Speaker 1: Office depot has been very bad. Verizon has a new
Speaker 1: way to help you battle robocalls. Thoughts on Apple's new services,
Speaker 1: including their credit card, news and TV, Google doing something
Speaker 1: really cool with podcasts and more. What's going on. I'm
Speaker 1: rich Demiro. This is rich on Tech. My website is
Speaker 1: richon Tech dot TV. You guys know me as the
Speaker 1: tech reporter on KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles or
Speaker 1: wherever you happen to follow me. Lots of you on
Speaker 1: Facebook at rich on Tech, Instagram at rich on Tech,
Speaker 1: and of course Twitter. But this was a big week
Speaker 1: in technology. This is where I kind of talk about
Speaker 1: all the stuff that I think you should know about.
Speaker 1: I know I have not done questions in a while.
Speaker 1: The reason for that is I'm waiting for some new
Speaker 1: equipment that I'm going to be testing out that will
Speaker 1: enable me to take calls in a much better way.
Speaker 1: So in the past, I've taken calls very I mean,
Speaker 1: if you've been following me for a while, you know
Speaker 1: I've tried taking calls like in a thousand different ways
Speaker 1: on this show. None of them have been very good.
Speaker 1: It works, but my latest method took a lot of
Speaker 1: editing at the end to kind of make sure the
Speaker 1: audio levels were okay. I'm hoping that this next thing
Speaker 1: that I'm trying is going to be the best case
Speaker 1: scenario and I will be able to do calls every
Speaker 1: single week without fail, and it will be so much
Speaker 1: better for everyone. Let me start with a couple of
Speaker 1: things happening this week. So I know, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple,
Speaker 1: Apple Apple, but I'm actually going to start with Office Depot,
Speaker 1: a place where I used to work. By the way,
Speaker 1: so I'm a nerd obviously, and you know my jobs.
Speaker 1: I worked at Office Depot back in the day because
Speaker 1: I thought would be a fun job, and I did.
Speaker 1: I actually had a great time working there, and I
Speaker 1: sold cell phones and I was kind of what was
Speaker 1: I called, like a tech associate or something, but I
Speaker 1: sold technology as well. I can't remember if I was commissioned.
Speaker 1: I know some people were commissioned. I don't think I was.
Speaker 1: Let me talk about why Office Depot was a little
Speaker 1: bit naughty in the past couple of years. So and
Speaker 1: this involves uh, let's see Office Max as well. It
Speaker 1: looks like it's mostly Office Depot, but Office Max of late.
Speaker 1: But here's the deal. They settled with the FTC Office
Speaker 1: Depot and tech support firm Support dot Com paying thirty
Speaker 1: five million dollars to the FTC to settle allegations that
Speaker 1: they tricked consumers into buying costly computer repair services. So
Speaker 1: you know, you always see those signs and they still
Speaker 1: have one outside my local office depot that says, hey,
Speaker 1: come on in for a free check of your computer. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: apparently you would go in there and they would check
Speaker 1: your computer using this app called PC health Check, but
Speaker 1: it was basically just a sales tool to convince you
Speaker 1: to buy tech repair services from Office Depot and OfficeMax,
Speaker 1: which merged by the way back in twenty thirteen. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the free PC checkup was supposed to, you know,
Speaker 1: check your computer for all kinds of stuff, viruses, other
Speaker 1: security threats. And what would happen is you would get
Speaker 1: your computer checked and then they'd refer you to Support
Speaker 1: dot Com to pay for these services. And they got
Speaker 1: tens of million dollars tens of millions of dollars of
Speaker 1: revenue from Office Depot. They remotely performed the tech repair
Speaker 1: services once consumers made the purchase in store. But here's
Speaker 1: the deal, and this is why this is so darn evil.
Speaker 1: I can't even believe it. The little software was actually
Speaker 1: not scanning your computer for anything. All the results that
Speaker 1: you saw were based entirely on how you answered four
Speaker 1: questions before the scan started. And these questions asked you
Speaker 1: whether your computer ran slow, yeah, everyone thinks their computer
Speaker 1: runs slow. Whether you've received virus warnings yeah who hasn't,
Speaker 1: whether it crashed, of course it crashed, or whether it
Speaker 1: displayed pop up ads or other problems that kept you
Speaker 1: from browsing the internet. So I mean, are you serious?
Speaker 1: This is just downright malicious on consumers. And ah, man,
Speaker 1: this is not the Office Depot that I worked for.
Speaker 1: And so here's what's happened in our world nowadays, with
Speaker 1: these giant companies and these big corporations that just keep merging.
Speaker 1: When I worked for Office Depot, I remember them being
Speaker 1: so focused on the customer, so focused on customer service,
Speaker 1: and this kind of stuff would have never flown. Okay,
Speaker 1: Now it's like, how can we deceive customers and you know,
Speaker 1: get money out of them? Because here's the thing. When
Speaker 1: you're getting your computer looked at by a company like
Speaker 1: Office Depot or you know, anywhere that you bring your
Speaker 1: computer you're putting your trust in that person. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like having a plumber come to your house. I
Speaker 1: know nothing about plumbing. If the guy tells me my
Speaker 1: toilet's gonna take one hundred and fifty dollars to repair it,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna believe him and believe me. I was taken.
Speaker 1: One time they replaced a flapper on my toilet and
Speaker 1: they charged me like eighty five bucks. And I was
Speaker 1: so angry when I asked the guy, so what'd you do?
Speaker 1: And he said, oh, I replaced a flapper. And then
Speaker 1: I realized, okay, I got to get smarter about these things.
Speaker 1: And next time I replace the flapper myself, by the way,
Speaker 1: and it cost me. I think it was seven dollars
Speaker 1: at Home Depot. But guess what, I will never call
Speaker 1: that plumber ever again to fix my toilet because I
Speaker 1: don't trust him. Same thing with Office Depot and Office Max.
Speaker 1: They lost a lot of trust here. This is gonna
Speaker 1: be tough, and I hope most people hear about this.
Speaker 1: I hope most people understand this because this is just
Speaker 1: downright wrong. So Support dot Com, Shame on you, Office
Speaker 1: Depot dot Com, shame on you. This is just not nice,
Speaker 1: and of course they are not. Again, they are just settling.
Speaker 1: These are allegations, they are not proven guilty. There's no
Speaker 1: guilt here. It's just an allegation. So it is a settlement.
Speaker 1: But here's the good news out of all this for you.
Speaker 1: As part of the proposed settlement, support dot Com cannot
Speaker 1: make or provide others with the means to make misrepresentations
Speaker 1: about the performance or detection of security issues on consumer
Speaker 1: electronic devices. So hopefully that'll do that. But let's see here,
Speaker 1: by the way, the whistleblower one Office Max employee complained
Speaker 1: to corporate in twenty twelve saying I cannot justify lying
Speaker 1: to a customer or being tricked into lying to them
Speaker 1: for our store to make a few extra dollars. But
Speaker 1: this continued until late twenty sixteen. Wow, unbelievable. Now our
Speaker 1: consumers getting some of this money. Yes, FTC intends to
Speaker 1: use ten million dollars and twenty five million dollars okay,
Speaker 1: so thirty five million dollars to provide refunds to consumers.
Speaker 1: So the good news is, if you did get your
Speaker 1: computer fixed, and I put air quotes here, if you
Speaker 1: got it fixed at office depot or Office Max in
Speaker 1: the past couple of years, you might have some money
Speaker 1: coming your way. It's probably gonna take a while though,
Speaker 1: all right. So now on the better side of things,
Speaker 1: Verizon offering new ways to battle robo calls. So they
Speaker 1: launched a new app called call Filter. Now, this is
Speaker 1: actually an app that they had but they renamed. It
Speaker 1: used to be called like caller Name ID or something
Speaker 1: like that, but now it's called call Filter. And before
Speaker 1: Verizon would have this app, it was like three bucks
Speaker 1: a month. It would give you caller ID on all
Speaker 1: your phone calls. Now this is called call Filter. It's
Speaker 1: available for iOS and you download it and it will
Speaker 1: help identify and stop robo calls. So pretty much all
Speaker 1: wireless customers with a compatible device can enroll. But it
Speaker 1: says that certain features will vary based on the type
Speaker 1: of phone that a customer has. You can now get this.
Speaker 1: I would go ahead and download it, try it out,
Speaker 1: see how it works. The thing to know about this
Speaker 1: is that Verizon is still trying to sell you on
Speaker 1: a three dollars enhanced service. So Verizon's call Filter full
Speaker 1: service set for three dollars a month, so everyone with
Speaker 1: the free version gets spam detection, blocking, and reporting, but
Speaker 1: you will get the ability to identify unknown callers by name,
Speaker 1: more control over calls, with the ability to create a
Speaker 1: personal robo call blocklist, which you can do in iOS
Speaker 1: anyway for free. So I don't think you need to
Speaker 1: do that. And there's also additional insights with the robocall
Speaker 1: risk meter and spam number look up. I don't think
Speaker 1: you need any of that stuff, So I say, if
Speaker 1: it's up to me, I would just download the free app. Again,
Speaker 1: it's called call Filter. If you have an Android phone,
Speaker 1: it's usually pre installed on your phone. So again I
Speaker 1: would just go ahead and update your apps, whether you
Speaker 1: have iPhone or Android, and it should work. So the
Speaker 1: other thing that Verizon's gonna do is they're going to
Speaker 1: start implementing this ster shaken technology. So st Shaken technology
Speaker 1: will actually kind of act as an authentication technology for
Speaker 1: caller ID, So if I call you on caller ID
Speaker 1: using caller ID, it's going to make sure that I
Speaker 1: am who I say I am. Big event for Apple
Speaker 1: this week, although I kind of I thought it was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a letdown because it was light
Speaker 1: on the tech and very heavy on the celebrities, and yeah,
Speaker 1: They had a lot of great celebrities there, big time
Speaker 1: names like Oprah, Steven Spielberg, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell,
Speaker 1: so many more. To me, it was cool that Apple
Speaker 1: had all these celebrities on stage. But let's be honest.
Speaker 1: I mean, celebrities like money, and they're there because Apple
Speaker 1: is putting out a lot of cash so that they
Speaker 1: can do their new shows. And I think it's cool.
Speaker 1: As a creative type, I think it's amazing that there's
Speaker 1: someone there that's giving them a lot of money to
Speaker 1: be creative, and so I think that's a really nice
Speaker 1: aspect of it. But let's talk about some of these
Speaker 1: things that Apple launched. I'll just go through them. Apple Newsplus.
Speaker 1: This is their new paid news service, and so this
Speaker 1: gives you access to over three hundred magazines and also
Speaker 1: some newspapers and also some digital premium publications. So this
Speaker 1: is kind of from Apple's purchase of a company called
Speaker 1: Texture a couple of years ago, maybe it was last year,
Speaker 1: and I used to be a subscriber to Texture for
Speaker 1: a long time. And what they do is they put
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of these magazines into one app. You
Speaker 1: pay ten dollars a month and you get all these magazines.
Speaker 1: And I loved it. But here was the problem with Texture.
Speaker 1: All I did in my entire life was read magazines.
Speaker 1: When you're getting three hundred When you're getting access to
Speaker 1: three hundred magazines, I mean, that's pretty insane. So to me, literally,
Speaker 1: I would sit on the couch, I would pop out
Speaker 1: the iPad and I would just flip and flip and
Speaker 1: flip and flip and flip. And I loved it because
Speaker 1: magazines are amazing. But what are magazines trying to do?
Speaker 1: They're trying to sell you stuff, right, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some great journalism in them, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: you're flipping through the glossies. I'm looking at HG what
Speaker 1: was it like, HGTV magazine? Who thought HGTV had a magazine? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was flipping through it, and of course I was
Speaker 1: getting a million ideas for the house and buying stuff.
Speaker 1: I got rid of it, so I didn't subscribe to Texture,
Speaker 1: or I canceled my subscription. Then they said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: for five bucks a month, will you keep us? And
Speaker 1: I said okay, So I kept them for six more
Speaker 1: months until I finally said you know what, I don't
Speaker 1: need all these magazines in my life, so your experience
Speaker 1: may be different. And I don't know. I think it's
Speaker 1: cool that you're getting a whole bunch of stuff mixed
Speaker 1: into one. And I see where Apple's going with this.
Speaker 1: Ideally they would have like every newspaper in America on board,
Speaker 1: so that no matter which city you live in, you
Speaker 1: get access to your local newspaper plus a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of other stuff. It seems like a fantastic deal for
Speaker 1: ten dollars a month. I don't know how they're splitting
Speaker 1: up the payment. You know, if you read five pages
Speaker 1: of Vogue, does Vogue get you know, five divided by
Speaker 1: ten two dollars a page? I don't know, So you
Speaker 1: got Vogue National Geographic People. Now. One thing, I will say,
Speaker 1: the price did get a little better because when I
Speaker 1: was a subscriber to Texture People magazine, if you wanted
Speaker 1: those weeklies, that was fifteen dollars a month. So the
Speaker 1: fact that they are charging ten dollars and you're still
Speaker 1: getting all this other stuff, that's pretty good. You also
Speaker 1: get access to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times,
Speaker 1: although and I haven't subscribed yet to this News Plus
Speaker 1: to try it out, although a lot of people are
Speaker 1: saying it's not just like full on Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: New York Times. If you look at a Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal subscription, it's expensive. So I find it hard to
Speaker 1: believe that you'd get all of that for nine ninety
Speaker 1: nine a month, because I've looked into getting that subscription
Speaker 1: and you're talking it's closer to like, you know, twenty
Speaker 1: to forty dollars a month, so after your little promo
Speaker 1: deal runs out. So I think this sounds cool. I
Speaker 1: think it's great for journalism, but personally it's probably not
Speaker 1: something I'm going to be doing. But you do get
Speaker 1: a lot for your money. So if you don't mind
Speaker 1: paying ten dollars a month and you've got a bunch
Speaker 1: of time to look at all these magazines, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: If you're traveling a lot on an airplane, I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. But to be honest, what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to read books, and that's where i'd rather
Speaker 1: spend my money. So that's that's that's where I am.
Speaker 1: All right. So Apple credit Card this got this got
Speaker 1: a lot of publicity because it's kind of unique that
Speaker 1: Apple's doing a credit card now. I have my thoughts
Speaker 1: on credit cards in general, so I'll try not to
Speaker 1: like mix those in. But I'm not a big believer
Speaker 1: in credit cards. I do have one. Full disclosure, I
Speaker 1: am a Dave Ramsey fan. I've talked about him before.
Speaker 1: He says no credit cards. Personally. I travel a lot.
Speaker 1: I've tried the no credit card thing. It's really complicated,
Speaker 1: especially when you're booking hotel rooms and you know all
Speaker 1: this stuff for business travel. So I do have a
Speaker 1: credit card, so I'm not gonna say that you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have one at all. But to have an Apple card,
Speaker 1: oh man, I don't know. That's like next level Apple fanboy,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think the iPhone's amazing. I love
Speaker 1: the iPhone. I wrote a book about the iPhone. But
Speaker 1: to have an Apple credit card is like, I mean,
Speaker 1: how far down the Apple path do you want to go?
Speaker 1: You've already got the AirPods, You've already got the Apple TV,
Speaker 1: You've got the iPad, I've got the MacBook. Now you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a credit card that primarily works through your iPhone.
Speaker 1: That seems to me a little bit crazy. Okay, So
Speaker 1: with that said, I like what they're doing with the
Speaker 1: credit card, and it's not like they're doing things that
Speaker 1: nobody else has done. I mean it works with the iPhone.
Speaker 1: You sign up right through the iPhone. I do like
Speaker 1: how they're labeling stuff nice and clearly, and I think
Speaker 1: that's a trend we're going to see with the other
Speaker 1: credit cards. So they're using machine learning and Apple maps
Speaker 1: that when you look at your transactions, instead of seeing
Speaker 1: some weird thing that you have to like Google, you'll
Speaker 1: just see that like, here's the place that you spent
Speaker 1: money at. Here it is on a map, and here's
Speaker 1: the name of it. So my wife goes to this
Speaker 1: one gas station that has some random name, and every
Speaker 1: time I see it in our debit card, I'm like, where,
Speaker 1: what the heck is this charge for like thirty four bucks?
Speaker 1: And sure enough, it's always this weird gas station. So
Speaker 1: I think that will actually help when people have that
Speaker 1: information at the ready. I also like the other aspect
Speaker 1: of if you don't decide to pay off your card
Speaker 1: every month, there's this little circular slider that will show
Speaker 1: you how much you're paying and how much interest it's
Speaker 1: going to cost you to just make that portion of
Speaker 1: a payment and you can turn the slider to make
Speaker 1: a bigger payment and see how that impacts your interest.
Speaker 1: I think that's really smart and I think it's nice.
Speaker 1: I think you should pay off your balance in full
Speaker 1: if you can. So the Apple Card is going to
Speaker 1: be available this summer. I don't know. I don't like
Speaker 1: a card that is so down the Apple line, Like
Speaker 1: I just think this seems a little bit crazy to get.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people will get it. There
Speaker 1: are no fees, and the cool thing they're doing with
Speaker 1: the rewards, which I know people are obsessed with rewards.
Speaker 1: They're kind of playing into that because they're crediting you
Speaker 1: the rewards every single day. And the way they're doing
Speaker 1: rewards is you get three percent back on Apple purchases,
Speaker 1: So anything Apple three percent back for those charges. Any
Speaker 1: other things that you tap to pay, you'll get two percent.
Speaker 1: That means using your iPhone to tap to pay like
Speaker 1: you would to check out or whatever. And then anytime
Speaker 1: you use the physical card you're only going to get
Speaker 1: one percent back. And so for a free credit card,
Speaker 1: those percentages are not that bad, especially the two percent
Speaker 1: for the tap to pay, but I think you could
Speaker 1: do better and overall since I don't actively recommend credit cards,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of torn on it in general. All Right,
Speaker 1: final thing that Apple talked about is Apple TV Plus.
Speaker 1: This is their subscription service that is kind of a
Speaker 1: new home for Apple TV app. So the Apple TV
Speaker 1: or I guess I should say the TV app, has
Speaker 1: evolved over the years and I kind of see where
Speaker 1: they're going with this, and I get it, and I
Speaker 1: think it's actually pretty smart. So there's two things going
Speaker 1: on here. Number one, Well, there's actually three things. So
Speaker 1: number one, the TV app is going to be revamped,
Speaker 1: and it's also going to be available in other places. Right,
Speaker 1: So the TV app is going to be available on
Speaker 1: Apple TV like it always has, plus the iPhone and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, but they're gonna make this available in
Speaker 1: other places as well, like Roku, Fire TV, smart TVs
Speaker 1: from Sony, Visio and some others. And so what they're
Speaker 1: gonna do is allow you to kind of subscribe to
Speaker 1: all your services but then bring them all into this app.
Speaker 1: So let's say your minus Netflix, of course, so let's
Speaker 1: say you have you know, HBO, Let's say you have
Speaker 1: Showtime Stars all those. Instead of going to those individual
Speaker 1: apps to watch stuff, you're literally gonna be able to
Speaker 1: watch this stuff inside the TV app, which I think
Speaker 1: is kind of cool. Plus you can search for stuff
Speaker 1: and it'll tell you, you know, if it's available. Plus it's
Speaker 1: going to most importantly suggest things for you. Right, so,
Speaker 1: out of all the shows that are free to you,
Speaker 1: it will say, here's the dramas, here's the cool comedies,
Speaker 1: here's the stuff that we think you like. Right, So
Speaker 1: that's one side of it. Second thing is they're gonna
Speaker 1: let you subscribe to a lot of these subscription services
Speaker 1: like HBO, Stars, Showtime, CBS, Taste, Made, Noggin, MTV, Hits, Epics,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of them. Now, when I saw the
Speaker 1: listing on the screen at the event of what they're
Speaker 1: gonna let you subscribe to, kind of a yawner to
Speaker 1: me because I don't really care about any of these channels.
Speaker 1: I mean, HBO is cool, but the rest of them
Speaker 1: I don't really care for. So the reality is this
Speaker 1: will be good based on whether these channels are good
Speaker 1: for you. So Netflix is clearly the outsider here. They
Speaker 1: are not included, so you're always gonna have to go
Speaker 1: outside of this app for Netflix. Who knows if that
Speaker 1: will hurt them or help them. Now, the other thing
Speaker 1: is the TV shows and movies and documentaries, and that's
Speaker 1: where all these celebrities come in, and also the original programming.
Speaker 1: So Apple is making their own programming and that's where
Speaker 1: the TV plus comes in. So you will be able
Speaker 1: to subscribe to some sort of Apple service. We don't
Speaker 1: know if it's going to be a monthly fee or
Speaker 1: it's going to be a you know, per show, but
Speaker 1: it says video subscription service will be announced later this
Speaker 1: fall for pricing and availability. So I don't know how
Speaker 1: much would you pay for Apple TV content? For me,
Speaker 1: that's like maybe four ninety nine a month if the
Speaker 1: shows are absolutely amazing. And the only show I saw
Speaker 1: out there that looked good to me was the one
Speaker 1: that was kind of a parody of morning shows, so
Speaker 1: it was with Reese Rytherspoon and Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell.
Speaker 1: But I just don't know if if I need that right,
Speaker 1: So for five bucks a month, I mean really, it's like,
Speaker 1: how much is this show worth to me? We'll see
Speaker 1: you guys. Know. I like password managers and you should
Speaker 1: be using one by now. If you're not highly recommend
Speaker 1: that you try a password manager, Like I say, I
Speaker 1: don't care if you use the one that's built into iPhone,
Speaker 1: if you're only using iOS devices, it's free. It works.
Speaker 1: But this is another one to consider. This is from Firefox.
Speaker 1: They launched their own password manager and it's now available
Speaker 1: across pretty much every platform, which is nice, which is
Speaker 1: why I'm mentioning it. So Firefox lock Box. This is
Speaker 1: for Android now, which I guess was the final missing
Speaker 1: piece of the puzzle, so they had it for iOS.
Speaker 1: They also have it built into their Firefox browser. And
Speaker 1: so if you haven't used one of these password managers before,
Speaker 1: here's how it works. Right. You come up to a
Speaker 1: website where it wants you to create a password, right,
Speaker 1: and a little thing pops up on the website from
Speaker 1: Firefox that says, hey, do you want us to create
Speaker 1: a password for you? You say yes. It creates this crazy
Speaker 1: implicated password and you're like, oh, I'm never gonna remember that,
Speaker 1: and it goes, well, we're gonna remember it for you too,
Speaker 1: and you're like, okay, cool. So you press save and
Speaker 1: you never have to think about that password ever again.
Speaker 1: Next thing you know, you go to you know, flowersamazingflowers
Speaker 1: dot com and all of a sudden, Firefox pops up
Speaker 1: and it says, hey, we see you. We saved your
Speaker 1: password from this website the last time. Remember that And
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, do you want us to fill
Speaker 1: it in for you? And you say yes, and next
Speaker 1: thing you know, it fills it in. Then you have
Speaker 1: one main password that protects all these little passwords. And ideally,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if Firefox Lockbox has this, the
Speaker 1: two factor authentication, but your password manager should have that
Speaker 1: as well. So if your password manager does not have
Speaker 1: the two factor authentication, it's not as secure because think
Speaker 1: about it, you got one password and then it unlocks
Speaker 1: all your other passwords. But anyway, so Firefox Lockbox is
Speaker 1: on Android now, it's also on the desktop app, and
Speaker 1: it's also on iOS, so that's pretty good. And it's free.
Speaker 1: So the other two I like are called last Pass
Speaker 1: and then dash Lane. Dash Lane is about five dollars
Speaker 1: a month. Last Pass is about three dollars a month.
Speaker 1: So no matter which one you go with, go with it,
Speaker 1: stick with it, and keep your password safe and stop
Speaker 1: using the same password over and over and over. So
Speaker 1: this is like a trend on every app, every smartphone,
Speaker 1: and what's really happening is iPhone users can't wait, cannot
Speaker 1: wait for dark mode to be system wide on iOS.
Speaker 1: Now I will tell you. On the Samsung Galaxy S ten,
Speaker 1: I was testing that one does have a system wide
Speaker 1: dark mode and it was pretty cool. So at night
Speaker 1: my phone would be pretty much all dark mode, and
Speaker 1: then during the day it would automatically switch to the
Speaker 1: light mode and it was pretty fun. Like it took
Speaker 1: me a while to figure it out. As I do
Speaker 1: this right now, I'm looking at my Chrome web browser
Speaker 1: and they must have just done a dark mode because
Speaker 1: now it's matching the dark mode that my Mac operating
Speaker 1: system just implemented. So apparently dark mode is just everywhere.
Speaker 1: All these apps are getting on board, and now Twitter
Speaker 1: is the latest. So if you go into your Twitter options,
Speaker 1: you now have three options. Dim Dim is the current
Speaker 1: dark mode theme that they introduced in twenty sixteen, which
Speaker 1: is blue gray but still gives people a more comfortable
Speaker 1: way to enjoy Twitter. Lights Out is the dark mode,
Speaker 1: which is basically pure black pellette that emits no light
Speaker 1: since pixels are turned off, So this is like the
Speaker 1: darkest theme you can get. Then you can do automatic
Speaker 1: dark mode. And right now this is only for iOS,
Speaker 1: but basically, if you're using Twitter all day long, during
Speaker 1: the day, it will be light and then at night
Speaker 1: it will go dark. So these changes are rolling out
Speaker 1: rolling out to iOS, so you might not see it
Speaker 1: in the app immediately, but it's also coming to Android
Speaker 1: and the web in the future. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I kind of like dark mode. It's kind
Speaker 1: of fun. It's kind of different. I think on the
Speaker 1: Chrome web browser it's been thrown me off because I'm
Speaker 1: so not used to it. But my whole computer now
Speaker 1: is sort of in dark mode and I'm digging it.
Speaker 1: Google Podcasts is doing something fun. Since this is a podcast,
Speaker 1: I really kind of keep up with what's going on
Speaker 1: in the podcast world. And I love what Google's doing
Speaker 1: because leave it to Google to make podcasts even easier,
Speaker 1: and this is just brilliant. Okay, I'll tell you why
Speaker 1: in a second. Google Podcasts is now pretty much transcribing
Speaker 1: the audio inside every podcast, So whatever I'm saying right
Speaker 1: now is being transcribed in Google. Now. They're not letting
Speaker 1: you search it specifically just yet, but they are using
Speaker 1: it to kind of help their searches. So when you
Speaker 1: search on Google podcasts. It will unearth things that you
Speaker 1: said inside your show. So a lot of times, you know,
Speaker 1: shows do show notes, but they don't get every single
Speaker 1: thing that they say. Let's say they mentioned something in
Speaker 1: passing right, Now you can search for those things. So
Speaker 1: let's say I went to Italy and I visited some
Speaker 1: random restaurant in Italy and I mentioned the name of it.
Speaker 1: And you know, let's say that you run that restaurant.
Speaker 1: You want to hear every time someone mentions that restaurant.
Speaker 1: Now you can search for that and there you go.
Speaker 1: So that's really cool. So there's a lot of different uses.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're obsessed with a very obscure actor, right
Speaker 1: and you want to see every time that actor appears
Speaker 1: in a podcast or someone talks about that actor. Well,
Speaker 1: now you can search for that actor's name, and even
Speaker 1: though it wasn't necessarily in the show notes, it will
Speaker 1: still show up when for results of Google podcasts. Now,
Speaker 1: there is a service that you can go to online
Speaker 1: that's very similar, and this one is called listennotes dot
Speaker 1: com and so listen notes will also do something similar,
Speaker 1: but I think it's just searching the actual notes of
Speaker 1: the podcast. So I don't think that it's necessarily searching
Speaker 1: inside the podcast, but it is searching the notes of
Speaker 1: the podcast, which is still pretty useful. So if you're
Speaker 1: looking for someone or something or anything, you can go
Speaker 1: to listen notoes dot com and that will help you
Speaker 1: find what you're looking at for. But Google Podcasts always
Speaker 1: taking it, or Google in general, always taking things a
Speaker 1: step further, and I love how they're doing this. Android
Speaker 1: Police explains how you can find the actual transcript inside.
Speaker 1: You have to go into like the source of the
Speaker 1: actual web page of the podcast, so it's not like
Speaker 1: easily findable right now, but you can do it, and
Speaker 1: it's cool, and I love the fact that you can
Speaker 1: just search for things and find them a lot easier
Speaker 1: because of this effort that Google is putting in. Sony
Speaker 1: has a new action camera that looks pretty darn cool,
Speaker 1: except for the fact that it has a very high
Speaker 1: price tag. It's called the RXO or RX zero two
Speaker 1: Action camera. And what's cool about this it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a GoPro, but it has a flip up screen
Speaker 1: and that means that you can hold this camera in
Speaker 1: front of you, flip up the screen, and now you
Speaker 1: can see yourself, and why do you need that while
Speaker 1: you can frame up your shot if you're a regular
Speaker 1: person just kind of on vacation with your family and
Speaker 1: you're taking some of these videos. But for vloggers, this
Speaker 1: is really going to come in handy because it's a
Speaker 1: pocket sized camera that shoots really high quality stuff. But
Speaker 1: now you can see yourself and frame up the shot properly.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of a dream for vloggers. I
Speaker 1: have not tested this, so I don't know the quality
Speaker 1: of it, but I remember when I first got my GoPro,
Speaker 1: this is what I want to do with it. My
Speaker 1: plan was to do some vlogging, and it just became
Speaker 1: too tough because you can't see yourself, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: how do I do that? Maybe I hook it up
Speaker 1: like on a tripod and I put like a monitor
Speaker 1: in front of it. It just became too complicated, and
Speaker 1: so what do you end up doing? You end up
Speaker 1: using your cell phone, which just the quality is not
Speaker 1: there sometimes. I mean, it's getting better, but this also
Speaker 1: has a microphone jacket, could shoot four K video at
Speaker 1: thirty frames per second, it's got stabilization, slow motion, it's
Speaker 1: got four K HDMI output, and here's the craziest part.
Speaker 1: You can actually operate up to fifty, okay, five of
Speaker 1: these cameras at once if you have the mobile app.
Speaker 1: Fifty cameras with a special access point, and then one
Speaker 1: hundred cameras with a special troll box. So I guess
Speaker 1: Sony is really planning ahead. If you want to use
Speaker 1: one hundred of these cameras at some sort of concert
Speaker 1: or live event, you can. But I just like the
Speaker 1: idea that you know, a lot of the if you're
Speaker 1: trying to get into vlogging or do anything with like,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of stuff, you're kind of limited
Speaker 1: to either one of these expensive bulky DSLR cameras or
Speaker 1: kind of like the point and shoot cameras. Sony has
Speaker 1: a good one that a lot of the vloggers like
Speaker 1: as well. But this is really nice. Seven hundred bucks
Speaker 1: for the Sony RX. I think it's RX zero two.
Speaker 1: And Spotify is testing a new subscription plan that I
Speaker 1: think can come in handy for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So if you're you know, a solo person and you
Speaker 1: have Spotify, you're going to pay ten bucks a month,
Speaker 1: right then if you want to bump up to that
Speaker 1: family plan, because you've got a couple people in your family,
Speaker 1: you're at fifteen dollars a month. But what if it's
Speaker 1: just you and your partner and you don't want to
Speaker 1: pay fifteen dollars a month because that seems kind of stupid,
Speaker 1: because you can get up to six accounts with that price,
Speaker 1: or you can just get two, like, well, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of being short changed here. Well, now they have this
Speaker 1: new service called Premium Duo, and this is a discounted
Speaker 1: subscription just for two people, and as you might expect,
Speaker 1: it lands right in the middle. Right around now in Europe,
Speaker 1: it's twelve dollars and fifty euros a month. I think
Speaker 1: this is a great idea, and I think it's nice
Speaker 1: for just two people that want to share Spotify. And
Speaker 1: what Spotify is trying to do is probably what happens
Speaker 1: in a lot of houses is the couples just share
Speaker 1: one Premium account and they just log in on various
Speaker 1: phones and they just you know, everything gets mixed up
Speaker 1: that way though. All your podcast all your playlists and
Speaker 1: what you listen to, all that personalized experience is getting
Speaker 1: totally mixed up. And so I personally like the idea
Speaker 1: of having my own account because what I listened to
Speaker 1: might be slightly different from what my wife listens to,
Speaker 1: although we kind of like the same music, but I
Speaker 1: probably do more indie stuff than she does. So I
Speaker 1: like this idea. I think it's smart. I think it
Speaker 1: makes more people subscribe, so you're actually getting you know,
Speaker 1: three dollars more a month from some of these couples,
Speaker 1: so that's a good thing. Plus you're helping them out by,
Speaker 1: you know, making this the experience better for them. Now
Speaker 1: here's the best part. You get this new playlist called
Speaker 1: duo Mix, and this is an auto generated playlist that
Speaker 1: is a mix of both of your favorite musical tastes
Speaker 1: and the songs you like. So I think that's kind
Speaker 1: of cool. You can be like, oh, I heard you
Speaker 1: listen to this new country song to your wife or whatever,
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, I heard you listen to that
Speaker 1: new you know, five for fighting song or whatever. I'm
Speaker 1: really dating myself that I don't think they've come out
Speaker 1: with a new song in a long time, but I
Speaker 1: was listening to my nineties playlist the other day, so
Speaker 1: they came up. So I like this idea. Right now,
Speaker 1: it's not available in the US, but maybe it will
Speaker 1: be in the future. It's in Colombia, Chile, Denmark, Ireland,
Speaker 1: and Poland, and hopefully this will make it to the
Speaker 1: US soon. And finally, Ford Explorer is introducing a new
Speaker 1: Mindful mode in their twenty twenty Ford Explore and this
Speaker 1: is a feature that strips away all the information on
Speaker 1: your instrument cluster. So you know the part right now
Speaker 1: front of you where you normally see this speedometer and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, well, now that's digital, So they can
Speaker 1: strip all of that away digitally when you turn on
Speaker 1: this mode, and all you will see is your speed
Speaker 1: and how much fuel you have left. So I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of fun. So Ford has a bunch of stuff,
Speaker 1: they say. They a study they did found that Americans
Speaker 1: spend half their day processing information from staring at a screen.
Speaker 1: Mindful Mode employs theories of meditation and mindfulness, therapeutic techniques
Speaker 1: used to maintain mental wellness by focusing on just one
Speaker 1: element or moment in time, by eliminating data the driver
Speaker 1: may not need to see. So you know, you normally
Speaker 1: have your RPMs, you have your gas, you have your
Speaker 1: your little battery level, which I'm convinced on my car
Speaker 1: is broken because it's never changed since I got my car,
Speaker 1: so it's always been like just slightly lower than like
Speaker 1: the middle part. So I'm like, if my battery goes
Speaker 1: out or maybe it's the overheating one. Yeah, I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna know if my car overheats until it's too late,
Speaker 1: I should probably get that looked at. What else do
Speaker 1: you have on there? How many miles you've gone? So yeah,
Speaker 1: this mindful mode will just put it put just the
Speaker 1: information you need, which is your speed limit or I
Speaker 1: guess your speed, your current speed, and also how much
Speaker 1: gas you have left. It's actually called the Calm Screen Display,
Speaker 1: but they've nicknamed it the Mindful Mode. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that new digital instrument cluster is twelve point three inches,
Speaker 1: so it's basically we've seen this in a lot of
Speaker 1: the high end car especially the Audi's. They kind of
Speaker 1: did it first, I think, but you know, they made
Speaker 1: the screen it's all digital instead of having actual physical
Speaker 1: you know, speedometers and stuff. It's all digital, so they
Speaker 1: can put whatever they want on that screen and it's
Speaker 1: kind of cool. I mean, I guess, I guess it's
Speaker 1: gotten to a point where it's reliable enough where they
Speaker 1: can you know, they convince the you know whoever they
Speaker 1: have to convince in the government to say, yeah, we can,
Speaker 1: we can replace this stuff and people will be just fine.
Speaker 1: But again that's in the Ford Explorer, which apparently is
Speaker 1: all new and it comes out later this summer, the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty Ford Explorer. Well that's going to do it.
Speaker 1: That's gonna bring us to the end of the podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, thanks for listening. My name's rich Demiro.
Speaker 1: My book is one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips
Speaker 1: for the iPhone. It's available on Amazon thanks to everyone
Speaker 1: who's purchased it, and if you need a good gift,
Speaker 1: definitely check it out. If you've got someone in your
Speaker 1: life that struggles with their iPhone or you just want
Speaker 1: to know more. Pretty much every person that has written
Speaker 1: me about this book or has I've given it to,
Speaker 1: has said that they found some good stuff in there.
Speaker 1: So I'm pretty confident in recommending it because you know,
Speaker 1: I love it since I wrote it, but I also
Speaker 1: think that it actually does help people, and it's got
Speaker 1: you know, four and a half stars on Amazon, so
Speaker 1: people are definitely liking it. So check it out. One
Speaker 1: hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone is
Speaker 1: the name of the book, and you can find it
Speaker 1: on Amazon. If you want a signed copy of it,
Speaker 1: you can go to my website rich on tech dot
Speaker 1: tv and look at the top and I've got a
Speaker 1: place where you can order a signed copy. I'll personalize it,
Speaker 1: you know, write whatever you want in there within reason.
Speaker 1: So far, nobody's asked me to write anything silly, but
Speaker 1: usually they just say, hey, Rich, come up with something,
Speaker 1: and I try to come up with something witty if
Speaker 1: I know you. If I don't know you, then I'll
Speaker 1: just write something fun. But either way, it's kind of
Speaker 1: nice to have that signed. The other thing I'm doing
Speaker 1: that's kind of fun and new is a newsletter. So
Speaker 1: I found this service thanks to my friend Jefferson Graham
Speaker 1: at USA Today called substack, and it allows me to
Speaker 1: email you guys for free. And so I had this
Speaker 1: list of like almost nine thousand people that were just
Speaker 1: you know, they signed up on my website for updates,
Speaker 1: but I never had a way to email them in
Speaker 1: a big way because these companies like Mailchimp and constant Contact.
Speaker 1: You know, it's free for like two thousand people, but
Speaker 1: as soon as you get over that mark they want
Speaker 1: to charge you, like I think it was like one hundred,
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty bucks a month. Maybe Mailchimp was
Speaker 1: like eighty bucks. I don't know. It was too much.
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't pay eighty dollars when I'm sending
Speaker 1: out a free newsletter. Right. So Jefferson found substack and
Speaker 1: I signed up for it, and it's amazing. They let
Speaker 1: me email you for free. Now here's the thing. So
Speaker 1: Substack's business model is that I can turn on paid
Speaker 1: newsletters at any time, right, so I can say, hey,
Speaker 1: do you guys mind paying me like a buck a
Speaker 1: month for my newsletter? And you know, that's how how
Speaker 1: they make revenue is that they hope that you amass
Speaker 1: all these people and then those people end up wanting
Speaker 1: to pay you. So I'm not doing that right now
Speaker 1: in the future, who knows. I mean, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: right now, I give away pretty much everything for free,
Speaker 1: so except the book, but that's because you have to
Speaker 1: buy a printed copy. But anyway, go to rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot substack dot com if you want to subscribe
Speaker 1: to that. If you you know, you can just go
Speaker 1: to my website rich on tech dot TV and look
Speaker 1: for the newsletter at the top. There's like a little
Speaker 1: little heading that says newsletter you pop in your email address.
Speaker 1: You don't get spammed. We don't sell it all that
Speaker 1: good stuff. You Literally, on Fridays you will just get
Speaker 1: a letter from me, and in that letter, I will
Speaker 1: just talk about all the things that I think are interesting, important, newsworthy,
Speaker 1: whatever I think you should know. Kind of like the podcast,
Speaker 1: but like literally it's a letter. It's kind of fun
Speaker 1: because I wrote my first one last week and it
Speaker 1: was so much fun to just sit down at the typewriter.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, did I say that. I'm sorry. I meant computer.
Speaker 1: Just sit down at the computer and like write an
Speaker 1: email like I was writing my friend, you guys, what
Speaker 1: is going on in the tech world. And it's just
Speaker 1: super casual, super fun, and you know, I just have
Speaker 1: fun with it. So if you want to subscribe to
Speaker 1: that again, go to rich on tech dot tv look
Speaker 1: for newsletter at the top, or go to rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot substack dot com. So that's it, rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot TV, look for newsletter at the top of
Speaker 1: my website. That's gonna do it for today's show. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for watching. To everyone on Facebook's thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening. I do appreciate it. Watch me on
Speaker 1: KTLA every morning in the five am hour, seven am hour,
Speaker 1: and nine am hour, or wherever you watch TV. Also
Speaker 1: on Instagram, I've been posting an Instagram version of my
Speaker 1: story there, so Rich on tech on Instagram. And I
Speaker 1: know I'm talking a lot of you that know this stuff,
Speaker 1: but you know there might be some new folks that
Speaker 1: are hopping on board here, so I tell you that
Speaker 1: stuff as well. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Rich
Speaker 1: Jumiro Rich on tech dot TV. Have a fantastic day
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening from. I will talk to you real soon.