Speaker 1: Yes, the iPhone twelve will be delayed. Ces goes all
Speaker 1: digital people are renting out their backyard pools. Plus your
Speaker 1: tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Dmiro and
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: It's also where I answer the questions you send me.
Speaker 1: And yes, you send a lot of them, and if
Speaker 1: you've ever sent me one, you know I probably do
Speaker 1: reply most of the time. My name is Rich Dmiro,
Speaker 1: tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Come
Speaker 1: in to you today live everywhere on Facebook and the podcast.
Speaker 1: If you're listening live, thanks for tuning in. If you're
Speaker 1: listening on the podcast, thanks for tuning in. This is
Speaker 1: where I just get a little bit more time to
Speaker 1: complete my thoughts. So you know me from TV on
Speaker 1: KTLA and other stations nationwide, but this is where I
Speaker 1: get to kind of talk about things a little bit longer,
Speaker 1: give you the information I think you need to know.
Speaker 1: And this week a couple of things happened. Number One,
Speaker 1: I upgraded my internet, which was a big deal because
Speaker 1: my internet here was fine at my house. But I
Speaker 1: got an offer, not an offer, but they basically wired
Speaker 1: my neighborhood for like a thousand, this gigabit internet, and
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, I want a thousand. And
Speaker 1: the reason why I wanted the faster internet not really
Speaker 1: because my download speeds were bad at all. They were
Speaker 1: actually fine. It's really the upload speeds that when you're
Speaker 1: with most companies, they give you a fast download and
Speaker 1: then the upload is a little bit slower. And so
Speaker 1: with this service, my upload and download is the same.
Speaker 1: It's a thousand both ways. And yeah, I checked, I'm
Speaker 1: getting a thousand. The only problem is my internet totally
Speaker 1: was terrible for the first week, and I've been noticing
Speaker 1: some quirks with that. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: I'm still working through it. Today I'm getting a new
Speaker 1: I always recommend EUO, so today I am getting a
Speaker 1: new euro so I can put it in my office
Speaker 1: and see if that makes things better. The one thing
Speaker 1: I've realized that I did not know is that most
Speaker 1: of these most of these euro Internet systems, like these
Speaker 1: MESH systems, are only rated for about five hundred megabits
Speaker 1: per second, and so mine being a thousand was not
Speaker 1: getting through. So what I needed to do is upgrade
Speaker 1: to what's called a tryband. I know this is getting
Speaker 1: in the weeds here, but anyway, I did so much
Speaker 1: research cause I'm like, why am I not getting the
Speaker 1: fastest speed possible in my office? And this is what
Speaker 1: I came down to. Sounds like I need a new
Speaker 1: euro with a higher speed. It's called EUO Pro and
Speaker 1: you know, so anyway, that's arriving today. I'm very excited
Speaker 1: and hopefully I'll have perfect internet when that's all done.
Speaker 1: The other little tip I want to give you, by
Speaker 1: the way, if you ever change your internet or change
Speaker 1: your router or whatever, use the same Wi Fi name
Speaker 1: and password and all of your products will follow through.
Speaker 1: So don't don't change your Wi Fi. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you have a terrible password and terrible you know system
Speaker 1: network name, you can change it. I used to change
Speaker 1: mine all the time, just for fun. My wife used
Speaker 1: to always give me a hard time. Why is the
Speaker 1: WiFi always changing? I just thought it was fun to
Speaker 1: like change the network. That was back when I had
Speaker 1: like three things on the on the network. Now that
Speaker 1: you know, we all have so many devices in our homes.
Speaker 1: You know, when you change your Wi Fi network, you
Speaker 1: have to reconnect all these things. Chrome cast all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's it's a pain. So if you
Speaker 1: use the same what they call SSID, your network and
Speaker 1: also your password, everything will follow through to the new network.
Speaker 1: So a little bit of information for you there. The
Speaker 1: other thing I've been testing out this week is the
Speaker 1: new wisecam outdoor, which is just fantastic. By the way,
Speaker 1: one screw to put that thing up outside so easy,
Speaker 1: and you put the screw in. It's magnetic to the base.
Speaker 1: It's you know, yes, someone could pull that off the
Speaker 1: base easily, but hopefully people aren't doing that. I don't
Speaker 1: really hear too many rings being stolen around town. I
Speaker 1: don't think people are walking around to people's houses stealing
Speaker 1: digital video cameras, but it could happen because it's just
Speaker 1: magnetically attached to the base. But the magnet is strong.
Speaker 1: People were asking about that. I'm still kind of testing it.
Speaker 1: It actually took me a little bit to figure out
Speaker 1: how the recording worked on the camera, the cloud recording.
Speaker 1: I finally found it and you have to actually go
Speaker 1: to the main part of the app, not into the
Speaker 1: camera part of the app. So I figured that out,
Speaker 1: so now I'm testing it. The image is crystal clear.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna measure how far the camera is from my
Speaker 1: base because people were asking, since it's wireless, how much
Speaker 1: is the range? You have to have this little base
Speaker 1: station near your router, and then you put the camera
Speaker 1: wherever you want, and I think it's maybe. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I gotta check. I'm not even gonna say how far
Speaker 1: it is because I'm not really sure. And then at
Speaker 1: this point, I can't imagine why I would not buy
Speaker 1: more wise outdoor cameras because each base station works with
Speaker 1: four cameras, and the cameras are forty dollars each, So
Speaker 1: why sent me the Tester camera and the Tester kit,
Speaker 1: which is fifty dollars to start? Each camera after that
Speaker 1: is forty So I'm gonna order a bunch of more
Speaker 1: cameras and put them everywhere. Why not? I mean at
Speaker 1: this price. The one thing I noticed, though, so they
Speaker 1: give you free cloud storage. It's twelve seconds every time
Speaker 1: there's a motion. But there's what's called a cooling off period,
Speaker 1: and so if your camera records something for twelve seconds
Speaker 1: then waits, the default is five minutes until the next recording.
Speaker 1: So for some people that may not work I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tweak that. I gotta figure out if that's good, if
Speaker 1: that's bad. I mean most of the time that's just fine.
Speaker 1: Twelve seconds should be enough to kind of see what's
Speaker 1: going on with your camera that's going on. The other
Speaker 1: thing is the earthquake. We had a big well it
Speaker 1: wasn't big, but we had an earthquake. We had several
Speaker 1: earthquakes here in Los Angeles this week, and wow, nothing
Speaker 1: like an earthquake to just rattle your bones, rattle your spirit,
Speaker 1: rattle your brain. And I was sitting right here at
Speaker 1: this very desk when the earthquake started shaking the house.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't a huge earthquake, but you never know
Speaker 1: if they're going to be big or not. When they start,
Speaker 1: it just starts where you're just like, wait, was did
Speaker 1: someone just move something in the house not at four
Speaker 1: thirty am? Or is this an earthquake? And yes, it
Speaker 1: was an earthquake. The main thing that is concerning me
Speaker 1: about these earthquakes are these apps that people are downloading
Speaker 1: with the early warning. They seem to be all over
Speaker 1: the place. There are three major ones in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: the one from the city. There's one called Quake Alert,
Speaker 1: and then there's one called are there one called my
Speaker 1: shake or something like that. I should get these names
Speaker 1: right before I talk about them. And then there is
Speaker 1: the one that I use, which is quake Alert. Yeah,
Speaker 1: quake Alert, So that's the one I like. I've met
Speaker 1: the person who created this. They all use the same
Speaker 1: data from the USGS, but they work in slightly different ways.
Speaker 1: And the main thing about these apps is that they
Speaker 1: are at the mercy of these cellular networks and the
Speaker 1: notifications may not be delivered in a timely manner, so
Speaker 1: that's the main thing. But I still think you should
Speaker 1: have one on your phone if you live in California. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the earthquake just shook everyone up. It was not that
Speaker 1: big of a deal, but we did have a bunch
Speaker 1: of aftershocks too, which is kind of wild. Anyway. It
Speaker 1: just makes you realize you live in Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: I hope twenty twenty is not the year of the
Speaker 1: big one, because oh my gosh, it's like we've had
Speaker 1: enough here in Los Angeles. All right, let me get
Speaker 1: to the first big story of the week. Cees is
Speaker 1: going virtual and CS said that they were going to
Speaker 1: have the big gadget show in Las Vegas as normal,
Speaker 1: and guess what. After a couple of weeks they said, eh,
Speaker 1: you know what, nevermind, we're not going to do that.
Speaker 1: So CS twenty twenty one, which is January sixth through ninth,
Speaker 1: will be all digital. And I have no idea how
Speaker 1: this is going to work. I've been doing a bunch
Speaker 1: of digital briefings with various tech companies and it's just
Speaker 1: not the same. You can't go hands on with the gadgets,
Speaker 1: you can't really get a feel for things, and the
Speaker 1: event itself is like a snoozer. I mean, I'm saying,
Speaker 1: and you're checking my email while I'm watching some presentation
Speaker 1: on new TVs or a new phone or whatever. Just
Speaker 1: not the same. And also CS is about the sites
Speaker 1: and sounds of CS. How do you have that in
Speaker 1: a virtual conference? So this year is going to be
Speaker 1: a dud. I'll just call it right now. The CS
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one will just be not very exciting for journalists,
Speaker 1: for people, for the media, for the coverage, for the companies.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of sad to me because I always
Speaker 1: look forward to that event no matter how much work
Speaker 1: it is, and it is a ton of work and
Speaker 1: this year. It's just not going to be a very
Speaker 1: great experience for anyone all around. I'm sure CS is
Speaker 1: losing a ton of money on this, the Consumer Technology Association.
Speaker 1: I'm not crying for them, believe me. But it's one
Speaker 1: of these things where it's just it's another sign of
Speaker 1: the times. And this also extends this sort of pandemic
Speaker 1: into January, and people might say, well, Rich, there might
Speaker 1: be a vaccine by then, or it might be over
Speaker 1: this by then. We don't know. And the problem is
Speaker 1: you have to plan right now for January. So I
Speaker 1: tell a company that's coming from Hong Kong, or a
Speaker 1: company that's coming from China, or a company that's coming
Speaker 1: from I don't know if Australia comes, but you know
Speaker 1: European companies. All these people have to converge to Las
Speaker 1: Vegas and they have to plan to come to Vegas.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have these things in process, you
Speaker 1: can't plan for January. When you don't know if things
Speaker 1: are gonna be good by November, you can't start November.
Speaker 1: So that's why they did this CS again happening the
Speaker 1: first week of January. They say CS twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: will be back to a physical and a digital show.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the first question question today
Speaker 1: from Cindy. Cindy says, Hey, Rich, I have a quick question.
Speaker 1: I can't seem to access my old texts I have
Speaker 1: saved forever. I have saved forever, toggled on on my iPhone,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing. And I have my iCloud option as well
Speaker 1: on messages, and I logged onto my iCloud and the
Speaker 1: option for messages is not there. Yes, you have to
Speaker 1: discovered something that is really quite annoying. And I don't
Speaker 1: know what Apple's deal is with text messages, but they
Speaker 1: love to hijack our texts and I don't know if
Speaker 1: it I don't know if it's because we just love
Speaker 1: text messaging and they feel like that's a really sticky
Speaker 1: area where they can get people locked into their phones.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, and this happens on Android too,
Speaker 1: not so much. But text messaging is is just one
Speaker 1: of these things where you want it, like email, no
Speaker 1: matter where you log in, you just want to see
Speaker 1: your text messages. And clearly this is not happening. And
Speaker 1: so what you noticed is that you went to iCloud
Speaker 1: dot com. You would assume like you saw photos and
Speaker 1: you saw contacts that you would just see messages. Nope,
Speaker 1: not there. I don't know why. It seems like it
Speaker 1: would be very simple for them to just put your
Speaker 1: messages into iCloud and say, hey, you can download them
Speaker 1: as you know, some sort of comma separated value file whatever.
Speaker 1: Just give me a way to download my messages. Can't
Speaker 1: find it. So the way that you access these messages
Speaker 1: is there's a couple ways. You can transfer them to
Speaker 1: a new iPhone during setup. Okay, you can download them
Speaker 1: to your Mac computer with I Messages, but again no
Speaker 1: way to export. Or you can use a third party
Speaker 1: program to access the file that Apple puts in a
Speaker 1: secret place in your iTunes backup to get your messages.
Speaker 1: All three of these options are terrible and I don't
Speaker 1: know why our messages are hijacked. I find this to
Speaker 1: be very annoying. When you switch phones, you go from
Speaker 1: an Android to or sorry iOS to Android. Some of
Speaker 1: the manufacturers, like Samsung or Google, they try to extract
Speaker 1: your messages. Doesn't always work. I read these things all
Speaker 1: the time. People are like, I can't get access to
Speaker 1: my messages. I don't know why the messages has become
Speaker 1: such a I don't know, it's just very tough to
Speaker 1: get a hold of anyway, Cindy, I don't have a
Speaker 1: very good explanation for you, but there's a if you
Speaker 1: look at a website called Wondershare dot com doctor Phone,
Speaker 1: they make a lot of software that can help you
Speaker 1: recover these things. And Jose is saying in the chat,
Speaker 1: not true for Google Voice, and Jose, you are so right.
Speaker 1: In fact, I have almost wanted to switch over to
Speaker 1: Google Voice again. I used to use Google Voice religiously,
Speaker 1: but it got kind of annoying because you know, the
Speaker 1: whole like, it's just it's a lot to use Google
Speaker 1: Voice because the way it works. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get into it, but yes, I almost want to switch
Speaker 1: back to Google Voice, just so I can finally have
Speaker 1: all of my texts in one place without having to
Speaker 1: think are they being deleted when I switch phones or
Speaker 1: which you know, when did you? How did you text me?
Speaker 1: But the problem is people love I Message, and I
Speaker 1: Message is sort of the gold standard with messaging. But
Speaker 1: the fact is if you use it, your messages are
Speaker 1: hijacked by Apple forever until they figure out away or
Speaker 1: they know a way. But they don't want to give
Speaker 1: us access. I don't know why. So yes, Jose, I
Speaker 1: totally agree. Google Voice is a great solution. In fact,
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm thinking of switching back to that
Speaker 1: just for the idea of my text messages being in
Speaker 1: one place, archived forever. I can search for a text
Speaker 1: that I wrote in twenty fifteen and it's still there,
Speaker 1: whereas with I Message every time. I finally set my
Speaker 1: messages on I Message to just be a year because
Speaker 1: I'm so sick of like, I can't do anything with
Speaker 1: these messages. Even though I'm saving them forever, I can't
Speaker 1: access them in an easy way, So what's the point
Speaker 1: of saving them forever? Not to mention the fact that
Speaker 1: they take up like seven gigs of your iCloud. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's the other solution. Now. The other thing is if
Speaker 1: you have an Android, it's much easier. You can use
Speaker 1: an app called SMS Backup and Restore. It's fantastic, and
Speaker 1: messages on Android are much more open source in nature,
Speaker 1: where you can actually download these back them up to
Speaker 1: Google Drive. I have this set to back up to
Speaker 1: Google Drive automatically. It's so easy SMS backup and restore
Speaker 1: is a super easy pro and it just works. It
Speaker 1: just takes your messages and puts them on a new phone.
Speaker 1: I used to use an app called Pulse, which was
Speaker 1: an app that would save all your messages in the
Speaker 1: cloud as well. It was their cloud, but it was
Speaker 1: very easy and it worked. And this an independent developer
Speaker 1: and he does a really nice job of kind of
Speaker 1: putting all your messages in the cloud. So that's another option.
Speaker 1: But here's the other thing. Most people are not like me.
Speaker 1: They're not switching phones, not testing new phones. They don't
Speaker 1: really need their SMS messages across a whole bunch of devices.
Speaker 1: But I do think it would be nice just to
Speaker 1: be able to have these things saved forever. All right,
Speaker 1: great question, Cindy. You got me really going here at
Speaker 1: the first question. Let me, since we're on this topic,
Speaker 1: let me talk about backing up your phone. You have
Speaker 1: no idea how many emails I get from people about
Speaker 1: losing stuff on their phone. Rich, I lost all my pictures,
Speaker 1: I lost all my voicemails, I lost all my texts.
Speaker 1: I lost You gotta back up your phone. And I
Speaker 1: know now I'm preaching here, but the reality is people
Speaker 1: email me. I have to sit there and read the
Speaker 1: sad emails and say, I don't really think there's a
Speaker 1: way to get back your stuff. Yeah, you can take
Speaker 1: your phone to a repair clinic and see if they
Speaker 1: can maybe fish out some of your old emails, your
Speaker 1: old text your old pictures. You know, people email me
Speaker 1: that I lost all my pictures of my granddaughter, I
Speaker 1: lost all my pictures of my newborn. I can't really
Speaker 1: help you if you don't back up your phone. You
Speaker 1: have to back up your phone. That is the only
Speaker 1: way that your phone will be backed up in case
Speaker 1: of a problem. So let me tell you about what
Speaker 1: Google's doing to kind of help you out with this.
Speaker 1: And they have a new feature called Google One, which
Speaker 1: this has been a feature for Google for a while,
Speaker 1: but now they're expanding it to make it a little
Speaker 1: bit easier to back up your phone whether you're on
Speaker 1: Android or iOS. So it's basically an app called Google One.
Speaker 1: You install this on your Android phone and you can
Speaker 1: back up stuff. So you can back up various things.
Speaker 1: See let's see what can you back up. You can
Speaker 1: back up your photos, your videos, your contacts, and your
Speaker 1: calendar and so that is on the iPhone side, again,
Speaker 1: not your SMS messages, which would have been really nice
Speaker 1: for Google to try to figure out how to do that.
Speaker 1: Maybe they can't. So again, at the minimum, if you
Speaker 1: have an iPhone and you hate iCloud, at the minimum,
Speaker 1: just install this new iOS app called Google One on
Speaker 1: your iPhone and let it back up your photos, your videos,
Speaker 1: your contacts, and your calendar. Boom. It's free for fifteen gigabytes.
Speaker 1: This is on Android as well. I think Android goes
Speaker 1: a little bit further in what they allow you to
Speaker 1: back up your on your phone. But to be honest,
Speaker 1: I've had this on my phone and I still can't
Speaker 1: really figure out like the backups like it shows me.
Speaker 1: My backups in Google Drive used to show it there,
Speaker 1: but I guess it doesn't anymore. But it's like anyway,
Speaker 1: just the iOS app is not out just yet, but
Speaker 1: the Android one is and they're upgrading this over the
Speaker 1: next So just be on the lookout for something called
Speaker 1: Google One. At the very least, just back up your phone,
Speaker 1: use iCloud, use Google Photos for your pictures, use one
Speaker 1: Drive for your pictures, use Amazon Photos for your pictures.
Speaker 1: Get your pictures backed up. No matter what, it should
Speaker 1: be a priority that you check on your phone on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. Because here's the other thing. If you
Speaker 1: have an iPhone, especially unless if you're not using iCloud
Speaker 1: and using one of these third party apps like Amazon
Speaker 1: or Google Photos, they're not necessarily backing up on a
Speaker 1: regular basis because iPhone puts them those apps to sleep
Speaker 1: and they're not able to do much in the background.
Speaker 1: So unless you're physically opening that app on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: your pictures are just sitting there, not backed up. So
Speaker 1: remember you have to do that as well, So just
Speaker 1: back up your stuff. That's that's my final that's my
Speaker 1: final answer today. It's just please be sure you do that.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's get to a new question from Angel.
Speaker 1: Angel says, thanks for all you're covering from home these days.
Speaker 1: My college age daughter USC viturbe fight On, Fight On.
Speaker 1: I did go to USC. I don't mention that often,
Speaker 1: but yes I did. My daughter has gotten the green
Speaker 1: light for a podcast on her favorite subject in the world,
Speaker 1: musical theater. She's got a laptop and learning how to
Speaker 1: edit everything on her dad's Mac. But do you have
Speaker 1: mic recommendations that are not going to break the bank?
Speaker 1: I know you didn't early piece on the sound in
Speaker 1: this pandemic, but everything feels like it was years ago,
Speaker 1: even though it was four or five months. Angel in
Speaker 1: San Fernando, California, Home of the rude morning wake up
Speaker 1: call that we all got today, which yes, we all
Speaker 1: got that, and it was I wasn't a wake up
Speaker 1: call for me because I had been up for over
Speaker 1: an hour and a half. But it was a rude
Speaker 1: wake up call no matter what. Okay, So doing a podcast,
Speaker 1: I would say that your daughter should probably look at
Speaker 1: a website called Blue Microphones. So let's see Blue Microphones,
Speaker 1: and okay, I have a graphic on there. Let's see
Speaker 1: Blue Microphones. And I think that these are easy because
Speaker 1: they plug into USB on your computer. They feature great sound.
Speaker 1: They've been kind of the standard for mics for you know,
Speaker 1: web stuff for a long time. But I would look
Speaker 1: at that and you can get Let's see what kinds
Speaker 1: they have here. They've got the yetti. Why can't I
Speaker 1: go in here? Let's see I'm having trouble actually scrolling
Speaker 1: through the website here, So let's see. You've got the
Speaker 1: yetti and the snowball are the two that I like?
Speaker 1: And the YETI they have a whole bunch of different
Speaker 1: price points. They've got one starting at ninety nine, ninety
Speaker 1: nine all the way up to two hundred dollars if
Speaker 1: you want one that has kind of an arm. And
Speaker 1: then they have a snowball mic. They've got a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of snowball mics. They're great. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that you're gonna be happy with any of these. Let's see.
Speaker 1: So for podcasting, they recommend the Yeah, the Snowball, which
Speaker 1: you can get one for as low as fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: And my opinion, when it comes to podcasting, because everyone
Speaker 1: is all over the place with this stuff, you consistency
Speaker 1: is key, but it's tough to stay consistent. Maybe not
Speaker 1: now since we're all home, but I would start with
Speaker 1: a cheaper microphone and just build your way up. You
Speaker 1: don't need to buy all the best stuff at the beginning.
Speaker 1: When I first started my podcast, I did it on
Speaker 1: my iPhone and I just recorded it into the microphone
Speaker 1: on the iPhone, and then I upgraded the microphones over
Speaker 1: the years to get to a place where you know it,
Speaker 1: where I'm doing it consistently, and the microphone also sounds
Speaker 1: the best. So again, just start with a simple one
Speaker 1: and move your way up as you get more into
Speaker 1: your podcast, and you know you're not gonna make money
Speaker 1: off of it. I don't think most people don't, but
Speaker 1: you know, you can just upgrade as you get more
Speaker 1: comfortable with doing the podcast. But good luck with it
Speaker 1: and fight on. It's gonna be a weird, weird year
Speaker 1: for college kids this year because I can't imagine paying
Speaker 1: what USC costs and not getting to go into a
Speaker 1: classroom at USC. That is hopefully this is a time
Speaker 1: temporary thing where maybe we'll get to go back to
Speaker 1: school in January. But as a parent, and I know
Speaker 1: how much my parents paid for USC, it is it
Speaker 1: is a lot. And if I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm doing these by zoom, I don't think that would
Speaker 1: fly with them. I think I would have waited the
Speaker 1: year out. All right, let's move on to a new topic.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the iPhone for a second. Apple released
Speaker 1: their whatever they call the quarterly results. I don't really
Speaker 1: keep track of that stuff because I do consumer stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't really care how much money Apple makes. I
Speaker 1: know they make a ton of it, but I do
Speaker 1: care about the products that are coming out, and they
Speaker 1: did mention in their earnings release that the iPhone twelve, yes,
Speaker 1: is going to be a little bit delayed, not by much.
Speaker 1: The words that they used is a few weeks later
Speaker 1: than last year. So if we look at when the
Speaker 1: iPhone launched last year, iPhone eleven launch date, I believe
Speaker 1: it was September. Here it is September twentieth, So if
Speaker 1: you think a few weeks after that, you're thinking October,
Speaker 1: and we kind of thought that this might be the
Speaker 1: case mid October. So if you're looking to get the
Speaker 1: iPhone twelve, if you're thinking about upgrading, it's probably gonna
Speaker 1: be a little bit later than you thought. The good
Speaker 1: news is they're probably won't be aiding waiting in line
Speaker 1: because no one's going to stores right now. I don't
Speaker 1: even know if the Apple stores reopened or not, because
Speaker 1: I know they opened and then they closed and they
Speaker 1: back opened. But this is the uh, this, this is
Speaker 1: the reality of pandemic. I mean, a few weeks later
Speaker 1: is not going to make or break anyone. So I
Speaker 1: think you're okay. Don't forget a lot of this stuff
Speaker 1: was planned way in advance. I mean, as soon as
Speaker 1: they launched the new iPhone, they probably take a week
Speaker 1: off they breathe, they go, and then they go all right,
Speaker 1: time to work on the new one, the next one.
Speaker 1: So I think what's going to happen in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one is it's going to be a little interesting with
Speaker 1: the tech stuff because how much stuff can you really
Speaker 1: plan while everyone's at home. I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: guess we'll find out in twenty twenty one. So again,
Speaker 1: that's about it with Apple. I think that, to be honest,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what they can add to the new
Speaker 1: iPhone except for five G that's gonna make it much better.
Speaker 1: I think that the I still have my iPhone eleven
Speaker 1: promax that I've reviewed every phone that has come out
Speaker 1: in twenty since this phone, and this is still the
Speaker 1: best phone that I've ever used in my lifetime. And
Speaker 1: believe me, I've tried every single one of them. I
Speaker 1: love the one plus eight Pro for certain things. I
Speaker 1: love the Samsung Galaxy S twenty Ultra, not for the camera,
Speaker 1: but for the screen and some other aspects. It's a powerhouse,
Speaker 1: but they just can get the camera right on that thing.
Speaker 1: S twenty S twenty plus seem to be better, but
Speaker 1: the S twenty plus Ultra is just like the camera
Speaker 1: is just not as good as it could be. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying for every shot. Some shots look amazing,
Speaker 1: it's really when it comes down to particular situations where
Speaker 1: it just fails miserably. The pixel pixel four XL great camera,
Speaker 1: but overall that device just isn't as solid as the iPhone,
Speaker 1: and it just to me, I just don't know what
Speaker 1: they could do. The battery life on this thing is
Speaker 1: so good that I don't even think about charging it,
Speaker 1: except when I was on the beta, which is the
Speaker 1: whole nother story. When I was on the beta, it
Speaker 1: was pretty bad. I had to go back to the
Speaker 1: regular software. So again, don't put beta software on your
Speaker 1: daily driver, because it just doesn't work. It just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Find a spare phone if you have one. By the way,
Speaker 1: Apple sold a lot of those iPhone ses, and that's
Speaker 1: another great phone that I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: went to this year for four hundred dollars to get
Speaker 1: that iPhone. So again, lots of I just don't know
Speaker 1: what they could do with the new iPhone. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it's gonna be incremental five G, I do think
Speaker 1: it'll be nice to have five G because at and
Speaker 1: T and T Mobile are getting their five G networks
Speaker 1: to a place that looks pretty appealing even to me.
Speaker 1: So I have Verizon, and I'm actually thinking, I know
Speaker 1: AT and T's five G is is actually pretty good,
Speaker 1: and I think that T Mobile is getting there well.
Speaker 1: And I just kind of, as a tech guy, I
Speaker 1: kind of want the five G because I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I want faster. So Verizon is kind of lagging in
Speaker 1: that area. But the iPhone, I think only the top
Speaker 1: of the line iphone' is gonna have five G. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but anyway, all right, let's get to a
Speaker 1: new question here. Rich been listening for a while now.
Speaker 1: I found you through a podcast when you were covering
Speaker 1: for Leo. I am from Louisiana, so good tie point
Speaker 1: for us. Yes, I worked in Louisiana for three years
Speaker 1: KT a l television reporter there consumer I was called
Speaker 1: the troubleshooter there gu tigers and he spelled it gu
Speaker 1: g e a u x gau. I always see that
Speaker 1: as gayu, even though it's go tigers. Louisiana such a
Speaker 1: fun state, by the way, one of the most fun states.
Speaker 1: I've actually the most fun state I've ever lived in
Speaker 1: Those people know how to party. One quick suggestion you
Speaker 1: can make about the wiscam. I know the manufacturer says
Speaker 1: not to lee it plugged in, but could but you
Speaker 1: could use a Wi Fi plug to power the camera.
Speaker 1: Then when you get a low battery, you could charge
Speaker 1: it by powering up the plug from the app on
Speaker 1: your phone. You could also set the Wi Fi plug
Speaker 1: to come on and off periodically to keep the camera charge.
Speaker 1: Not everyone can do that, but in some cases, I
Speaker 1: have a camera in an attic window, so plugging it
Speaker 1: in just makes sense. This is how I get around
Speaker 1: the manufacturer's recommendation not to plug it, not to leave
Speaker 1: it plugged in. Bert from Cable Busters LLC. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: a little confused here because I think we're talking about
Speaker 1: two kind of different things here. When you talk about
Speaker 1: the WISE cam, there used to not be an outdoor camera.
Speaker 1: Now there is. And the outdoor camera is not meant
Speaker 1: to be plugged in twenty four to seven because it's
Speaker 1: weather proof, and at this point Wise does not have
Speaker 1: a weather proof way of plugging that camera in. Now
Speaker 1: people get around this in all different ways. They will
Speaker 1: put a little case around it, a little outdoor weather
Speaker 1: proof covering, they'll put it under an awning. We live
Speaker 1: in southern California, so they think, no big deal, it
Speaker 1: never rains. But the reality is you are taking a
Speaker 1: risk if you put a camera that's an outdoor camera,
Speaker 1: it's not meant to be plugged in all the time
Speaker 1: plugged in. That's a risk. And you are taking another
Speaker 1: risk if you use one of the wisecam indoors and
Speaker 1: put it outside and keep it plugged in. But either way,
Speaker 1: I get what he's saying. For his camera, it's in
Speaker 1: the attic, perfectly good way of keeping it charged. You
Speaker 1: just have this thing toggle on every other I don't know,
Speaker 1: every other week or something like that. But I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure why you can't leave the indoor cam plugged
Speaker 1: in all the time. And I didn't think that was
Speaker 1: a thing now the outdoor cam, I know, there's kind
Speaker 1: of like a little rubber flap on the power area,
Speaker 1: which it's there for a reason because it's there to
Speaker 1: seal out the outside weather, which is rain, which is dust,
Speaker 1: which is you know, all that good stuff here in
Speaker 1: La smog. So anyway, it's a good solution. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things to keep in minds,
Speaker 1: like I kind of forget about smart plugs in general.
Speaker 1: They can be used to automate a lot of things
Speaker 1: that you do around the house, and it's just good.
Speaker 1: It's a good reminder, Burt that you're absolutely right. Why
Speaker 1: not use that to your advantage. I have a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff around my house that comes on turns off
Speaker 1: because of them, because of the smart plugs. Have got
Speaker 1: a lot of lights plugged into those that just pop
Speaker 1: on at six pm, pop off at six am. So
Speaker 1: it's a good idea. It's a good reminder. So thank
Speaker 1: you Bert for that little reminder. All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about Roadblocks. If you have kids, they are probably playing Roadblocks,
Speaker 1: and Roadblocks just did their big developers conference, probably virtual,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing. And if you're not familiar with Roadblocks, it's
Speaker 1: a gaming platform where kids play games on it, but
Speaker 1: people also build the game. So Roadblocks literally just came
Speaker 1: up with the platform and people develop games for this
Speaker 1: platform and they're doing it a lot. Because Roadblocks developers
Speaker 1: are on track to earn two hundred and fifty million
Speaker 1: dollars in twenty twenty, up from one hundred and ten
Speaker 1: million dollars in twenty nineteen, so they have more than
Speaker 1: doubled their payouts to developers, which shows you that this
Speaker 1: is growing at a very fast clip. And I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you why I don't like roadblocks in a moment.
Speaker 1: So if you're a parent that's listening, hear me out,
Speaker 1: because I'm not a fan of roadblocks. Roadblocks. Monthly average
Speaker 1: users active users one hundred and fifty million, and this
Speaker 1: is mostly kids from age nine to probably fourteen fifteen.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, but my kids are even younger. My kid
Speaker 1: is five and he's playing this, And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: again why I don't like this premium payouts. They did that.
Speaker 1: Let's see, they launched a music label deal to bring
Speaker 1: fifty plus tracks and roadblocks. Developers posted huge milestones in
Speaker 1: the first part of the year, with Adopt Me reaching
Speaker 1: one point six million concurrence. That means one point six
Speaker 1: million kids sitting at home on their iPads and tablets
Speaker 1: playing this game all the same time. And my kids
Speaker 1: play Adopt Me. I actually think Adopt Me is okay,
Speaker 1: but again I will tell you I don't like it.
Speaker 1: And then there's a game called Piggy. Oh Piggy sounds
Speaker 1: so nice, which was launched in January twenty twenty now
Speaker 1: has close to five billion visits. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: why I do not like the game Piggy, and why
Speaker 1: I don't like a lot of the games on Roadblocks.
Speaker 1: And the reason I don't like them is because some
Speaker 1: of them are just downright evil if you ask me.
Speaker 1: And I don't think most parents realize that when they
Speaker 1: see Roadblocks, it looks so cute and innocent and sweet.
Speaker 1: And the games these kids are playing on there are horrible.
Speaker 1: Some of them, like Piggy, for instance. The goal of
Speaker 1: Piggy is to run away from this maniacal pig that
Speaker 1: is trying to kill you. And I just watched a
Speaker 1: video about it on YouTube, and yeah, like my kid
Speaker 1: would tell me, oh, there's blood on the screen. I
Speaker 1: get splattered by Piggy. I'm running away. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like one of those like fear and horror movies come
Speaker 1: to life for your kids. And Jimmy's asking, what about Minecraft?
Speaker 1: I love Minecraft? So Minecraft I am a hundred I
Speaker 1: will buy Okay, I have a rule in my house.
Speaker 1: Most of the time I have broken down, but I
Speaker 1: have a rule where I refuse to buy my kids
Speaker 1: roebucks roebucks. So That's my other reason why I don't
Speaker 1: like my Robock roadblocks is because the entire point of
Speaker 1: Roebucks is to get your kids to bug you to
Speaker 1: buy them roebucks. And what does Roebucks do It lets
Speaker 1: them buy a little InApp digital purchases and these games
Speaker 1: could be anything, and I don't like that. And I
Speaker 1: know I'm sounding like an old man right now, but
Speaker 1: I just hear me out. I'm not sure what the
Speaker 1: point of these games they're playing are. To me, the
Speaker 1: point of Adopt Me seems like it's only to buy
Speaker 1: little critters that you can then trade with other people.
Speaker 1: And I get it, it's fun, it's games, it's kids,
Speaker 1: it's innocent, it's sweet. But to me, I want my
Speaker 1: kids to do a little bit more with their lives,
Speaker 1: and the Piggy game especially, I just don't see the
Speaker 1: point of Adopt Me. It's cute, but in reality, and
Speaker 1: if you have kids that are playing this, they're just
Speaker 1: sitting on these things for hours on it, and they
Speaker 1: could sit My kid could sit and play Adopt Me
Speaker 1: for the entire day, literally without interruption. That's a problem.
Speaker 1: So I don't like it for that reason. Minecraft they're
Speaker 1: building stuff, I really like what they're doing in Minecraft.
Speaker 1: It's cool, it's I'm blown away. And I've said this
Speaker 1: on the podcast before. Just ask your kids to show
Speaker 1: you what they're doing to Minecraft, and it blows me away.
Speaker 1: The stuff that they build, I mean, it's quite amazing. Roadblocks,
Speaker 1: I keep getting confused between Roebucks and roadblocks roadblocks. I
Speaker 1: just don't get it, Like I'm just watching it and
Speaker 1: it just seems like, eh, I don't really care for it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, my idea with roadblocks is to kind of
Speaker 1: smoke them out, which is to refuse to buy roebucks
Speaker 1: because without it, they don't really care to play as
Speaker 1: much because they can't really do all the stuff they
Speaker 1: want to do. And most parents they sit there it's
Speaker 1: like it's ten dollars for a bunch of roebucks. Who cares.
Speaker 1: That's not that much money, right, But it just kind
Speaker 1: of feeds into this world of like nonsense that I believe.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to knock developers out there. I
Speaker 1: don't want to knock people that are playing this. And
Speaker 1: don't feel bad if you're and your kids playing this.
Speaker 1: My kid's played every day, don't get me wrong. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, I don't see the point, and I think
Speaker 1: there's better things to do with your life, and Minecraft
Speaker 1: is one of them. So I think it's amazing that
Speaker 1: Roadblocks has built this platform. I personally just don't get it.
Speaker 1: Jonathan asks, what do I think about Lego? I love Lego.
Speaker 1: Lego's amazing. Anything that actually has your kids kind of
Speaker 1: doing something that's using their brain, I really like. I
Speaker 1: just don't understand the Adopt Me stuff, and I especially
Speaker 1: don't understand the Piggy stuff and the games of these kids. Oh.
Speaker 1: By the way, and here's my advice on Roadblocks if
Speaker 1: you're a parent, go into the settings and turn on
Speaker 1: restricted mode if your kid is younger, because it will
Speaker 1: block out some of these games that are not very
Speaker 1: not very good for little kids to be playing, like
Speaker 1: the Piggy game. And my kids they got so angry,
Speaker 1: they got so annoyed with me. But guess what they
Speaker 1: found other games that they've played, like Adopt Me and
Speaker 1: this pizza making game and this house game that are
Speaker 1: much and much more innocent and not so violent. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's my thought on Roadblocks. I you know,
Speaker 1: I that's my opinion. By the way, so that is
Speaker 1: my opinion. I am a parent. Every parent has different opinions,
Speaker 1: and I'm just giving you mine. You listen to the
Speaker 1: rich on Tech podcast, You're gonna get my opinion on stuff.
Speaker 1: I am very open to hearing your opinion. And if
Speaker 1: you want to write to me and explain why you
Speaker 1: think roadblocks is just fine, let me know. Hello at
Speaker 1: richontech dot TV. All right, another question, here we go.
Speaker 1: Ruth says, I follow you and enjoy your posts very much.
Speaker 1: I read them every day. I've never asked you a
Speaker 1: question before, so I wonder if you're up for it.
Speaker 1: It's a problem on my LGX Power three. When I
Speaker 1: tap Playstore, I get no results found. This might be
Speaker 1: because I've removed Google play Services by mistake. I've tried
Speaker 1: everything to get it back. I've downloaded a version of
Speaker 1: Google Play Services from the web, but that's didn't help.
Speaker 1: The result is that I can't download any new apps. Ruth. Okay,
Speaker 1: number one, Ruth, why did you delete Google Play Services.
Speaker 1: You need that to run anything that's Google on a
Speaker 1: Google phone. That is the backbone of all Google So
Speaker 1: you gotta you got it. I don't even know how
Speaker 1: you deleted it. I don't know. I didn't even know
Speaker 1: you could delete Google Play Services. Google Play Services is
Speaker 1: the framework that powers the Google Play Store and everything
Speaker 1: on your Android phone. Android and iOS are a little
Speaker 1: bit different in the way their operating systems work. If
Speaker 1: you have an iPhone, you know that you get these
Speaker 1: updates all the time from Apple that upgrade and add
Speaker 1: new features to your iPhone and also update the built
Speaker 1: in apps on the iPhone. Android is very different Android.
Speaker 1: Every manufacturer has their own operating system that they update independently.
Speaker 1: Google Play Services is sort of a backbone framework that
Speaker 1: Google says, hey, we we like some things on your
Speaker 1: phone that should be kind of like that help things
Speaker 1: work on the back end, but you can do whatever
Speaker 1: you want on the front end, and so Apple Google
Speaker 1: has now relied more on Google Play Services to sort
Speaker 1: of update Android phones in a more timely manner with
Speaker 1: certain things like this recent COVID tracing stuff. Again, they
Speaker 1: did that through Google Play Services because Google doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have a way to just add new features to your
Speaker 1: phone by themselves. It's usually up to the manufacturer to
Speaker 1: do that, and anyway, that's beside the point. But anyway,
Speaker 1: since you removed Google Play services, which I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how you did it, and I don't even understand how
Speaker 1: you downloaded a version of it from the web. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about downloading like an APK, maybe that's
Speaker 1: what you found and you tried installing that, like it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, but Ruth, don't do that. You could really
Speaker 1: harm your phone by doing that. So my advice is
Speaker 1: to format your phone and start over and that should rea.
Speaker 1: That should definitely put well it will. It will put
Speaker 1: Google Play services back on your phone. So it's an
Speaker 1: LGX Power three. I've not heard of this particular model,
Speaker 1: but usually go into the settings and you can just
Speaker 1: it says factory restart, like factory format, factory refresh, factory
Speaker 1: format reset to factory settings, one of those variations on
Speaker 1: that term. Do that. It's going to erase everything on
Speaker 1: your phone. So let's go back to what I was
Speaker 1: talking about in the beginning. Make sure everything's backed up
Speaker 1: now an Android, most things are backed up except for
Speaker 1: your photos. Make sure that you're rocking Google Photos to
Speaker 1: get your photos backed up or something similar. Once everything's
Speaker 1: backed up, factory reset, and boom, everything's gonna be back
Speaker 1: to the day you bought the phone, reinstall it all,
Speaker 1: and you should be up and running. That's that's an
Speaker 1: interesting one because I don't hear people doing that too much.
Speaker 1: All right, speaking of phones and speaking of Google, I
Speaker 1: always say that, I always say, speaking of speaking of
Speaker 1: speaking out, Can I think of a better transition than
Speaker 1: just speaking of Uh. Google is teasing the Pixel for
Speaker 1: a unveil on August third, and that's all the news
Speaker 1: I have. So the Pixel four A, which has been
Speaker 1: delayed apparently for a long time this year, is Google's
Speaker 1: mid range phone, and quite frankly, I think that this
Speaker 1: the last one. The three A was a really good
Speaker 1: move for Google because Google has the Pixel, which is
Speaker 1: the best camera you can get in a smartphone. But
Speaker 1: the problem is it's too expensive and it's not good
Speaker 1: enough for people to seek it out versus a Samsung,
Speaker 1: versus an LG, versus A one plus which to a
Speaker 1: lesser extent, and versus an iPhone. And the bottom line is,
Speaker 1: just because the camera's great, people see it and they go, wait,
Speaker 1: that's nine hundred bucks. I'm not buying that, Like, I'll
Speaker 1: get an iPhone. And so they came up with this
Speaker 1: idea of having a mid range phone, which isn't as fast,
Speaker 1: which isn't as slick, doesn't have the top specs, but
Speaker 1: it still has that great camera and so people say, oh,
Speaker 1: and by the way, it's only four hundred bucks. Oh well,
Speaker 1: now you're talking. So that was pretty successful for Google
Speaker 1: last year. This is the follow up to that, the
Speaker 1: Pixel four A. I think the problem with this phone
Speaker 1: they need to make it cheaper. So if this phone
Speaker 1: is not three hundred dollars, they're gonna have a problem.
Speaker 1: It's just not gonna sell. And the reason it's not
Speaker 1: gonna sell is because you've got the iPhone se at
Speaker 1: four hundred dollars. And overall, I will argue that is
Speaker 1: a better device than the Pixel four A. Pixel four
Speaker 1: A is a one trick pony. It's gonna give you
Speaker 1: a great camera. But guess what. That's it. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna have one thousand cases to choose from. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna have a million accessories to choose from. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna have the best app store in the world to
Speaker 1: choose apps from. You're not gonna have the Apple Watch
Speaker 1: to go along with it. You are getting a good
Speaker 1: camera on the Google Pixel four A, and that's it.
Speaker 1: And that's a problem. So where do you compete. You
Speaker 1: compete on price. They can make this thing one hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety nine dollars would be amazing. Oh thank you Google.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you found that. But you can't compete on
Speaker 1: a three ninety nine to three ninety nine. The iPhone
Speaker 1: is just better than the Pixel four A at three
Speaker 1: hundred ninety nine dollars. That's the bottom line. So they
Speaker 1: need to make this thing one hundred dollars cheaper. I
Speaker 1: hope they do, but we will find out on August third.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say much more than that, because you know,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's all. We don't know anything else. Everything
Speaker 1: else is speculation at this point. But it's gonna have
Speaker 1: the Pixel four features, just in a cheaper price, point
Speaker 1: lesser processor, lesser display. Everything's gonna be lesser except the
Speaker 1: camera is still gonna be quite good. So that's that
Speaker 1: all right. Next question? Okay, oh speaking, I'm saying I
Speaker 1: caught myself. Stop it. Rich Sean says, hey, Rich, thanks
Speaker 1: for all the tips and email letters that have been
Speaker 1: subscribed since the start. By the way, I am doing
Speaker 1: my email newsletter again, so if you're not subscribed, go
Speaker 1: to Rich on tech dot TV and look for subscribe
Speaker 1: to my email newsletter. It's free and you get I'm
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do it every other week now because
Speaker 1: every week just got to be too much. But I
Speaker 1: got so many people asking me Rich, where's your newsletter?
Speaker 1: That I finally started it again, and I want to
Speaker 1: do the newsletter. It was just a matter of like
Speaker 1: working it into my schedule, and every week was just
Speaker 1: too much. Every other week, I think I can handle.
Speaker 1: It's Friday as I record this. I'm going to get
Speaker 1: up tomorrow and do it. And I'm very excited because
Speaker 1: the response is amazing. I mean, there's twelve thousand of
Speaker 1: you that are subscribed to it, which is great. I
Speaker 1: love that and not. Okay, so twelve thousand is great,
Speaker 1: but guess how many people actually open it? Which I'll
Speaker 1: tell you. So the last newsletter went out on July nineteenth,
Speaker 1: and a substack, which is what I used to do.
Speaker 1: The newsletter tells me how many people open it, and
Speaker 1: the last one, Oh okay, now you don't want to
Speaker 1: work substack, Okay, whatever? Over twelve thousand. Wow, Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: it gives me a little subscriber like how many people
Speaker 1: actually opened it, which I thought was pretty cool. So
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find that anyway, while it's loading that
Speaker 1: I've been to my super high speed internet. Come on, hey,
Speaker 1: Rich My question is are there add on lenses for
Speaker 1: the camera on the Android S ten plus that you
Speaker 1: would recommend? Thank you again, Sean sent by Blue Mail
Speaker 1: for Android. I haven't heard of BlueMail. That's an email app,
Speaker 1: I guess, so I would recommend a lens called the
Speaker 1: Moment lens mm e NT Moment lens S ten Oh
Speaker 1: did you ask for lens or case? What do you
Speaker 1: ask for? Uh, let's see add on lenses. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the way moment lens works is remember the So the
Speaker 1: number one lens that was out there was the Olo
Speaker 1: clip and funny story, I'll go through it real quick,
Speaker 1: but it's the first email I ever got as a
Speaker 1: tech reporter at KTLA. You're talking ten years ago, and
Speaker 1: the email said local boy does good by inventing Should
Speaker 1: I look it up oloclip? And this was back. I
Speaker 1: still have the email. I will sell here. It is
Speaker 1: local Boy invents cool new iPhone four lens system that
Speaker 1: Hollywood and soccer moms alike will love. May ninth, twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: sent to me by one Patrick O'Neill. Now, when I
Speaker 1: saw that, I just kind of I was like, Eh,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Give me a break. I did
Speaker 1: not even respond to this email sent May ninth, twenty eleven, Monday,
Speaker 1: nine fifty eight am. He said, I'm Patrick O'Neil from
Speaker 1: Huntington Beach and we watch you on KTLA. I invented
Speaker 1: the oloquip oloclip quick change lens system for the iPhone four.
Speaker 1: It has fishy, wide angle and macro all in a
Speaker 1: package that easily fits in your pocket. And it's only
Speaker 1: forty five dollars. Wow. Why did I not respond to
Speaker 1: this email? How naive was I to say, Oh, because
Speaker 1: you're a local inventor, this can't be good. And it
Speaker 1: was amazing by the way. I interviewed Patrick many years
Speaker 1: later when I finally came to my senses, and the
Speaker 1: guy is amazing. He did very well with oloclip. They
Speaker 1: are the top seller. He has since sold the business,
Speaker 1: but he did really well with that little tiny idea
Speaker 1: of the local boy who invented the cool new iPhone
Speaker 1: four lens. Yeah, he did a pretty good job with that.
Speaker 1: Millions of dollars later. Anyway, I don't know if Oloclip
Speaker 1: makes one for the Patrick was a very much iPhone guy,
Speaker 1: so everything was iPhone. He I think came up His
Speaker 1: main thing when I asked him why he didn't come
Speaker 1: up with Samsung versions of these lenses is because Samsung
Speaker 1: changes their phone design every year in such a big
Speaker 1: way that it's too tough to keep up. Whereas the iPhone,
Speaker 1: he most of the time had two years to keep
Speaker 1: the lens because the way it snapped on had to
Speaker 1: be figured out by the iPhone because it was very
Speaker 1: slick how it snapped onto the iPhone. But oh wow,
Speaker 1: you're actually in luck. They do make a case a
Speaker 1: lens for the Galaxy S ten, so I would say
Speaker 1: check out the oloclip o Llo Cli Clip or the
Speaker 1: other one that makes a lot for Android. I guess
Speaker 1: they make them for iPhone as well. Is Moment shopmoment
Speaker 1: dot com and just compare see which each one of
Speaker 1: those offer, and I think both of them are going
Speaker 1: to be great. You have the Android S ten plus,
Speaker 1: which I thought had a wide angle lens, so I'm
Speaker 1: not sure why you need the add on lens, but
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you want Macro, maybe you want whatever.
Speaker 1: But it's funny because these add on lenses were such
Speaker 1: a big deal and now we're seeing the trend of
Speaker 1: the manufacturers just kind of building them into the phones themselves,
Speaker 1: and we're just seeing more and more and that's cool.
Speaker 1: It's a great, great thing that they're doing. All right,
Speaker 1: good question. Let's talk about Swimply. This was a story
Speaker 1: we did on Ktla, and this is a website that's
Speaker 1: kind of like Airbnb, but for private pools. And of course,
Speaker 1: as you might expect, it caused quite the controversy on
Speaker 1: my Facebook page because people are debating would they use this,
Speaker 1: would they not. Let me tell you the story and
Speaker 1: then you can think about whether you would use it
Speaker 1: or not. But it's kind of like airbing, except instead
Speaker 1: of renting out an entire place, you just rent out
Speaker 1: someone's private pool. And this goes both ways. If you
Speaker 1: have a pool in your backyard, you can rent it
Speaker 1: to random strangers. And if you want a pool you
Speaker 1: want to take a dip, find a pool that's nearby,
Speaker 1: You drive there, you pay your thirty bucks whatever it is,
Speaker 1: forty five bucks for the hour, and you take a
Speaker 1: dip in someone else's pool. Sounds interesting. I personally probably
Speaker 1: would not do this, but I have access to a pool.
Speaker 1: My in laws have a pool. But if you didn't
Speaker 1: have access and you just wanted to go somewhere, why
Speaker 1: not in La I'd probably go to the beach. But
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, but the beauty of ideas
Speaker 1: is that there are so many people in this world,
Speaker 1: and there are lots of people who either want this
Speaker 1: or need this, or are willing to use it or
Speaker 1: willing to put their pool up. And so the guy
Speaker 1: we interviewed, Asher Weinberger, who co founder, said we thought
Speaker 1: in the beginning that swimplely would help pay for help
Speaker 1: people pay for their pool cost. So that was his ideas, like, hey,
Speaker 1: people are maintaining their pools, they're not being used like
Speaker 1: hours every day. Why don't we just have other people
Speaker 1: use those pools and help pay for the maintenance at least, well,
Speaker 1: guess what it's paying for people's entire mortgages. Because the
Speaker 1: couple we talked to, they said they made seven thousand
Speaker 1: dollars so far renting out their pool, which pretty good money. Now,
Speaker 1: the founder said that he made twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in five weeks and I did the math on that,
Speaker 1: and that would come out to about two hundred dollars
Speaker 1: an hour for twenty four hours a day, seven days
Speaker 1: a week for the past five weeks. I don't know
Speaker 1: how he came up with that, but he must have
Speaker 1: a really nice pool that rents for a lot of money,
Speaker 1: and he probably does so, I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: it's a cool idea. I think that the liability factor
Speaker 1: to me as a homeowner would be a little scary,
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I love the sharing economy.
Speaker 1: You've got this pool in your backyard that's so expensive,
Speaker 1: so costly. It's sitting there unused for twelve hours a day.
Speaker 1: I'm not including the night time hours. But you use
Speaker 1: it your kids going for an hour or two, okay,
Speaker 1: and then that's it. Same thing with a car. This
Speaker 1: is why Uber was brilliant. Same thing with uh what else? Airbnb.
Speaker 1: You've got a rental house, you use it for one
Speaker 1: weekend out of the month. The rest it's just sitting there.
Speaker 1: Now you can rent it out, so it's it is
Speaker 1: an amazing sharing economy we have. This is taking it
Speaker 1: to levels of extreme that are pretty crazy, and I
Speaker 1: think it's a great idea, and I think that people
Speaker 1: are using it clearly because the website's around. My only
Speaker 1: concern with this website is that I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: concerned with Airbnb. What keeps them from instantly flipping a
Speaker 1: switch and turning this feature on overnight? And now they've
Speaker 1: got the whole Airbnb platform, and you've got everyone that's
Speaker 1: on Airbnb and saying, hey, just here, rent my pool out.
Speaker 1: Now you can make that argument for almost any company
Speaker 1: out there, So it's not necessarily just an Airbnb thing.
Speaker 1: But you know, I guess it's scary anytime you start
Speaker 1: a company and you've got these big tech companies, bohemoths, bohemoths, behemoths,
Speaker 1: and you've got these big tech companies that could just
Speaker 1: take you over in like a second. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying buy you out. I'm saying, flip on a switch
Speaker 1: and start the same feature we saw. It happened with
Speaker 1: Instagram Stories. I mean that was basically Snapchat, and more
Speaker 1: people are using Instagram Stories in Snapchat. All right, let's
Speaker 1: see next question. Okay, this is a good one from Maureen.
Speaker 1: I'm a kindergarten teacher about to start the school year online.
Speaker 1: Good luck. I currently own an iPad pro and an iPad.
Speaker 1: I also have two boys who are going to be online.
Speaker 1: That's going to be an interesting household. Huh. Got a
Speaker 1: teacher trying to teach with two kids that are going
Speaker 1: to be online for school. Yeah, see the problems here.
Speaker 1: I am currently looking for something for me to zoom.
Speaker 1: I import a lot of videos and interactive activities to
Speaker 1: keep my kinders engaged. It also needs to work easily
Speaker 1: with Google, Classroom, seesaw and all the other educational websites.
Speaker 1: Long story short, I wanted to know which is better. Oh,
Speaker 1: I forgot to do this. I wanted to know which
Speaker 1: is better an iPad or a surface for what I
Speaker 1: need keeping my mind. And I'm a Catholic school teacher
Speaker 1: who teaches in a low income school. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: the budget is limited. Thank you in advance for your advice. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you got a lot of things going on here now.
Speaker 1: Because you said I import a lot of videos and
Speaker 1: interactive activities, that is leading me to go, oh, what's
Speaker 1: better iPad or surface? I would say a surface is
Speaker 1: going to be better. You already have two iPads, so
Speaker 1: you're covered there. You need something that you can actually
Speaker 1: do work on and yes, you can do work on
Speaker 1: an iPad, but I still believe you can do more
Speaker 1: work and accomplish more things on a laptop, and the
Speaker 1: surface is going to do both. It's going to have
Speaker 1: a touch screen, it's going to have a keyboard if
Speaker 1: you get that, but and it's going to let you
Speaker 1: run Windows apps. So I think personally that a surface
Speaker 1: is going to be a better solution for you and
Speaker 1: low income school limited budget. I don't know what to
Speaker 1: say about that. I've gotten so many emails from teachers
Speaker 1: and my heart goes out to all of you because
Speaker 1: you're scrambling to try to teach kids in a way
Speaker 1: that you've never taught them before from your house, on camera,
Speaker 1: with equipment, and it is just a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it can't be done, but this is
Speaker 1: just not the way we've done things in the past.
Speaker 1: And every teacher is scrambling. My kids. Teachers were reading
Speaker 1: books on their iPhone recording it. You gotta have a tripod,
Speaker 1: you gotta have a microphone, you gotta have It's crazy.
Speaker 1: It's so much work for you teachers in a job
Speaker 1: that is already so tough. And I know It's tough
Speaker 1: because I was sitting here with my kids watching them
Speaker 1: learn and teaching them as well, and it is not
Speaker 1: easy to teach kids. You have to be This is
Speaker 1: why they say the heart of a teacher. I love
Speaker 1: Dave Ramsey and he always talks about having the heart
Speaker 1: of a teacher, and yeah, you have to have a
Speaker 1: heart of a teacher, which means patience, understanding, and I
Speaker 1: don't have any of those things. So it's really tough
Speaker 1: for me when I sit there with my kids and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to teach them stuff and I'm just not patient,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, it's so anyway, So throw in all
Speaker 1: the distance learning stuff, and it's really tricky. So I
Speaker 1: would say probably a surface over an iPad. iPad only
Speaker 1: runs iPad apps. Surface is much more flexible with what
Speaker 1: you can install, and ideally I think the best would
Speaker 1: be maybe a MacBook Pro thirteen, which I think would
Speaker 1: help you do more with your videos if you're creating
Speaker 1: videos and editing videos. But again, that is that's tricky.
Speaker 1: That's a tricky situation. And believe me, teachers, if you
Speaker 1: know a teachers, give them a hug for me, because
Speaker 1: the only thing I feel worse for our parents who
Speaker 1: have to have their kids at home while they're trying
Speaker 1: to work. But teachers, it's just not the natural way
Speaker 1: of teaching kids. They're in a classroom. It's just being
Speaker 1: from home is just not the same. All right, I'm
Speaker 1: running out of time here on the podcast. Let's see.
Speaker 1: I want to get this website in because I thought
Speaker 1: this website was pretty cool. It's called now I gotta
Speaker 1: find it twice. Come on read Okay, here it is.
Speaker 1: The website is called read this twice dot com. If
Speaker 1: you follow me on Twitter, you know that I am
Speaker 1: always looking for a good book to read. I believe
Speaker 1: in consumption of books, and I think that you should
Speaker 1: be reading as much as humanly possible. And a lot
Speaker 1: of my audience does read. I'm very very clear on
Speaker 1: that because I see when I ask for book recommendations
Speaker 1: on Twitter that a lot of people responded very quickly.
Speaker 1: So kudos to you for reading a lot. I have
Speaker 1: put all those book recommendations, by the way, in my
Speaker 1: ever note. So I've got the books Just Mercy by
Speaker 1: Brian Stevenson Olivia recommended. I've Got Barbarian Days by Craig
Speaker 1: nine two eight two one Oh, I'm guessing that's your
Speaker 1: zip code. I've got Katherine Graham's autobiography by Stephanie George.
Speaker 1: I've got let's see, I've got I'll Be Gone in
Speaker 1: the Dark from Monty's recommended that. I've got The Innovators
Speaker 1: by Jay He recommended that. So I've got a whole
Speaker 1: laundry list of books. Lacey recommended everything by Hugh Howley,
Speaker 1: which I can't wait. I think those are those look
Speaker 1: really good because they're sci fi and I love sci
Speaker 1: fi books. I'm reading right now, I'm reading, so I
Speaker 1: settled on one called Dark Matter right now, and I
Speaker 1: love that anyway. So the book recommendation site that I
Speaker 1: know everyone knows Goodreads and but the book this is
Speaker 1: kind of cool because it's called read This Twice. And
Speaker 1: what they do is they just scour all the mentions
Speaker 1: that famous people put on their social media or in
Speaker 1: interviews about books they're reading or books they've liked, and
Speaker 1: they organize it. So, for instance, you can go to
Speaker 1: let's see Emma Watson. Let's pick someone kind of random,
Speaker 1: but she mentioned she's an actress, and she recommended Harry
Speaker 1: potter Man search for meaning, let's see what else a
Speaker 1: thousand splendid sons which I read. The other one by
Speaker 1: this guy, which was the that was a fantastic book,
Speaker 1: Tiny Beautiful Things, half of this guy. And they tell
Speaker 1: you the book, not only the book, but they also
Speaker 1: tell you the source. So where did she mention it?
Speaker 1: And if I click this one book, she mentioned this book,
Speaker 1: let's say on Twitter, and I love that you can
Speaker 1: just see the tweet as she mentioned this book. It's
Speaker 1: been less than three weeks and I devoured Tiny Torch,
Speaker 1: Tiny Beautiful Things, And while thank you Reese Witherspoon and
Speaker 1: Cheryl Straight straight ed. So I just love this idea.
Speaker 1: It's just it's a simple thing. But it's just if
Speaker 1: you care about what celebrities your favorite personality thinks about books,
Speaker 1: you can see what they're recommending, and you know you
Speaker 1: can do everyone from Mark Cuban to Anna Kendrick to
Speaker 1: Anthony Bourdain, Rest in Peace, Joe Rogan, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you want to go there, Jack Dorsey. And it's
Speaker 1: just a great way of slicing and dicing books. So again,
Speaker 1: read this twice dot com and already I found just
Speaker 1: looking through Elon Musk's recommendations, I found about six sci
Speaker 1: fi books I want to read all ready, so it's
Speaker 1: just a neat way of seeing. You can get recommendation
Speaker 1: from friends and family, but sometimes you want something a
Speaker 1: little bit different, so check it out. Read this twice
Speaker 1: dot com. All right, Do I have time for one
Speaker 1: more question before I go? Sure? Rosio Oh? Rosio asks, Hey, rich,
Speaker 1: I would like to purchase a portable charger to charge
Speaker 1: my phone and my husband's phone for the most part,
Speaker 1: preferably twenty k to thirty k mh million hours. Wow.
Speaker 1: Good that you knew that whoop's wrong? One Uh? Can
Speaker 1: you send us a list of some different brands that
Speaker 1: you would recommend, or if you've not tested, can you
Speaker 1: review a few portable chargers and then your future We
Speaker 1: would like your input before purchasing. And I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: tell you a whole bunch. I'm just gonna recommend a
Speaker 1: one brand Anchor. Anchor I think makes fantastic portable chargers.
Speaker 1: And again, I think that you guys know a little
Speaker 1: bit about technology because you said the twenty thousand to
Speaker 1: thirty thousand million hours, So good for you for knowing
Speaker 1: that term. The higher that number, the more times your
Speaker 1: charger is going to recharge your phone. So a lot
Speaker 1: of these little tiny um a lot of these little
Speaker 1: tiny uh what is it like? You know, portable chargers,
Speaker 1: They don't really charge your phone that much, the smaller
Speaker 1: they are. So if you want something that's gonna have
Speaker 1: a little bit of bulk to it, not bulk, but
Speaker 1: a little bit of you know, it's gonna charge your
Speaker 1: phone a couple times, you're not gonna be recharging it
Speaker 1: all the time. Go with something in the twenty to
Speaker 1: thirty thousand, ten thousand is pretty typical. The little ones
Speaker 1: you get, the little freeb's they hand out, maybe not
Speaker 1: to you, but to me, Like when I go to
Speaker 1: like a tech show, they give out little like portable
Speaker 1: chargers usually like charge your phone once or maybe half
Speaker 1: a time, and then, by the way, they're really slow.
Speaker 1: So if you have an Android phone, you want to
Speaker 1: look for something that's called USB CPD, which is power delivery.
Speaker 1: That's gonna charge your phone way faster than the typical USB.
Speaker 1: If you have a newer iPhone, that's also gonna do
Speaker 1: your iPhone faster. So look for an iPhone charging cable
Speaker 1: that looks like this on the end the podcast, folks,
Speaker 1: But it's USB C to lightning and that's going to
Speaker 1: charge your phone usually faster than it will if you
Speaker 1: have USB regular to the lightning, and then wireless charging
Speaker 1: is still pretty slow, but the USB CPD is going
Speaker 1: to be the fastest charging at this point for any
Speaker 1: of your devices. So just keep that in mind. If
Speaker 1: you're just plugging in an old cable into your iPhone
Speaker 1: into one of these chargers, it's going to be really slow,
Speaker 1: so look for look for that PD. Look for PD
Speaker 1: power delivery on these devices. These portable chargers are gonna
Speaker 1: be a little bit more expensive, but it's going to
Speaker 1: charge your phone and be way less frustrating when you're
Speaker 1: trying to get a quick charge in a faster way.
Speaker 1: So again, the brand is Anchor a n K er.
Speaker 1: I really like their stuff and if you can believe it,
Speaker 1: that is going to do it for this episode of
Speaker 1: the show. If you're on Facebook, stick around. I will
Speaker 1: talk to you for a little bit after this, but
Speaker 1: that's going to do it for the podcast. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to submit an answer an answer, if you have answers,
Speaker 1: definitely given to me. But if you have a question
Speaker 1: you'd like me to answer, just go to Rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot TV, hit the email button at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the page, and I will do my best to
Speaker 1: get your question in a show or at least respond
Speaker 1: to you. Oh, I'm doing something new, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to do a code word. So because I really value
Speaker 1: your time as a listener to this show, especially someone
Speaker 1: who has listened this far in because let's be honest,
Speaker 1: it's been an hour and uh snooze alert. If you've
Speaker 1: made it this far, I'm rewarding you. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you a code word to put in your email.
Speaker 1: So if you write me in the next week, put
Speaker 1: this code word in your email subject line somehow, and
Speaker 1: I will get to your email faster than everyone else's.
Speaker 1: And the code word this week is remote remote r
Speaker 1: E m ote remote, So put remote in caps. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be caps, but just put that in
Speaker 1: your subject line and I will get to your email
Speaker 1: faster than everyone else's because you are listening to this
Speaker 1: show and I want to reward you for that. So
Speaker 1: thank you for that. Also, I would love it if
Speaker 1: you would rate and review this podcast to help other
Speaker 1: people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot
Speaker 1: com slash rich on Tech. You will find me at
Speaker 1: rich on tech on all social media. So if you're
Speaker 1: not following me on Instagram, if you're not following me
Speaker 1: on Twitter, if you're not following me on Facebook, which
Speaker 1: Instagram is where it's at for the most part, but
Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter, I'm also there. But Instagram, I am
Speaker 1: trying every day to put good stuff on there. I
Speaker 1: had someone tell me that she looks forward to what
Speaker 1: I put on Instagram every day, and I love hearing that.
Speaker 1: That is so music to my ears because I do
Speaker 1: sit there and I try to think, like, what would
Speaker 1: people like to see? What useful information can I impart
Speaker 1: in their brains today? My name is rich dmiro On
Speaker 1: behalf of everyone that gets this show to your ears.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you on KTLA.
Speaker 1: Stay safe, I'll talk to you real soon