Speaker 1: My review of the Samsung Galaxy S twenty one Ultra
Speaker 1: one messaging app to rule them all. Fossil has a
Speaker 1: new smart watch that actually sounds pretty cool. Plus your
Speaker 1: tech questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich Damiro and
Speaker 1: this is Rich on Tech, the podcast right talk about
Speaker 1: the tech stuff I think you should know about. It
Speaker 1: is also the place right answer the questions you send me.
Speaker 1: I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Hope you are having a fantastic day. We are well
Speaker 1: into twenty twenty one. I'm still having trouble writing all
Speaker 1: the dates right now because they're very tricky. It's like
Speaker 1: one twenty two, twenty one, one, twenty three, twenty one, one,
Speaker 1: twenty four, twenty one, one, nineteen twenty one, one, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, one, twenty one, twenty one. It's just been
Speaker 1: really funny, and I know there's like a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of like are they call palindromes where they're you know,
Speaker 1: the same forwards and backwards for all these dates recently anyway,
Speaker 1: So I guess I'm not alone and having trouble because
Speaker 1: there is something going on with the dates recently. But
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. If you're listening for the first time,
Speaker 1: thank you for finding me. If you're listening for the
Speaker 1: second time, well thanks for tuning back in. If you're
Speaker 1: listening for the two hundredth time, I probably do have
Speaker 1: that many shows, actually, because I've been doing this podcast
Speaker 1: in one form or another for a very long time now,
Speaker 1: and it's gone. If you've listened throughout the years, it's
Speaker 1: gone through different kind of variations. I guess you can
Speaker 1: say sometimes it was like a ten minute daily thing.
Speaker 1: Other times it was like an interview thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: now it's kind of settled upon this format, which I like.
Speaker 1: But honestly, if I had my way, if I had
Speaker 1: one hundred percent like the way Rich Demiro wants to
Speaker 1: do this show, I would do a live call in
Speaker 1: show every single day, and that's all I would do,
Speaker 1: and you know, just talk about some of the things
Speaker 1: happening in the tech world, plus do the calls live.
Speaker 1: But this is the next best thing because it's a
Speaker 1: little bit what's the word is it asynchronous? You know,
Speaker 1: the let's see, asynchronous means not existing or happening at
Speaker 1: the same time, So that's kind of what it is,
Speaker 1: right now, so it's asynchronous because you can send me
Speaker 1: questions at any time and I can answer them on
Speaker 1: my schedule, which is really helpful because my schedule is
Speaker 1: kind of all the way over all over the place.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like today, I'm doing the podcast in just
Speaker 1: a slightly different time than typical, but it all works
Speaker 1: out anyway. Welcome to the show. Thanks for tuning in
Speaker 1: and listening. And let's just get right to it, because
Speaker 1: it just seems like every week I get more and
Speaker 1: more questions. So let's just start with the Samsung Galaxy
Speaker 1: S twenty one Ultra. I think last week I talked
Speaker 1: about the phone, but I didn't give you my opinion
Speaker 1: on it. And my opinion on this phone is that
Speaker 1: I love it. So it's basically all the problems I
Speaker 1: had with a Samsung phone are gone, and honestly, I
Speaker 1: kind of want to switch. The only thing that's keeping
Speaker 1: me right now is actually two things. The size of
Speaker 1: the device, and I feel like maybe I get used
Speaker 1: to that because I'm so used to the size of
Speaker 1: the iPhone at this point, and the quality of certain apps,
Speaker 1: and by certain I mean definitely social media apps are
Speaker 1: not as good on Samsung. I don't know why that is,
Speaker 1: but it just they don't look as good and they
Speaker 1: don't perform as well, and I don't know why that is,
Speaker 1: and I mean, I kind of know why, but it's
Speaker 1: just really frustrating because this is a powerhouse of a phone.
Speaker 1: So everything that I had an issue with they have
Speaker 1: seemed to fix. And you know, for starters, it's got
Speaker 1: that big screen, it's got the crazy camera set up
Speaker 1: on the back, which is you know, like four cameras.
Speaker 1: Two are dedicated to zoom, so you can go up
Speaker 1: to ten times optical. Then they've got up to one
Speaker 1: hundred times space zoom, which last year was unusual, and
Speaker 1: this year it actually works. Now I don't think you
Speaker 1: ever really need one hundred time zoom, but it actually
Speaker 1: does work physically, so when you're zooming in on something.
Speaker 1: Last year, you'd have to hold the phone really steady.
Speaker 1: Of course it would, you know, you couldn't at a
Speaker 1: hundred times because any tiny movement would would mess up
Speaker 1: your subject. Well, this time around, they use AI to
Speaker 1: kind of focus lock on your subject, and it actually
Speaker 1: does that, so that works. There's so many features on
Speaker 1: the camera, it's just like you'll never use them all.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you go into more, I mean there's
Speaker 1: like ar doodle, there's a promo, there's panoramic, there's food,
Speaker 1: there's night, there's portrait, portrait video, pro video, super slow mo,
Speaker 1: slow motion, hyperlapse, director's view, and you know, it just
Speaker 1: goes on and on. Then when you get into the settings,
Speaker 1: you've got you know you've got. You can take forty
Speaker 1: megapixel front facing camera photos. You can take one hundred
Speaker 1: and eight megapixel back camera photos. You can take three
Speaker 1: three quarters nine sixteen one to one square pictures or
Speaker 1: full pictures. You can take selfies. By One of my
Speaker 1: favorite features actually on this device is that when you're
Speaker 1: taking a selfie, you can just hold up your hand
Speaker 1: like your palm to the camera and it recognizes that
Speaker 1: and then it snaps in a picture, which is just
Speaker 1: little things like that. Everyday pictures and videos I find
Speaker 1: work really well on this camera. They're not you know,
Speaker 1: are they one hundred percent as good as as iPhone?
Speaker 1: Not always, but sometimes the iPhone messes up. So I
Speaker 1: mean it's like, you know, if you take a hundred pictures,
Speaker 1: sometimes you know you're gonna say, ah, the iPhone kind
Speaker 1: of did better, and other times you can say oh wow,
Speaker 1: the Samsung. You can't. You can't match it. So at
Speaker 1: this point it's kind of like, you know, some things
Speaker 1: the iPhone's gonna do better, some things the Samsung's gonna
Speaker 1: do better. I posted a picture on my Twitter of
Speaker 1: my afternoon espresso and I don't have one every afternoon,
Speaker 1: but many I do, and you know, people are debating
Speaker 1: like which one's better, Like, oh this, the left is better,
Speaker 1: the right is better the left. They were almost identical
Speaker 1: with some subtle nuances to them, And again it comes
Speaker 1: down to like maybe the next picture you take the
Speaker 1: Samsung will be better versus the iPhone. So I really
Speaker 1: am very happy with this device. I love the fact
Speaker 1: that you can use the stylus, even though you know
Speaker 1: I don't. I would have to get used to just
Speaker 1: keeping a stylus in my pocket, I think for that feature.
Speaker 1: The whole memory card being gone is definitely a bummer
Speaker 1: because it would have been nice to buy a cheaper
Speaker 1: phone and then put the memory card in the whole
Speaker 1: Samsung taking away the antenna for the Samsung pay eh,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's fine. So many places take mobile payment now,
Speaker 1: it's fine, And honestly, it was quite tricky to use
Speaker 1: the Samsung Pay at a place that didn't accept mobile payments,
Speaker 1: because they'd always kind of like be like, no, no,
Speaker 1: we don't take mobile payments. You're like, no, no, let
Speaker 1: me try this, and they don't really like you fooling
Speaker 1: around with payments. The software features the object eraser is
Speaker 1: really cool. The ability to share pictures without revealing their
Speaker 1: location is really cool. The build in Google Feed is
Speaker 1: really cool. So I have no problems recommending this phone.
Speaker 1: It's a really great device. And other than the size,
Speaker 1: I think it's perfect. And you know, it's heavy, it's big,
Speaker 1: but if you want a powerful phone, that's what you
Speaker 1: have to kind of go for. And I think the
Speaker 1: lesser models, you know, when it comes to like the
Speaker 1: S twenty and the S twenty or sorry, the S
Speaker 1: twenty one and the S twenty one plus. I didn't
Speaker 1: extensively test those. They did send a S twenty for
Speaker 1: me to test, but honestly, if I was gonna go
Speaker 1: with that size, I'd probably go with the iPhone because
Speaker 1: it's going to be a better device. This has the
Speaker 1: S twenty one Ultra has everything you need and more
Speaker 1: than the iPhone. So that's the difference and why you'd
Speaker 1: want to go with this device. If I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: with a smaller device that has you know, three time
Speaker 1: zoom and you know, a decent screen and whatever and
Speaker 1: no no memory card slot, I'd probably just go with
Speaker 1: the iPhone at that size. So if you want the
Speaker 1: bigger phone, the best, all these cool features, then you
Speaker 1: kind of have to go with the with the Ultra.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of the dilemma I see myself in.
Speaker 1: Also the Apple Watch and AirPods. I have been testing
Speaker 1: the Samsung answer to the AirPods, the new ones, the
Speaker 1: the Galaxy Buds Pro, and they're good. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think there is as my favorite as the AirPods.
Speaker 1: Just kind of the AirPods stick in my ears, they
Speaker 1: just like stay there. The Samsung ones fall out a
Speaker 1: little bit easier, but they still they work really well
Speaker 1: and they're they're good. So Samsung in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: you get a good job. I think that you're getting
Speaker 1: closer to what the Android lovers kind of want, but
Speaker 1: also the everyday person kind of wants. And you know,
Speaker 1: if it wasn't for I Message and some of these
Speaker 1: other things like the Apple Watch that are really keeping
Speaker 1: people locked into the iPhone, you know, and the better
Speaker 1: app selection there. I think that you're doing a really
Speaker 1: good job, so keep up the good work. And I
Speaker 1: think that if you are looking for a Samsung S
Speaker 1: twenty one, I have no reservations with any of the
Speaker 1: devices that they made this year. I personally would lean
Speaker 1: towards the Ultra. But if you want a smaller device
Speaker 1: the Ultra, the S twenty one plus is probably a
Speaker 1: good middle ground. I haven't tested that one. The S
Speaker 1: twenty one is you know about the size of an
Speaker 1: iPhone so or an iPhone twelve. I should say, all right,
Speaker 1: let's move on, wrong one. Let's move on to the
Speaker 1: first question. Let's see and via Facebook says Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash rich on tech. Did you know that Amazon
Speaker 1: eliminated their coal the lending library that was once a
Speaker 1: benefit of Prime membership? It went away January fourth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. Nice they let members know ahead of time.
Speaker 1: Oh yes. The Kindle lending library was kind of a
Speaker 1: small feature that was cool but most people did not
Speaker 1: know about. And this feature specifically was if you owned
Speaker 1: a physical Kindle, they would let you lend out like
Speaker 1: I think it was one book at a time or
Speaker 1: something like that, and you can go on this Kindle
Speaker 1: Lending library and find things like free ebooks basically, and
Speaker 1: I did it for a couple of books, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was like kind of a secret little weapon
Speaker 1: that they had in there that was kind of cool,
Speaker 1: like a little benefit. And I don't know if it
Speaker 1: ever expanded to like people that had, you know, the
Speaker 1: Kindle app, but I think it was anyway, I you know,
Speaker 1: they it looks like from an article I said, they
Speaker 1: replaced it with like Prime Reading, which I do get
Speaker 1: emails about that. But anyway, the Kindle Lending Library, honestly,
Speaker 1: it's cool, but it was always so limited anyway, and
Speaker 1: what you can get, and it was, you know, tricky
Speaker 1: because you can only have one thing out of a
Speaker 1: time or something like that. So it's gone. It's I'm
Speaker 1: always sad when things go away. But you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure Amazon had the details on how many people actually
Speaker 1: took advantage. And what I use now is called libby
Speaker 1: l Ibby, which is an amazing app that lets you
Speaker 1: get pretty much any ebook for free. Anyway, it is
Speaker 1: limited because you're you're actually lending them out from your
Speaker 1: local library and there are time limits on that but
Speaker 1: I find that it's it's pretty amazing, and so that's
Speaker 1: what I've been using to read on my kindle ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent of the time. In fact, I went through
Speaker 1: my book. I just finished the Instagram book. It was
Speaker 1: called I think it was called No Filter. Yeah, no Filter,
Speaker 1: and it's called The Inside Story of Instagram, which was great,
Speaker 1: and I read it for free through Libby, and when
Speaker 1: I was done, it was time for a new book.
Speaker 1: And the only downside I find to Libby is that
Speaker 1: your books, the books that are available, don't always match
Speaker 1: up with your timeframe of when you're done and ready
Speaker 1: for a new book. So I ended up downloading a
Speaker 1: sample of another book I wanted to read through through
Speaker 1: face Sorry, I downloaded a sample through my you know,
Speaker 1: just Amazon. And then when I was done with the sample,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, do you want to continue reading
Speaker 1: this for eleven dollars and fifty cents? And I couldn't
Speaker 1: bring myself to pay because I'm so used to Libby
Speaker 1: now and I like getting my stuff for free through Libby.
Speaker 1: So but that book's not available right away, so anyway,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, but anyway, that's you know, sad
Speaker 1: that it's gone but I think that there must have
Speaker 1: been a certain amount of people that used it and
Speaker 1: didn't take advantage of it. So Amazon said goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
Speaker 1: All right, so WhatsApp. You know, they had this big
Speaker 1: thing with WhatsApp where they wanted to change their privacy
Speaker 1: policy because they I don't know if you can. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you can hear this, But I've got
Speaker 1: my son in the other room that he can play
Speaker 1: like you have no idea. He can play. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm working from home and my kid, my nine year old,
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. He can play like you have no idea.
Speaker 1: He can take his toys and just play for an
Speaker 1: hour in his room and in between his zoom sessions
Speaker 1: at school, he goes into his room and he's just
Speaker 1: absolutely wild with his play. And it's fantastic. I love
Speaker 1: it because it's real play. It gets a little wild,
Speaker 1: and you know, he crashes his toys around and stuff.
Speaker 1: But like, I don't care, Like my wife is, like
Speaker 1: his whole room, the walls are all messed up because
Speaker 1: he crashes his toys. Said, I don't care. He's playing
Speaker 1: with real toys. Kid does this these days, and so
Speaker 1: he screams he yells. He you know, he's got all
Speaker 1: these little things that he does with his toys, and
Speaker 1: I love it, love it, love it. So if you
Speaker 1: can hear that, that's why I'm laughing because it's just
Speaker 1: so loud in the background. Anyway, you probably can't hear
Speaker 1: it because this mic is really good. But anyway, if
Speaker 1: you do, that's what's happening. And kudos to my kid.
Speaker 1: I keep telling him start a YouTube channel. He does
Speaker 1: have a YouTube channel, but he does like you know,
Speaker 1: playing roadblocks and all these other well Roadblocks is banned
Speaker 1: in our house, but he does Minecraft, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I said, Parker, you really need to do a YouTube
Speaker 1: channel where you play with toys and kids just watch
Speaker 1: you play with them, because that's really interesting and that's
Speaker 1: kind of a lost art with kids these days. My
Speaker 1: other kid, my six year old, you know, he'll play
Speaker 1: with him a little bit, but you know, these kids,
Speaker 1: like I used to play all the time, and my
Speaker 1: wife and I were discussing this, like we played NonStop,
Speaker 1: like that's all we did, you know, video games once
Speaker 1: in a while, but then we played. And anyway, so
Speaker 1: I love that he plays and he sets little Google
Speaker 1: home alarms that you know, tell him when it's time
Speaker 1: to go back to class. Anyway, I digress. If you
Speaker 1: wanted a longer podcast, you got it. Okay. So WhatsApp,
Speaker 1: they tried to change their policy or their privacy policy,
Speaker 1: and people revolted and they said, WhatsApp, we're out now.
Speaker 1: I don't really think they need to do that. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been downloading Signal and Telegram,
Speaker 1: and so I did a story on KTLA kind of
Speaker 1: explaining the differences between these two apps, and there is
Speaker 1: a difference. And number one, I don't think that people
Speaker 1: need to flock from WhatsApp. If you're using it, stick
Speaker 1: with it. You're fine, especially if you're using Instagram and Facebook.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all the same company. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you're not worried about your privacy on Facebook and Instagram,
Speaker 1: then you shouldn't be worried about your privacy on Signal
Speaker 1: on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is actually very secure because it does
Speaker 1: use end to end encryption by default, and not many
Speaker 1: apps do that. And what that means is that nobody
Speaker 1: can see your messages, not even Facebook, even if they
Speaker 1: ever wanted to. So it's very secure. And the reason
Speaker 1: why I didn't choose WhatsApp in the past as my
Speaker 1: preferred messenger is because it was too secure. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to access my messages on various devices
Speaker 1: at the same time, and when I tried that with WhatsApp,
Speaker 1: you couldn't. And that was why I never actually used it,
Speaker 1: And I kind of liked Facebook Messenger better because it's
Speaker 1: a privacy trade off. If you want to access your
Speaker 1: messages across a whole bunch of devices like I do,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can use encryption, but you can't use
Speaker 1: end to end encryption, and that's what makes all these
Speaker 1: other apps. So I ended up using Telegram as my
Speaker 1: preferred messaging app for the past couple of years, which
Speaker 1: is fine, but I find out it doesn't have end
Speaker 1: to end and that's why now Signal does have end
Speaker 1: to end. And this is another one that a lot
Speaker 1: of people are downloading. And Elon Musk famously tweeted, I
Speaker 1: say famously it was a couple of weeks ago, but
Speaker 1: he just said, you Signal and this app is end
Speaker 1: to end encrypted, and you know, again, it's very secure.
Speaker 1: It's the most secure messaging I think you can have
Speaker 1: online at this point for the average person. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's something more high powered out there, but for the
Speaker 1: average person that could download an app to their iPhone,
Speaker 1: I think signal is the most secure. Telegram is secure,
Speaker 1: it's just not end to end. Now, if you want
Speaker 1: end to end in telegram, before you message someone, you
Speaker 1: have to do something what's called a secret chat, and
Speaker 1: then that will be end to end. But when I
Speaker 1: tested that, my secret chats don't show up on my
Speaker 1: various devices because I think it has something to do
Speaker 1: with the end to end where it just it can't
Speaker 1: put those on various devices because of the encryption. So anyway,
Speaker 1: WhatsApp has delayed its changes until May fifteenth. And if
Speaker 1: you really want to know the changes that WhatsApp wanted
Speaker 1: to do. What they wanted to do is keep your
Speaker 1: private messages private. So your personal messages person to person
Speaker 1: would still remain end to end encrypted, but the messages
Speaker 1: that you send to a business, Facebook wanted to be
Speaker 1: able to scan those messages so that they could sell
Speaker 1: ads against those messages. And why does that make a
Speaker 1: lot of sense? Well, because they figured, Okay, if I'm
Speaker 1: a travel agency and I'm communicating with people through WhatsApp,
Speaker 1: well and let's say I text the well, let's say
Speaker 1: I'm the travel agency, and then you know, I'm the
Speaker 1: person on the other end that's texting the travel agency.
Speaker 1: While I text the travel agency, hey, do you have
Speaker 1: any deals to Maui Hawaii? And Facebook's little bots pick
Speaker 1: up on Maui Hawaii and next thing you know, now
Speaker 1: they're sending me ads based on Maui or they're selling
Speaker 1: me ads sold against my Maui Hawaii interests. And it
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense because you know, while even
Speaker 1: Facebook said a lot of people aren't private messaging businesses
Speaker 1: right now, but they do see that as a huge
Speaker 1: growth area in the future. And they are so right
Speaker 1: about that because we're already seeing this with Instagram, where
Speaker 1: when you message a business on Instagram or you follow
Speaker 1: a business, people just DM them, or on Twitter they
Speaker 1: dm them. And I think that Facebook sees the writing
Speaker 1: on the wall when it comes to messaging businesses. It's
Speaker 1: going to become a very popular way to sort of
Speaker 1: get in touch with businesses quickly, and they want to
Speaker 1: be a to make money off of that. So I
Speaker 1: get it. And again it's it's like, do you really
Speaker 1: need those messages to be secure anyway? I mean, you're
Speaker 1: sending them to a stranger. So I'm not advocating for
Speaker 1: less privacy, but I don't think that if you message
Speaker 1: a business, you have any sort of idea that that
Speaker 1: message would not be shared among a whole bunch of people.
Speaker 1: If I message United Airlines on Twitter, do I think
Speaker 1: one person is reading that message? No, many people are
Speaker 1: reading it. They're sending it through all kinds of systems
Speaker 1: that scan it for like, you know, various things, whatever
Speaker 1: I say, and getting it to the right department. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think that Facebook, it's tricky. They bought
Speaker 1: WhatsApp for a lot of money and you know they
Speaker 1: want to make a return on that, and anyway, it
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. So there you have it.
Speaker 1: Now you know the difference. So if you want the
Speaker 1: most private, personalized or private messaging, you got to go Signal.
Speaker 1: But there are some downsides to that. Again, you know,
Speaker 1: I message is just as secure, it's very secure. Well
Speaker 1: maybe not just as secure as Signal, but it's very secure.
Speaker 1: And so if you're on that, you know, the toughest
Speaker 1: part is getting your friends to switch to these various
Speaker 1: messaging apps. If they're not on there, they're useless. So
Speaker 1: if you can get them a switch, great. If you can't,
Speaker 1: just stick with what you got. As long as it's
Speaker 1: not text messaging. That's the most insecure messaging out there.
Speaker 1: Anyone can read anything you send through text, so don't
Speaker 1: use text all right. Next question, Amber, via my Facebook
Speaker 1: page Facebook dot com slash rich on text says, with
Speaker 1: all the new plus channel streaming, HBO Max and Discovery Plus,
Speaker 1: for example, moving shows from cable, do you think cable
Speaker 1: services will become obsolete? The answer is probably yes at
Speaker 1: some point. Amber, This is a very slow process. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like when people have been saying how newspapers
Speaker 1: are gonna die forever, and you know, they kind of
Speaker 1: have like the delivery to your doorstop, yeah, or your driveway,
Speaker 1: I should say, And you know, I was a paperboy
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, so believe me, I have
Speaker 1: a deep, deep love for newspapers, and I don't get
Speaker 1: any delivered. I love the newspaper, and I do read
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal on a regular basis. But do
Speaker 1: I get it delivered? No? Do I love the app? Yes,
Speaker 1: I love what I love flipping through the newspapers when
Speaker 1: I was, you know, back in my New York city days,
Speaker 1: every day, and even very you know what, throughout my
Speaker 1: entire life, I always subscribe to newspapers because I love
Speaker 1: the idea that it's not siloed. You can be flipping
Speaker 1: through the newspaper and you're reading a story that's interesting
Speaker 1: and your eyes move to a different part of the
Speaker 1: page and huh, I would never normally look up this story,
Speaker 1: but here it is on this page, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: read about it. And it opens your mind to things
Speaker 1: that in this world these days, with our siloed media,
Speaker 1: we are we are just seeing the stuff that we
Speaker 1: want to see, and it's very important to see all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. And that's what the newspaper to me,
Speaker 1: always embodied that I'd be reading about, you know, the
Speaker 1: stuff that I want to read about, but on that
Speaker 1: same page or my a tiny little article about a
Speaker 1: company that I don't necessarily know about or care about,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna discover it. And I think that can
Speaker 1: be applied to various aspects of the paper and various
Speaker 1: sections of the newspaper. And so do I think cable
Speaker 1: is going away? Yes, slowly but surely. But I don't
Speaker 1: think it's gonna go away right away. But you are
Speaker 1: seeing it tougher. Do I think anyone's starting a cable
Speaker 1: channel anytime soon? I don't think so. I mean, to
Speaker 1: me personally, when I see the programming grid on a
Speaker 1: you know, like a TVO kind of screen, I don't
Speaker 1: understand why you would need that anymore, because to me,
Speaker 1: everything's on demand now. When it comes to live sports
Speaker 1: or live news, that's a little bit different. I still
Speaker 1: think those are best consumed live. But even on the
Speaker 1: evening News last night, I heard them say at the end,
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't catch us live, be sure
Speaker 1: to DVR us, And I thought that was interesting because
Speaker 1: they are recognizing that people do DVR, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think that there's a place for that too. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the station I work for, we're on almost
Speaker 1: all day, so I mean you can tune in and
Speaker 1: pretty much catch the news at almost any time. But
Speaker 1: if you happen to get home at seven thirty and
Speaker 1: you know, we're not actively in a newscast and you
Speaker 1: TVO the seven PM or the six pm newscast and
Speaker 1: then played at seven thirty when you get home, that's fine.
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes sense you're probably not gonna watch it.
Speaker 1: Three days later, like you would show that you might
Speaker 1: might have historically recorded. So good question. I personally am
Speaker 1: all in on the streaming services. I love them. I
Speaker 1: love the flexibility of them. I love how you can
Speaker 1: cancel and resubscribe. The only thing that I think someone
Speaker 1: does need to tackle is the whole idea of organization.
Speaker 1: It really is tough to find the stuff you want
Speaker 1: to watch and figure out where it's playing. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, shows could be on a much longer runway
Speaker 1: than they ever were for having people discover them. So
Speaker 1: Queen's Gambit, for instance, Queen is it Queen's Gambit or
Speaker 1: gamble Queen's Gambit? Right, yeah, Queen's Gambit. I had some
Speaker 1: friends over socially distanced, very safe in our backyard. This
Speaker 1: was months ago, and they said, oh, you got to
Speaker 1: watch this show, The Queen's Gambit, And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I know, there's so many great shows. This was probably
Speaker 1: two months before anyone said, oh my gosh, it's the
Speaker 1: best show ever, which I still haven't watched, but I
Speaker 1: know people love it. So my point is, you know,
Speaker 1: how do we find out about these shows? It's kind
Speaker 1: of tough, you know, without just the main shows that
Speaker 1: are on the main networks. Now there's so many ways
Speaker 1: to find new shows, So good question. All right, the
Speaker 1: play is still going strong with Fossil has launched a
Speaker 1: new LTE equipped smartwatch and this is exclusively on Verizon.
Speaker 1: It's called the Fossil Gen five LT Touchscreen smart Watch.
Speaker 1: Is that really the name of this thing. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a weird name, but it sounds pretty cool. It
Speaker 1: sounds like a nice smart watch for users on Android.
Speaker 1: It uses wear Os, it's got eight gigabytes of story Bridge,
Speaker 1: it's got the snap Dragon Wear thirty one hundred inside
Speaker 1: whatever that means. It has LTE, which means you can
Speaker 1: sync it with your smartphone using Varizon number Share. And
Speaker 1: I have this with my iPhone and what it does
Speaker 1: is it basically means that your iPhone and your Apple
Speaker 1: Watch are synced up. So if you get a call,
Speaker 1: you can leave your your iPhone at home and you
Speaker 1: can still just get all your texts and voice, you know,
Speaker 1: calls when you're out and about. I love it and
Speaker 1: this is a nice alternative on the Android side of things.
Speaker 1: Comes in two colors, combination of black straps on a
Speaker 1: smoke tone stainless steel and blush straps on a rose
Speaker 1: gold case, so it sounds like they're targeting, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever your style is. There forty five millimeters case size,
Speaker 1: endless strap options. Let's see. It's got a swim proof
Speaker 1: speaker so you can have calls functionality and responses from
Speaker 1: Google Assistant, which you know, that's kind of neat because
Speaker 1: you can hear this all through. So if you're out
Speaker 1: and about, you've got the speaker on it, you can
Speaker 1: just make your calls hands free through the speaker. It's
Speaker 1: got eight gigs of storage, which is fine. It's not
Speaker 1: that much, but it's probably good enough. It's got extended
Speaker 1: battery mode. It's got daily mode, it's got a time
Speaker 1: only mode, so it sounds like they know battery life
Speaker 1: is sort of an issue with these things. But you know,
Speaker 1: I haven't tested it, so I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: it lasts. It's got a one point three inch touchscreen display.
Speaker 1: It is swim proof, like I said, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's got NFC so you can have your Tap to
Speaker 1: pay in there. It's got GPS, it's got heart rate accelerometer, gyroscope,
Speaker 1: ambient light, microphone, and speaker. So I think this sounds
Speaker 1: like a winner if you're on Android. Three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars available at Verizon exclusively. So this does come
Speaker 1: with a couple of caveats. You have to be on Verizon,
Speaker 1: you have to be on Android. But I think the
Speaker 1: main thing that's lacking in the Android ecosystem right now
Speaker 1: is a nice smart watch that rivals the Apple Watch.
Speaker 1: If you've listened to this podcast before, you know I've
Speaker 1: said that I love my Apple Watch, and in fact,
Speaker 1: it is one of the things that is the glue
Speaker 1: for the iOS ecosystem or the Apple ecosystem, and Apple
Speaker 1: knows this. Why do you think they haven't made I
Speaker 1: Message work with Android? Why do you think they don't
Speaker 1: make the iPhone work with Android? Yeah, they could say
Speaker 1: all day that it's proprietary and it needs the iPhone.
Speaker 1: No it does not. They came out with the way
Speaker 1: of using the Apple Watch with the family set up.
Speaker 1: You set it up through the iPhone. It never needs
Speaker 1: to connect to the iPhone ever. Again, and it's limited,
Speaker 1: it's not as perfect, but again, you know, the Apple
Speaker 1: knows what they're doing. They're continuing to make their ecosystem.
Speaker 1: Whenever you hear the Apple ecosystem in the same line
Speaker 1: you always hear sticky or it keeps you in. These
Speaker 1: are the products that you know, kind of lock you
Speaker 1: in lock in. With Android, we don't have any of
Speaker 1: that because there is no lock in. You can take
Speaker 1: all your stuff out of Android in about ten seconds
Speaker 1: and you can sign into an iPhone and your email
Speaker 1: is there, You're everything's there, you know. So I don't
Speaker 1: know my switching to the Fossil anytime soon. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, but I might want to test it out.
Speaker 1: I might request a review unit to test this thing
Speaker 1: out because I think that Android users need an alternative
Speaker 1: and something that works nicely. And it sounds like this one,
Speaker 1: you know, checks off all the boxes of what you'd want.
Speaker 1: I don't. The other one is is Fitbit. You know.
Speaker 1: There they just got purchased by Google and that deal
Speaker 1: is done. So maybe we'll see a nice Fitbit smart
Speaker 1: watch that is really really good and a little bit
Speaker 1: closer to what Apple offers, especially with the apps and integrations.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's really the magic of the Apple Watch
Speaker 1: is that they you know, they had a while where
Speaker 1: the apps were not really doing much on Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: and now they've gotten to the point where like there
Speaker 1: are some pretty useful things on Apple Watch. Well I
Speaker 1: take that back. Most of it is pretty much the
Speaker 1: standard stuff built in, but there are enough apps on
Speaker 1: there that there are functionality that you know sometimes you
Speaker 1: know you want to use and they work pretty well.
Speaker 1: So all right, let's go to podpage dot com slash
Speaker 1: rich on tech podpage dot com slash rich on tech
Speaker 1: for a voice message. This is this is where you
Speaker 1: can leave a voicemail on my page and uh, I
Speaker 1: will I will hear it. So that's what Donald did.
Speaker 1: Let's hear you. Donald, Hey, you're rich. What do you
Speaker 1: think about the Microsoft Surface pro Dude?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: Just got I want to know what do you think
Speaker 1: about it? Thank you? All right, now I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if Donald said Surface pro Dude or Surface pro Duo,
Speaker 1: so I you know, I don't know. Well, okay, so
Speaker 1: if you're talking about the Surface pro Duo. Oh, the
Speaker 1: surface pro Duo is a is Microsoft's smartphone slash tablet
Speaker 1: slash foldable device and it's you know, it's a small
Speaker 1: foldable device. And this is funny. This is I Justine
Speaker 1: when I was up at CS she brought her Surface Duo.
Speaker 1: They did not send me one for review. Purposes. I
Speaker 1: guess they figured my audience was not interested in this.
Speaker 1: But you know, it is kind of a niche device
Speaker 1: because it's expensive and it's a first generation, and I
Speaker 1: probably I might have talked a little bit of trash
Speaker 1: about it because I said that, you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of a first generation, i'd stay away from it. So
Speaker 1: maybe they heard that and they just said, no, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna even bother with you, Rich. But whatever the
Speaker 1: reason is, Justine said she actually likes it a lot.
Speaker 1: It's a great size, she loves how it opens up.
Speaker 1: And while she did not let me touch it because
Speaker 1: of COVID reasons, you know, it looked cool. But I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, she was on her iPhone most of the time,
Speaker 1: so I mean, you know, but she said she loves
Speaker 1: browsing the web on it and doing all that cool stuff.
Speaker 1: And I look, I think that this kind of device
Speaker 1: is part of our future. There are definitely gonna be
Speaker 1: more iterations of this, and I think the biggest downside
Speaker 1: was the camera on that device. But otherwise, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: something that folds up and you can use it for
Speaker 1: texting and browsing the web and all that stuff. I
Speaker 1: think it's great now the Surface Pro if you were
Speaker 1: talking about that, I mean, Microsoft has had a lot
Speaker 1: of success with the Surface lineup, and I think they're
Speaker 1: doing a great job. And I think, in fact, Microsoft
Speaker 1: in general is really doing a nice job with their
Speaker 1: top to bottom kind of integration of apps and services.
Speaker 1: And I really have not seen a dud out of
Speaker 1: Microsoft in a while, and I think that they are
Speaker 1: doing a really nice job. I think they understand that
Speaker 1: there is a there's a large amount of people out
Speaker 1: there that do not necessarily need Apple products, and they
Speaker 1: want to be a little bit more productive, and they
Speaker 1: want something on the Windows side because they're more a
Speaker 1: little bit more business oriented. And so these Surface devices
Speaker 1: have been great because they double as a you know,
Speaker 1: a tablet and a laptop. And I think we've seen
Speaker 1: Apple not copy, but we've seen inspiration because Surface was
Speaker 1: doing this way way long ago, where you had a
Speaker 1: device that could stand up on its own and has
Speaker 1: a keyboard case and a stylus. And we kind of
Speaker 1: see the identical thing now with Apple with their iPad
Speaker 1: pro and they all kind of support a stylist. They
Speaker 1: all have got the keyboard cases, they all can stand
Speaker 1: up on their side. So again, different people need different things,
Speaker 1: and I think that these are are a great little device.
Speaker 1: And it kind of depends what you want to do.
Speaker 1: Are you in the Apple ecosystem or are you more
Speaker 1: business oriented with the Microsoft stuff because your company uses
Speaker 1: all Microsoft so and I think they've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of take up with the you know,
Speaker 1: with the business side of things with teams, especially during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. And also, let's not forget Microsoft Edge. I've
Speaker 1: talked about how good that browser is. So I think
Speaker 1: no matter what she asked about Donald, whether it was
Speaker 1: the Duo or the Surface Pro, I think they're both
Speaker 1: great products. I think the Duo I would not recommend
Speaker 1: purchasing because I just don't think that it's there just yet.
Speaker 1: But I think it's something to watch. And again, just
Speaker 1: like Microsoft was pretty early with the original Surface, I
Speaker 1: think the Duo is a little bit early when it
Speaker 1: comes to foldables. Even with Samsung, we saw their first
Speaker 1: foldable to the second gen, they did a great job
Speaker 1: of improving it. In fact, I was just watching a
Speaker 1: video with all the YouTubers saying with their favorite gadget
Speaker 1: of the year was, and a lot of them was
Speaker 1: the Z fold they really really the z Fold two specifically,
Speaker 1: they loved it, and I love that device when I
Speaker 1: had it. It's just again, it's not for me right now,
Speaker 1: but I think it's one of those things to keep
Speaker 1: an eye on. So good question. All right, let's move
Speaker 1: on to I thought this was pretty interesting. Bark is
Speaker 1: a company that analyzes social media and apps that your
Speaker 1: kids are using. And they've got like kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of parents will email me and say, hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: how do I monitor what my kid's doing on Snapchat
Speaker 1: and all these things. Bark will analyze like thirty plus
Speaker 1: apps and platforms to see kind of like what your
Speaker 1: kids are doing, and they could send you alerts based
Speaker 1: on AI. So instead of having to go through every
Speaker 1: text message that your kids is that your kids are sending,
Speaker 1: AI will say this one looks a little sus you
Speaker 1: might you might want to look into that one. So
Speaker 1: they analyzed, uh, let's see, let's see. They analyzed children's
Speaker 1: online activity with a specific focus on kids ten to eighteen,
Speaker 1: and they analyzed more than I don't know two billion
Speaker 1: messages across thirty apps. And here are the trends. Seventy
Speaker 1: six percent of teens and eighty two percent, oh, seventy
Speaker 1: six percent of tweens and eighty two percent of teens
Speaker 1: experienced cyber bullying. Forty five percent of tweens and six
Speaker 1: six percent of teens engaged in conversations about depression. Now,
Speaker 1: that was just unheard of when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I mean, I honestly didn't even really know what that
Speaker 1: was when I was a kid. And now my wife
Speaker 1: being a therapist, I mean I definitely or yeah, counselor
Speaker 1: therapist for teens, I mean I definitely hear more about that,
Speaker 1: which is just wild. Seventy percent of teens and eighty
Speaker 1: seven percent of teens encountered nudity or content of a
Speaker 1: sexual nature. That's scary, because again, when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: didn't really have that either. Forty one percent of tweens
Speaker 1: and sixty six percent of teens were involved in self
Speaker 1: harm slash suicidal situation. That's really scary. Seventy eight percent
Speaker 1: of tweens, ninety one percent of teens engaged in conversations
Speaker 1: surrounding drugs and alcohol, and eighty eight percent of tweens
Speaker 1: and ninety four percent of teens expressed or experienced violent
Speaker 1: subject matter or thoughts. So I think the takeaway from
Speaker 1: this is that your kids are being exposed to a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, whether you realize that not, especially being home,
Speaker 1: especially being on computers, especially how connected they are. I mean,
Speaker 1: my kid the other day was on Minecraft and I
Speaker 1: was looking at his chats over his shoulder for a second,
Speaker 1: and the person on the other end was asking my
Speaker 1: kid if they can call them, and he was saying,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, I said, hold on, what's
Speaker 1: going on here? And the person was like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really like to use voice to text. It's
Speaker 1: so much easier just to just to call. Can I
Speaker 1: call you? And my kid doesn't know who this person is.
Speaker 1: And so my point is you have to be really
Speaker 1: on top of this stuff because I don't know who
Speaker 1: this person was that my kid was communicating with, which
Speaker 1: is scary as a parent to begin with. But you know,
Speaker 1: this person was sounding like someone I don't want my
Speaker 1: kid to talk to, and so my kid was like, well,
Speaker 1: he's just saying that he wants to you know, it's
Speaker 1: easier to talk. And I said, I don't know. That's
Speaker 1: that's a little weird. And anyway, so you gotta be
Speaker 1: you gotta be careful about this stuff. Let's see. So
Speaker 1: the apps that are the scariest for all these different
Speaker 1: things I just talked about. Top app for flagged for
Speaker 1: suicidal stuff is Twitter. Top app for depression Twitter. These
Speaker 1: are apps that are flagged by ai as seeing the
Speaker 1: most conversations dealing with these things. Top app flagged for
Speaker 1: severe body concerns, body issue concerns, body image concerns, TikTok,
Speaker 1: no surprise there, severe bullying Twitter. Let's see top apps. Okay, yeah, so,
Speaker 1: if I'm reading this correctly as a parent, Twitter is
Speaker 1: the problem. Instagram is a close second because a lot
Speaker 1: of kids are on there. But realistically, what this comes
Speaker 1: down to is where the kids communicating and it's yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's Twitter, it's Instagram. So you just got
Speaker 1: to be aware of this stuff. I don't have the answers.
Speaker 1: I really don't, because I'm seeing what's happening with my
Speaker 1: kids in lockdown and they're on their computers more or
Speaker 1: they're just doing more things than I ever did at
Speaker 1: their age on devices, And I don't really have advice
Speaker 1: except that you have to kind of just monitor and
Speaker 1: stay on top of this stuff and do the best
Speaker 1: you can and just kind of be aware that it's happening,
Speaker 1: and just don't pretend that you don't think it's happening,
Speaker 1: because it's happening. All right, let's get to another question.
Speaker 1: God really Debbie Downer over here in that section of
Speaker 1: the podcast, let's talk to Don. Don says, I live
Speaker 1: in Westchester very close. Oh shoot, well, I guess I
Speaker 1: could say where they live. I live in Westchester, very
Speaker 1: close to Lax. Today we had a sales guy from
Speaker 1: Starry Internet come by to offer us free internet for
Speaker 1: six months as they are beta testing in our area.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of them, Starry dot com. Do you
Speaker 1: know anything about this service? You're the first person I
Speaker 1: thought to ask, sincerely, Don, Yes, Don, I do know
Speaker 1: about this service. So I was at an event back
Speaker 1: when you can go to a little get togethers, about
Speaker 1: probably three years ago at this point that the people
Speaker 1: from Starry were there, and they said, we're launching wireless
Speaker 1: internet in Los Angeles. That's going to be fifty megabits
Speaker 1: per second. And I said, what how are you doing that?
Speaker 1: Like this was unheard of, right, even fifty megabits was
Speaker 1: like fast back then, And so I said, I don't
Speaker 1: think you could do that, and sure enough, a couple
Speaker 1: years later, they actually did. They showed me the little
Speaker 1: modem they had and I asked them how they were
Speaker 1: going to do it. I said, is this coming from
Speaker 1: the you know, is this coming from the sky, Like,
Speaker 1: where's this coming from? And it was coming from wireless
Speaker 1: antennas that they installed on top of buildings and then
Speaker 1: that would, you know, somehow beam the Internet into the
Speaker 1: building with the wireless kind of router in your or
Speaker 1: so basically they've put an antenna somewhere, you know, either
Speaker 1: near your building or on top of it, and then
Speaker 1: they would give you a modem that was wireless and
Speaker 1: it would grab that signal from over the air and
Speaker 1: then put it into your house or your apartment. And
Speaker 1: so they've done a pretty good job. They've expanded, for sure.
Speaker 1: I think it's back then they pitched it to me,
Speaker 1: it was like fifty bucks a month for fifty megabits
Speaker 1: per second, and I don't know if that's changed. I can,
Speaker 1: I guess I can look it up, but yeah, go
Speaker 1: for it. I mean, if they're giving you six months free,
Speaker 1: I would definitely do that. So now it looks like outrageous, Okay.
Speaker 1: Their website says thirty dollars a month for fast internet,
Speaker 1: and that is up to one hundred megabits per second,
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars a month now gives you up to
Speaker 1: two hundred megabits per second. And I guess they're using
Speaker 1: five G to accomplish this, So I'm guessing they're piggybacking
Speaker 1: on either you know, Verizons five G network or AT
Speaker 1: and T's five G. But again, this all goes into
Speaker 1: kind of the idea that I've talked about on the
Speaker 1: show for many years that when we get this five
Speaker 1: G super fast internet in a lot of places, it's
Speaker 1: going to be game changing because you are now going
Speaker 1: to have a choice at your house of T Mobile
Speaker 1: as you're internet, Verizon as your internet, AT and T
Speaker 1: as your Internet, and that's huge. So you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to do you don't have to go with
Speaker 1: just the people that can wire a line to your place,
Speaker 1: which you know right now, that's pretty much what most
Speaker 1: people are limited to. So it's gonna open up competition,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be great, It's gonna be you know, less contracts.
Speaker 1: I mean, right now, I don't think there's any contracts
Speaker 1: with any of these, but it's gonna be good, and
Speaker 1: so more competition is going to be better, and we're
Speaker 1: just gonna continue to see these five G networks build
Speaker 1: out in a bigger and better way. All right, let's
Speaker 1: go to the next story on my list here. This
Speaker 1: this is an interesting one. We've we've heard about these
Speaker 1: things before. They keep trying them. I'm telling you this
Speaker 1: just to be aware of it. But I don't think
Speaker 1: it's gonna succeed. But hopefully it does, but I don't
Speaker 1: think so. So there's a new app called Beeper, and
Speaker 1: what they're trying to do is unify all of your
Speaker 1: messaging into one app. And it works with WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger,
Speaker 1: I Message, Android Messages, Telegram, Twitter, Slack, Hangouts, Instagram, Skype,
Speaker 1: and a whole lot more. Now I don't know number one,
Speaker 1: the idea that one inbox can work with all these
Speaker 1: different messaging apps. I mean, I have got to see
Speaker 1: it to believe it. We've seen this before and it's
Speaker 1: never as pretty or as good as you want. And
Speaker 1: the big one here that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: talking about is the fact that this will work with
Speaker 1: I Message. And you think to yourself, well, wait, nothing
Speaker 1: works with I Message. And the reality is how they're
Speaker 1: making it work with I message is a little bit
Speaker 1: of foolery, a little bit of trickery here. And the
Speaker 1: trick here is that they are actually giving you an
Speaker 1: iPhone for s that is jailbroken, that you keep kind
Speaker 1: of like in your house, connected to the internet, so
Speaker 1: that that can be the relay for your I message
Speaker 1: at all times. Now, that is a very very scary
Speaker 1: thing because you know, it's it's weird. It's a workaround. Yes,
Speaker 1: does it work, probably, but will it will they find
Speaker 1: a loophole or will Apple close loophole? Probably, So you
Speaker 1: can't really build a business on something like you know,
Speaker 1: kind of wedging. You're wedging a you know, you're wedging
Speaker 1: into a hole that you just can't really stay in,
Speaker 1: you know, because Apple is going to figure out a
Speaker 1: way around this. Now maybe they won't. Maybe because there's
Speaker 1: been other things over the years that do something similar.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's these programs that make you install
Speaker 1: like a server on your computer to relay your eye messages,
Speaker 1: but your your computer has to be on the whole time,
Speaker 1: and that's just not very realistic. So I guess with
Speaker 1: the phone it kind of makes sense. You just keep
Speaker 1: the phone plugged in at all times in your house.
Speaker 1: It's on Wi Fi and somehow it relays the message.
Speaker 1: But again it has to be jail broken because there's
Speaker 1: nothing that would be able to tap into that I message.
Speaker 1: That would just be an app you can standard install
Speaker 1: on your phone. So this gets very complicated. It's called Beeper.
Speaker 1: You can check it out. But again, it's also ten
Speaker 1: bucks a month. And people are excited because it sounds
Speaker 1: great to have all your messages in one place and
Speaker 1: finally be free of Apple's lock on your I message.
Speaker 1: But the reality is, I don't think it's gonna work.
Speaker 1: But we'll say maybe I'm wrong. Sometimes I am wrong.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take another message from podpage dot com,
Speaker 1: slash rich on tech, podpage dot com, slash rich on tech.
Speaker 1: If you want to leave a voicemail, just look in
Speaker 1: the lower right hand corner for the microphone and you
Speaker 1: can leave a voicemail just like Michael did.
Speaker 2: Hey Rich, this is Michael from micro Break podcast and
Speaker 2: I just wanted to thank you for your show. I
Speaker 2: learned something every single time I listened to it, and
Speaker 2: I've been listening for the past few years. As a
Speaker 2: matter of fact, it was one of the first podcasts
Speaker 2: that I ever listened to and subscribe to. I just
Speaker 2: wanted to thank you. You've also been an inspiration and
Speaker 2: starting my own podcast, and I really appreciate everything you do.
Speaker 2: Keep up the great work, and thanks again for your
Speaker 2: technical advice.
Speaker 1: Wow. Well, thank you Michael. Michael. I often I recognize
Speaker 1: the name because I often see you tweeting me on Twitter,
Speaker 1: so I will check out your podcast, the micro Break Podcast.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, I'm not listening to as many
Speaker 1: podcasts these days as I would like, and so I'm
Speaker 1: not like I used to have my I used to
Speaker 1: have like a podcast playlist that I would listen to
Speaker 1: on basically anytime I was in the car. So anytime
Speaker 1: I was driving to work, driving home, driving to my stories,
Speaker 1: I would listen to so many podcasts. And because I'm
Speaker 1: not driving, it's really tough for me to listen. And
Speaker 1: I don't really listen to podcasts at home for some reason.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm programmed wrong or what, but
Speaker 1: I can't really listen to podcasts in the background. Number one.
Speaker 1: And I also can't listen to podcasts while I'm working.
Speaker 1: I can't have my ear like on a podcast, you know,
Speaker 1: with like headphones in while I'm trying to work, So
Speaker 1: that just doesn't work with me. And if I listen
Speaker 1: while I'm working, like if I have it on like
Speaker 1: a smart speaker in the background, I don't listen to
Speaker 1: the podcast because I can't really hear it. So anyway,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a lot of stuff that I Anyway,
Speaker 1: I don't know what my point was, but thank you
Speaker 1: Michael for listening. I get so distracted. I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here doing this podcast. My watch is going
Speaker 1: off like crazy. I'm gonna take that off because it
Speaker 1: just keeps vibrating. My computer keeps going off. I guess
Speaker 1: people are texting. Oh now, my phone's going on. I
Speaker 1: can't win. There's just too many things, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: too much technology surrounding me. I want to focus just
Speaker 1: for an hour so I can do this podcast. But Michael,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. And when I get to listening
Speaker 1: to podcasts more, believe me, I will listen to more.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get oh my gosh, another Michael, another Michael.
Speaker 1: For the next question, Michael says, hey, Rich, I went
Speaker 1: to my carrier store of Verizon to see about up
Speaker 1: creating my old iPhone six plus and expected to pay
Speaker 1: the seven hundred dollars for a newer model. They said
Speaker 1: if I traded it in, they would give me five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars towards an iPhone twelve, but I'd have to
Speaker 1: sign up for a new unlimited plan that would last
Speaker 1: for two years. I really don't care about the two
Speaker 1: year commitment because I've been with them for twelve years.
Speaker 1: But I don't see how they can give me five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars towards a new phone. I've always bought directly
Speaker 1: from Apple and they would only give me fifty dollars
Speaker 1: for it. I've never been on a monthly plan, so
Speaker 1: it's strange new territory for me. I'm sixty eight years old,
Speaker 1: I have a brother and sister. On my plan, I
Speaker 1: pay ninety five dollars for two gigs a month. However,
Speaker 1: they've given me an extra two gigs for being a
Speaker 1: retired vet. Thank you for your service. I do appreciate that, Michael. Together,
Speaker 1: we use less than two gigs a month, so the
Speaker 1: data is not an incentive. They also said my monthly
Speaker 1: bill would only increase by five dollars. I've always believed
Speaker 1: that if it sounds too good to be true, it
Speaker 1: probably is. But I thought i'd write to see if
Speaker 1: you can enlighten me a bit on how these monthly
Speaker 1: plans work. Thank you for your time and information you
Speaker 1: can give me. Michael, you are very smart for saying
Speaker 1: if it sounds too good to be true, probably is,
Speaker 1: And for this deal, I'd probably say, here's okay. Number one,
Speaker 1: these carriers are not just out of the kindness of
Speaker 1: their heart giving you a very expensive phone for very cheap.
Speaker 1: So you kind of nailed it in certain ways. You
Speaker 1: said that you have to sign up for a new
Speaker 1: unlimited plan. That's your first red flag and it would
Speaker 1: last for two years. Now you are kind of okay.
Speaker 1: The thing is, the plan is contract free. There is
Speaker 1: no contract with the plan. But here's where they get you.
Speaker 1: That seven hundred dollars are giving you for that iPhone
Speaker 1: twelve towards the iPhone twelve. It is pro rated, which
Speaker 1: means it is spread out over twenty four months. So
Speaker 1: the way they do it is that if you cancel
Speaker 1: before those twenty four months are up, guess what You've
Speaker 1: lost your promotion, and now that promotion you have to
Speaker 1: pay it back and you owe, I don't know the
Speaker 1: full amount, I think. And them telling you that your
Speaker 1: plan is only going to go up five dollars a month,
Speaker 1: I don't believe that at all. You've got three people
Speaker 1: on your plan. There is no way that you can
Speaker 1: get three people on a plan for one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a month. That's just that's not possible through Verizon on
Speaker 1: an unlimited plan. Now, unlimited plans at Verizon might start
Speaker 1: at eighty dollars a month, and that's you know, for
Speaker 1: the three of you. But or they may say that
Speaker 1: your plan's only going up five dollars. They didn't mention
Speaker 1: the other two plans that you also have to pay,
Speaker 1: So I you know, I think so. I used to
Speaker 1: sell cell phones a long time ago, and the joke
Speaker 1: was always, you know, we used to give the phones
Speaker 1: away for a penny and you sign up for the plan.
Speaker 1: And back then it was like minutes, you know, you
Speaker 1: got like three hundred minutes, probably like twenty five minutes,
Speaker 1: whatever it was. It was so long ago, but like clockwork,
Speaker 1: people would get their phone for a penny and they'd
Speaker 1: come back into the store after a month when they
Speaker 1: got their first bill or a month and a half,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, what's this five hundred dollars bill? And
Speaker 1: they didn't realize that their whole, entire, the whole, the
Speaker 1: whole thing was that you got your phone for a penny,
Speaker 1: but your monthly plan was so expensive. And by the way,
Speaker 1: you had to pay a month upfront, so you're pro
Speaker 1: rated by the time you got out of the store.
Speaker 1: I mean you were. You know this, this fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a month plan would turn into one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars and people would be like, why is
Speaker 1: my bill two hundred dollars? And then we politely explain
Speaker 1: all the details that we kind of glazed over. Now,
Speaker 1: I was never misleading, believe me, but I think some
Speaker 1: people were. And those were the people I had to
Speaker 1: clean up after with their bills when they came in
Speaker 1: and so anyway, but I think that's what's happening here.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that the person is being nefarious,
Speaker 1: but I think that they're leaving some things out and
Speaker 1: not explaining other things properly. But there is no such
Speaker 1: thing as just a free seven hundred dollars phone anymore.
Speaker 1: They are getting you some way and in this case,
Speaker 1: they are making up the price of that phone over
Speaker 1: the increased charges to your monthly plan over time, and
Speaker 1: that's that's really what they're doing. I've seen people where
Speaker 1: they activate an additional line on like an iPad to
Speaker 1: get it for free, and it's never free. It is
Speaker 1: never free. You're always paying in some way, even if
Speaker 1: you're paying more for your monthly service than you have
Speaker 1: to because for you, Michael, honestly, I would recommend switching
Speaker 1: to what's called Visible and you can get a unlimited
Speaker 1: plan for forty dollars a month, and if you have
Speaker 1: your brother and sister on it, it even drops down further
Speaker 1: because they take off five dollars a month for each
Speaker 1: additional person, so you can have you for forty and
Speaker 1: actually I think it goes down for all three of you,
Speaker 1: so I think it would end up being like thirty
Speaker 1: dollars a month for each of you. So anyway, that's
Speaker 1: what I would look into, Michael, as as a way
Speaker 1: to really save money. You'll have to pay for your phone,
Speaker 1: but you can actually save money month in, month out
Speaker 1: and not really need to think about all this stuff.
Speaker 1: All right. I talked about Microsoft Edge and Microsoft just
Speaker 1: a little bit ago. But you know, so I ended
Speaker 1: up switching back to Chrome, which I'm kind of regretting,
Speaker 1: even though I just love Chrome. But I should go
Speaker 1: back to Edge. But Edge they continue to do cool things.
Speaker 1: Now they're adding a password generator, and I'm getting a
Speaker 1: lot of questions in the new year about passwords and
Speaker 1: password management, and for good reason, because everyone's getting hip
Speaker 1: to the fact that we don't want to be hacked
Speaker 1: and we want our passwords to be strong. So use
Speaker 1: a password program. You can use last pass, you can
Speaker 1: use Dashlane, you can use one password, or I recommend
Speaker 1: if you are on a platform, like if you're only
Speaker 1: using Google stuff an Android phone along with Chrome on
Speaker 1: your computer, you can use built into Chrome, they have
Speaker 1: a password function. So let's see where you find it.
Speaker 1: You go into more tools. You can go into let's
Speaker 1: see okay, sorry settings, and let's see autofill and then passwords,
Speaker 1: and you can say offer to save passwords, and boom.
Speaker 1: You can just Chrome. When you come up against a
Speaker 1: website that needs a password, it will help you make one,
Speaker 1: it will save that for you, it will retrieve it
Speaker 1: the next time you try to log in. And you
Speaker 1: can also you know, copy and paste passwords out of
Speaker 1: Chrome into other products as well, and it all work
Speaker 1: on your Android phone. Now if you are using iOS
Speaker 1: stuff or an Apple stuff only, so I'm talking iOS
Speaker 1: Android or iOS iPhone and an Apple computer and iPad,
Speaker 1: then go ahead and use what's built into Apple, which
Speaker 1: is their own password program. So you can go into
Speaker 1: settings and go into passwords and then it can say
Speaker 1: autofill passwords and just turn that on and make sure
Speaker 1: that iCloud keychain is turned on. And now again the
Speaker 1: same thing. When you get up against a password or
Speaker 1: a form that needs to be filled out with a password,
Speaker 1: or a new app you sign up for, it will say, hey,
Speaker 1: we'll suggest a password for you. It will save those,
Speaker 1: it will plug them back in when you need them,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty simple. And on your desktop if using
Speaker 1: Safari or you know, Mac computer, it will do the
Speaker 1: same thing. Now, if you're using a bunch of different
Speaker 1: devices like I am, you want to use one of
Speaker 1: these third party services, So now Edge has one, so
Speaker 1: you can use that and you know, or you can
Speaker 1: use one of these other ones I mentioned, like last past,
Speaker 1: dash Lane or one Password. But anyway, in the new
Speaker 1: Microsoft Edge, they do have the new password generator and keeper,
Speaker 1: so you can just use that as well. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: you have it. All right, let's get to another question here.
Speaker 1: So many questions. Hey rich love keeping up with you
Speaker 1: and all the updates and reviews. Question amber X, personal
Speaker 1: cloud storage. Have you had a chance to review these
Speaker 1: types of devices yet? Thank you for your time, Leo.
Speaker 1: So amber X, gotta look this one up because I
Speaker 1: was not aware of this. Your privacy first, personal cloud
Speaker 1: and the immediate thing I see on this website is indiegog.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say nothing against indiegg or against kickstarters,
Speaker 1: but honestly, I don't know. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is a thing that you want to purchase
Speaker 1: because it's is it available, is it shipping? Let's see
Speaker 1: estimated shipping April twenty twenty one, So maybe it's great,
Speaker 1: but you know, let's wait till April twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: for our decision on this thing. It's basically, from what
Speaker 1: I can see, it looks like a file your own
Speaker 1: personal cloud storage device that you can put, you know,
Speaker 1: all your stuff in, and it's like kind of like
Speaker 1: Google Drive, but from anywhere. Now, if you want something
Speaker 1: like this, there's a couple of things that are already
Speaker 1: available that do it already, and so I would recommend
Speaker 1: looking into something called EB which is IBI and they
Speaker 1: already have a device that will collect your photos and
Speaker 1: it's made by Western Digital, and so you know, it's
Speaker 1: a company that's reputable and it's private, nothing shared with
Speaker 1: the cloud, and that is ninety dollars for one terabyte
Speaker 1: of storage and again no monthly fees. You can plug
Speaker 1: your stuff into the back of it, like your cards,
Speaker 1: and it will it will find all that stuff. Or
Speaker 1: you can put an app on your phone and it
Speaker 1: will find the stuff on your app as well. You know,
Speaker 1: the app will find the pictures that you take on
Speaker 1: your phone. So EB is the thing that I recommend.
Speaker 1: If you want a little bit of more of a
Speaker 1: industrial solution, there is a drive that I use called
Speaker 1: Sonology s y Nloguy and Sonology is more of a
Speaker 1: build your own solution. It's basically a network attached storage
Speaker 1: drive that you put in your house and the magic
Speaker 1: is really their software. They do all kinds of stuff,
Speaker 1: but you put a hard drive in this or a
Speaker 1: couple and next thing you know, you can put all
Speaker 1: your stuff on there, save it, store it, and it
Speaker 1: will work. I don't use this anymore because I don't
Speaker 1: really have a reason too. But if you know, if
Speaker 1: you still want to have all your stuff private and
Speaker 1: on your own cloud, you know, those are the ways
Speaker 1: to do it. I actually need to set this back
Speaker 1: up again because I need to sync my Google Drive
Speaker 1: to it. I used to have it synked back when
Speaker 1: Google Drive would sink your Google Photos. I would have
Speaker 1: a copy of my Google Photos sync to my Synology
Speaker 1: at all times. Ever since they made Google Photos its
Speaker 1: own thing and very locked up and you can't just
Speaker 1: synk it with anything, which is really unfortunate. I I'm
Speaker 1: kind of in a tough place right now because the
Speaker 1: only way to get your Google photos is to download
Speaker 1: them completely. And I do think that Google needs to
Speaker 1: address this issue and make either an agreement with something
Speaker 1: like an eb or something like a Synology to let
Speaker 1: you sink your photos in your collection to a hard
Speaker 1: drive or I mean literally, they just need they just
Speaker 1: need to link up with a Wi Fi connected hard
Speaker 1: drive with software and say, you know, and just have
Speaker 1: one thing where you can just say a click and say,
Speaker 1: just please download a copy of my photos at all times,
Speaker 1: like keep this in sync with my Google Photos, and
Speaker 1: I don't know why Google is not doing that, because
Speaker 1: it's kind of a major, a major issue for me
Speaker 1: as someone who has built up an entire collection inside
Speaker 1: Google Photos in the cloud. I need a physical copy
Speaker 1: of my photos somewhere and I need them with me
Speaker 1: at all times, and right now I don't have that,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a problem. So good question. But
Speaker 1: yet check out the alternatives that I mentioned. All right,
Speaker 1: let's see, let's do maybe one more story. Netflix coming
Speaker 1: out with a shuffle button. And the only reason I
Speaker 1: mentioned this because I think it's cool, but I think
Speaker 1: they could go a step further so that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. But and maybe I've talked about this in
Speaker 1: the show. But if you're sitting down to Netflix with
Speaker 1: literally no clue as to what you want to watch,
Speaker 1: and you're so desperate you have to press a shuffle
Speaker 1: button to like have something start playing without you doing anything,
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of time on your hands. So
Speaker 1: and yes, I sit down to the TV and sometimes
Speaker 1: I don't know to watch, and I do sit there
Speaker 1: in my limited time that I watch stuff, but I
Speaker 1: kind of have an idea of what I want to see,
Speaker 1: and especially with YouTube, you know, and all these things.
Speaker 1: They have personalized homepages to help you find that stuff,
Speaker 1: but like, you should be a little bit more targeted,
Speaker 1: but you know, if you're not whatever. But what I
Speaker 1: do think would be cool is if they took this
Speaker 1: shuffle feature a little bit further and they actually shuffled
Speaker 1: movie scenes. I think that would be cool. So if
Speaker 1: I'm sitting down to watch Netflix and maybe or maybe
Speaker 1: I just want my TV on in the background, I
Speaker 1: can just hit shuffle, like shuffle sports movie scenes, shuffle
Speaker 1: notable you know, crime movie scenes, shuffle notable holiday scenes
Speaker 1: for the holidays. I think that would be cool. And
Speaker 1: I don't think it would take much for Netflix to
Speaker 1: do that because all their stuff is probably cataloged anyway.
Speaker 1: But that's the future i'd like to see. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to knock you if you think this. The shuffle feature
Speaker 1: is really cool, but I don't know. I'm sorry, but
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sit down and like discover a new
Speaker 1: movie by pressing a shuffle button and like next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, oh wow, cool, I'll just sit
Speaker 1: here for the next two hours watching this, Like, don't
Speaker 1: don't think so. I like the idea of it more
Speaker 1: being in the background. The shuffle, the shuffle scene feature
Speaker 1: is what I want. And yeah, the stuff that they're shuffling,
Speaker 1: they say will be based on an algorithm of stuff
Speaker 1: you've previously watched. But I can't imagine a world where
Speaker 1: I sit down on a Friday night and I just
Speaker 1: press a shuffle button on Netflix and let Netflix just
Speaker 1: play some random show for me. I just can't imagine that.
Speaker 1: So I guess it's popular enough where people want it,
Speaker 1: but for me personally, I just don't need that. All right,
Speaker 1: let's see here. Oh my gosh, so many questions, so
Speaker 1: many questions. Let's see what else. Okay, let's do this question.
Speaker 1: That's my final question. Let's see. Patricia writes in a
Speaker 1: couple of questions regarding this year's CEO, of which I
Speaker 1: still miss attending for work. I saw the segment regarding
Speaker 1: the new Samsung Galaxy S twenty one Ultra. I am
Speaker 1: not in need of a new phone. However, with the
Speaker 1: constant changes with the cameras, perhaps late twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: early twenty twenty two, I would consider, based on your
Speaker 1: tech experience between Apple users since two thousand and five
Speaker 1: and Samsung, which do you prefer would be used for
Speaker 1: phone camera and some store docs and minimal social network,
Speaker 1: maybe play a game once in a while. You could
Speaker 1: say I'm old school, I use the phone for basics.
Speaker 1: So good question, Patricia. But I find that it's really
Speaker 1: tough for me to tell you whether you should go
Speaker 1: with Samsung or Apple, because I really think that it
Speaker 1: comes down to sort of your personal preference and a
Speaker 1: user's personal preference. So you know, what Apple fans like
Speaker 1: about Apple products is that it's simple, it works. All
Speaker 1: the accessories kind of come from Apple. They all work
Speaker 1: together seamlessly, and there are also tons of third party
Speaker 1: options for accessories, things like cases and add ons and
Speaker 1: outs and lights and all kinds of stuff that works
Speaker 1: around the iPhone. I mean, it's in its entire industry.
Speaker 1: And you also have the best selection of apps on
Speaker 1: the iPhone. And I'm not just saying that to be facetious,
Speaker 1: Like apps seem to work better on iOS. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is if the developers take longer to
Speaker 1: code them, or if there's less devices to code for
Speaker 1: so they just work better and they seem prettier. But
Speaker 1: that's just the case now with Samsung. I think what
Speaker 1: you get there is you get sort of the anti iPhone, right.
Speaker 1: iPhone is the thing that a lot of people have.
Speaker 1: When you have a Samsung, you're kind of saying, I'm
Speaker 1: not having an iPhone. Right when you see someone that
Speaker 1: has a Samsung, you kind of ask, oh, why, I
Speaker 1: don't know why. That's just the reason. It was kind
Speaker 1: of what we do. And so people have their reasons for, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't really care about phones, I just got this,
Speaker 1: or I like Samsung because I don't like Apple, or
Speaker 1: I like Samsung for this feature X feature, and I
Speaker 1: feel like with Samsung they are kind of known as
Speaker 1: always pushing the envelope. So the features you see on
Speaker 1: the Samsung devices eventually come to Apple a couple years later.
Speaker 1: But Apple does put their own spin on them, and
Speaker 1: many times they perfect them, Like I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: if we see a space zoom feature on the iPhone
Speaker 1: in a couple of years. But it might be perfected,
Speaker 1: you know, whereas we're seeing it right now for the
Speaker 1: past two years on Android with Samsung. But it's is
Speaker 1: it perfect?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Does it work yes? Is it cool? Yes? Now the
Speaker 1: price ranges is also another thing. Now I think Apple's
Speaker 1: gotten a lot better about having phones and various price
Speaker 1: ranges in recent years, but Samsung has been known for
Speaker 1: having phones and all kinds of price ranges, and their
Speaker 1: phones are also I would say, much more discounted with
Speaker 1: various deals than the Apple phones are. So you say
Speaker 1: you want basic, it really depends. If you've been using
Speaker 1: iPhone and you're fine with it since two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: then stick to iPhone. All your stuff's in there, You've
Speaker 1: got all the apps that you purchased. But if you
Speaker 1: want to change, you want to try something different, go
Speaker 1: with the S twenty and see how you like it.
Speaker 1: I don't think you need the Ultra because you said
Speaker 1: you're basic, and you know, if you don't need all
Speaker 1: those extra features, why pay for them. And I do
Speaker 1: think if you were doing if you told me you're
Speaker 1: doing something like video capture or content creation or editing
Speaker 1: or social media posting, I would say iPhone is a
Speaker 1: little bit better for that. Or if you said I
Speaker 1: need a smart watch, I do think iPhone is better.
Speaker 1: But I think this Samsung is going to be perfectly
Speaker 1: fine if you you know, if you so choose. I
Speaker 1: would also look into something like the Pixel five because
Speaker 1: or the Pixel four A five G because they have
Speaker 1: that has a slightly bigger screen, It's got great software,
Speaker 1: and it will probably do the things that you need.
Speaker 1: It really depends if you want to If you want
Speaker 1: to step away from iPhone, then I think you'll be fine.
Speaker 1: On the Android side. At this point, they're between the
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy S twenty lineup or sorry, did I say
Speaker 1: S twenty this whole time S twenty one lineup and
Speaker 1: the Pixel the latest pixels. I think you're gonna find
Speaker 1: something that is gonna suit your needs. So good question.
Speaker 1: I don't get it very often anymore, but it is
Speaker 1: something that you know, people do wonder about. And for myself,
Speaker 1: I think that Samsung. You know, like I said, I
Speaker 1: love iPhone, I mean I really do. I think there's
Speaker 1: so many amazing things you can do on it. But
Speaker 1: I also see the beauty of the operating system on
Speaker 1: Android that just kind of lets you do as you please.
Speaker 1: You know, you can really customize it to your to
Speaker 1: a great, great extent. All right, Well, that music means
Speaker 1: it is the end of the show. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. If you'd like to submit a question
Speaker 1: for me to answer, you can do it. Two ways
Speaker 1: You can go to rich on Tech dot tv slash podcast,
Speaker 1: look for the little microphone button in the lower right
Speaker 1: hand corner of the screen and leave a voicemail for me,
Speaker 1: or you can email me just email hello at richon
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. Also, if you would rate and review
Speaker 1: this podcast, that will help other folks discover it. Just
Speaker 1: go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on tech.
Speaker 1: You can find me on all social media platforms at
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. That's Instagram, that Facebook, that's Twitter. I've
Speaker 1: been spending most of my time on Instagram these days,
Speaker 1: but I am popping in on all of them for sure.
Speaker 1: My name is rich Demiro. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Have a fantastic day, Stay safe, and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you very soon.