Speaker 1: Google opens its first retail store. Ikea teams up with
Speaker 1: Sons for a new picture frame speaker. Suddenly I'm into
Speaker 1: journaling plus your 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 you.
Speaker 2: Should know about.
Speaker 1: It's also the place where I answer the questions you
Speaker 1: send me.
Speaker 2: My name is Rich Dmiro.
Speaker 1: Once again, I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. Welcome to the show. And boy was
Speaker 1: it a scorcher in Los Angeles this week, really really
Speaker 1: hot here in Los Angeles. It also happened to be
Speaker 1: opening a reopening.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you want to call it.
Speaker 1: I called it California Independence Day, but that's not the
Speaker 1: right explanation because that sounds like something bit different. So
Speaker 1: it's really California. I think they called it reopening Day.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but anyway, the irony of that day
Speaker 1: is that it was like a really hot day this week.
Speaker 1: And I also didn't really leave my house that day,
Speaker 1: even though it was like the first day where everything,
Speaker 1: I mean all the restrictions pretty much all the restrictions
Speaker 1: were lifted. I also went into KTLA this week, which
Speaker 1: was kind of cool. We're celebrating thirty years for the
Speaker 1: Morning News and I've been there for ten of those thirty,
Speaker 1: which is wild. So I've been there for a third
Speaker 1: of the time that our show has existed. So I
Speaker 1: did an interview, was at the station, and you know,
Speaker 1: we did the interview in the parking lot, but I
Speaker 1: did go into the station to like chat with some folks.
Speaker 2: And everyone's like, when are you coming back? When are
Speaker 2: you coming back? When are you coming back?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't know, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I think I came up with a
Speaker 1: plan to just kind of go back, so we'll see.
Speaker 1: I think my plan is going to work. But they're
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't really my decision. It's still not
Speaker 1: my decision. I mean, I have people that I answer to.
Speaker 1: I know, it seems like I don't, but I do,
Speaker 1: and they are the ones that call the shots, and
Speaker 1: believe me, I've been asking them like, hey, when do
Speaker 1: I get to go back? And it's a little complicated,
Speaker 1: it's a little inside baseball, but you know, I do
Speaker 1: a lot of my segment on the anchor desk which
Speaker 1: you know right now, we haven't been having other people
Speaker 1: on that desk, so that's you know, it's just a
Speaker 1: lot of different things. And I think they just got
Speaker 1: me comfortable. They just got comfortable with me working from
Speaker 1: home and it seemed to work. So but at this point,
Speaker 1: you know, the every comment on everything I posted, like
Speaker 1: rich when you go back in. So I'm working on it.
Speaker 1: Believe me, We're trying to make me back in there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've gotten comfortable working from home. I have
Speaker 1: everything at my fingertips, which I love, but I also
Speaker 1: missed the energy and you know, the professionalism of working
Speaker 1: at work. I mean, I have like a real studio
Speaker 1: with real lighting and real microphones and real everything, and
Speaker 1: so that's that's kind of nice. So I'll be back
Speaker 1: there soon. But yeah, interesting anyway, let's get to a
Speaker 1: couple of things this week. By the way, the stories
Speaker 1: I did on KTLA just went wild. It was so
Speaker 1: so interesting to watch the Tesla of e bikes. The
Speaker 1: van move story went completely viral. I don't know how,
Speaker 1: but it's it was like the top story on the
Speaker 1: KTLA website for so many days, like they were just one.
Speaker 1: Everyone was like scratching their heads, like, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out the source. It just seemed to
Speaker 1: go viral, like worldwide, and so it just got picked
Speaker 1: up and people just kept clicking it. Same thing on
Speaker 1: on my Facebook page, Facebook dot com slash rich on tech.
Speaker 1: People were watching the video that I did, and it
Speaker 1: was like a slow burn, Like sometimes things don't go
Speaker 1: viral instantly. It takes a little bit, but all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it's like this video just started like comments
Speaker 1: and shares and everything just started pouring in.
Speaker 2: So that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And then this other video I did on this oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, this ice cube challenge not challenge, this ice
Speaker 1: cube grilling trick. I was at my friend's house and
Speaker 1: he's grilling up burgers and he has ice cubes on them,
Speaker 1: which I had never seen before, and so I was like,
Speaker 1: what's going on here?
Speaker 2: And he's like, oh, I read a.
Speaker 1: Trick where it cooks the the inside doesn't get dried
Speaker 1: out while the outside cooks.
Speaker 2: I don't know, something like that, and so.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait what, And so I took a picture,
Speaker 1: I posted it and next thing you know, people are
Speaker 1: going wild over that on my Facebook page and then
Speaker 1: we talked about it on KTLA and then that story
Speaker 1: went viral, you know, so they shared it with all
Speaker 1: the different stations and then I mean it was it
Speaker 1: was a good week. So I will There was actually
Speaker 1: another story I did on the shower head that I'm
Speaker 1: I'll talk about a little bit later in the show,
Speaker 1: but a new shower head that's all high tech, and
Speaker 1: that went viral. So I mean it was just pretty wild.
Speaker 1: But so and I guess I can talk about you know,
Speaker 1: I'll just go into the first story of the week
Speaker 1: with this because I've been keeping a new journal with
Speaker 1: Day one because they inspired me because they got purchased
Speaker 1: by Automatic and Automatic is the company that runs WordPress
Speaker 1: and a whole bunch of other things, and so once
Speaker 1: and I was familiar with day one, and I've been
Speaker 1: keeping a paper journal since the beginning of the year.
Speaker 1: But I really am bad about writing in it because
Speaker 1: A my handwriting is horrible, and B it's really tough
Speaker 1: at the end of the night to like sit there
Speaker 1: and like right before you go to sleep, like remember
Speaker 1: to write something down. And this is like one page
Speaker 1: a day kind of or one line a day, And
Speaker 1: so I would be really bad about it, and I
Speaker 1: knew once I started writing in that journal that I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed doing it because it makes you reflect on
Speaker 1: your day. You remember little moments that your kids did
Speaker 1: or that you had in your life. And so I
Speaker 1: got the journal bug, but I just the execution was
Speaker 1: not right. And so once day one was purchased by Automatic,
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, I've got this app on
Speaker 1: my phone. Let me just start using it because it's
Speaker 1: so much easier on our phones anyway. I know we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be before we go to sleep, and so it
Speaker 1: takes me just a second to type out a little
Speaker 1: something on my you know, daily journal. But then I
Speaker 1: installed it at my computer and now I'm like, mister journal.
Speaker 1: So I'm journaling throughout the day with little moments. And
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about with the with the winds at
Speaker 1: work is I started a work journal. So now I
Speaker 1: can like remember little things for work, like things that worked,
Speaker 1: things didn't work, and you know, little wins. I can
Speaker 1: take screenshots. I mean, I've got to say, if you've
Speaker 1: ever been kind of like thinking about journaling, download the
Speaker 1: day one app. And the reason why I say this
Speaker 1: is because there's a lot of journaling apps out there
Speaker 1: day one seems.
Speaker 2: To be the best.
Speaker 1: It was independent before they got purchased, and now that
Speaker 1: they're purchased, hopefully they should be around for a long time.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the idea for a journal, right you
Speaker 1: keep it for a really long time. But they also
Speaker 1: some really cool features. Privacy is front and center, so
Speaker 1: it's end to end encryption, which is in every entry
Speaker 1: and every journal. Now they're going to make it so
Speaker 1: that you can share to like Tumblr and WordPress, which
Speaker 1: is interesting. I don't need that, but maybe some people would.
Speaker 1: You can also publish these as hardcover books, so that's
Speaker 1: kind of cool, is that you can. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know how you know deep and sentimental you're getting
Speaker 1: in your journal, but you know, it could be nice
Speaker 1: to print it out and maybe, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: not ready to share it with your family, like lock
Speaker 1: it away and you know, until whatever, and then they
Speaker 1: can open it and for your kids.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the way I feel.
Speaker 1: It's like it's such an I don't know, Maybe are
Speaker 1: my kids gonna want to peer into my mind as
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, I mean when they're older,
Speaker 1: I don't know, when I'm gone. I mean, it's kind
Speaker 1: of weird, right, but it's also kind of cool. It's
Speaker 1: available on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, Android, and browser extensions.
Speaker 2: And again it's just you can do audio, you can
Speaker 2: do pictures.
Speaker 1: So like last night, my wife and I went to dinner,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I just posted like the picture
Speaker 1: in there. I said, Hey, first dinner out since the
Speaker 1: pandemic kind of not as over, but you know, in
Speaker 1: Los Angele in California, they you know, they lifted all
Speaker 1: the restrictions, and so we went out for dinner. And
Speaker 1: I put that in there as I got, you know,
Speaker 1: something that I would see in my photos, but I
Speaker 1: might not remember the significance. I mean I probably would
Speaker 1: because it's a big one, but it's just kind of
Speaker 1: fun to put it in the journal. So anyway, Day
Speaker 1: one really cool, and I mentioned it with the work
Speaker 1: stuff because with my stories this week that did really well,
Speaker 1: I put them in my journal as kind of like
Speaker 1: a little win, you know, like here's a you know,
Speaker 1: a screenshot of the top stories on the KTLA website.
Speaker 1: It just reminds me that, like, you know, the things
Speaker 1: that I'm doing do have an impact, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's just kind of fun to to I don't know
Speaker 1: to do this, so ma'am let me know.
Speaker 2: If you keep a journal.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty cool. All right, let's get to
Speaker 1: the first question of the show. Maria says, good morning.
Speaker 1: We're ready to purchase a laptop for our daughter. She
Speaker 1: recently graduated from Sonora.
Speaker 2: I'll just leave that out.
Speaker 1: She's gonna attend you see Santa Cruz and major in
Speaker 1: biology and genetics. What's the best laptop on the market,
Speaker 1: to the best of your knowledge? And a backup drive?
Speaker 1: I think that's what it's called. Where can we find one?
Speaker 2: Thank you? Maria?
Speaker 1: Uh, all right, so I would recommend I know you're
Speaker 1: gonna say.
Speaker 2: Oh, Rich with the Apple fanboy again.
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, it's it's gonna be a MacBook. I mean
Speaker 1: it's going to be a MacBook. And I would recommend
Speaker 1: depending on your budget, because MacBooks are more expensive than
Speaker 1: you can buy a five hundred dollars Windows computer. But look,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna last you. If you look at you
Speaker 1: know what I would consider to be kind of the
Speaker 1: Windows equivalent of the MacBook. It's probably the surface and
Speaker 1: you know that's gonna run you a thousand dollars by
Speaker 1: the time you get all the accessories. So I would say,
Speaker 1: go with the MacBook, the m one, the MacBook Air.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be about a thousand bucks a little bit
Speaker 1: less with the student discount. Definitely take advantage of that.
Speaker 1: And I think it's gonna last her. I know it's
Speaker 1: gonna last her all four years. Maybe if she's doing
Speaker 1: biology and genetics, maybe.
Speaker 2: It's five years.
Speaker 1: But it's it's a little bit more expensive, but you
Speaker 1: have to do the math over the years, and in
Speaker 1: that time it will pay. I say it'll pay for
Speaker 1: itself because she's gonna get a great job out of this.
Speaker 2: This computer is gonna be no fuss. It's gonna work.
Speaker 1: You've got the Apple stores to bring it to if
Speaker 1: there's a problem. While I don't recommend any type of
Speaker 1: insurance on it, a lot of people do get that.
Speaker 1: I don't personally get that. I don't recommend it. I
Speaker 1: would say, if something ever happens to the computer, just
Speaker 1: pay for the you know, the repair out of pocket,
Speaker 1: and if you want to get insurance.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: What I I recommend to people is just save the money,
Speaker 1: like save like twenty five dollars a month and put
Speaker 1: it in like a little little account on the side
Speaker 1: and just call it your your own Apple insurance, right,
Speaker 1: and then if something happens by that time, let's say
Speaker 1: it's four months down the road, you have one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars towards your repair. And let's say it's six months
Speaker 1: down the road, now you have you know, six times
Speaker 1: twenty five whatever that is. Oh, I need to do
Speaker 1: my math. Oh that's terrible that I don't know that
Speaker 1: I should know that. That's a buck fifty, so a
Speaker 1: dollar one hundred and fifty dollars. Now, the two repairs
Speaker 1: that I've gotten on my MacBooks have both been six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars repairs. They've been the screen, so those were
Speaker 1: that was a pretty hefty repair. You'll be surprised to
Speaker 1: find that a lot of the little things that go wrong,
Speaker 1: if they do go wrong, Apple will cover because you
Speaker 1: have a warranty on this device.
Speaker 2: So that's my advice.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, if you want to go
Speaker 1: with the MacBook Pro, if you have a little bit
Speaker 1: more in your budget, that would be just a little
Speaker 1: bit more equipped for her. But I don't think she's
Speaker 1: doing video editing. I don't think she's doing a lot
Speaker 1: of things that require that. So my advice is to
Speaker 1: get the most memory, and I think they max out
Speaker 1: I think either eight or sixteen on these computers. But
Speaker 1: the most memory and the most hard drive. That's my
Speaker 1: advice there. Now, as for a backup, you can just
Speaker 1: go to Costco buy a standard hard drive there. Last
Speaker 1: I saw it was like fifty nine bucks for like
Speaker 1: a two terabyte drive. Very inexpensive. Get that and plug
Speaker 1: it into the computer and do what's called a time
Speaker 1: machine backup. It will back everything up to the hard drive.
Speaker 1: Every time you plug in that hard drive, it will
Speaker 1: back up the machine automatically. And if you ever have
Speaker 1: a problem, you know, keep the two things separate. If
Speaker 1: you ever have a problem with the hard drive on
Speaker 1: the computer, you just restore it from that time machine.
Speaker 2: Backup and it will be perfect. So good luck to
Speaker 2: your daughter.
Speaker 1: Very exciting that she's going to college and some fun
Speaker 1: times ahead for her. Google is opening its first ever
Speaker 1: retail store. They say, their first ever physical retail store.
Speaker 1: So I think they've had pop ups here and there,
Speaker 1: but this is there first ever. You know, they don't
Speaker 1: call it a permanent store. They don't call it a
Speaker 1: permanent space.
Speaker 2: You never know.
Speaker 1: It's Google because they cancel things so quickly over there.
Speaker 1: But June seventeenth is the date opened in New York City,
Speaker 1: and I actually asked them if I can go to
Speaker 1: this store and they said no, They're like, we're not
Speaker 1: doing any opportunities for for you. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: because they let in a whole bunch of like, you know,
Speaker 1: Team Pixel folks, but I guess for folks like me,
Speaker 1: They're like, nah, we don't really want the coverage from you.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I covered it anyway for KTLA because they
Speaker 1: did send me some pictures and videos and it looks
Speaker 1: really cool.
Speaker 2: It looks very.
Speaker 1: Googly, it's got you know, these nice neutral colors. It's
Speaker 1: got a lot of different spaces. It's a pretty big store.
Speaker 1: So the thing about this store is that, look, it's
Speaker 1: not an Apple store, but it's, you know it kind
Speaker 1: of it might be a similar space. Apple has like
Speaker 1: five hundred stores, and this is Google's first, so they've
Speaker 1: got some catching up to do. But we also know
Speaker 1: the market share of Pixel is a lot lower, and
Speaker 1: a lot of these Google devices, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: have the same ecosystem that Apple does. But the reality
Speaker 1: is this could be a chicken or the egg kind
Speaker 1: of thing, because when you think about why a lot
Speaker 1: of people get something like an iPhone or a MacBook
Speaker 1: or whatever, it's because you know, you have a place
Speaker 1: to go when you have trouble with that. And so
Speaker 1: if you knew that for pixel or you can go
Speaker 1: somewhere to learn about it, or you can go somewhere
Speaker 1: for troubleshooting, maybe you'd get more of those products. So
Speaker 1: or if you can try them out. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you've been to like a big box retailer so sad
Speaker 1: these days, you go in there and everything's broken, and
Speaker 1: there's dust everywhere, and the displays are dirty and just
Speaker 1: so unkept, and it's one of these things where like
Speaker 1: I am truly grateful that I get this stuff sent
Speaker 1: to me by the tech companies. I get to play
Speaker 1: with it in the you know, privacy of my own
Speaker 1: home and the comfort of my home, and and I
Speaker 1: get to form my opinions on a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: based on what I test out. And if I didn't
Speaker 1: have that, like if my only frame of reference was
Speaker 1: like going to a big box retailer and looking at
Speaker 1: these things. A lot of times they have like you know,
Speaker 1: those those security ropes on them.
Speaker 2: They're they're all tied.
Speaker 1: Down, you know, they're all just like grimy and yucky,
Speaker 1: and half of them are broken, displays don't work, or
Speaker 1: it's a dummy model. I mean, that's really tough to
Speaker 1: make a six to six hundred to one thousand dollars
Speaker 1: decision on a device that you can barely touch and
Speaker 1: hold right, and you can buy it and return it,
Speaker 1: but that's not very likely for most people. People don't
Speaker 1: want to do that. So I think that these are smart.
Speaker 1: I think it's a good way for people to actually
Speaker 1: play with gadgets that are at these stores and that
Speaker 1: Google cells and I thought it was kind of cool.
Speaker 1: In their blog post, Google said that they actually built
Speaker 1: a full scale mockup of the space at their hangar
Speaker 1: in Mountain View, which is so cool.
Speaker 2: Only Google would do that, right.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Apple does to me more stuff, but this
Speaker 1: is also kind of just showing off everything how Google
Speaker 1: products work.
Speaker 2: They say it's a light filled space.
Speaker 1: That's centered around experiencing the helpfulness of our products, which
Speaker 1: you know, it looks that way. There's a cool little
Speaker 1: exhibit where I guess it'll be changing every so often,
Speaker 1: but right now it's a place where you step into
Speaker 1: like this half dome and there's a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: big screens around you, and you speak and your whatever
Speaker 1: you say is instantly translated in real time into twenty
Speaker 1: four different languages and displayed on the screen.
Speaker 2: So I thought that was cool.
Speaker 1: And again they do say there's an expert store team
Speaker 1: on hand to answer questions, offer repairs, and troubleshoot.
Speaker 2: Issues on the spot. So that's key right there.
Speaker 1: And I've talked about this before on the podcast, but
Speaker 1: I will likely be switching to the new pixel when
Speaker 1: it comes out, the Pixel six. I've been on the
Speaker 1: iPhone for a while. While I love it, I am
Speaker 1: ready for a change. And I do love the Pixel camera,
Speaker 1: so if they mix a good camera with good hardware,
Speaker 1: I am totally sold and I will be.
Speaker 2: Switching to that.
Speaker 1: So I do think that that Google gets kind of
Speaker 1: a raw deal, like Apple gets so much attention. But
Speaker 1: and they you look and there's no denying they do
Speaker 1: things really really well. But you know, Google really has
Speaker 1: an amazing thing happening with their Pixel. It's just that
Speaker 1: it's just not in the public kind of eye enough,
Speaker 1: Like people don't give it enough credit for all the
Speaker 1: amazing things it does, whether it's the camera, whether it's
Speaker 1: the software, whether it's the you know, you know, Google lens,
Speaker 1: the way you search, the way voice assistant works. And
Speaker 1: I think part of that is because there's just not
Speaker 1: a strong ecosystem. There's no real companion watch. The hardware
Speaker 1: has been every single pixel, the hardware has been hit
Speaker 1: or miss, and it's like the it's just you know,
Speaker 1: the one pixel that had great hardware was the four
Speaker 1: XL and it didn't have an ultra wide when everyone
Speaker 1: else was doing ultra wide. And now the new one,
Speaker 1: the five has an ultra wide, but it doesn't have
Speaker 1: a zoom and the processor is really bad.
Speaker 2: So it's like all these little things.
Speaker 1: And don't get me wrong, for the average person that
Speaker 1: just needs a phone to do the things that phones do,
Speaker 1: it's fine. Like a Pixel five is fine. I think
Speaker 1: it should be a little bit bigger. The four A
Speaker 1: is amazing or what is it, the four AXL, No,
Speaker 1: the four A five G. Sorry, so you know, it's
Speaker 1: a great phone. It's just I think people don't give
Speaker 1: them enough credit because Apple just kind of sucks all
Speaker 1: the air out of the room with what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Because it's just so unbelievable, you know, when you look
Speaker 1: at the way the Apple Watch works with, the iPhone,
Speaker 1: works with the iPad, works with everything. And then you
Speaker 1: add on top of that, the apps are so well
Speaker 1: crafted for the iPhone compared to Android. In many circumstances,
Speaker 1: it's really tough to be and when I go out
Speaker 1: and about, it's like, there is the standard and that
Speaker 1: is the iPhone, and it's like, okay, well, you know,
Speaker 1: you know there's other things out there, but it's just
Speaker 1: tough sometimes. Anyway, Cool for you, Google, I hope you
Speaker 1: open one up in Los Angeles. I think that would
Speaker 1: be a good place for you to open one as well.
Speaker 1: All right, Monica says, my husband and I are buying
Speaker 1: a home in Ports Charlotte, Florida. It's in a remote area.
Speaker 1: What options do you recommend since internet service is slim
Speaker 1: and my husband will be working from home. Thank you
Speaker 1: for your help, my husband said, we might have to
Speaker 1: back out of the purchase if you can't find a
Speaker 1: way to work from home.
Speaker 2: Faceplant? Is that face plant? Or hand?
Speaker 1: What's the hand on the face? Is that a face plant?
Speaker 1: Can I hover over this emoji and see what it means?
Speaker 2: Nope? I can't wait. Can I let me copy? Oh explore,
Speaker 2: here we go.
Speaker 1: Let me see woman face palm oh face, palming face palming. Okay,
Speaker 1: there you go. You gotta love Google. Find us an
Speaker 1: answer in a second. Uh, Monica, Uh okay. So a
Speaker 1: couple things. Number one, you can check a website. You
Speaker 1: can check like a website called like high Speed Internet
Speaker 1: dot com. High Speed Internet Internet dot com is a website. Now,
Speaker 1: I found that these Internet checkers are a little bit
Speaker 1: hit or miss. A lot of times are just taking
Speaker 1: a bunch of data and it's not necessarily very find
Speaker 1: like your exact, like specific address. Sometimes it is, sometimes
Speaker 1: it isn't. So once you go to high Speed Internet
Speaker 1: dot com and put in your address, and let's say
Speaker 1: it says like you know, Spectrum and Verizon are are
Speaker 1: available there, well, then you want to go to the
Speaker 1: Spectrum and Verizon websites and pop in your your address
Speaker 1: and then double check and see and you want to
Speaker 1: check for the speeds.
Speaker 2: Now for your husband.
Speaker 1: You know, I know he's working from home, but I'm
Speaker 1: sure anything you know fifty down should be fine.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't depending on what he's doing for work.
Speaker 1: But if he's just doing like Microsoft Teams or you know,
Speaker 1: Zoom or any of these things.
Speaker 2: You don't need a huge amount of bandwidth.
Speaker 1: Now if he's uploading and downloading giant video files like
Speaker 1: I do, yeah, you probably want something a lot higher
Speaker 1: than that. So that's the recommendation. The other two things
Speaker 1: I would check h T Mobile has a new ISP,
Speaker 1: so T mobile dot Com slash ISP and T Mobile
Speaker 1: ISP is basically they're using their their wireless infrastructure. You
Speaker 1: offer you home high speed internet. Now this high speed internet,
Speaker 1: the speeds are not guaranteed to be as fast as
Speaker 1: something that's wired. But it depends where you live. I mean,
Speaker 1: some places T Mobile has really good service, and so
Speaker 1: if you're in one of those places, boom you can
Speaker 1: have really good service.
Speaker 2: Let me just go on the let's go to the T.
Speaker 1: Mobile map and I'm looking at Port Charlotte, and from
Speaker 1: what I can see, it doesn't have five G coverage,
Speaker 1: but it does have four G and it looks like
Speaker 1: it's pretty solid coverage like the entire area.
Speaker 2: So I can definitely tell that it's.
Speaker 1: A more rural area than areas around you, which is
Speaker 1: like North Point and some of the other cities nearby.
Speaker 1: But for for the most part, you're in a service area.
Speaker 1: So I would definitely check out T mobile isp. I
Speaker 1: think it's like fifty bucks a month and they send
Speaker 1: you this router. You put it like near a window,
Speaker 1: and you know your speeds are determined by their service there,
Speaker 1: So definitely check that out. The other thing, and this
Speaker 1: is a little bit more wild, but Starlink is what
Speaker 1: SpaceX is doing for high speed internet with satellites, and
Speaker 1: so it's a little bit more expensive to get started
Speaker 1: with it, but you know, people are reporting that the
Speaker 1: service is pretty good. And so again you know, depending
Speaker 1: on what your husband needs, you know, this.
Speaker 2: Could work for you as well.
Speaker 1: So those are a couple of good options for you,
Speaker 1: and check them out and let me know how the
Speaker 1: new house is.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So Spotify is launching their Clubhouse competitor, and what we've
Speaker 1: realized it's called green what's it called here, It's called
Speaker 1: green Room, and this is an app. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like an acquisition they made, but they are opening it up.
Speaker 1: I was not able to find it in the app store,
Speaker 1: so I couldn't download it and check it out. But
Speaker 1: it looks identical to Clubhouse and not just Clubhouse, but
Speaker 1: Twitter Spaces and then also Facebook is getting their own
Speaker 1: version of this as well, and it's already happening, like
Speaker 1: they're beta test it. Thanks to Jim for sending me
Speaker 1: the link to that. But here's the thing, so, just
Speaker 1: like you know, just like stories, it sounds like these
Speaker 1: rooms and these audio rooms are now a feature of everything,
Speaker 1: Like every app is going to have an audio feature.
Speaker 1: So we've got Twitter with it, We've got Spotify with it,
Speaker 1: we've got Facebook with it. You know, Instagram will probably
Speaker 1: end up having it. I think they actually talked about
Speaker 1: doing like an audio only room for you know, you
Speaker 1: can go Instagram Live. It's the same thing, except people
Speaker 1: are listening instead of watching. And so you know, this
Speaker 1: is this is Spotify's you know, version of this, which
Speaker 1: I think is going to be pretty cool because it's Spotify.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you that I've been testing Spotify for
Speaker 1: the past couple of weeks. I'm waiting for the feature
Speaker 1: for Spotify to come to the Apple Watch. So they
Speaker 1: gave me a couple months of Spotify to kind of
Speaker 1: test it out. Because they couldn't like enable my account.
Speaker 1: I thought was kind of funny they couldn't directly enable
Speaker 1: my Spotify account, but they're like, Okay, here's a couple
Speaker 1: months of Spotify premiums that you can try it out
Speaker 1: when it launches, And so I've installed it.
Speaker 2: I've been using Spotify.
Speaker 1: I'm not a Spotify user, but i gotta say I
Speaker 1: have been quite impressed with Spotify as a non Spotify user.
Speaker 1: They do have a lot of playlists. They do update
Speaker 1: their home screen with like a lot of fresh stuff
Speaker 1: to listen to all the time. There are so many playlists,
Speaker 1: like for every single little slice of how you're feeling
Speaker 1: or wanting to listen to. And I'm just waiting for
Speaker 1: it to be able to download the music to your
Speaker 1: watch because that was the big feature that everyone has
Speaker 1: been waiting for for so long. And honestly, it's the
Speaker 1: feature that has me subscribing to Apple Music because for many,
Speaker 1: many years, that was the only way that you could
Speaker 1: get downloaded music to your Apple Watch was to through
Speaker 1: Apple Music. And so now that Spotify offers it, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kind of see, like, is it best to keep
Speaker 1: Apple Music or do we switch to Spotify as our
Speaker 1: main music service. I mean, they're both the same price
Speaker 1: fifteen bucks a month for the family plan, so it
Speaker 1: also depends on, you know, who has the better offering
Speaker 1: for kids, because my kids are starting to listen to music,
Speaker 1: and I will say, you know, here's where Apple's you know,
Speaker 1: semi evil plan to make everything kind of work together seamlessly.
Speaker 1: Is that, you know, since everything is built into their products,
Speaker 1: it is so much easier, like when your kid has
Speaker 1: an iPad to just literally they're signed into YouTube or
Speaker 1: Apple Music and it's like, oh, here, just here's your
Speaker 1: music because we're on the family plan and your Apple
Speaker 1: idea is linked to mine, and it just does that
Speaker 1: over and over. Oh okay, you need to do this,
Speaker 1: just use this app that's already on your iPad.
Speaker 2: So I get it.
Speaker 1: And Apple does a really nice job with these apps.
Speaker 1: But it's just it's their little plan definitely works. That's
Speaker 1: for sure, keeps you from, you know, using some other
Speaker 1: products that you might use if you had to download
Speaker 1: something you might you might go and research, like what
Speaker 1: the best music service is, or you just use Apple
Speaker 1: Music because it's on there and it's easy and it's integrated.
Speaker 1: So I'm not knocking Apple Music in any way. I
Speaker 1: think it's great, but it's just one of those things
Speaker 1: where the less friction involved, you know, the better it
Speaker 1: is for or the better it is for the company
Speaker 1: that's making it less friction involved.
Speaker 2: Which is Apple.
Speaker 1: In this case, green Room has a couple of interesting features.
Speaker 1: You can have up to one thousand people in a room.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: You can virtually applaud speakers by giving them gems in
Speaker 1: the app, and the gems don't have any money value.
Speaker 1: But there's and there's no way to make money on
Speaker 1: this just yet, but there is some sort of like
Speaker 1: Creator's fund that Spotify is launching, and participants will be
Speaker 1: able to receive payouts for their work based on their
Speaker 1: audience size and consumption, apparently according to Hollywood reporters. So
Speaker 1: I think the trend we're seeing with all of these
Speaker 1: apps nowadays, these new like you know, not just the
Speaker 1: social media apps, well I guess them too, But it's like,
Speaker 1: where's you know, show me the money, where's the monetization?
Speaker 1: Where how can I make some money if I become
Speaker 1: really popular on your platform? How do I make money? Like?
Speaker 2: Can I get a payout from this?
Speaker 1: And it's funny because when when all these platforms first started,
Speaker 1: maybe with the exception of YouTube, that really wasn't a thing.
Speaker 1: And now we've seen Twitter, they're introducing so many features
Speaker 1: that will enable you to get money. And you know,
Speaker 1: Patreon is kind of like the third party service that
Speaker 1: enables all this stuff. But now we're seeing all these
Speaker 1: individual services do it on their own. But it's it's
Speaker 1: all over the place. So now it becomes very complicated.
Speaker 1: So if I want to follow you on Twitter and
Speaker 1: send you a gem on Greenhouse, you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: how do you are green.
Speaker 2: Room rather not greenhouse green Room.
Speaker 1: It's like it's it's this whole idea. This is why
Speaker 1: it all comes back to the same idea I've had
Speaker 1: for years. I would love and someone please make this.
Speaker 1: I would love for every month, I just have a
Speaker 1: little wallet on my It follows me around on my browser,
Speaker 1: and it integrates with things like Twitter and Facebook and
Speaker 1: YouTube or whatever. And it's just a little tiny like
Speaker 1: tip jar, but it follows me. It's like built into
Speaker 1: every app. So let's say I put you know, I
Speaker 1: just subscribe. I put in you know, ten dollars a month,
Speaker 1: and of course, you know, the tip jar company gets
Speaker 1: like a dollar of that for me, or ten percent
Speaker 1: or thirty percent whatever they want to take. And then
Speaker 1: I get the rest as little gems or whatever, and
Speaker 1: then I can give those to people as I go along.
Speaker 1: So let's say I read a really good article from someone,
Speaker 1: I can give them.
Speaker 2: A little tip.
Speaker 1: Let's say I watch a cool YouTube video from someone
Speaker 1: that I really think is great, I can give them
Speaker 1: a little tip. Let's say I listen to someone's speech
Speaker 1: on or clubhouse room, I can give them a little tip.
Speaker 1: So again, it's not like, you know, to sit there
Speaker 1: and subscribe to different creators and stuff for five dollars
Speaker 1: a month is really kind of like it backs you
Speaker 1: into a corner because you're like, ah, I'm already subscribed
Speaker 1: to one person. I can't really do another person. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's like a lot of money every month. But if
Speaker 1: you just put ten dollars into this little wallet or
Speaker 1: whatever it is twenty bucks, who knows, you know, and
Speaker 1: the ability to give that to different people, I think
Speaker 1: would be really transformative for the web because people would
Speaker 1: be able to go on their own Let's say I
Speaker 1: ran my own website, you know, rich on tech dot TV.
Speaker 2: That was you know, I was independent.
Speaker 1: I would just put this little tip jar on there,
Speaker 1: you know, integrate it in there, and you know, when
Speaker 1: people read my articles or my posts or whatever, they
Speaker 1: can give me a little tip. So I think it
Speaker 1: would enable many more people to be creative in the
Speaker 1: ways that they want to be on these platforms without
Speaker 1: choosing to you know, they have to be on.
Speaker 2: One or give it.
Speaker 1: They're all on one platform, like, they can kind of
Speaker 1: be in different places and just all that money comes
Speaker 1: to the same place. So I think that would be transformative.
Speaker 1: I think I talked about that in my podcast a
Speaker 1: long time ago with someone like Stripe that should launch
Speaker 1: that or something. Someone needs to do that, because I
Speaker 1: really think that rewarding people individually on the web, because
Speaker 1: we're getting into this world where like so many people
Speaker 1: are building like a little business on the web. It's like,
Speaker 1: why can't we reward them in an easy way Without
Speaker 1: a subscription to their you know, YouTube, or without you know,
Speaker 1: becoming a super follower on on Twitter, or without you know,
Speaker 1: on Instagram, there's no way to really tip someone or
Speaker 1: give them props or anything, you know. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: think it would really really be good. Marilyn says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: can you advise about portable Wi Fi? My phone receives
Speaker 1: many junk emails about these devices, in particular, I'd like
Speaker 1: to know how they work while traveling on vacation.
Speaker 2: Thanks Marylyn. Marilyn, you're referring.
Speaker 1: To a Wi Fi hot spot, and I don't know
Speaker 1: why you're getting so many junk emails. Maybe you mean
Speaker 1: like you're just getting emails from your carrier about them,
Speaker 1: But I would say when it comes to a hot spot,
Speaker 1: you don't. The average person does not really need one
Speaker 1: these days because your phone functions as a perfectly good
Speaker 1: personal hot spot. So if you have an iPhone or
Speaker 1: an Android just there is a hot spot feature built
Speaker 1: in now. The main thing about that is that you
Speaker 1: are limited to the data allotted for your hot spot,
Speaker 1: and you can call your carrier or look on your
Speaker 1: plan on your carrier's app, and it will tell you
Speaker 1: how much data is allotted to your hotspot. And I
Speaker 1: believe for me it's like fifteen gigabytes a month, which
Speaker 1: you know, between me and my wife we both get
Speaker 1: fifteen gigs. That's a pretty decent amount. And our kids
Speaker 1: have their iPads where they automatically connect to our iPhones
Speaker 1: and you know, when they're out and about, they just
Speaker 1: use our phones as a hotspot. Otherwise, if you want
Speaker 1: a dedicated hotspot. The benefit of that is that it's
Speaker 1: a little simpler to manage because you can plug it in,
Speaker 1: you can leave it turned on if you're in a
Speaker 1: hotel room, you just kind of you know, your hot
Speaker 1: spot is independent of your you know, phone, so it's
Speaker 1: always turned on. You're creating this little Wi Fi hotspot,
Speaker 1: but you will have to pay for a separate plan,
Speaker 1: and you'll probably want a data only plan from your
Speaker 1: carrier to do that, and you can ask your carrier.
Speaker 1: If you're with T Mobile, get a T Mobile hotspot,
Speaker 1: add it to your plan and you can do that.
Speaker 1: The downside of that is that you're going to be
Speaker 1: paying for that every month. No matter what, whether you
Speaker 1: use it or not, you're still going to be paying
Speaker 1: for this hot spot. So if you have a something
Speaker 1: like an RV, or if you travel a real lot
Speaker 1: for work, that might make a lot of sense. But
Speaker 1: if you're just a casual traveler, just use the hot
Speaker 1: spot on your phone, and that's what I recommend. The
Speaker 1: only other option I can tell you about is Zte
Speaker 1: has a portable hot spot that I did a feature
Speaker 1: on and it basically is an unlocked hot spot, and
Speaker 1: let's see is it the z ZT e Z max Connect.
Speaker 1: And what's cool about that is that it's unlocked. So
Speaker 1: you would buy this hot spot. I think you can
Speaker 1: get on Amazon and it's I think it was about
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks when I did a story on it.
Speaker 1: But the cool thing about it is that it's you
Speaker 1: can just pop a SIM card into it and oh okay,
Speaker 1: it looks like they have a newer one now ZT Velocity.
Speaker 1: This is a an unlocked mobile Wi Fi hot spot.
Speaker 1: But weird the picture is at and T. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so just ZT look them up and see their hotspot.
Speaker 1: But you can put a SIM card in there that's
Speaker 1: pre paid, and so the benefit of that is that
Speaker 1: you can kind of run through your data without paying
Speaker 1: a monthly fee. You just kind of buy a bunch
Speaker 1: of data and sometimes they expire thirty to ninety days.
Speaker 1: But you put that SIM card into this device and
Speaker 1: then you can use it, and if you don't need
Speaker 1: it the next three months after that, you just let
Speaker 1: it sit dormant and you buy.
Speaker 2: A new SIM or you reactivate it.
Speaker 1: But I would go use your phone first, and then
Speaker 1: if you need anything else, then you can go the
Speaker 1: route of getting a dedicated Wi Fi hotspot. Ikea is
Speaker 1: teaming up with Sonos for a brand new picture frame speaker.
Speaker 1: This is the SYMPHONIESK picture Frame Wi Fi speaker, and
Speaker 1: so it looks like a piece of art, but it's
Speaker 1: actually a disguised I guess Sonos speaker, which looks really cool.
Speaker 1: Now I'm trying to figure out which room I could
Speaker 1: put this in because I already have Sonos in pretty
Speaker 1: much all my room except for the office. And if
Speaker 1: you follow me on Instagram, you know I just bought
Speaker 1: the Sonos Rome, which I like, and it's just small.
Speaker 2: I mean, I like the.
Speaker 1: Move better because it's bigger and it's got better sound.
Speaker 1: But the Rome is good for, like, you know, taking
Speaker 1: it on little trips and vacations because it's so small.
Speaker 1: But this one is a two hundred dollars It looks
Speaker 1: like a picture frame, not really a picture frame.
Speaker 2: It looks like a piece of art.
Speaker 1: So the fact they're calling it a picture frame Wi
Speaker 1: Fi speaker, I think is a little misleading because it's
Speaker 1: not a place where you put a picture. It's just
Speaker 1: a piece of artwork. And so you can put this
Speaker 1: on your wall, you hang it. It does have a
Speaker 1: cable coming out from the bottom of it, so you
Speaker 1: have to be aware of that.
Speaker 2: But it's white.
Speaker 1: It kind of blends in the picture frame itself comes
Speaker 1: in white or black. And then you can also put
Speaker 1: in different pieces of artwork that they have from Ikia
Speaker 1: and they're each twenty dollars, so it's two hundred dollars
Speaker 1: for the speaker, then twenty dollars for the individual pieces
Speaker 1: of artwork.
Speaker 2: Looks like it comes with one piece.
Speaker 1: Of artwork that like the starter artwork, and then if
Speaker 1: you want to replace that you can.
Speaker 2: But it looks cool. It's a good idea.
Speaker 1: I have not heard it, so I don't know how
Speaker 1: how good it sounds. But if you're looking for that
Speaker 1: kind of cool, sleek, you know, room that you want
Speaker 1: things to blend in, it's it's definitely cool. I mean
Speaker 1: I would I would get this. I just don't really
Speaker 1: know of a place. I guess I can get it
Speaker 1: in my I don't know what's gonna happen to this
Speaker 1: office here that I'm in, probably gonna go back to
Speaker 1: becoming a guest room or the kids room once I'm
Speaker 1: out of.
Speaker 2: Here for work.
Speaker 1: Where am I gonna can do my podcast? I gotta
Speaker 1: figure out a new home. Uh. The speaker's gonna be
Speaker 1: available July fifteenth. Of course, it works with Sonos, which
Speaker 1: is the beauty of this speaker, and you know, I
Speaker 1: love Sonos. It's basically the Switzerland of streaming services, even
Speaker 1: though they do have their own Sonos Radio. You basically
Speaker 1: connect all your different streaming services to this Sonos app
Speaker 1: and that allows you to listen to the same music
Speaker 1: across every room in your house where you have a
Speaker 1: Sona speaker, or you you can have every Sona speaker
Speaker 1: playing something different at the same time. Now that you
Speaker 1: may be limited by your streaming service, they may not
Speaker 1: allow you to have, you know, ten different streams going
Speaker 1: at the same time. I've noticed that with like what
Speaker 1: was Amazon Music the other day? It was like, sorry,
Speaker 1: this is already playing in another room. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, you guys are good, and so I had
Speaker 1: to pause the music on one speaker and then finally
Speaker 1: it started on another. But I think that you know,
Speaker 1: if you have different services, or you know you can
Speaker 1: use some of the free services. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: million free services out there, you can connect those to
Speaker 1: Sonos as well and just listen to things. So kind
Speaker 1: of cool.
Speaker 2: Different.
Speaker 1: You know, Ikia had those other two speakers. They look
Speaker 1: like I think one was a lamp and one was
Speaker 1: a bookshelf speaker. And I did want the lamp. I
Speaker 1: actually wanted that from my bedroom. I never got it.
Speaker 1: But now that I think about it, maybe I should
Speaker 1: reconsider because I didn't realize they were still making those
Speaker 1: like I thought. It kind of like it never really
Speaker 1: came to be. But July fifteenth. I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: different colors here, so yeah, black and white are the
Speaker 1: two different colors.
Speaker 2: Kind of cool? Oh wow, it looks like, oh here
Speaker 2: it is. The other lamp is still around.
Speaker 1: Actually, the base of the lamp that they make with
Speaker 1: the Sono speaker looks like a HomePod, the big HomePod,
Speaker 1: the old one. But yeah, picture frame with Wi Fi
Speaker 1: speaker not available just yet. You gotta wait until July fifteenth.
Speaker 1: Michael says, Rich, can you download different apps like roadblocks
Speaker 1: on the Amazon Fire HD ten Kids Pro. Now, Michael
Speaker 1: was referring to a review I did on KTLA for
Speaker 1: the fire the brand new Amazon sent them along the
Speaker 1: Fire HD ten Kids Pro. They actually sent both of
Speaker 1: the fire HD tens, the new ones the kids and
Speaker 1: the regular one. Now, I'm just gonna be completely honest here.
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan. I'm just not And I'll tell you. Look,
Speaker 1: I know there's you know, some of you listening that
Speaker 1: are saying, rich, I have one of these things. It's
Speaker 1: just fine, and yes it is just fine. But honestly,
Speaker 1: you know, Amazon could do better with these things. They're
Speaker 1: the software is actually really good. I think that Amazon
Speaker 1: does a nice job with the software on these things.
Speaker 1: The hardware, it just leaves so much to be desired,
Speaker 1: from the low memory, to the low.
Speaker 2: Processors, to the screen quality to you know, audio quality
Speaker 2: seems to be fine. But it's just.
Speaker 1: I just it's one of these things where, yes, they're cheap,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why people buy them, and they're
Speaker 1: a very good deal when it comes to the price.
Speaker 2: So you know, especially for Prime.
Speaker 1: Day as it's coming up, it's you're gonna be able
Speaker 1: to get one of these tablets for such a low
Speaker 1: price that it's like a no brainer, Like why would
Speaker 1: I pay three hundred and thirty dollars for an iPad
Speaker 1: when I can get this tablet for like one hundred bucks?
Speaker 1: And I get that, and I totally understand, and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say don't get it, but just know what
Speaker 1: you're getting yourself into. If you're just literally watching things
Speaker 1: and listening to music and reading books, it will be
Speaker 1: just fine. But it's the experience of you that is
Speaker 1: just slow. It's sluggish, it's it's frustrating at times. It's
Speaker 1: just not the best experience, especially when you get to
Speaker 1: the buttery smooth workings of an iPad. And I know
Speaker 1: Rich you love Apple. Oh my gosh, all you do
Speaker 1: is ever talk about Apple. I know, But the reality
Speaker 1: is the iPad is such a great device that it's
Speaker 1: really tough to beat. And so yeah, you're gonna save
Speaker 1: a lot of money getting the fire, but it's gonna
Speaker 1: be frustrating, and there's gonna be moments when you know
Speaker 1: you just don't want to use it or it's just
Speaker 1: not that good.
Speaker 2: And it's fine. You know.
Speaker 1: I actually had a friend over and I know her
Speaker 1: kids have the kindle the fire or not the kindle
Speaker 1: the fire tablet. And I said, you know, if I
Speaker 1: sat on TV that the fire tablet is frustrating and
Speaker 1: slow and laggy, would you be annoyed?
Speaker 2: Would you be upset?
Speaker 1: And she said, well, I don't know what do you
Speaker 1: mean by that? And I said, well, she goes they're
Speaker 1: just fine for like the kids playing games. Since I said,
Speaker 1: all right, that's that's fair enough. So again it is
Speaker 1: just fine, like to the average can assumer that's not
Speaker 1: testing a bunch of stuff. It is just fine. But
Speaker 1: I'm just saying you can do better. And I think
Speaker 1: the iPad entry level iPad on sale, you know, you
Speaker 1: get it for two ninety nine or whatever. It's Yes,
Speaker 1: it's more expensive, but the experience out of that device
Speaker 1: is just going to be so infinitely better. But with
Speaker 1: that said Michael, to answer your question, roadblocks. So I
Speaker 1: specifically wrote about Roadblocks in my fire Kid's review because
Speaker 1: I knew the line was something to the extent of, yes,
Speaker 1: it does this and it does that, but let's be honest,
Speaker 1: the first app your kid is going to download is Roadblocks,
Speaker 1: and it plays that too well. When I went to
Speaker 1: shoot my segment for this thing, we downloaded Roblocks because
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure and test it out. I
Speaker 1: got so many problems with this situation with the with
Speaker 1: the device. It went into a boot loop where it
Speaker 1: just kept restarting. It kept restarting every time we tried
Speaker 1: to open roadblocks on this thing. Now, this could have
Speaker 1: been an isolated incident.
Speaker 2: I emailed Amazon.
Speaker 1: I said to them, I said, hey, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: having a lot of issues with this. Have you seen
Speaker 1: this before? And they said, no, we've never seen that.
Speaker 1: No one else is reporting that, and that was it.
Speaker 1: They didn't really care to follow up, and so I
Speaker 1: just kind of I took that line out of my
Speaker 1: piece for KTLA. I didn't I didn't leave in the
Speaker 1: line where it can play roadblocks. And I felt bad
Speaker 1: because I know that's what parents wanted to know, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't feel right, you know, including the robox roadblocks bit,
Speaker 1: knowing that we had so many problems running roadblocks, and
Speaker 1: I know that's the game that kids want to play.
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest what my kids said when I
Speaker 1: gave them this tablet to test out with roadblocks, they
Speaker 1: they literally threw it back at me and said nobody
Speaker 1: should buy this, and that was their words.
Speaker 2: And I'll be honest, that's a kid.
Speaker 1: And so they were able to see the quality difference
Speaker 1: between an iPad and a fire tablet. And again, I'm
Speaker 1: just telling you this so that you're equipped and you
Speaker 1: understand what your situation. The beauty of these tablets is
Speaker 1: that you can return them. If you get it and
Speaker 1: you hate it and you can't deal with the with
Speaker 1: the situation or how it runs, just return it to Amazon.
Speaker 1: They'll be more than happy to take it back. If
Speaker 1: you get it and you get through all the steps
Speaker 1: and you set it up and it works just fine,
Speaker 1: and you've got this uh the kids sits, the kids
Speaker 1: uh what do they call the parents dashboard on it,
Speaker 1: and it works great for you, then fine, just use
Speaker 1: it and it's it's I'm just telling you my thoughts.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the rich on Tech podcast. This is
Speaker 1: rich on Tech's thoughts. These are my thoughts, and so
Speaker 1: I'm just giving you my experiences so that you know
Speaker 1: and you can compare them against other people's experiences. Read
Speaker 1: a couple of reviews online about the fire Kids tablet,
Speaker 1: the ten and see what they say about it.
Speaker 2: If they say it's.
Speaker 1: Amazing, then you know way those two way, those two
Speaker 1: opinions together kind of average amount, and say, Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: try this, I'll give it, I'll give it a spin,
Speaker 1: and if it's terrible, I'll return it. And with that said,
Speaker 1: I will say what I think is really good about
Speaker 1: these tablets is the software on them, I think is
Speaker 1: pretty darn good. They've got everything built in that you need.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of things that are not there,
Speaker 1: like the Google apps are not there. You can install
Speaker 1: them easily, and yes you can sideload, and yes you
Speaker 1: can download you know, ways of getting them, but that's
Speaker 1: not for the average consumer. The average consumer is not
Speaker 1: sideloading Chrome. The average consumer is not sideloading Gmail. The
Speaker 1: average consumers not sideloading YouTube.
Speaker 2: So to get those.
Speaker 1: Native apps that work really well, you can't get them easily.
Speaker 1: You can't just download them from the Amazon App Store.
Speaker 1: And so for all these reasons, it's just kind of
Speaker 1: not the best experience. You have to use their apps
Speaker 1: and what they you know, their weblinks to YouTube and
Speaker 1: to Gmail, so you got to use the web versions
Speaker 1: of those things. I do like what Amazon's doing when
Speaker 1: it comes to the parental controls. The kid's dashboard is amazing,
Speaker 1: And if your interest is in keeping your kids safe
Speaker 1: on these tablets, I think these tablets do a really
Speaker 1: really good job of that. In fact, really really good.
Speaker 1: I'm maybe not better than the iPad about the same
Speaker 1: but it's Amazon really has it down. I mean they've
Speaker 1: gotten it locked down. So I think that in that case,
Speaker 1: I was very very impressed with what they're doing there.
Speaker 1: So again I'm just you know, giving you some thoughts
Speaker 1: and things to kind of noodle around in your brain.
Speaker 1: If you're thinking of getting one of these things, just
Speaker 1: know that there is a reason why they cost less
Speaker 1: and doesn't make them a bad thing.
Speaker 2: It just makes it so that if you.
Speaker 1: Can, if you're like, if you use it and you're
Speaker 1: fine with it, it's fine, Like you just saved a
Speaker 1: bunch of money. And it's like, Rich, all I'm doing
Speaker 1: is reading a kindle book on here, Well, fine, it's
Speaker 1: gonna work great for that. Rich, All I'm watching our
Speaker 1: Netflix shows or Prime videos or whatever. Fine, it's gonna
Speaker 1: work just fine for that. You don't need a lot
Speaker 1: of horsepower to watch videos on a tablet. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're telling me you're gonna try to run your home
Speaker 1: based business on there, or blog or edit videos or
Speaker 1: capture any kind of pictures on this thing, no, that's
Speaker 1: not gonna work. If you're using it, you know, to
Speaker 1: run a home you know, a little eBay business or
Speaker 1: something like for a tablet. No, not gonna work, drawing,
Speaker 1: making pictures, creating stuff, not gonna work. Consuming content gonna
Speaker 1: be just fine. Michael, Hope that answers your question. Let
Speaker 1: me know what you end up doing. All right, let's see,
Speaker 1: let's talk about this shower head. So I tested a
Speaker 1: shower head called the Nebia. It's got a long name,
Speaker 1: the Nebia by Mowen Quatro, and it's a shower head
Speaker 1: that it got a lot of publicity because Tim Cook,
Speaker 1: Apple CEO, love this shower head. And so this company's
Speaker 1: been around, I think they said for six years. The
Speaker 1: technology was really expensive, but now it's gotten down to
Speaker 1: a price that you know, the rest of us can
Speaker 1: actually consider still expensive. It's still ninety nine dollars on Kickstarter,
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty nine dollars when it gets to stores.
Speaker 1: But I tried it out, and the thing is, this
Speaker 1: is supposed to be easy. They use like this system
Speaker 1: called this process called atomization to make the water into
Speaker 1: this really fine mist. So it feels the best I
Speaker 1: can describe it is it feels like a sauna, but
Speaker 1: instead of like a mist of water like that, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't really see in the sauna or like a
Speaker 1: little little bit. This is like it feels like a
Speaker 1: sauna times a thousand. So your entire shower is like
Speaker 1: filled with this mist like water that just collects on
Speaker 1: your skin, and you know, these.
Speaker 2: Droplets are everywhere.
Speaker 1: And so for that reason, a they don't recommend a
Speaker 1: shower what's it called a shower curtain set up. They
Speaker 1: would recommend kind of like an enclosed shower, like glass doors,
Speaker 1: at least, you know, mostly enclosed. Like my shower is
Speaker 1: mostly enclosed. It's not fully enclosed. I think that's how
Speaker 1: most showers are. Maybe there's some that are fully enclosed,
Speaker 1: but I guess there are. So the deal with this
Speaker 1: thing is that they sent it to me to test
Speaker 1: it out. I installed it on my shower, and of course,
Speaker 1: my shower, like a lot of homes in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: is just totally messed up. It doesn't it's not the
Speaker 1: standard shower situation. So I had my handyman take a
Speaker 1: look and he's like, yeah, the pipe that comes out
Speaker 1: of your wall is really short, so you would need
Speaker 1: to install like a new pipe.
Speaker 2: And it's this whole big thing.
Speaker 1: So I end up getting it to work on my
Speaker 1: kid's shower, which still it was not perfect, and they
Speaker 1: have a shower curtain, so it was like this whole
Speaker 1: big thing where I got the whole bathroom wet. But
Speaker 1: I was able to test this thing out and actually
Speaker 1: shower in it and my kids as well, and I
Speaker 1: will say it was amazing. It was a great experience,
Speaker 1: and it was it was pretty darn different than what
Speaker 1: a typical shower head feels like. And the other thing
Speaker 1: is that this is saving a ton of water, so
Speaker 1: it feels better, but it's also saving like forty percent water.
Speaker 1: And I've got a water bill that just keeps getting
Speaker 1: out of control, and so this would be very appealing
Speaker 1: to me. Now, I didn't end up keeping this on
Speaker 1: my shower because it's not really compatible with what I said,
Speaker 1: my shower setup, but I would consider this if it was,
Speaker 1: and I think that you should too.
Speaker 2: It's a really cool shower head.
Speaker 1: It's it's on Kickstarter, so definitely not Generally, I'm very
Speaker 1: skeptical of Kickstarter stuff because it just feels like so
Speaker 1: many people get burned with it. But this company says
Speaker 1: they've they've already done seven million dollars of Kickstarter on
Speaker 1: the platform. They've done other things on Kickstarter. They are
Speaker 1: gonna ship this, they said, now here's the thing. This
Speaker 1: is why I always say with Kickstarter, I'm very cautious
Speaker 1: because when they first told me about this thing, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna ship it in August, and the day that
Speaker 1: I was doing my story, the morning of the story,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, by the way, we're changing that to September.
Speaker 2: I said, what.
Speaker 1: So I had to go back and retape all the
Speaker 1: stuff that I use to send out to my partner stations,
Speaker 1: because you know it is taped the day before, and
Speaker 1: I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
Speaker 2: And so again this just.
Speaker 1: Goes to show that with like Kickstarter, it's like it's
Speaker 1: never a firm deal. It's like, how did it go
Speaker 1: from August to September? In like literally the day of launch,
Speaker 1: it changes And so you just have to be very
Speaker 1: aware of the pros and cons of Kickstarter. I love
Speaker 1: the fact that Kickstarter can make these amazing ideas come
Speaker 1: to reality, but on the flip side, a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff gets on there that never really gets made or
Speaker 1: worse yet, you know, your money is either taken or
Speaker 1: held up and you don't get things, and it's just
Speaker 1: delayed upon delay, upon delay upon delay, So just be
Speaker 1: aware of that. But if you want to watch the story,
Speaker 1: it's called the Uh. Here's the way to find anything
Speaker 1: I talk about. By the way, just google ktla DeMuro
Speaker 1: plus a keyword, like in this case, it would be Nebia.
Speaker 1: And if you can't remember Nebia, just ktl a DeMuro
Speaker 1: shower head. So let me just try it ktla DeMuro
Speaker 1: shower head and that immediately brings up my story. So
Speaker 1: that's how you find something that I've mentioned on TV.
Speaker 1: It's very very simple, and it always comes to the
Speaker 1: top result.
Speaker 2: I mean, what can I say?
Speaker 1: It's cool, it's great. I mean, it's going to change
Speaker 1: the world. I don't know, but it's definitely. My headline
Speaker 1: was I took a shower using a shower head that
Speaker 1: feels so indulgent it's hard to believe it's actually saving water.
Speaker 1: And I will agree with that. I think that it
Speaker 1: was a very cool experience. My kid also said the
Speaker 1: same thing. He said, that is like the most amazing
Speaker 1: shower ever. So I mean, even if if a kid
Speaker 1: could say that and understand that that's that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Uh, let's see next question. Maren says hey, Rich, Hi
Speaker 1: a Rich, what's a good iPhone memory cleaner?
Speaker 2: Thanks? Send for my iPhone, Maren.
Speaker 1: You don't need one. There is no iPhone memory cleaner,
Speaker 1: and if you get one, it's bogus. There is no
Speaker 1: such thing. iPhone apps can cannot do things to the
Speaker 1: operating the core operating system like they can on androids,
Speaker 1: so they can't clean out the memory. So you do
Speaker 1: not need an iPhone memory cleaner. And if there are
Speaker 1: any on the app store, I don't know what they're
Speaker 1: doing because it's just not something that's possible. Let me
Speaker 1: look memory cleaner, smart cleaner, junk cleaner, phone cleaner, system
Speaker 1: phone doctor.
Speaker 2: Battery life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a ton of them. They're all bogus. Just
Speaker 1: ignore them. You don't need them. The only thing you
Speaker 1: can do on an iPhone to kind of get things
Speaker 1: back up and running or clear out the memory, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it, is just restart your phone.
Speaker 1: And so you can do that by holding down the
Speaker 1: power up button and the serie button and that will
Speaker 1: give you a slider to power off. Or you can
Speaker 1: go into settings and it's settings general, uh reset and
Speaker 1: sorry not reset general, and then shut down and you
Speaker 1: can shut down your phone and then power it back up.
Speaker 1: But those are the only two things you need to know.
Speaker 1: There's no way to like really do what you do
Speaker 1: on an Android, like the the Samsungs have like that
Speaker 1: built in like memory optimization thing, and that's I think,
Speaker 1: what a lot of people have gotten used to over
Speaker 1: the years. But you don't need that for an iPhone,
Speaker 1: and thankfully you don't, because I have literally almost never
Speaker 1: seen an iPhone get bogged down with like any sort
Speaker 1: of memory issue because all apps run in their own
Speaker 1: little sandbox basically, and so when you open up an app,
Speaker 1: it runs, it's using the system resources. When you shut
Speaker 1: it down, it's when you know, close out of that app.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't close it out like people love
Speaker 1: to like swipe out their apps, you don't need to
Speaker 1: do that on an iPhone. And I've been guilty of it.
Speaker 1: I'll do it every once in a while, but it's
Speaker 1: mostly just a nervous thing. It's just like a you know,
Speaker 1: fiddling with my phone thing.
Speaker 2: It's not really necessary.
Speaker 1: Now, if an app is acting up, yes, you can
Speaker 1: close it out, and that you know, once you close
Speaker 1: it out, you can restart the app and it should
Speaker 1: be just.
Speaker 2: Fine, all right.
Speaker 1: Final question, Martha via Instagram says, Hey, Rich, I've been
Speaker 1: following you since the KTLA. Since you join KTLA, you've
Speaker 1: never disappointed.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: What's your recommendation of the iPad? I'm a phone fanatic
Speaker 1: and I want the best form of reference for my photos.
Speaker 1: Laptop versus iPad? Is it the most current model if
Speaker 1: I buy it through HSN? Well to answer your iPhone
Speaker 1: versus or sorry iPad versus laptop question. If you are
Speaker 1: only just doing photos, I would definitely go iPad because
Speaker 1: I think it's a great, great canvas for photos, and
Speaker 1: you can load all your photos on there using iCloud.
Speaker 2: Even if the storage isn't enough.
Speaker 1: You can load them all up there, and you know
Speaker 1: they'll be stored in iCloud but in the cloud, but
Speaker 1: they'll also be viewable on your iPad. You'll be able
Speaker 1: to edit them if you want to get really fancy.
Speaker 1: You can use the Apple pencil, but you can you
Speaker 1: know your finger will work just fine. But I think
Speaker 1: it's a great, great canvas for editing and referencing your
Speaker 1: pictures and organizing them and all that stuff. Laptop, I
Speaker 1: would say only if you're like really doing maybe some
Speaker 1: heavy photo organization.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, laptop seems like overkill to me. So if
Speaker 1: you're just if your only interest is in photos, i'd
Speaker 1: say go iPad. As for the most current model through HSN,
Speaker 1: I would cross reference HSN with something like the Mac
Speaker 1: Rumors Buyer's Guide, and it should tell you on the
Speaker 1: Buyer's Guide, like what the latest version of the devices.
Speaker 1: So if you look at the let's look at the
Speaker 1: eleven inch iPad pro, it's let's see, does it tell
Speaker 1: you like what the You gotta find the model number
Speaker 1: of the device they're selling on HSN and then compare
Speaker 1: at against you know, just look up that model number
Speaker 1: and see if it's the most recent.
Speaker 2: I think it should.
Speaker 1: I think the Buyer's Guide would show you that, but
Speaker 1: I don't really I'm at first glance, I'm not really
Speaker 1: seeing it. But if you look at recent releases, you
Speaker 1: really need the model number. Oh you know what, you
Speaker 1: can just go to I think you can just go
Speaker 1: to the Apple website and just look at the model
Speaker 1: number and compare those and make sure if it's the
Speaker 1: most recent one, and that that should really do it.
Speaker 1: But I'd say, yeah, go iPad that's like my dream.
Speaker 1: My dream is to just use an iPad for everything
Speaker 1: because I'm so dependent on my laptop because I'm video
Speaker 1: editing so much. I would love to make that switch
Speaker 1: to like an iPad pro or something with a keyboard,
Speaker 1: because then you.
Speaker 2: Have the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1: Touch screen, got all the iPad apps, but then you
Speaker 1: can use your your lap or your computer.
Speaker 2: Not your computer. You just have the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1: Right, you get kind of a computer and a and
Speaker 1: a tablet all in one. Oh that sound means it's
Speaker 1: the end of the show. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you would like to submit a question for me
Speaker 1: to answer, just go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash Rich on tech hit the big blue send
Speaker 1: email button. Also, I would love it if you would
Speaker 1: rate and review this podcast to help other people discover it.
Speaker 2: That's always handy.
Speaker 1: I know it seems like one of these things that
Speaker 1: like I don't really feel like doing that, but please
Speaker 1: leave a written review and I will read it on
Speaker 1: the show if I get a new one two hundred
Speaker 1: and forty five ratings. We have a four point eight
Speaker 1: out of five, so thank you for that. You can
Speaker 1: find me on social media at rich on Tech and
Speaker 1: no matter where you live in the US, you can
Speaker 1: download the free KTLA plus app on Apple TV, fireTV,
Speaker 1: and Roku. Little confusion, it's not available through the Apple
Speaker 1: TV app. You have to have a physical Apple TV
Speaker 1: device to download that KTLA plus app. Once you have it,
Speaker 1: scroll to the technology section and watch all of my
Speaker 1: TV segments on demand. My name is rich Demiro. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. There are so many ways you
Speaker 1: can spend an hour of your time. I really do
Speaker 1: appreciate you spending it with me. I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: real soon. Mhm.