Speaker 1: Hands off with the Google Pixel four. Google smart speakers
Speaker 1: get a handy new feature. Samsung has a fingerprint issue
Speaker 1: on its hands. See what I did there and your
Speaker 1: tech questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro. This
Speaker 1: is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about
Speaker 1: the tech stuff I think you should know about. Plus
Speaker 1: I answer all the questions that you just send me.
Speaker 1: Here them right there, that's them questions. We print them out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do.
Speaker 1: Welcome producer Megan. What's going on?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 1: Hey, is that your new thing? Did you think about that?
Speaker 2: Did you have that swear that just came out? And
Speaker 2: then I and then you literally like read my mind
Speaker 2: and I, yeah, I don't know where that came from. Okay,
Speaker 2: so maybe that's my thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe, well okay, so this is, hey, hey, kind of funny.
Speaker 1: But so you know, I fill in for Leo Laporte. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on occasion. Actually I'm gonna be doing it in two weeks.
Speaker 1: But so I didn't realized that he had a way
Speaker 1: of like introducing the show every time. And so it's
Speaker 1: really like when you're doing a syndicated radio show, like
Speaker 1: it's really nerve wracking. I think like literally you're on
Speaker 1: like the producers. You're in your ear and it's like
Speaker 1: you're hot, you know, and all of a sudden you're
Speaker 1: like lived all these people around the nation, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to say, like how do you say,
Speaker 1: you know, like good morning, but it wasn't morning in
Speaker 1: some places, you know. So anyway, so I noticed that
Speaker 1: Leo always he always does something like well, hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: how are you doing today or something like that, and
Speaker 1: so it kind of like reminded me of what you
Speaker 1: just did. But I have not come up with a thing, yeah,
Speaker 1: like of what I say.
Speaker 2: But there's another podcast I listened to and they go hello.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, Right, so everyone has their thing of how
Speaker 1: they intro and if you watch or listen to this show,
Speaker 1: I should say listen because there is no watching. You
Speaker 1: realize that there is nothing. There's no givens, there's everything.
Speaker 1: Every week is like one hundred percent different. So but anyway,
Speaker 1: we did just have a meeting with our big boss
Speaker 1: here at our new company. You know, we were purchased
Speaker 1: KTLA as part of Tribune was purchased by another a
Speaker 1: new company called Nextstar. And so that's our new company
Speaker 1: that we work for, which I used to work for
Speaker 1: back in the day we had our big meeting. How
Speaker 1: nervous were you scale of one to ten for this meeting.
Speaker 2: I was. I mean ten is really extreme. I would
Speaker 2: say maybe a seven.
Speaker 1: Did you sleep last night?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I slept. I actually did sleep.
Speaker 1: I supped really well.
Speaker 2: Okay, you were not obviously nervous at all.
Speaker 1: No, Well, I was also jet lagged.
Speaker 2: I feel like, as a reporter, like you just can't
Speaker 2: really get nervous.
Speaker 1: No, you don't.
Speaker 2: I feel like you're used to just always being on.
Speaker 2: But for me, I'm like, I feel like I just
Speaker 2: trip over all my words. That's how I feel.
Speaker 1: But I think we did well. The meeting was very short.
Speaker 2: I had nothing, I you were great.
Speaker 1: We just ended up. We ended up just talking about
Speaker 1: like how much we love doing social media. So who
Speaker 1: knows if it was good or not. But yeah, let's
Speaker 1: get to the big news of the week. The Pixel
Speaker 1: four smartphone is unveiled for real. I was in New
Speaker 1: York for the big Made by Google event and I
Speaker 1: have a Pixel four right here, which, according to my
Speaker 1: i NDA, they call it or embargo, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it. There are certain rules and apparently I
Speaker 1: was reading it and it said you can only tweet
Speaker 1: pictures from the main camera, which I think by saying that,
Speaker 1: I'm breaking the rules of saying what the rules are.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Which so I was gonna tweet like a
Speaker 1: selfie and then I was like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: can't even like tweet a selfie because it says you can't.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so all the tech companies, when they give
Speaker 1: you stuff to review, there's a certain time that they want.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before, when you can reveal your thoughts.
Speaker 1: There's a thing called first impressions. So if you're ever
Speaker 1: watching YouTube videos, when you see first impressions, that means
Speaker 1: that it is not a review or hands on not
Speaker 1: a review. Only when you see that magic word review,
Speaker 1: that means that the embargo has been lifted and you
Speaker 1: are free to give all of your thoughts on this device.
Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of stuff I've noticed about
Speaker 1: this device. I can't necessarily say it because they want
Speaker 1: to have a certain window where people can collect their
Speaker 1: thoughts and then publish them. It's kind of annoying, but
Speaker 1: that's just the way they play.
Speaker 2: It makes sense.
Speaker 1: So Pixel four is the new smartphone from Google, and
Speaker 1: if you've listened to me at all. You know, I
Speaker 1: love the pixel lineup. It is pure Google. Pixel four
Speaker 1: fixes a lot of the problems that we've seen on
Speaker 1: previous devices. The number one thing is there is no
Speaker 1: ultra wide camera lens, which every other smartphone maker in
Speaker 1: the world is doing. Google decided not to. They did
Speaker 1: put a secondary lens, but it's more for zoom and
Speaker 1: they say that they think that zoom is more important
Speaker 1: to users, which I kind of agree with because I
Speaker 1: was debating this with my wife last night. I was like,
Speaker 1: how many people actually take ultra wide pictures? Like what
Speaker 1: are the use cases? Not many, but how many people
Speaker 1: are at their kids recital or out? And about how
Speaker 1: many times you see people pinching in on the screen
Speaker 1: to zoom in all the time. Yeah, and when you
Speaker 1: do that you lose a lot of quality. Google, you
Speaker 1: don't really lose a lot of quality, So that's amazing.
Speaker 1: It also has this motion sense, which means there's a
Speaker 1: little radar inside which you can control it with your
Speaker 1: hand just by waving it. That is very hit or miss,
Speaker 1: but it's there and it works. The face on lock
Speaker 1: is super fast. It's amazing. It's actually too fast because
Speaker 1: every time I look at my phone. It's unlocked already.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, so's kind of crazy, but it's great. You
Speaker 1: can snooze alarms by waving your hand over them. You
Speaker 1: can silence phone calls, you can skip to the next song.
Speaker 1: That's kind of cool. The camera has been improved, but
Speaker 1: the pixels pretty darn good, so it's kind of tough
Speaker 1: to improve that camera. But you can now take pictures
Speaker 1: of stars, which I've not tried. I will do that
Speaker 1: this weekend in my backyard. I can't wait. Just you
Speaker 1: can take a picture for as long as four minutes.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, So I can't wait to see what that
Speaker 1: looks like. You have to put it on a tripod
Speaker 1: if you're going to do that, okay, because you can't
Speaker 1: just hold it for.
Speaker 2: So I was going to say, you should go on
Speaker 2: the parking lot and take a picture of the sky
Speaker 2: with the grip at the observatory at like three am.
Speaker 1: I was going to do that. I actually thought of
Speaker 1: that this morning. Yeah, but I don't I need to
Speaker 1: get a little stand for the phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It actually gave me a case that has a built
Speaker 1: in tripod, but it's too bulky for me to like
Speaker 1: carry around every day. So Let's see, so you can
Speaker 1: take pictures that way. Let's see. The screen is ninety
Speaker 1: hurts capable, which means when you're scrolling through Twitter and
Speaker 1: Facebook and all that stuff, it looks smoother than normal.
Speaker 1: But that's not really a big thing for most people.
Speaker 1: Battery life, they say, it's all day. It has wireless charging,
Speaker 1: all that good stuff. The things that does not have
Speaker 1: no fingerprint reader, no wide angle lens, and no original
Speaker 1: picture storage at ar sorry, no unlimited picture storage at
Speaker 1: original quality, which is one of the big things that
Speaker 1: the three previous Pixels had, which means you can store
Speaker 1: all your photos and four K videos at the best
Speaker 1: resolution and never worry about paying for that. Now that's
Speaker 1: not a thing anymore. Why it probably got too expensive
Speaker 1: for Google and they probably just don't need it anymore,
Speaker 1: like they I don't know, they just decided that's not important.
Speaker 1: So I never thought it was important because I pay
Speaker 1: for Google storage anyway, but and I don't think it's Look,
Speaker 1: these tech companies have a lot of research, and they
Speaker 1: understand how people are using their devices in ways that
Speaker 1: we don't even understand. Because your phone is reporting back
Speaker 1: all the time what you're doing with it, and so
Speaker 1: they understand. They know if people are using the pinch
Speaker 1: to zoom, they know if people are using this app
Speaker 1: or that app, so we can kind of speculate on
Speaker 1: the top features. Google actually an Apple and all these
Speaker 1: companies they know what the top features are, so they
Speaker 1: know what they can ditch. And yeah, they're going to
Speaker 1: get some stuff in the media about it, but they
Speaker 1: know it's not going to be a big deal at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. The other app that's kind
Speaker 1: of cool is the recorder app, and it transcribes everything
Speaker 1: in real time in addition to recording your voice, so
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a notes app that's much more
Speaker 1: useful because you can look at the transcript. Cool if
Speaker 1: you're in meetings all the time and you know that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Again, I've been using the Pixel Xcel version.
Speaker 1: It's big. I think for most people to probably want
Speaker 1: the smaller one, but I like the big screen and
Speaker 1: so far, so good. I mean, I can only give
Speaker 1: you my impressions of it. I cannot give you my
Speaker 1: review of it. Yeah, but I will tell you that
Speaker 1: I will probably be buying the one twenty eight gigabyte
Speaker 1: Pixel for Xcel.
Speaker 2: So how would you rate it? On a scale of
Speaker 2: one to ten as an impression.
Speaker 1: I just love the Pixel. I think it's like the
Speaker 1: perfect smartphone for I think for creator it's a little
Speaker 1: bit tougher because it's not like as good as the
Speaker 1: iPhone when it comes to like creating content, and the
Speaker 1: apps aren't as good. But I think that as a
Speaker 1: smart phone, it is really smart, like it just anticipates
Speaker 1: everything that you want to do and kind of like
Speaker 1: is ready for that. And I think that's the difference
Speaker 1: between iPhone and Pixel. iPhone has all the apps, it's perfect,
Speaker 1: it's polished, it just does everything you need it to do.
Speaker 1: But it's more of I call a hunt and peck
Speaker 1: mentality versus on this phone. The Pixel uses AI to
Speaker 1: kind of surface things that it thinks you want to
Speaker 1: do next. And I think that's the biggest difference between
Speaker 1: the two devices. Right, So hopefully that made sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes and with that ten, I think that's
Speaker 2: a ten.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Megan with the first question of the day.
Speaker 2: All right, So this first question comes from Evelyn and
Speaker 2: she writes in on rich on tech Dot TV. All
Speaker 2: you have to do is you can send a question
Speaker 2: to Rich through rich on tech dot TV, go to
Speaker 2: the contact page and you can submit your question. Evelyn asks,
Speaker 2: what have you heard about this product? It's called Infinity Cloud.
Speaker 1: This is not the first question I'm getting about this thing.
Speaker 1: And it's spelled in a weird way, like it's spelled
Speaker 1: Is it spelled infinity kloed? Is that how she spelled it? Yes? Okay,
Speaker 1: So I've gotten at least I would say, four or
Speaker 1: five emails about this, so clearly they are advertising somewhere
Speaker 1: that I am not a part of, Like whether it's
Speaker 1: Instagram or Facebook or Late Night TV, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I've gotten a lot of emails. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out. There's not like a main website that I found,
Speaker 1: But I did find on Amazon they have something called
Speaker 1: the Infinity Cloud USB drive and it's spelled that same way,
Speaker 1: and it's one hundred and twenty eight gigabyte drive and
Speaker 1: it includes Infinity Cloud super Fast one click backup software
Speaker 1: for Mac and PC. I'm guessing this is what she's
Speaker 1: talking about. It's a ninety dollars device and it's kind
Speaker 1: of from what I can tell, it's a flash drive
Speaker 1: that backs up things on your computer. Okay, and I
Speaker 1: don't like the name Infinity Cloud because it sounds like
Speaker 1: you're getting as much backup storage as you need and
Speaker 1: this is a hundred yeah, and this is one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty eight gigs.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's weird.
Speaker 1: Here's my advice on this. I think it has a
Speaker 1: fancy name. I think they're advertising and they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're getting people to buy this thing, but don't. I
Speaker 1: would say, if you're going to back up stuff. Number one,
Speaker 1: if you have a Windows computer or a Mac computer,
Speaker 1: buy a hard drive Western Digital. Seventy bucks will get
Speaker 1: you a two terabyte hard drive. You plug it into
Speaker 1: your computer, your Mac or your Windows computer will automatically
Speaker 1: back up all your files there. That's number one. Number
Speaker 1: two when it comes to the cloud, use iCloud, use
Speaker 1: Google Photos for your photos, use Microsoft one Drive for
Speaker 1: your documents if you want, you know, depending on the
Speaker 1: platform you're on, and all again, you can get some
Speaker 1: free storage with those, but you can also pay to
Speaker 1: get more storage. And finally, if you want to use
Speaker 1: something like back Blaze or Carbonite, if you want sort
Speaker 1: of the entire computer backed up to one So what
Speaker 1: would happen with that with back Blaze or Carbonite is
Speaker 1: it's off site, so it's very similar to time Machine
Speaker 1: or Windows backup, but it's off site, so god forbid
Speaker 1: you're you know hard drive ever you know crashes, plus
Speaker 1: the secondary backup you have gets lost or burned or ruined.
Speaker 1: You can go to back blaze and say, hey, can
Speaker 1: you get all my data back? And it gets back
Speaker 1: to the way you were and they may charge you
Speaker 1: like a fee if you want like a drive sent
Speaker 1: to your house with all of your stuff on it,
Speaker 1: or you can just download it from the computer as well.
Speaker 1: So those are the things that I would recommend back
Speaker 1: Blaze or Carbonite. And the first backup, by the way,
Speaker 1: is going to take a long time because you're backing
Speaker 1: up your whole computer. Yeah, after that, it's incremental and
Speaker 1: it's just done. Like I had. I had Carbonite for
Speaker 1: a while and it was great because like you just
Speaker 1: knew your whole computer was backed up without even thinking.
Speaker 2: I kind of like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm just seeing how much it is. So
Speaker 1: back blaze is sixty bucks for a year or six
Speaker 1: dollars a month, okay, And I always go back to
Speaker 1: the beer mentality. If you purchase a beer or a
Speaker 1: drink for five bucks, ten dollars one time that month,
Speaker 1: you can have back blaze for six dollars. Yeah. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying you need to do that, but I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you spend money on things like you go
Speaker 1: to Chipotle, it's nine bucks. You could add your computer
Speaker 1: backed up for the whole month. Yeah, and he could
Speaker 1: add a bowl cereal at home, or a beer or
Speaker 1: a beer. Samsung says they will soon patch a fingerprint
Speaker 1: recognition problem on the Galaxy S ten. Samsung said that
Speaker 1: there is a software patch ready to go for a
Speaker 1: fingerprint recognition failure on the S ten smartphone. Apparently there's
Speaker 1: a bug in the Galaxy S ten that allows people
Speaker 1: to unlock the phone using their fingerprint, even if their
Speaker 1: fingerprint is not the one registered to unlock the phone.
Speaker 1: That sounds really bad.
Speaker 2: Aka anyone can open the phone.
Speaker 1: Pretty much so. A British user told The Sun newspaper,
Speaker 1: which is a tabloid I believe over in Europe, that
Speaker 1: she had a third party screen protector on her phone
Speaker 1: and her husband was able to unlock it using his
Speaker 1: fingerprint without register.
Speaker 2: The only example, apparently.
Speaker 1: But it's big enough where Reuter's did a story on it.
Speaker 1: Everyone else has picked it up, and Samsung did tell
Speaker 1: Reuters and Gizmoto that they do have a software fix
Speaker 1: that they're going to put out for this. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing they said, Apparently some of the issues with
Speaker 1: your fingerprint recognition happen with some third party screen protectors
Speaker 1: that are silicone, silic can silicon based and plastic based.
Speaker 1: And so it's I guess, if you have a glass
Speaker 1: screen protector, which I would normally recommend, it's probably not
Speaker 1: that big of an issue, but with these cheaper ones
Speaker 1: it is. So again, I've you know, I haven't used
Speaker 1: a plastic screen protector in a long time. I always
Speaker 1: use one that's glass from tech Armor, and so I
Speaker 1: haven't seen this issue. I guess I can try to
Speaker 1: recreate it on the Samsung Galaxy S ten, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think So that's that's a that's a weird one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you should try to recreate it, but.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't workcuse I don't have a scream protector, so
Speaker 1: I'd need like a cheap I guess I can go
Speaker 1: to like one of those cheap malt kiosks, and you know, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: so again my advice you if you have a Samsung
Speaker 1: Galaxy S ten, is this gonna happen? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Try if you have a cheap plastic screen protector on
Speaker 1: there A, you probably want to upgrade that. B. Have
Speaker 1: a friend try their fingerprint and see if it works
Speaker 1: and let me know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then maybe change to a pass cut.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I would definitely change for the time being. Yeah,
Speaker 1: until you see that softwareupdate.
Speaker 2: Okay, cool. Next question comes from Kathy and she she asks,
Speaker 2: I need to get a new streaming stick. I had Firestick,
Speaker 2: I now have an iPhone. So between firestick and Apple TV,
Speaker 2: which would you recommend? And then she said my TV
Speaker 2: is ten eighty but may soon get an HD, So
Speaker 2: I assume I should get an HD streaming stick.
Speaker 1: They're all I mean, they're all the st at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think they sell a stick that's not Roku
Speaker 1: might in their bottom like their lowest one. They might.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and also, your TV is ten eighty. That's
Speaker 1: that's HD already, so you're already there. Yeah, you're already there.
Speaker 1: What Let's see? So she has Apple TV, No, No,
Speaker 1: she has an iPhone?
Speaker 2: She she has she had firestick. She oh. She also
Speaker 2: says she has Roku in some rooms and she hates it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so she had Firestick and then she hates the Roku.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't so between Firestick and Apple TV,
Speaker 2: which would you recommend?
Speaker 1: So okay, So Firestick I think that's one I use.
Speaker 1: It's it's super cheap, it works really well, it pushes
Speaker 1: all Amazon stuff, And I find that the organization of
Speaker 1: the Firestick is atrocious because like if I just want
Speaker 1: to see what the top movies are for like rental
Speaker 1: or purchase, it's like takes like twenty five menus to
Speaker 1: find that, whereas an Apple TV just go to iTunes
Speaker 1: as like top movies boom. But again, and Apple TV
Speaker 1: is way more expensive, And I think that's the delineation here.
Speaker 1: How much do you want to spend Apple TV you're
Speaker 1: looking at closer to two hundred dollars versus Firestick. You
Speaker 1: can get it for like twenty five bucks or maybe
Speaker 1: I think the fifty as the most expensive one as
Speaker 1: a stick, So it depends how many you're buying. And
Speaker 1: with Apple TV you get the integration to your iPhone.
Speaker 1: Do you want to airplay stuff from your iPhone through the.
Speaker 2: Screen, something she probably wants and photos.
Speaker 1: You can also, so if you have a firestick like
Speaker 1: I do, to get your photos from your iPhone onto
Speaker 1: the TV, you can do it. You can download the
Speaker 1: Amazon Photos app, you can upload them one by one
Speaker 1: and do that. Or if you have an iPhone, obviously
Speaker 1: it's just kind of like you can just do a
Speaker 1: photo stream or you can do your recent pictures or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I mean, I think personally, I would probably lean
Speaker 1: towards the Apple TV. If you have an iPhone and
Speaker 1: you're saying you hated Roku, which I don't know why
Speaker 1: you hate Roco. It's pretty good, and you.
Speaker 2: Had fire stuff Roku.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Roku just sent me a Ultra to test
Speaker 1: ok and so I set it up and I know,
Speaker 1: went through the whole thing, and I haven't used a
Speaker 1: Roku in forever, and I got to say, I was
Speaker 1: actually quite impressed. It's just clean and straightforward, except there
Speaker 1: are a lot of ads on the screen. I don't
Speaker 1: like the ads, and the interface looks like it's out
Speaker 1: of the eighties because it kind of like when you
Speaker 1: start streaming, really does that bar that comes up is like,
Speaker 1: come on, could you just redo that a little bit?
Speaker 1: Apple TV is probably the most it is the most
Speaker 1: polished out of all of them, and you're also and
Speaker 1: you're also spending the most. Where is this Roku is
Speaker 1: half the price and it does all the same things
Speaker 1: and if not more because the remote it came with
Speaker 1: is really nice. It can plug You can plug a
Speaker 1: headphone jack into it or headphones into the remote, which
Speaker 1: is really cool. It controls the volume on your TV
Speaker 1: and the power on off. And it has two buttons
Speaker 1: that you can assign to anything. So if you love
Speaker 1: to come home and stream something over and over, like
Speaker 1: I mean, Netflix is a bad example because I feel
Speaker 1: like the remote has that button. Yeah it may not,
Speaker 1: So whatever you want to do, you know, you can
Speaker 1: assign that button. Or maybe you want to listen to
Speaker 1: a podcast or music. So I I personally think that, uh,
Speaker 1: the Apple TV might be the way to go for you, Kathleen,
Speaker 1: But you know, it depends. It all depends on how
Speaker 1: much you want to spend. I think that's the main thing. Oh,
Speaker 1: speaking of Amazon, Amazon's Holiday Toy Guide seems like a
Speaker 1: great place to reference all of your holiday shopping because
Speaker 1: Amazon is a place where we all shop nowadays. Well,
Speaker 1: guess what a spot on that guide could cost? You
Speaker 1: two million dollars.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: According to Bloomberg, Amazon has companies pay to be included
Speaker 1: in this Holiday toy guide. Now, they don't pay for
Speaker 1: outright inclusion. They pay for the ability to be featured
Speaker 1: or considered in this list. So Amazon sells Holiday Toy
Speaker 1: List sponsorships for as much as two million dollars, according
Speaker 1: to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. The more sponsors pay, the
Speaker 1: more products they can nominate to be on the list,
Speaker 1: and the more prominently their own products will be featured
Speaker 1: on the website. Amazon aimed to sell at least twenty
Speaker 1: million dollars in sponsorships for this year's show, according to
Speaker 1: documents from Bloomberg. And this is all through Fortune magazine,
Speaker 1: who's reporting on what Bloomberg reported, And then I'm reporting it.
Speaker 1: But it makes sense. But here's an I get it.
Speaker 1: If you go to Walmart and Walmart Circular is telling
Speaker 1: you the top holiday gifts that is not a third
Speaker 1: party thing like Walmart says like, oh, we make a
Speaker 1: pretty good margin on this Elmo doll, so let's put
Speaker 1: that on the list. Or we have a pretty good
Speaker 1: relationship with Hasbro and they have this new doll. Let's
Speaker 1: put that on the list. I get it. It's not
Speaker 1: third party, it's not independent. You're not expecting when you
Speaker 1: go into a store and you look at what's on
Speaker 1: the end of the aisle, they call those the end caps.
Speaker 1: Those are all highly coveted positions that companies jockey for
Speaker 1: and they try to get their stuff there, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it costs money to get there. When you look at
Speaker 1: the stuff on the aisles, when you look at the
Speaker 1: peanut butter that's right at eye level. Yeah, Jeff has
Speaker 1: paid for that placement or somehow it may not be
Speaker 1: a direct payment, but they work with Walmart to figure
Speaker 1: out how to get their stuff there. Hey, we'll give
Speaker 1: you five cents off every can because we know you
Speaker 1: give us a very good spot on the shelf every year.
Speaker 1: You're not down at the bottom. They put the cheap
Speaker 1: stuff at the bottom. Yeah, because that's not paying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I always go for the cheap stuff. Always.
Speaker 1: Always. You got a shop by the unit price, and
Speaker 1: so this is not a surprise. But I think and
Speaker 1: I looked at the Amazon toy list on their website,
Speaker 1: I co only find t twenty eighteens right now, But
Speaker 1: it doesn't say anywhere that like it says. Okay, So
Speaker 1: here's what Amazon says for their part. Every product on
Speaker 1: our annual holiday Toy List, which features family gift ideas,
Speaker 1: is independently curated by a team of in house experts
Speaker 1: based on a high bar for quality, design, innovation, and
Speaker 1: play experience. We source product ideas from many places, including
Speaker 1: our selling partners, who have an opportunity to nominate their
Speaker 1: best toys for the season and increase visibility of those toys.
Speaker 1: So Amazon saying like, yeah, this is what we do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's kind of like, I mean, I hate to
Speaker 1: say this, but it's like awards, like you know when
Speaker 1: people get like Emmys and stuff, like you don't pay
Speaker 1: for that, but you pay to nominate yourself.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean they also pay a lot in
Speaker 2: like promoting the show or the movie, Like the Oscars
Speaker 2: is all I don't want to say rigged, but like
Speaker 2: they put millions into just getting you know, like.
Speaker 1: If there's a core Great, you only know about the
Speaker 1: Great documentary because it's advertised fifty different ways too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Netflix probably spent fifteen million on whatever pr
Speaker 2: just to like make happen, so it's happening. Shocking. It's
Speaker 2: like but I think people also like to, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of make it a bigger deal than it is.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it is a big deal because people
Speaker 1: need to know that this is happening. When you hear
Speaker 1: from someone like myself, it's independent. I'm not I don't
Speaker 1: get paid by a company to say I love their stuff.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's the big delineation is that
Speaker 1: with all these YouTubers and stuff, and I'm not hating
Speaker 1: on them, I love them. But the reality is when
Speaker 1: you see that sponsored or that ad, the company is
Speaker 1: using them as a conduit to get their product in
Speaker 1: front of your face. Yes, and that's fine, but you
Speaker 1: just you know that because you see sponsored or add a.
Speaker 1: But on Amazon, like if it says paid placement, you
Speaker 1: understand that, like this is sponsored. There's just a delineation.
Speaker 1: When you know something sponsored, you just say in your
Speaker 1: mind like, Okay, that's fine, it doesn't ruin it as
Speaker 1: a product, but it's you understand that. And I think
Speaker 1: that relationship has to be clear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but in stores they don't No, they.
Speaker 1: Don't say that, but you understand you're in store. So anyway,
Speaker 1: long story short, I think you know, listen to as
Speaker 1: many void as you can, especially independent voices. And you
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of websites that do reviews now,
Speaker 1: so you know you can just cross reference to reviews
Speaker 1: and you'll see like the trends among all of them.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it's my turn. You already did a question? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or did I know?
Speaker 2: You just did Amazon?
Speaker 1: I just did Amazon. Okay, see, I trusted my judgment.
Speaker 1: It's your turn.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, all right. We got a fun message from
Speaker 2: Steven who said, I really like your show, always tons
Speaker 2: of information. I heard you on Brian Tong's podcast. I
Speaker 2: listened weekly and now enjoy it a lot.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's so good. I just saw Brian Tongue at
Speaker 1: the Pixel events and it's great. You know, he's a
Speaker 1: great friend. He's been you know, we've known each other
Speaker 1: since we worked at sne together that and so he
Speaker 1: left seen it and did his own thing. So now
Speaker 1: he's part of this YouTube crew, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: they rolled deep, like nineteen of them. They're all like,
Speaker 1: they all collab and this and that. It's pretty cool
Speaker 1: to say, Yeah, so I'm not part of that group,
Speaker 1: but I know them.
Speaker 2: You could be.
Speaker 1: I say hi to them and I know them, but
Speaker 1: I'm not part of them, but they're doing great anyway.
Speaker 1: So do you have a question as well?
Speaker 2: Yes, I do. This question comes from Dan hey Rich
Speaker 2: any thoughts on a Mac Mini versus iMac looking for
Speaker 2: something to have at home Internet browsing, email, video conferencing
Speaker 2: for work.
Speaker 1: I would definitely go iMac. I think the Mac Mini
Speaker 1: sounds great, But what's the point. I mean, unless you
Speaker 1: already have your monitor that you love and the keyboard
Speaker 1: that you love and all these accessories that you have
Speaker 1: to bring to the table. I go with an Imacy.
Speaker 1: My dream is to have an iMac. I have want
Speaker 1: I've never owned iMac, never owned an iMac. It has
Speaker 1: literally been my dream to have an iMac on my
Speaker 1: desktop for the past decade.
Speaker 2: You need to have a little writer writer room, right,
Speaker 2: You'll have your iMac and like he's just right there.
Speaker 1: I just want that. But then here's my problem. I
Speaker 1: can't justify purchasing an iMac when I have my computer
Speaker 1: that I use everywhere in my laptop that I just
Speaker 1: put on my desk. Yeah, and then also I imagine, like, okay,
Speaker 1: so I have to go between like both things, and
Speaker 1: like whatever I put on the desktop, there is not
Speaker 1: on that desktop and then sink it up. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, there probably is. But my advice what was
Speaker 1: this person's name again? Uh?
Speaker 2: Dan Stan Dan Dan Dan Dan?
Speaker 1: My advice is do not, I repeat, do not go
Speaker 1: with the base model iMac because it's one thousand ninety
Speaker 1: nine dollars. That's the sucker's bat. You do not get
Speaker 1: the best things on that computer, namely the best screen.
Speaker 1: You get an old non retina screen. Now do you
Speaker 1: remember when you had your MacBook Air versus the computer
Speaker 1: they gave you here? Yeah, you know one has the
Speaker 1: retina screen, one doesn't. Can you tell the difference? Yes,
Speaker 1: night and day.
Speaker 2: It's insane, like it's crazy.
Speaker 1: So imagine imagine spending one thousand ninety nine on an
Speaker 1: iMac to get a non retina display. When you can,
Speaker 1: you've already gone the thousand ninety nine right, go the
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars further, don't eat now, start and get
Speaker 1: the retina.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do your eyes a favor.
Speaker 1: Everything with me is eating out or drinking we w Well,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying because I always see money as like
Speaker 1: all these little decisions we make in our lives. Yes,
Speaker 1: where you go out like I went out the other
Speaker 1: night I bought a round of drinks from my family.
Speaker 1: It was like sixty bucks, I know, very nice. No, yes,
Speaker 1: those those milkshakes up. Yeah, And I'm telling you it
Speaker 1: was sixty dollars. And so that is six months of
Speaker 1: Spotify in my head right there. Yeah, and everyone it's
Speaker 1: not just me that's doing this, see, And it's all
Speaker 1: these little things like if you buy coffee at Starbucks,
Speaker 1: you know, it's four forty five for like a latte now, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that is half a month of some cloud service
Speaker 1: that you've been hemming and hauling over. And so we
Speaker 1: make these little decisions so easily in real life. Then
Speaker 1: when it comes to buying a Mac you say, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just save the two hundred bucks and go with
Speaker 1: the base model. Spend the extra two hundred and get
Speaker 1: the model that has the retina display and it's a
Speaker 1: four K display as well, and you also get some
Speaker 1: other improved graphics, you know, bigger, not a bigger hard drive,
Speaker 1: but just better. A couple other specs are better too,
Speaker 1: so good question. Yeah, and the Mac Mini, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, I think that's awesome. Back in the day
Speaker 1: when when the home theater PC was a big deal,
Speaker 1: that Mac Mini was kind of cool because you can
Speaker 1: hook it up your TV, and I don't see the
Speaker 1: point of that anymore. It's getting Apple TV. Nest Mini
Speaker 1: is getting a makeover, available October twenty second. Is the
Speaker 1: new Yeah. This used to be called the Google Home Mini.
Speaker 1: Now it's the Nest Mini, probably Google's most popular smart speaker.
Speaker 1: I've got a bunch of them around my house. Do
Speaker 1: you have any of these around your place? Nest many
Speaker 1: like these little things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my sister has one.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you need one? I mean I have one.
Speaker 1: I can give you Okay, okay, I will give you one.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, the new one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, not the new one, the old one. For
Speaker 1: a while I was getting these things, is like in
Speaker 1: like gift bags, like randomly you go to like an event,
Speaker 1: you get like a Google Home Mini, and I was
Speaker 1: giving them out. I've reached a point of like saturation
Speaker 1: where everyone I know like does want him anymore?
Speaker 2: Like I'm good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the Google Home Mini was launched in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: The new version. There's not too much to know about it.
Speaker 1: It's fifty dollars, same price that used to be. These
Speaker 1: things usually go on sale as a loss Leader. During
Speaker 1: the holidays, you can pick them up for twenty nine
Speaker 1: thirty nine dollars. You know, at least ten dollars off
Speaker 1: during the holidays. I'd say, if not, probably twenty nine
Speaker 1: is a more viable price point. So don't buy this
Speaker 1: thing at forty nine dollars. I hate to say this
Speaker 1: with all Google stuff, but they price it in a
Speaker 1: way that they know. Some of these things, like these
Speaker 1: Nest Minis, they're just going to go on sale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Target's going to put them on sale, Walmart, best Buy.
Speaker 1: So the thing to know about it now is it
Speaker 1: kind of looks the same, but it's made from one
Speaker 1: hundred percent recycled plastic bottles. So all those bottles that
Speaker 1: you're thrown out from your water, your your Fiji water drink,
Speaker 1: that's true. You have a flask.
Speaker 2: And when he says flask, he means to say hydrophile.
Speaker 1: Oh I forgot the first part of that word.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not that's rich that has the flask.
Speaker 1: So the Nest Mini is made from your cycled plastic bottles,
Speaker 1: which is really cool. One hundred percent, which I love.
Speaker 1: It also has forty percent more bass than the original model.
Speaker 1: Every time I see the word bass. Yeah, I see bass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see. Why do I see bass?
Speaker 1: Because it's spelled bass. He says bass. Yeah, it's spelled bass.
Speaker 1: I see bass. It's like when I go fishing, do
Speaker 1: I go bass fishing? No, I go bass fishing. But
Speaker 1: it's spelled the same. I used to do that, by
Speaker 1: the way. Not it's been a long time fishing. I
Speaker 1: used to all the time. Oh yeah, you growing up.
Speaker 2: That's shocking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see. You can group the speakers together we
Speaker 1: talked about in the last podcast. So they don't sound
Speaker 1: as good the old ones don't. At least maybe the
Speaker 1: new ones sound better. The voice assists the Google Assistant
Speaker 1: now adjusts depending on the background noise, which is really
Speaker 1: neat because if you have the dishwasher going and you
Speaker 1: ask Google something, it might be tough to hear in
Speaker 1: the past and you have to go and turn the
Speaker 1: volume up. Now it dynamically uses its microphones to hear
Speaker 1: what the ambient sound is, and it'll bump up the
Speaker 1: volume a little bit.
Speaker 2: What about if you're watching a TV show and you
Speaker 2: say like, hey, Google, and then like the TV shows
Speaker 2: in the background, and it's like picking up the show,
Speaker 2: but you're.
Speaker 1: Like you, that's a whole problem. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a show off. Well that's like a
Speaker 1: whole issue with this whole ah Google thing. It's like
Speaker 1: so many things turn you know, trigger it, and they
Speaker 1: get false triggers and it starts listening to other stuff.
Speaker 1: But it's pretty good about the ambient sound, Like from
Speaker 1: what I've seen when I'm in like a loud room
Speaker 1: and I trigger it, it's it's pretty darn good. There's
Speaker 1: also a new intercom feature, and I got to test
Speaker 1: this out at the Google offices and it was really neat.
Speaker 1: This turns your nests into an intercom system. I love that.
Speaker 1: Have you ever used an intercom like in your house? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so we used to have one, like back in the day. Okay,
Speaker 1: you have one. Yeah, so it's like we don't use it,
Speaker 1: No one does. It's kind of like one of those
Speaker 1: things from like the eighties or seventies, you know. It's
Speaker 1: like an old school thing. Yeah, And it's like we
Speaker 1: had it in my house growing up, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was so cool as a nerd. So I'd always
Speaker 1: be like, on the thing, I'm making everyone please come
Speaker 1: down to dinner, you know, and like.
Speaker 2: Everyone, you're going to do this with your kids if
Speaker 2: you get this.
Speaker 1: Well, so there's a feature. There's two features on the
Speaker 1: Nest Mini now. One is called broadcast, which you can
Speaker 1: do from any So you could do that from your phone.
Speaker 1: So if you pick up your phone and say, h,
Speaker 1: Google broadcast, I'm headed home, it will take your voice
Speaker 1: and it will play on all your speakers at the
Speaker 1: same time. That's one feature and you can try that
Speaker 1: right now. The other feature that they're enabling, which is new,
Speaker 1: is called intercom. I can say, h Google, call the
Speaker 1: living room, Google Mini, whatever you've named it, and it
Speaker 1: will make a call to it. It'll ring. The other
Speaker 1: person on the other end taps the top and they
Speaker 1: go hello, and you're like, hey, what's up. I'm right
Speaker 1: over here, I'm across the room, you know, I'm across
Speaker 1: the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Pretty cool. Yeah, I mean you have to figure out
Speaker 1: the use case. But if you have a big house,
Speaker 1: you know, like I always imagine like one of these
Speaker 1: days I'd have a house that like, you know, when
Speaker 1: you have that dinner table that's like a mile long.
Speaker 1: To Lindsay and I have done that before, We've eaten dinner,
Speaker 1: like at the opposite end of the Our dinner table
Speaker 1: is not that long, but its no no, but we
Speaker 1: have like a decently it's a pretty it's a more
Speaker 1: long than normal tape. Yeah, and so I always think
Speaker 1: it's funny, like when we first got it to sit
Speaker 1: on the opposite ends and it's just so funny put
Speaker 1: candles in the middle, and like you just have like
Speaker 1: your Friday night dinner, like.
Speaker 2: Can you please bring in the dijon mustard very down
Speaker 2: to nabbey.
Speaker 1: That's lost on me, no idea, Okay, it's like fancy.
Speaker 2: Fancy, Yeah, the fancy.
Speaker 1: So that's the next Mini. And the other thing to
Speaker 1: know about the next Mini is that it is faster
Speaker 1: at processing your commands because they've built some machine learning
Speaker 1: onto the device, so it kind of understands like you
Speaker 1: always ask every day at two pm to turn the
Speaker 1: lights up or whatever. I always ask every day when
Speaker 1: I get in to like turn on the kitchen lights,
Speaker 1: and so it will learn that and it will figure
Speaker 1: that out and process faster now somehow.
Speaker 2: And it's like it plays Lizzo because you always walk
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 1: Walk in and play my normal and it's like whatever
Speaker 1: she sayings, I don't know that song close something like that.
Speaker 2: Okay. The next question comes from Paula and and she says,
Speaker 2: facial recognition on phones, I prefer the fingerprint way with
Speaker 2: face wreck. Someone could grab your phone and point it
Speaker 2: at you and run away, then they'd have your phone unlocked.
Speaker 2: Am I right or wrong?
Speaker 1: Uh? So true? Yeah, I think face face unlock is
Speaker 1: a double edged sword.
Speaker 2: I always do that when you want to want me
Speaker 2: to record something, I'll like take your phone and I'll
Speaker 2: pin your.
Speaker 1: Face works right, Yeah. And it's the same thing with
Speaker 1: a pixel. I mean it. You know, my brother when
Speaker 1: he was you know, when we were out that night
Speaker 1: in New York City, he just like held the phone
Speaker 1: up to my face and unlocked. You know, you just
Speaker 1: do that and it's like boom.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I do think there is something to that.
Speaker 1: And I think that I don't know, maybe they'll figure
Speaker 1: out a way around that. I don't know what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe like a palm reader.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like well, or it shose your hand. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: notices how you hold the phone. Maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean that could be. I don't know. We're just
Speaker 1: we're just spitballing here because we don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like I do. Do you hear stories
Speaker 2: about this happen.
Speaker 1: I don't hear stories about it happening. I've thought about, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: someone someone finds you and they're just like, you know,
Speaker 1: they hold you down, they put the phone in front
Speaker 1: of your face, and you're just like, oh, well, there
Speaker 1: goes my whole phone.
Speaker 2: I feel like people don't care that much.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. Yeah, I mean I don't want
Speaker 1: to find out. Do you want to find out?
Speaker 2: No? But I also have an eight plus, So I'm
Speaker 2: like the.
Speaker 1: Past, and so I to answer this person's question, I
Speaker 1: would say I'm on the same wavelength. I get it, like,
Speaker 1: there are things that face unlocked. It is pretty cool
Speaker 1: to have it. But I also see the other side
Speaker 1: of when you're this is the way I see it.
Speaker 1: When you're using a fingerprint scanner, you're in control because
Speaker 1: it's your finger and someone can't. Yeah, they can hold
Speaker 1: you down and force you to put your fingerprint on there,
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit different, you know, it takes
Speaker 1: like more physical coercion, whereas for face, like you said,
Speaker 1: you can just hold it up and be like boom,
Speaker 1: and next thing you know, it's unlocked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I want to try it?
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Yeah, let's see. So I won't look okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to look okay, and it's not unlocking.
Speaker 1: But if I'm just like right here and I look
Speaker 1: at it, is it unlocking? It's not. See it knows
Speaker 1: that you're Yeah, okay, that's the pixel. Now try it.
Speaker 1: You want to try it with the iPhone? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So we just tried it with pixel, so now try
Speaker 1: it with the iPhone. So I'm gonna I'm gonna look away, Okay.
Speaker 1: Now I'm looking at it, and uh no, it says
Speaker 1: swipe to unlock, swipe up to unlock, So swipe up
Speaker 1: and then turn it to me really quick and see
Speaker 1: if it works. See. Yeah, see, I think I think
Speaker 1: they're on to us, Megan, I mean that that's I mean.
Speaker 2: Wait, look at it.
Speaker 1: Okay. Oh yeah, so I don't know. I think, uh so,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe they have figured it out.
Speaker 2: Don't worry about it, Paula.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all good. We just tested it in our
Speaker 1: very uh non scientific testing. We found that you do
Speaker 1: not have to worry about this.
Speaker 2: Yes, you will be fine.
Speaker 1: But it seems to I mean, I don't know that
Speaker 1: seems to work Okay, let's move on. Pixel Book Go
Speaker 1: is another product that Google unveiled at their event. I
Speaker 1: got to play with this for a little bit, and
Speaker 1: I will be honest, I one fell in love with
Speaker 1: this device. It is their Chromebook. It's a high performance
Speaker 1: Chromebook and and it's kind of like, well, I guess
Speaker 1: it's not as high performance as the standard pixel book,
Speaker 1: but it's still it's a lightweight kind of device for
Speaker 1: the average person that just needs to do basic things
Speaker 1: on their computer. But the best part is it's barely
Speaker 1: two pounds. It's super thin. It's prices six hundred and
Speaker 1: forty nine dollars, which is a kind of a sweet spot.
Speaker 1: I would have liked it to be four ninety nine.
Speaker 1: I think that is a super sweet spot. When it
Speaker 1: comes to a laptop, four ninety nine is like, that
Speaker 1: is no brainer. You get a really nice computer for
Speaker 1: four ninety nine. Six forty nine is a little bit
Speaker 1: more expensive. But again it goes back to what I'm
Speaker 1: saying about. I think Google prices some of these things
Speaker 1: knowing they might be discounted at during the holidays, right,
Speaker 1: But I don't know what this one depends. We'll have
Speaker 1: to see because I don't know how much it would
Speaker 1: be discounted. But it's got quiet backlit keys, and I'll
Speaker 1: be one hundred percent honest, like I was ready to
Speaker 1: purchase this thing. Really Yeah, I liked it that much.
Speaker 1: It's like everything I want in a computer, super easy.
Speaker 1: You don't have to worry about viruses, It turns on automatic,
Speaker 1: the battery lasts a long time, it runs Chrome. What
Speaker 1: more do you need? The only problem is I like
Speaker 1: to edit video on my computer and I also use Final.
Speaker 2: Cut, and so what can't you use Adobe?
Speaker 1: No, not on this one, because you can't install any
Speaker 1: programs on it except like the way I look at
Speaker 1: it is, I think you can ins sol Android apps
Speaker 1: on it at this point. Oh so maybe I could
Speaker 1: if it's an Android app. You know what. I gotta
Speaker 1: try that out because it's been I've never used a Chromebook.
Speaker 1: It's been a long time.
Speaker 2: Does Google have their own video editing software?
Speaker 1: I do not.
Speaker 2: I share, but they don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think they position their stuff as like content
Speaker 1: creation devices like the pixel book Go to me is
Speaker 1: for someone who is a mobile worker who does spreadsheets
Speaker 1: or email or word processing, is writing a book. They're
Speaker 1: not editing video they're not editing music, they're not creating content.
Speaker 2: It's a different space exactly.
Speaker 1: Even I would argue maybe if you're like a web blogger,
Speaker 1: you probably I mean, I guess nowadays you could do
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of blogging with just your Chrome because
Speaker 1: I use what's the uh, this is fantastic. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you ever need it, I use, so you can.
Speaker 1: I'm not ever doing anything in Photoshop. And I think
Speaker 1: even Photoshop probably runs on this thing, because they probably
Speaker 1: have a version of it for this. If you could
Speaker 1: run Android apps on it, that kind of changes the game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I should probably, I should probably know this, Megan. I
Speaker 1: think that you talk while I figure out can the
Speaker 1: pixel book go run Android apps? And I mean because
Speaker 1: if it does, yeah, install Android apps on your pixel
Speaker 1: Book technically, so I should try this. If it can
Speaker 1: run Adobe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're never getting that asap.
Speaker 1: By the way, No, I'm never getting the iMac. I'm
Speaker 1: never getting a new Mac. You know how many things
Speaker 1: I've told you how many things are on my list
Speaker 1: of purchases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well.
Speaker 1: Everything just keeps coming out new, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I kind of want the pixel Book. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I would not get the six forty nine
Speaker 1: personally because I want higher specs. It goes all the
Speaker 1: way up to I think it like thirteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: which is still pretty cheap. I think so because that
Speaker 1: has like sixteen gigs a RAM, and like I think
Speaker 1: two fifty six.
Speaker 2: Wow, that would be really crazy if you just switched
Speaker 2: to just using a chromebook.
Speaker 1: If I can install Adobe Rush, the only thing I
Speaker 1: would not be able to do is final cut, which
Speaker 1: and I message from your message that's true, that would
Speaker 1: be it's.
Speaker 2: See that's a bummer.
Speaker 1: That is a bummer. And yeah, but anyway, the app
Speaker 1: I was talking about that I used to resize images
Speaker 1: is called Promo dot Com Slash Tools slash Image dash Resizer.
Speaker 1: It you pop, you drag and drop an image into
Speaker 1: there and it resizes it to every single perfect size
Speaker 1: for every platform. Yeah, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, thumbnails, Pinterest, LinkedIn, snapchat,
Speaker 1: email and blog, Google Display Network whatever that is. I
Speaker 1: guess that's for ads. So cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you need that.
Speaker 1: So pixel book go. It also has this weird grippable
Speaker 1: design which is kind of cool. On the bottom, it's
Speaker 1: like it's like ribbed almost, which is kind of weird,
Speaker 1: but it helps you grip it so you don't drop it,
Speaker 1: and it's it makes sense, so it's not like smooth
Speaker 1: on the bottom. Kind of cool. Let's see what else
Speaker 1: twelve hours of battery life wo two hours. Twenty minutes
Speaker 1: of charging gives you two hours of battery. It's kind
Speaker 1: of cool. If you're getting on the plane, you just
Speaker 1: want to top it off a little bit. Got that. Uh,
Speaker 1: the keyboard. They really made a big deal out of
Speaker 1: this because I don't know, if you typing on mine.
Speaker 2: They say it's called hush hush.
Speaker 1: They call it hush keys, and so it's really quiet.
Speaker 1: I honestly, like I said, I fell in love with
Speaker 1: this thing. Like I sat there and I I was
Speaker 1: I was, I was playing with it, and I was
Speaker 1: literally saying I could see myself using this, And I've
Speaker 1: always wanted to kind of break free of like my
Speaker 1: standard I've had the same kind of MacBook Pro for
Speaker 1: like a decade now, and it just be kind of
Speaker 1: fun to be like that guy with the pixel book.
Speaker 1: People are looking at You're like, what is that? It's
Speaker 1: that weird grippy thing on the bottom of your laptop.
Speaker 1: What's that weird? You know, you don't have to sit
Speaker 1: there and do a Windows update for two hours every
Speaker 1: day because you know, they come out this giant update
Speaker 1: that takes forever. So, oh, you don't have to. You
Speaker 1: don't have these loud keys like I have my MacBook.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I'm gonna get one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you should.
Speaker 1: We'll say see how I deal.
Speaker 2: All right, So this question comes from Rainah. The subject
Speaker 2: is Spectrum's latest four dollars rate increase with no speed increase.
Speaker 2: So she says that on October eleventh, she got an
Speaker 2: email from Spectrum announcing that she can get speeds up
Speaker 2: to two hundred megabytes megabytes per second with no rate increase.
Speaker 2: And then she said, my September bill said that there
Speaker 2: will be a general four dollars a month rate increase
Speaker 2: on my October bill.
Speaker 1: What's her name, Raina, Raina, And then she.
Speaker 2: Said, I can't seem to hold those two thoughts in
Speaker 2: my head. My current.
Speaker 1: Now you don't have to read all the rest part.
Speaker 1: She goes on and on. Okay, okay, but I think
Speaker 1: the first part is really the interesting part about it.
Speaker 2: There was a there was an increase before this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so here's the story and I and I've
Speaker 1: I've done this on Twitter enough so I don't really
Speaker 1: want to beat a dead horse here. But the reality is,
Speaker 1: can we still say that? I don't even know. I
Speaker 1: don't even know what you could say anymore. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's like such an old saying.
Speaker 2: That, Like what a visual? I like really thought about that.
Speaker 1: Have you heard that before?
Speaker 2: Never beat a dead horse?
Speaker 1: Have you heard that term?
Speaker 2: I mean, I've heard it. I don't really understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna stop saying that. I don't why would
Speaker 1: I wouldn't beat anything? Like, why would it beat a
Speaker 1: dead horse?
Speaker 2: I'm a horse lover.
Speaker 1: No, I can't wait to get on a horse again.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're a big a questrian.
Speaker 1: Yeah okay. So here's what happened. Spectrum came out about
Speaker 1: two months ago, and we talked about this in the podcast,
Speaker 1: and everyone responded saying, oh my gosh, they doubled the
Speaker 1: speeds in Los Angeles and across the nation to like
Speaker 1: two hundred what everyone was paying for one hundred, So
Speaker 1: now you got the same like price, but like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, it's way faster. This happened at my house.
Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden. I get my bill last
Speaker 1: week and in tiny little writing, it's like, effective next bill,
Speaker 1: there will be a four dollars increase on your bill.
Speaker 1: They didn't say it was for speed. They just said
Speaker 1: four dollars monthly whatever. And so then a week later
Speaker 1: I get an email or two days later, I get
Speaker 1: an email from Spectrum saying We've increased your speed at
Speaker 1: no cost to you. I'm like, what, No, what is
Speaker 1: it like? Just don't send an email like that after
Speaker 1: you just raise my bill by four dollars. So now
Speaker 1: I'm paying next bill would be sixty nine to ninety
Speaker 1: nine a month for internet, And I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of ridiculous that they did that.
Speaker 2: They should have just said, like, we're going to charge
Speaker 2: you four dollars more because the speed is increasing.
Speaker 1: Hey, we improve your speed by the way, we have
Speaker 1: costs that go up to and at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, they know that people rely on their internets
Speaker 1: and they can charge one hundred dollars a month and
Speaker 1: people will still not switch because a they have kind
Speaker 1: of a monopoly on it totally. There's only like two
Speaker 1: providers in every area. Usually one's not very good.
Speaker 2: What's the other provider here?
Speaker 1: It just depends where you live. Like it could be
Speaker 1: AT and T and some there's it just depends. It
Speaker 1: all depends where you live. So if you want to check,
Speaker 1: I always try to give you a little knowledge with
Speaker 1: my rants, but high speed Internet dot com can you
Speaker 1: can pop in your zip code and kind of see
Speaker 1: what the provider is in your area. Did she say
Speaker 1: where she lives? No, I'll just do West La as
Speaker 1: an example, And in West LA you can get Frontier
Speaker 1: Spectrum via SAT and hues net and cybernet. So obviously
Speaker 1: the only two that are wired are really Spectrum and Frontier.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. This is what I will leave
Speaker 1: with you. The good news is that we are on
Speaker 1: the verge of these five G networks being in big
Speaker 1: cities in a big way, and when those take off,
Speaker 1: you'll be able to have a third option in many
Speaker 1: cases overnight. Yeah, because you can now get a signal
Speaker 1: from the sky or I should say from the air
Speaker 1: that is just as good that can rival these wired connections.
Speaker 1: So hopefully that should switch up prices a little bit.
Speaker 1: The problem is a lot of these five G connections
Speaker 1: are from the same companies that own the wired connections,
Speaker 1: and so competition will be there at the beginning, but
Speaker 1: like anything else, at the end of the day, they're
Speaker 1: gonna level out the prices. Anyway, Well, that's gonna do
Speaker 1: it for the podcast. Thanks so much for listening, Megan.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy the show?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I learned a lot too.
Speaker 1: I feel like this was a really good show. I
Speaker 1: feel like we both learned a lot here in this journey.
Speaker 1: My book is called one and one iPhone Tips and
Speaker 1: Tricks Is It is available right now for both the iPhone,
Speaker 1: sorry for in Kindle form like ebook form, and also
Speaker 1: paperback form. So it is available on Amazon check it out.
Speaker 1: You can read it for free through Kindle Unlimited, or
Speaker 1: you can purchase it and keep it either as paperback
Speaker 1: or as ebook. Megan, how can people get in touch
Speaker 1: with you?
Speaker 2: I am on Twitter, I'm at producer Megan, and I've
Speaker 2: been getting some questions this past week from people.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you bring any of them to the show?
Speaker 1: I know, okay for next show. So if you have
Speaker 1: a question, you can tweet producer Megan as well. Well,
Speaker 1: you tweet me and you know we'll get it on
Speaker 1: the show. And for me, you can find me on
Speaker 1: social media at rich On tech on Instagram, Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: slash rich on tech. That's going to do it for
Speaker 1: our show. Please, if you're listening for the first time,
Speaker 1: subscribe to us in your favorite audio app and listen
Speaker 1: every week. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you
Speaker 1: real soon. Bye bye.