Speaker 1: The biggest takeaways from Google Io twenty twenty one, Apple
Speaker 1: TV gets a new remote, Spotify downloads come to the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch. Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Dmiro and this is Rich on Tech, the
Speaker 1: podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
Speaker 1: you should know about. It's also the place where I
Speaker 1: answer the questions you send me. And believe me, you
Speaker 1: send me a lot of them. I say it every week.
Speaker 1: You do. You never you never failed to surprise me
Speaker 1: with how many questions you can send. And they're all
Speaker 1: great questions, they really are. My name is Rich Demiro,
Speaker 1: tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Thanks
Speaker 1: for tuning in to the podcast, thanks for watching on TV,
Speaker 1: and just thanks for being there. Ah so much tech
Speaker 1: news this week. I think this might take the ward
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty one of being the biggest week in
Speaker 1: tech news of the year so far. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: just looking at the rundown here. We've got Google Io,
Speaker 1: We've got the new Apple TV, We've got Spotify news,
Speaker 1: we've got Twitter news, we've got Ford news, We've got
Speaker 1: Microsoft news. It's a lot. There's been a lot going
Speaker 1: on this week, so we're gonna get through it, and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the questions that you have
Speaker 1: sent me. But man, I you know, I'm always playing
Speaker 1: with stuff. I'm always kind of experimenting with different tech
Speaker 1: and stuff. And something that kind of bubbled up to
Speaker 1: the surface or these electric bikes, you know, And so
Speaker 1: a friend sent a thing that said, you gotta do
Speaker 1: a story on these electric bikes. I said, no way,
Speaker 1: They're way too expensive. I'm not doing that. And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I just start seeing more and
Speaker 1: more about electric bikes. I mean, everyone's talking. I went
Speaker 1: up to Ventura, which is here in California, and I
Speaker 1: was on a bike path and just like half the
Speaker 1: bikes whizzing past me were electric. And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I got to do something on this. And so one
Speaker 1: of the big brands is called van Move, and they're like,
Speaker 1: can we send you a bike? And I said no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to deal with that, and they said please,
Speaker 1: and I said, okay, fine, send me the test bike.
Speaker 1: So I got it yesterday. I'm not kidding. I put
Speaker 1: this thing together, which was a little little tricky, but
Speaker 1: I finally got it working last night. And I am
Speaker 1: like one hundred percent sold. I cannot believe this thing
Speaker 1: is the Apple. It's the iPhone of electric bikes. And
Speaker 1: I'm not ready to do my full review just yet
Speaker 1: because I literally just went on it for like two
Speaker 1: minutes last night. But it is so amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it just takes bike. Now I want to commute to
Speaker 1: my job with a bike. I'm like, how can I
Speaker 1: commute on a bike like you know that last mile
Speaker 1: like that? Or just take it and put it in
Speaker 1: the bike locker. It's really really fantastic, So expect to
Speaker 1: hear more about electric bikes soon. Another thing I've been
Speaker 1: playing with is Amazon Music. I've been testing out all
Speaker 1: the different music services because I'm just as curious, and
Speaker 1: i gotta say, I'm actually quite impressed with what Amazon
Speaker 1: Music is all about, because it's simple. It's just easy.
Speaker 1: It's like the main thing I went down this rabbit
Speaker 1: hole of trying to for some reason, all the maybe
Speaker 1: I already mentioned this on the podcast last week, but
Speaker 1: all the services on sons when you go to browse
Speaker 1: your music services like they're all organized in like this
Speaker 1: weird way, except for Amazon Music, where you can you know,
Speaker 1: just search by like mood and genre whereas for some reason,
Speaker 1: all the other ones want to like surface here's what
Speaker 1: we think you should be listening to, because it's five
Speaker 1: pm and it's dinner time, and it's you know, or
Speaker 1: it's morning on a weekend, and it's just like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: just let me pick what I want to pick. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I've been truly impressed with Apple, Amazon Music. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: another story they went HD this week. Gosh, more and
Speaker 1: more just news coming out. But anyway, let's start with
Speaker 1: Google IO. This is the big developers conference from Google
Speaker 1: that happens every year up in Mountain View. Last year
Speaker 1: they did not do it. This year. It's virtual and
Speaker 1: it it was okay. I mean, it was not the
Speaker 1: most exciting event. I don't think the announcements were that groundbreaking,
Speaker 1: but it was it was nice to see Google doing
Speaker 1: kind of a hybrid event. They had, you know, there
Speaker 1: are people standing in the middle of campus. It was live,
Speaker 1: which I liked, and they had a couple people socially
Speaker 1: distanced just kind of watching in the audience, maybe like
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen people, and everyone else was just virtual
Speaker 1: watching online. But so, you know, the main theme that
Speaker 1: I noticed with with Google is Google and Apple could
Speaker 1: not be any different. Their approaches to the world are
Speaker 1: so different. And you know, these are both very inclusive companies,
Speaker 1: like I think they're. You know, Apple is one of
Speaker 1: the most diverse and inclusive companies I've ever worked with,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. Same goes with Google, but the way
Speaker 1: that they approach things in their tech is a little
Speaker 1: bit different. Like Apple, when you think about their stuff,
Speaker 1: it's very expensive, right, It's it's priced at a certain price.
Speaker 1: You got to be in the Apple ecosystem. Everything works
Speaker 1: together beautifully, but you got to be on board. You
Speaker 1: gotta do what Apple wants you to do and it
Speaker 1: will work just fine. Whereas Google, their idea is like,
Speaker 1: let's just sort everything out and let's just give you
Speaker 1: a lot of options, and a lot of those options
Speaker 1: are gonna be inexpensive. We don't really care how you
Speaker 1: use them. But we're just gonna give you a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. And you know, whether it's Google Photos, which
Speaker 1: works on you know, everything from like a fifty dollars
Speaker 1: Android phone, to Google Maps that just you know, can
Speaker 1: help you find your way around the world. That that,
Speaker 1: to me, is the biggest difference between these two companies.
Speaker 1: They're both amazing I'm not knocking either one of them,
Speaker 1: but the way, as a reporter who's covered them for
Speaker 1: many years, I just see two divergent streams. You know,
Speaker 1: they're both going in different directions. Like Apple, the longer
Speaker 1: you're with them, the more you're in Apple, right, Whereas
Speaker 1: Google is kind of like, hey, we're gonna give you
Speaker 1: this stuff, and like I said, you can access it
Speaker 1: and use it however you want. Like if you want
Speaker 1: to use Google Chrome Cast, fine, but we're also gonna
Speaker 1: let you watch your movies on any service, or you
Speaker 1: want to use Google Maps on our phone or Pixel fine.
Speaker 1: But you know, options are always nice. So that was
Speaker 1: my main takeaway. But Google just continues on their quest
Speaker 1: to kind of organize the world's information, make it easier
Speaker 1: to access and just simpler. So they announced a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of nerdy stuff, like these new like AI powered things,
Speaker 1: Like they showed off talking to data sets, which is
Speaker 1: just wild. So they showed off like talking to Pluto,
Speaker 1: not the animal, but the former planet, and so you're
Speaker 1: literally they feed a data set about Pluto into this
Speaker 1: thing called Lambda, and now you can converse with it
Speaker 1: and be like, hey, what's it like on Pluto? And
Speaker 1: Pluto will describe to you what's it like on its surface.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of a wild What other things do
Speaker 1: they do? So search? You know they did. They didn't
Speaker 1: really announce a whole bunch of search, except like, there's
Speaker 1: this new feature where you can delete the last fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes of your search, so you know, they gave the
Speaker 1: example of if you're searching for an engagement ring for
Speaker 1: your loved one, you know your significant other and you
Speaker 1: don't want them to see it, so you can delete
Speaker 1: the last fifteen minutes. So okay, you've got that. Google Photos.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got a big thing coming up with
Speaker 1: Google Photos on June first, where they're gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: start charging for the storage. Where you know, it's a
Speaker 1: little misleading, but basically, your fifteen gigs or your fifteen gigs,
Speaker 1: whether you do high quality or full quality, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: It's fifteen gigs. And so now a lot of people
Speaker 1: are gonna be above that and they're gonna have to
Speaker 1: pay for that. But I love Google Photos. I'm still
Speaker 1: gonna pay. I upgraded mine to the fifty dollars a
Speaker 1: month plan, which is just it's a lot, but you
Speaker 1: know what It's just taken a weight off my shoulders
Speaker 1: to know that I can just take these four K
Speaker 1: videos and just keep uploading them and not really think,
Speaker 1: and one day I will organize my Google Photos, get
Speaker 1: rid of all the duplicates in the big files, and
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully by then data is so cheap that
Speaker 1: it will be like twenty bucks a month. Again, Google
Speaker 1: Photos now stores four trillion photos and videos. They're gonna
Speaker 1: do a little locker on your phone so you can
Speaker 1: keep selected photos private. But a lot of people are
Speaker 1: saying this is not very exciting because it doesn't upload
Speaker 1: them to the cloud. So it's like, what's the point.
Speaker 1: You can't really safeguard these pictures. Or you can safeguard them,
Speaker 1: but you can't really save them. So I get it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense, but it's kind of what how
Speaker 1: they're doing it. Yeah, privacy was a big was a
Speaker 1: big thing with Google, and I think they're reacting to
Speaker 1: kind of Apple's entire push with privacy because Google's like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're private too. I mean, it just takes a little
Speaker 1: bit more for you to you know, be private with Google,
Speaker 1: but you can be. And they showed off Android twelve,
Speaker 1: which i've been playing with on the pixel it's like
Speaker 1: the only the best way I can describe it is
Speaker 1: candy colored and sugarcoated. That's just the way. It's like bubblegum.
Speaker 1: Everything's like poppy and beautiful and like big and bold
Speaker 1: and like a little bit simpler, like and I don't
Speaker 1: want to disrespect anyone, but it feels like it's an
Speaker 1: operating system that they're like, Okay, we get it. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of non techies that use our devices, so
Speaker 1: let's make it a little bit easier for them, right,
Speaker 1: Let's make everything a little bit bigger. The button's a
Speaker 1: little bit brighter. Let's you know, when you when you
Speaker 1: swipe down for your notifications shade, Let's label those things
Speaker 1: like not everyone knows what a Wi Fi symbol is
Speaker 1: or I guess that one you do it, but the
Speaker 1: rest of them maybe not. So let's label those make
Speaker 1: them easier to select and de select. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff like that. What else, they did this
Speaker 1: really cool thing project Starline, which is basically three D
Speaker 1: video chat. Imagine you step into a video booth and
Speaker 1: you see the person on the other side that you're
Speaker 1: video chatting with, but they look like they're there, and
Speaker 1: this is not a new idea. I did a story
Speaker 1: with Senet, you know, going on fifteen years ago. With Cisco,
Speaker 1: they had something I think it was called like telepresence.
Speaker 1: I forget what their term was, that the brand name,
Speaker 1: but I did something. I went into a studio and
Speaker 1: saw this and it just looked like people were across
Speaker 1: the table from you on a flat screen. But this
Speaker 1: is kind of bringing them to life in a three
Speaker 1: D way. So I am all about that. I as
Speaker 1: family with family that lives on the other side of
Speaker 1: the country. I would love to just sit down and
Speaker 1: hang out with my family in a way that they
Speaker 1: look like they're actually there. That'd be so cool. What else,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're improving their password manager. I think that's
Speaker 1: basically it for the main stuff. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of like my takeaway from Google Io. It's cool.
Speaker 1: Google just continues to like do cool stuff and organize
Speaker 1: the world's information. And if I ever worked for Google,
Speaker 1: I would do things a little bit differently, Like I'd
Speaker 1: have some ideas for like Google Photos and Android, and
Speaker 1: you know, like believe me, I'd come to the I'd
Speaker 1: come to the table with a lot of ideas about
Speaker 1: the smart home about you know, I'd do the same
Speaker 1: thing if I worked for Apple. I mean I would.
Speaker 1: I'd have actually any company, I'd have a lot of ideas.
Speaker 1: I'm like that person that comes to the first day
Speaker 1: of work with like a folder, like all the papers
Speaker 1: flying out of it, and I'm like, hey, hey over here,
Speaker 1: what about this? And I'm like, yeah, dude, slow your role,
Speaker 1: We've figured out, We've talked about a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1: You're you're new to this, so just just hang on anyway.
Speaker 1: So Google Io, I'm looking forward to being there in
Speaker 1: person next year. It will be in person next year,
Speaker 1: Google Io twenty twenty two. It is an exciting event.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like Coachella but for programmers. And it
Speaker 1: is fun to be up in Mountain View two experience
Speaker 1: at firsthand. All right, let's get to the first question. Hey,
Speaker 1: Rich First off, I'm not sure you take emails about
Speaker 1: specific items. I felt like I saw in one of
Speaker 1: your earlier posts you did mention something about dropping you
Speaker 1: an email, So I hope you don't mind this. No,
Speaker 1: I do not. I recently started an Instagram page for
Speaker 1: my diy stuff. Now I've been using my Samsung Note
Speaker 1: phone to record all the videos then edit the videos
Speaker 1: on the phone. It works great, but I've completely maximized
Speaker 1: my storage both internally and on an SD card. I
Speaker 1: figured with all the posts and videos you make, you
Speaker 1: probably would be a great resource to ask what kind
Speaker 1: of camera you use and how you edit your photos
Speaker 1: your videos. Thank you for taking the time and all
Speaker 1: the information. I'm a big fan and love seeing you
Speaker 1: on KTLA. Best Jeff. All right, Well, Jeff clearly not
Speaker 1: a listener to the podcast, which is fine. Not everyone
Speaker 1: that emails me or gets in touch as a listener
Speaker 1: of the podcast, but you so, yes, you can totally
Speaker 1: email me your questions and I'm happy to answer this.
Speaker 1: So and by the way, the questions I picked for
Speaker 1: the podcast, I generally picked them based on the broad
Speaker 1: appeal to other people, like Jeff is probably not the
Speaker 1: only person that's doing stuff on his phone and posting
Speaker 1: it in maxim ount maximizing his storage. I'll give you
Speaker 1: a funny story which is so embarrassing. I was on
Speaker 1: a shoot yesterday or the day before the day before,
Speaker 1: and I'm not no joke, I'm recording something and I
Speaker 1: actually handed my phone to someone else to like record me,
Speaker 1: and he hands it back and he goes, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't think that was recording the whole time. I said what,
Speaker 1: because yeah, it was just zero's at the end. I said,
Speaker 1: wait oh, and I knew what happened. My phone has
Speaker 1: been at the at the end of its storage, like
Speaker 1: it's it's it's maxed out. It's at like, you know,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, and so it ran out of storage
Speaker 1: while I was recording this video. And I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: like the person that I always say don't be, like,
Speaker 1: don't be the person at your kids uh, you know,
Speaker 1: play at school that is deleting. That's literally I've seen
Speaker 1: this happen. You're at your kids holiday performance and the
Speaker 1: person in front of you is taking a picture or
Speaker 1: video and up pops that message on their iPhone that
Speaker 1: says out of storage merm. And you're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm so embarrassed for you, Like, dude, clean out your
Speaker 1: phone before you go to your kids recital. And here
Speaker 1: I am on a shoot and it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: And this guy probably like dude, this is the tech guy,
Speaker 1: Like are you kidding me? This guy is like a
Speaker 1: total rookie. And I was so I'm sitting there like
Speaker 1: going through the iPhone storage, like deleting big videos. Now,
Speaker 1: I will tell you I do record everything in four
Speaker 1: K to try to future proof my videos, and also
Speaker 1: they're easier to zoom in on that if you want
Speaker 1: to crop something. So I do record in large files
Speaker 1: and it gobbles up my memory. So anyway, I'm not
Speaker 1: giving you excuses, but so Jeff, to answer your question,
Speaker 1: you got to offload these things. You know, I use
Speaker 1: my phone to record and edit the stuff. I use
Speaker 1: Adobe Rush to edit, which will work on the note.
Speaker 1: Just fine. Get a bigger SD card if you can
Speaker 1: max that out. I think on your note, depending on
Speaker 1: what model you have, you could either go five twelve
Speaker 1: or a terabyte. Get the biggest one you can, and
Speaker 1: you could either swap those out and save them, or
Speaker 1: you can offload some of your videos to like something
Speaker 1: like if you don't want to use a cloud, which
Speaker 1: I would recommend Google Photos, but if you don't want
Speaker 1: to use that. I did a story this week on
Speaker 1: USB drives that you can stick into your phone, so
Speaker 1: you can get what's called the sand disc I expand
Speaker 1: flash drive lucks and that will that has USB C
Speaker 1: on the bottom, you plug it into your phone, you
Speaker 1: download an app called sand Disc Memory Zone, and you
Speaker 1: can then back up all the videos from your phone
Speaker 1: onto this drive, so you kind of offload them there
Speaker 1: and then that will then you can delete them off
Speaker 1: your phone. So that's what I would do. I would
Speaker 1: use a cloud and then delete them off your phone.
Speaker 1: That way they're safe in the cloud. But if you
Speaker 1: don't want to pay for that cloud storage, like I
Speaker 1: just talked about, get one of these flash drive or
Speaker 1: just you can continually swap out the uh you know,
Speaker 1: the drives or the mini SD card micro SD card
Speaker 1: on your phone. Now, I don't think that's as easy.
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of a more complicated solution, or
Speaker 1: you know, if you want, because memory cards are so cheap,
Speaker 1: you could just kind of keep a little system where
Speaker 1: every month you swap it out for a new one
Speaker 1: and you keep them in like a little rack. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just lots of ways to do this, but I
Speaker 1: think the cloud is the easiest. It's also the most expensive.
Speaker 1: Swapping out the SD cards a little bit more complicated,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely an easy system. Okay, here's all my
Speaker 1: stuff from March. Here's all my stuff from April. Here's
Speaker 1: all my stuff from May. And then the other way,
Speaker 1: like I said, is the plugging in the USB drive.
Speaker 1: If you're on iPhone, you can do the same thing.
Speaker 1: By the way, that flash drive I just mentioned, the
Speaker 1: sand disc I expand will work with iPhone as well.
Speaker 1: Or I tested one called the p n Y Duo Link,
Speaker 1: which is thirty five dollars and same thing. You plug
Speaker 1: it into the bottom of your phone. It uses special
Speaker 1: software to you know, to download the photos from your
Speaker 1: phone onto the flash drive. And recommendation, by the way,
Speaker 1: always have your pictures in two places no matter what.
Speaker 1: And your videos. But Jeff cool, I mean, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you're doing a little Instagram page. Yeah, these videos add
Speaker 1: up quick, but it's fun. It's rewarding when people start
Speaker 1: taking notice and you just have to make sure everything's
Speaker 1: backed up and you've got that system down because you
Speaker 1: don't want what happened to me. We're you're in the
Speaker 1: middle of a shoot and next thing you know, you're
Speaker 1: trying to scramble to get stuff off your phone. You
Speaker 1: don't want to be in that position because you're gonna
Speaker 1: mess something up and kind of mistake something. So there
Speaker 1: you have it all right, let's talk about the Apple
Speaker 1: TV after almost four years. Basically, the Apple TV has
Speaker 1: finally gotten a refresh, goes on sale, or it is
Speaker 1: on sale as of this podcast, so it's the Apple
Speaker 1: TV four K. I'll have my review of it next
Speaker 1: week on TV. But the main takeaway for me, having
Speaker 1: used this thing for a little bit now, is that
Speaker 1: it does not feel any different than my old Apple
Speaker 1: TV four K. Maybe it's faster, but I can't really
Speaker 1: notice that. Now you're saying, Okay, Rich, why would I
Speaker 1: pay one hundred and eighty dollars for this thing if
Speaker 1: it's not any faster. Well, you're paying for another four
Speaker 1: years of service through this thing, right, So it may
Speaker 1: not be faster today. But we know that apps are
Speaker 1: just going to continue to get more processor dependent, especially
Speaker 1: games if you do any gaming on it, with Apple
Speaker 1: Arcade and just in general, you know, these things are
Speaker 1: just they the apps that we're using just continue to
Speaker 1: get more space hungry and more process or hungry. And
Speaker 1: so that's what you're doing, is you're just you know,
Speaker 1: Apple's just upgrading this thing with an A twelve Bionic,
Speaker 1: which is you know, an older processor that was found
Speaker 1: in a I forget which iPhone. It was a while ago,
Speaker 1: but it's still just great. I mean, streaming video clearly
Speaker 1: does not take a lot of horsepower, because you know,
Speaker 1: I've tested streaming six or twenty five dollars and they
Speaker 1: run Netflix just fine. Now, the thing that I think
Speaker 1: is the delineation here is how fast apps open. And
Speaker 1: I notice on the Cheapo fire Sticks and the cheap
Speaker 1: o Rokus the apps take a lot longer to open
Speaker 1: than on the Roku Ultra or the you know, the
Speaker 1: nice four K version of the Apple of the fire
Speaker 1: TV or the you know, they just everything is a
Speaker 1: little bit faster when you have a better processor. And
Speaker 1: the same thing with the Apple TV. So I don't
Speaker 1: think you need to upgrade for that reason. But I
Speaker 1: do think the new series remote is much better, and
Speaker 1: they've totally redesigned it. I've got the video on my Instagram.
Speaker 1: It's got a ClickPad, so it's got okay, how do
Speaker 1: I explain this. It's both touch sensitive and it has
Speaker 1: clickable four way you know, like clickers whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call them, buttons, So it's got like a circular
Speaker 1: area but you can click four ways, or you can swipe,
Speaker 1: or you can jog, so it's it's a much much
Speaker 1: better remote. There's also dedicated power and mute buttons, which
Speaker 1: is really nice. I did notice last night, though, there
Speaker 1: is one flaw with the remote. The play pause button
Speaker 1: should be the last button, like the lowest most button
Speaker 1: on the remote, but that's actually the mute button. And
Speaker 1: last night my muscle memory just went to play pause
Speaker 1: and I just pressed the mute button by accident. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: this should be the play pause position, but you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you know whatever. That's just my opinion. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so the remote is actually being sold by itself for
Speaker 1: fifty nine dollars, which I think it it. It does
Speaker 1: definitely make me think that that would be a pretty
Speaker 1: good upgrade to the current Apple TV. Like, if you
Speaker 1: have one of these Apple TVs, it's not a bad idea.
Speaker 1: If you think you're perfectly happy with it, you don't
Speaker 1: want to spend the one to eighty for a whole
Speaker 1: new system. The fifty nine might be a pretty good
Speaker 1: upgrade because the remote in my in my experience for
Speaker 1: the last one was just lacking and this one is
Speaker 1: way better. So that's the Apple TV four K. The
Speaker 1: other new feature, by the way, is high frame rate
Speaker 1: four K HDR, which is sixty frames per second, which
Speaker 1: right now, as I know, there's only one app that
Speaker 1: takes advantage, which is the red Bull app. I tested it.
Speaker 1: I didn't see any big difference into my eyes for
Speaker 1: the quality. But you know, maybe in the future, as
Speaker 1: more of these apps take advantage of four K high
Speaker 1: fram rate sixty you know whatever, you know, maybe it'll
Speaker 1: look better. I don't know. Like I said, I'm just
Speaker 1: a tech person. I'm not a you know, an audio
Speaker 1: or video file. I'm just kind of like the average
Speaker 1: Joe when it comes to tech, all right, except I
Speaker 1: just you know, I play with it a little bit
Speaker 1: more than the typical person that's just you know, day
Speaker 1: to day, like this is my life. Adam says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: hope this email finds you well. I'm currently in Florida
Speaker 1: visiting my parents and I'm trying to help them screen
Speaker 1: mirror their iPad to their Samsung Series seven Smart TV.
Speaker 1: The TV is not Airplay compatible, so I'm looking for
Speaker 1: a free screen mirroring app to put on their eighth
Speaker 1: generation iPad. Can you suggest one? Thanks to your thanks
Speaker 1: in advance, best regards, Adam. All right, Adam, so you
Speaker 1: say that this TV is not air play compatible. So
Speaker 1: the main thing to know is that you can't really
Speaker 1: just add airplay compatibility to a TV that's not airplay like,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, like it has to be
Speaker 1: built into the TV. Maybe there's something that that, Maybe
Speaker 1: there's an app that lets you receive airplay on the TV.
Speaker 1: I'm not aware of that, and I also think that
Speaker 1: that's probably not the best way to do it anyway.
Speaker 1: So what I think is TV probably does have built
Speaker 1: in is Chrome cast, which is the ability to cast
Speaker 1: your screen from the iPad. Now, when you say mirror
Speaker 1: the screen, most people aren't mirroring the screen anyway these days,
Speaker 1: Like you don't. There's not really a need for that
Speaker 1: unless you have a specific use case. But what most
Speaker 1: people are doing is using the iPad to play Netflix
Speaker 1: and then tossing that Netflix up on the TV screen
Speaker 1: by casting it. So I think maybe that's and if
Speaker 1: your parents, you know, I think that's probably what they
Speaker 1: would be doing as well. So my advice is to
Speaker 1: use the casting option, And most of the major apps
Speaker 1: have that built in. Whether it's Netflix, whether it's HBO Max,
Speaker 1: whether it's whatever. All the apps pretty much support airplay
Speaker 1: and casting. So I would look, you know, make sure
Speaker 1: that your iPad is on the same Wi Fi network
Speaker 1: as the TV, make sure that casting is turned on
Speaker 1: on the TV, and it's on, it might be a
Speaker 1: different input for the casting, and then you just you
Speaker 1: open up the Netflix app. You look for the little
Speaker 1: cast icon which should pop up if it's on the
Speaker 1: same network, and it identifies a cast receiver, and you
Speaker 1: just tap it and it should throw whatever you're watching
Speaker 1: on the iPad screen onto the TV. Now, again, most
Speaker 1: people don't need to mirror their iPad screen, so it's
Speaker 1: most of the time you're watching something on the iPad
Speaker 1: that you want to see on the TV. Now. The
Speaker 1: one exception to that is when it comes to something
Speaker 1: like your photos. If you want to show off the
Speaker 1: photos from your iPad to the Samsung you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to do that without airplay unless you used a
Speaker 1: different app, which you know, there is an app called
Speaker 1: like all cast I used to use and all cast
Speaker 1: may let you do it. Yeah, all casts, So I
Speaker 1: would look at I don't know how old this app,
Speaker 1: if it's still even like being updated. Let me look
Speaker 1: and see. Let's see all cast iOS. Let's just see.
Speaker 1: Let's see when this was last Oh, yeah it was.
Speaker 1: It was last updated in in Uh let's see what
Speaker 1: I say, January Virgin History. Yeah, January sixteenth. Okay, well
Speaker 1: but that's not the one though. Oh that's weird. That's
Speaker 1: a different one. Okay, we Anyway, my computer does this
Speaker 1: thing sometimes when I try to, you know, look at
Speaker 1: an app on the App Store, it wants to open
Speaker 1: up iTunes, which is kind of annoying because I don't
Speaker 1: really want that. Okay, well, all casts may not be
Speaker 1: supported anymore, but there's there might be another, a different app.
Speaker 1: But you can also use Google Photos on your parents' TV.
Speaker 1: But that's the way I would do it, Adam, I
Speaker 1: think that's gonna be a little bit cleaner, a little
Speaker 1: bit easier, and a little bit simpler for your parents.
Speaker 1: Good question. Let me know what they end up doing.
Speaker 1: All right. This is a big announcement from Spotify. I
Speaker 1: cannot believe this actually happened. I am so impressed that
Speaker 1: we finally got this feature. It's only taken six generations
Speaker 1: of the Apple Watch, but now here we go. I
Speaker 1: wish I had a drum roll, please, but you can
Speaker 1: now download Spotify to your Apple Watch. Huge, huge win
Speaker 1: for Spotify premium users. And again I said Spotify Premium,
Speaker 1: this is not something that anyone can do. You have
Speaker 1: to be paying for Spotify, and that makes sense because
Speaker 1: it's a paid feature. Downloads are a paid feature. I'm
Speaker 1: not even sure you can download to Spotify on the
Speaker 1: mobile app without paying to download. Now. I subscribe to
Speaker 1: most of the major music services, Spotify is not one
Speaker 1: of them. But honestly, at this point, I'm thinking I
Speaker 1: may and I hate I love Apple Music, but you know,
Speaker 1: the main reason I started with Apple Music is because
Speaker 1: it's compatible with the Apple Watch, and that's the only
Speaker 1: one that really lets you download to the Apple Watch
Speaker 1: except for I think Pandora does. But the fact that
Speaker 1: I can use Spotify now, I don't know. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to test Spotify now because I want to see
Speaker 1: how it works on my Sono system and now on
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch, because I do go running with my
Speaker 1: Apple Watch by itself without the phone, and so the
Speaker 1: whole ability to basically download playlist to your Apple Watch
Speaker 1: for offline use, so you don't have to have your
Speaker 1: phone nearby to listen to these playlists, and that's a
Speaker 1: huge deal again for premium users. If you're not a
Speaker 1: premium user, this doesn't really matter, and you can still
Speaker 1: use Spotify with your watch nearby. That's still you know,
Speaker 1: that's always been a thing. But it's pulling from your watch,
Speaker 1: I mean from your phone, not from the watch. This
Speaker 1: the downloads are actually stored on your watch itself, which
Speaker 1: is a huge win for people that just want to
Speaker 1: go out with their watch and nothing else. All right.
Speaker 1: The thing to know about this feature, though, it is
Speaker 1: rolling out, and those are my biggest dreaded words in
Speaker 1: the tech world. Rolling out to me means yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: get to it sometime on your app, we'll roll it
Speaker 1: out one day. I mean that means that, like I
Speaker 1: can't just open up Spotify and it's there. It means
Speaker 1: it may be there tomorrow, it may be their next week,
Speaker 1: it may be they're like who knows when. But I
Speaker 1: can't stand when companies say we're rolling out, because I
Speaker 1: get why they do it. They want to make sure
Speaker 1: everything's working before they get you know, thousands and millions
Speaker 1: of people on board. But it's just like, to me,
Speaker 1: rolling out is like just when when do I get it?
Speaker 1: Just tell me when I get it, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's here today, maybe it's in a week, maybe
Speaker 1: it's in a month, who knows. But now you can
Speaker 1: download your favorite playlist two to your Apple Watch. I'm
Speaker 1: just reading about this. Let Siri with Siri support and
Speaker 1: Apple Watch, all users, oh can say yeah, hey, h Siri,
Speaker 1: followed by your favorite playlist. But you have to say
Speaker 1: on Spotify, so h Siri, play my Discover weekly playlist
Speaker 1: on Spotify. And of course that's you know, if if
Speaker 1: Apple was really nice, they would give us the ability
Speaker 1: to set a default. Of course they don't. We know
Speaker 1: it's possible, but they you know, slowly but surely, we're
Speaker 1: seeing these kind of defaults come to the uh the
Speaker 1: iOS operating system. You know, we do have default browser,
Speaker 1: we do have default mail app, but we do not
Speaker 1: have default maps. We don't have default music, we don't
Speaker 1: have default podcasts. So it's it's your iPhone. It's just
Speaker 1: not it's just not your It's not exactly how you
Speaker 1: want it, you know what I mean, Like you still
Speaker 1: gotta you still gotta jump through a couple of hoops
Speaker 1: to get things the way you want it when you're
Speaker 1: using an Apple product. And look, I know this because
Speaker 1: I use an iPhone and I'm sitting there and my kids.
Speaker 1: Half the time, you're like, Dad, why using Apple Maps.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, because sometimes it's just easier
Speaker 1: to say navigate too and the place, and I'll have
Speaker 1: to sit there and open up Google Maps, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I just it's easier to use your voice when you're
Speaker 1: in the car and when you're using your phone, and
Speaker 1: you just can't do that with the iPhone if you
Speaker 1: want to use the services that you want to use
Speaker 1: without using a qualifier, like who says play Tailor Swift
Speaker 1: on Spotify? Like who wants to remember that? No, you
Speaker 1: just want to play Tailor Swift, play Taylor Swift, play
Speaker 1: play you know, imagine dragons, play the latest song. I
Speaker 1: said the other day, play the latest song from the
Speaker 1: Counting Crows. And you know what I mean. It's like
Speaker 1: one of these things where you know it default. I
Speaker 1: was listening to Amazon Music and next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: it just defaults to Apple Music. And it's just the
Speaker 1: way it is, you know so, And believe me, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of benefits of using the iPhone. It's a
Speaker 1: great platform, but it's just those little things do do
Speaker 1: bug me? All right, Tamra writes in I recently, recently
Speaker 1: recently purchased a motorhome. I feel like I'm in like
Speaker 1: a fifties movie. Okay, so recently purchased a motorhome. Okay,
Speaker 1: well you say that. Okay, what do you say about it? Yes?
Speaker 1: Say what do you say? What do you suggest for
Speaker 1: internet on the motor home while I'm traveling? Oh? Dimension MANK.
Speaker 1: By the way, what a great movie. I think I
Speaker 1: mentioned that in the podcast One of the Oh is
Speaker 1: such a perfect movie. Two movies that really really impressed
Speaker 1: me on Netflix, MANC and The Irishman two of my
Speaker 1: just favorite experiences in a movie. Just oh so good. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I digress. What do you suggest for internet on the
Speaker 1: motor home while I'm traveling? And what do you suggest
Speaker 1: is the best way to watch TV while traveling? Well,
Speaker 1: let's see what do I want to Let's see I
Speaker 1: would say the motor home. I think you go. You
Speaker 1: could do this coupleways, depending on how much you're traveling.
Speaker 1: You just use your smartphone as a hotspot, So just
Speaker 1: check with your carrier see how much hot spot data
Speaker 1: you get. And you know, like, if it's me, I
Speaker 1: think on mine, I get thirty gigs a month, so
Speaker 1: you know, you can see I would start with that
Speaker 1: and see how far that takes you. That may take
Speaker 1: you one week of the motor home traveling. That may
Speaker 1: take you a whole month. I don't know. It depends
Speaker 1: on what you're watching and how much it's consuming. When
Speaker 1: it comes to data. The other thing you can do
Speaker 1: is you can purchase a hot spot like and this
Speaker 1: is probably the best solution. You purchase a dedicated hot
Speaker 1: spot from your wireless carrier. So go to you know,
Speaker 1: Verizon or AT and T or T Mobile and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I've got a motor home. You know I need a
Speaker 1: five G hotspot. You probably want five G because that's
Speaker 1: the latest, greatest. Get a five G hotspot. You add
Speaker 1: the plan. Now, the downside of this is that you're
Speaker 1: going to be charged for a monthly plan and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how much data you get on that plan.
Speaker 1: You have to kind of shop around and see what
Speaker 1: their what their hot spot plans are. And that's the
Speaker 1: second way. And the ney thing about the hotspot is
Speaker 1: you can leave it plugged in, you can leave it
Speaker 1: turned on at all times and it will always be
Speaker 1: spitting out a Wi Fi signal that's easy to connect to,
Speaker 1: and you can also kind of like velcrow it or
Speaker 1: whatever you want to mount it. I would mount it
Speaker 1: to like a window on the on the van or
Speaker 1: the motor home so that it gets the best signal. Now,
Speaker 1: if you really want to get fancy a lot of
Speaker 1: these mobile hotspots, you can run a wired antenna. You
Speaker 1: could do that like up to the roof, and that
Speaker 1: way you could pull in a better signal, especially if
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of nowhere, which is where I'd
Speaker 1: want to be if I had a motor home, just
Speaker 1: like outside in the middle of nowhere looking at the stars. Ah,
Speaker 1: that's like my dream. And what do you suggest? Oh.
Speaker 1: The third thing you can do is there is a
Speaker 1: there is a hot spot from ZTE that is unlocked.
Speaker 1: And this is a uh gosh, I've got I've got
Speaker 1: a segment on it. Let's see ZTE hot spot ktla DeMuro.
Speaker 1: That's how I search for anything that I've ever mentioned
Speaker 1: by the way ZTE z max connect. So that is unlocked,
Speaker 1: which means you can just buy a SIM card prepaid
Speaker 1: and if you find a SIM card that has like
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of data on it, you can just
Speaker 1: use that and pop it into this thing. Now, some
Speaker 1: of them may work, some of them may not because
Speaker 1: you know, depending on how they treat mobile data. It
Speaker 1: just depends, Like you want to look for a mobile
Speaker 1: data card right versus a cellular plan with data because
Speaker 1: mobile hotspot is a little bit different than a cell
Speaker 1: phone signal. But you can do that and you know
Speaker 1: that way, you can just pay as you go. But again,
Speaker 1: lots of options for doing this. It just depends how
Speaker 1: much data you're using while you're traveling. Now, the best
Speaker 1: way to watch TV, I think is, you know, just
Speaker 1: get one of these streaming sticks, plug it into the
Speaker 1: back of a TV, and off you go. But that's
Speaker 1: only going to give you Netflix and you know, HBO
Speaker 1: Max and Hulu and all those things. But if you
Speaker 1: want to watch live TV, I would suggest you have
Speaker 1: to get an antenna. And I'm sure they make antenna
Speaker 1: that are specific for motor homes and I would look
Speaker 1: at Antenna's Direct for that, A N T E, n
Speaker 1: NAS direct, Antenna's Direct. We'll we'll definitely have a motor
Speaker 1: home antenna. I would look for one of those, and
Speaker 1: I'm looking yep, RV Antenna's they've got them right here,
Speaker 1: and let's see how much that's going to cost you.
Speaker 1: Our website's kind of freaking out here. Rv Antenna's oh
Speaker 1: does not want to let me click this? There we go.
Speaker 1: Let's see a hundred bucks sixty miles range. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: just one. So there you have it, hundred bucks. So
Speaker 1: I would start with the streaming first. If you really
Speaker 1: need live TV, then get the antenna that's of course
Speaker 1: going to be free and does not need data. But
Speaker 1: those are the things that I would recommend for your situation.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks so much for the question. Tammy and
Speaker 1: our Tamra and oh Tammy, Yeah you did say Tammy
Speaker 1: at the end. Let me know when I can take
Speaker 1: a ride in your motor home, because it's my dream
Speaker 1: just to I was on a on an event one
Speaker 1: time for Ford. We took them Mustang out to the
Speaker 1: desert and they brought us to the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: It was I bookmarked it, but it was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, twenty nine palms or something I think it
Speaker 1: was called, and it was just Okay, there's been two
Speaker 1: times I think I've already said this story. I feel
Speaker 1: like I've told every story on the podcast, but whatever.
Speaker 1: I feel like, not everyone listens to every podcast, so
Speaker 1: I'll just tell them again. I'm like, I'm like my
Speaker 1: grandfather back in the day, Like you know, they tell
Speaker 1: you like a story like twice or three times, like Grandpa,
Speaker 1: we've already heard this. Now it's getting to be my parents.
Speaker 1: But uh, it's like we There's two times in my
Speaker 1: life and I remember looking up at the sky and
Speaker 1: just being one hundred percent completely just blown away by
Speaker 1: the stars that I saw in the sky. And one
Speaker 1: time was up in Lake George, New York, where we
Speaker 1: have a summer home, and growing up, we always used
Speaker 1: to go there, and I just remember my dad got
Speaker 1: a telescope and you know, we aimed it at the
Speaker 1: sky and I just I could still see it looking
Speaker 1: up right now. I could still remember exactly where I
Speaker 1: was outside of our house and looking up at the sky,
Speaker 1: not even through the telescope, just looking up and just
Speaker 1: being like, wow, this is amazing, like just the amount
Speaker 1: of stuff you can see in the sky right now.
Speaker 1: The second time that's happened to me was in twenty
Speaker 1: nine Palms and we were in the middle of nowhere
Speaker 1: at this little hotel and or motel whatever it was
Speaker 1: and just in the middle of the desert and it
Speaker 1: was just I looked up and it was like, this
Speaker 1: is amazing, like just so and I want to recreate
Speaker 1: that experience. I just this, I don't know, the COVID thing,
Speaker 1: like it's just been tough to travel with all that,
Speaker 1: you know. Anyway, I have not really seen that any
Speaker 1: other place. I'm sure there's other places they call them
Speaker 1: like dark skies or something, but I need to do
Speaker 1: that with my kids because it's just it was such
Speaker 1: an awe inspiring experience. And just seeing the sky like
Speaker 1: that is like you just don't get that in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: Like there's just when you look up, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I is that Is that a star or satellite? Oh No,
Speaker 1: that's just a cell phone tower with a light on it.
Speaker 1: I mean it's just that's you know, you live in
Speaker 1: a big city and that's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: You gotta get a little bit further out to see
Speaker 1: the stars. Anyway, I digress, as I typically do. Where
Speaker 1: were we another story? Let's do another story. Twitter is
Speaker 1: letting anyone get verified, So I know people love this
Speaker 1: blue check mark next to them, and I get it.
Speaker 1: It brings a little gravitas. Is that the word gravitas?
Speaker 1: Is that how you say it? Let's hear is that
Speaker 1: how you say gravitas? Gravitas? Gravitas. It brings a little
Speaker 1: gravitas to the you know, to your Twitter profile. And
Speaker 1: I've had it for many years. Okay, big deal. I'm
Speaker 1: not bragging. It's not that big of a deal. But okay,
Speaker 1: I've had it. But it's always this mysterious thing about
Speaker 1: how to get verified, right, and so it was a
Speaker 1: lot of journalists, a lot of like, hey, send me
Speaker 1: your email and I'll get you verified kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But now they're doing it for everyone, so they're making it,
Speaker 1: you know, more accessible to everyone. Now here's what you
Speaker 1: need to do. You can do it right through the app.
Speaker 1: You can do it through the Twitter app. You look
Speaker 1: under account settings, and it's rolling out, rolling out, so
Speaker 1: you might see it over the next few weeks. If
Speaker 1: you don't see it, don't worry. We're gradually rolling it
Speaker 1: out to everyone. Worst words in tech. You know, you
Speaker 1: want immediate gratification in this world, we don't. You know,
Speaker 1: you order from Amazon, you get it the same day
Speaker 1: or the next day. Oh, by the way, so this
Speaker 1: is why I order from Amazon. No joke to ordering experiences. Okay.
Speaker 1: The first I ordered a speaker from Sonos had to
Speaker 1: replace a play five in my house because it was
Speaker 1: getting kind of old and it didn't work. So I
Speaker 1: go on on their website, and it was the best
Speaker 1: to order it from the website because they give you
Speaker 1: a little deal if you upgrade through them, give you
Speaker 1: like thirty percent off. And so I order it there
Speaker 1: and it's an expensive speaker, and so, you know, like
Speaker 1: hemden Haud kept it in my in my shopping cart
Speaker 1: for a long time, but you know, every time I
Speaker 1: went on there, it would say it was more delayed,
Speaker 1: like it was back ordered, and so I just kept
Speaker 1: putting it off. I'm like, eh, well, if it's back
Speaker 1: order till May eighteenth, whatever, I'll order it next month.
Speaker 1: And then it was back ordered the next time till
Speaker 1: like June twentieth, and I'm like, oh my gosh, okay,
Speaker 1: let me just order this. So at least I'm in
Speaker 1: the queue to like get it. I order it and
Speaker 1: two days later it's like, oh, you're order shipped out.
Speaker 1: It'll be there in a day. I'm like, what, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: clearly your little back order system is not very good.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm excited to get my speaker so I
Speaker 1: don't have to wait another month, which is nice. And
Speaker 1: now the next one I want to order is the Rome,
Speaker 1: which is their little new Bluetooth one, which will be
Speaker 1: great for the summer for taking around even though I
Speaker 1: have the move But anyway, I love the Sona stuff.
Speaker 1: It just works, It's great whatever. But the second thing
Speaker 1: I ordered, I ordered soap from this doctor Squatch. Have
Speaker 1: you heard of it? I made fun of it. It
Speaker 1: was a big advertisement during the Super Bowl. So I
Speaker 1: ordered one of their bars of soap after I was
Speaker 1: home and my little nephew said that he loves it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, okay, I'll try it. He's
Speaker 1: my sister's like he's obsessed. I'm like, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of switched to bar soap over
Speaker 1: the This is Tea, but I switched to bar soap
Speaker 1: over the COVID because it's just like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like the whole liquid soap thing, like, eh, just use
Speaker 1: bar last longer. So anyway, I don't know what my
Speaker 1: point of telling you the story is, except for the
Speaker 1: fact is I ordered my first bar of Doctor Squatch
Speaker 1: on Amazon, but it was limited selection. You can only
Speaker 1: get like one flavor. I got bay Rum, you know,
Speaker 1: which is like an old school flavor, and it was
Speaker 1: there the next day. I used it. I loved it,
Speaker 1: but I ran out and I was like, Okay, next time,
Speaker 1: I'm going to order from doctor Squatch because I will
Speaker 1: order a bunch of it. It will be free shipping,
Speaker 1: and I can get like the newest, latest, greatest flavors
Speaker 1: or whatever you call them scents. And they've got like
Speaker 1: moon Rock and just like all these really funny scents
Speaker 1: for soaps that you have no idea what they really
Speaker 1: small like, but they just it's like I got like
Speaker 1: Mars Area fifty one and moon Rock and space dust whatever.
Speaker 1: Maybe that was a beer. I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: ordered it and no joke. They're like it'll be ten
Speaker 1: to twelve days shipping. I'm like, no, nothing's ten to
Speaker 1: twelve days shipping anymore. Like, give me a break. Remember
Speaker 1: the old days when it was six to eight weeks
Speaker 1: for shipping plus postage in handling. It's like, wait, what
Speaker 1: you'd mail off for something and it would arrive like
Speaker 1: when you totally forgot about it three months later. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what doctor Squatch has turned into. I cannot believe
Speaker 1: how long it has taken me to get my stuff.
Speaker 1: And no joke, doctor Squatch, I will tell you. Here's
Speaker 1: my order. I ordered it on May tenth. Okay, as
Speaker 1: I record this, it is May twenty first, and I
Speaker 1: did get a I did get a shipping notification after
Speaker 1: I kept checking the mail every day thinking that, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get this thing, and here's my package. I'm
Speaker 1: tracking it right now as I speak this, it says
Speaker 1: it's arriving in three to five more days, so estimated
Speaker 1: delivery May twenty fourth through twenty six. So by the
Speaker 1: time I get this May fifteenth to May twenty fourth
Speaker 1: through twenty six, you're talking eleven ten, nine to you
Speaker 1: know whatever days, nine to twelve days. That is wild.
Speaker 1: So I love you, doctor Squatch, but my gosh, I mean,
Speaker 1: you gotta figure out this shipping situation. I just could not.
Speaker 1: I didn't believe it when I you know, when I
Speaker 1: order online, and I always tell my wife this, whenever
Speaker 1: you see a company that's like trying to push you
Speaker 1: to upgrade your shipping to like a faster shipping, don't
Speaker 1: do it, because ninety nine percent of the time the
Speaker 1: stuff arrives like the next day, and they're just trying
Speaker 1: to like get more shipping fees out of you. So
Speaker 1: don't do it. And this is the first time that
Speaker 1: my advice actually totally backfired because doctor Squatch was like,
Speaker 1: do you want three to five shipping or three to
Speaker 1: five days or one to two days. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I never pay for that, Give me a break, and
Speaker 1: clearly they they stick to like their ten to twelve
Speaker 1: days of shipping. So again, doctor Squatch, I love you,
Speaker 1: but gime on, you gotta you gotta catch up with
Speaker 1: Amazon with your shipping. So anyway, where was I let's
Speaker 1: talk about getting verified? Who's Who's eligible for verification? Don't
Speaker 1: you love this podcast where I just jump around who's
Speaker 1: eligible for verification? On Twitter? To be eligible, you must
Speaker 1: fit one of the six categories government, companies, brands and organizations,
Speaker 1: news organizations and journalists, entertainment, sports and gaming activists, organizers,
Speaker 1: and other influential individuals, which basically means anyone can get verified.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is look in the account
Speaker 1: settings tab and you'll see an application. You apply online
Speaker 1: and they get your request and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: you will get a decision. This could take a few days,
Speaker 1: they say, so if you want that blue check mark,
Speaker 1: And I suggest if you if you're a regular person,
Speaker 1: you don't really need it per se. But I think
Speaker 1: it's good for jobs and good for you know, if
Speaker 1: you're posting anything on Twitter that you want sort of
Speaker 1: like to be linked to you in an official way,
Speaker 1: I think that it's probably a good idea to get
Speaker 1: verified so people know that you are who you say
Speaker 1: you are. All right, Paul says, Hey, Rich, I hope
Speaker 1: this isn't something you've done in the past and I
Speaker 1: missed it, But do you have any suggestions for quote
Speaker 1: unquote nanny cams that could unobtrusively put in areas that
Speaker 1: where workers are working at my home. I'm not looking
Speaker 1: for live monitoring, but rather something that might record on
Speaker 1: an SD card for possible later review. Thanks Paul, Paul, Yes,
Speaker 1: I have covered this, and I always get, you know
Speaker 1: a little bit like, Okay, Paul, I don't know what
Speaker 1: you're doing here, what your angle is, but yes, okay,
Speaker 1: we can talk about this because it is out there
Speaker 1: and there are legitimate uses of this stuff if it's
Speaker 1: in your house. Yeah, I mean, do I recommend putt
Speaker 1: hidden cameras in your bedroom? No? Do I recommend putting
Speaker 1: cameras hidden if you got an airbnb. Do I recommend
Speaker 1: putting hidden cameras in your house even if you do
Speaker 1: have a nanny. I don't know. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: an expert, but I think that it's nice to tell
Speaker 1: people that you have cameras in my house. The cameras
Speaker 1: are very visible. You can see them. I don't hide them,
Speaker 1: and I don't put them in places that people would
Speaker 1: consider private. So with that said, yes, you can absolutely
Speaker 1: do this. It's your house. You can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: And the cameras that I recommend are wysecams. Wyze wisecams
Speaker 1: are very inexpensive. They're on their third version. They are fantastic.
Speaker 1: They do the trick. They work every time. It's the
Speaker 1: Wysecam V three. Right now, they're not available, so as
Speaker 1: I say this, they're not available. Which wisecams, for some reason,
Speaker 1: are so mysterious. I don't know what the problem is
Speaker 1: why they're always out of stock. But a wisecam will
Speaker 1: do this just fine. Because a wysecam it is available
Speaker 1: on Amazon for thirty dollars and sixty five cents free
Speaker 1: Prime one day, so get it on Amazon thirty dollars
Speaker 1: sixty five cents. You can bundle a thirty two gigabyte
Speaker 1: SD card for forty three dollars and sixty cents, although
Speaker 1: check the price on the SD card for a thirty
Speaker 1: two gig now. The one limitation of these cameras is
Speaker 1: that the SD card, I believe is limited to thirty
Speaker 1: two gigabytes. And the way this works is there's a
Speaker 1: setting in the settings once you put the SD card
Speaker 1: in this camera poll it says record twenty four to
Speaker 1: seven to the SD card and you can do that
Speaker 1: and it will just record as long as it can
Speaker 1: until it flips around and it's done, and it will
Speaker 1: just start recording over the earliest part of the recording.
Speaker 1: So it just records in a big loop. And that's
Speaker 1: why I have some of mind set up to do.
Speaker 1: And it's fine. It works. You set it, you forget
Speaker 1: it. It does the trick. If you ever need to look back,
Speaker 1: you just go and look on the timeline in the
Speaker 1: app and you can download the video clip it whatever
Speaker 1: you want to do with it. But that's what you
Speaker 1: want to do. And if you want a live monitor.
Speaker 1: You can do that too, but that's the way I
Speaker 1: would do it. I think WHYSE is kind of the
Speaker 1: best camera for that. Yes, there's a million solutions, and
Speaker 1: if you had another tech person talking here, they might
Speaker 1: recommend something else, but this is rich on tech and
Speaker 1: that's my recommendation because I love what Wise is doing.
Speaker 1: I love what Wise is doing, I love what Ring
Speaker 1: is doing. The difference with Ring is that they don't
Speaker 1: have internal memory, so they're not going to be recording
Speaker 1: to the camera itself. And there's a bunch of cheapy
Speaker 1: cameras on Amazon that will do this, probably for even cheaper.
Speaker 1: But I know Wise, and I like Wise, and I
Speaker 1: trust Wise, and so that's the one that I would use. Okay,
Speaker 1: good question, Paul. That was a good one, and hopefully
Speaker 1: you figure out what you need there. Have you noticed
Speaker 1: the fees on Airbnb? Now, I am not a big
Speaker 1: Airbnb guy, and I know it's kind of weird. I
Speaker 1: like my hotels. I like staying in hotels. I like
Speaker 1: that hotels are standardized. I like that they are cleaned
Speaker 1: in a certain way. I like that they're you know,
Speaker 1: I like that there's services at them, and I get it.
Speaker 1: I think at this point, I'm in a minority of
Speaker 1: opinion with the airbnb versus hotel. It seems like most
Speaker 1: people I know love Airbnbs, and I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I just I've never really taken to them. And I
Speaker 1: want to be the kind of person that loves finding
Speaker 1: the cool Airbnb on the beach and just hanging out
Speaker 1: and it's great. And I have stayed in Airbnb once
Speaker 1: in Passo Robles and it was great, except for when
Speaker 1: they tried to hit me with a two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars fee when I checked out because they said
Speaker 1: I broke the garbage disposal, which I don't think we did.
Speaker 1: But again, what do you do? I mean, it's like,
Speaker 1: so I, you know, had to like dispute this thing,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, you're back and forth with the person.
Speaker 1: And some people like that. I mean, some people like
Speaker 1: the fact that you know as soon as you book this,
Speaker 1: like you don't know where it is until you book it,
Speaker 1: which is like the first weird thing. You don't know
Speaker 1: the address of where you're staying until you actually book it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I want to Google map. I want
Speaker 1: to look at like satellite view. I want to see
Speaker 1: like exactly where this is in comparison to other things,
Speaker 1: and maybe you know, you can email the host and
Speaker 1: ask them, but like, you know, then you could just
Speaker 1: you know, then you could just do the transaction outside
Speaker 1: of Airbnb, which is probably why they don't do that.
Speaker 1: So I look, I'm not knocking it. I know people
Speaker 1: love it, and I think it's an amazing thing that
Speaker 1: we have. But options, you know, hotels are great and
Speaker 1: Airbnbs are great. I just personally stay in more hotels
Speaker 1: and hotels are not innocent when it comes to what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about, which is the fees. The fees
Speaker 1: have gotten out of control. It started in Las Vegas
Speaker 1: with resort fees and now it has gotten to every
Speaker 1: hotel I've ever stayed in the past, you know, five years.
Speaker 1: The fees are out of control. And the reason why
Speaker 1: hotels love fees is because fees are tougher to show
Speaker 1: up on comparison websites. So when you search for a
Speaker 1: three or four star hotel in Las Vegas, you get
Speaker 1: a list of hotels and oh, that one's ninety nine,
Speaker 1: Oh that one's one ninety nine. That's easy to tell
Speaker 1: which one's more expensive. The one ninety nine, but the
Speaker 1: ninety nine might charge you fifty dollars a night for
Speaker 1: a resort fee, and that's not necessarily necessarily reflected in
Speaker 1: these comparison websites. And so that's why hotels love fees.
Speaker 1: They love nickel and diming you to death for parking,
Speaker 1: for daily resort fee, for an occupancy fee, for a
Speaker 1: fee to flush the toilet. I mean, the fees have
Speaker 1: gotten so out of control it's become a joke. So
Speaker 1: my wife and I when we check into a hotel,
Speaker 1: we sit there and we go, oh, did you use
Speaker 1: your free USA Today newspaper today included your resort fee?
Speaker 1: Did you get your two faxes in that you're faxing
Speaker 1: to people for your daily resort fee? Did you use
Speaker 1: the uh uh whatever it is. I mean, these fees
Speaker 1: that they if you go on the websites of these
Speaker 1: hotels and you see what the resort fee goes to,
Speaker 1: it's like such a joke. It's all stuff that people
Speaker 1: don't use anyway. So Airbnb apparently has gotten just as
Speaker 1: bad with the cleaning fees and the occupancy fee, and
Speaker 1: the taxes and fees and the service fees, and it
Speaker 1: got so bad that Airbnb actually had to make a
Speaker 1: blog post on the web about their fees and they said, look,
Speaker 1: we've heard from guests about fees on Airbnbs, and we
Speaker 1: get it. There's you know, they didn't say there's a
Speaker 1: lot of them. But here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 1: They said that hosts set their own cleaning fees, and
Speaker 1: they made a good point that look, if it's you know,
Speaker 1: you don't know what the situation is with the cleaning,
Speaker 1: like the host may you know if they clean in
Speaker 1: between each person they hire someone they're hiring a cleaning
Speaker 1: crew for a hundred bucks, Like they've got to charge
Speaker 1: you one hundred dollars for that. Now, I think it
Speaker 1: should be blended into the fee to rent the place.
Speaker 1: That's just my personal opinion, but again, it makes it
Speaker 1: look cheaper to not see the cleaning fee until you
Speaker 1: go to check out and all the service fees for Airbnb,
Speaker 1: I think that you should be able to see a
Speaker 1: nightly fee that reflects what the actual nightly fee is, right,
Speaker 1: But that's not the way it works. So Airbnb said
Speaker 1: that their fees are typically so cleaning fees typically cost
Speaker 1: less than ten percent of the total reservation, and then
Speaker 1: their fee typically comes out to about fourteen percent for
Speaker 1: the service fee. So they said that they are going
Speaker 1: to look into the fee structure and how fees are charged.
Speaker 1: But the reality is, as consumers we are this is
Speaker 1: just beginning. Everything that you do at a hotel used
Speaker 1: to be included in the price of the nightly rate,
Speaker 1: and now everything is parsed out. I was at a
Speaker 1: hotel and it on the TV screen when you turned
Speaker 1: it on, is said, oh, if you want late checkout,
Speaker 1: seventy five bucks extra. And it used to be one
Speaker 1: of those things where you can just call up and say, hey,
Speaker 1: can I get late checkout? I'm a great guest, I please,
Speaker 1: and they would look at their computers and they would say, okay,
Speaker 1: we can see that we're we're not really that full tomorrow,
Speaker 1: so we'll give it to you. Now it's just like, no,
Speaker 1: it's seventy five bucks for late checkout. Oh you want
Speaker 1: early checkout, that's going to be or sorry, early check in,
Speaker 1: that's going to be fifty bucks. Oh you want to
Speaker 1: use the lounge chair at the pool, that's fifteen teen dollars.
Speaker 1: In Vegas, this is pretty common. You know, you pay
Speaker 1: for all the lounge chairs I mean it's it's becoming
Speaker 1: a nickel and dime affair. And I get it. You know,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're figuring this stuff out. You know it
Speaker 1: all it's all because of these search engines that compare
Speaker 1: room rates, and so you may not realize that when
Speaker 1: you book a hotel in Las Vegas, it's great, but
Speaker 1: by the way, to use the pool, it's an extra.
Speaker 1: You know, you're going to have to pay to find
Speaker 1: a chair or to use a chair. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just the way things are. So I think that these
Speaker 1: these aggregators are getting smarter about building fees in We've
Speaker 1: seen it with the airlines. Same thing, all the airlines.
Speaker 1: Everything's uh, nickel and dime. You know, you want to
Speaker 1: bring a carry on, you gotta pay you want to.
Speaker 1: Now airlines are even getting so smart because there was
Speaker 1: a little scam with the airlines where you know, if
Speaker 1: you you have to check your bag, it's you know,
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars but or whatever it is, and then
Speaker 1: you can bring it on the plane and you can
Speaker 1: just shove it in the overhead for free. Right, So
Speaker 1: a lot of people are just bringing their bags and
Speaker 1: and knowing that they would have to check these because
Speaker 1: they're in group six, right, they board last, the overheads
Speaker 1: are going to be filled. And guess what the flight
Speaker 1: attendant says, Oh, we'll check that for you for free.
Speaker 1: We'll gate They call it gate checking. Well, now, you know,
Speaker 1: my wife and I would always joke, why don't you
Speaker 1: just bring on your bag every time and if it
Speaker 1: doesn't fit, you just gate check it. It's for free,
Speaker 1: instead of checking it at the front where it's going
Speaker 1: to cost you forty bucks. Well, clearly the airlines caught
Speaker 1: onto that. Not that I ever did that, by the way,
Speaker 1: I actually didn't, but a lot of people did. I
Speaker 1: notice that there's a lot of people bringing bags on
Speaker 1: board that you know, they knew they would not fit,
Speaker 1: And so the airlines now will charge you for a
Speaker 1: gate check fee if it doesn't fit in the overhead.
Speaker 1: So they've gotten very hip. Not all airlines, but I
Speaker 1: think it was I think it was American that got
Speaker 1: hipped to it first. But you know, don't quote me
Speaker 1: on that, but one of them did. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: they're all follow suit anyway. But my point is we're
Speaker 1: all figuring this out. I get it, all these companies
Speaker 1: need to make money, but it's gotten to the point
Speaker 1: where as a traveler, and I travel a lot, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's become a joke. Like literally, you're taking
Speaker 1: my wallet, you're taking it in front of you, and
Speaker 1: you're literally ringing out the money, like you're just ringing
Speaker 1: out the cash to just for everything. And I get
Speaker 1: it when you go to little little store downstairs, it's convenient.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pay a little bit more for a bag
Speaker 1: of chips than I would a seven to eleven. But
Speaker 1: when you start doing all these things, it's just making
Speaker 1: me feel like, oh, come on, do you really value me?
Speaker 1: Do you really want me to stay here in the future,
Speaker 1: or do you want me to go to Airbnb? And
Speaker 1: that's why the airbnb people are complaining, because they started
Speaker 1: feeling like, well, I might as well stay to a hotel.
Speaker 1: If it's gonna be all these little nickel and dime fees,
Speaker 1: I'll just stay at a hotel again, and you know,
Speaker 1: get some of the benefits of a hotel, like I
Speaker 1: don't have to communicate with the host or you know,
Speaker 1: every you know, two minutes over email about how to
Speaker 1: get into my room or whatever. So I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time on this topic because it is near
Speaker 1: and dear to me, and I just it just it
Speaker 1: just irks me that we get taken advantage of as consumers.
Speaker 1: When the technology has made things cheaper, it continues to
Speaker 1: get more expensive for us to do some of these things. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's see here. Nancy says, I have a flip
Speaker 1: phone Kyo Sarah that has fifteen hundred pictures on it.
Speaker 1: I cannot get it on an SD card. It's on
Speaker 1: my it's my grandchild and my labs. Do you have
Speaker 1: any way I can get them on a flash drive,
Speaker 1: then put them on an Android phone and put them
Speaker 1: on an SD card. Tom, Oh weird. The email comes
Speaker 1: from Nancy, but the Tom maybe they share Tom. A
Speaker 1: couple of things I would do. Number one, there is
Speaker 1: a program that is I think it's like open source.
Speaker 1: But back in the day, a lot of these old
Speaker 1: phones like Kyo Sarah used to have a software that
Speaker 1: you could use to access what's on the phone, and
Speaker 1: so I would. It's called BitPim b I t pim
Speaker 1: and it may work for your phone. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it tells you which phones it supports, but
Speaker 1: you know, you can kind of see if your phone
Speaker 1: is supported now. I would also go on to Kyosara's
Speaker 1: website and see if they have any software. Also, I
Speaker 1: was just on the freeway the other day and Kyosara
Speaker 1: is based in Los Angeles, so it looks like they
Speaker 1: have some sort of US based support, So maybe give
Speaker 1: them a call and ask them. But the BitPim, I
Speaker 1: think BitPim dot org is might be your best ability.
Speaker 1: Or you can just google like Kyosera software and the
Speaker 1: and the name of your phone, like uh, you know
Speaker 1: the model number, and see you might be able to
Speaker 1: plug it into your computer to be able to download these,
Speaker 1: uh these pictures. So that's the number one thing I do.
Speaker 1: Number two thing I would do is bring it to
Speaker 1: a store, like you break I fix or even your
Speaker 1: carrier whoever, you know, if it's a Verizon phone, bring
Speaker 1: it to Verizon A lot of times in the back
Speaker 1: they have these tools that they can plug into the
Speaker 1: phones to extract the data from them, and so that's
Speaker 1: another way of going about it. And then you break
Speaker 1: I fix. They're kind of like an Uber you know,
Speaker 1: uh fix of phones they have not like the Uber service,
Speaker 1: I mean like big big picture. They can work on
Speaker 1: a lot of different phones, so you might just bring
Speaker 1: it in there and just tell them what's happening and
Speaker 1: see if they can extract those photos. But there's definitely
Speaker 1: a way to get them off this phone, for sure.
Speaker 1: At the very least, if it's bluetooth, you might even
Speaker 1: be able to bluetooth these photos to another device. But again,
Speaker 1: you might be able to like link this device up
Speaker 1: to your Windows computer or a Mac computer and then
Speaker 1: browse the file system. But I don't know. I haven't
Speaker 1: done this in a long time, but I do remember
Speaker 1: doing this for an old, old phone and it did work.
Speaker 1: So those are my solutions. That's what I look into
Speaker 1: and see if it works all right. Gosh, a couple
Speaker 1: of quick things before we go here. F one fifty
Speaker 1: lightning all electric F one to fifty pickup truck from Ford.
Speaker 1: They unveiled it this week. The cool feature is that
Speaker 1: it can power your house. So this car, you basically
Speaker 1: plug your house into it if your power goes out,
Speaker 1: and it can power your car or your house for
Speaker 1: like a couple of days, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Now they're saying this car is under forty thousand, but
Speaker 1: that's for a commercial version that's probably stripped down the XLT,
Speaker 1: which is the mid series. That one is fifty three thousand.
Speaker 1: That's probably gonna be the one that most people are.
Speaker 1: You know, let's be honest. When you go into a
Speaker 1: car place, you know, whatever you see advertised is not
Speaker 1: the price that you pay because it's like, oh, you
Speaker 1: want windows that roll that are powered, not rolled down. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be an extra two thousand dollars. So this
Speaker 1: is gonna be a great truck. I think it's a
Speaker 1: cool I mean, it's got a fronk. It's just such
Speaker 1: a cool looking. The idea that the biggest kind of
Speaker 1: like truck in America d F one fifty is so
Speaker 1: like America iconic. Like the fact that that's going electric
Speaker 1: is really cool. So, like I said, I'm not a
Speaker 1: pickup truck guy, but I told my wife, I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I could see myself getting this thing
Speaker 1: just because it's so cool, but I probably won't. All right,
Speaker 1: let's see here any other questions that I want to address.
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna do it for this show. I
Speaker 1: try to keep these under an hour because when I
Speaker 1: see an hour on my podcast app, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to sit there and listen to a show
Speaker 1: for an hour. One more thing. Internet Explore End of
Speaker 1: an era. It is being retired on June fifteenth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. I don't think anyone listening to this show
Speaker 1: is still using Internet Explore. Maybe you are, but I
Speaker 1: don't think so. It's mostly specialized corporations that still run
Speaker 1: apps that require Internet Explore, but they're urging you to
Speaker 1: switch to Microsoft Edge or something similar. Oh you know
Speaker 1: what that sound means. That's gonna do it for this
Speaker 1: episode of the show. If you would like to submit
Speaker 1: a question for me to answer, two ways to do
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Speaker 1: Hit the microphone button to leave a voicemail, or better yet,
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Speaker 1: your TV. My name is rich Tdimiro. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. There are so many ways you can spend
Speaker 1: an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending
Speaker 1: it with me. Stay safe, I'll talk to you real soon.