Speaker 1: Hands on with Samsung's new S twenty two lineup. Apple
Speaker 1: tackles unwanted air tag tracking, Everything old is new again.
Speaker 1: We Sports comes to the switch plus your tech questions answered.
Speaker 1: What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer the questions you send me. I'm
Speaker 1: the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: If the podcast sounds just a little different this time around,
Speaker 1: it's because I had some technical difficulties. My podcast board
Speaker 1: is giving me some feedback, so rather than have you
Speaker 1: listened to that, I got a troubleshoot, see what's going on?
Speaker 1: But I've already spent a couple hours doing that, so
Speaker 1: I just want to get on with the podcast. So
Speaker 1: here we are in a temporary setup and we'll see
Speaker 1: if this, hopefully should sound okay. Big week this week
Speaker 1: for Samsung. They finally unveiled the S twenty two lineup,
Speaker 1: the S twenty two, Ultra, S twenty two, S twenty
Speaker 1: two plus not necessarily in that order. So I've been
Speaker 1: playing with the Ultra now for a couple of days
Speaker 1: And this is an interesting thing because I rarely switched
Speaker 1: my simcard into a phone that I'm testing. I used
Speaker 1: to do it all the time. It became kind of
Speaker 1: a pain, and so I stopped doing that, And with
Speaker 1: this one, I decided to do it because it's been
Speaker 1: kind of a while since I went all in on Android,
Speaker 1: and I really just wanted to kind of see what
Speaker 1: the experience is like. And so took my simcard out
Speaker 1: of my iPhone thirteen Pro and I put it into
Speaker 1: the Samsung Galaxy S twenty two Ultra. And so far,
Speaker 1: it's been interesting. It's definitely it's weird because I've still
Speaker 1: kept my iPhone nearby at all times, but I do
Speaker 1: that typically with all Androids anyway. I always whatever Android
Speaker 1: i'm testing, I always have a iPhone with me. But
Speaker 1: it's been kind of weird because the texting thing is
Speaker 1: definitely a thing. So being off of IY message, you know,
Speaker 1: having friends say, Rich, what's going on? Why are you
Speaker 1: texting me with green bubbles? It's just so like weird.
Speaker 1: It's so like predictable that if you text someone with
Speaker 1: from an Android, it's like immediately they say something to you.
Speaker 1: So Apple's done a really good job of training people
Speaker 1: to be like, what what is this green bubble? But
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get through it and we'll see otherwise,
Speaker 1: the phone is pretty good. Let me go through some
Speaker 1: of the specs on this phone. So you've got three
Speaker 1: different phones. You've got a six point one inch screen
Speaker 1: on the S twenty two, six point six inch screen
Speaker 1: on the S twenty two Plus, and then a six
Speaker 1: point eight inch screen on the S twenty two Ultra. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want the absolute best of everything, of course
Speaker 1: you have to go with the S twenty two Ultra.
Speaker 1: So the big news on the S twenty two Ultra
Speaker 1: is the fact that it has a stylus. So, as
Speaker 1: we know, Samsung has killed the Note line up and
Speaker 1: this has become basically the Notes. You've got these two
Speaker 1: lower models and then you have the upper model, which
Speaker 1: used to be the Ultra. It's still the Ultra, but
Speaker 1: now it's basically the NOE Ultra. So it's got the
Speaker 1: stylus inside, which is something I think I like, but
Speaker 1: I don't really need. I'd have to get back into
Speaker 1: the swing of things of using a pen with my phone,
Speaker 1: which is just something I'm not used to anymore. So
Speaker 1: that's definitely a consideration. Fingerprint reader is super fast, the
Speaker 1: cameras are excellent, and you've got a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: different cameras on here. You've got a twelve megapixel ultra wide,
Speaker 1: you've got one hundred and eight megapixel wide camera, you've
Speaker 1: got a ten megapixel telephoto with a three time zoom.
Speaker 1: Then you've got another ten megapixel telephoto with a ten
Speaker 1: times optical zoom, and then your front facing camera is
Speaker 1: a forty megapixel. And then of course the sweet spot
Speaker 1: is really you don't want to go with the eight
Speaker 1: megabyte or the one hundred and twenty eight megabyte based
Speaker 1: storage model. Editor rich here, you know I meant to
Speaker 1: say one and twenty eight gigabyte model. Well, one and
Speaker 1: twenty eight megabytes would not get you very far in
Speaker 1: this day and age, because that only comes with eight
Speaker 1: gigs of RAM. You've got to jump up to that
Speaker 1: two point fifty six to get that twelve gigs a RAM.
Speaker 1: That's the sweet spot. And then it goes five to
Speaker 1: twelve with twelve gigs, and then one terabyte with twelve gigs,
Speaker 1: and then you have a five millionamp five thousand million
Speaker 1: hour battery inside. So everything that I've seen on this phone.
Speaker 1: It's just a powerhouse. It works really well, it's snappy.
Speaker 1: Software needs a little bit of tweaking. There's some lag
Speaker 1: here and there, but it's not a deal breaker. But overall,
Speaker 1: I've been very impressed. I don't know if I can
Speaker 1: stick with it because there's just so many things I
Speaker 1: like about the iPhone. And it's not just the iPhone.
Speaker 1: It's like it's the entire ecosystem that the iPhone is
Speaker 1: a part of. Whether it's the Air Tags, whether it's
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch, whether it's I Message, whether it's some
Speaker 1: of the apps that I use on there. So it's
Speaker 1: it's gonna be really tough. When it comes to the
Speaker 1: night mode photography, Samsung made a big deal about the
Speaker 1: night mode photography, and you know, it seems like the
Speaker 1: night mode is definitely better on this device. Like the
Speaker 1: photography at night is looking like it's brighter than the iPhone.
Speaker 1: Is it always better, I don't know. I mean it
Speaker 1: just looks brighter, that's for sure. So I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to test that a little bit more. The video looks
Speaker 1: really nice. Prices start at eight hundred dollars for the
Speaker 1: S twenty two, then you've got the S twenty two Plus,
Speaker 1: which let's see how much that one is. That's nine
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars. And then you've got the S twenty
Speaker 1: two Ultra, which starts at twelve hundred dollars, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna be available on February twenty fifth. So again, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of interest in these phones because Samsung
Speaker 1: just continues to kind of tweak and evolve, and it
Speaker 1: seems like they're doing a really good job with that.
Speaker 1: So I've seen much more interest in these phones than
Speaker 1: I have any previous Samsung models, So I guess I
Speaker 1: guess they're doing a pretty good thing. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get to our first question of the podcast. Lisa, Hey Rich,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you can give me a recommendation on security.
Speaker 1: Is it better to go through an agency or do
Speaker 1: ring or one of those systems. Lisa, you know you're
Speaker 1: talking to a tech guy that is looking at disruption
Speaker 1: of all industries, and the companies like ADT I personally
Speaker 1: just would not use because it's an old school company. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure ADT does some really good things, but the
Speaker 1: reality is their entire business is getting into a really
Speaker 1: long contract that's very expensive, giving you the hardware at
Speaker 1: a loss and then making it up on the back
Speaker 1: end with an extremely long contract that costs a lot
Speaker 1: of money. Whereas system like RING or Simply Safe or
Speaker 1: any of these other DIY systems, you purchase the equipment
Speaker 1: and then they make a reasonable amount of money on
Speaker 1: you over the years. So personally, if I was to
Speaker 1: go with one today, I would go with Ring. I
Speaker 1: think that they're doing the best job of you know,
Speaker 1: the different hardware they have, the different software they have,
Speaker 1: they continue to push the envelope. They just came out
Speaker 1: with the glass break sensor, so I think they are
Speaker 1: overall the best system that you can get. Otherwise, I'd
Speaker 1: say my second favorite system is probably Simply Safe, just
Speaker 1: based on the fact that it does what you need.
Speaker 1: It's simple, like they said, simply Safe. Although they are
Speaker 1: raising the price by three dollars a month to twenty
Speaker 1: eight dollars a month, I think they have a cheaper
Speaker 1: plan that you can go with. But I would with
Speaker 1: today's day and age, with all the software, bells and
Speaker 1: whistles you want, you probably don't want the cheaper plan there.
Speaker 1: But that would be my recommendation. So personally, I've been
Speaker 1: looking to upgrade my ring system to do kind of everything.
Speaker 1: I just haven't had a chance to do that, but
Speaker 1: that's kind of on my list of things to do,
Speaker 1: so that's what I would go with. All right. We
Speaker 1: talked about air tags and unwanted tracking, and I actually
Speaker 1: did a story about this on KTLA a while back.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to say it's because of my story,
Speaker 1: but Apple definitely is a being the ante when it
Speaker 1: comes to air tags and unwanted tracking. So couple things
Speaker 1: that Apple is doing. Number one, working with law enforcement.
Speaker 1: They say that, you know, these things are rare. These
Speaker 1: are Yes, we're seeing them in the news all the time.
Speaker 1: But it's a sexy story, right. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you pop an air tag on someone, you can track them.
Speaker 1: You pop it on a car, you can steal it,
Speaker 1: you pop it on anything, and you can watch where
Speaker 1: that thing goes. And yeah, it probably is that easy. Actually.
Speaker 1: So they're saying that every air tag has a unique
Speaker 1: serial number. Every serial number is paired with an Apple ID.
Speaker 1: Could you set up an entire Apple ID with you know,
Speaker 1: fake information? Yeah, probably if you want to be re elaborate,
Speaker 1: but most people are not that smart. So they probably
Speaker 1: would just not realize the depth to which Apple has
Speaker 1: your information when you set one of these things up.
Speaker 1: And they're saying they are working with law enforcement to
Speaker 1: make sure that law enforcement gets the information, and they
Speaker 1: say they have successfully partnered with them on cases where
Speaker 1: information used traced an air tag back to the perp
Speaker 1: who was apprehended and charged. So they're doing that. The
Speaker 1: other thing they're doing is a new privacy warning. When
Speaker 1: you set up an air tag, it's saying, hey, look,
Speaker 1: this is a crime in many places, so don't even
Speaker 1: try it. They're doing unwanted I guess some people are
Speaker 1: getting unwanted alerts from their AirPods, and so they're going
Speaker 1: to stop doing that as they're going to say that
Speaker 1: air tags, our AirPods have been traveling with them instead
Speaker 1: of an unknown accessory. Let's see what else is interesting, Oh,
Speaker 1: precision finding. You'll be able to use precision finding with
Speaker 1: an air tag so that you can find exactly where
Speaker 1: it is. If you have an iPhone eleven, twelve or thirteen,
Speaker 1: it's going to display an alert. You know, these air
Speaker 1: tags are supposed to chirp when you are coming into
Speaker 1: contact with an unwanted one. So they will chirp, but
Speaker 1: that chirp is going to now also put a notification
Speaker 1: on your phone so that you can figure out where
Speaker 1: this thing is easier. They're also going to tune the
Speaker 1: air tag sound to make it loud, so if you
Speaker 1: are if you have one of these unwanted air tags nearby,
Speaker 1: it's going to chirp louder than it did before. And
Speaker 1: Apple says they are going to kind of revisit the
Speaker 1: algorithm that that tells you when one of these unwanted
Speaker 1: tags is near you. So the old one used to
Speaker 1: be between eight and twenty I don't know. It just
Speaker 1: was a random amount of time that if an air
Speaker 1: tag was traveling with you, Apple would notify you at
Speaker 1: some point, but that time was not necessarily etched in stone.
Speaker 1: So now they're going to use a better algorithm to
Speaker 1: kind of notify people earlier that one of these things
Speaker 1: is traveling with them. So you know, this has been
Speaker 1: in the news a lot. Apple is kind of tackling
Speaker 1: it head on. And air tags are amazing, Let's be honest.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine point nine percent of people are using them
Speaker 1: for really awesome stuff. Like me, I've got them on
Speaker 1: my keys, I've got them, you know, in my backpacks,
Speaker 1: some my luggage, and it's amazing. And so that is
Speaker 1: the ninety nine percent scenario. Yes, there are some people
Speaker 1: out there that are using them for bad reasons, and
Speaker 1: hopefully some of these changes will will kind of cut
Speaker 1: down on some of those problems, all right. Mark says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I saw your episode on New Televisions this year, and
Speaker 1: you mentioned it's not worth getting an AK television due
Speaker 1: to limited broadcasting in this format, so much that there
Speaker 1: is none. However, I've owned in a Samsung eighty two
Speaker 1: inch Q nine hundred R for two years. It's the
Speaker 1: best TV and reception I have ever seen. Even though
Speaker 1: even so, I told Direct TV to cancel my four
Speaker 1: K subscription because I cannot tell any difference between their
Speaker 1: four K broadcasting and what I could see on regular channels.
Speaker 1: On the eight K set with twice as many pixels
Speaker 1: as a four K set, the reception seems so much
Speaker 1: clearer and brighter that it appears to be broadcasting in
Speaker 1: four K without the use of four K specific channels.
Speaker 1: Regard Mark in Houston, Texas. Mark, You know what, here's
Speaker 1: the thing with all this stuff, I think it really
Speaker 1: comes down to your eyes, what you like and how
Speaker 1: it looks to you. So, for instance, I have a
Speaker 1: four K set. I pay for Netflix in four K,
Speaker 1: and I will tell you I cannot tell the difference
Speaker 1: between Netflix and four K and HD. Now maybe the
Speaker 1: maybe I don't. I just don't know what to say
Speaker 1: about it because it's one of these things where, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are use cases where if you're watching
Speaker 1: a four K football game, it probably looks amazing. But
Speaker 1: if you're watching, you know, a ten ADP football game,
Speaker 1: does it look that much better in four K? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Like, let's put it this way. The super Bowl,
Speaker 1: which is the biggest event, is happening this weekend that
Speaker 1: is not being broadcast in four K. Clearly the NFL
Speaker 1: has done their homework and they're saying, yeah, if people
Speaker 1: don't really care, people don't really notice. It's not that noticeable.
Speaker 1: So I think it probably would be with four K
Speaker 1: with the with the big game. But you know, nobody's
Speaker 1: broadcasting in four K. I mean it's very very limited.
Speaker 1: If you look at any of the you know, major
Speaker 1: cable services, I don't think there's any four K channels
Speaker 1: on any of them. So, yes, Direct TV had like
Speaker 1: one or two four K channels. One was just playing
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of nature stuff last I checked. The
Speaker 1: other one is doing sports events. But it's one of
Speaker 1: these things where if you're on YouTube it's four K,
Speaker 1: you know, it definitely looks good. Is it the best
Speaker 1: like thing in the world. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just one of these kind of Yes, it looks
Speaker 1: better at the end of the day. But if everything
Speaker 1: is all aligned, right, if all the stars are aligned,
Speaker 1: the transmission is in four K or AK, your cables
Speaker 1: are all good, your TV is tuned, and it looks great.
Speaker 1: But the reality is most of us are just watching
Speaker 1: random stuff. And I've even you know, you go into
Speaker 1: I guess the best example is you go into any
Speaker 1: car dealership in America or doctor's office, and the TV
Speaker 1: screen looks horrible every time. It's just like it's just
Speaker 1: not good. But most people just don't have it set
Speaker 1: up in a way to make it look good. I
Speaker 1: should tell a story. So I was one of the
Speaker 1: first people to feature a four K TV on the
Speaker 1: Today Show? And was it four K or is it
Speaker 1: just HD? Actually? Sorry, this was going back just to HD,
Speaker 1: and I remember being in the makeup room, and the
Speaker 1: makeup people were like, you know, we're broadcasting in HD
Speaker 1: now and it doesn't even look that great. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to switch inputs to the HD input.
Speaker 1: We and I helped them switch inputs and it was
Speaker 1: like whoa, oh, actually that looks really good. So and
Speaker 1: this happened at a Super Bowl party a couple of
Speaker 1: years back with a friend of mine. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: your TV is not even an HD. He's like, no,
Speaker 1: yes it is. And I said, no, you really got
Speaker 1: to switch a couple of these things on it. And
Speaker 1: we went to the HDMI and sure enough, it was
Speaker 1: like one of those minutes where wow, you just realize
Speaker 1: this looks really good. So anyway, I think that's what's
Speaker 1: happening with AK and four K. It's just there's so
Speaker 1: many variables, but when you have everything lined up, yeah,
Speaker 1: AK probably does look pretty good. I'm sure your TV
Speaker 1: looks great because it's up sampling these things or upscaling,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, if it works for you, I think
Speaker 1: that's really all that matters. All right, Remember we Sports
Speaker 1: that was one of the best games ever. It was
Speaker 1: just such an exciting time for Actually this was one
Speaker 1: of the other things I did on the Today Show.
Speaker 1: I was one of the first people to show off
Speaker 1: the Nintendo we and I'll never forget I bowled on
Speaker 1: live TV and I got a strike, which I just
Speaker 1: could not believe and it was just so great to
Speaker 1: do that, and so it was really fun. But anyway,
Speaker 1: WE Sports was really one of those games that kind
Speaker 1: of just really showed off why the Wei was so
Speaker 1: different than anything else we had ever used before. I mean,
Speaker 1: we had the power Glove, we had other things that
Speaker 1: were kind of you know, motion sensitive ways to play
Speaker 1: video games, but the WE, not the WEU, the WE
Speaker 1: just really encapsulated it with it just nailed it with
Speaker 1: WE Sports. So according to this article in The Wirecutter,
Speaker 1: they sold more than eighty million copies. And when Switch
Speaker 1: came out, they came out of a couple games that
Speaker 1: were similar using the motion controllers, but nothing like WE Sports.
Speaker 1: And now I'm happy to report that Nintendo Switch Sports
Speaker 1: is coming along and it will have basically very similar
Speaker 1: gameplay to the Wei Sports, except you'll use the Joycon controllers.
Speaker 1: So they're gonna have soccer, tennis, volleyball, badminton, bowling, and more.
Speaker 1: They're also introducing a leg strap, so you can put
Speaker 1: those joycon on your leg and you can play some
Speaker 1: of these games with that. It's gonna be forty dollars
Speaker 1: for the game. It arrives on April twenty ninth. They're
Speaker 1: also going to have online gameplay, and if you want
Speaker 1: early action on that, you can try it on February
Speaker 1: eighteenth through twentieth. If you're listening to this, if you're
Speaker 1: a Nintendo Switch Online member, you can play out some
Speaker 1: of those games. So Nintendo Switch Sports, I think, is
Speaker 1: gonna be amazing. Definitely something I'm gonna play with my kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, so bring Back Bowling is just like, I mean,
Speaker 1: that was like the best game on the Wii. I
Speaker 1: don't care how many games came out afterwards. We Bowling
Speaker 1: was just it was one of those games that anyone
Speaker 1: can play. And I don't know if you remember this,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure you do. So many people were like
Speaker 1: crashing their controllers into their TV screen because they were
Speaker 1: throwing them and it was crashing in. It was like,
Speaker 1: of course, a big news story. I'm sure it only
Speaker 1: happened like five or six times, but it was one
Speaker 1: of those things that sounded so great. So that it
Speaker 1: was it was definitely a big story for that to happen.
Speaker 1: So Nintendo switched Sports coming soon, definitely going to be
Speaker 1: a popular game for sure, all Right. Valisa via Instagram says,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find a good photo background change app
Speaker 1: for Android. Do you know one? I'm trying to change
Speaker 1: the background in my picks have a great day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do have one. And I think I mentioned this
Speaker 1: on the show before, but it's called Pixar pic Art
Speaker 1: And this is such a cool video editing app. It's
Speaker 1: so easy, you will love it. It's not free as far
Speaker 1: as I know. I think there are like some some
Speaker 1: uh you know, you got to pay to upgrade some
Speaker 1: of these things. Let me see what it says. I mean,
Speaker 1: there might be some free options that you can use,
Speaker 1: but if you really want to step it up, you
Speaker 1: got to pay. But it's available for Android and iOS
Speaker 1: and uh let's see. Yeah, so they've got let's see
Speaker 1: a weekly five bucks, monthly twelve dollars, yearly fifty six dollars.
Speaker 1: Awesome photos. I love looking in the If you go
Speaker 1: to the app store page for any app, you can
Speaker 1: look at what the in app purchases are and this
Speaker 1: is what is brilliant about Apple is that it's so
Speaker 1: transparent to see like what people charge. And so what
Speaker 1: I usually do if anything's charging like a yearly fee,
Speaker 1: just look and see all of their different you know,
Speaker 1: fees and see which one's the cheapest, and you know
Speaker 1: you can end up getting. So what I do is
Speaker 1: I always do the free trial and then they try,
Speaker 1: of course to get you to subscribe. But what you
Speaker 1: have to do is hold out just a little bit
Speaker 1: and they will eventually email you or put an app
Speaker 1: purchase notification with a better deal. So's that's a little trick.
Speaker 1: So on Android, it's on Android, it's on iOS. Sorry
Speaker 1: series asking me something, But it's on Android. It's on iOS,
Speaker 1: and it's a great if you're just trying to remove
Speaker 1: the background, it's super easy. It is a premium feature
Speaker 1: on here. But they also have so many other features
Speaker 1: as well. You can edit videos, You've got just so
Speaker 1: many little features. It's you could spend all day on
Speaker 1: this app. So again, it's called pix Ar pic sa
Speaker 1: Art available for iOS and Android, and I think you
Speaker 1: will like that app a lot. All right, So you
Speaker 1: know that I've been driving the Tesla, I drove it
Speaker 1: up to San Francisco, and so I like this story.
Speaker 1: This is Washington is going to your mark five billion
Speaker 1: dollars to create a national network of EV charging stations.
Speaker 1: And I know this is a government program, So say
Speaker 1: what you will about that. Tesla somehow has managed to
Speaker 1: build their charging infrastructure. I don't know if they get
Speaker 1: government funds or not. But if we're going to get
Speaker 1: these evs to be used in a big way and
Speaker 1: get rid of some of this what do they call it,
Speaker 1: the charging range anxiety, that's the word I'm looking for,
Speaker 1: range anxiety, then we have to get these charging stations everywhere.
Speaker 1: And so this five billion dollar pot is going to
Speaker 1: hopefully get states to put these stations in along the freeway,
Speaker 1: along the interstate. That's the number one thing. And so
Speaker 1: what is the stipulations of this program. Well, the stations
Speaker 1: have to be installed every fifty miles, no more than
Speaker 1: one mile off the interstate. And then the stations have
Speaker 1: to have at least six hundred kilowatts of total capacity
Speaker 1: with ports for at least four that can deliver at
Speaker 1: least one hundred and fifty kilowats each. So that's that's
Speaker 1: a pretty good amount and one hundred and fifty kilowats
Speaker 1: is pretty fast. I think Tesla goes up to two fifty,
Speaker 1: but even when I was at a two and fifty charger,
Speaker 1: it still was just charging at one fifty. So one
Speaker 1: fifty is pretty fast, and that's faster than a lot
Speaker 1: of these random outlets you find all over the place.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is from the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1: This is what apparently is gonna happen. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: happen overnight, but every fifty miles, I think is a
Speaker 1: good clip. You know, you can find a gas station
Speaker 1: every exit on the freeway. So now we'll see if
Speaker 1: if these being everywhere is going to make people say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think I can deal with, you know, with having
Speaker 1: an electric car. I personally have been living with the
Speaker 1: electric car now for I don't know, six months, and
Speaker 1: it's just great. I really love it. The range anxiety
Speaker 1: is just not there. It's I'm I'm definitely aware of
Speaker 1: my range on my car, and yeah, I'm basically always
Speaker 1: at like a quarter tank or a half tank, no
Speaker 1: matter what I mean, that's just where I'm at. And
Speaker 1: so it would it be nice to have a range
Speaker 1: of five hundred miles. Yeah, probably, But the reality is
Speaker 1: most of the time, the only time that it's really
Speaker 1: a problem is when you are on a road trip
Speaker 1: and you are parking overnight on your road trip. So
Speaker 1: if you go somewhere, getting there is gonna be just fine.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be stopping for your charges. It's when you
Speaker 1: get to your destination that things get a little tricky because,
Speaker 1: like I explained in a video I did about the Tesla,
Speaker 1: it's when I got to my hotel in San Francisco
Speaker 1: that all bets were off. Did the hotel have a
Speaker 1: charger yes? Did it work for my car? No? So
Speaker 1: that means I had to go find a charger for
Speaker 1: my car. Same thing when I went to visit my
Speaker 1: brother in Visalia when he was visiting there. You know,
Speaker 1: he was staying at an Airbnb and there, you know,
Speaker 1: could I have found a plug to charge my car overnight? Maybe,
Speaker 1: but it was kind of a pain and there wasn't
Speaker 1: really one, not readily available unless I opened a window
Speaker 1: or something. And you know, your car charge is slow,
Speaker 1: but it's overnight, so it's not that big of a deal.
Speaker 1: But again, so we had to drive and find a supercharger.
Speaker 1: But the way that this is all set up right now,
Speaker 1: the priority is being given to the interstates. Get people
Speaker 1: on the freeway, and then they'll figure out how to
Speaker 1: charge their car once they get to their destination, which
Speaker 1: you know, is not that tough. There's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of chargers all over the place. It's just a matter
Speaker 1: of finding them. And yeah, it's a little inconvenient once
Speaker 1: you find them to you know, to continue to do that.
Speaker 1: So you know, but overall, I think the cars are
Speaker 1: going to really the the evs are just they're here
Speaker 1: to stay and it's just going to continue to get
Speaker 1: more and more. So all right, let's talk about Apple.
Speaker 1: This is a really interesting move by Apple. So they
Speaker 1: are basically opening up the NFC chip on the iPhone
Speaker 1: to turn the iPhone into a credit card reader for
Speaker 1: any business. So if you are a small business or
Speaker 1: you've ever tapped on one of these little Square things,
Speaker 1: remember when Square first came out, it was a card
Speaker 1: reader that would stick into the headphone jack on the phone.
Speaker 1: And then when phones lost the headphone jacks, they did
Speaker 1: kind of a bluetooth play and so you would just
Speaker 1: get this little reader that would bluetooth to the phone
Speaker 1: and the reader would have NFC on it and you
Speaker 1: can TAPLE. Now Apple is enabling all iPhones, or at
Speaker 1: least certain model iPhones. I think it's iPhone Tennis and above.
Speaker 1: They're going to basically flip the switch where those will
Speaker 1: be able to take payments via tap to pay. This
Speaker 1: is a huge, huge deal. I cannot tell you how
Speaker 1: big of a deal this is because it allows any
Speaker 1: small business in America with an iPhone to instantly accept
Speaker 1: credit cards. Now you can say, Rich, they can use Venmo,
Speaker 1: they can use They've already been able to use Square.
Speaker 1: It's not that big of a deal. They probably have
Speaker 1: a checkout terminal, but you don't have to invest in
Speaker 1: any extra equipment or hardware. That is a huge deal.
Speaker 1: So let's say you run a hair salon and you
Speaker 1: have an iPhone. You can now take payments through that iPhone,
Speaker 1: no problem. Now, I think this gets a little tricky
Speaker 1: with that scenario because it's not the best case. Thing
Speaker 1: is is that if you have a hair salon and
Speaker 1: you've got a bunch of people working there and you're
Speaker 1: not there, and you've got the only phone that accepts
Speaker 1: the tap to pay, Yeah, that's kind of a problem.
Speaker 1: But we'll figure this out. But the point is, if
Speaker 1: you're a retailer, you can, you know, maybe get one
Speaker 1: simple iPhone now and that handles all of your billing
Speaker 1: or all your credit card payments and it doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be attached to any sort of sort of special equipment.
Speaker 1: So now, the other interesting thing about this is I
Speaker 1: said in my tweet that this was kind of war
Speaker 1: on Venmo and Square. It may not be because Square
Speaker 1: could theoretically just use the framework that Apple is providing
Speaker 1: to activate this. So Apple is not doing this in
Speaker 1: their own software. They're actually going to open this up
Speaker 1: for third party software to enable it. So that means
Speaker 1: that Stripe can come in. That means that PayPal can
Speaker 1: come in, That means that Square can come in. Anyone
Speaker 1: who wants to accept credit card payments via tap to
Speaker 1: pay through an app that they build can now do it.
Speaker 1: And we'll see Stripe is the first one they announced.
Speaker 1: We'll see if Square and these other reta other payment
Speaker 1: processors bite on this system, which I think they'll they'll
Speaker 1: have to because otherwise they're gonna be left in the dust.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to Venmo, of course, PayPal owns Venmo.
Speaker 1: PayPal will probably do this through the PayPal app. Venmo
Speaker 1: will continue to be Venmo, which you know, most people
Speaker 1: know Venmo through just using their you know, their user name,
Speaker 1: which I think is not a very good system. So
Speaker 1: if you have a QR code you can scan it,
Speaker 1: that's much better because you know you're getting the right person.
Speaker 1: I can't stand typing someone's name into Venmo. I know
Speaker 1: everyone does it, but it's just kind of like one
Speaker 1: of these things where it's I just never know if
Speaker 1: it's like the actual person and they want to verify
Speaker 1: with the phone number. So I think the QR code
Speaker 1: is a lot easier. So we'll see what happens with
Speaker 1: that situation. All right, Let's talk Disney Plus. According to Variety,
Speaker 1: Disney Plus ended twenty twenty one with about one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty million subscribers, which is just phenomenal. So I
Speaker 1: think they wanted a certain amount of subscribers. They had
Speaker 1: like a five year plan. They just blew everything out
Speaker 1: of the water. And Disney Plus is one of these
Speaker 1: things that's like water in a lot of people's homes.
Speaker 1: So one hundred and twenty nine million paying subscribers, each
Speaker 1: person is paying what what is Disney plus seven bucks.
Speaker 1: So what's one hundred and thirty million times seven, that's
Speaker 1: nine hundred and ten million dollars a month for Disney.
Speaker 1: That is a good amount of money just on Disney plus.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good new business. Huh. Now, I get it,
Speaker 1: they're probably losing some money in the movie theaters or
Speaker 1: a lot of money. But at the same time, this
Speaker 1: is just a steady flow of cash. And it's not
Speaker 1: just a steady flow of cash, it's something they can
Speaker 1: bank on every month. So I don't think that this
Speaker 1: is going to go below one hundred million subscribers, so minimum,
Speaker 1: you know, seven hundred million dollars every month is just
Speaker 1: kind of a guarantee. So what does that allow them
Speaker 1: to do. It allows them to plan their slate of
Speaker 1: new stuff against this money. And if you're like me,
Speaker 1: if there's one new movie on Disney plus one new
Speaker 1: piece of content every month, that's probably enough to keep
Speaker 1: you there. So In Canto was the latest one. That
Speaker 1: was probably last month, So I would look to February
Speaker 1: to have something new. I'm sure there's something new that's
Speaker 1: coming out that will keep us busy until the next month.
Speaker 1: And this is kind of like what HBO figured out
Speaker 1: a long time ago. Except with HBO, when you subscribe
Speaker 1: through your cable service, you know number one, they would
Speaker 1: have a show that would last six months to nine months,
Speaker 1: and they parsed it out over that time, so it
Speaker 1: felt like, Okay, every week, I have a new episode
Speaker 1: for you know, six months, whatever it was. I don't
Speaker 1: know how many months it went, maybe three months. With
Speaker 1: these services, it's much easier to cancel, so you need
Speaker 1: to have stuff that's fresh, like much quicker, and it's
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where when you sign up
Speaker 1: for HBO, you didn't really think about canceling because there
Speaker 1: was just so much it was so much work to cancel,
Speaker 1: whereas with Disney Plus and Netflix and all these others,
Speaker 1: I don't I think those two are much more protected
Speaker 1: compared to some of these other services, like maybe Discovery
Speaker 1: Plus or something. With Netflix, it's just I'm keeping it forever.
Speaker 1: Disney Plus, I'm keeping it forever. But you can come
Speaker 1: and go on some of these other services, and so
Speaker 1: it makes it a lot easier to come and go
Speaker 1: for sure. Speaking of movie services, movie Pass is launching,
Speaker 1: movie Past two point zero is launching this summer, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna support a bunch of movie theaters. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing, I mean, do we even care about Movie Past?
Speaker 1: We need an unlimited movie Pass subscription anymore? I don't
Speaker 1: think so. So they're going to use I read this
Speaker 1: facial detection so you can watch these ads and that'll
Speaker 1: give you credit to get towards watching movies. But who
Speaker 1: cares at this point if you're a movie if you're
Speaker 1: a movie lover, you've probably already subscribed to AMC. At
Speaker 1: this point, you've probably already subscribed to Regal Cinemas, and
Speaker 1: they're unlimited services, which I know are probably more expensive
Speaker 1: at twenty five dollars a month depending on the area
Speaker 1: you're in, But it's going to be a much easier,
Speaker 1: probably system than going through all these hoops of Movie Pass,
Speaker 1: which is probably going to be cheaper. Maybe it's ten
Speaker 1: bucks a month, I'm not sure. But the reality is,
Speaker 1: do we even need this anymore? I think I think
Speaker 1: Movie Pass had a certain spot in our lives and
Speaker 1: that that time is just kind of over. So speaking
Speaker 1: of over, I know this was an abbreviated show, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to get one on the books. Once I
Speaker 1: figure out my equipment. I'll have a better show next week,
Speaker 1: but that's going to do it this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you have a question you would like for me
Speaker 1: to answer, you can go to my Facebook page Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com, slash rich on Tech, hit the big blue
Speaker 1: send email button, or go to rich on Tech dot
Speaker 1: tv and hit the email icon. I would also love
Speaker 1: it if you would rate and review this podcast. Just
Speaker 1: go to the listening app of your choice. Write a
Speaker 1: quick line about what you like about this show to
Speaker 1: help others understand why they should listen. Listen. You can
Speaker 1: find me online. I am at rich on Tech on
Speaker 1: all social media. By the way, don't rate this show,
Speaker 1: just rate the other shows. This show was kind of
Speaker 1: like a tougher one because of the production quality, but
Speaker 1: I wanted I didn't want to not have a show. Also,
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Speaker 1: and you can watch all of my TV segments on demand.
Speaker 1: My name is rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: There are so many ways you can spend an hour
Speaker 1: of your time. I do appreciate you spending it with me.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you real soon.