Speaker 1: Google finally unveils its Pixel smart watch and shows off
Speaker 1: new Pixel seven phones. We're going hands on plus your
Speaker 1: tech questions answered.
Speaker 2: What's going on.
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Damiro and this is Rich on Tech, the
Speaker 1: podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
Speaker 1: you should know about. It's also the place where I
Speaker 1: answer the questions you send me. I'm the tech reporter
Speaker 1: at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Do not adjust your dial. This is the way it sounds.
Speaker 1: This is the way it's going to be for this show.
Speaker 1: Because I am on the road in New York City
Speaker 1: looking at a beautiful.
Speaker 2: View of Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Well, if I angle my face or my head, I
Speaker 1: should say I can see a beautiful view. Otherwise I
Speaker 1: just look into someone else's building across the way. But
Speaker 1: it's still beautiful. It's still an amazing city. Just walking
Speaker 1: around New York is so much fun to me. Even
Speaker 1: though I grew up right across the river and I
Speaker 1: came here many times as a child, it's just there's
Speaker 1: something so like you almost can't imagine and living here,
Speaker 1: but yet people do. And it's a really cool place.
Speaker 1: It's a very fast paced place to live and there's
Speaker 1: just so much going on. I man, I walked to
Speaker 1: dinner last night, walked to dinner both nights, actually almost
Speaker 1: a mile to the restaurant each time, and it's just there's.
Speaker 2: Such an energy.
Speaker 1: There's just people everywhere, and it's just such a cool place.
Speaker 1: I mean, to be able to buy anything you need
Speaker 1: in the world by walking downstairs is such a cool concept.
Speaker 1: On that note, both times, well, no, not that, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it was both times. So you know, when
Speaker 1: I stay in a hotel, I usually put my stuff
Speaker 1: in the safe and with my wallet. I was walking
Speaker 1: to the restaurant the first night and I had to
Speaker 1: turn around because I was like, oh, forgot my wallet
Speaker 1: and this place was a cash only place, so I
Speaker 1: knew I couldn't do tap to pay or anything like that.
Speaker 2: JG.
Speaker 1: Mellon, by the way, I heard about it through Bobby
Speaker 1: flay On. I don't know if it was his podcast
Speaker 1: or something. Maybe it was his podcast where he talked
Speaker 1: about it, and it was just such a you know,
Speaker 1: he's like saying, it's my favorite burger place. Then I
Speaker 1: researched it on YouTube and people love it. So old
Speaker 1: school burger joint. You get in there, sit at the bar,
Speaker 1: you get a burger. It's just such a great ambiance.
Speaker 1: Cash only, so if you go, they serve the burger
Speaker 1: by the way with just pickles and onions.
Speaker 2: And that was enough. It was one of the best
Speaker 2: burgers I had.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was just the whole ambiance, the whole everything
Speaker 1: adding up together, who knows, but it was.
Speaker 2: It was excellent.
Speaker 1: Then the person I was sitting next to at the
Speaker 1: restaurant recommended I said, you know, he was a food person,
Speaker 1: So I said, can you recommend a.
Speaker 2: Place for tomorrow night?
Speaker 1: And he said, sure, this place called Upland, And so
Speaker 1: I know went there last night and I walked there
Speaker 1: and this time I made it to the restaurant and
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, I reached in my pocket for
Speaker 1: something and I said, oh, no, I forgot my wallet
Speaker 1: at home.
Speaker 2: So long story short. Asked the bartender. I said, hey,
Speaker 2: do you accept like tap.
Speaker 1: To pay or anything like that, and she said, no,
Speaker 1: no Apple Pay. But well, there is this QR code
Speaker 1: on the receipt that apparently, I guess nobody uses. And
Speaker 1: I said, oh, QR code, I can scan that and
Speaker 1: use my phone to pay.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: So I almost said, can you ring me up right
Speaker 1: now and just let me do a test. She said, no,
Speaker 1: You'll be fine. She's like, it's on there, believe me.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, And so we get to the end
Speaker 1: of dinner a little little trepidus, but it was fine,
Speaker 1: and I get to the end of dinner, which was awesome,
Speaker 1: and I scanned the QR code and it was super
Speaker 1: odd because I was expecting it to be Apple Pay
Speaker 1: or Google Pay, but the three options were Google pay
Speaker 1: for a one point five percent I think it was searcharge,
Speaker 1: then it was Venmo for a searcharge, or you can
Speaker 1: manually type in your credit card number, which is ironically
Speaker 1: the least secure way of checking out. But there was
Speaker 1: no Searcharge. So I said, all right, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to pay one point five percent more. So I
Speaker 1: typed in my credit card number, which was stored on
Speaker 1: my phone. And it wasn't stored in Apple Pay or
Speaker 1: Google Pay, by the way, it was just stored on
Speaker 1: my device itself, in my password manager. So I don't
Speaker 1: recommend that you keep that sort of unencrypted. I guess
Speaker 1: it's a credit card number. If someone gets it, you
Speaker 1: just get a new card, but it's still a hassle.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it all worked out. And note to self,
Speaker 1: remember your wallet. And note to restaurants, please please please
Speaker 1: start accepting Apple Pay if you go to Europe, if
Speaker 1: you go to Japan, if you go to Asia, anywhere
Speaker 1: else in the world except America. For some reason, we
Speaker 1: have been so hesitant to tap to pay for restaurants.
Speaker 1: It's everywhere else now you know all the major stores,
Speaker 1: but for restaurants, if you go anywhere else in the world,
Speaker 1: they bring you sort of the check which is like
Speaker 1: a tablet or an electronic like receipt thing, and you
Speaker 1: just tap your card right on there or you push
Speaker 1: your card in either way. But for some reason in
Speaker 1: America we are so hesitant to this change.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. It would have saved me last night.
Speaker 1: A lot of hassle, a lot of stress because we
Speaker 1: go with our phones everywhere, but our wallets increasingly, it's
Speaker 1: like that thing that you check for your phone. Typically
Speaker 1: you check for your wallet and keys. I don't care keys.
Speaker 1: I barely carry a wallet because I'm all tap and
Speaker 1: it's just basically form my ID at this point, so
Speaker 1: and a little bit of cash. Anyway, that's my story.
Speaker 1: I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 2: It all worked out. But I had two.
Speaker 1: Incredible experiences with restaurants here and it was really, really fun.
Speaker 1: So all right, let's get to why I'm here. I'm
Speaker 1: here in New York City for the Google Pixel event.
Speaker 1: They call it a Made by Google event, and this
Speaker 1: already happened, so I don't know why I'm talking about
Speaker 1: it like I'm here for it already or waiting for it.
Speaker 1: But it was yesterday and Google showed off as expected.
Speaker 1: It's a highly anticipated smart watch, and then the Google
Speaker 1: Pixel seven phones. So let's start with the smart watch
Speaker 1: because that's kind of the newest, latest, greatest. So this
Speaker 1: has been a long time coming. And the best way
Speaker 1: to describe this smart watch is it looks like a
Speaker 1: real watch. It's very minimalistic. I love the design. Actually
Speaker 1: it's circular. It reminds me a lot of like the
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy watches, like the early.
Speaker 2: Models, and also the Motorola.
Speaker 1: Three sixty I think it was called. They both have
Speaker 1: that round face, very smooth, very polished, looking almost like
Speaker 1: a stone on your wrist. With the you know, they
Speaker 1: have a whole bunch of different bands. The bands are
Speaker 1: you know a little bit tricky to get on and off,
Speaker 1: but I think it'll take some getting used to.
Speaker 2: But they work. Nice little screen.
Speaker 1: It's forty one millimeters case, so it looks really slim
Speaker 1: on your wrist, and I think it's a great looking watch.
Speaker 2: It's water resistant.
Speaker 1: It's got nineteen different watch faces and they're all customizable.
Speaker 1: I love some of the watch faces on here. You
Speaker 1: can get really nitty gritty with how you customize them.
Speaker 1: And let's not forget this is Google's version of a
Speaker 1: smart watch. So on Apple it has been amazing. It
Speaker 1: has been a great experience, but you're very much limited
Speaker 1: to what Apple wants you to be able to do
Speaker 1: on that smart watch. And we haven't seen a lot
Speaker 1: of pick up for third party apps or you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of functionality on those apps. Like most of
Speaker 1: the stuff I do on the Apple Watch is pretty
Speaker 1: much Apple related, right, So Siri very basic, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: because it's just not very useful.
Speaker 2: Let's see what else.
Speaker 1: Apple Maps I don't really use except when i'm walking
Speaker 1: getting walking directions because I'm forced to use it, so
Speaker 1: I'll do that. The rest of this stuff is really
Speaker 1: just workouts and even music. You know, you have your
Speaker 1: choice of Spotify, which never really downloaded my music properly,
Speaker 1: so that was kind of a pain.
Speaker 2: And then Apple.
Speaker 1: Music, of course works flawlessly, so you can go to that,
Speaker 1: which is what I ended up doing. So, you know,
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch is fantastic and I still think it
Speaker 1: is the best smart watch out there, with a caveat
Speaker 1: being you have to have an iPhone. A lot of
Speaker 1: people have Android phones, and it's been pretty limited to
Speaker 1: either a Fitbit or you know, a Samsung device, and
Speaker 1: Samsung is is very much in the Samsung ecosystem. So
Speaker 1: this watch now gives you access to the number one
Speaker 1: thing that I think is awesome, which is Google Maps.
Speaker 1: Number two Google Assistant, which is just fantastic. So those
Speaker 1: two things alone make this a really compelling device to
Speaker 1: me because if you're on Android, you want Google Maps
Speaker 1: and you want Google Assistant, so it's got access to
Speaker 1: those things. It also has all of your notifications. The
Speaker 1: Fitbit smarts are fantastic because they literally built Fitbit into
Speaker 1: this watch. Now, fippit is very smart. They've been around
Speaker 1: for a very long time, so the stats you're going
Speaker 1: to get from that are going to be incredible. They
Speaker 1: have a focus on your active heart rate. So the
Speaker 1: minutes that I only care about are the active heart
Speaker 1: rate minutes each day, which is like I try to
Speaker 1: get thirty. But you've also got excellent sleep tracking as
Speaker 1: well on this device, so it's so minimalistic and slim
Speaker 1: that it's easy to wear to bed because you're not
Speaker 1: gonna you know, it just doesn't really make you think
Speaker 1: too much about the fact that you have something on
Speaker 1: your wrist because it's so lightweight, and obviously you can
Speaker 1: do the all the fitness tracking on there as well.
Speaker 2: Let's see what else you've got.
Speaker 1: Emergency so it can call someone if you feel unsafe.
Speaker 1: Fall detection is coming soon. That's kind of a miss
Speaker 1: on Google's part, Like what I mean, they took like
Speaker 1: so many years to make this watch. Why couldn't they
Speaker 1: just do fall detection. I don't know what's the other
Speaker 1: things They've got ECG, so that's similar to the Apple Watch.
Speaker 1: You can do your ECG, you've got your sleep score,
Speaker 1: you've got your breathing rate, heart rate variability, all kinds
Speaker 1: of workouts.
Speaker 2: Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: They're going to try to get you to subscribe to
Speaker 1: fitbit Premium on this watch, which I think is six
Speaker 1: six or seven bucks a month, so I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're going to need that. They give you six
Speaker 1: months free. I have not tested that just yet. I
Speaker 1: don't like the idea of paying for another thing, but
Speaker 1: I may break down and have to do that, or
Speaker 1: I guess I will break down and just sign up
Speaker 1: for the free trial for six months.
Speaker 2: They also have an LTE version of this watch. So
Speaker 2: the regular version.
Speaker 1: Which is GPS, is going to be three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty bucks. The LTE version is going to be four hundred.
Speaker 1: If you have Google five, I guess you get the
Speaker 1: watch plan for free, which is kind of cool. Battery
Speaker 1: life they're saying twenty four hours of battery life. And
Speaker 1: here's the other thing that I kind of forgot to
Speaker 1: mention with the fitbit tracking is that this watch is
Speaker 1: taking a heart rate measurement every second, whereas according to Google,
Speaker 1: most smart watches take that reading every five seconds and
Speaker 1: only every second when you're actively in a workout. So
Speaker 1: they say by taking it every second of every day,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get more accurate trends, more accurate stats. And
Speaker 1: that's pretty incredible that you're getting that. I think that's
Speaker 1: gonna be better for figuring out things like are you
Speaker 1: going on a run or are you going on a walk?
Speaker 1: I mean, five seconds seems like it would be adequate,
Speaker 1: But you know, Google's pumping up this one second thing
Speaker 1: twenty four hours of battery life that is to be
Speaker 1: seen if that's with the always on display or just
Speaker 1: with you know, the display that comes on when you.
Speaker 2: Flip your wrist up.
Speaker 1: Overall, I think they did a fantastic job.
Speaker 2: With their first version of this watch. Hopefully it makes
Speaker 2: it to a second version.
Speaker 1: We know how Google likes to kill things mid product cycle,
Speaker 1: but hopefully they will make this to a second version.
Speaker 1: But I think this first version at this point, just
Speaker 1: seeing what I've seen so far, I have no problems
Speaker 1: recommending it for a Google phone companion or an Android
Speaker 1: phone companion. Is it going to be as full featured
Speaker 1: as the Apple Watch? Is this software going to be
Speaker 1: a slick? Is it a little more stuttery? Is a
Speaker 1: little slower?
Speaker 2: Probably?
Speaker 1: In what I saw yesterday at the event, it seems
Speaker 1: like the software could use a little bit of polish,
Speaker 1: but that's typical of pixel devices. For some reason, they
Speaker 1: put them out and then they polish them up over
Speaker 1: the next year and That's one of the good things
Speaker 1: about pixel stuff is that it does get better.
Speaker 2: And you know, look on the flip side with the iPhone.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing a bunch of little quirks here and there
Speaker 1: with iOS sixteen and the iPhone fourteen. So these things
Speaker 1: aren't perfect. And I think that, you know, as we
Speaker 1: get more and more feature.
Speaker 2: Rich, it's that's just the way it is, where we're
Speaker 2: seeing more and more little.
Speaker 1: Kind of bugs on these things. So that's the Google
Speaker 1: pixel Watch. It'll be available October thirteenth. Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: have my nice clickity clack typing for the first question
Speaker 1: of the podcast, but let's get to it. Nancy says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: hope all is well with you question. I recently moved
Speaker 1: to an area that does not have KTLA on their
Speaker 1: cable package. When I first moved here, I was keeping
Speaker 1: up with KTLA on my tcl Roku, but I replaced
Speaker 1: it with a Visio smart cast that is Google based,
Speaker 1: allowing me to download apps from Google Play. But your
Speaker 1: streaming app is not available there. What's a video owner
Speaker 1: got to do to get your streaming app and the
Speaker 1: morning news again? In other words, why is it not
Speaker 1: available on Google Play? Any chance it might be added.
Speaker 2: I sure do.
Speaker 1: Miss your segments. Thanks for your help and input. Cheers Nancy.
Speaker 1: All right, Nancy, good question. So I was not aware
Speaker 1: that Visio smart cast lets you download Google Play apps.
Speaker 2: Which is kind of cool. So Google, we.
Speaker 1: Are not on Google Play. We have a Ktla plus
Speaker 1: streaming app. It is not available on Google Play. It
Speaker 1: is available on the three major streaming TV platforms, which
Speaker 1: is Apple TV, let's see what's the other one, fireTV,
Speaker 1: and Roku as you knew by having the TCL Roku TV.
Speaker 1: So this is where things get a little bit tricky
Speaker 1: with all of these different streaming services and platforms and
Speaker 1: things like that. So Google Play is big on Android
Speaker 1: on TV. You know, they have Sony TVs that have it.
Speaker 2: Clearly the video does it. But you know.
Speaker 1: And but the thing is, even though Amazon fireTV is
Speaker 1: Android based, they don't use the Google Play store for
Speaker 1: their apps, which I know is super confusing. So just
Speaker 1: because an app is on Android does not mean it's
Speaker 1: on fireTV. Just because it's on fireTV does not mean it's.
Speaker 2: On Google Play.
Speaker 1: So Amazon sort of has their own app store with
Speaker 1: that situation. And then anyway, long story short, you don't
Speaker 1: care about any of that. You just want to know
Speaker 1: how to watch the news. The bottom line answer. The
Speaker 1: easiest way is to probably by a fire TV streaming
Speaker 1: stick and pop it in the back of your TV,
Speaker 1: and when you want to watch KTLA, you've got to
Speaker 1: put that, you know, switch to that input. I know
Speaker 1: that's a little bit of work, but you know that's
Speaker 1: just kind of the way you have to do it
Speaker 1: to get the stream so super cheap. I mean, the
Speaker 1: fire TV sticks are very inexpensive.
Speaker 2: Your TV.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's pretty new, So your TV should
Speaker 1: be smart enough. When you press the home button on
Speaker 1: the fire stick, it should switch that input automatically. Just
Speaker 1: put ktlas your first app and boom, you can watch us.
Speaker 1: And thank you for saying you miss my segments. You
Speaker 1: can watch them in a variety of ways. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can go to the KTLA website, you can go
Speaker 1: to rich on tech dot tv, or you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, you can download that KTLA plus app. It's
Speaker 1: all free and you can stream all of my segments.
Speaker 1: There is a section for my segments on the KTLA
Speaker 1: plus app. So thanks for sticking with us, even through
Speaker 1: the move and even through the different TV. I really
Speaker 1: do like the fact that we've got some dedicated viewers
Speaker 1: like that. And I know, this whole streaming thing is
Speaker 1: very complicated, the fact that we have to go and
Speaker 1: I'm not you know.
Speaker 2: This, it's just the way it is, like the fact
Speaker 2: that I have.
Speaker 1: To go to Netflix for one movie and you know,
Speaker 1: Hulu for another show, and then YouTube for something else
Speaker 1: I want to watch.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: The streaming world right now is all brand new, and
Speaker 1: it is still evolving. It's still kind of figuring out
Speaker 1: how it wants to be what it wants to be.
Speaker 1: In some ways, just having a cable package back.
Speaker 2: In the day was so much easier.
Speaker 1: You know, every night when you watch something on TV,
Speaker 1: if it's like a Friday night, you're looking literally I
Speaker 1: am scanning so many different like recommendations and services and
Speaker 1: things to figure out what to watch. I did find
Speaker 1: something that I thought was pretty helpful.
Speaker 2: If you go to.
Speaker 1: Rotten Tomatoes, Okay, they've got this thirty most popular movies
Speaker 1: right Now guide and it is across all services, whether
Speaker 1: it is streaming, whether it is movie theaters. And I
Speaker 1: thought that this was pretty handy because Rotten Tomatoes is
Speaker 1: pretty much like the Gold standard for like movie ratings,
Speaker 1: and you know, so if you go on this list,
Speaker 1: you can see what the ratings are of the different
Speaker 1: movies that are popular, and you.
Speaker 2: Just have to do a little quick search.
Speaker 1: They will even actually if you click the title, tell
Speaker 1: you if these things are available on streaming. So I
Speaker 1: ended up watching The Monsters, which I had not even
Speaker 1: known there was a new Monsters movie on Netflix.
Speaker 2: Probably better that I didn't know, because it wasn't very good.
Speaker 2: Sorry spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, it was it was fun, it was kitchy,
Speaker 1: it was you know, it was sort of a throwback.
Speaker 1: It was an origin story of how Lily and Herman
Speaker 1: Munster met. It was it was fun. I love the
Speaker 1: costumes and the set decorations and the vibe of the
Speaker 1: movie was very fun. But you know, the story was
Speaker 1: just okay, and it was you know, it was kind
Speaker 1: of cheesy and it's not something i'd recommend. But if
Speaker 1: you like the Munsters growing up, yeah, you'll probably be disappointed.
Speaker 1: But it's still fun to just be in that world
Speaker 1: of like, I mean, the set direct the set decoration
Speaker 1: was just awesome.
Speaker 2: I loved it. So anyway, so.
Speaker 1: The Monsters was on there, all these movies were on
Speaker 1: there and you can see what sort of the rating is,
Speaker 1: but also where they're.
Speaker 2: Streaming as well. So that's been really helpful for me because.
Speaker 1: I don't watch a lot of TV per se, but
Speaker 1: I do like to watch movies, and so it's really
Speaker 1: tricky to find like where all these movies are streaming
Speaker 1: and which ones are, you know, kind of the buzzy ones.
Speaker 2: But this list helped. But anyway, thanks for the question.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the next topic of the podcast, which
Speaker 1: is the Pixel seven and Pixel seven pro. So again,
Speaker 1: Pixel to me is represents just if you want a
Speaker 1: very solid smartphone that takes amazing pictures, has excellent software
Speaker 1: Google Smart's built in.
Speaker 2: It's really really good.
Speaker 1: The problem is I feel like it always leaves something
Speaker 1: to be desired. You're in year out For me personally,
Speaker 1: I will tell you, if you are a average smartphone user,
Speaker 1: the basic pick that they make, like I'm talking the
Speaker 1: Pixel six A, the Pixel seven. These are really really
Speaker 1: fantastic phones for the price.
Speaker 2: There is not a lot of bloatwear on them.
Speaker 1: The software is constantly updated. I think Google says you
Speaker 1: get five years of security updates on these phones. I mean,
Speaker 1: this phone could really last you five years, if you
Speaker 1: played your cards right with it, if you took care
Speaker 1: of it and you know, and just did those software updates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it might get a little slow towards the end, but
Speaker 1: it's gonna work for you, and it's gonna take fantastic
Speaker 1: pictures the entire time, from day one until day year five.
Speaker 1: It's gonna take really really good pictures without a lot
Speaker 1: of hassle, without a lot of fuss.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, you can argue rich the iPhone fourteen takes
Speaker 2: great pictures, and the Samsungs take great pictures.
Speaker 1: Yes, they all take good pictures. But the Pixel takes
Speaker 1: really good pictures without.
Speaker 2: A lot of fuss. So does the iPhone. But I
Speaker 2: feel like the Pixel. I personally really love the googly.
Speaker 1: Smarts that they build into these phones, and so that
Speaker 1: is one of the things I really like about them,
Speaker 1: is having access to the Google Assistant and just having.
Speaker 2: That great camera experience.
Speaker 1: The video on last year's Pixel six, you know, left
Speaker 1: a little bit desired. We'll see if the Pixel seven's
Speaker 1: any better, all right, So what is the Pixel seven
Speaker 1: all about? You've got Pixel seven, Pixel seven pro. Pixel
Speaker 1: seven fits in your hand way better. Six point three
Speaker 1: inch screen. It's got these kind of sand blasted aluminum
Speaker 1: sides that I feel like are a little bit easier
Speaker 1: to grip. Pixel seven Pro has a six point seven
Speaker 1: inch screen, way bigger, way tougher to hold, but it's
Speaker 1: got a better camera, and it's got better specs all around,
Speaker 1: more ram, a higher quality screen, bigger battery. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: thing that they built into both of these phone of
Speaker 1: telephoto lens. The new feature that they built in or
Speaker 1: they improved, i should say, is this super res zoom.
Speaker 1: So now just using the standard lenses on the Pixel seven,
Speaker 1: you can get up to eight times zoom on the
Speaker 1: Pixel seven and up to thirty times zoom on the
Speaker 1: Pixel seven Pro, and these pictures look good no matter what. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if you look at how most people use
Speaker 1: their smartphone, they literally just pinch to zoom to figure
Speaker 1: out how to frame up a picture and then they
Speaker 1: take the picture. That is the absolute worst way to
Speaker 1: take a picture on an iPhone, And the reason why
Speaker 1: is because your phone is constantly snapping between various lenses,
Speaker 1: and when you're in between those lenses, you're really just
Speaker 1: cropping a photo. Now that's gotten better on the Pixel sorry,
Speaker 1: on the iPhone fourteen Pro. It's not so much of
Speaker 1: an issue anymore because they have a much larger sensor.
Speaker 1: But on the standard iPhones, your pictures are not as
Speaker 1: good as they could be if you were snapping or
Speaker 1: just really staying in the main size, which is the
Speaker 1: one X lens. If you're snapping to that two X
Speaker 1: or zooming in even further, you're really not getting a
Speaker 1: very good shot, a very high quality shot. So this
Speaker 1: is the reason why on my phones, I always use
Speaker 1: a little snap to zooms at the bottom, because those
Speaker 1: represent sort of the optical zoom levels, and on the
Speaker 1: iPhone fourteen Pro that is one X, two x, three.
Speaker 2: X, and I think that's it.
Speaker 1: I can't I'm using my phone to record right now,
Speaker 1: so I can't really tell you what that is. But
Speaker 1: on the pixels now, what they're doing is they're actually
Speaker 1: using the full sensor and they're doing all.
Speaker 2: The smarts and crops for you.
Speaker 1: So technically, no matter where you zoom from zero to
Speaker 1: eight or zero to thirty, your shot should.
Speaker 2: Look just as good and just as high quality. So
Speaker 2: that's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: So they've they say they've achieved optical quality similar to
Speaker 1: a dedicated two x telephoto lens for Pixel seven and
Speaker 1: a ten X telephoto lens for Pixel seven Pro, so
Speaker 1: Pixel seven Pro also has the Macro mode. Both phones
Speaker 1: have this new feature called Photo Unblur, which lets you
Speaker 1: unblur old photos. So or even you know a photo
Speaker 1: that you took with any other device, or any other
Speaker 1: blurry photo. So you take that blurry photo, you tap
Speaker 1: photo unblur and Google works its magic and unblurs it.
Speaker 2: That feature at this.
Speaker 1: Point is exclusive to the Pixel seven and Pixel seven Pro,
Speaker 1: even though I'm not sure it requires the new processor
Speaker 1: inside the pixel to make that happen. I'm sure they
Speaker 1: can do this on the older models, but you know
Speaker 1: they've got to set these phones apart in some way.
Speaker 2: That's how they're doing it.
Speaker 1: Magic eraser still there, still exclusive to the Pixel six
Speaker 1: now and the Pixel seven Pro or Pixel seven.
Speaker 2: Let's see what else.
Speaker 1: They also showed off this Guided frame feature, which is
Speaker 1: for the visually impaired. It gives you audio guidance for
Speaker 1: taking a selfie, which I tried it out yesterday at
Speaker 1: the event. Really really nice accessibility feature kind of speaks
Speaker 1: to say, raise your phone, move your phone to the left,
Speaker 1: and it uses I guess it figures out, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at the screen or if you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're framed up properly for a selfie and so that's
Speaker 1: really neat night Sight was really slow on the old phones.
Speaker 1: Now they say it's two times faster.
Speaker 2: Let's see what else.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's also now face online in addition to fingerprint
Speaker 1: unlock on the new Pixel seven and seven pro, So
Speaker 1: that's going to help you unlock your phone better. Voice
Speaker 1: typing will search for the relevant emojis, so that makes
Speaker 1: life a little bit easier. You're also going to get
Speaker 1: a VPN at no cost included. And this is really
Speaker 1: aimed at folks who have you know, they've kind of
Speaker 1: heard about the privacy situation with all of these smartphones
Speaker 1: and now that Apple has that whole ask not to track.
Speaker 2: Situation on the Google phone.
Speaker 1: If you don't want your activity tracked, you can turn
Speaker 1: on the VPN. And even though it's a Google VPN,
Speaker 1: they say they're not going to associate your online activity
Speaker 1: with your Google account.
Speaker 2: I'll be curious to see how.
Speaker 1: This works with Google Chrome, because typically whatever you do
Speaker 1: inside Google Chrome is linked to your Google account as well.
Speaker 1: I thought, but maybe not, and so if you want
Speaker 1: that security of a VPN and the ability to surf
Speaker 1: without everything going back to Google, you can now activate
Speaker 1: that VPN in a click. And that's kind of a
Speaker 1: nice add on feature. And I think really this is
Speaker 1: to keep people from deflecting to browsers like Duck Duck
Speaker 1: Go and Brave, because to have this stuff not linked
Speaker 1: your Google account, you have to manually activate it. Yes,
Speaker 1: some people might leave that on all the time, but
Speaker 1: I think majority will just activate it during certain times
Speaker 1: and leave it off during other times. And during those
Speaker 1: other times they'll be using Chrome, which will still be
Speaker 1: reporting back to Google. So Google kind of wins in
Speaker 1: that situation. Pixel seven five ninety nine, Pixel seven Pro
Speaker 1: eight ninety nine.
Speaker 2: That five ninety nine price is a.
Speaker 1: Full two hundred dollars cheaper than the cheapest iPhone fourteen
Speaker 1: I think for an entry level phone if you don't
Speaker 1: mind Android, this is a really, really fantastic device and
Speaker 1: I'd highly recommend it, even though I have not played
Speaker 1: with it for a long period of time, I'm just
Speaker 1: basing it on my previous Pixel experience. I really like
Speaker 1: this phone for a basic budget smartphone.
Speaker 2: Now, if you are a creator like someone like myself who's.
Speaker 1: Doing a lot of video, doing a lot of editing,
Speaker 1: doing a lot stuff running sort of like a social
Speaker 1: media world from your phone. You may still need the iPhone.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that's what my testing is going to
Speaker 1: be all about with the Pixel seven Pro, so I
Speaker 1: will keep you posted on that. But otherwise, solid offerings
Speaker 1: from Google this year. I think that they are listening
Speaker 1: to their users a little bit more in the features
Speaker 1: that they want and the features that need to be
Speaker 1: improved and the pain points, and I think they just
Speaker 1: continue to evolve these phones.
Speaker 2: Let's hope that that pixel watch as well survives. I
Speaker 2: already said that.
Speaker 1: So all right, Cathy says, hello, is there a watch
Speaker 1: or a fitbit that does EKG for your heart I'm
Speaker 1: seventy four.
Speaker 2: I need something lightweight.
Speaker 1: It looks like she has an iPhone, so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the Apple Watch is going to do that. The
Speaker 1: Apple Watch is going to do the heart rate monitoring,
Speaker 1: It's going to do ECG.
Speaker 2: It's going to give you your highs and your lows alerts.
Speaker 1: If you need something, So I think the Apple Watch
Speaker 1: is probably your best bet.
Speaker 2: Now if you look at the Apple Watch.
Speaker 1: Compared so there's there's the Apple Watch se and then
Speaker 1: there's the Apple Watch Series A.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna recommend the Ultra to you. I don't
Speaker 2: think you need that.
Speaker 1: So if you look at these two, the s will
Speaker 1: give you those high and low heart rate notifications. It's
Speaker 1: not going to give you the ECG app. So you
Speaker 1: need to get the ECG app to get that feature
Speaker 1: that you want. Now, the ECG app, I believe, was
Speaker 1: introduced all the way back on the iPhone or the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch Series four. So if you get one of
Speaker 1: these Apple Watches on sale somewhere and you're wondering, like, well,
Speaker 1: the series four, Series five, Series six, or Series seven
Speaker 1: do the same thing, yes they will. Now, I personally
Speaker 1: would recommend just getting the Series eight because you want
Speaker 1: the latest, greatest, Because this watch can last you a
Speaker 1: good four or five years, So why would you go
Speaker 1: with something that's already four or five years old when
Speaker 1: you want to get four or five years of use
Speaker 1: out of it. So I would say, if you need
Speaker 1: something that's going to be like a fall detection, go
Speaker 1: with the GPS plus cellular, which is five hundred. If
Speaker 1: you need just GPS, go with the four hundred. But
Speaker 1: that's gonna be probably your best bet.
Speaker 2: If you were.
Speaker 1: Android, I would say to go with the new Google
Speaker 1: Pixel Watch because that also does ECG and I think
Speaker 1: it's lightweight, it's great you leave it on all day.
Speaker 2: So those are two good options for you. Thanks for
Speaker 2: the question.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about CS twenty twenty three, happening
Speaker 1: January fifth through When is it kicking off?
Speaker 2: January fifth?
Speaker 1: So? CS says the in person event is on track
Speaker 1: to exceed twenty twenty two, and they think it's going
Speaker 1: to be the largest in person business event to take
Speaker 1: place in the US since early twenty twenty. Also, the
Speaker 1: show footprint is on track to be more than forty
Speaker 1: percent larger than CS twenty twenty two. I went to
Speaker 1: CS twenty twenty two. I was one of the few
Speaker 1: that went, and I thought it was fantastic. I got
Speaker 1: a of great content. I thought it was a really
Speaker 1: great show, even.
Speaker 2: Though, yeah, it was different.
Speaker 1: It was in the height of the pandemic and I
Speaker 1: think it was omicron at the time, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where people were a little
Speaker 1: hesitant to go. I had no qualms about it. I
Speaker 1: figured I'd be fine, and I was and you know, look,
Speaker 1: if you're comfortable with these kind of things, you go.
Speaker 1: If you're not, you don't go. But at this point,
Speaker 1: the events are definitely coming back.
Speaker 2: And is it weird. Absolutely?
Speaker 1: I mean I was at the Google event and the
Speaker 1: person sitting next to me.
Speaker 2: Had a mask. Actually, both the people next.
Speaker 1: To me had n ninety five masks on, and so
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, are they recovering from COVID?
Speaker 2: Do they think they have COVID?
Speaker 1: Now, we all had to test to get into the event,
Speaker 1: but maybe if you tested and you didn't feel comfortable,
Speaker 1: still you wore a mask.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: But the reality is, you know, I'm on the plane
Speaker 1: and I'm feeling like, you know, if someone's coughing, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, this person's gonna get me sick.
Speaker 2: So yeah, is it different? Is it weird? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Sure, because we're so used to these past two and
Speaker 1: a half three years of like, you know, no handshakes
Speaker 1: and the masks and the coughing and this and that
Speaker 1: and the boosters, and so it's definitely a different experience
Speaker 1: for me personally, I feel very confident in going to
Speaker 1: these things and taking the precautions that I personally feel
Speaker 1: comfortable taking which is, you know, sanitizer, washing my hands,
Speaker 1: staying out of situations where I feel very uncomfortable, and
Speaker 1: that's it.
Speaker 2: And so far, knock on wood, it's worked for me.
Speaker 1: But everyone's level of comfort with this situation is different,
Speaker 1: and so I'm not judging. I am totally good with
Speaker 1: whatever people want to do. I personally will be at
Speaker 1: CS and it looks like their attendance they think their
Speaker 1: tenants goal of one hundred thousand dollars or one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars one hundred thousand people they are gonna hit,
Speaker 1: and so we'll see. Some of the big companies this
Speaker 1: year include Amazon, AMD, Google, Qualcom, Roku, Samsung, Sony, Verizon,
Speaker 1: and some of the key themes this year transportation and mobility,
Speaker 1: digital health, metaverse.
Speaker 2: I think that's pretty.
Speaker 1: New, sustainability and human security for all CS happens January
Speaker 1: fifth through eighth. Media Days are taking place January third
Speaker 1: through fourth, So I can't wait.
Speaker 2: I'm excited. I always love CS and I think it's
Speaker 2: going to be a great show. All right.
Speaker 1: Next question from Cookie. Cookie says, hey, rich At and
Speaker 1: T has a trade in where you can get an
Speaker 1: iPhone fourteen for free.
Speaker 2: I currently have.
Speaker 1: An iPhone twelve Pro. Would that be a smart move?
Speaker 1: Or should I stay where I am? Thank you, cookie, Cookie,
Speaker 1: it's not really free number one. What they're doing is
Speaker 1: they are taking your old phone, which is your iPhone
Speaker 1: twelve Pro, and they are giving you an iPhone fourteen.
Speaker 1: They're giving you an inflated trade in value right for
Speaker 1: your iPhone twelve Pro, and then they are going to
Speaker 1: take that trade in amount and they're not giving it
Speaker 1: to you all at once. What they're gonna do is
Speaker 1: they're going to give it to you over twenty four
Speaker 1: to thirty six months. So what does that come out to? Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's do a little math here, So eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: Let's say they give you eight hundred dollars right divided
Speaker 1: by twenty four, So they're giving you a credit of
Speaker 1: thirty three dollars a month.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, if you sold your iPhone twelve Pro, now I
Speaker 1: don't know how much storage you've got. Let's just say
Speaker 1: you have the basic iPhone twelve Pro one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty eight. Let's say it's like new, it's whoops, signed
Speaker 1: in or signed out, so you would get four hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty five dollars for this.
Speaker 2: So let's just say you took.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred and divided by or took out four to
Speaker 1: sixty five, so that'd be three hundred and thirty five
Speaker 1: dollars you would be on the hook.
Speaker 2: For divided by thirty three.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so you would have to pay three hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty five dollars for the new phone. So if
Speaker 1: we divided that by thirty three, which is how much
Speaker 1: AT and T is giving you, they're giving you basically
Speaker 1: ten months of credit when you should.
Speaker 2: Be getting I don't know, I'm you know.
Speaker 1: My math has gotten all convoluted, But the bottom line is, look,
Speaker 1: is it a good deal? Probably not?
Speaker 2: Is it an easy deal? Yes? And should you go
Speaker 2: for it?
Speaker 1: If you want to be on the hook for twenty
Speaker 1: four months with AT and T, it's fine. I personally
Speaker 1: don't like contracts. I don't like deals like this. I
Speaker 1: would not do it. It's not really free. They're really holding
Speaker 1: you to twenty four months of paying for AT and
Speaker 1: T service, which is probably more expensive than you would
Speaker 1: get just buying service that didn't come with this free iPhone.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of plans out there there's you know,
Speaker 1: are you using your AT and T plan to its
Speaker 1: full maximum potential?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Do you need a full by the way, you have
Speaker 1: to be on one of their premium unlimited plans.
Speaker 2: I'm guessing to get this, do you need all that?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: So these are the questions that you need to ask yourself.
Speaker 1: I don't like these carrier trade in deals because they
Speaker 1: sound sexy, they sound great, but when you really do
Speaker 1: the math, you're paying a lot for convenience and they
Speaker 1: are locking you into a rather large contract when in
Speaker 1: this world we live in, there are no more contracts
Speaker 1: for cellular service. Now they've got us on these new
Speaker 1: trade in plans that kind of maskraade as a great deal,
Speaker 1: but that the bottom line is you're just you're kind
Speaker 1: of they're building that thirty three dollars you save quote
Speaker 1: unquote save every month into your service. So there are
Speaker 1: plenty of inexpensive plans that you can get. You buy
Speaker 1: this phone for three hundred.
Speaker 2: And thirty five dollars after you trade in your other.
Speaker 1: Phone, and then you can buy a plan that you
Speaker 1: activate on this phone that may be cheaper every month
Speaker 1: on a month by month basis.
Speaker 2: You may save thirty dollars a month, so it's right there.
Speaker 1: But again, you know, this is more getting into financial advice,
Speaker 1: and I'm not giving you that financial advice.
Speaker 2: I'm giving you just how I see things.
Speaker 1: And I personally get very stressed out when I have
Speaker 1: a contract with someone that I need to fulfill for
Speaker 1: twenty four to thirty six months.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of stress. I did this once with
Speaker 2: AT and T.
Speaker 1: I bought my wife's iPhone on the plan and I
Speaker 1: just had to pay it off because I couldn't see
Speaker 1: it every single month. It was like really stressing me
Speaker 1: out to pay whatever I think it was like sixty
Speaker 1: five bucks a month for this phone or something.
Speaker 2: And it was just like, h never mind, let me
Speaker 2: just pay this thing off. And so that's what I
Speaker 2: ended up doing. But you know that's me.
Speaker 1: If your level of comfort is fine, you like this,
Speaker 1: it's simple, it's easy. You go into your AT and
Speaker 1: T store and they give you the new phone cookie.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna fault you for it. A lot of
Speaker 1: people do it, and people feel comfortable doing it, and
Speaker 1: so that is your prerogative.
Speaker 2: And you know, if you like it, go for it,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: Speaking of iPhones. The iPhone fourteen Plus is now available.
Speaker 1: I did not review this. I told Apple I did
Speaker 1: not need a review unit on this because you know, look,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like an iPhone fourteen but bigger. And
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read you some of the some of
Speaker 1: the review headlines from tech meme and let's see. So
Speaker 1: The Verge says it is a great battery, multi battery,
Speaker 1: a bright screen, it's lightweight, it's hard to use one handed.
Speaker 1: No promotion which is the better screen size adopting eSIM
Speaker 1: may be painful for some.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could or could not be.
Speaker 1: And Gadget says iPhone fourteen plus it's a bigger iPhone.
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal says it's a big screen, big battery,
Speaker 1: not so big price. Nine to five Max says great
Speaker 1: battery life with familiar hardware. CMBC says it wins on
Speaker 1: battery life and screen size. CET says it's for people
Speaker 1: who love big screens. I Think Different says incredible battery
Speaker 1: life and large screen.
Speaker 2: So are you getting the trend here?
Speaker 1: If you want an iPhone fourteen, which is a little
Speaker 1: bit less expensive than the iPhone fourteen Pro Max or
Speaker 1: Pro rather, but you want that bigger screen and that
Speaker 1: bigger battery. It sounds like the battery is a champ.
Speaker 1: It sounds like the big screen is a winner. Sounds
Speaker 1: like this phone is a winner for people who want
Speaker 1: all those things at a not so increased price. And
Speaker 1: so I personally really like the big screen phone, but
Speaker 1: I really don't like the big screen size in my hand.
Speaker 1: So I just find that these phones require two hands
Speaker 1: to use. They're a little bit trickier if you're trying
Speaker 1: to do a lot with your camera and pictures, and
Speaker 1: so if you if you know, if big screen is
Speaker 1: your number one priority, I think the iPhone fourteen plus
Speaker 1: is going to be a great phone. But if you
Speaker 1: know the best camera and ease of use one handed
Speaker 1: is your is your top priority, than I think the
Speaker 1: iPhone fourteen Pro is going to be a better bet
Speaker 1: or the iPhone fourteen just standard size, because I think
Speaker 1: that it's just easier to hold in one hand, and
Speaker 1: that does go a long way with being creative with
Speaker 1: your phone, taking selvies all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: All right, next question, Jennifer.
Speaker 1: Jennifer says, I don't know if you've heard from anyone else,
Speaker 1: but my text messages started acting up yesterday. I didn't
Speaker 1: get a text until this morning and this uh oh,
Speaker 1: she included some photos in the second text from my
Speaker 1: iPad shows a text I have not received in my iPhone?
Speaker 1: Could this be related to the new iOS upgrade?
Speaker 2: Very strange?
Speaker 1: Thanks in advance, Jenny, Jenny, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: what this specific issue is, but it's probably related to
Speaker 1: I'm guessing it's something to do with I messages in
Speaker 1: the cloud. Something is not syncing properly, something is not working.
Speaker 1: This happens sometimes. I message is kind of a pain
Speaker 1: because you think it's a text message, but it's really not.
Speaker 1: It's really a proprietary messaging system invented by Apple to
Speaker 1: you know, really keep you on the iPhone and keep
Speaker 1: you in the Apple ecosystem. And it's fantastic. Don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong. It's a really good messaging system. People love it.
Speaker 1: But it's also very confusing, and so for someone like
Speaker 1: myself who tests various phones with various phone numbers, I've
Speaker 1: had every sort of issue imaginable where these messages get
Speaker 1: delivered to phones that are different, and you know, they
Speaker 1: they're synced up somehow when you disconnect a phone somehow
Speaker 1: the messages stop arriving when you send a text. Somehow
Speaker 1: it doesn't get to all your devices. The sinking sometimes
Speaker 1: may or may not work on all your devices. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of issues I've observed with I Message.
Speaker 1: When it works, it's fantastic, and most people are not
Speaker 1: like me. Most people have one device, maybe two.
Speaker 2: And it works just fine.
Speaker 1: Now, what I would say with this situation is I
Speaker 1: would check number one. Go into iCloud, go into Messages,
Speaker 1: and make sure Messages is toggled on with a green toggle.
Speaker 1: That will make sure that I Messages in the Cloud
Speaker 1: is sinking. Your sink could be off. So you can
Speaker 1: go ahead and delete the thread on both of these
Speaker 1: devices and see if that kind of gets.
Speaker 2: Things to work again.
Speaker 1: Or you can toggle off I Messages in the Cloud
Speaker 1: on both devices and then toggle it back on and
Speaker 1: see if that helps.
Speaker 2: Could it be related to the new iOS upgrade. It
Speaker 2: could be. There's been some issues.
Speaker 1: Yesterday, I do a radio hit with WGN in Chicago
Speaker 1: every Thursday, and we've used this app to do the
Speaker 1: radio hit. It's like a little kind of a mini
Speaker 1: mixer for your iPhone and it's worked perfectly since day one,
Speaker 1: but it hasn't worked the last couple of weeks, and
Speaker 1: I was really sitting there trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: has changed.
Speaker 2: Nothing has changed, And sure enough yesterday I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: could it be iOS sixteen is the problem?
Speaker 1: And sure enough the engineer on the other end or
Speaker 1: the producer said, yeah, you know what, I think other
Speaker 1: people have been having these issues.
Speaker 2: I think it's all related to iOS sixteen.
Speaker 1: So whenever there's a new iOS update, there could be
Speaker 1: growing pains and usually fixes come out, So it could
Speaker 1: just be that it's an iOS thing and it will
Speaker 1: be fixed automatically. But I would take those steps that
Speaker 1: I mentioned. Reset both devices obviously, you know, not factory.
Speaker 1: Just just restart them and see if that helps too.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just need to kick these things back into
Speaker 1: sync and it will work again, all right. You might
Speaker 1: have gotten an email from Amazon telling you that Amazon
Speaker 1: Drive is being what is this word deprecated? Got this
Speaker 1: sounds so bad, deprecated. Think it's getting made fun of?
Speaker 1: So what does this mean? Google Drive or Amazon Drive
Speaker 1: was sort of Amazon's answer to Google Drive, iCloud Drive, OneDrive,
Speaker 1: but it never really worked out that way, which is
Speaker 1: ironic because Amazon runs one of the largest cloud services
Speaker 1: in the world, Amazon Web Services AWS, and somehow they
Speaker 1: never really figured out Amazon Drive. They could have made
Speaker 1: Amazon Drive very competitive with Dropbox and all these other services,
Speaker 1: they just never decided to do that. Amazon's a very
Speaker 1: consumer facing company on this end.
Speaker 2: So I get it.
Speaker 1: But the reality is you don't need to freak out
Speaker 1: about this. If you're using Amazon Photos, that is going
Speaker 1: to be just fine. Now, if you had Amazon photos
Speaker 1: and videos inside.
Speaker 2: Amazon Drive, you might want to get those out of there.
Speaker 2: So here's what this. Here's what it says.
Speaker 1: If you have photos and videos saved in Amazon Drive.
Speaker 1: Because Amazon Drive and Amazon Photos share the same cloud
Speaker 1: storage location, your photos and videos in Amazon Drive access
Speaker 1: the same photos and videos and Amazon Photos, So you
Speaker 1: are good. Any photo or oh, any photo or video
Speaker 1: deleted on Amazon Drive will no longer be available through
Speaker 1: Amazon Photos and will be permanently removed.
Speaker 2: From Amazon after thirty days. Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: To access your photos and videos and Amazon Photos, please
Speaker 1: visit the Amazon Photos website or download the Amazon Photos app.
Speaker 1: Huh Okay, that is a little confusing. So my question
Speaker 1: is if I uploaded a video file to Amazon Drive,
Speaker 1: does Amazon Photos see that video file? And when this
Speaker 1: goes away, will Amazon Photos continue to see that video file?
Speaker 1: From what I'm reading here, it doesn't seem like it
Speaker 1: would be.
Speaker 2: Now. I know you're asking me to.
Speaker 1: Answer these questions, so I'm actually kind of confused at
Speaker 1: this point.
Speaker 2: So it looks like yeah.
Speaker 1: As of October thirty first, twenty twenty two, Amazon Drive
Speaker 1: app will be removed. As of January thirty first, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, Amazon will no longer support uploading files on
Speaker 1: the Amazon Drive website. You'll be able to view and
Speaker 1: download your files until December thirty first, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: so you basically have a full year to do this.
Speaker 1: I don't have all the answers right now. I can't
Speaker 1: really specifically tell you if your Amazon Photos inside Amazon
Speaker 1: Drive will stay in Amazon.
Speaker 2: Photos after drive goes away. I know that sounds very complicated, but.
Speaker 1: It's weird because this same thing happened with Google Photos
Speaker 1: and Google Drive. So back in the day, if you
Speaker 1: upload it to Google Drive, your photos would be seen
Speaker 1: in Google Photos. And then once they got rid of
Speaker 1: Google Drive and Google Photos, that link they you know,
Speaker 1: all the photos that were in Google Photos carried over
Speaker 1: to Photo. Sorry we're in Google Drive, carried over to
Speaker 1: Google Photos, and so it's weird, but I still have
Speaker 1: them in my Google Drive. I mean it's really really
Speaker 1: complicated and I.
Speaker 2: Haven't figured it out after a couple of years.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if I'm gonna figure this out
Speaker 1: in a year. But just something to be aware of,
Speaker 1: something to keep track of. Just know that you may
Speaker 1: want to start if you rely on Amazon Drive a lot,
Speaker 1: which you probably don't, you may want to start just
Speaker 1: having a plan for getting those files out of Amazon
Speaker 1: Drive and into somewhere a little bit safer, all right,
Speaker 1: as Baldough, As Baldo says, Hey, good morning, good afternoon.
Speaker 1: Just wants to know if there's something wrong with iOS
Speaker 1: sixteen for my iPhone. Ever since the update came out,
Speaker 1: my phone is not recognizing some of my apps. My
Speaker 1: banking apps tells me I have to register my device,
Speaker 1: and it's not doing that. I register every single time,
Speaker 1: tells me to reregister. Just trying to see if there's
Speaker 1: any problems with it. Please let me know. Thank you,
Speaker 1: As Baldough. I think you are seeing a common problem
Speaker 1: because I noticed the same issue with my phone and
Speaker 1: I can't tell if it's because I switched phones or
Speaker 1: because of iOS sixteen. But yeah, I noticed I had
Speaker 1: to relog into a bunch of my banking apps. So
Speaker 1: when you switch or upgrade operating systems, a lot of
Speaker 1: things just work, but sometimes they don't, and sometimes your
Speaker 1: phone just kind of resets that kind of identifier that
Speaker 1: told your bank like, oh, this is a safe log in,
Speaker 1: and we've logged in from here before, so I assume
Speaker 1: this will work itself out. I don't think that it's
Speaker 1: a like a hack or anything like that on your phone.
Speaker 1: I think that just relog in. Now you're saying it's
Speaker 1: telling you to reregister your device every single time, so
Speaker 1: I don't know. That seems odd, so that could be
Speaker 1: a problem. I would definitely restart your device and just
Speaker 1: you know, make sure you do all the iOS updates.
Speaker 1: There's been a bunch of them. I think there's another
Speaker 1: one that's going to be coming out here any day now.
Speaker 1: So I would definitely do that and just keep an
Speaker 1: eye on this. But it's kind of a little hassle
Speaker 1: if you're just being a password manager and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Hopefully it's not too much of a hassle, but I would,
Speaker 1: you know, it seems like it's something that is pretty
Speaker 1: common after the update, hopefully it will stop happening.
Speaker 2: But I will tell you it's it's happened to me.
Speaker 1: So feel feel warmth in the knowledge and knowing that
Speaker 1: it's not just you, it's your phone.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about this story.
Speaker 1: Boston Dynamics, along with a bunch of other robotics companies,
Speaker 1: according to Axios, says that they are pledging not to.
Speaker 2: Support the weaponization.
Speaker 1: Of their products, and they're calling for others in their
Speaker 1: industry to do the same. According to a letter first
Speaker 1: shared with Axios, let's see which companies are in here,
Speaker 1: Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, Anybotics, Clear Path Robotics, Open Robotics,
Speaker 1: and Unitary Robotics. They all say we are not going
Speaker 1: to use our robots for war. Oh wait, hold on, well,
Speaker 1: does that mean they're not going to use them for
Speaker 1: war or weaponizing? I think they Let's see, okay, so
Speaker 1: they say okay. We believe that adding okay doesn't say
Speaker 1: not for war, says not for weaponizing. So we believe
Speaker 1: that adding weapons to robots that are remotely or autonomously operated,
Speaker 1: widely available to the public, and capable of navigating to
Speaker 1: previously inaccessible locations where people live in work raise new
Speaker 1: risks of harm and serious ethical issues.
Speaker 2: They said in their letter.
Speaker 1: They pledge not to add weapons, technology, or support others.
Speaker 1: When possible, they'll review customers plans and hopes of avoiding
Speaker 1: customers that would turn the robots into weapons. So technology,
Speaker 1: they say, for robots to be broadly accepted throughout society,
Speaker 1: public needs to know they can trust them, and that
Speaker 1: prohibits bad actors from misusing them. So, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a loosely worded letter. They say that
Speaker 1: they're not going to add weapons to them, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't prohibit customers from doing that or modifying these things
Speaker 1: or using them for war. But kind of interesting, and
Speaker 1: it's not just war.
Speaker 2: I guess could be for policing, police.
Speaker 1: Departments, all that kind of stuff, public safety, whatever, But
Speaker 1: you know it's robots are going to Look, all of
Speaker 1: the technology that we have in our world is creating
Speaker 1: new challenges for the status quo, and robots are no different.
Speaker 2: And they're just.
Speaker 1: They are just at the beginning. We are just seeing
Speaker 1: what robots may be capable of, and as that evolves,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to figure out more and more things
Speaker 1: that deal with robots.
Speaker 2: So good for these companies to sort of put their
Speaker 2: foot down. But we'll see how it works in the.
Speaker 1: Long run, all right, Bob says, Hey, Rich, can you
Speaker 1: recommend a good DVR for broadcast TV? Thank you, Bob,
Speaker 1: Yes I can, Bob. My favorite is called Tableau, super simple,
Speaker 1: super easy tableau over the air DVR. It's what I use.
Speaker 1: It's super simple. If you have an antenna on your roof,
Speaker 1: it works great there. You don't have to pay the
Speaker 1: monthly charges if there isn't like I think it used
Speaker 1: to be five or ten bucks, but it's you know, you.
Speaker 2: Don't have to do that.
Speaker 1: It's it's very limited in the DVR if you don't
Speaker 1: you know, with your recording schedule, if you don't pay,
Speaker 1: if you do pay every month, it's just like a TVO.
Speaker 1: And so it's for over the air channels, which a
Speaker 1: lot of people rely on and like. But Tableau is
Speaker 1: super simple. Tablo and let's see how much they are
Speaker 1: these days, so they have a whole bunch of different models.
Speaker 1: So the simple over the air light which is just
Speaker 1: one recording. Oh two tuners actually, so you've got two
Speaker 1: tuners in there. That is one hundred and twenty nine bucks,
Speaker 1: so super easy, super simple. There's even a sale for
Speaker 1: thirty dollars off right now, so you can get that
Speaker 1: for ninety nine bucks. Wow, that's pretty good. Let's see
Speaker 1: what the next one up gives you. So okay, So
Speaker 1: you've got two over the air channels at once, okay,
Speaker 1: and then you've got one with more storage. Then you've
Speaker 1: got a quad DVR, and then a quad DVR with
Speaker 1: a storage included. So the main thing about that light
Speaker 1: one I talk about is that storage is not included,
Speaker 1: so you would have to plug a hard drive or
Speaker 1: a USB stick into the back to get the storage
Speaker 1: on that thing. But if you're just streaming live, you
Speaker 1: don't really need that. But if you want to record,
Speaker 1: yeah you need that.
Speaker 2: So if you.
Speaker 1: Want that built in, you can get the one twenty
Speaker 1: eight DVR, which is gonna be a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Let's see how much that is for the convenience. You
Speaker 1: are paying one seventy but again minus at thirty dollars,
Speaker 1: so really one forty so forty bucks to not have
Speaker 1: to have one more thing plugged into the back of
Speaker 1: your TV and the back of your DVR, one more cable.
Speaker 2: I would say, go for that one twenty eight.
Speaker 1: If that's not gonna be enough, then they also make
Speaker 1: a one terabyte or you can just add your own
Speaker 1: hard drive and be fine with that.
Speaker 2: So great question there.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the next question since I
Speaker 1: think I'm done with all the things I want to
Speaker 1: talk about in the show. Next question from let's see here.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, so many questions. Wow, okay, let's see.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, so many questions.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of emails about the bedtime situation
Speaker 1: that I talked about on the last show. In fact,
Speaker 1: I helped my wife because she uses the regular alarm,
Speaker 1: and I said, okay, Lynn, you've got to switch to
Speaker 1: the I talked about my podcast. You've got to switch
Speaker 1: to this whole you know, clock based health, you know,
Speaker 1: workout whatever, not workout, but in the in the health app,
Speaker 1: you can set up your sleep and bedtime schedule. And
Speaker 1: she goes, yeah, I did, and it's fantastic. I can't
Speaker 1: believe that I never did that before. And I was
Speaker 1: so excited to hear that, because you know, now she's
Speaker 1: waking up to a gradual alarm and not the blaring
Speaker 1: clock alarm that is typical and so a lot of
Speaker 1: you wrote to me and said, wow, Rich, what a
Speaker 1: life saver. I love it so much better. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just so much greater. Why does an Apple really
Speaker 1: advertise this?
Speaker 2: They should? And my wife said the same thing anyway.
Speaker 1: So Neil said, wonderful podcast. You handle some meati questions
Speaker 1: for me. I like your description of the bedtime, sleep
Speaker 1: time or feature. I use it and really like it,
Speaker 1: but I'd like to be able to adjust it via
Speaker 1: shortcuts any ideas there. Shortcuts are sort of Apple's answer
Speaker 1: to you know, routines on Bixby or tasker on Android.
Speaker 2: Or rules on Google Pixel.
Speaker 1: It's kind of just automated things that you can make
Speaker 1: your phone do with either a shortcut or a tap
Speaker 1: or a voice shortcut. I don't know if you can
Speaker 1: adjust voice series shortcuts or shortcuts for the.
Speaker 2: Sleep schedule and situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see what you'd want to do, like, you know,
Speaker 1: tap it to adjust your bedtime to nine am one day,
Speaker 1: eight am the next day.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 1: But the person who I'd recommend for this, his name
Speaker 1: is Matthew Casanelli, and Matthew Cassanelli is the Serrie shortcut master.
Speaker 2: I believe he.
Speaker 1: Sold his shortcuts app to Apple, and that's the basis
Speaker 1: of serie shortcuts, so he kind of knows a thing
Speaker 1: or two about series shortcuts. But I would search his
Speaker 1: website and see if he has a bunch of shortcuts
Speaker 1: for sleep. I don't know if he does, or if
Speaker 1: that's even possible, or if that's even something that is,
Speaker 1: you know, just doing a quick search on his website. Oh,
Speaker 1: it definitely looks like there are some things you can
Speaker 1: do edit my sleeps cut. Oh yeah, there's a bunch.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, set bedtime by Oh yeah, there's a whole bunch.
Speaker 1: So it looks like he's got a whole bunch. I
Speaker 1: check him out. Matthewcassanelli dot com. Matthew Cassanelly dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, that is gonna do it for this episode
Speaker 1: of the show. I think you've heard me speak into
Speaker 1: this set up long enough.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
Speaker 1: go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich
Speaker 1: on Tech hit the big blue send email button, or
Speaker 1: go to rich on Tech dot tv and hit the
Speaker 1: email icon. I'd also love it if you would rate
Speaker 1: and review this podcast. Just go to the listening app
Speaker 1: of your choice, write a quick line about what you
Speaker 1: like about this show to help others understand why they
Speaker 1: should listen. You can find me on all social media
Speaker 1: at rich on Tech That now includes TikTok, which I'm gently,
Speaker 1: you know, tiptoeing into the waters there, but kind of
Speaker 1: having some fun there. No matter where you live in
Speaker 1: the US, you can download the free ktla plus app
Speaker 1: on Apple, TV, Fire TV, and Roku. Once you do,
Speaker 1: scroll to the tech section and watch all of my
Speaker 1: TV segments on demand. My name is Rich Demiro. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. There are so many times,
Speaker 1: so many ways you can spend an hour of your time.
Speaker 2: I do appreciate you spending it right here with me
Speaker 2: live from New York. I'm Rich Demiro, well pre taped
Speaker 2: in your case.
Speaker 1: If you're listening later, which you probably are since it's
Speaker 1: a podcast, I'll talk to you real soon.