Speaker 1: Apple might fix your device for free ditching, so nos
Speaker 1: for Google Home, my little experiment, t Mobiles new TV
Speaker 1: service plus your tech questions answered?
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Demiro 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. And it's also the place where
Speaker 1: I answer the questions that you send me, and you
Speaker 1: send me a lot of them.
Speaker 2: Believe me.
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Demiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Did I already mention that I think I did?
Speaker 1: What's going on? I am recording this at a slightly
Speaker 1: different time than I typically do, so if I'm a
Speaker 1: little off during this show, that is why it's a
Speaker 1: much earlier time than I normally do this. But that's
Speaker 1: because I'm speaking to a usc class today, and of
Speaker 1: course it's via zoom, because you know, that's how things
Speaker 1: are done these days.
Speaker 2: But it'd be fun so anyway.
Speaker 1: Lots of stuff going on, you know, We've got just
Speaker 1: the tech world for the holidays. Is like, I've never
Speaker 1: seen so many gadgets in my life.
Speaker 2: And maybe it's just.
Speaker 1: Because there's so many different variants of these things now,
Speaker 1: but I just feel like it's been a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've got new consoles, we've got new cable services, we've
Speaker 1: got new phones. And it's not just like one phone,
Speaker 1: it's like two pixels. It's not just like one Samsung.
Speaker 1: We've gone through like six Samsungs, not just one one
Speaker 1: plus phone. It's been like three one plus phones, maybe two.
Speaker 1: So I'm getting through a lot of that stuff, and
Speaker 1: it's been a lot of fun to test it all.
Speaker 1: Today is the day that the iPhone twelve Mini, the
Speaker 1: iPhone twelve Proms, and the home Pod Mini are all
Speaker 1: available for pre order. Now, I know that people love
Speaker 1: to pre order things, and in the case of an iPhone,
Speaker 1: you kind of know what you're gonna get most of
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: But and I am very fortunate.
Speaker 1: That, of course, I get to play with a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff beforehand, so I have a very good
Speaker 1: sense of what it's all about.
Speaker 2: But I actually can't imagine. Well that's not totally true.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say I can't imagine ordering stuff sight
Speaker 1: on scene, but I have done that in the past, especially.
Speaker 1: I remember I ordered the gosh I think it was
Speaker 1: the Pixel wasn't called the Pixel back then.
Speaker 2: I think it was just the Nexus.
Speaker 1: But I remember I was in Russia for a you know,
Speaker 1: a segment. We were covering a show over there, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, the new the new Nexus was unveiled and
Speaker 1: I ordered it sight on scene from my cell phone
Speaker 1: while I was over there, and you know, it came
Speaker 1: in a couple weeks whatever.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so I get it.
Speaker 1: And if you're getting an iPhone twelve, now, if it
Speaker 1: was a Mini, I'd probably want to see it. If
Speaker 1: it was a Max, I think, you know, you kind
Speaker 1: of know what you're getting in the in the twelve,
Speaker 1: you knew what you're getting. The home Pod, I mean
Speaker 1: at ninety nine bucks. I think that is going to
Speaker 1: be a really really big seller this holiday season. So
Speaker 1: looking forward to testing all that stuff out. Something I
Speaker 1: have been playing with though, is T Mobile's new service,
Speaker 1: T Vision. This is their answer to cable TV. A
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, I did a segment on T Vision,
Speaker 1: which was much more complicated. So we went to this
Speaker 1: hotel room in Westwood, it was the w Westwood. They
Speaker 1: had it all set up there and it was their
Speaker 1: version of cable TV, and it was very, very complicated
Speaker 1: because you had to have this in your area.
Speaker 2: They had to.
Speaker 1: I think they had to come to your house with
Speaker 1: Cox Cable put the box in and it was great
Speaker 1: and it was really cool. But the problem was like
Speaker 1: who is going to do that? And so that's what
Speaker 1: I said in my review, and I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think in a year or two, this is all
Speaker 1: going to be delivered just to anyone through you know,
Speaker 1: a set top box, you know, like an Apple TV.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, that's what we have with T Mobile
Speaker 1: T Vision. So I was testing this out and it's
Speaker 1: it's a couple things. So it's basically a cable streaming
Speaker 1: service kind of like YouTube TV or Sling, but it's
Speaker 1: T Vision, so it's T Mobiles version.
Speaker 2: It starts at ten dollars a month.
Speaker 1: It's a little misleading because you know, they they talk
Speaker 1: about all these great features, but for that ten dollars
Speaker 1: a month feature or price point, you don't get the DVRs.
Speaker 1: You have to pay five extra bucks a month on
Speaker 1: top of that. So for ten dollars a month, let
Speaker 1: me give you the levels they've got. So they've got
Speaker 1: tee Vision.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: The easiest one is Vibe. That's the ten dollars a
Speaker 1: month that gives you thirty channels plus two simultaneous streams.
Speaker 1: Then you've got t Vision Live, which I think more
Speaker 1: people would get. That's forty dollars a month, and that
Speaker 1: features thirty plus channels including sports and news. Then you've
Speaker 1: got t Vision Live TV plus everything's plus these days
Speaker 1: that gives you ten more channels. That's like forty channels
Speaker 1: including regionals, football and golf. That's for fifty dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And then you've got t Vision Live Zone, which gives
Speaker 1: you everything that's at sixty dollars a month. That's the
Speaker 1: one that I tested out. In fact, actually no, I
Speaker 1: tested out. Wow, I tested out the top of the
Speaker 1: line with Stars, Showtime and Epics, which is all even
Speaker 1: more expensive. So the package that they showed me, of course,
Speaker 1: okay here, so the package they showed me was the
Speaker 1: Live TV Live Zone, which was sixty plus Stars plus nine.
Speaker 1: That's sixty nine plus Showtime eleven. That's seventy, that's eighty
Speaker 1: plus Epix that's six. So the package they gave me,
Speaker 1: of course, was eighty six dollars. I only had it
Speaker 1: for a week or so. But see, this is the
Speaker 1: interesting thing about reviewers, and you know what we got
Speaker 1: of course is top of the line, so when I'm
Speaker 1: scrolling through, it's like, whoa, there's so many channels on here.
Speaker 1: But it's also exactly the same price as cable at
Speaker 1: that point, So the vibe at ten dollars a month,
Speaker 1: I do think is pretty compelling. I'll tell you the
Speaker 1: channels you get. You get AMC, Animal Planet, BBC, America
Speaker 1: World News, b ET, CMT, Comedy Central, Discovery, DIY, Food Network, HGTV,
Speaker 1: Hallmark channels, a whole bunch of those, a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of let's see IFC, Investigation, Discovery, bunch of MTVS, Nickelodeon,
Speaker 1: Nick Junior, Nicktoons, Open Network, Paramount Sundance Teen, Nick, TLC,
Speaker 1: Travel Channel, TVLand, VH one, and we TV, a lot
Speaker 1: of Viacom channels there. But the reality is, if you
Speaker 1: just care about your kind of entertainment programming, like the
Speaker 1: fluffy like HGTV stuff, for ten bucks a month, that's
Speaker 1: pretty good.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I will just say personally, I have been without cable
Speaker 1: for a couple of years now. I can't imagine subscribing
Speaker 1: to cable to me. I just don't see the point
Speaker 1: of a thousand channels on my TV just streaming all
Speaker 1: day long. I've got all the streaming services, and yes,
Speaker 1: I subscribe to a lot of them, but to me,
Speaker 1: that's the way it works. I don't need a grid
Speaker 1: with a whole bunch of stuff just on TV. Now
Speaker 1: with my local news, I do have an antenna so
Speaker 1: I can watch KTLA and other sorted local channels, but
Speaker 1: that's it. And that's fine because that's for live news
Speaker 1: that is streaming and at a certain time. But to me,
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna watch an episode of house Hunters or whatever,
Speaker 1: why not just undemand it. Why do I have to
Speaker 1: tune in halfway through?
Speaker 2: And I get it.
Speaker 1: What I've been doing with this T Vision is flipping
Speaker 1: through and it just reminds me of kind of like
Speaker 1: old school TV, like growing up in my house where
Speaker 1: my parents used to just my dad specifically, we just
Speaker 1: flip through channels and just find something to watch. That
Speaker 1: is not the way of the world for me personally anymore.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I.
Speaker 1: See a big, you know, a big upsell with this
Speaker 1: T mobile T Vision because you can get it on
Speaker 1: all the set top boxes except Roku. They also have
Speaker 1: their own dongle, which is fifty dollars. They'll probably give
Speaker 1: that away to certain customers, and you know, it's an
Speaker 1: easy upsell. You're in the T Mobile store and of
Speaker 1: course they're you're upgrading your phone, and they say, how
Speaker 1: much do you pay for cable? You say, I don't know,
Speaker 1: eighty bucks? They say, how would you like to pay ten?
Speaker 1: And next thing you know, you're on the T Vision train.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I do think what they did with the
Speaker 1: service is excellent. It's slicked, the DVR is great, everything's fast.
Speaker 1: It works just as good on my Chrome Cast TV
Speaker 1: as it does on their dongle.
Speaker 2: But I just don't need it. And it's fun.
Speaker 1: It's been fun to have, but I just, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't need that kind of amount of stuff all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: I'm good with my you know.
Speaker 1: If I want to watch a movie, I just go
Speaker 1: to HBO Max or wherever else's streaming.
Speaker 2: I'm fine with that system right now.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the first question of the day.
Speaker 1: Steve says, love your podcast, never miss it, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I bought an Apple Watch Series five. I like most
Speaker 1: aspects of it, but I don't like how it handles messages.
Speaker 1: I don't like to save messages on my iPhone. I
Speaker 1: delete all conversations at the end of the day. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's extreme. On the Watch app on my phone under messages,
Speaker 1: I've selected mirror my iPhone, but the watch does not
Speaker 1: mirror my deletions. Do you know how to have my
Speaker 1: watch truly mirror messages on my phone? If not, is
Speaker 1: there a way to clear off all the messages on
Speaker 1: my watch with one instruction instead of having to go
Speaker 1: through the cumbersome procedure of deleting each conversation.
Speaker 2: One by one. Thank you, Steve in Beaumont, California. Interesting.
Speaker 2: This is Steve.
Speaker 1: You touch on an interesting thing with text messages because
Speaker 1: I go back and forth with texts, thinking I should
Speaker 1: keep them forever as a record of everything I've ever
Speaker 1: said to someone in my life, which is kind of
Speaker 1: cool because you know, like it's kind of funny. I
Speaker 1: have Google Voice and that I've never really deleted messages
Speaker 1: from because it just saves them forever. So sometimes when
Speaker 1: people text me through my Google Voice number and they
Speaker 1: get it wrong instead of texting me my personal number,
Speaker 1: it'll come up like a conversation from like seven years ago,
Speaker 1: like the last time we talked on Google Voice, And
Speaker 1: it's really fun to kind of look back and see
Speaker 1: what you were saying. But I totally get text messages
Speaker 1: are also meant to be ephemeral, and you know you
Speaker 1: can delete them at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: That's fine.
Speaker 1: What I think you need to do is go in
Speaker 1: and I will say, I Messages is really funky. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's very perfect, but you know it's supposed
Speaker 1: to sync, and it didn't until maybe two years ago
Speaker 1: or a year ago. But what you need to do
Speaker 1: is go onto your iPhone and go into Apple id
Speaker 1: iCloud and then messages where it says apps using Eyecloud
Speaker 1: and make sure that's turned on. And once that's turned on,
Speaker 1: that's called messages in the cloud. It should sink your
Speaker 1: changes from your phone.
Speaker 2: To your watch.
Speaker 1: I found that I'm having a tough time with that
Speaker 1: right now with my computer. My I messages are not
Speaker 1: truly sinking, and it's kind of weird and it's kind
Speaker 1: of bugging me.
Speaker 2: And right now I'm looking at one.
Speaker 1: Two, three, four messages that I've looked at on my
Speaker 1: phone that are still well, let's see here. Let me
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just look at this one and read it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it did just sync up and let me see
Speaker 1: if I delete this one here, and uh, let's see
Speaker 1: if it deletes from my phone. Delete and let's see
Speaker 1: one Mississippi two, Mississippi three, Mississippi four, Misissippi five.
Speaker 2: Okay, still not deleted. So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe they don't like to it, should delete it, but
Speaker 1: it just didn't on my phone, and I just deleted
Speaker 1: on my computer. So that's the best case scenario is
Speaker 1: to try to do it like that and make sure
Speaker 1: that all those things are turned on. And that's the
Speaker 1: best I can say, Steve. But I message is a
Speaker 1: thing that I don't think I'll ever figure out in
Speaker 1: my entire life.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: It's very tricky, and you know, it's just one of
Speaker 1: those things. It's like the Apple mystery. Everything with Apple,
Speaker 1: I feel like, is so mysterious, Like I have no idea,
Speaker 1: like my email address I signed up for years ago,
Speaker 1: all the stuff that I've stored in the cloud, like
Speaker 1: I don't even understand how to access half of it,
Speaker 1: whereas with like at with Android, like okay, I've got
Speaker 1: my photos and Google Photos, I've got my notes there
Speaker 1: in ever note like I can tell where things are.
Speaker 2: With iCloud, it's just this weird abyss.
Speaker 1: And like, right now it's telling me that I've all
Speaker 1: this storage taken up even though I'm not really using
Speaker 1: iCloud photos, and it's just like, what's.
Speaker 2: Going on here? I don't know.
Speaker 1: So I did a little experiment. Moving on now, let
Speaker 1: me take a sip of my tea.
Speaker 2: Here. I did a little experiment.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking that I'm kind of getting sick
Speaker 1: of sons because it's kind of gotten a lot slower
Speaker 1: over the years, and I also feel like the voice
Speaker 1: stuff is kind of fun to have. And so I
Speaker 1: have a couple of these Google Homes around the house,
Speaker 1: and I figured, you know what, let me take a
Speaker 1: little deeper dive into this. Let me actually replace my
Speaker 1: Google my Sonos speakers with Google homes and see what happens.
Speaker 1: So I don't have enough Google Homes for all of them,
Speaker 1: but I replaced a couple of the main ones and
Speaker 1: I put the speakers in the garage. And this is
Speaker 1: just a test to see, like could I use Google
Speaker 1: Home instead of Sonos? And there are some benefits. I
Speaker 1: think the pros are that I can buy these speakers
Speaker 1: for way cheaper because Sonos, you know, you're looking at
Speaker 1: minimum two hundred, whereas the Google Speakers minimum you know,
Speaker 1: they go as low as fifty bucks. But you can
Speaker 1: you know, the one I want is like one hundred,
Speaker 1: and I can get them in various sizes. So for
Speaker 1: a small area, you know, I can just put one
Speaker 1: of the Google Home minis there. But for a bigger area,
Speaker 1: I can go with one of their new Nest audios
Speaker 1: I think they're called. And so, you know, now my
Speaker 1: soundbar is still Sonos, my surround system in the living
Speaker 1: room is still Sonos because I didn't want to replace
Speaker 1: all that and you really can't right now with the
Speaker 1: Google Speakers, but I read a rumor that that's coming,
Speaker 1: and you know, so here it is. What I've realized
Speaker 1: in the past couple of days is it is very
Speaker 1: nice to be able to come home and just say, hey, Gee,
Speaker 1: play you know, some music, play some music, and boom,
Speaker 1: the speakers come to life. I found that grouping the
Speaker 1: speakers is way more complicated because you can only do
Speaker 1: it from the Google Home display.
Speaker 2: Right now.
Speaker 1: They don't have an app that lets you do that,
Speaker 1: which is really annoying. And I've noticed that the sound
Speaker 1: levels are very all over the place compared to sonos
Speaker 1: so Sonos, I could group the speakers and I could
Speaker 1: put the sound at a nice clip that would just
Speaker 1: sound really nice and mellow throughout the entire house.
Speaker 2: And with this I'm just not finding.
Speaker 1: Either it's the speakers don't fill the room as much,
Speaker 1: or it's either really loud or really soft, and I
Speaker 1: can't really find a good middle ground. So it's a
Speaker 1: tricky And of course my wife doesn't like it as
Speaker 1: much because she's finding it a little trickier. But you know,
Speaker 1: I told her, I said, you know, just start with
Speaker 1: like a couple of commands, you know, like play you know,
Speaker 1: the highway on serious XM, and you know, like simple
Speaker 1: things like that. And I also like the fact that
Speaker 1: with sons you can go through and find like the
Speaker 1: playlists that you like, like, you can favorite them, and
Speaker 1: it's really easy to start them, whereas with the Google
Speaker 1: Home speakers, I really like that I can directly play
Speaker 1: things from my apps. So if I'm on Spotify, and
Speaker 1: part of the beauty of like Spotify and Google play
Speaker 1: Music is that it surfaces playlists that it thinks you'll
Speaker 1: like based on the time of the day. And so
Speaker 1: if I'm focusing on work in the morning. You know,
Speaker 1: I open up the app and there's a work playlist
Speaker 1: and you know, nice focus instrumental kind of thing and
Speaker 1: you know, boom Whereas so NOS doesn't really do that.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just your stuff that you've played before
Speaker 1: and that's it. Also, I've noticed that when you do
Speaker 1: cast to speakers, since I have so many of them
Speaker 1: in my house, including like the Google Chrome casts, it's
Speaker 1: like there's so many targets when you go to cast
Speaker 1: something like when you say like, oh, send this to
Speaker 1: that speaker, I'm like looking for like ten minutes in
Speaker 1: this in the scroll, like wait, is that is that
Speaker 1: living room TV?
Speaker 2: Or is that living room screen or is that living
Speaker 2: room speaker? Like what? So that's a little tricky.
Speaker 1: And again my note here I have is that the
Speaker 1: music doesn't seem to be as ambient as it is
Speaker 1: with Sons, Like Sons clearly has the audio acoustics down
Speaker 1: and Google may you know, maybe I'm just getting used
Speaker 1: to it, but it's you know anyway, So I don't
Speaker 1: know if the experiment's gonna last. Personally, I do love
Speaker 1: that I could outfit my home for a lot cheaper,
Speaker 1: and it took me a while to build up the
Speaker 1: Sono speakers and you know.
Speaker 2: We'll just see.
Speaker 1: But I kind of like it is easier to kind
Speaker 1: of start the music. It's just tougher to group the music.
Speaker 1: And that's the main that's the main trouble I'm running into. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: it is fun to have the speakers. The only other
Speaker 1: issue I see is that when you have multiple Google homes,
Speaker 1: they all sort of react when you say hey gee,
Speaker 1: and it's like this little fight for who's gonna respond,
Speaker 1: and it's not always the speaker that you want. So
Speaker 1: I'll keep you posted on my little Google Home slash
Speaker 1: Sonos experiment. All right, Dillia says, I dropped my iPhone
Speaker 1: eleven Max pro Promax and cracked the back side glass.
Speaker 1: What can I do to fix it? No insurance, Dilia.
Speaker 1: There are so many places you can bring this. So
Speaker 1: the first one is a company called I Cracked, and
Speaker 1: I Cracked actually comes to you.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they're still doing it. Let's see
Speaker 2: if they're.
Speaker 1: Doing it right now with uh um, yeah, they are
Speaker 1: still doing it even though so yeah, so less than
Speaker 1: an hour they will come to you and the pricing.
Speaker 1: Let's see if they Let's see what the price is
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put me Oh wow, it's not available on
Speaker 1: my zip code? Uh oh do they like oh uh
Speaker 1: oh oh.
Speaker 2: It looks like oh you know what, Yeah, it looks
Speaker 2: like I cracked has really.
Speaker 1: Oh it doesn't. Let's see locations. Oh do they not
Speaker 1: do this anymore nationwide? California? Interesting? It says they do California,
Speaker 1: But I just put in like three zip codes and it.
Speaker 2: Did not come up.
Speaker 1: So hm, anyway, okay, they are still doing it nine
Speaker 1: oh two one oh okay, says it's not available at
Speaker 1: in this time, So maybe they're just not doing it
Speaker 1: right now with the uh, you know, the whole COVID thing.
Speaker 1: But they do come to you. So that's that's one.
Speaker 1: The other one is you break I fix and that one,
Speaker 1: if you're in the LA area at least has a
Speaker 1: bunch of locations. They might even be outside of Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: But that's a good way to do it. And if
Speaker 1: you look at these things, you know they're gonna it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be you know, it depends on your phone
Speaker 1: and depends what they're Yeah, they do have them all
Speaker 1: over the place. Oh yeah, this is everywhere. So I'm
Speaker 1: trying to see like what there repairs are.
Speaker 2: So let's go cell phone and let's see carry in.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's choose our device. Let's choose a an iPhone
Speaker 1: eleven Promax. Okay, and let's see what they're getting for
Speaker 1: a screen repair iPhone eleven Promax Okay, wow, original iPhone
Speaker 1: two G. Can you imagine what is wrong?
Speaker 2: Broken screen?
Speaker 1: Uh? Select a store for pricing, so it looks like
Speaker 1: this might be a kind of a okay, oh wow,
Speaker 1: oh okay. Four hundred and nineteen dollars and ninety nine cents.
Speaker 2: That is a lot.
Speaker 1: Why is that so expensive? That is a real That's
Speaker 1: that seems very expensive. Let me try a different store.
Speaker 1: Are they all different?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Four nineteen Well, that's that's a lot, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So I mean yeah, with Apple Care though, it's
Speaker 1: kind of the same thing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The other thing I would do is, you know, you're
Speaker 1: just you're just pre paying for the Apple Care upfront,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't feel as bad when you have to
Speaker 1: pay because there is a there is a little deductible
Speaker 1: you have to pay when you get your screen repaired.
Speaker 2: It's not as much, but still, you know, it's expensive.
Speaker 1: When you add it all up, you're looking at you know,
Speaker 1: Apple Care plus the deductibles, you know, over one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars at least, if not more than that. Now they
Speaker 1: let you do Apple Care monthly, so you know, it's
Speaker 1: tough to kind of figure it out. But there's also
Speaker 1: opportunity cost and pre paying for all that stuff, and
Speaker 1: you may never use it. So what I would do
Speaker 1: is look on iPhone or look on Yelp for iPhone repair,
Speaker 1: and you know, just look for a place near you
Speaker 1: that has a lot of good ratings. You may not
Speaker 1: get the warranty, but you want to go to a
Speaker 1: place that's been around for a while that has good
Speaker 1: ratings and reviews, and it'll be just fine. They're going
Speaker 1: to repair your screen. They do it every day, and
Speaker 1: it should be just fine. Now, earlier I mentioned chrome
Speaker 1: Cast with Google TV, or maybe I didn't mention it,
Speaker 1: but I have been using this and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to give you sort of an update on my thoughts
Speaker 1: on this device because I did switch over my main
Speaker 1: TV to Chrome Cast with Google TV. And if you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with that, it is basically a Chrome Cast
Speaker 1: that now has a remote control, but it also has
Speaker 1: kind of a new interface, so it's got the Android
Speaker 1: TV Interface, or I guess they call it the Google
Speaker 1: TV Entertainment Experience, and it plugs into the back of
Speaker 1: your phone. It's a tiny little dongle, it's four K,
Speaker 1: it's got you know, all the apps you need. Basically,
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't think of an app that I
Speaker 1: want that's not on there. Oh yeah there is one.
Speaker 1: Apple TV Plus is not supported. But that makes sense
Speaker 1: because it's Google and their frenemies. And I've been using
Speaker 1: it for a couple of weeks, and I will say
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it, I love it. It is fantastic.
Speaker 1: It is it's basically, and I think I said this
Speaker 1: on the podcast, but it's the power of Google for
Speaker 1: streaming services.
Speaker 2: And let me explain what that means.
Speaker 1: So the beauty of this device is that you no
Speaker 1: longer think about your streaming services. Now when you go
Speaker 1: to the main screens, all the stuff that's on your
Speaker 1: screen streaming services is sort of surfaced on the main
Speaker 1: screens in three different ways for you, movies and then TV,
Speaker 1: and the for you is like highly customized. Then movies
Speaker 1: is a little bit more of a kind of a
Speaker 1: broader reach of like here's the top movies, here's the comedies,
Speaker 1: here's the romantic comedies, here's the action movies, and then
Speaker 1: TV same thing. But what's so magical about this is
Speaker 1: that they're using Google data to figure out what is popular,
Speaker 1: what is current, and what is hot at any given time.
Speaker 1: And that is really the biggest advantage I see to
Speaker 1: this versus something like the Apple TV, which, yes, we'll
Speaker 1: tell you a bunch of stuff that's in your streaming services,
Speaker 1: but it's not necessarily as customized. And the other really
Speaker 1: really brilliant thing about the Google Chrome or Chrome cast
Speaker 1: with Google TV is that when you're looking at an
Speaker 1: item on the screen, right below that item, not only
Speaker 1: does it give you the it gives you a look
Speaker 1: at how much that item is if it's not on
Speaker 1: your service. Well, in the best case scenario, it tells
Speaker 1: you where it's streaming, and then I think it tells
Speaker 1: you rotten tomatoes maybe, but you get those two things
Speaker 1: on the main screen. But then if it's not on
Speaker 1: one of your services, it will say how much it
Speaker 1: is and there's a little lock next to it. So
Speaker 1: to me, that is absolutely brilliant and the reason why
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like a big thing. But The reason
Speaker 1: why that's brilliant is because so many times on Apple
Speaker 1: TV when I was browsing, there'd be something on the
Speaker 1: screen that I want to watch, and then you click
Speaker 1: in and then you have to see if it's on
Speaker 1: one of your services. So with this you can scroll
Speaker 1: through and instantly get a gauge of if a showing
Speaker 1: or a movie or TV show is on a service
Speaker 1: you subscribe to. Now, the other thing they do is
Speaker 1: they don't really show you a bunch of stuff on
Speaker 1: other services.
Speaker 2: Much.
Speaker 1: They do in certain aspects, but not all the time,
Speaker 1: and so for some people you might say, well, Rich,
Speaker 1: I want to see what's out there, even if I
Speaker 1: have to rent it. Yes, they do do that, but
Speaker 1: something like to b tv right, which is one of
Speaker 1: those free TV apps, they won't show you stuff that's
Speaker 1: on t B unless you download the app and install
Speaker 1: it on your Google and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: all their stuff will show up as well. So it's
Speaker 1: pretty brilliant. The biggest downside I've seen is that the
Speaker 1: apps are really slow to open compared to other streaming
Speaker 1: sticks out there, and it's just it's very noticeable that
Speaker 1: this thing is very underpowered, and you don't need a
Speaker 1: ton of power to stream stuff, but for opening those apps,
Speaker 1: it takes some resources and it's it's pretty bad. It's
Speaker 1: it's actually really slow. And I'm not sure if maybe
Speaker 1: optimizing these apps will help or what, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the biggest downside is that kind of popping
Speaker 1: in and out of your apps is like a ten
Speaker 1: second affair. And so it's just something that like these
Speaker 1: these higher end streaming devices, like especially the new Roku
Speaker 1: and you know, like the new higher powered you know
Speaker 1: Apple TV, not the one that hasn't launched yet, but
Speaker 1: you know the one that well, I don't know if
Speaker 1: there's a new one coming out. I would hope there is,
Speaker 1: but even the old one is still pretty darn fast,
Speaker 1: and even the fire Stick is pretty fast compared to this,
Speaker 1: it's just noticeably slower. So that's my only downside. But
Speaker 1: again it's fifty bucks. I love the Google Assistant, and
Speaker 1: I love the fact that the for You area gives
Speaker 1: you so much good stuff, And the most brilliant thing
Speaker 1: is that there's literally a section of trending movies that
Speaker 1: is one hundred percent based on what people are searching
Speaker 1: and on Google, and so when Sean Connery died, you know,
Speaker 1: Rest in peace, Sean.
Speaker 2: It was to.
Speaker 1: See all the movies that people were watching with him
Speaker 1: was pretty fantastic. And that is the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: that like these other services, it would take an Apple
Speaker 1: TV like a little bit of time to either come
Speaker 1: up with a list of like, you know, the best
Speaker 1: movies featuring Sean Connery or you know, they would you
Speaker 1: would start to see some of those movies trending because
Speaker 1: people are renting them. But with Google immediately because people
Speaker 1: are searching for them, they have that real time information
Speaker 1: and it just kind of gives this service like a
Speaker 1: little extra like kind of real time like bit to
Speaker 1: it that I really kind of like it feels like
Speaker 1: you're part of like the crowd. Like when a new
Speaker 1: movie comes out on a Friday night or a cool
Speaker 1: new documentary, you really feel like you have the upper
Speaker 1: hand because it's something that you're seeing happen trending in
Speaker 1: real time and that's really cool.
Speaker 2: All right, Uh.
Speaker 1: No, Nelcda, Nelsita says hi Rich. I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you can help me with the purchase of an iPad.
Speaker 1: What's the best deal for the latest version with ten
Speaker 1: or higher screen size? And Wi Fi capable. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I also need cellular. Can you please explain this?
Speaker 1: Thanks for your help. So easy when it comes to
Speaker 1: the iPad, the best deal is always a simple search away.
Speaker 1: All you have to search is iPad deal or iPad
Speaker 1: deals and then just click news up at the top
Speaker 1: of Google and now you will see all the bloggers
Speaker 1: that have blogged about iPad deals. The iPad specif I
Speaker 1: would recommend is the just the standard one. So that's
Speaker 1: the iPad. It just was refreshed. It is the iPad
Speaker 1: ten point two inch. I think it's the eighth generation.
Speaker 1: It's just called the iPad. That's all you need to know.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of got annoying because Apple does iPad,
Speaker 1: they don't really tell you it's not like iPad eight.
Speaker 1: So if you go into the tech specs, you'll see,
Speaker 1: let's see do they say like eighth generation. Where do
Speaker 1: they say that it's the eighth Maybe you have to
Speaker 1: hit By. Let's see here. If I hit By and
Speaker 1: Space Gray Wi Fi, oh, thirty thirty two gigs, I'd
Speaker 1: go at the go with the one twenty eight. I
Speaker 1: bought my niece one of these and I went with
Speaker 1: one twenty eight. It's just you know, it's a little
Speaker 1: bit more expensive, but it just really makes a big difference.
Speaker 1: I think it's just gonna give you much more life. Okay,
Speaker 1: so add to bag and let's see how they characterize this.
Speaker 1: Do they say ten point two inch iPad Wi Fi
Speaker 1: one twenty eight. Gosh, they don't even like say that
Speaker 1: it's like eighth generation or anything.
Speaker 2: It's so weird.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I believe it is the eighth generation iPad right now. Anyway,
Speaker 1: That's all you need to do is just literally like okay,
Speaker 1: So here's digital trends. Okay, here's Apple Insider early Black
Speaker 1: Friday deals on iPad, iPad Air four, iPad pro, Hit,
Speaker 1: Hit Fever, Pitch save up to four hundred dollars. So
Speaker 1: let's now click into there and we look at iPad
Speaker 1: eighth generation on sale. The one twenty eight gig version,
Speaker 1: which I'd recommend, is three hundred ninety five dollars. It's
Speaker 1: only thirty five dollars off, but still that's pretty good.
Speaker 1: The thirty two gig one is two ninety nine. So again,
Speaker 1: the reason why these bloggers blog about this is because
Speaker 1: they get a little referral link or a little referral
Speaker 1: credit when you buy something through one of their links.
Speaker 1: So it's in their best interest to be blogging about
Speaker 1: this stuff all the time, and so you can use
Speaker 1: that to your advantage.
Speaker 2: And there you go.
Speaker 1: Now, when it comes to the whole Wi Fi versus cellular,
Speaker 1: unless you are leaving your house and using your iPad
Speaker 1: on the road in places that are not hotels or
Speaker 1: not your school or not your work, that you don't
Speaker 1: have a Wi Fi network, that's the only time I'd
Speaker 1: recommend cellular. So I don't think that a majority of
Speaker 1: people need cellular on their iPads unless.
Speaker 2: You are out and about your job is you.
Speaker 1: Know, taking you all on the road somewhere all over
Speaker 1: the place, and you want to be connected twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven. Otherwise you will be just fine. If you're
Speaker 1: at your house, you're on Wi Fi. If you're at work,
Speaker 1: you're on Wi Fi. If you're at school, you're on
Speaker 1: Wi Fi. If you're at a hotel, you're on Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: And in a pinch, you can just hopefully connect the
Speaker 1: iPad to your phone using your hotspot if that's part
Speaker 1: of your plan. So that's what I'd recommend, and there
Speaker 1: you go.
Speaker 2: So This is a big feature.
Speaker 1: Last week on the podcast, I talked about how cool
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio was because it was streaming on the Apple Watch. Well,
Speaker 1: now this week we get Spotify streaming on the Apple Watch.
Speaker 2: And this is so weird.
Speaker 1: I discovered this on my Apple Watch when I was
Speaker 1: just kind of starting to use Spotify again. I have
Speaker 1: like a six month free trial, and so I've been
Speaker 1: kind of playing around with Spotify and I you know,
Speaker 1: installed on my wrist and whenever you play something on
Speaker 1: your phone, you see it on your wrist, and so
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I was just kind of playing
Speaker 1: around with the wrist on you know, the Apple Watch app,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I see like it said
Speaker 1: like stream to phone or play on Let's see it
Speaker 1: says play on a device Rich's Apple Watch. And I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, what what do you mean Rich's Apple Watch?
Speaker 1: Like can I play that on here? And I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: would it play on the speaker? So I tried playing
Speaker 1: it and it doesn't play on the Apple Watch speaker.
Speaker 1: So you can't just stream music from your wrist and
Speaker 1: like listen to it through the speaker on the Apple Watch.
Speaker 1: But if you have headphones attached boom. You can now
Speaker 1: listen through those and you can listen when your phone.
Speaker 1: Most importantly, this is the new part, you can listen
Speaker 1: when your phone is not nearby. Now, there are some caveats,
Speaker 1: So to me, this feature is best if you have
Speaker 1: a cellular Apple Watch, because yes, it'll work over Wi Fi,
Speaker 1: but a majority of the time, if you're in a
Speaker 1: Wi Fi zone, aren't you going to have your phone nearby?
Speaker 1: And then it's just gonna be grabbing the stuff it
Speaker 1: needs from your phone. So to me, the best case
Speaker 1: scenario is when you are out on a run or
Speaker 1: you're out walking the dog and you want to listen
Speaker 1: to something on Spotify, and right now you still can't
Speaker 1: download stuff from Spotify to your Apple Watch. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why that's so technically impossible Apple and Spotify, which
Speaker 1: I'm being facetious, there's no reason why you should not
Speaker 1: be able to download Spotify. But somehow, you know, the
Speaker 1: little little bunking heads at Apple and Spotify have just
Speaker 1: not made that feature possible yet, even though it's been
Speaker 1: on Apple Music forever on the Apple Watch, you just
Speaker 1: can't do it with Spotify for some reason. Don't know why.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we do know why. But anyway,
Speaker 1: little baby steps right, so you can stream this stuff.
Speaker 1: And if you have a cellular connection, you can now
Speaker 1: leave your phone at home and you can walk the dog,
Speaker 1: have your headphones on, have your Apple Watch on, and
Speaker 1: now you can listen to Spotify.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I think that is a very small use case scenario
Speaker 1: because I don't think a majority of people get cellular
Speaker 1: on their Apple Watch personally. On like the iPad, I
Speaker 1: think cellular on the Apple Watch is a must have
Speaker 1: because it frees you up so much to distance yourself
Speaker 1: from your phone. There's so many little times when I
Speaker 1: don't want to have my phone in my pocket that
Speaker 1: you know I still have a cellular connection, and I
Speaker 1: think it's it's vital to have that connection for you know,
Speaker 1: today's day and age with you know, you want to
Speaker 1: be able to be connected for friends and family, work,
Speaker 1: and also you know in an emergency. Now, there is
Speaker 1: one little thing if you have an Apple Watch, and
Speaker 1: I have not confirmed this from pretty ninety nine percent sure,
Speaker 1: if you have an Apple Watch with cellular and there's
Speaker 1: an emergency, you can still dial nine one one, I
Speaker 1: would assume, because as far as I know, you can
Speaker 1: dial nine one one on any device, even if it's
Speaker 1: not activated. So even if you had a cellular Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: it would theoretically in an emergency be all to help
Speaker 1: you because you could still dial nine to one one
Speaker 1: if or SOS whatever, if you you know, even.
Speaker 2: If you didn't have a cellular plan on that.
Speaker 1: Now I'm gonna have to research that, but I'm ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent sure because that's the way it works on
Speaker 1: cell phones, so I would assume a cellular connection on
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch is the same anyway. So if you
Speaker 1: have Siri, if you have you know, Apple Watch, you've
Speaker 1: got okay, So if you have Apple Watch, you've got Spotify,
Speaker 1: and you've got a cellular connection. This is really cool.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't, it's still cool. I guess if
Speaker 1: you're in your house and you have Wi Fi, you're
Speaker 1: at work and you just want to use your phone
Speaker 1: or your watch without your phone. But to me, it's
Speaker 1: really really cool for people like myself that like to
Speaker 1: run with their watch and only their watch, because now
Speaker 1: you know, and I'll still use the iHeartRadio thing, but
Speaker 1: maybe now next time I run, I'll test this Spotify thing.
Speaker 1: So maybe I'll have to take a run today and
Speaker 1: check that out.
Speaker 2: But anyway, there you go.
Speaker 1: Mark via Instagram says long shot, I'm about to upgrade
Speaker 1: my phone. I've had Samsung Galaxy phone since the S five.
Speaker 1: I'm the social media guy for AV Firefighters, and it
Speaker 1: seems everyone has iPhones. I get small iPhone videos that
Speaker 1: I can't use all the time that I can't post.
Speaker 1: There is more, but I just inadvertently hit the send button.
Speaker 2: Lol.
Speaker 1: Should I switch to the iPhone twelve Pro or stick
Speaker 1: to the S twenty Ultra. Also, my wife will not
Speaker 1: make the switch. Ooh uh, Mark, I would recommend in
Speaker 1: this case that you make the switch.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you it's part of your job with
Speaker 1: this AV Firefighters and I will for better or for worse.
Speaker 1: This whole I message thing has really messed up messaging.
Speaker 1: And I say that because people think that you can
Speaker 1: send a one hundred gigabyte or whatever, one hundred megabyte
Speaker 1: video full resolution to a friend on another iPhone and
Speaker 1: that's just the way it magically works. No, it's going
Speaker 1: through I Message, And so when that friend tries to
Speaker 1: send you to your Samsung Galaxy S twenty Ultra, that's
Speaker 1: trying to do this through the MMS. It's not gonna work.
Speaker 1: It's gonna look like garbage. And so that's what you're experiencing.
Speaker 1: And yes, there's a million and one ways that you
Speaker 1: can ask this person to send you a video high
Speaker 1: res through Google Photos, through Dropbox, through Telegram, through an
Speaker 1: iCloud link.
Speaker 2: But guess what, they're not gonna do any of that.
Speaker 1: Because they're just gonna send it through I Message because
Speaker 1: that's what they know how to do, and that's what
Speaker 1: all their friends are doing, and that's how they've been
Speaker 1: raised on the iPhone.
Speaker 2: So things are getting a little better on the Android
Speaker 2: side of.
Speaker 1: Things now that we have we have RCS chat, and yes,
Speaker 1: you can send stuff just the way you can uh
Speaker 1: Android to Android. But the problem is that's still nason,
Speaker 1: it's still growing and not everyone's on board just yet.
Speaker 1: And again, the biggest problem is that when you go
Speaker 1: from iPhone to Android, Android to iPhone, all those giant
Speaker 1: files video are.
Speaker 2: Just going to look terrible. So I say, for the sake.
Speaker 1: Of your job, switch to the iPhone twelve pro, call
Speaker 1: it a day, and your wife can just stay on
Speaker 1: the the the Samsung side of things, what I'd recommend
Speaker 1: there because you're gonna get all caught up in the
Speaker 1: I message stuff set up with your wife a Telegram
Speaker 1: or a Facebook Messenger, any one of those apps. Just
Speaker 1: pick one and stick to it and say, look, this
Speaker 1: is how we message each other. And you know this
Speaker 1: is you know, I did this with my wife because
Speaker 1: I switch phones all the time and I'm always on
Speaker 1: Android or iPhone, and it was just such a pain
Speaker 1: for her to try to figure out where I was
Speaker 1: that day. And so I said, look, we're going to
Speaker 1: use Telegram and that's where you get me all the time.
Speaker 1: And we've been using it for you know, a year
Speaker 1: or two and it's been fantastic. Same thing with my family.
Speaker 1: We're all on Telegram. And so no matter what whoever,
Speaker 1: if you have an iPhone or an Android, it all
Speaker 1: works the same. And it has been an absolute blessing
Speaker 1: because we send photos, we send videos, we send gifts,
Speaker 1: we send emojis, and it's all the same no matter
Speaker 1: what phone you're on.
Speaker 2: It does not matter.
Speaker 1: With iPhone, it be that whole thing where you press
Speaker 1: you know, like on the iPhone and it sends it
Speaker 1: like to your Android friend is like Rich liked this,
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't make sense and so yeah, just
Speaker 1: stick to one of those apps and I think you
Speaker 1: will be fantastic. Great question mark, and uh yeah.
Speaker 2: It's pretty cool. I got to check you out. Check
Speaker 2: out av Firefighters. This I thought was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Apple could fix your broken iPhone, your AirPods, your Mac
Speaker 1: or other devices, even if it's out of warranty, for free.
Speaker 1: And this is not like some you know, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get your screen cracked or your crack screen done
Speaker 1: for free. Maybe you will, but there are caveats. This
Speaker 1: is not just like random. But this was a zd
Speaker 1: net dot com article and I didn't know about this,
Speaker 1: so it's you know, I'm telling you now. So the
Speaker 1: thing about this, it's called Apple Service Programs, okay, And
Speaker 1: so what this is is a website on the Apple
Speaker 1: website that lists all of the different I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: call them recalls because it's not necessarily stuff that's a
Speaker 1: danger to you, but it's it's all the products that
Speaker 1: Apple has put out that they have identified some sort
Speaker 1: of issue with.
Speaker 2: And yes, we hear this on the news. I often mentioned.
Speaker 1: I'll be like, hey, there's a new you know, Apple
Speaker 1: says if you have a you know, if you have
Speaker 1: a third generation iPhone six s and you notice that
Speaker 1: the speakers stopped working, they can replace it for free.
Speaker 1: And everyone jumps and goes to the website and sees
Speaker 1: pups in their serial number and sees if it's theirs,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, some of you have it. But this
Speaker 1: lists every one of these programs in one place, and
Speaker 1: right now there's like, I don't know a dozen or
Speaker 1: two of them. So they've got one for the Airpod's
Speaker 1: Pro for sound issues, iPad Air third generation. There's a
Speaker 1: blank screen issue, the smart battery case. They're replacing those
Speaker 1: iPhone Success and Success Plus for a power issue screen replace,
Speaker 1: an issue for Apple Watch series two and three, a
Speaker 1: fifteen inch MacBook Pro battery recall. And again these are
Speaker 1: all not brand new, but it's just kind of cool
Speaker 1: to see them all in one place. And if you
Speaker 1: go to support dot Apple dot com slash Service dash Programs,
Speaker 1: of course I'll link that up in the show notes,
Speaker 1: you can see all these different things and boom, you
Speaker 1: never know. I mean, if you if you have an
Speaker 1: Apple product in your house, it's worth it to just
Speaker 1: look on this on this page and see if one
Speaker 1: of these things that you had might have an issue
Speaker 1: I'm looking for anything.
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 1: Hm iPhone seven USB power adapter take back program.
Speaker 2: What's that? Yeah, so that's it.
Speaker 1: I mean my AirPods Pro maybe might have had the
Speaker 1: sound issues, yeah, crackling or static sounds, but since I lost.
Speaker 2: Them, it doesn't really matter. All right, Let's get to
Speaker 2: another question.
Speaker 1: Cynthia via Instagram says, just an FYI, I got my
Speaker 1: iPhone twelve pro today and it does not work with
Speaker 1: my magnetic car mount. I guess I just have to
Speaker 1: buy a mag safe one without the case. It holds
Speaker 1: on but slides a little. I don't think it would
Speaker 1: survive a drive with the case. It sticks, but it
Speaker 1: slides even more. Thanks Cynthia for the information, and I
Speaker 1: kind of assumed that that would be the case. Seems
Speaker 1: like this mag safe stuff is not going to be
Speaker 1: compatible with like current magnetic things out there, so we
Speaker 1: are gonna have to pay more to upgrade. And I
Speaker 1: do think that the car one is actually kind of
Speaker 1: a cool solution. So even if it's like a hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: I think it's probably worth it because if I can
Speaker 1: just I don't have wireless car place. Never mind, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, if I can just pop my phone
Speaker 1: on a magnetic mount and it's charging, and I you know,
Speaker 1: and it's on a mount. That's pretty cool, But then
Speaker 1: I lose my car play, so I still have to
Speaker 1: plug it in. So for me, I think just having
Speaker 1: a magnetic mount that goes on my vent or something
Speaker 1: with the you know, then I plug it in, it's gonna.
Speaker 2: Be pretty worth it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That'll that'll be pretty cool.
Speaker 1: H This is another thing I've been testing out, speaking
Speaker 1: of headphones, the one plus buds Z. So one Plus
Speaker 1: came out with one plus buds earlier in the year
Speaker 1: and they were okay. I found that the microphone quality
Speaker 1: was not very good, but overall they were okay, and
Speaker 1: they were eighty bucks.
Speaker 2: These are called the Buds Z and.
Speaker 1: They're only fifty dollars and I've been testing them and
Speaker 1: I got to say, I like them a lot. They
Speaker 1: fit a whole lot better than the original buds. They're cheaper,
Speaker 1: they have the silicone tips, and you know, it's like
Speaker 1: they have all the like twenty hours of playback with
Speaker 1: the case. Ten minutes of charging delivers three hours of playback.
Speaker 1: It's also USBC case. I just like the design, I
Speaker 1: like how they fit, and I think they're pretty good.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I have not done a lot of phone calls on them.
Speaker 1: I need to still test that aspect to see if
Speaker 1: the microphone is better, but the sound quality is just fine.
Speaker 2: They stay in my ears.
Speaker 1: The biggest thing that I've noticed with these, and why
Speaker 1: I can't one hundred percent recommend them yet, is that,
Speaker 1: for some reason, especially when you get sweaty, the.
Speaker 2: Bud, when it kind.
Speaker 1: Of pops out of your ear a little bit, it
Speaker 1: stops the music a lot more so than any other
Speaker 1: of these devices that have the automatic sensors that press
Speaker 1: pause on the music when you take these out of
Speaker 1: your ear. For some reason, these are really really touchy
Speaker 1: and it happens a lot and so and I've was
Speaker 1: testing them while I was running, and I kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, I was kind of seeing like what was
Speaker 1: going on, and like, I don't know if it's a
Speaker 1: placement of the sensor or if it's just they need
Speaker 1: to tweak their software a little bit, which could be
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to write these.
Speaker 1: Off just yet, but I have noticed that that happens
Speaker 1: much more now. Maybe you could turn that feature off
Speaker 1: in your settings so that they don't automatically play and
Speaker 1: pause your music, and that would help, but I haven't
Speaker 1: looked for that setting. The other thing that's smart about
Speaker 1: one plus now is that when they first came out
Speaker 1: with these earbuds, it was just a matter of they
Speaker 1: worked really well on the one plus phones, but on
Speaker 1: other Android phones and the iPhone they just worked okay
Speaker 1: because they didn't have like the specifics. Well, now they
Speaker 1: do have an app that lets you control the settings
Speaker 1: from your phone, so you can install this on Android.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they have it for iOS just yet,
Speaker 1: but it's called hay Melody, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: funny name.
Speaker 2: But now you can actually get the.
Speaker 1: Full use of all the software features, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about like programming the tap the tap areas on
Speaker 1: the left and right buds to like do certain things.
Speaker 1: So maybe you want a double tap to bring up
Speaker 1: Google Assistant versus you know, forwarding to the next song.
Speaker 2: So anyway, one plus bud z, don't write.
Speaker 1: Them off if you see them, you know, over the
Speaker 1: holidays for cheaper than fifty bucks. I mean they're pretty good,
Speaker 1: and I still like my Let's Fit for twenty dollars,
Speaker 1: I gotta say they are still pretty fantastic. These feel
Speaker 1: a little bit more premium than the Let's Fit, so
Speaker 1: I probably go with these over them. But the Let's
Speaker 1: Fit are fantastic for twenty dollars. I've got them linked up.
Speaker 1: I'll put them in the show notes. But I've also
Speaker 1: got a new Rich's Favorite Things. Since I you know,
Speaker 1: I'm responding to emails over and over with the same recommendations,
Speaker 1: so I decided to make a little list of all
Speaker 1: the stuff that I recommend on my website, Rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot TV, and you can see that list. It's
Speaker 1: called Rich's Favorite Things. Jose vervia Instagram says, good morning, Rich,
Speaker 1: huge fan. My wife and I are hooked on all
Speaker 1: your KTLA segments.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: Question my Google Pixel four XL recently broke. I love
Speaker 1: that phone. I'm not sure if you recommend I buy
Speaker 1: another four XL or just go with the new model,
Speaker 1: the four.
Speaker 2: A five G or the Pixel five.
Speaker 1: People to tell me to get an iPhone, but I
Speaker 1: really like the Pixels. Thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1: Thank you in advance, jose I would recommend just going
Speaker 1: with another Pixel. Why do you have to switch over
Speaker 1: to iPhone? Just because everyone tells you to. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: iPhone is the easy recommendation. Everyone uses them, everyone loves them.
Speaker 1: But if you like the Pixel, and what's not to love?
Speaker 1: I mean, the camera is awesome, the Googlely software is amazing.
Speaker 1: And although I'm not as big of a fan of
Speaker 1: the Pixel as I was in previous years because I
Speaker 1: think that Apple or Google is just screwing it up
Speaker 1: by not giving us these powerful phones that we deserve,
Speaker 1: I still think that the if you're using a Pixel
Speaker 1: four XL and you'll love it, go with one of
Speaker 1: the new models.
Speaker 2: And the model that I.
Speaker 1: Would choose is actually the four A five G because
Speaker 1: you get the bigger screen, and you get almost all
Speaker 1: of the same features, same camera. You the two main
Speaker 1: things you don't get You get two gigabytes less RAM,
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's gonna be a little teeny bit slower
Speaker 1: than the five and you also get no water resistance
Speaker 1: and what was the other thing, oh, no wireless charging.
Speaker 1: But you do get a headphone jack. So if you
Speaker 1: can live with not having those two features and you know,
Speaker 1: the less RAM, I think the bigger screen size is better.
Speaker 1: I think the headphone jack is better. And I look,
Speaker 1: I've been using the Pixel five. I've been testing it out.
Speaker 1: I do love it. It's just I wish that I
Speaker 1: just wish that Google would make a a powerful version
Speaker 1: of this device.
Speaker 2: And I don't understand why they can't do that.
Speaker 1: But they got everything right on the Pixel four and
Speaker 1: the Pixel of Pixel four A and the Pixel five.
Speaker 2: Like you know, everything. The software is great, The camera
Speaker 2: is good.
Speaker 1: It's not like you know, it's it's still that googlely
Speaker 1: camera that's pretty amazing in like almost every situation with
Speaker 1: just one snap of the of the shutter. But it's
Speaker 1: just like little things that, you know, I just don't
Speaker 1: understand why they can't give us like more ram, more storage,
Speaker 1: you know, a bigger screen option on the more powerful phone,
Speaker 1: like a zoom camera. Like what is going on, Google,
Speaker 1: Why can't you get this right? And But otherwise I'm
Speaker 1: not against it, and I still think if you're on
Speaker 1: a four XL and you love it, I think you'll
Speaker 1: like the four A five G. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a huge step down. And the battery life
Speaker 1: is definitely better, so I think that is a step up,
Speaker 1: all right. Another thing I was testing out with the
Speaker 1: kids this time is the Mario Kart Live Home Circuit.
Speaker 1: So this is you know, there's a lot of gaming
Speaker 1: stuff coming out right now. So you've got you know,
Speaker 1: Nintendo does not have a new console, but they have
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of games for the holiday season. This
Speaker 1: is one of their more unique ones. Then you've got
Speaker 1: the PlayStation five and the Xbox. The new Xbox is
Speaker 1: coming out. I'll tell you more about those in a
Speaker 1: future podcast, but let's talk about.
Speaker 2: Mario Kart Live.
Speaker 1: This is a game, it's Mario Kart, but it comes
Speaker 1: to life in your space, so they use augmented reality.
Speaker 1: You buy this little ninety nine dollars car that has
Speaker 1: a camera on it. It's either you know, it's a
Speaker 1: race car. It's either Mario or Luigi. You pair that
Speaker 1: up with your switch, you download this software, the Mario
Speaker 1: Kart Live. And then there's also cardboard that comes with
Speaker 1: this little kit that you buy for a hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: And the cardboard is kind of the I don't know
Speaker 1: what you call it, like you know, the end of
Speaker 1: a race where there's that thing, that checkered flag thing,
Speaker 1: but it's like above you, you know.
Speaker 2: The checkpoint.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you call that, but it's that
Speaker 1: and you basically make a course around your house with
Speaker 1: these four pieces of cardboard, and then you teach the
Speaker 1: game the course with the you know, by driving the
Speaker 1: car under the cardboard, and the little camera on the
Speaker 1: car recognizes the cardboard cutouts because it has like some
Speaker 1: sort of special writing on it or whatever, and then
Speaker 1: you just you're off to the races. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. Oh gates, that's what they call them. Four gates,
Speaker 1: and there's two arrow signboards as well, and you know,
Speaker 1: you play. We had a fun time playing with this.
Speaker 1: It's it's basically Mario Kart in the.
Speaker 2: Physical world but also in the virtual world.
Speaker 1: So you're driving through your house on this little course
Speaker 1: you built, but you're also seeing all the signature Mario
Speaker 1: Kart stuff, the other characters, the little power ups, all
Speaker 1: the little you know, obstacles are all on the virtual
Speaker 1: screen that you're seeing on your switch. So you see
Speaker 1: your house, like your living room, plus like clouds or
Speaker 1: snow or rain or whatever on your living room floor.
Speaker 2: It's really cool. We had a fun time.
Speaker 1: One hundred dollars for the car are It's a lot,
Speaker 1: and especially if you have two kids, you want to
Speaker 1: have you know, two of those cars, because you can't
Speaker 1: play together unless you got two cars. You can play
Speaker 1: against you know, virtual competitors, but that's it if you
Speaker 1: only have one car and the other thing. I don't
Speaker 1: think was clear, and I you know, I'm not really
Speaker 1: clear on this. I don't my kids couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 1: But I couldn't figure out a way for my kid
Speaker 1: to be a virtual player with my other kid being
Speaker 1: the physical player. I'm not sure if I need to
Speaker 1: do some more work on that one to figure it out.
Speaker 1: But it's fun, it's cool, it's unique, it's definitely you know,
Speaker 1: Nintendo has been really into cardboard for some reason. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they bought a company that does like
Speaker 1: cardboard stuff. But you know, Nintendo Labbo was all cardboard
Speaker 1: that was cool. But this is is a much better
Speaker 1: use of cardboard versus the Labo stuff. The Labbo was
Speaker 1: kind of like, eh, it was cool, but not as
Speaker 1: much this.
Speaker 2: This is pretty cool. So it's fun.
Speaker 1: I think the kids will like it for the holidays.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much they'll play it after the
Speaker 1: first time, because, let's be honest, I mean, it's easier
Speaker 1: to just sit down and play on your switch than
Speaker 1: it is to sit there and set up the whole
Speaker 1: course every time. So in that aspect, you know, it
Speaker 1: might be one of these things where they do it
Speaker 1: once or twice and then they never really played again.
Speaker 2: So I would kind of wait and see on this one.
Speaker 1: But it was fun and it is definitely a unique
Speaker 1: spin on the.
Speaker 2: Whole Mario Kart thing.
Speaker 1: So I will I will definitely give you that uh oh,
Speaker 1: I hear it there. It is that music that means
Speaker 1: it's the end of the show. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: submit a question for me to answer, just go to
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot tv, hit the email button at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the page, or send it to hello
Speaker 1: at richontech dot tv.
Speaker 2: Also, I would love it if.
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Speaker 1: Slash rich on tech, Duffy Zoo rated the podcast and
Speaker 1: said love rich on Tech. Thanks Rich for all the
Speaker 1: great info you provide. Love when I get to see
Speaker 1: you on Katla, but I don't catch it all the time.
Speaker 1: I started following you on Instagram and felt more connected.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Thanks and now I'm leaning in further with your podcast.
Speaker 1: I feel much more in the know thanks to you.
Speaker 1: It's a bit cool to be able to show my
Speaker 1: four teenagers new tricks and tips you've shared. Thanks again, Alma, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you Alma for listening, and thanks for leaving a review.
Speaker 2: Got a bunch of reviews up there, and most of
Speaker 2: them are positive, so thanks for that.
Speaker 1: You can find me online at rich on Tech. I
Speaker 1: will be testing out the latest gadgets bringing them to you.
Speaker 1: If you're following me on Instagram, I'm trying to post
Speaker 1: a lot there these days. Of course on Facebook as well.
Speaker 1: My name is rich Dimiro. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Stay safe and I'll talk to you real soon.