like that was it, And so I ended up calling Samsung.
Speaker 1: I forget if I went through like some sort of
Speaker 1: I went through I think my credit card protection, which
Speaker 1: of course it was like sorry, no help there. It's
Speaker 1: like whatever it was. Maybe I was out of my room.
Speaker 1: Maybe it wasn't day two, maybe it was day sixty.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it was. It just was annoying.
Speaker 2: And anyway, I tell you this because I like to
Speaker 2: put a screen protector on my phone.
Speaker 1: I like to put a nice case on there because
Speaker 1: I think that these phones can last a long time.
Speaker 1: And I see a lot of people walking around with
Speaker 1: damaged screens and damaged cases on their phone, like damaged backs,
Speaker 1: and so you get that if you carry your phone naked,
Speaker 1: and yes, I get it. It feels great, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's such a nice device. But why put yourself through
Speaker 1: all that stress of always worrying about dropping your phone
Speaker 1: or always worrying about cracking your phone.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Maybe do the math. Maybe instead of buying.
Speaker 1: A fifty dollars case, put that fifty bucks in a
Speaker 1: little envelope, and then you know, when you need a repair,
Speaker 1: just take that fifty dollars and put it towards it.
Speaker 1: And if you get if you're gonna get two cases
Speaker 1: over two years.
Speaker 2: But the extra fifty bucks in the envelope. Again, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe most people have Apple Care and they just don't
Speaker 1: even care about this stuff. But I personally just like
Speaker 1: the phone to physically be nice and clean and and
Speaker 1: and just not messy, like not all you know, mucked up,
Speaker 1: And so it just feels nicer to have the case
Speaker 1: on there. I'm using my phone in all kinds of
Speaker 1: different places, all kinds of different shoots and stuff, and
Speaker 1: it's just nice to know that if it drops or
Speaker 1: if it falls like yesterday, it fell to the gym
Speaker 1: and you know, you do that thing where it falls
Speaker 1: face first and you kind of lifted up slowly to
Speaker 1: see if the screen shattered, and it didn't.
Speaker 2: But it's just I feel better that way.
Speaker 1: So all right, what should we talk about next.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the Jamba robot.
Speaker 1: So I went to Jamba, or I went to UCLA
Speaker 1: at their campus in West Los Angeles, and there's this
Speaker 1: Jamba robot. So it's actually a company called Blended b
Speaker 1: L E N D I D. This is a startup
Speaker 1: that is making a SMOOTHI robot. Now they're actually making
Speaker 1: just food like AI food robots, but I guess this
Speaker 1: is one of them, or maybe their first I don't know,
Speaker 1: but anyway, this is our flagship product. But it's a
Speaker 1: self contained, fully automated kiosk. It requires just like eight
Speaker 1: by eight to operate, so it's a small area. It
Speaker 1: holds up to twenty ingredients, and it just requires a
Speaker 1: few hours of restocking a day. So they someone told
Speaker 1: me there that they only need two hours a day
Speaker 1: kind of to get this thing up and running in
Speaker 1: the morning and just make sure it's maintained obviously there's
Speaker 1: someone nearby in case something goes wrong, Like I'm talking
Speaker 1: a person nearby for all of the locations, not like
Speaker 1: just sitting there by the smoothie. This is like or
Speaker 1: buy the machine. This is self contained. I'm sure if
Speaker 1: something goes wrong it would text someone to come over.
Speaker 1: The robot uses artificial intelligence and hardware to fulfill orders
Speaker 1: on demand. You can order a phone or a tablet
Speaker 1: on the kiosk. You can slide to customize your ingredients.
Speaker 1: You can choose your ad ins, like if you want
Speaker 1: like the energy powder or the protein powder. The robot
Speaker 1: has nine cameras so it can see the ingredients, and
Speaker 1: the mechanical arm works on multiple smoothies at once, so
Speaker 1: it can work on nine smoothies at the same time.
Speaker 1: It also, you know, puts some of them under the spencers.
Speaker 1: It's washing other ones, it's serving other ones. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's pretty wild to watch this thing. And when it's
Speaker 1: not in use, it makes a little dance, which is
Speaker 1: kind of cool. The only thing I thought was really
Speaker 1: kind of ironic about this whole situation. And by the way,
Speaker 1: there was so many students. I mean, this thing was
Speaker 1: busy the entire time I was at it. There was
Speaker 1: not a moment. There was one moment where it was
Speaker 1: had some downtime. That's when it did the little celebration dance.
Speaker 1: But I'm not kidding. It was a steady flow of
Speaker 1: students and they weren't even classesn't even in session yet.
Speaker 1: These are just like summer school students and campers and.
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So I thought that this was pretty wild because the
Speaker 1: ironic part is that the blending actually takes place out
Speaker 1: of view. And I asked one of the employees and
Speaker 1: I was like, what's the deal with that, because wouldn't
Speaker 1: that be the most fun to see the smoothies being
Speaker 1: you know, sort of swirled up. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of the messiest part of the process. We'd
Speaker 1: rather keep it out of sight. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I think that's a little bit of a misstep. Like
Speaker 1: I think that the blending is actually the best part.
Speaker 1: But whatever, I mean, it's not my robot. So they've
Speaker 1: got a half a dozen of these robots operating at
Speaker 1: college campuses, malls, and even a Walmart. And then they
Speaker 1: also have this cool little feature at the end where
Speaker 1: they've got these magnetic sliders it's tough to describe. But
Speaker 1: when the robot is done pouring the drink, instead of
Speaker 1: the robot sort of sliding the drink, they have these
Speaker 1: two pickup windows because the whole thing is enclosed in
Speaker 1: like a plexiglass.
Speaker 2: So they have these two pickup windows.
Speaker 1: And you know, they rotate kind of like a bank
Speaker 1: teller window that rotates open and closed. But it slides
Speaker 1: the smoothie into this pickup window. But it's not the
Speaker 1: robot arm that's doing it. It's two little like magnetic
Speaker 1: sliders on the table that they remind me of. I
Speaker 1: think it's called thing from the Adams family, you know,
Speaker 1: a little hand. It almost reminds me of that because
Speaker 1: it's just moving the cup by itself. And it was anyway,
Speaker 1: it was really cool. So this smoothie robot, I get it.
Speaker 1: It sort of went a little bit wild on my
Speaker 1: Instagram because people are saying this is you know, this
Speaker 1: is evil, this is terrible, Like what about jobs for people?
Speaker 2: And you know, I get it.
Speaker 1: I mean I understand that we're seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: automation in food and every person I talk to says
Speaker 1: people don't want these jobs. Now, I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's true or not, but I can tell you just
Speaker 1: from me going out and about that every restaurant I
Speaker 1: go to has a help wanted sign and I asked them,
Speaker 1: they say, yeah, we can't. We can't hire people for
Speaker 1: these positions. Nobody wants to do it. And it's I
Speaker 1: don't know if nobody wants to do it, but it's
Speaker 1: just one of these things where you know, in California,
Speaker 1: they're paying more and more for these, you know, entry
Speaker 1: level jobs at restaurants, but you see that they just
Speaker 1: still need people. And so a lot of these companies
Speaker 1: are focused on how do we get around this this
Speaker 1: employee labor shortage and make these things at a price
Speaker 1: that's reasonable.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I think some of it is sort of they see
Speaker 1: the writing on the wall. They want, they want things
Speaker 1: to be They want costs to go down, and humans
Speaker 1: are expensive and a robot's expensive initially, but over time
Speaker 1: I think it brings a lot of the costs down because,
Speaker 1: like the person we interviewed said, there's no sick days,
Speaker 1: there's no bad hair days. They can get into little
Speaker 1: spaces that they couldn't. So if a location they want
Speaker 1: only has a tiny little space, they can get in
Speaker 1: there because this is such a small eight by eight box,
Speaker 1: so I thought it was pretty cool. You can let
Speaker 1: me know what you think of it on my website
Speaker 1: or on my Instagram. It is at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: All right, final question, Kim Peterson says, Hey, rich thanks
Speaker 1: for your post about Disney Plus and Hulu bundles. Let's
Speaker 1: see I lost my question and Hulu ESPN bundles, so
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you know of any bundles with just
Speaker 1: Disney Plus and Hulu, no ESPN.
Speaker 2: I do not watch sports. Thank you, Kim. Kim, great question.
Speaker 2: I think you're referring to.
Speaker 1: Last week because they had, you know, they had a
Speaker 1: whole situation where Disney is raising prices and so is
Speaker 1: Hulu and you know whatever. So I don't want to
Speaker 1: rehash that whole thing. But the bottom line is Disney
Speaker 1: prices are going up, and I think Hulu and ESPN have.
Speaker 2: Either gone up or they're going up, but the bundle
Speaker 2: is not.
Speaker 1: So the bundle is staying at nineteen ninety nine a month,
Speaker 1: and I think this is one of those examples of
Speaker 1: really good marketing a manufactured issue. So they're making all
Speaker 1: the prices go up of the individual services, which when
Speaker 1: you do the math, if you add them up, you're like, hmm,
Speaker 1: shouldn't I just get all three and I'll pay either
Speaker 1: a little bit more or you know, a little bit
Speaker 1: less than I'm paying for them separately. Well, the reality
Speaker 1: is yet, like you said, you don't need ESPN. And
Speaker 1: this sort of reminds me of the triple play that
Speaker 1: the cable companies did for a very long time. So
Speaker 1: many many people, yourself included, might have had a phone
Speaker 1: line for many years that you just didn't need. But
Speaker 1: it was cheaper to have the bundle with the phone
Speaker 1: line than it was to have the bundle with just
Speaker 1: Internet and TV. And nowadays the Internet is the most
Speaker 1: important thing to many people, and so it's almost gotten
Speaker 1: to the point where the Internet is almost as expensive
Speaker 1: by itself as it was with the Internet and TV
Speaker 1: as it was with the internet, TV and phone line.
Speaker 1: So Disney knows this all. Look like I said in
Speaker 1: the last week's episode, the free ride is over these
Speaker 1: streaming services, the delivery services. They are not subsidizing our
Speaker 1: lifestyle and convenience anymore. It's gotten real. They've gotten to
Speaker 1: a point where the saturation is there. They know the
Speaker 1: customer base is there. They know people like their shows,
Speaker 1: they've gotten accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and they just said,
Speaker 1: you know what, this is what we're doing. We're going
Speaker 1: to raise the prices because we know that people are
Speaker 1: gonna do this. We know that people are gonna stick
Speaker 1: with it, and if a couple of them don't, it's
Speaker 1: fine because they know there's gonna be more people on board.
Speaker 1: Because what's the alternative, and you know it's the alternative
Speaker 1: to Netflix is no Netflix?
Speaker 2: So what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: You're gonna subscribe to cable Again, Probably not so good question,
Speaker 1: and it's definitely one of those frustrating things where it's
Speaker 1: just do you need it? No, but you have it,
Speaker 1: and then you feel like you got to use it.
Speaker 2: That's gonna do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
Speaker 1: just go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash
Speaker 1: rich on Tech hit the big blue send email button,
Speaker 1: or go to rich on Tech dot tv and hit
Speaker 1: the email icon. Also, I would love it if you
Speaker 1: would rate and review this podcast. Just go to the
Speaker 1: listening app of your choice write a quick line about
Speaker 1: what you like about this show to help other people
Speaker 1: understand why they should listen. You can find me on
Speaker 1: social media. I am at Rich on tech and no
Speaker 1: matter where you live in the US, you can download
Speaker 1: the free KTLA plus app on Apple TV, fireTV, and Roku.
Speaker 1: Once you do, scroll to the tech section and watch
Speaker 1: all of my TV segments on demand. My name is
Speaker 1: Rich dmiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so
Speaker 1: many ways you can spend an hour of your time.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate you spending it with me. I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you real soon.