Speaker 1: Google has a bunch of new gadgets, a rundown of
Speaker 1: the new Chrome, cast, Pixel and smart speaker, Facebook Messenger
Speaker 1: comes to Instagram, a fun free new Nintendo game, plus
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: you should know about. It's also the place where I
Speaker 1: answer the questions that you send me What's going on?
Speaker 1: My name is Rich Damiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel
Speaker 1: five in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Did I just say what's going on? Twice in a row?
Speaker 2: I must really want to know.
Speaker 1: What's going on? But I do want to know what's
Speaker 1: going on because there's a lot going on. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the wildest time in history, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're all stuck at home, we're working from home. You know,
Speaker 1: the news cycle is just like you can't write this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really pretty wild. But when it comes
Speaker 1: to tech, man, oh man, oh man, there have been
Speaker 1: so many new gadgets. I can barely keep up. I mean,
Speaker 1: we had Google this week, we have I mean, there's
Speaker 1: just so many things coming out. We still haven't even
Speaker 1: gotten to the main event. Which is the iPhone, the
Speaker 1: iPhone twelve. That's still by the time you listen to this,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll have heard something about when the event is.
Speaker 1: But I mean, we just got through like Apple Watch
Speaker 1: and new iPads and now we've got all this Google
Speaker 1: stuff and new Samsung. Samsung just keeps coming out with
Speaker 1: the phone every week.
Speaker 2: It's a lot.
Speaker 1: I just love seeing the innovation, and it's gotten to
Speaker 1: a point where it takes a lot to be innovative
Speaker 1: at this point because these gadgets do what we need
Speaker 1: and I almost need like a reason to change out
Speaker 1: my TV or my internet. Oh yeah, euro came out
Speaker 1: the new Internet, the Wi Fi six one. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you notice, by the way, I've been doing
Speaker 1: some bonus episodes. So my idea with the bonus episodes
Speaker 1: is to do interviews with folks that I find interesting
Speaker 1: that can you know, add some perspective to the various gadgets,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of take a deeper dive into things.
Speaker 1: And so you might have seen the or heard the
Speaker 1: one with Roku. Also, I did one with the new
Speaker 1: Nest audio speaker, so I talked to the head on that.
Speaker 1: So I mean it's been really fun. I love that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff because if I'm into something, I want
Speaker 1: to know. I want to absorb as much information as
Speaker 1: I can about that thing. And so when I do
Speaker 1: these deep dive interviews. For me, if I have a
Speaker 1: Roku or any other gadget, I want to hear what
Speaker 1: the people behind that gadget have to say in a
Speaker 1: much longer form than just, you know, a SoundBite or
Speaker 1: a press release or just you know.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I love doing those.
Speaker 1: Let me know what you think of them at rich
Speaker 1: on tech on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to keep them coming. You're listening to them,
Speaker 1: I mean I could tell because of the numbers, so
Speaker 1: that's good. But just tell me what you think of those,
Speaker 1: and if you have any ideas for who you want
Speaker 1: me to actually talk to. Right now, it's been just
Speaker 1: kind of like new gadget people, but I was thinking
Speaker 1: of just making it sort of a ten minute interview
Speaker 1: every week with someone or something that I find interesting.
Speaker 1: So I'll keep doing those until you tell me to stop.
Speaker 1: But let's get to the top story of the week.
Speaker 1: And Google had their launch night in Google launched a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of new products. Was it the most exciting event. No,
Speaker 1: definitely not. It was It was almost like just watching
Speaker 1: a YouTube.
Speaker 2: Video, which was kind of weird.
Speaker 1: The way they shot it, the way they did it,
Speaker 1: there was no real cohesive like manner to it. But
Speaker 1: that's fine. I mean everyone's trying these things or trying
Speaker 1: to be different, trying to do it in their own way,
Speaker 1: so I don't fault Google for that. I mean, these
Speaker 1: are this is some Really it's different than standing up
Speaker 1: on a stage and presenting something when you're you know,
Speaker 1: if it's not live, you can do things in different ways.
Speaker 1: So anyway, the event was fine. They sent a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff to a journalist. It was like a
Speaker 1: little box of like stuff to use while you watch
Speaker 1: the show, which, by the way, they called it Launch
Speaker 1: Night In and it was at eleven and I kept
Speaker 1: wondering if it was eleven PM, because why would you
Speaker 1: call it Launch night In when it's eleven am. So
Speaker 1: that really confused me. But I got there, I was
Speaker 1: on time, watched the video, and they sent like a
Speaker 1: pair of Google socks. They sent some coffee, they sent
Speaker 1: some candy and a candle which actually smells really good.
Speaker 1: Hold on, I've got it. Right here smells like a
Speaker 1: cozy night in. Oh it's cedar wood. Okay, that's well.
Speaker 1: I've decided that I really like the smell of cedar wood.
Speaker 1: I had this thing burning in my office yesterday and
Speaker 1: my kid came in and he goes, wow, why is
Speaker 1: your office smell so good? And I said it's this candle.
Speaker 1: They said, oh, wow, your office has got a candle now.
Speaker 1: So I anyway, if you like cedarwood, go smell one
Speaker 1: of those at your local wherever you buy candles these days. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's bed, Bath and Beyond still the thing, or what's
Speaker 1: that other one?
Speaker 2: Bath and body works?
Speaker 1: But what's the one in the mall They have the
Speaker 1: really good scented candles there. I always like to go,
Speaker 1: like once a year, I'll be in the mall and
Speaker 1: I'll stop there and I'll just buy like all those
Speaker 1: soaps and all the and so for like a couple
Speaker 1: months or weeks. In our house, everything smells really good.
Speaker 1: The soaps are really like good smelling, and then.
Speaker 2: We forget about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, I think the most exciting thing about the
Speaker 1: Google event was actually not the pixel but the Chrome
Speaker 1: cast with Google TV. This is their brand new streaming device.
Speaker 1: It's fifty bucks, and it seems to kind of hit
Speaker 1: all of the things that I've wanted, which it really
Speaker 1: frustrates me. I use an Apple TV on my primary TV,
Speaker 1: and I think it's just okay. What I like about
Speaker 1: it is that every app is on there. The apps
Speaker 1: work really nice. The remote is horrible. I mean it's horrendous.
Speaker 1: It gets lost all the time. There's no way to
Speaker 1: find it's just the moving around on the touch area
Speaker 1: is just terrible. And it's just okay. It's like my
Speaker 1: least favorite Apple experience. It's like it just works, you know.
Speaker 1: The screen savers are great, but since I don't use
Speaker 1: Apple Photos, I don't get my own pictures in there,
Speaker 1: so that really annoys me. And so this Chrome Cast
Speaker 1: with Google TV is very intriguing because it brings together
Speaker 1: two things that I love, the Google Assistant, a watch list,
Speaker 1: a remote control, and my own Google Photos as a
Speaker 1: screen saver when I'm not using my TV. So this
Speaker 1: device is a tiny you know, it's like a Chrome Cast.
Speaker 1: It's a dongle that plugs into the back of your
Speaker 1: TV and then it has remote control and so it
Speaker 1: does four k HDR sixty. It also supports HDMI pass
Speaker 1: through of Dolby audio content. It has that remote control,
Speaker 1: which has the buttons you need. It's got the volume buttons,
Speaker 1: it's got the input buttons, it's got the void assistant button.
Speaker 1: It's got YouTube and Netflix, which I don't like. I
Speaker 1: don't like how they're pulling a Roku on me by
Speaker 1: giving me two branded buttons.
Speaker 2: And I get it.
Speaker 1: Netflix, Okay, everyone watches Netflix.
Speaker 2: YouTube.
Speaker 1: It's probably not something I would have wanted on there
Speaker 1: because my kids are like addicted to YouTube and that's
Speaker 1: of course what they're going to go to. So I
Speaker 1: hope I can set some restrictions on that. But you know,
Speaker 1: give us the old Google would have given us two
Speaker 1: buttons that we could have programmed in. But you know,
Speaker 1: the new Google and all these other tech companies are
Speaker 1: all about deals. And you know that they got money
Speaker 1: from Netflix or there's some sort of deal signed and YouTube.
Speaker 1: You know there's some sort of deal there. Obviously they
Speaker 1: own it, but you know it's like, come on, why
Speaker 1: does everyone It's not one size fits all Google, and
Speaker 1: you know that this is not the Google that we
Speaker 1: used to know. That's something that Apple would probably do
Speaker 1: or something that you know Roku pioneered, but Google, come on,
Speaker 1: But that's that's the world we live in now. So
Speaker 1: what's unique about this service is that they're trying to
Speaker 1: make a watch list that works across all of your
Speaker 1: streaming services. So you know how frustrating it is when
Speaker 1: you sit down. I go into Hulu and I pop
Speaker 1: through there and see what's on there. I go into
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime and I pop into there and see what's
Speaker 1: playing on there. I go into Netflix, see what's playing
Speaker 1: on there. It's a very frustrating and really slow process
Speaker 1: to find something to watch.
Speaker 2: Well, this is.
Speaker 1: Doing much more broad categories like horror movies. It'll show
Speaker 1: you movies across all the different services on the home screen.
Speaker 1: And I'm just making that up, but that's kind of
Speaker 1: what their idea is. So that's really cool. So it'd
Speaker 1: be like Halloween and by the way, at the bottom
Speaker 1: it'll say HBO Max, Oh cool, I have that, let
Speaker 1: me pop in there. So that's really neat. It works
Speaker 1: with a bunch of apps. YouTube, Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu,
Speaker 1: HBO Max Prime Video are the ones they mentioned. Those
Speaker 1: are the pretty popular big ones. The one I noticed.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna work for right off the
Speaker 1: bat is Apple TV. Now I've only watched one show
Speaker 1: on there, which was The Morning Show, so I'm not
Speaker 1: too worried about that losing that if I switched to this,
Speaker 1: which I probably am this weekend, so you know, maybe
Speaker 1: I'll just have to watch like I was gonna watch
Speaker 1: Greyhound and I went to Bookmarket on the new Google
Speaker 1: TV app on my watch list and I couldn't. And
Speaker 1: that's the other cool thing about this. They're making a
Speaker 1: universal watch list. So now I used to use that
Speaker 1: app called real Good or I use that app called
Speaker 1: real Good, and that works, you know, across everything, but
Speaker 1: you still have to go in and like look at
Speaker 1: it and then go to your device and find it.
Speaker 1: But with this, you can use the Google TV app
Speaker 1: on your phone or just Google add things to your
Speaker 1: watch list and they show up on your TV screen.
Speaker 1: So I think this sounds really, really awesome. You've got
Speaker 1: the slideshow of your Google photos when you're not using
Speaker 1: the device, which is really awesome for me because I
Speaker 1: love that feature. You can also do Google Meet on
Speaker 1: Chrome Cast, which is kind of cool, and of course
Speaker 1: it just works as a Chrome cast as well.
Speaker 2: This is fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: I think, and according to some of the early reviews,
Speaker 1: they did not send me a review unit, but some
Speaker 1: of the early reviews are really saying this thing is awesome.
Speaker 1: Not as customizable as you'd like for the home screen,
Speaker 1: but you know again, I ordered mine from best Buy.
Speaker 1: I'm getting it today, I'm setting it up immediately. I'm
Speaker 1: a switch. Of course, my whole family over to this.
Speaker 1: They're gonna hate me for it, but I am very
Speaker 1: excited for this device. I think that it's Google's best
Speaker 1: chance at kind of making some sense out of the
Speaker 1: streaming TV landscape, and if anyone can do that, it
Speaker 1: is Google. Now, don't forget. Apple TV has a very
Speaker 1: similar feature with their what is it? What do they
Speaker 1: call it? Like Apple TV up next I think is
Speaker 1: what they call it. The problem is not many people
Speaker 1: use Apple TV up next requires the use of an
Speaker 1: Apple device to add stuff to it. It's not perfect,
Speaker 1: and in my case, I've never really used it because
Speaker 1: it just doesn't really work for my workflow. But this
Speaker 1: Google watch list will really work for me. And plus
Speaker 1: you have Google Assistant, you can just say what should
Speaker 1: I watch? So I think that this is like I
Speaker 1: don't know, I have very very high hopes for this
Speaker 1: Google TV, and I'll have more about that as I
Speaker 1: test it. All Right, let's get to the first question,
Speaker 1: and just FYI little housekeeping note. It will be me
Speaker 1: doing the questions from now on or a special guest.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do the computer thing. I didn't like
Speaker 1: that last week. I decided it was kind of gross.
Speaker 1: But it will be me going forward doing the questions.
Speaker 1: I may have folks start sending in voicemails for the questions,
Speaker 1: or I was thinking I might branch the podcast to
Speaker 1: where I just talk about the tech stuff and then
Speaker 1: I do like an hour or two on Facebook Live
Speaker 1: and then cut that down into a podcast where I
Speaker 1: actually can talk back and forth with people. So I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure out the new direction of where to go.
Speaker 1: You can let me know what you think, but it's
Speaker 1: at rich on Tech. But it will be me going forward.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of like the news is that it's
Speaker 1: either gonna be me or special guest, a rotating special
Speaker 1: guest to do the questions. So let's get to the
Speaker 1: first question from Joyce. Joyce subject Lin says, kids phone
Speaker 1: or watch? Have you ever tested anything for children to
Speaker 1: keep in touch with them or know where they're at.
Speaker 1: I'm talking younger kids. Nine years old granddaughter takes her
Speaker 1: scooter to play at a friend's house, then takes off
Speaker 1: to another friend's house. Thank you, Joyce, Joyce. I am
Speaker 1: going to recommend the Apple Watch SE. Now, I know
Speaker 1: this is an expensive way to keep in touch with
Speaker 1: the kids, but I think it is the best way.
Speaker 1: And the reason I think it's the best way is
Speaker 1: because you're going to spend a little bit more buying
Speaker 1: this Apple Watch. But I'm telling you it's going to
Speaker 1: be leaps and bounds ahead of any other solution you're
Speaker 1: gonna find there. And here's what people do. They ask
Speaker 1: me for my opinion, and then they go out and
Speaker 1: they buy the five dollars a month smart watch at
Speaker 1: the mall and they say, real just things sucks, it's
Speaker 1: not that good. And I say, well, I told you
Speaker 1: to get the Apple Watch. So the thing about the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch is that you can use with family. It's
Speaker 1: they have that new thing called family set up. So
Speaker 1: Apple Watch Family setup works with the Apple Watch Series
Speaker 1: four and up, but you need a cellular version. It
Speaker 1: also works works with the Apple Watch SE. So if
Speaker 1: you have a series four and up on cellular. You
Speaker 1: can maybe find one of those on eBay, or maybe
Speaker 1: a family member has it, or you can purchase the
Speaker 1: new Apple Watch se with cellular, and when you purchase
Speaker 1: it with cellular, it starts at two seventy nine, but
Speaker 1: then when you add cellular, it brings it up to
Speaker 1: three hundred and twenty nine dollars. I don't think that's
Speaker 1: that terrible of a price point to have your kid connected.
Speaker 1: Now you do have to set up a service plan
Speaker 1: with your child once you have this watch, so yes,
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit more expensive. When I went
Speaker 1: to set this up on my phone for some reason,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure, it's said that it was zero
Speaker 1: dollars a month on my Verizon plan. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that was some sort of special I didn't actually
Speaker 1: set it up because I'm still testing this feature, but
Speaker 1: that was interesting. But usually phones are about ten dollars
Speaker 1: a month extra. I'm not sure what the pricing is
Speaker 1: on this whole family setup thing, but that's what i'd recommend.
Speaker 1: The only other thing that I found that even comes
Speaker 1: close is a watch called the Dimo smart Watch. What
Speaker 1: it or is it Dino? Sorry, it was the Dino
Speaker 1: Dino Smartwatch from cool Pad. I'm not even sure if
Speaker 1: they're still supporting this thing, but that was the one
Speaker 1: that I tested and I thought was actually pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's from Coolpad Dino Kids dot Com. This one is
Speaker 1: sixty dollars and you of course have to buy the
Speaker 1: plan with that as well. It runs on the T
Speaker 1: Mobile network. But I thought this one was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's just the software that kind of is not very good.
Speaker 1: And this is what I'm saying. With Apple, You're gonna
Speaker 1: get fantastic software, fantastic support, every app. You can imagine
Speaker 1: features that are written for this device that Apple has
Speaker 1: thought of for a child, and so you'll be able
Speaker 1: to keep track of them, You'll be able to see
Speaker 1: where they go, you'll be able to call them, message them.
Speaker 1: I think it's the absolute best solution you can think of,
Speaker 1: and that's what I would go with.
Speaker 2: Joyce.
Speaker 1: You want my opinion, you're gonna get it here on
Speaker 1: the rich On Tech Show. All right, let's move on
Speaker 1: to the second most important. It's funny because the things
Speaker 1: I think people are gonna buy the most of at
Speaker 1: the Google announcement are the speaker and the phone and
Speaker 1: the Chrome cast. But I'll go with the phone because
Speaker 1: I do think this is a big announcement in the
Speaker 1: scheme of things. So they announced two new phones, the
Speaker 1: Pixel five and the Pixel four to a with five
Speaker 1: and both of these have five G. So let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's go over the Pixel five. This is kind of
Speaker 1: their top of the line Google phone. Five G connectivity,
Speaker 1: water resistant, wireless, charging, four thousand million our battery.
Speaker 2: Which is not that good.
Speaker 1: Because we know that the battery life on the last
Speaker 1: Pixel was horrendous, so let's hope that this one lasts.
Speaker 1: It's got eight gigabytes of RAM one, twenty eight gigs
Speaker 1: of storage, a six inch full HD plus o LED
Speaker 1: smooth display, which that means it's got ability to go
Speaker 1: ninety hertz refresh rate. It's got this qualcump Snapdragon seven
Speaker 1: to sixty five G, which is not the top of
Speaker 1: the line. The top of the line is the what
Speaker 1: I said, the eight sixty five or the whatever it is.
Speaker 1: It's something in the eights and it's that's the main chip.
Speaker 1: This is a lower end chip, which I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: fault them Ford just yet. And then it's got the
Speaker 1: rear camera. It's got twelve megapixels, and then a sixteen
Speaker 1: megapixel ultra wide, so yes, we finally got an ultra
Speaker 1: wide on the Pixel. And then it's got night Site
Speaker 1: Live HDR plus, which they said they improved, a cinematic
Speaker 1: pan feature, which is a video feature that makes your
Speaker 1: videos look more Hollywood style with like nice panning, like
Speaker 1: pretty much what Apple does on the iPhone, Like when
Speaker 1: you take video on that phone, it.
Speaker 2: Just looks like it just looks beautiful.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the ultra wide, portrait light, stereo speakers,
Speaker 1: and USB C and the interesting thing on the Pixel
Speaker 1: four A with five g you drop down to a
Speaker 1: small a bigger screen, actually the same processor. You still
Speaker 1: get the ultra wide and you get a three point
Speaker 1: five millimeters audio jack. So what don't you get with
Speaker 1: the four A? Uh, you get let's see, you don't
Speaker 1: get the ninety hurts. You still get the same Oh
Speaker 1: it's six gigs, a RAM, one hundred and twenty eight
Speaker 1: gigs of storage, a smaller battery.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I think the four A is probably gonna be best
Speaker 1: for most people because it's got that audio jack and
Speaker 1: you know, most of the features you need. The Pixel five,
Speaker 1: which I kind of want to be my next phone,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna switch. I think I've got this
Speaker 1: crazy plan. Okay, I'll tell you what my plan is.
Speaker 1: Because my plan is to activate my Apple Watch because
Speaker 1: I can't live without that on my wife's phone under
Speaker 1: family setup, and then use the Pixel five as my phone. Now,
Speaker 1: what I'm not gonna get are my text messages and
Speaker 1: notifications as many to the watch, but I'll still have
Speaker 1: my running and my music on there. But I'll still
Speaker 1: get the Pixel five day to day. Now, if I
Speaker 1: try this Pixel five and I find that it's super
Speaker 1: not fast like the Pixel four.
Speaker 2: Is, just it's not.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't keep up with like the main phones
Speaker 1: out there, like I'm using all these phones that are
Speaker 1: so good.
Speaker 2: So anyways, that's my plan.
Speaker 1: This thing is, by the way, six hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: nine dollars for the Pixel five, the Pixel four A.
Speaker 2: For a five G is let's see how much that
Speaker 2: one is? They did?
Speaker 1: They say the price on that that is two hundred
Speaker 1: dollars less, so five hundred bucks, five hundred dollars. That
Speaker 1: is going to be the for most people.
Speaker 2: Right there.
Speaker 1: You get the five G, you get the amazing camera
Speaker 1: set up, and I think that Google, and this is
Speaker 1: what a lot of people are saying, not just me,
Speaker 1: but Google has kind of given up that that top
Speaker 1: of the line.
Speaker 2: If you want top of the line at this point, you.
Speaker 1: Got to go with one of the Samsung Ultras or
Speaker 1: the iPhone you know pro that's those are the top
Speaker 1: of the line phones. That's that's the bottom line. This
Speaker 1: is for everyone else. And I'll be honest, I don't
Speaker 1: think ninety nine percent of people need the two phones
Speaker 1: I just mentioned. Nobody needs this Samsung Ultra unless you're
Speaker 1: an influencer or an early adopter or got to have
Speaker 1: the latest, greatest, best.
Speaker 2: Thing out there.
Speaker 1: Most people need just a nice phone, and I think
Speaker 1: what Google has done with the Pixel four A with
Speaker 1: five gs made a really nice phone. Now, given I
Speaker 1: have not tested it, I need to test this thing
Speaker 1: out and see if it works day to day, but
Speaker 1: I think it will for someone that just wants a
Speaker 1: really nice experience and a good camera. Same thing with
Speaker 1: the Samsung. I'll talk about this in a moment, but
Speaker 1: the Samsung S twenty f it was fe fan edition.
Speaker 1: That's a really nice phone and that. But I honestly,
Speaker 1: I think that the Pixel four A with five G
Speaker 1: is gonna be better than that, or better choice, or
Speaker 1: the Pixel five for the same price.
Speaker 2: So again, unless.
Speaker 1: You're an influencer you make a living making videos all
Speaker 1: this good stuff, these phones are gonna be pretty awesome
Speaker 1: for you. Oh that was a big pop pop I
Speaker 1: thought this had a pop thing in it.
Speaker 2: I thought this.
Speaker 1: I thought I didn't need a pop screen. I thought
Speaker 1: this Mike pop pop pop pop pop. Maybe it's just
Speaker 1: when I do a certain thing. Uh okay, what else
Speaker 1: do you need to know about these phones? Pixel five
Speaker 1: has IP sixty eight water and dust resistance. They don't
Speaker 1: mention that with the Pixel four A, So I'm wondering
Speaker 1: if that doesn't have it. Mmm, that would be not
Speaker 1: so nice. But you know who's dunking their phone anyway?
Speaker 1: How many times do you get your phone wet? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's nice to have, but uh okay. The other feature
Speaker 1: they have on these phone is called hold for Me.
Speaker 1: It's a cool feature Google Assistant. You know they're building
Speaker 1: all these smarts into it, but Google Assistant, if you're
Speaker 1: on hold with a company, it will say, hey, we
Speaker 1: hear hold music, Can we jump in, and we'll the
Speaker 1: assistant will hold on the line for you listen for
Speaker 1: the person to pick up, and when they pick up,
Speaker 1: it'll say hey, hey, hurry up, get over here, get
Speaker 1: to your phone, and you can do that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Is that much different than just leaving your phone on speakerphone?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, what's the difference to me?
Speaker 1: That's what I do if I ever have to wait
Speaker 1: on hold. But you know, it's Google's way of doing things.
Speaker 1: And we'll see if it's any better. I think the assistant,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll maybe talk to the person, maybe do
Speaker 1: a little like pitter patter, be like, hey.
Speaker 2: I'm the Google assistant. I'm just I'm just here until
Speaker 2: the you know, hold on, Hey Jim, get over here.
Speaker 2: You got the person just picked up.
Speaker 1: So maybe that's what I'll do, all right, So let's
Speaker 1: go into Bob's question. Bob says, I just saw this
Speaker 1: phone because I got an email from slick Deals.
Speaker 2: Is it worth it? Is it a good phone?
Speaker 1: I think I can trade in my Galaxy S seven
Speaker 1: and get a good deal. I'd love your thoughts, Bob,
Speaker 1: and he sent a link along with the Samsung unveils
Speaker 1: Galaxy S twenty fe for every fan. So Bob, to
Speaker 1: answer your question, I have been using the Samsung Galaxy
Speaker 1: S twenty fan addition, and last in the last podcast,
Speaker 1: I talked about how this could be my perfect phone,
Speaker 1: and I'll be honest, it is a fantastic little device.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think Samsung did a great job in
Speaker 1: this device. And I can't really find any major issues
Speaker 1: with this device.
Speaker 2: It's got.
Speaker 1: It's a six hundred and niney nine dollars device, which
Speaker 1: it's already been on sale for five ninety nine and
Speaker 1: like you said, Bob, you saw it for a two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars trade in offer, and so this is a
Speaker 1: mid range device. It's got a great screen, it's got
Speaker 1: a nice refresh ratest, good battery life. I did test
Speaker 1: the battery a little bit more. It's working very nicely.
Speaker 1: I'm very happy with this device. The only thing I'm
Speaker 1: missing on it is a nice case. And I think
Speaker 1: this device is actually so good you can use it
Speaker 1: without a case, but who wants to risk that, right,
Speaker 1: It's got a nice grip to it, It's got a
Speaker 1: nice feel. The camera is excellent. Is it an iPhone camera? No?
Speaker 2: Is it the best camera? No? But is it a
Speaker 2: really good camera? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I'm loving the pictures I'm taking on this thing. I'm
Speaker 1: not sitting there wanting more. I mean, I'm looking through
Speaker 1: some of these shots I took at the beach and
Speaker 1: they look fantastic. In fact, I need to tweet some
Speaker 1: of these out.
Speaker 2: Is it the pixel? No? And I think that many.
Speaker 1: People would be better served with a pixel, But I
Speaker 1: don't think you're gonna get that same deal you're gonna
Speaker 1: get from the pixel that you get for this phone.
Speaker 2: Like, Samsung likes.
Speaker 1: To make things a certain price, and then the carriers
Speaker 1: take over and they discount these things and they kind
Speaker 1: of run with it. Hundred dollar six nine becomes a
Speaker 1: three ninety nine phone, or, like you said, a one
Speaker 1: ninety nine. So I can I can definitely one hundred
Speaker 1: percent recommend the Galaxy S twenty Fan Edition. I think
Speaker 1: it is a perfectly great phone for every fan, not
Speaker 1: just every fan, and it's it's really a phone for
Speaker 1: the every person. So it's just a great phone for
Speaker 1: the every day user, and I can definitely recommend it.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the next item of the week.
Speaker 1: This is a big announcement from Facebook and they are
Speaker 1: just integrating their services a little bit more. Facebook is
Speaker 1: effectively building Facebook Messenger into Instagram. Let that sink in
Speaker 1: for a moment. Facebook is building Facebook Messenger into Instagram.
Speaker 1: Why are they doing this? Well, it makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. It expands their reach. Let's let's be honest here,
Speaker 1: there's been a a little pushback on Facebook from the
Speaker 1: younger generation. They are not so much on Facebook anymore.
Speaker 1: Maybe their parents are, but they're not. They're on Instagram
Speaker 1: and they love Instagram even though they don't necessarily care
Speaker 1: about Facebook. And what does this mean for Facebook? It
Speaker 1: means hmmm, well, that's kind of frustrating because if let's
Speaker 1: say you're on Instagram and your mom's on Facebook, well
Speaker 1: that kind of sucks that you can't text her through Instagram.
Speaker 1: Why don't we make these things work together? And so
Speaker 1: that's exactly what they're doing. So you can now chat
Speaker 1: with folks cross platforms, so to say, or cross app
Speaker 1: so to say. So here's what's happening. You open up
Speaker 1: your Instagram app, it'll say, hey, do you want messenger
Speaker 1: inside Instagram? And you say sure, And once you do that,
Speaker 1: there's no going back. Beware, you cannot go back to
Speaker 1: the old Instagram experience of DMS and boringness. Once you
Speaker 1: up grade now. Once you upgrade to Messenger, it is
Speaker 1: a party inside Instagram. You're gonna get all kinds of
Speaker 1: new features, including watch together so you can watch a
Speaker 1: little videos together. You're gonna get disappearing messages if you
Speaker 1: want to turn that mode on, selfie stickers, emojis, animated
Speaker 1: message effects, gradient colors for your texts, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a little circus inside your Instagram and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be fun. Because Instagram was pretty boring for messaging. I
Speaker 1: think this is awesome. I know I'm probably in a
Speaker 1: smaller minority of opinion there, but the reason I think
Speaker 1: it's awesome is because whatever makes it easier for me
Speaker 1: to message folks and break away from I Message, I
Speaker 1: am all for it. Every single person in the US
Speaker 1: seems to have Instagram installed on their phone, so if
Speaker 1: I can now message them through Instagram in a way
Speaker 1: that seems like texting, I am all for that, and
Speaker 1: I love I Message, but I'll be honest, it's really
Speaker 1: frustrating that the American's reliance on I Message is just
Speaker 1: so annoying, Like, oh, you're trying to send me a
Speaker 1: picture and it comes through one tiny half megapixel because
Speaker 1: you're sending it from an Android to my iPhone.
Speaker 2: Or a video.
Speaker 1: Do you ever have someone try to send a video
Speaker 1: from an iPhone to an android? I mean, try watching that.
Speaker 1: So if I can say, oh, I can just send
Speaker 1: you that full res picture or a nice resolution picture
Speaker 1: through Instagram and it's actually sent through Messenger, Oh I
Speaker 1: can do that, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: So I am a huge fan of this.
Speaker 1: I know that there's a lot of talk about Facebook
Speaker 1: trying to wrap itself up into a tighter bundle so
Speaker 1: that the antitrust folks can't get through to them. But
Speaker 1: let's be honest here. Is Facebook Messenger really a dominant
Speaker 1: messaging platform. No, No one's saying, hey, use Facebook Messenger
Speaker 1: to message. Nobody's saying that you can only get I
Speaker 1: Message if you have an Apple product.
Speaker 2: It only works to other Apple products.
Speaker 1: Apple has not done anything to open up I Message
Speaker 1: in any way to any other platform besides their own,
Speaker 1: and it has a strong armhold on us users here
Speaker 1: who are on the iPhone, and they love their I Message.
Speaker 1: In fact, I would venture to say that people would
Speaker 1: switch to an Android if they weren't so wrapped up
Speaker 1: in I Message.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is the truth.
Speaker 1: But I also just see the bigger picture of things
Speaker 1: in that they have built a force to be reckoned
Speaker 1: with with I Message, and nobody can touch that here
Speaker 1: in the US. At least outside the US, people don't
Speaker 1: understand it. They say, why are you so obsessed with
Speaker 1: I message? I Message? I Message? We use WhatsApp, we
Speaker 1: use line. In Japan, we use we Chat. In China,
Speaker 1: we use SMS, we use Snapchat, we use Facebook Messenger,
Speaker 1: we use WhatsApp, we use Instagram, But no everyone here
Speaker 1: uses I message anyway.
Speaker 2: Just be on the lookout for that.
Speaker 1: Was that about the Okay, I don't know where I
Speaker 1: am right now, mine a new question, I think I am.
Speaker 2: Let's go to Amanda.
Speaker 1: Amanda says, I moved into an older relative's house. She
Speaker 1: does want me to install cable right now.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming you mean doesn't.
Speaker 1: What Wi Fi product could I purchase that doesn't cost
Speaker 1: an arm and a leg and gives me unlimited data
Speaker 1: that you could recommend? Would appreciate any suggestions. I am
Speaker 1: new at this.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Well, if she doesn't want you installing anything, you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna have to go with a mobile hotspot. So when
Speaker 1: it comes to mobile hotspots. I recently recently reviewed one
Speaker 1: called the Zte max Connect. And what I like about
Speaker 1: this device is it's unlocked. It's ninety dollars for an
Speaker 1: unlocked device. And what this Wi Fi hotspot does is
Speaker 1: it allows you to put in pretty much any SIM
Speaker 1: card and then it will spit out a Wi Fi network.
Speaker 1: And so ninety dollars gets you this device. Then you
Speaker 1: have to buy the SIM and the service, and you
Speaker 1: can do that in a few ways. You can buy
Speaker 1: a prepaid SIM and pop it in there. What I
Speaker 1: would do. Oh and by the way, the SIM networks
Speaker 1: that it supports is T Mobile, metro by T Mobile, Sprint,
Speaker 1: gen Mobile, Boost Mobile, Simple Mobile, Ultramobile, Red Pocket. Haven't
Speaker 1: heard of that one, Republic Wireless, and other GSM networks.
Speaker 1: So I mean, just find a plan that you like
Speaker 1: that's cheap, you pop in the SIM card and there
Speaker 1: you go, You've got WiFi. That's what I would do.
Speaker 1: Your other option is to sign up for a mobile
Speaker 1: hotspot from a carrier, But why would you do that
Speaker 1: when you can buy this for ninety dollars unlocked and
Speaker 1: there's no contract. You can even just go buy a
Speaker 1: prepaid card. Even if you want to try it out,
Speaker 1: buy the router for ninety bucks. They actually, I don't
Speaker 1: know if they're still coming with the free plan. It
Speaker 1: was coming with three gigs of data to try it out.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's still doing that thirty days
Speaker 1: of no contract service from Gen Mobile. Maybe it does
Speaker 1: come with that still, I'm not sure. But anyway, you know,
Speaker 1: try it out and just see how it works.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: It's called the Zte max Connect Unlocked Mobile Wi Fi
Speaker 1: Hotspot four g lt E GSM router MF nine two
Speaker 1: eight up to one hundred and fifty megabits download speed,
Speaker 1: connect up to ten devices, create a wirewland anywhere bundle.
Speaker 1: So just search that on Google and you should find it. No,
Speaker 1: you can find a link in the show notes. By
Speaker 1: the way, do you know I link up everything in
Speaker 1: the show notes.
Speaker 2: I hope you know that.
Speaker 1: I hope you're looking at those links because I have
Speaker 1: no way of knowing if you're clicking those, tapping those
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 2: All right, more Google News.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to the Nest Audio speaker. Google was
Speaker 1: kind enough to send me one of these to try out,
Speaker 1: and uh, I can't really say my review yet. Apparently
Speaker 1: reviews are embargoed until Monday, but I will say that
Speaker 1: it is a very nice looking speaker. Oh well, I
Speaker 1: guess Google search for me. It's a nice looking speaker,
Speaker 1: and it replaces the original Google Home, which was just
Speaker 1: when that thing came out. I remember going up to
Speaker 1: that event in San Francisco when the Google Home speaker
Speaker 1: came out.
Speaker 2: It blew my mind.
Speaker 1: Because here you are Google Assistant built into a speaker
Speaker 1: that can do all kinds of stuff. We never had
Speaker 1: anything like that before except Alexa, but this was Google,
Speaker 1: so I was more intrigued.
Speaker 2: And what do you get with this new one?
Speaker 1: You get better hardware, better software, a better design, whole
Speaker 1: home audio, faster Google Assistant. They say that all these
Speaker 1: things sound better on this. They've got this ambient IQ feature,
Speaker 1: which means when you're using like a you know, toothbrush
Speaker 1: or the water's running, Google a system's automatically gonna sound louder,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to like sit there and oh
Speaker 1: do I have to just the volume again because I'm
Speaker 1: like the dishwashers running no media. IQ automatically changes the
Speaker 1: equalization depending on what you're listening to, whether it's the
Speaker 1: voice music or podcast music. Recommendations. You can just say
Speaker 1: hey G, hey G, recommend some music and it will
Speaker 1: speaker groups, which is intriguing me at this point. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, you know, I built this Sonos. I built
Speaker 1: this Sonos world in my house over the past many years,
Speaker 1: and I have a Sonos in pretty much every room.
Speaker 1: And I love Sonos but and I love the one
Speaker 1: speaker that I bought recently, which is the Go Anywhere.
Speaker 1: It's like the it's four hundred dollars, it's like rechargeable.
Speaker 2: It's just great.
Speaker 1: But I'll be honest, and I have this Sonos Bar
Speaker 1: which hooks up to my TV, and then I've got
Speaker 1: the two speakers paired behind that for stereo sound. But
Speaker 1: I am really intrigued with kind of using these these
Speaker 1: Google speakers throughout my house because I feel like it's
Speaker 1: more fun at this point. And I've got almost all
Speaker 1: these speakers in rooms too, and between the Mini and
Speaker 1: then this new one, which is one hundred dollars by
Speaker 1: the way, and then you've got the Max and then
Speaker 1: you've got the Smart displays, you can build a pretty
Speaker 1: good whole home audio system using these things. And the
Speaker 1: cool thing is you get voice control, which unlike my
Speaker 1: so nos, I don't really have voice control. Technically, it's
Speaker 1: there because of the one speaker I have that has
Speaker 1: it the uh what's that one called the move? But
Speaker 1: I've never used that because it just seems too cumbersome.
Speaker 1: But with this, you can say h or no not HG,
Speaker 1: hey G, move the music into this room and boom
Speaker 1: your music stream moves into this room. Or eight, hey G,
Speaker 1: put the play music in all my rooms. That is
Speaker 1: pretty compelling to me. Or I keep forgetting what the
Speaker 1: syntax is, hey G, play music in my living room.
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So I may set up these speakers across my entire
Speaker 1: house and just see how I like it. But I
Speaker 1: kind of think this might be overtaking my sonos. The
Speaker 1: one thing it's not gonna do I need to test
Speaker 1: this out is I've got my sons hooked up to
Speaker 1: my TV. But I'm thinking if I can somehow pair
Speaker 1: these speakers in my living room, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think that's where it's gonna end.
Speaker 1: So that means I have to use my sonas setup
Speaker 1: for the living room, just for the TV, and then
Speaker 1: the rest for everything else. That's not very good. That
Speaker 1: doesn't sound very clean. I want to clean setup. But
Speaker 1: I will say the Sonos app has been lacking. I've
Speaker 1: got I'm on that gross s one app, which is
Speaker 1: like the old version. Now it's got the yucky icon
Speaker 1: and it's kind of slow these days, it doesn't work
Speaker 1: very well. I just feel like Sons is at this point.
Speaker 1: It's too high end, it's too expensive, and I just
Speaker 1: feel like Google with these speakers, had one hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: You could put a speaker in every room so easily,
Speaker 1: compared to a Sonos speaker that's way more expensive. I
Speaker 1: think their minimum is two hundred. But I do love
Speaker 1: my Sonos, so I'm not I'm not totally trashing them.
Speaker 1: I just feel like this seems more compelling to me
Speaker 1: at this point, and I will see if I need
Speaker 1: to switch to this this new Google setup. Anyway, that
Speaker 1: speaker launches, probably by the time you hear this, it'll
Speaker 1: be launching.
Speaker 2: I'm sending one.
Speaker 1: I'm purchasing one for my sister. She's building a little
Speaker 1: home gym. She's a personal trainer, so she was She
Speaker 1: asked me, she said, hey, Rich, can you recommend a
Speaker 1: Bluetooth speaker?
Speaker 2: And I was thinking about it and I like the
Speaker 2: UI boom.
Speaker 1: So then as I thought, I'm like, whoa hold on,
Speaker 1: stop the presses here. Why would I not just get
Speaker 1: you a Google Nest audio speaker. I mean, doesn't that
Speaker 1: make sense? And so that's what I'm buying her. I'm
Speaker 1: gifting her this speaker, not the one that Google sent me. No,
Speaker 1: that doesn't doesn't work that way. I'm gonna buy her
Speaker 1: one on the website and have it shipped to her.
Speaker 1: I ask her, ask her which color she wanted. It
Speaker 1: comes in these five cool colors, and she chose the uh,
Speaker 1: the black, which is like, okay, can we be any
Speaker 1: more boring? I mean it's nice. I think that it's
Speaker 1: charcoal is the the official color. But they've got like charcoal,
Speaker 1: They've got this sky, they've got this green, They've got
Speaker 1: just some really nice colors gray, I've got the sky
Speaker 1: blue that they sent me. But you know, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess you want to be boring and go with
Speaker 1: the most basic of all tech colors. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: think she's gonna love it. And I asked her, I said,
Speaker 1: you have a streaming service, like for music. She does
Speaker 1: not subscribe. But the cool thing about this is. There's
Speaker 1: so many services you can use. I just tested iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: with it and it sounds fantastic. You can just you know,
Speaker 1: she can use her phone with the iHeartRadio app and
Speaker 1: cast it to there, or she can just like call
Speaker 1: up a radio station. Or you can use Spotify for free,
Speaker 1: or you can use the ad supported YouTube music. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many options versus just the standard Bluetooth speaker
Speaker 1: that needs to be you know, bluetoothing from your phone
Speaker 1: the whole day.
Speaker 2: Which is gonna, you know, be annoying.
Speaker 1: You walk out of the gym and you got to
Speaker 1: walk upstairs to do something and your music stops. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I think she's gonna love it, and I am more
Speaker 1: than happy to spend the one hundred dollars on her
Speaker 1: to get her that speaker. That's the kind of person
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 2: I love.
Speaker 1: I love buying people technology, Like my niece. I bought
Speaker 1: her the new iPad because it's like, this is awesome stuff.
Speaker 1: And since I get to test it, I know that
Speaker 1: it works awesomely, and of course I share it with
Speaker 1: you too, I share the info. Oh, speaking of iHeart Radio, Oh,
Speaker 1: do I have another question? Well, let me just do
Speaker 1: this real quick. iHeartRadio now has a standalone Apple Watch app,
Speaker 1: which is really neat.
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you realize, but they have a
Speaker 1: really good service going. And I'm not just saying that
Speaker 1: because I do. I do things for KFI. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm on there with Bill Handle and Jennifer Jones Lee
Speaker 1: every week. But I think what iHeartRadio does is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: They've got all these radio stations, which you know, you
Speaker 1: can listen to in the iHeartRadio app, but they also
Speaker 1: have kind of like their equivalent of like serious stations.
Speaker 1: So there's a station called like hit Nation. There's a
Speaker 1: station that's like hit Nation for kids, which is like
Speaker 1: a kid friendly hit Nation. There's a hit Nation Top twenty.
Speaker 1: There's an iHeartRadio Country. I mean, they have really good stations,
Speaker 1: and what I like about it is that they do
Speaker 1: blend in the DJs, and yeah, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, it's look, it's DJs.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they're fun.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's like nonsense, but I kind of like having
Speaker 1: the person telling me what that song is, right. I
Speaker 1: already went through this with with Apple Music Country and
Speaker 1: Serious XM. Serrius XM has made it a thing to
Speaker 1: have DJs on their stations. They don't need to have them,
Speaker 1: but it differentiates them from something like Spotify. And as
Speaker 1: I get older, I and I've always loved radio DJs.
Speaker 1: I like the perspective, Hey, here's the latest song from
Speaker 1: you know what was it Carly Pierce. The other day
Speaker 1: they gave like a little introduction as to like, you know,
Speaker 1: she just broke up with her husband, and it's like,
Speaker 1: here's the song she wrote MM pretty much about him.
Speaker 1: And so it's that little bit of perspective that I
Speaker 1: think radio DJs have always offered when it comes to
Speaker 1: new music. When I'm listening to Spotify, a song comes
Speaker 1: on and I've said this before, I have no clue
Speaker 1: is that song brand new or was it done ten
Speaker 1: years ago? And it just happens to show up in
Speaker 1: my playlist because of AI. So that's why I like
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio because you get that perspective from the DJ. So anyway,
Speaker 1: if you have an Apple Watch, you've got the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: You can listen like I tried this on my run
Speaker 1: the other day, where I can just listen to the
Speaker 1: station streaming live. And so yeah, you have to have
Speaker 1: a data connection to do that or Wi Fi. But
Speaker 1: it's kind of cool because there's one more way to
Speaker 1: kind of free up your Apple Watch from the iPhone.
Speaker 1: And it did not work in my case, I'll be honest.
Speaker 1: I was on the Santa Monica bike path and signal
Speaker 1: is notoriously terrible along that bike path for me on Verizon.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's like that with other carriers,
Speaker 1: but it's really bad and it just it could not
Speaker 1: keep the signal, and so I ended up listening to
Speaker 1: my my music that was saved on my Apple Watch
Speaker 1: because I just couldn't just kept going out.
Speaker 2: It just would wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure if there's a way to save
Speaker 1: stuff to your Apple Watch from the iHeartRadio app. I'll
Speaker 1: play around with it a little bit more, but I
Speaker 1: think it's something you should have on there if you
Speaker 1: like to run with your watch. I mean, they've got
Speaker 1: I did a cool running workout. Let's see what do
Speaker 1: I have on here? They have Let's see what do
Speaker 1: I have iHeartRadio. Let's see come on, where's my so
Speaker 1: my library is, Let's see my stations. I've got the
Speaker 1: twenty four hour Cardio mix and I think that's from
Speaker 1: twenty four hour Fitness Country Workout Radio, Hit Nation, Junior
Speaker 1: Hit Nation, iHeart Country Radio KFI.
Speaker 2: Of course, iHeart.
Speaker 1: Christmas, which is a fantastic station, Dave Ramsey Channel, Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro's Favorites KTLA five. You know you can listen to
Speaker 1: that on iHeartRadio, American Top forty, Today's Mix again, one
Speaker 1: of their kind of satellite radio stations, Eclectic Rock, which
Speaker 1: is just fantastic. My favorite radio stations on iHeart, and
Speaker 1: then Coffee Shop Radio, which I'm listening to on the weekends.
Speaker 1: So anyway, check it out. I can't speak highly enough
Speaker 1: and it's totally free, and I'll be honest, I don't
Speaker 1: pay for the iHeartRadio stuff and I still rarely rarely hear.
Speaker 2: Commercials on there.
Speaker 1: So all right, another question here, Tim says, Hi, Rich,
Speaker 1: I watch your segments all the time. I was asked
Speaker 1: by a new client for an e business card, but
Speaker 1: I've never heard of them. Can you suggest an app
Speaker 1: or give me an idea on how to create one?
Speaker 2: Thanks? Tim?
Speaker 1: Yes, I will so. I first saw this at the
Speaker 1: Toy Fair in New York City and it was like
Speaker 1: mind boggling. So this guy, I can't remember his name,
Speaker 1: but he tapped this business card to my iPhone and
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, his contact information was right on
Speaker 1: my phone. I was like, what did you just do?
Speaker 1: And he's like, isn't that cool? And I forget what
Speaker 1: the specific name of the card he had. I I
Speaker 1: think I took a picture of it, but he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's coming out. It was like thirty five dollars. But anyway,
Speaker 1: they have a couple of these things. So the first
Speaker 1: one I've been testing out is called I think I
Speaker 1: don't know how you pronounce it, but it's a big
Speaker 1: ad ont on a TikTok. It's called Popole pop l
Speaker 1: dot co. And this is kind of for the young kids,
Speaker 1: but you can use it, you know, no matter what age.
Speaker 1: These are fifteen, fifteen to twenty dollars little dots that
Speaker 1: stick on the back.
Speaker 2: Of your phone.
Speaker 1: And the main thing here is that it's an NFC
Speaker 1: dot and you stick it on your phone and then
Speaker 1: you tap this to a friend's phone and the NFC
Speaker 1: takes over and it leads you to a website with
Speaker 1: your popoll profile. And so that's that's basically it. And
Speaker 1: on your propol profile you have your Instagram, your TikTok,
Speaker 1: text messaging, Snapchat, Venmo, Spotify, whatever you want. You can
Speaker 1: you know, you can have it open to a one thing.
Speaker 1: You can have it open right to your Instagram if
Speaker 1: that's how you want to share, or you can have
Speaker 1: it open up right to your VCF. You're you know,
Speaker 1: is that what it's called? The card file? VCF file?
Speaker 1: I think so, no v card. I don't know v card.
Speaker 1: I think it's a v card. Yeah, VCRD file v card.
Speaker 2: I thought it was VCF. Maybe it's not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, VCF virtual contact file. You can have it open
Speaker 1: up to that. So this is really cool. That's an
Speaker 1: easy solution. And it sticks on the back of your phone.
Speaker 1: I don't like anything stuck to the back of my phone,
Speaker 1: including remember you know those pop sockets everyone loves. I
Speaker 1: just can't have anything stuck to my phone. I like
Speaker 1: a clean phone experience. So I have this thing stuck
Speaker 1: to the back of my computer. But it doesn't really
Speaker 1: do much good there anyway, poppol is really cool. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do a story on them. These are some UCLA
Speaker 1: students that started this, and I want to do a story.
Speaker 1: But the problem is, you know, we're not really supposed
Speaker 1: to be, you know, socially meeting random people right now.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of tough to recommend a product where
Speaker 1: you're meeting a whole bunch of random people and popping
Speaker 1: your phones together, right So anyway, I'll do that when
Speaker 1: the time is right. But the other one is Blue
Speaker 1: Social And this might have been the card that the
Speaker 1: guy tapped. I'm not sure, but it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's just in a business card form and it has
Speaker 1: that little NFC chip in it, and you know, you
Speaker 1: tap it to someone's phone and it brings it up.
Speaker 1: Just tim what I'd look for is NFC business card.
Speaker 1: I'd probably recommend the Poppol honestly, because there's a most
Speaker 1: momentum behind them, and I think they're They're look and
Speaker 1: feel is pretty clean, so I think i'd go with
Speaker 1: that one. And they've got a bunch of different styles
Speaker 1: you can choose from, so they look really cool, from
Speaker 1: like glittery.
Speaker 2: To just standard.
Speaker 1: That's what I'd probably go for. The other way you
Speaker 1: can do this is just a QR code. Now that
Speaker 1: people are finally clued into QR codes because of all
Speaker 1: these menus everywhere, you know, the contactless menus at restaurants.
Speaker 2: People are figuring out.
Speaker 1: Oh, what is this QR code That's been around forever,
Speaker 1: but people are finally figuring out that we can use them,
Speaker 1: and thankfully because QR codes are great. Every other country
Speaker 1: in the world uses QR codes except America. Why is
Speaker 1: America so strange when it comes to their adoption of technology? Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, what is up with that? QR codes were
Speaker 1: just like standard fair everywhere else, NFC standard fair everywhere else.
Speaker 1: But it took Apple Pay for that to become popular.
Speaker 1: You know, Tap to pay was popular everywhere, but like
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Apple does it, and now it's like,
Speaker 1: oh yes, uh NFC is amazing. All right, I do
Speaker 1: want to get through a couple other things. I know
Speaker 1: I'm going along here, but let's see that's not that exciting.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about this.
Speaker 1: If you want a free Nintendo game Super Mario Brothers
Speaker 1: thirty five, this is kind of cool. It's it's kind
Speaker 1: of like inspired by you know, Mario Super Mario Brothers,
Speaker 1: but it's a it's a thirty five player twist on it,
Speaker 1: so it's a it's a it's like a Fortnite kind
Speaker 1: of thing, right, A Battle Royale thirty five players. They
Speaker 1: all start at the same time and they compete in
Speaker 1: this gameplay.
Speaker 2: Now. I have not played this yet. I downloaded it
Speaker 2: to my kids.
Speaker 1: I got my kid for his birthday Nintendo Switch Light,
Speaker 1: and he loves it. But I've got to get the
Speaker 1: games on there, so I downloaded this one and it
Speaker 1: looks awesome. I'm gonna play it this weekend and I'm excited.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like that idea of playing online
Speaker 1: with friends. So you need the thing you need here
Speaker 1: is a membership to Nintendo Switch Online. That's twenty bucks
Speaker 1: a year. If you don't have it, you do need
Speaker 1: that to play this game. And this game is only
Speaker 1: available until March thirty first, twenty twenty one, digital only,
Speaker 1: so go download it. It looks really fun and it
Speaker 1: kind of you know what I like about. My kids
Speaker 1: love Rodblocks, which I hate. You know that I've talked
Speaker 1: about it. They like Minecraft, which I think is fine,
Speaker 1: but I personally would love if they played the Switch
Speaker 1: more because to me, the Switch is like good old
Speaker 1: fashioned gaming. The games have a start, a middle, they
Speaker 1: have an end. They're fun, They're created by people that
Speaker 1: are you know, their entire world is gaming, like Nintendo people,
Speaker 1: and so I really really like that, and I like
Speaker 1: the idea of them playing that. So anyway, and it
Speaker 1: reminds me of my childhood. You know, you'd get sick
Speaker 1: of stuff and you'd play this game until you beat
Speaker 1: it and then you'd be sick of it or whatever.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's a quick game. Again, it's called if
Speaker 1: you want to download it? Why did I put this
Speaker 1: over here? It's called the Super Mario Brothers thirty five.
Speaker 1: So maybe I'll get on there and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: my username and we can all play it, all right.
Speaker 1: One last question from Pam. Pam says, what what your suggestion?
Speaker 1: People write me really fast. I think because these questions
Speaker 1: like what your suggestion of good car play wireless adapter
Speaker 1: like CarPlay to Air? I think what Pam is saying
Speaker 1: is what do you think of or do you have
Speaker 1: a suggestion of a good car play wireless adapter like
Speaker 1: car Play to Air? And my answer is no, do
Speaker 1: not get a wireless car play adapter. I don't care
Speaker 1: how sexy they look on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Don't get one. I'll tell you why you don't.
Speaker 1: Okay, so give you some background. I just finally tried
Speaker 1: out wireless car play for myself. Apple gave me a
Speaker 1: demo of it a couple of years ago, but it
Speaker 1: was only in like a high end BMW. It was
Speaker 1: very limited, but I tested. I recently did a test
Speaker 1: drive of the Nissan Rogue, which has wireless car play
Speaker 1: in its Platinum edition, and so I got to try it.
Speaker 1: You know, when Apple did it, they sort of you know,
Speaker 1: they held the ball. They they did it. They showed me,
Speaker 1: they led me through it. I wasn't able to play
Speaker 1: around with it in this car. I was able to
Speaker 1: play around, and it is awesome. Let me tell you.
Speaker 1: Wireless car play is seriously, seriously cool, and it solves
Speaker 1: a lot of problems. It solves a problem of when
Speaker 1: I get when I'm doing errands around the how or
Speaker 1: around the neighborhood, I'm getting into my car and getting
Speaker 1: out a bunch of times I don't want to. I
Speaker 1: end up not plugging in my phone after the first
Speaker 1: time because it's too much work to plug it in
Speaker 1: every time. So I get why they came up with
Speaker 1: wireless CarPlay, and it's really cool. In the Rogue, it
Speaker 1: worked phenomenal. It was so cool, it's slick, it's the
Speaker 1: you do one one time kind of like set up,
Speaker 1: and then after you get in your car boom, you
Speaker 1: just put your phone wherever it is and it just
Speaker 1: shows up on the screen. So it's streaming CarPlay from
Speaker 1: your phone. It's actually using like a Wi Fi direct
Speaker 1: connection to do it. I think maybe it's blending at
Speaker 1: with Bluetooth but to get the signal or whatever, or
Speaker 1: to kind of get the connection. But it's literally like
Speaker 1: chrome casting your phone screen or what's happening on your
Speaker 1: phone to the screen.
Speaker 2: But it works the same way.
Speaker 1: It's great and anyway, so these Wi Fi you know,
Speaker 1: CarPlay adapters. I looked at this one that she mentioned,
Speaker 1: this CarPlay to air and it's one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: dollars number one. That's expensive for an adapter that very unproven, right.
Speaker 1: I looked at their YouTube video. They spelled the word
Speaker 1: chord wrong. They said, oh, you got lots of chords.
Speaker 1: It was spelled hrd. Another red flag. They didn't have
Speaker 1: social media on their website, which again is another red
Speaker 1: flag and the biggest thing I think you need if
Speaker 1: you're going to do wireless car play, Otherwise it defeats
Speaker 1: the purpose. You need a wireless charger in your car,
Speaker 1: and so if you're adding wireless car Play to your car,
Speaker 1: you probably don't have a wireless charger. Now, my car
Speaker 1: is a couple of years old, and I actually do
Speaker 1: have a wireless charger like a CHI charger, which is
Speaker 1: one of the things I wanted. I never use it,
Speaker 1: and I do have car Play, and I could potentially
Speaker 1: use the wireless car Play and then pop my phone
Speaker 1: in the Chi charger to wirelessly charge, but that's all
Speaker 1: too much work. I can just plug it in. So anyway,
Speaker 1: my advice to you, Pam is just to deal with
Speaker 1: wired CarPlay for now, because I'm not sure how good
Speaker 1: these wireless adapters are. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: just let technology evolution take its course, which when you
Speaker 1: get a new car, eventually wireless CarPlay will be there.
Speaker 1: And right now we're just starting to see it come
Speaker 1: up on the you know, higher end additions of certain cars.
Speaker 1: You know, like with the Rogue it was a platinum
Speaker 1: edition and it wasn't available in the other or maybe
Speaker 1: it was in the lower options, but like as an option,
Speaker 1: but it comes with the platinum, or maybe you have
Speaker 1: to get the platinum. I think you have to. I
Speaker 1: gotta check on that. But anyway, so just kind of
Speaker 1: just plug in. It's not that big of a deal.
Speaker 1: I know it's kind of a pain, but when everything's
Speaker 1: wireless these days. But I will say it is awesome,
Speaker 1: and I'm really looking forward to wireless car play when
Speaker 1: I can fully take advantage of it. But if I
Speaker 1: switch that Pixel five, I don't know, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to use wireless Android auto.
Speaker 2: I don't know how's that gonna work.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, so complicated with all this stuff, I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, what is that to hear? Is that
Speaker 2: the music?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it is the music. You know what that means?
Speaker 1: They're playing me off. I'm being played off my own show.
Speaker 1: How rude? Remember that on a full house?
Speaker 2: How rude? What was that? What was that girl's name?
Speaker 2: How rude? I think she's stolen the new one.
Speaker 1: All right, that's gonna do it for this episode of
Speaker 1: the show. Thanks so much for listening. If you would
Speaker 1: like to submit a question for me to answer, just
Speaker 1: go to richon tech dot tv and hit the email
Speaker 1: button at the bottom of the page. Now we'll try
Speaker 1: something new. If you want to send me a audio question.
Speaker 1: Just record it on your phone and you know, use
Speaker 1: your voice recorder app on iPhone or whatever voice memos
Speaker 1: and just send it off as an email to Hello
Speaker 1: at richon tech dot tv. Hello at richon tech dot TV. Also,
Speaker 1: I would love it if you would rate and review
Speaker 1: this podcast. Just go to rate this podcast dot com
Speaker 1: slash rich on tech two hundred and one reviews or ratings.
Speaker 1: I should say on Apple Podcasts five out of five.
Speaker 2: Love it. Oh my gosh, this let me read one.
Speaker 1: Let's see happy years, says this young man has turned
Speaker 1: tech sharing into an art. Stay blessed, rich Thank you art.
Speaker 1: I love it, And if you leave a review like that,
Speaker 1: yes I will read it on the show. You can
Speaker 1: find me on all social media at rich on tech.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to look at my website every once in
Speaker 1: a while rich on tech dot TV. That's where I
Speaker 1: post all the good stuff I'm doing on KTLA and
Speaker 1: other places. You know, You've got me doing a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff these days. I'm on KTLA, I'm on my
Speaker 1: other TV stations and places like we just added Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: We're on in San Diego, Sacramento, Cleveland, gosh, all over
Speaker 1: the nation and also this new show called News Nation,
Speaker 1: which my company's doing, and that's a nightly newscast on
Speaker 1: WG in America, so look for that. Also this new
Speaker 1: show called la on scripted. So I am working hard.
Speaker 1: So if I don't respond to your email on the
Speaker 1: first day, I know it's tough. I'm working, but I'm there.
Speaker 1: My name is Richard Meiel. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Stay safe, I'll talk to you real soon.