Speaker 1: Twitter introduces its version of stories, Chrome gets faster, and
Speaker 1: is Amazon always the cheapest? What's going on? I'm Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where
Speaker 1: I talk about the tech stuff I.
Speaker 2: Think you should know about.
Speaker 1: It's also the place where I answer the questions that
Speaker 1: you send me. My name once again is Rich Demiro,
Speaker 1: tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Hope
Speaker 1: you are having a fantastic day so far, so good
Speaker 1: for me over here. But I will say that, uh,
Speaker 1: this is it.
Speaker 3: We are.
Speaker 1: We are deep into the slide, the slide into the holidays.
Speaker 1: And I know this year is a little bit different
Speaker 1: with the holidays because of you know that whole uh,
Speaker 1: you know, little pandemic going around the whole world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: still happening. I still can't believe that. When I left
Speaker 1: my desk at work back on it was around March
Speaker 1: fifteenth or so, I thought I was gonna be gone
Speaker 1: for about two weeks. I left my coffee there, coffee creamer,
Speaker 1: you know, some other assorted things and I just took
Speaker 1: the essentials, right, my laptop, whatever, And here we are
Speaker 1: March April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November about
Speaker 1: eight or nine months later, depending on how you do
Speaker 1: the math. And I'm sure you can't do the math
Speaker 1: the right way. I just don't feel like doing it
Speaker 1: the right way right now. But wow, and it's so
Speaker 1: weird because I don't think this is ending anytime soon.
Speaker 2: We've got these.
Speaker 1: What are they the vaccines on the way, But I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like an overnight fix just because we have that.
Speaker 1: So I'm sort of buckled in. I'm assuming my kids
Speaker 1: are not going back to school until the next school year,
Speaker 1: which is just wild to think that they will be
Speaker 1: home for an entire school year. And myself, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what's gonna happen with me. I've been working from
Speaker 1: home and I kind of enjoy it, to be honest,
Speaker 1: I like it. In fact, I was talking about this
Speaker 1: with my wife last night. My house has become sort
Speaker 1: of like the best case scenario for a tech set
Speaker 1: because I have everything I need to shoot my segments. Oh,
Speaker 1: you need to sit on a couch and watch TV. Okay,
Speaker 1: we go to a living room. Need to go outside,
Speaker 1: take some pictures. Go outside. Need to get a picture
Speaker 1: of the Christmas tree. Sure we got that. Need to
Speaker 1: be working in the office absolutely want to be on
Speaker 1: the exercise bike. Sure, So it's actually kind of worked
Speaker 1: out pretty well. And the more I think about it,
Speaker 1: it makes total sense for me as someone who's doing
Speaker 1: consumer technology for people working from home and you know,
Speaker 1: doing just in general most of this stuff we use
Speaker 1: at home. It kind of works. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, maybe I need to build like a little
Speaker 1: a real set in here and that's where I can
Speaker 1: shoot all my stories going forward. But you do miss
Speaker 1: being out on the anchor desk on the set for KTLA.
Speaker 1: That is kind of fun and I miss that. So anyway,
Speaker 1: have to.
Speaker 2: Figure out all that.
Speaker 1: But let me start this week with something that has
Speaker 1: really been well. There's two things that are on my
Speaker 1: mind twenty four to seven right now, and it's like
Speaker 1: the dumbest things, but you know, this is what I
Speaker 1: think about as a tech person. The first is my
Speaker 1: speaker set up, and I have talked about this on
Speaker 1: the show. How you know, all these new smart speakers
Speaker 1: are coming out and it's forced me to reconsider my
Speaker 1: Sonos system. But now that I look into my Sonos account,
Speaker 1: it seems that they give you a pretty good discount
Speaker 1: for having old speakers. So now when I look at that,
Speaker 1: and I've tried all the new ones, so I've tried
Speaker 1: the Google Home grouping those up. After I talked to
Speaker 1: you on the show last week, Google Home got this
Speaker 1: big update on the app. I call it the Sonos
Speaker 1: update because now you can group speakers on the fly
Speaker 1: in Google Home, just like you can in Sonos.
Speaker 2: Now, Sonos is.
Speaker 1: Still way easier and a little bit more kind of
Speaker 1: uh what's I don't know what the terminology is, fleshed out,
Speaker 1: fleshed out whatever, but you know, so it's it works,
Speaker 1: but it's not as pretty or as smooth as Sonos.
Speaker 1: And the Apple stuff is great, but it really bugs
Speaker 1: me that you have to use Apple Music. Not that
Speaker 1: I hate Apple Music, but it's just I like having
Speaker 1: the flexibility like in my Sons.
Speaker 2: I've said this before.
Speaker 1: I had like a bookmarked all the different playlists on
Speaker 1: various services that I like. So for me, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the Christmas station on iHeartRadio is the one I
Speaker 1: really like and I want to play, and so that
Speaker 1: was easily bookmarked. No, yes, you can do all these
Speaker 1: same things with these smart speakers. It's just a little
Speaker 1: bit more work. And so Anyway, I've been on this hunt.
Speaker 1: I've been switching out the speakers in different rooms, trying
Speaker 1: out you know what works. But now I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm going all the way back to Sons because I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll buy these speakers for a discounted
Speaker 1: price and it'll take me to kind of like the
Speaker 1: place I was at.
Speaker 2: But you know, just I don't know I was.
Speaker 1: I was drawn in by the allure of all these
Speaker 1: smart speakers around it. But to be honest, they get
Speaker 1: kind of annoying to have multiple smart speakers because the
Speaker 1: all responding when you say those magic words, and I
Speaker 1: don't really need that. Like with my music, Yes, calling
Speaker 1: out playlists and stuff by voice is cool and it's
Speaker 1: nice to have, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's kind of nice to just open the app group
Speaker 1: the speakers you want and press play. So anyway, that's
Speaker 1: the one thing that's that's on my mind. The other
Speaker 1: thing is this whole Google Photos situation. So Google came
Speaker 1: out with a blog post titled updating Google Photos Storage
Speaker 1: Policy to build for the Future, which tells you absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing in the title. And they do that on purpose
Speaker 1: because you know, they don't want you to realize that, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start charging you for storage. That should have
Speaker 1: been like the actual headline they use. But starting June first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, any new photos and videos you upload
Speaker 1: counts towards your free fifteen gigabytes that you get with
Speaker 1: a Google Storage account and anything. So it's really complicated.
Speaker 1: Anything that you put in before June first, twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one on that high quality setting.
Speaker 2: Is still going to be stored for free.
Speaker 1: So even if you have a giz zillion pictures in
Speaker 1: there at high quality as of June first, those are
Speaker 1: all fine. They're like sort of grandfathered in until Google
Speaker 1: decides to change that. But then any new photos and videos,
Speaker 1: even in that high quality format will still count towards
Speaker 1: your fifteen gigs of storage. Now, on the surface, this
Speaker 1: doesn't really affect me too much because I've been paying
Speaker 1: the ten dollars a month for the two terabytes of
Speaker 1: Google Storage forever, forever and ever, and I've always uploaded
Speaker 1: in high quality except for all these random big video
Speaker 1: files that I accrue through my work that I just
Speaker 1: throw in there in high quality because I don't really care.
Speaker 1: I just want, like, you know, to remember these things
Speaker 1: like you know, like a trip to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Shanghai that I took a million GoPro videos on. I
Speaker 1: don't need those in like the best quality. I just
Speaker 1: kind of want to store them forever. But they're not
Speaker 1: my personal photo collection. But they're in my personal photo collection,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. But I with my personal photos,
Speaker 1: I've always always always done the original quality, which is
Speaker 1: always counted against your storage and so on the surface,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really affect me, but it affects me in
Speaker 1: various ways. Number One, I think that this is really
Speaker 1: lame because Google Photos built their entire business over the
Speaker 1: fact that people can.
Speaker 2: Just put their photos in here.
Speaker 1: It's free, it's a lifetime of photos and you don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about it. And yes, I think that
Speaker 1: many people will be just fine with that fifteen gigs.
Speaker 1: And in fact, Google has like a page that you
Speaker 1: can check to see like how many years it'll take
Speaker 1: before you have to pay, and they say for the
Speaker 1: average person it'll be three years. And yeah, and once
Speaker 1: you pay, you can pay a buck ninety nine a
Speaker 1: month for one hundred gigs. Okay, sure, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like what Apple's been doing with iCloud. Forever and ever.
Speaker 1: But the reality is, this is not how this started out.
Speaker 1: iCloud has always been paid storage, except for the five gigs.
Speaker 1: Google Photos was always free storage if you did that
Speaker 1: high quality. Now, the thing that really bugs me is
Speaker 1: that they made all these people lose the quality of
Speaker 1: their pictures by putting them in high quality so that
Speaker 1: they can get free storage. And now it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that actually doesn't really matter anymore.
Speaker 2: So I mean it does.
Speaker 1: Those will be stored forever and ever in you know,
Speaker 1: for free. But going forward, I assume they're just going
Speaker 1: to change this high quality to be to be gone,
Speaker 1: I guess, because I guess maybe it'll still take less storage.
Speaker 2: I don't know. But the point is it.
Speaker 1: Just makes things very confusing for consumers. And that's who
Speaker 1: I cover tech news for, and I don't like it.
Speaker 1: And now for me personally, it has me. It actually,
Speaker 1: I think is good for the industry because it kind
Speaker 1: of puts everyone on the equal playing field. So now
Speaker 1: let's say you were in Google Photos even though you're
Speaker 1: an iPhone person because you like the idea of free storage. Well,
Speaker 1: now you might say now that things aren't free moving forward,
Speaker 1: that you know, maybe I'll just go to iCloud, and
Speaker 1: now it can consolidate.
Speaker 2: I mean, perhaps when you know this iCloud, this.
Speaker 1: Whole you know, their their iCloud one or whatever they're
Speaker 1: calling it, their you know storage or you know their
Speaker 1: bundle subscription Apple one, you know, you can perhaps save
Speaker 1: some money by bundling a whole bunch of stuff through that,
Speaker 1: including two terabytes of storage. That's what I'm looking at
Speaker 1: because with that it's thirty bucks a month.
Speaker 2: But you get all this stuff.
Speaker 1: You get the two terabytes of storage, you get Apple Music,
Speaker 1: you get Apple Fitness when that comes out, you get
Speaker 1: Apple Arcade, you get the News which I really like,
Speaker 1: the Apple whatever, like the magazine subscription. I mean that alone.
Speaker 1: You know, you add all those things up and you're
Speaker 1: saving some significant money. So this also requires me downloading
Speaker 1: my entire Google photos uploading it to Apple.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a whole big thing. Believe me. This
Speaker 2: is what keeps me up at night. So that's on
Speaker 2: my mind.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you are sort of thinking about this stuff
Speaker 1: as well, but you know, that's kind of what keeps
Speaker 1: me up at night. And again, I just don't like
Speaker 1: when companies change things when they've built their entire business.
Speaker 1: And in fact, you know, even Dropbox looks viable now
Speaker 1: because you know they don't have the same search functionality.
Speaker 1: I think Google really wins with a search functionality. That's
Speaker 1: that's kind of a big thing there. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get started with a question. M have an little sip
Speaker 1: of my tea there, Cody asks, can you help me?
Speaker 1: Is there an Android app that I can use to
Speaker 1: look up unidentified phone numbers and cell phone numbers? It
Speaker 1: seems every app I've tried redirects you to sites I
Speaker 1: can tell us been verified or truthfinder. I hate those sites.
Speaker 1: All I want to do is find out who's calling.
Speaker 1: As I'm constantly getting calls. I've tried to call a
Speaker 1: few back, but then I get a message that's the
Speaker 1: numbers not in use, not valid. I'm at a loss.
Speaker 1: Please help, Thank you.
Speaker 2: PS.
Speaker 1: I love watching you on KTLF. Oh, I like watching
Speaker 1: you on KTLF five. Okay, I'll give you a little
Speaker 1: ding for that, not a ding, but like a ding
Speaker 1: ding if love love would have been better, but like,
Speaker 1: I'll take Okay. So Google has the solution here. So
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things I used to Okay. Number one,
Speaker 1: the site that's really good. It's called whitepages dot com
Speaker 1: and so whitepages dot com is a really good reverse
Speaker 1: search site. If you have a phone number, you want
Speaker 1: to pop it in there, just click reverse phone and
Speaker 1: it pretty much gets let's see, pretty much gets it right,
Speaker 1: like almost all the time. So yeah, I just put
Speaker 1: my phone number in there, and yeah, sure enough it's
Speaker 1: in there. So there you go. But I'm a low
Speaker 1: spam risk.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: So you pop in a phone number. That's one way
Speaker 1: of doing it. Now that's just a you know, one
Speaker 1: off kind of thing. If you want white pages. I
Speaker 1: don't believe they have like an app like it doesn't.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna identify you.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna like you can download their app to
Speaker 1: your phone, but it's not gonna identify things on the fly.
Speaker 1: But the thing that will is Google's app. And they
Speaker 1: have the Google Phone app that they just launched into
Speaker 1: the play Store called Phone by Google, Caller ID and
Speaker 1: Spam Protection Beta. And this used to be only exclusive
Speaker 1: for like the Pixel phones, but now they've launched it
Speaker 1: where it works with all and so now you can
Speaker 1: see who's calling you. So most of these callers, most
Speaker 1: of The caller ID is for businesses, but that's gonna
Speaker 1: be mostly what you need anyway, but I would start
Speaker 1: with that. So it's called phone by Google. Download that.
Speaker 1: I'll put the link in the show notes. The other
Speaker 1: thing you can do is depending on your provider, your
Speaker 1: cell phone provider, you can get caller ID through them,
Speaker 1: and usually it's like three bucks a month, but that
Speaker 1: will give you everyone, like I'm talking, you know, if
Speaker 1: someone it's a even if it's a personal line, it
Speaker 1: will identify it. T Mobile gives you that for free,
Speaker 1: but you do have to activate it, I believe. But
Speaker 1: the rest AT and T and Verizon, gosh, it's so weird.
Speaker 1: There's only three now. They will charge you three dollars
Speaker 1: a month, but it might be worth it if you're
Speaker 1: getting so many calls. I it's one of the things
Speaker 1: that like, whenever I use a Samsung phone or my
Speaker 1: Google phone, I love having the caller ID, And on
Speaker 1: iPhone it's just like never there. Maybe it is if
Speaker 1: you have T Mobile. I don't have that, so I
Speaker 1: don't really see that, but it's just one of those things.
Speaker 1: It's so nice to see caller idea on your phone.
Speaker 1: So all right, let's talk about Amazon, Are they always
Speaker 1: the cheapest? I figured this was a good story because
Speaker 1: it's shopping season, and now this was sent to me
Speaker 1: from Amazon, so clearly it's a little bias towards them.
Speaker 1: But you know, Amazon does have fantastic pricing, but they're
Speaker 1: not always the best, and they're not always the only
Speaker 1: shop in town. So this is a report from a
Speaker 1: website or an organization called Profittero pandemic price wars, which
Speaker 1: online retailers are beating competitors on price heading into the
Speaker 1: holiday season. The study compared prices on eighteen four hundred
Speaker 1: best selling items and twenty one categories across fourteen retailers,
Speaker 1: including Amazon, Walmart, Target, Chewy, Wayfair, best Buy. And these
Speaker 1: are all the online retailers, so we're not talking in
Speaker 1: store here. So Amazon was competitively priced most competitively priced
Speaker 1: in eighteen out of twenty one. It tied Walmart dot
Speaker 1: Com for the lowest online prices for beauty item and
Speaker 1: Chewy dot Com for pet items. Target is the least
Speaker 1: competitively priced, averaging ten percent more expensive than Amazon. And
Speaker 1: I believe that I've always said that Target does not
Speaker 1: compete on price, They compete on their experience in the store,
Speaker 1: and I guess that translates to their website. But to me,
Speaker 1: Target is just a nice, very pretty shopping experience, or
Speaker 1: very pleasant, I should say, And so you are going
Speaker 1: to pay more there compared to Walmart, which some stores
Speaker 1: are really nice, but others are not as kept up,
Speaker 1: and so there is a big difference. Whereas you go
Speaker 1: into Target, it's pretty much it's pretty nice most of
Speaker 1: the time. It's interesting too. Specialists don't really get into
Speaker 1: price wars. So it says that best Buy was generally
Speaker 1: thirteen percent more expensive than Amazon, and Electronics wayfair thirty
Speaker 1: seven percent more expensive. In home furniture. And here's some
Speaker 1: of the exact stuff. So when you look at like appliances,
Speaker 1: Amazon had the lowest price. The closest were Walmart, Target,
Speaker 1: and Home Depot. Electronics price of Amazon, the next closest
Speaker 1: was Walmart, then Target, then best Buy. Let's see clothes,
Speaker 1: don't care home furnishings. Home furnishings. Amazon had the lowest
Speaker 1: price by about thirty five percent on average. Walmart was
Speaker 1: a little bit more expensive then Target than well, actually
Speaker 1: Walmart and Home Depot were about the same.
Speaker 2: Then Target gets kind of expensive. Let's see video games.
Speaker 2: I mean, just go down the line.
Speaker 1: The main thing I'm getting the takeaway from here is
Speaker 1: that if you're looking for beauty products, Walmart is just
Speaker 1: fine compared to Amazon, and pet products Chewy is just
Speaker 1: fine compared to Amazon. And let's see, is there anything else?
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: Oh for consumers, buyer beware, promotional discounts may be mirages.
Speaker 1: Twenty percent off of product that's price fifty percent higher
Speaker 1: on Amazon or Walmart is no deal, so.
Speaker 2: Amazon and one.
Speaker 1: Basically it's basically just the bottom line is that like
Speaker 1: Amazon and Walmart are like the best place to shop
Speaker 1: along with Target.
Speaker 2: If you want a slightly improved experience. But do your
Speaker 2: price checks. I do.
Speaker 1: I do my price checks. I love that popcart thing.
Speaker 1: Popcart just extension on Google. It's really good at finding
Speaker 1: the price comparisons at different stores.
Speaker 2: All right, let's let's see here. Let's see what do
Speaker 2: we want to do next?
Speaker 1: Sue says, how do I get my iPad and iPhone
Speaker 1: not to be paired? I haven't used my iPad for
Speaker 1: a while, and the other day while I'm charging it,
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, all my pictures were on it
Speaker 1: and it was ringing. I'd like to keep these separate.
Speaker 1: Thanks in advance. We elders miss having the kids around
Speaker 1: the house to.
Speaker 2: Do this stuff.
Speaker 1: Sue, and Sue spells her name Sioux, So the only
Speaker 1: reason I'm thinking it's Sue is because Sioux City, Iowa, right,
Speaker 1: or Sue Sue falls South Dakota is spelled s i
Speaker 1: i Oux. So I'm guessing it's Sue. So the thing
Speaker 1: that's happening here is twofold number one. You've got handoff
Speaker 1: turned on, and handoff is what connects your iPad to
Speaker 1: your iPhone for phone calls. It's a continuity feature, they
Speaker 1: call it, and so you can just go into your
Speaker 1: settings and turn off hand off. I believe it's under
Speaker 1: the phone settings on the iPad or under gosh.
Speaker 2: On the iPad. I'm not sure. Let's see.
Speaker 1: I have to look in my iPad, but it's kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to make this show kind of.
Speaker 2: Like the Let's see.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can search for handoff, Oh, handoff, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: handoff right, that's.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's airplay.
Speaker 1: Handoff is under airplay and handoff on the iPad, turn
Speaker 1: that off. I have mine turned off because I don't
Speaker 1: need all my stuff coming to the iPad. I'm on
Speaker 1: the workout bike and next thing you know, I'm in
Speaker 1: a peloton class and my iPad is ringing. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't need that. If it's ringing. Enough things ring.
Speaker 1: I've got my phone ringing, I've got the the Apple
Speaker 1: Watch ringing, my computer rings it's so annoying.
Speaker 2: I don't need handoff on all these things. I get it.
Speaker 2: It's convenient.
Speaker 1: It's cool if you need it, but I don't personally
Speaker 1: need it. I like having my calls go to my
Speaker 1: phone or my watch, and that's it. The other thing
Speaker 1: that you had is your iCloud photos turned on, so
Speaker 1: you can turn that off under iCloud, just turn off
Speaker 1: iCloud photos and specifically you can also turn off the
Speaker 1: iCloud photos stream as well, and or you can leave
Speaker 1: the stream on and turn the photos off. But those
Speaker 1: are the two settings that you need to look at. Obviously,
Speaker 1: do your research and kind of see what that entails,
Speaker 1: because you may have some photos on your iPad that
Speaker 1: you took that you want to save an iCloud, but
Speaker 1: just kind of look and see what the ramifications are
Speaker 1: of those two things. But those are the two settings
Speaker 1: that you're looking for. All Right, Chrome got a big
Speaker 1: update this week. It's Chrome eighty seven. And I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna go into like a big thing about Chrome and
Speaker 1: how great it is. But I love Chrome, but I
Speaker 1: hate Chrome. And the reason I don't like Chrome is
Speaker 1: because it is so slow and so like laggy. I
Speaker 1: could barely do a word press post on this thing.
Speaker 1: So I actually use Safari on my computer to do
Speaker 1: word press posts because it just works.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because of all these extensions I have, and
Speaker 1: I really try to pair down to my extensions, but
Speaker 1: I just I need certain extensions to function. So I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if it's like an extension thing or if
Speaker 1: it's just a Chrome thing. But nonetheless, Chrome did get
Speaker 1: an update this week to Chrome eighty seven. And if
Speaker 1: you're on a Mac, you can go up at the
Speaker 1: top it says Chrome about Google Chrome, and it will
Speaker 1: check for an update. That's how I got it, and
Speaker 1: usually you know, Chrome will also give you if you
Speaker 1: you know. Chrome does an auto update per se unless
Speaker 1: you close it out, So if you never close it
Speaker 1: out in your computer, like really doesn't update. But I
Speaker 1: don't think, but I guess you can turn on automatic updates.
Speaker 1: Now I see that as an option, But there's a
Speaker 1: little whenever there's an update for Chrome, if you look
Speaker 1: to the right on your menu bar on Chrome, next
Speaker 1: to your picture, there'll be like a little arrow pointing
Speaker 1: up with I think it's in like green. You hit
Speaker 1: that and that will update Chrome. It's like very silent,
Speaker 1: doesn't like give you any indication that there's an update.
Speaker 1: But if you want to manually update, go to Chrome
Speaker 1: about Google Chrome. You'll see it says checking for updates,
Speaker 1: and if there's an update, you can press update, which
Speaker 1: is what I did, and I'll be honest, it got
Speaker 1: a lot better. So according to Google, it says Chrome
Speaker 1: now prioritizes your active tabs versus everything that's open, which
Speaker 1: is smart. Can't believe they didn't do that before. Says
Speaker 1: it reduces CPU by five times usage, extends battery life
Speaker 1: by an hour point twenty five and then it says
Speaker 1: Chrome now starts up twenty five percent faster and loads
Speaker 1: pages up to seven percent faster. And on Android, page
Speaker 1: loads are now instantaneous when you go back or forward,
Speaker 1: which yes, that should have always been a thing as well.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I've noticed there is definitely an improvement in Chrome.
Speaker 1: So go get the update and be on your merry way.
Speaker 1: M All right, let's see next question here, Jonathan. Hey Rich,
Speaker 1: I'm a senior citizen, so I'm not so good with
Speaker 1: computers since I didn't grow up with them. I follow
Speaker 1: a number of people on Instagram and was told I
Speaker 1: have to have a profile on Instagram in order to
Speaker 1: do this. Instagram seems to show something for me that
Speaker 1: deals with yoga, and I would never use that in
Speaker 1: creating my Instagram site slash profile. How do I delete
Speaker 1: the yoga one and create something that more closely follows
Speaker 1: my interests?
Speaker 2: Thanks for your help.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what you mean by this, and
Speaker 1: the only thing that I can think of is that
Speaker 1: when you're looking at the search page, it's showing yoga
Speaker 1: stuff or yoga related. That's the only thing I can
Speaker 1: think of, and as far as I know, you can't
Speaker 1: really change that.
Speaker 2: So up at the top of.
Speaker 1: Mine, it says like Instagram, TV, travel, architecture, decor, art, food, style,
Speaker 1: TV movies, DIY, music, sports, beauty. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: understand what any of those things have to do with
Speaker 1: what I look at on Instagram, but I will say
Speaker 1: on Instagram. They do show and this is something I've
Speaker 1: I've noticed on Twitter as well, people complaining is that
Speaker 1: they show kind of like what I call the LCD
Speaker 1: videos Lowest Common denominator, And by this, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the dancing girls and you know, just like these pictures
Speaker 1: that get a lot of interaction from folks, but it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily stuff that you're fully interested in. So for me,
Speaker 1: if I see something I don't like on those pages,
Speaker 1: you can just press and hold a picture and just
Speaker 1: say not interested. So that's how you do it. And
Speaker 1: I think if you do that with a couple of
Speaker 1: those yoga pictures, that should do it. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that's what you're talking about now. I know
Speaker 1: that this stuff is supposedly supposedly personalized to what you
Speaker 1: look at on Instagram, but I'm not convinced that's one
Speaker 1: hundred percent correct. I mean, I think some of it is,
Speaker 1: but I think some of it they're also sort of
Speaker 1: seating and getting you know, just kind of pumping up
Speaker 1: some of those accounts and things like that. But anyway,
Speaker 1: that's what I would do, is press and hold on
Speaker 1: a picture and get rid of it. Otherwise, just look
Speaker 1: at that area. But it's just I think Instagram is
Speaker 1: just trying to, you know, give people a way to
Speaker 1: discover more things, and I think that's what's happening to you.
Speaker 1: All Right, let's move on another small story. HBO Max.
Speaker 1: Not going to spend a lot of time on this,
Speaker 1: but it's available on fireTV. And the cool thing about
Speaker 1: that is that that was a major holdout. So HBO
Speaker 1: Max came out a couple months ago and it was
Speaker 1: sorely lacking on Roku and Amazon fireTV sticks and fireTV devices.
Speaker 1: So now it is on fireTV. You can get it
Speaker 1: by asking you know who, find HBO Max via your
Speaker 1: voice remote, or you can just search for HBO Max
Speaker 1: and HBO Max a little confusing, but it is included
Speaker 1: with your HBO subscription. So if you have HBO you
Speaker 1: subscribe to your cable, Hulu AT and T DirecTV, you
Speaker 1: can use that login to log into HBO Max, or
Speaker 1: you can subscribe separately to HBO Max. It's your choice,
Speaker 1: but it is available on Fire TV. I found the
Speaker 1: app on mine.
Speaker 2: It's there.
Speaker 1: It's great. They've got that new Wonder Woman movie coming out,
Speaker 1: and I think December twenty fifth is the day which
Speaker 1: is so exciting for me. Not that I'll necessarily watch
Speaker 1: a movie on Christmas Day, but certainly the day after.
Speaker 1: And it's just really neat that, like Wonder Woman nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four is like a real Hollywood blockbuster movie that
Speaker 1: is coming straight to HBO Max for free, I mean
Speaker 1: according to my account, because it's you know, something I
Speaker 1: already pay for, I mean free by something I subscribe to.
Speaker 1: But how cool is that? I mean it's like this
Speaker 1: is that's really great. And I know that's because of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, but it definitely is a benefit to people
Speaker 1: here that have been sitting at home for months and
Speaker 1: months and months and want some new entertainment.
Speaker 2: So I love that. And there you go, and they'll
Speaker 2: probably pick up a lot of subscribers that day.
Speaker 3: By the way, let's see, Derek asks, Rich, can you
Speaker 3: bypass cell phone activation fees by buying an unlocked phone?
Speaker 2: You know what? It sort of depends. I remember when I.
Speaker 1: Actually switched to T Mobile a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: for a little bit, and I bought my phone out right,
Speaker 1: and you know, they charged me full price for it,
Speaker 1: and they still charge me forty dollars for activation. I
Speaker 1: think it was forty maybe it was thirty five. Uh,
Speaker 1: I can't remember, but anyway, and I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, what for an unlocked phone? I
Speaker 1: still got to pay this forty dollars to activate a line?
Speaker 1: And sure enough. Yeah, now that was a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago. So I don't know, maybe that's changed. But
Speaker 1: if you want to bypass cell phone activation fees, I
Speaker 1: think in general, if you pop your SIM card into
Speaker 1: a new phone, like let's say you let's say you're
Speaker 1: on Verizon, you have the iPhone eleven, you upgrade to
Speaker 1: the iPhone twelve by buying it unlocked through the Apple Store.
Speaker 1: If you just go through and swap your phone out
Speaker 1: through like putting your SIM card in and just your
Speaker 1: I think you have to go through the website to
Speaker 1: do it and say like I'm switching my Imei out
Speaker 1: or whatever like this little code on your phone. I
Speaker 1: think you would bypass the activation fee because they're not
Speaker 1: really activating a new line or anything. But I know
Speaker 1: that they when you upgrade your phone through your carrier,
Speaker 1: they do charge an upgrade fee many times. So look,
Speaker 1: these carriers, they're gonna do what they can to preserve
Speaker 1: their profits. It's kind of funny because, oh, there's no
Speaker 1: contracts anymore. But guess what, there are contracts because people
Speaker 1: buy their phones for twenty four months or thirty months
Speaker 1: through the carrier. You're on just a contract for the
Speaker 1: phone instead of the service. What are you going to
Speaker 1: use that at and T phone without service? No, So
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny. Back in the day, we used
Speaker 1: to give you the phone for free. Yes, I worked
Speaker 1: at a phone place. Back in the day, we used
Speaker 1: to give you the phone for free, for a penny,
Speaker 1: and then you'd be on a twenty four thirty six
Speaker 1: whatever the contract was.
Speaker 2: I think it was a year, maybe it was Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it was a year.
Speaker 1: Twelve months and you were on a contract, or maybe
Speaker 1: it was twenty four months, whatever it was, but you
Speaker 1: would pay the survey was your fee, and that service
Speaker 1: was so expensive it would pay for also the phone
Speaker 1: on the back end. Well, then they made the phones
Speaker 1: full price, which is funny. We went through that whole shift,
Speaker 1: and now the service is a little bit cheaper, but
Speaker 1: you're just paying for the phone now, so it's kind
Speaker 1: of the same thing. I mean, my bill has been
Speaker 1: like two hundred dollars a month for like as far
Speaker 1: as long as I can remember, and it's the same
Speaker 1: thing two lines, you know, But anyway, so you can
Speaker 1: try avoiding it, but you know, call and ask I
Speaker 1: guess and say, hey, if I bring an unlocked phone,
Speaker 1: will you charge me?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Twitter this week introduce something called fleets. And if you're
Speaker 1: familiar with the idea of Instagram stories or Snapchat, you
Speaker 1: already know what a fleet is. And a fleet is
Speaker 1: just a disappearing fleet. They call it a you know,
Speaker 1: a tweet for a fleeting thought. And Twitter says the
Speaker 1: reason behind this is because so many people thought that
Speaker 1: tweeting was uncomfortable because it's public, it's permanent pressure to
Speaker 1: rack up likes and retweet, and so they're doing the
Speaker 1: lower pressure way to help people start talking about what's happening.
Speaker 1: And fleets, they say, are for sharing momentary thoughts. And
Speaker 1: when they did their tests of these, they saw people
Speaker 1: with fleets talk more on Twitter. They disappear after twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. You can you know, videos, photos. You can
Speaker 1: actually fleet a tweet and so if you're on a tweet,
Speaker 1: you can press a little share button and it says
Speaker 1: like share and fleet or says fleet this tweet something
Speaker 1: like that, and you also be able to broadcast live
Speaker 1: on fleets soon. But here's my thought about fleets after
Speaker 1: using them for a week, is that I used it
Speaker 1: exactly once the first minute it was available, And honestly,
Speaker 1: I haven't really looked at them at the top of
Speaker 1: my Twitter timeline because I don't identify Twitter with those
Speaker 1: kind of things just yet. Now, with all that said,
Speaker 1: I do think that Twitter is actually the quite perfect
Speaker 1: social media platform because at this point it is the
Speaker 1: most universal platform it is.
Speaker 2: It's pretty much open.
Speaker 1: You've got stories now, You've got a way to go live,
Speaker 1: You've got a way to share videos, even though they
Speaker 1: have to be kind of short. You have a way
Speaker 1: of commenting on other people's stuff, you have a way
Speaker 1: of retweeting. It kind of checks off all the boxes
Speaker 1: of a good social network. But the problem is it
Speaker 1: doesn't have a lot of pickup. Like I don't put
Speaker 1: a lot of effort into Twitter because that's not really
Speaker 1: where my following is. And most of my following is
Speaker 1: on Facebook and Instagram, and that's because I kind of
Speaker 1: have a consumer following and my mom is not on Twitter,
Speaker 1: and that's really my audience and so not just my mom.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's probably how it was when I started out,
Speaker 1: but it used to. This is funny story. So when
Speaker 1: I first started my social media accounts, you know, I
Speaker 1: had no followers, and my mom would comment on everything,
Speaker 1: and I was so embarrassed that I felt so like
Speaker 1: embarrassed that it was just my mom commenting on everything,
Speaker 1: and she'd be like.
Speaker 2: Oh, this was so cute, just like you were when
Speaker 2: you were a little baby.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like, oh mom, please, I'm trying to like,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get like random strangers to like my stuff, stop,
Speaker 1: you know, cramp in my style here. And now my
Speaker 1: mom doesn't comment on my stuff as much, and now
Speaker 1: I feel sad. I'm like, oh, my mom doesn't comment because,
Speaker 1: like you know, Twitter or Facebook and Instagram are smart
Speaker 1: enough to show you like you're the people closest to you.
Speaker 1: They show their comments like kind of first when you
Speaker 1: look at all your comments.
Speaker 2: And I don't see my mom's comments as much anymore.
Speaker 1: So I guess she got the thing because now she
Speaker 1: feels lost in the crowd. But she'll still comment every
Speaker 1: once in a while, so that's good.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: I tell lots of stories on this podcast, hmm, all
Speaker 1: right Lydia, this is a long one, finally giving up
Speaker 1: on dud computers and taking a bite of the Apple.
Speaker 1: Not a techie, but would like to check emails and
Speaker 1: do searches several times a day, and recently have had
Speaker 1: to do work related tasks online even when supposedly off duty. Ooh,
Speaker 1: that sounds like something you want to discuss with your employer.
Speaker 1: I have an iPad, but I've only played with and
Speaker 1: haven't gotten the hang of it. Don't want to put
Speaker 1: work on there yet. I bought a MacBook Air about
Speaker 1: three weeks ago, haven't opened the box. Now the newer
Speaker 1: model comes out for only fifty.
Speaker 2: Dash zero dollars more. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1: So should I go to Costco and see if you'll
Speaker 1: take the unopen one back for the price paid and
Speaker 1: order the new one? Also, will I be able to
Speaker 1: transfer the Apple Care plan I paid for but haven't
Speaker 1: set up to the new model? Enjoy your segments on
Speaker 1: KTLA five. With a less problematic laptop, I can check
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Maybe this year I should order your book
Speaker 1: for my birthday Christmas and hope there's a valid section
Speaker 1: on Apple for Dummies.
Speaker 2: Thanks Lydia Lydia.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, number one, my book, unless you're running the
Speaker 1: older version of the software for the iPhone, probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: be as relevant anymore. I did not do the version
Speaker 1: for iOS fourteen for reasons I will not get into
Speaker 1: right now. But there's still some tips in there that
Speaker 1: do work. It's just it's not as specific for the
Speaker 1: latest version of the operating system. In fact, iOS fourteen
Speaker 1: would have been a perfect operating system to do my
Speaker 1: book for because so many things changed, but I didn't.
Speaker 2: Okay, my answer to your question.
Speaker 1: Is yes, I would absolutely see if Costco will take
Speaker 1: back the unopened one. I don't see why they wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the return policy is on computers.
Speaker 1: I think it's ninety days usually this ninety days. Yes,
Speaker 1: so I would definitely do that. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to the Apple plan, just you know, you just cancel that.
Speaker 1: It can't charge you for a plan you haven't set up,
Speaker 1: so cancel that. And then yeah, get the new one.
Speaker 1: Get the new MacBook Air with the m one ship.
Speaker 1: It is getting rave reviews. I have not tested it,
Speaker 1: but I am I'm like wanting to switch out my laptop.
Speaker 1: I wish they made it in a sixteen inch because
Speaker 1: the MacBook Air thirteen sounds like it's just screaming fast,
Speaker 1: and it's like, whoa what And I expected this from Apple,
Speaker 1: That's what I expected. So yes, go get the new
Speaker 1: one MacBook Air. If you are in any way a
Speaker 1: teacher or related to education, be sure to buy the
Speaker 1: Education edition because you'll get a one hundred bucks off
Speaker 1: same thing.
Speaker 2: It's just education pricing. So great question, And yeah.
Speaker 1: It's kind of kind of bad timing, but you know,
Speaker 1: this is why I recommend that website. What is it,
Speaker 1: the Buyer's Guide dot MacRumors dot com. And so when
Speaker 1: you before you're gonna buy any Apple product Buyer's Guide
Speaker 1: dot MacRumors dot com, you look at the product and
Speaker 1: it will tell you how long it's been since the
Speaker 1: last one came out and whether you should wait or
Speaker 1: buy or use caution. And so with the sixteen inch
Speaker 1: MacBook Pro right now, it's saying don't buy. With the iMac,
Speaker 1: it's saying caution. With the Macmini, it says buy now
Speaker 1: because they just came out with one ten days ago,
Speaker 1: and it gives you the day since last release, the
Speaker 1: average days between releases, and then the recent releases. So
Speaker 1: it's a really, really fantastic resource. So get on there,
Speaker 1: all right. Google pay is trying to become more like Venmo.
Speaker 2: Now I got on Venmo.
Speaker 1: I was a Venmo hater for many, many, many, many
Speaker 1: many many years, and it just became a thing where
Speaker 1: people you know at school would be like, Oh, can
Speaker 1: you venmo the teacher twenty bucks?
Speaker 2: Or can you venmo parent ten dollars? Hey, can you
Speaker 2: venmo the in laws ten bucks for dinner? Whatever?
Speaker 1: That'd be a cheap dinner. But I held out and
Speaker 1: I said, now I use Zelle. I'll pay pall you,
Speaker 1: which by the way, is the same company, and or
Speaker 1: I'll cash app you. And everyone was like rich dude,
Speaker 1: you're the tech guy, Like why do you hate venmo
Speaker 1: so much? And I said, I'll give you my reasons.
Speaker 1: Number one, I hate the fact that it has a
Speaker 1: public record of all the things that you do, which
Speaker 1: you can change to private, but most people don't, so
Speaker 1: I do. I did not like the fact that Venmo
Speaker 1: pulled from my my like like, let's say I had
Speaker 1: one hundred bucks in my account and I need to
Speaker 1: send someone fifty dollars. It would pull it for my
Speaker 1: debit card and not the account. Well, I realized that
Speaker 1: that was because I never verified my account with like
Speaker 1: my you know, full information.
Speaker 2: So now I fix that.
Speaker 1: I turned off the privacy thing. And honestly, now I'm
Speaker 1: a huge fan of Venmo.
Speaker 2: Now I know, I know, I know, I know. Now
Speaker 2: I still think that Venmo.
Speaker 1: I still think at the end of the day, it
Speaker 1: offers less protections than i'd like to see.
Speaker 2: Like, if something went.
Speaker 1: Wrong with venmo' I'd be curious to see how long
Speaker 1: it would take to get that sold. Now, in a
Speaker 1: couple of times I've emailed Venmo, they have emailed me
Speaker 1: back like quickly, and so I am impressed with that
Speaker 1: aspect of customer service. I just feel like at all,
Speaker 1: if I can use like and I know I'm not
Speaker 1: a big credit card person, but when I'm purchasing things
Speaker 1: online or from a mysterious retailer, I like to use
Speaker 1: a credit card because it offers a little bit more
Speaker 1: protection at In general, I don't like to give out
Speaker 1: my debit card number because that is tied to my
Speaker 1: bank account, and I'm sure my bank has some you know,
Speaker 1: precautions in place to try to keep fraud from happening,
Speaker 1: and nine nine percent of the time they keep me
Speaker 1: from purchasing at Target for some reason. Whenever I use
Speaker 1: my I try to be good and use my debit
Speaker 1: card at Target and that's like, sorry, fraud alert on
Speaker 1: your account. Please call us or text us. What did
Speaker 1: you try to make a purchase for seven dollars and
Speaker 1: seventy nine cents of you know, ibuprofen at Target?
Speaker 2: Like yes, you have to like call in and like whatever,
Speaker 2: Now you don't have to call, you just have to text.
Speaker 1: But still, and it's like embarrassing because you know, it's
Speaker 1: like whatever. So anyway, that never happens with the credit card,
Speaker 1: by the way, But anyway, so I digress, and yes,
Speaker 1: I like Venmo and now I'm using it, and I
Speaker 1: actually think the Venmo credit cards they're coming out with
Speaker 1: actually looks really good because it seems like a no whatever,
Speaker 1: no brainer kind of way. Ever, anyway, so I'm all
Speaker 1: about Venmo. Now I'm fine with it. But now Google
Speaker 1: pay is trying to become Venmo. The app is totally
Speaker 1: redesigned and they've got some cool features. It will help
Speaker 1: you pay people, which is fine. I don't know if
Speaker 1: we're going to see as much uptake on that because
Speaker 1: Venmo is kind of like the king there, and it's
Speaker 1: also free, so there's not really much that differentiates it
Speaker 1: except your friend may not have a Google Pay account.
Speaker 2: Then they've got.
Speaker 1: These offers, which who cares. But here's the cool part.
Speaker 1: You can connect your bank account or cards to Google
Speaker 1: Pay and the app will apply some Google magic to
Speaker 1: give you trends and insights over time to show you,
Speaker 1: like how much you spent on things. Now, I've never
Speaker 1: really understood the allure of saying like, oh, last year
Speaker 1: I spent one thousand, five hundred dollars on Starbucks, Like okay, great,
Speaker 1: Like what does that do? So next year I'm gona
Speaker 1: try to spend one thousand, four hundred Like I don't
Speaker 1: really get that. Like to me, I like to try to, like,
Speaker 1: day by day whatever I'm spending, like try to be
Speaker 1: mindful of it. So just saying like, oh, you spent
Speaker 1: you know, five hundred dollars at best Buy or that
Speaker 1: would be a lot less, I mean a lot more.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so I don't really understand that, but I
Speaker 1: do see if they can apply trends and say, like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't know, but that's one aspect.
Speaker 2: Let's see what else. Oh, the cool thing is that they're.
Speaker 1: Gonna start a bad account, a new mobile first bank
Speaker 1: account that's integrated into Google Play, and that I actually
Speaker 1: do think could be kind of compelling because not everyone wants.
Speaker 2: To have a big old bank account anymore.
Speaker 1: And you know, as all these people are going towards
Speaker 1: these like transaction, you know, these app based transactions, like
Speaker 1: I kind of see the allure of that because it'll
Speaker 1: include checking in savings accounts with no monthly fees, no
Speaker 1: overdraft charges, and no minimum balance requirements.
Speaker 2: So why not if you can open it up.
Speaker 1: That's coming in twenty twenty one, So just be aware
Speaker 1: if Google Pay looks totally different, that's what's going on.
Speaker 1: I you know, if you're if you're on Android, you're
Speaker 1: probably using Google Pay to like tap uh to pay.
Speaker 1: But if not, you're just you know, you're probably using Venmo.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there you have it, all right. David says,
Speaker 1: last week I saw your piece on TV about the
Speaker 1: Samsung fe phone. Your glowing review convinced me to purchase it.
Speaker 2: This phone sucks.
Speaker 1: It won't say passwords for some websites, such as my
Speaker 1: Car Insurance company. And now there's a password that I
Speaker 1: have to enter to access the phone. Even though I've
Speaker 1: hit canceled many times, I'll not make the mistake again
Speaker 1: and listen to what you suggest. Oh, David, well, sorry
Speaker 1: that this.
Speaker 2: Happened to you.
Speaker 1: But what everything you're describing has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the quality of this phone. I mean, let's let's break
Speaker 1: it down here. The phone sucks. Okay, Well, you didn't
Speaker 1: give any basis why, but I guess the two reasons
Speaker 1: you list after is why you think it sucks. It
Speaker 1: won't save passwords for some websites. Well, David, you didn't
Speaker 1: mention what software you're using to save passwords. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a million ways you can do this, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean even on my password manager. There are some
Speaker 1: websites it just doesn't play nice with. I mean, and
Speaker 1: I've been using it for a couple of years now.
Speaker 1: And okay, you get over it, you go into the app,
Speaker 1: you copy, you paste, it's all good. But ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of the time it works as advertised. Now there's
Speaker 1: a password that I have to enter to access the phone. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that's for your safety. And even though
Speaker 1: you plus press cancel a million times. I don't know
Speaker 1: what that means, but yeah, you should have a password
Speaker 1: to enter your phone, because you know, do you want
Speaker 1: people randomly having access to your phone?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So if you don't want a password on your phone,
Speaker 1: number one, try using the fingerprint sensor that's on there. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: if you really want your phone to just be unlocked forever,
Speaker 1: you can go into your security settings and just turn
Speaker 1: off all locks. And I don't recommend doing that at all,
Speaker 1: but you can't do it, and those two reasons do
Speaker 1: not make this phone suck. The Samsung Fe is a
Speaker 1: fantastic phone. It's on my list of things that I
Speaker 1: recommend on my website rich on tech dot tv and
Speaker 1: you can go there and see my richest favorite things.
Speaker 1: I'm keeping a list for the holidays because you know,
Speaker 1: everyone always.
Speaker 2: Asks me, hey, what do you recommend this?
Speaker 1: And the Samsung phone is on there, so I think
Speaker 1: it's a fantastic device. It's on some great deals for
Speaker 1: the holidays. Samsung f Samsung S twenty Fe is let's
Speaker 1: see what the deals are. Yeah, it's really cheap, like
Speaker 1: I saw it for like, I can't see the price
Speaker 1: right now, but it was it was, it's on sale
Speaker 1: during the holiday, so anyway, yeah, get it.
Speaker 2: I think that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, five point fifty in this early Black Friday sale.
Speaker 1: Five hundred and fifty bucks for a great cell phone.
Speaker 1: That's a really really good deal, So sorry, David. All right,
Speaker 1: fipit getting a couple of new features if you have
Speaker 1: a fitbit Sense or VERSU three, which are too newer fippits,
Speaker 1: so probably not not many have this yet, but fipbit's
Speaker 1: pretty popular. So now they're giving users more way to
Speaker 1: check their blood oxygen levels, and they're also the big
Speaker 1: news is that they're adding Google Assistant and also Bluetooth
Speaker 1: calling and audible replies for Alexa users, so those are
Speaker 1: three pretty big things. With the blood oxygen you had
Speaker 1: to use now, mainly this applies to premium members right now,
Speaker 1: but you can see your blood oxygen levels while sleeping
Speaker 1: and your averages in the fipbit app without using a clockface,
Speaker 1: and so the other way you have to see your
Speaker 1: blood oxygen all day is to use their free clock
Speaker 1: face blood oxygen clockface, which is kind of weird, but
Speaker 1: they say they're going to offer seven new additional clockfaces
Speaker 1: in the app gallery by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: So I guess that's good because it's going to be free.
Speaker 1: But right now, the premium members can see it like,
Speaker 1: you know, anytime.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's kind of weird.
Speaker 1: The Google Assistant, that's pretty cool. So that's great. And
Speaker 1: you know, Google is purchasing this company. They haven't done
Speaker 1: it just yet, but they are in the process. But
Speaker 1: you know, they're jumping the gun and already putting Google
Speaker 1: Assistant in there. And audible replies for Google Assistant will
Speaker 1: be in the first half of twenty twenty one. But
Speaker 1: Android users can respond to messages text messages on the go,
Speaker 1: and they also have hands free Bluetooth calls. So if
Speaker 1: you have a fipbit Sense or a verse of three,
Speaker 1: definitely do that software update. I love when new features
Speaker 1: hit these things. It's the best feeling ever to know
Speaker 1: these software engineers are hard at work bringing us new.
Speaker 2: Stuff for free. Let's see.
Speaker 1: Michael says, Hey, Rich, I'm contemplating buying a Google Nest doorbell.
Speaker 1: Please let me know the pluses and minuses of this device.
Speaker 1: I trust your judgment and I look forward to your
Speaker 1: segment on KTLA every time you have an item to review.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, Michael, Michael, I probably would not recommend the
Speaker 1: Google Nest doorbell. Here's my reasoning. Google is notoriously wishy washy,
Speaker 1: as I explained with Google Photos in sort of their
Speaker 1: attention span. Now, this Google Nest doorbell, I am trying
Speaker 1: to remember if they've even had a new version of
Speaker 1: this thing. I'm not even sure this thing has been
Speaker 1: updated since it came out. Whereas Ring continues every single
Speaker 1: day to update and hone their stuff. And they're on
Speaker 1: the door doorbell I think it's three, Whereas this Nest
Speaker 1: is great. It works with the Nest stuff if you
Speaker 1: have all nests.
Speaker 2: But honestly, I would just go Ring. This is their
Speaker 2: entire business.
Speaker 1: I mean, Ring built their entire business on the video doorbell.
Speaker 1: You know, they invented it. Jamie Simmonov I mean I was, gosh,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget interviewing him when he had this tiny
Speaker 1: little office in Santa Monica show me the Ring doorbell.
Speaker 1: I mean he brought me into the lab he had
Speaker 1: set up. I mean, this guy is like, and I've
Speaker 1: said this before, He's like, he reminds me like Doc
Speaker 1: Brown and back to the future. Right. He's got this
Speaker 1: little lab and he tinkers and that's his job. Now
Speaker 1: now he's like a multi you know, probably billionaire, if
Speaker 1: not probably a multi millionaire that is probably spending his
Speaker 1: time dealing with all the ins and outs of you know,
Speaker 1: the acquiring of Amazon. But he's still, you know, very
Speaker 1: hands on guy. And one time I went to the
Speaker 1: office and he's sitting there. He's like, oh, Rich, He's like,
Speaker 1: you know, we had a meeting and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you want to come in on this meeting. And he
Speaker 1: brings me into this meeting that he's having with another
Speaker 1: startup and he's just like, he's like, you're good at
Speaker 1: this stuff, come on, just sit in this meeting.
Speaker 2: The guy who's there for that startup was probably.
Speaker 1: Like, who's this kid sitting in on my meeting with you, Jamie.
Speaker 1: But it was all good, and it's just that's the
Speaker 1: kind of guy he is. I mean, he's a really
Speaker 1: good guy. And so I love the direction that he
Speaker 1: is bringing to Ring. I think that they are really
Speaker 1: honed in on products that you know, make neighborhoods safer
Speaker 1: and make you feel better. And in fact, I feel
Speaker 1: like my next move is to kind of move everything
Speaker 1: to Ring because right now I've got the doorbell and
Speaker 1: a couple other little things, but they are really they're
Speaker 1: really dialed in, whereas Nest it's kind of all over
Speaker 1: the place. So I mean, do you really want to
Speaker 1: go with a doorbell from a company that's you know,
Speaker 1: their main job is search, and you know they've got
Speaker 1: YouTube and they've got all these other things they've got
Speaker 1: their hand in, and none of it has been as
Speaker 1: successful as Google Search. And so I love Google, but
Speaker 1: I so love a company that is going to focus
Speaker 1: on the products that I'm spending a lot of money for.
Speaker 1: And with the doorbell, I think, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: talking about their Nest audio stuff, sure doorbell, I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's fine. I haven't tested it, but I'm sure it's fine. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's my answer, Go ring, all right, Amazon, Let's see
Speaker 1: what we're getting towards the end of the show here.
Speaker 1: So I want to make sure I get some things right.
Speaker 2: This is a quick one.
Speaker 1: But Amazon opening up a pharmacy, and I think what's
Speaker 1: cool about this is that it kind of takes all
Speaker 1: the inefficiencies out of the pharmacy experience. And I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but you know, when I have to
Speaker 1: get medications for my kids or occasionally for myself. You
Speaker 1: go to the here's the process. You know, your doctor
Speaker 1: sends it into CVS or Walgreens or whatever. You go
Speaker 1: there and you know, they tap on their computer, they
Speaker 1: look at you for one second, they tap for an hour,
Speaker 1: they look at you again, they tap for another hour.
Speaker 1: I'd be ready and like, uh, give me, give me
Speaker 1: an hour. You're like an hour. Really, They're like, all right,
Speaker 1: can you do five minutes? I'm like yeah, five minutes. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: go go shop five minutes. We'll got have it ready.
Speaker 1: So that's number one. It's just this weird, like I
Speaker 1: don't really understand the experience. Then, you know when it
Speaker 1: comes to the price, like that'll be one hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy four seventy five, you're like, wait, what for this
Speaker 1: little tiny pill or whatever, this one bottle of whatever?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, that's your your your prescription benefits. Like okay,
Speaker 1: well what about with RX good RX? Like, ah, let
Speaker 1: me type in and they type in for another hour,
Speaker 1: and you know it's like this on and on. So
Speaker 1: it's like all these inefficiencies of getting the prescription, and
Speaker 1: you know with Amazon, what they're gonna do. And I
Speaker 1: think this is the coolest part is that they're going
Speaker 1: to put all the pricing on one page. They're going
Speaker 1: to take into account your prescription pricing. They're going to
Speaker 1: take into account branded and generic versions. They're gonna take
Speaker 1: into account the price without insurance or their new Prime
Speaker 1: Prescription Savings, which is kind of like a good RX
Speaker 1: but for Amazon customers.
Speaker 2: And you can see that all on one page.
Speaker 1: So it might be cheaper to just buy this prescription
Speaker 1: straight up without your without your insurance copey and so
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe that happens.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's rare, but you know, you never know,
Speaker 1: and so I like that idea. Now, this is not
Speaker 1: gonna be good for the time when you need antibiotics
Speaker 1: like that day, you're still gonna have to go to
Speaker 1: like a pharmacy. But this, I think is gonna be
Speaker 1: helpful for long term medications, like you know, blood thinning
Speaker 1: drugs or you know, any sort of like medication that
Speaker 1: you take regularly for like some sort of chronic issue.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be pretty helpful and it's definitely worth a shot.
Speaker 2: All right, do I have time for one more question?
Speaker 1: Derek says, greeting's rich. What's the best way to transfer
Speaker 1: all your info from one phone to another? I upgraded
Speaker 1: my iPhone yesterday. Gave me two options, phone to phone
Speaker 1: or iCloud.
Speaker 2: I picked the first. It seemed to work just fine.
Speaker 1: But what's the difference between the two options. I didn't
Speaker 1: have to connect a chord between the two phones, So
Speaker 1: how did the info just jump from one to the
Speaker 1: other because I didn't choose iCloud. Also other pros and
Speaker 1: cons of setting up a new iPhone through the first
Speaker 1: or second choice that Apple gives you.
Speaker 2: Appreciate all you do.
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing your podcast. I find them interesting and informative.
Speaker 2: Have a great day. Well, thank you, Derek.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the two options are phone to phone or iCloud,
Speaker 1: and Apple has made this process really, really easy. I
Speaker 1: like phone to phone because it's getting you know, the
Speaker 1: latest information off your phone and basically using Wi Fi
Speaker 1: direct to connect to download that information to your new phone.
Speaker 1: iCloud is just fine as well. It's just gonna take
Speaker 1: perhaps a little bit longer because what it does is
Speaker 1: it downloads kind of the data from iCloud. It does
Speaker 1: like an initial dump of the data to the new
Speaker 1: phone and then it does like in the background, it'll
Speaker 1: kind of up download everything like after a little bit.
Speaker 1: So and now it's gotten so smart where even if
Speaker 1: you choose the iCloud option, Apple will say, hey, do
Speaker 1: you want to we notice that your last phone has
Speaker 1: been backed up in like a day or two. Do
Speaker 1: you want us to do a quick iPhone iCloud backup
Speaker 1: before we transfer? And you're like, yeah, but of course
Speaker 1: that always takes forever, so it takes longer than they
Speaker 1: say all the time. But there's no real pros or cons.
Speaker 1: I mean, I personally like the phone to phone because
Speaker 1: it's like direct, but you do have to keep both
Speaker 1: phones nearby and close the whole time. But if it worked,
Speaker 1: it worked. But yes, to answer your question, it's using
Speaker 1: some sort of Bluetooth and Wi Fi to pair and
Speaker 1: also transfer that data. So that's what I would do,
Speaker 1: And either one's gonna get you the same place, which
Speaker 1: Apple has sort of. Google's gotten a lot better with
Speaker 1: the Android devices. In fact, Samsung is pretty darn good
Speaker 1: of moving your information from device to device and having
Speaker 1: your home screen set up the same way. On other
Speaker 1: Android devices, I find it works about half the time,
Speaker 1: but on Samsung, yeah, pretty much's gonna work, and iPhone
Speaker 1: it's always gonna work, so you're gonna get all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Your new phone's gonna look just like your old phone.
Speaker 1: All right, one more thing, I'll just talk about this
Speaker 1: little kerfuffle with Peanuts.
Speaker 2: So you know, pe Nuts has moved to Apple.
Speaker 1: They got the rights for like all the Snoopy and
Speaker 1: Charlie Brown stuff, and so it was announced that the
Speaker 1: Peanuts specials, like the ones for Halloween, Christmas and Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: we're all going to be on Apple TV Plus. Well
Speaker 1: of course people went nuts because this has been on
Speaker 1: broadcast TV forever and ever and anyone can watch just
Speaker 1: by tuning in. Remember when you were a kid, you
Speaker 1: would just it'd be one night. One night would be
Speaker 1: the Charlie Brown special and you had to be there
Speaker 1: or you missed it. And now with Apple TV it
Speaker 1: got a lot better because you could watch it for
Speaker 1: like weeks on end if you had Apple TV Plus,
Speaker 1: which is available on a lot of different devices, not
Speaker 1: just Apple TV.
Speaker 2: I know, so confusing, and it's.
Speaker 1: Also to make it even more confusing, you didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: need a subscription to Apple TV Plus to watch the specials.
Speaker 1: They made them free to anyone just opening the Apple
Speaker 1: tv Plus app, but only for a couple of days,
Speaker 1: so it was like a window. So now after this
Speaker 1: whole big thing got in the media, people you know, noticed,
Speaker 1: and they got mad and they had petitions, and now
Speaker 1: these will air on PBS and PBS kits and so
Speaker 1: I guess Apple didn't really want to give the rights
Speaker 1: over to like, you know, an ABC or CBS or
Speaker 1: an NBC or a Fox. So they said, a PBS
Speaker 1: is innocent enough, they don't really compete with us, so
Speaker 1: we'll do that. So Charlie Brown Thanksgiving will air on PBS.
Speaker 1: Charlie Brown Christmas will also air on PBS. They'll also
Speaker 1: stream for free on Apple tv Plus for a long period,
Speaker 1: but they'll be for subscribers for an even longer period.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go through all the dates. I'll
Speaker 1: put those in the notes, but just know if you
Speaker 1: even if you have any sort of access to Apple
Speaker 1: tv Plus, you will be able to watch these specials
Speaker 1: for free for a certain time period.
Speaker 2: So it's like, I think it's like three or four days.
Speaker 1: But if you're an Apple tv Plus subscriber, you know,
Speaker 1: you kick it up a notch, you will get more
Speaker 1: access to these.
Speaker 2: Over the dace. Is that confusing enough? I think it is.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's a lot. Oh there it is,
Speaker 2: you hear it? Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That's the end of the show. That's gonna do it
Speaker 1: for another episode of the rich on Tech podcast. If
Speaker 1: you would like to submit a question for me to answer,
Speaker 1: just go to rich on tech dot tv, hit the
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Speaker 2: My name is rich Dedmiro. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Stay safe, have a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday.
Speaker 2: I'll talk to you real soon.