Speaker 1: Apple sets a date to show off new features coming
Speaker 1: soon to the iPhone. Instagram now lets you hide likes,
Speaker 1: how to stop those annoying spam calls. Plus your tech
Speaker 1: questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich Dmiro and this
Speaker 1: is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about
Speaker 1: the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's
Speaker 1: also the place where I answer the questions you send me.
Speaker 1: And as I say every week, you sure do send
Speaker 1: those questions along. You're not shy. I'm the tech reporter
Speaker 1: at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. I get it.
Speaker 1: You see me on TV. You say, I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: that guy a question, and you know what. That's what
Speaker 1: this podcast is all about. So thanks for sending him in,
Speaker 1: because if you didn't, I wouldn't be able to do
Speaker 1: this show. Well, I want to say thank you for
Speaker 1: something that happened to me. You know, I post stuff
Speaker 1: on Instagram and I never you know, you never know
Speaker 1: what the reaction is going to be, right, and so
Speaker 1: you know, last night before bed, I was going through
Speaker 1: some of my memories on Google Photos as I sometimes do,
Speaker 1: and I came across a picture of me that I
Speaker 1: was like, what is that? And it said, thirteen years ago,
Speaker 1: and it was my headshot from when I started at
Speaker 1: another TV station here in Los Angeles called k CAL nine.
Speaker 1: And I'll just tell you the story because I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't tell the whole story on Instagram, but I
Speaker 1: kind of told a little bit of it. But I'll
Speaker 1: give you the kind of the cliffs notes version. But basically,
Speaker 1: you know, I was doing my job at CNET. I
Speaker 1: was working at CNET in New York City, and I'd
Speaker 1: been a reporter in other places, but I was now
Speaker 1: working for a website and I thought I had the
Speaker 1: best job ever. I mean, I would have stayed at
Speaker 1: c NET for the rest of my life. I worked
Speaker 1: in New York City. My team was awesome. Everyone there
Speaker 1: was just amazing. And this was like in the early
Speaker 1: days of video and tech and all that stuff. And
Speaker 1: I'm just doing my job and lobby blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: I get a call from someone in Los Angeles at
Speaker 1: CA CAW and They're like, hey, can you do what
Speaker 1: you're doing over there here? And I'm like what, And
Speaker 1: I mean, this is Los Angeles. My wife is from
Speaker 1: LA She had been kind of itching to get back
Speaker 1: a little bit, and so I was like, well, I
Speaker 1: think so, and so they fly me out to La
Speaker 1: me I think they flew me out. I can't really remember.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so I get out there, I get the
Speaker 1: job at CA CAL. Everything's fine, you know, I do
Speaker 1: my job for a year. My contract's up and no renewal.
Speaker 1: It's just like you're done. You're like, oh, okay, see you.
Speaker 1: So my wife and I, you know, we go home
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting there. And this was, by the way,
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, when like
Speaker 1: the entire economy collapsed and so there was no jobs
Speaker 1: to be had out there, and so it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: but I made a decision. I you know, we'd moved
Speaker 1: around several times in the world to you know, be
Speaker 1: a reporter, and I'd lived in Washington State, Louisiana. We'd
Speaker 1: actually moved to LA another time before I moved back
Speaker 1: to New York for CNET, and so I was kind
Speaker 1: of done moving, and I said, you know what, but
Speaker 1: do you just want to like stick it out here
Speaker 1: and we'll just stay put in LA and just kind
Speaker 1: of see what happens. And she was like sure, And
Speaker 1: she had a job at the time, and so we did.
Speaker 1: We just stayed put. We stayed put in our little apartment.
Speaker 1: We just kept on going and I did some other things.
Speaker 1: I worked for a website called tech Meme. I worked
Speaker 1: at CANBC as a producer, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I get a call from the same person that called
Speaker 1: me the first time at k CAL, who is now
Speaker 1: working at KTLA, and said, hey, can we try this again?
Speaker 1: Can you do what you're doing again again? And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: but I have a good job again. So you know,
Speaker 1: by this time, I actually had a full time job
Speaker 1: at CANBC as a producer and it was a pretty
Speaker 1: decent job. And I said, oh gosh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm a little scared this time, and he said, no,
Speaker 1: it's going to be great. And so sure enough, it's
Speaker 1: been ten plus years since that conversation and it has
Speaker 1: been great, and I just want to say thank you.
Speaker 1: I posted the picture to Instagram and I don't even
Speaker 1: think most people knew I was on k CAL well,
Speaker 1: but the comments have just been pouring in, and I
Speaker 1: really I sometimes forget how many people kind of see
Speaker 1: what I do on TV, and it makes it very
Speaker 1: clear that you're watching, you're listening, and the things that
Speaker 1: I do do have an impact on you. So thank you.
Speaker 1: I just want to say thanks. That's that's it. So
Speaker 1: all right, let's get to the first question or the
Speaker 1: first story of the week. Apple. Apple Apple. I know,
Speaker 1: of Rich you're such an Apple lover, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: but you know, Apple kind of commands everything. But Apple
Speaker 1: announced their Worldwide Developers Conference is going to be held
Speaker 1: on June seventh. Official invites went out to the media,
Speaker 1: including myself. Keno is at ten am on June seventh
Speaker 1: Pacific time, which is nice. I mean Samsung when they
Speaker 1: do theirs, it's like seven am Pacific. Why, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess they're more New York centric, But seven am
Speaker 1: or ten am on June seventh WWDC. This will be
Speaker 1: the second virtual WWDC, maybe the third. I don't even
Speaker 1: know now. Twenty nineteen was live, twenty twenty was in virtual,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one was virtual or is going to be virtual?
Speaker 1: So what are they going to announce? Well, of course
Speaker 1: we always get to see kind of what's next with
Speaker 1: the iPhone, and for my purposes, I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the biggest things is you know, the iPhone is
Speaker 1: kind of like the biggest product from Apple. So when
Speaker 1: we see the new features coming to like it's either
Speaker 1: going to be iOS fifteen perhaps or you know, maybe
Speaker 1: another version of iOS fourteen. Usually they go to the fifteen.
Speaker 1: But I mean, can you believe we're getting into like
Speaker 1: fifteen major versions of iOS. I mean, it's just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But it's not just iOS. There's also mac os. There's
Speaker 1: also iPad os, there's also tvOS, there's also watch os.
Speaker 1: So we get to see all the new features that
Speaker 1: are coming to all the different Apple products. They don't
Speaker 1: come overnight, but you know, we get a little glimpse
Speaker 1: into the future, and generally the new software launches, you know,
Speaker 1: sometime later in the year September October when the new
Speaker 1: devices launch. But anyway, I find it really fun. It's
Speaker 1: it's usually a pretty pretty good keynote to get some
Speaker 1: some insight on new features, and it always really I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this, which keynote gets me the most
Speaker 1: amped up about their products, and it's it's a war
Speaker 1: between Apple and Google, because Google always gets me really
Speaker 1: excited for this idea that like Google is trying to sell.
Speaker 1: I think I talked about this, but may did I
Speaker 1: leave my last podcast with this. I hope I didn't. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe this was announced last week. No, No, it was
Speaker 1: Google that I talked about. That's right, Okay, it was
Speaker 1: Google i OWE and I kind of mentioned this, but
Speaker 1: I said, you know, Google, IOWE and Apple, they always
Speaker 1: get me so excited. It's like a very like positive,
Speaker 1: bright outlook on the future. I know, say what you
Speaker 1: will about privacy and all the issues with these tech
Speaker 1: companies and how they're monopolies and whatever antitrust, but at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, they do affect our lives
Speaker 1: and pretty amazing ways. And the benefits are there. If
Speaker 1: you're if you're a typical consumer, you're you're getting a
Speaker 1: lot of benefits from these companies. And so yeah, there's
Speaker 1: people out there that say, oh, they're evil, they're they're terrible.
Speaker 1: But the reality is when I sit there and do
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that I do on a
Speaker 1: daily basis, I literally sit there and think to myself,
Speaker 1: this is quite amazing. What I'm able to do with
Speaker 1: my phone right now, what I'm able to do with
Speaker 1: my house right now, what I'm able to do on
Speaker 1: my TV right now. It's just you know, with fitness,
Speaker 1: with with my photos, with my editing with Instagram, with Twitter,
Speaker 1: with Facebook. It's just quite amazing anyway. So June seventh,
Speaker 1: ten am, can't wait. We will have more info about
Speaker 1: what they announce in the next podcast. Let's get to
Speaker 1: the first question of the day. All right, Bob says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: my wife is a nanny and the parents just move
Speaker 1: to a new house in Stevenson's Ranch. That's an area
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. I think it's like a nice area too,
Speaker 1: and cannot seem to get coverage for her phone. Do
Speaker 1: you possibly know what alternative she has in order to
Speaker 1: get a signal to use her iPhone? Thank you, Bob, Bob.
Speaker 1: What she needs to do is latch onto their WiFi
Speaker 1: and turn on Wi Fi calling. So most of the
Speaker 1: carriers offer it. I'm pretty sure that the if she's
Speaker 1: a nanny, I'm pretty sure she's either already on their
Speaker 1: WiFi or it would be a polite ask to get
Speaker 1: on their WiFi. But I think if if there's any
Speaker 1: issue with that, you know, if they're like, no, you
Speaker 1: cannot have our WiFi, I mean, that would be indicative
Speaker 1: of a bigger issue. I think would trust but I
Speaker 1: would ask to get on the Wi Fi and then
Speaker 1: go into iPhone and turn on Wi Fi calling. So
Speaker 1: the way that you do that is, let's see here,
Speaker 1: turn on Wi Fi calling. Let's see you open. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: that's for your Mac. You can do that on your Mac.
Speaker 1: Let's see iPhone. I know it's in somewhere in your phone. Okay,
Speaker 1: settings Phone, No, that's not it. Oh, come on Wi
Speaker 1: Fi calling, Apple Support, Okay, Wi Fi calling. Go into
Speaker 1: settings phone, Wi Fi calling. That's it. Now. You may
Speaker 1: have to once you toggle it on for the first time,
Speaker 1: you may have to set up an emergency address. And
Speaker 1: so because she's a nanny at this house, and you know,
Speaker 1: God forbid she ever had to make a call for
Speaker 1: an emergency, I would set their address as my emergency address,
Speaker 1: because you know that would help. Now, just so you know,
Speaker 1: the Wi Fi calling is going to continue at home,
Speaker 1: So there's two options, you know, And if she ever
Speaker 1: had to call nine one one from home, it would
Speaker 1: deliver that the Stevenson's Ranch address to the nine one
Speaker 1: one call or dispatch. So you have to kind of
Speaker 1: think about that with the with respect to the address,
Speaker 1: but I think because she's a nanny, it's probably more
Speaker 1: important to have it go to the address of the
Speaker 1: Stevenson ranch. But she could turn on and off Wi
Speaker 1: Fi calling, like maybe just make it part of her day.
Speaker 1: So every day that she gets to the house, she
Speaker 1: turns on Wi Fi calling. When she exits, she just
Speaker 1: turns it off. And that's kind of like part of
Speaker 1: the routine. So anyway, good question, and it's surprising to
Speaker 1: me how many people don't have Wi Fi calling on.
Speaker 1: I actually I by default like it off because I'm like,
Speaker 1: if I'm paying for my service, right like, if I'm
Speaker 1: paying for Verizon, I would like my calls to be
Speaker 1: routed through Verizon towers and not freeload on my Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: But where my in laws live, there is no cell
Speaker 1: phone service on Verizon, and so I have to turn
Speaker 1: it on for that And so for that reason, my
Speaker 1: calls do go through my Wi Fi at home, so
Speaker 1: I can see my phone right now, says Verizon Wi Fi,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a misnomer because it's not really
Speaker 1: Verizon Wi Fi. It's Verizon and Wi Fi because my
Speaker 1: WiFi is not Verizon. But anyway, so anyway, I have
Speaker 1: a little you know, I generally if you don't need
Speaker 1: Wi Fi calling at home, I would just leave it off.
Speaker 1: There's no real benefit except you're just saving your carrier.
Speaker 1: And with money, which I mean we pay them enough,
Speaker 1: I think they can afford it. So that's my thoughts
Speaker 1: on that. All right, let's talk about Instagram now. It's
Speaker 1: ironic that the photo I was just talking about on
Speaker 1: my Instagram of my old headshot for Kkel is like
Speaker 1: one of the most liked photos I've posted in a
Speaker 1: long time. And the irony is that I actually turned
Speaker 1: off the ability for people to see how many likes
Speaker 1: my photos are getting because of a new feature on Instagram.
Speaker 1: So Instagram and Facebook have done this, but I think
Speaker 1: it's most important. On Instagram. They are giving folks the
Speaker 1: ability to hide the like counts on their posts, and
Speaker 1: not just that, you can also hide all the like
Speaker 1: counts that you see as you scroll through. So I
Speaker 1: have turned on the hiding. There's two ways to do this.
Speaker 1: You can turn on you know, as you scroll through Instagram,
Speaker 1: you don't see any likes. It just says liked by
Speaker 1: one of your you know, one random person plus others.
Speaker 1: That's what we'll say, instead of liked by you know
Speaker 1: someone plus seventy hundred twenty five others. It'll just say others.
Speaker 1: So that's the number one thing. And to turn that on,
Speaker 1: you go into click your little profile profile icon. Then
Speaker 1: you click the three little lines that look like a
Speaker 1: well I call it a hamburger, but it's like a menu.
Speaker 1: Then you go into settings, and then you go into gosh,
Speaker 1: there's a privacy. Then you go into privacy. Then you
Speaker 1: go into posts and then it says likes and views,
Speaker 1: hide like and view count. I mean, could they have
Speaker 1: made that any tougher to find? But they are going
Speaker 1: to put like a banner on your home screen as
Speaker 1: well that says do you want to hide likes? So okay,
Speaker 1: So I did that and now when I scroll through,
Speaker 1: I don't see any likes when I'm scrolling through. And
Speaker 1: I will tell you, after twenty four hours of this setup,
Speaker 1: I really do like it. And I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1: It frees my mind. It frees my mind to actually
Speaker 1: look at the content and not worry about how popular
Speaker 1: this person is. And so when I see a big
Speaker 1: account that I know has thousands and hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of likes that I just feel really, you know, like
Speaker 1: insignificant or what's the word. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I just feel like I'm not as good, like why
Speaker 1: is this person have so many in one minute? But
Speaker 1: it doesn't. I don't do that anymore because I don't
Speaker 1: have to think about it. So and the best part
Speaker 1: is the smaller accounts are now elevated in my head
Speaker 1: because it doesn't matter. They're the same. So let me
Speaker 1: give you an example. A peloton instructor that gets, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty four thousand likes in an hour is now on
Speaker 1: the same playing field as an old friend from high
Speaker 1: school who might get twenty five likes in an hour.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. And so now I don't feel bad
Speaker 1: like my brain used to just feel bad for the
Speaker 1: one person and like a little bit jealous of the
Speaker 1: other person, And now my brain doesn't have that knowledge,
Speaker 1: so it's like whatever, I just look at the post
Speaker 1: and if I like it, I'll like it or a
Speaker 1: comment on it. So I think it's actually a really
Speaker 1: good thing to turn that on and just test it
Speaker 1: with yourself and see, I think it's good for the mind.
Speaker 1: The second thing you can do so is even if
Speaker 1: someone doesn't turn off the ability to see likes and
Speaker 1: view counts, you can turn them off on your posts.
Speaker 1: So every time that you make a post, there's now
Speaker 1: an option to hide the like count, So you can
Speaker 1: do that while you post, or you can do it
Speaker 1: after you post by going to one of your posts
Speaker 1: hitting the three little dots and it says hide like count.
Speaker 1: And so that's a really nice way to do it
Speaker 1: as well. So I don't know, I'm testing it out.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see how it works, but so far, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of digging it, and I think that it's a
Speaker 1: good thing for people to at least test this. I
Speaker 1: think especially you know, my wife and I were debating
Speaker 1: this last night, like is it good for teenagers? And
Speaker 1: you know, she said it was, but they're not going
Speaker 1: to do it, And I said, well, I think it's
Speaker 1: good for adults too, because I think that no matter
Speaker 1: what the way that our brain works as a human,
Speaker 1: that's just programmed a certain way. You look at the
Speaker 1: picture and then you immediately look at the likes. It's
Speaker 1: just the way we've been programmed, because that's what the
Speaker 1: app is all about. So the fact that you don't
Speaker 1: have to do that anymore, I think really frees up
Speaker 1: your brain to do other stuff. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to another question Sean, with the subject line, Android says,
Speaker 1: how about a wireless service that actually works and reliable?
Speaker 1: They are all horrible. Okay, Well, I don't necessarily agree
Speaker 1: with that. I mean, I've been around the world with
Speaker 1: varying wireless services, mostly at and T and Verizon, and
Speaker 1: I am actually quite amazed at where I've been in
Speaker 1: the world and have a cell phone signal, and so
Speaker 1: just to kind of just say a blanket statement that
Speaker 1: they're all horrible, I just can't agree with. I actually
Speaker 1: think it's quite magical that it's getting harder and harder
Speaker 1: to escape from the connected world that we live in,
Speaker 1: and so these services are quite amazing. They connect people,
Speaker 1: they help people. You know, there's there was a story
Speaker 1: about and I forget but there was like a car
Speaker 1: that had crashed, and you know, these cars have like
Speaker 1: there's a couple of ways that it can do it.
Speaker 1: Like you know, your Apple Watch can help respond. Now
Speaker 1: your car can have like on Star on the pixel.
Speaker 1: They've got the the crash feature where if you're you know,
Speaker 1: you crash, it'll call for help. And all of those
Speaker 1: things rely on sort of a signal. And so if
Speaker 1: you don't have a signal, that's going to be a problem.
Speaker 1: And and most of the time there is a signal
Speaker 1: now and yes, in some of the rural areas there
Speaker 1: it's spotty. I mentioned where my in laws live, they
Speaker 1: don't have a signal there. But the funny thing is
Speaker 1: they actually so for many many years they didn't have
Speaker 1: a signal. But now T Mobile works one hundred percent there,
Speaker 1: and at and T works I think pretty well like
Speaker 1: ninety percent. And Verizon works if you stand in like
Speaker 1: a certain place, but only a little tiny bit like
Speaker 1: you might get a notification. So yeah, Verizon, you know,
Speaker 1: is the odd man out there. But the reality is
Speaker 1: it just can you know, it's continued to get better
Speaker 1: over the years. You know, in the past ten years,
Speaker 1: I've seen that it's gotten better. And now when it
Speaker 1: comes to these new five G networks, like yeah, people say,
Speaker 1: oh they're not that fast, it's not that great. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if you get like if you capture one of those
Speaker 1: like five G ultra wideband signals from Verizon, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's like lightning in a bottle, it's so fast.
Speaker 1: And so you know, and again I've I've been all
Speaker 1: over the place. I've been all over the place, and
Speaker 1: I would say ninety nine point nine percent of the
Speaker 1: time there's a signal. Now, calls used to drop back
Speaker 1: in the day, like yes, of course I used to,
Speaker 1: you know, even driving over the four or five, like,
Speaker 1: there used to be one spot where every single time
Speaker 1: the call would drop, and that's been patched. I mean,
Speaker 1: so it's you know, these carriers, say what you will.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we pay too much for some
Speaker 1: of this cell service unless you're you know, on a
Speaker 1: on a smaller carrier or on a smaller plan. I
Speaker 1: think the it's expensive, but you know, the service are
Speaker 1: providing I think has gotten better over the years, and
Speaker 1: I think that you know, you could debate me on that,
Speaker 1: but just you know, send in your info. What do
Speaker 1: you think, I mean, send in your your thoughts. Has
Speaker 1: service gotten better at your house? Has there been a
Speaker 1: place where you used to drop out? Or you don't?
Speaker 1: You know. So I don't think they're all horrible. Now,
Speaker 1: I will say, I do think that Verizon and AT
Speaker 1: and T are are really good. I think a T
Speaker 1: mobile is coming up, but you know, the uh, it's
Speaker 1: just one of these things. Well, I guess T Mobile
Speaker 1: now they have Sprint. I mean, it's probably even getting
Speaker 1: better and it's funny because most of the test lines
Speaker 1: that you know, when they send me a phone to test,
Speaker 1: generally they send like a you know, thirty days of
Speaker 1: service or something so you can test out the phone,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times, I would say nine out
Speaker 1: of ten it's T Mobile. So if I'm testing a phone,
Speaker 1: I'm using like the Tea Mobile network, and I will admit,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just gonna be honest, I do notice
Speaker 1: that my Verizon or AT and T signals are better,
Speaker 1: Like the latency I've noticed the latency, the availability of
Speaker 1: a good signal, and the latency on and the speed
Speaker 1: some most of the time is just a little bit
Speaker 1: better on the two historic carriers. But then again, a
Speaker 1: lot of times T Mobile charge less than the two
Speaker 1: biggest and so you know, it's it's one of these
Speaker 1: things that's trade off. Not everyone needs like the best, latest,
Speaker 1: greatest everything. So I'm not knocking T Mobile in any way.
Speaker 1: I actually, if I had my preference for how I
Speaker 1: like a company run, T Mobile actually kind of I
Speaker 1: really like how they run their company, like the way
Speaker 1: that they kind of approach their customers and their customer
Speaker 1: service and the way they do things. I really do like.
Speaker 1: So it's all good, and I you know, I just anyway,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a long answer for a kind of
Speaker 1: a one line question, but or a one line statement,
Speaker 1: I should say. But there you have it. You're listening
Speaker 1: to the Rich on Tech show. Oh so you're gonna
Speaker 1: get rich on tech. All right, let's talk about one
Speaker 1: of the big, big, big stories of the week, Amazon
Speaker 1: acquiring MGM. I mean, this is just wild. It's just
Speaker 1: the fact that we have these tech companies. And I
Speaker 1: tweeted about this, you know, I said that here we are.
Speaker 1: It's just wild to me that literally tech is just
Speaker 1: eating through Hollywood. I mean, think about what they've done
Speaker 1: over the years. They totally changed the way music is.
Speaker 1: They totally changed the way movies are delivered. They totally
Speaker 1: changed the way movies are made. I mean, Netflix just
Speaker 1: took everything and just abended it. Now by the way,
Speaker 1: they did it twice. They did it the first time
Speaker 1: with the whole DVD situation. Then they did it again
Speaker 1: with the way they produce things, the way they distribute things.
Speaker 1: Who you can't put movies out on a streaming service first, Oh,
Speaker 1: now HBO Max does it too, Now Disney does too.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's pretty wild to watch how tech
Speaker 1: has just chumped through Hollywood. And when you really think
Speaker 1: about it, none, almost. I can't think of one example
Speaker 1: where the innovation that that we are living with today
Speaker 1: when it comes to entertainment has anything to do with
Speaker 1: a historic company that was started in Hollywood. Nothing almost nothing.
Speaker 1: I mean think about it, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, all
Speaker 1: the ways were entertained Netflix. They were all invented by
Speaker 1: tech companies, not by the historic companies. What does that
Speaker 1: tell you? It tells you that these people made a
Speaker 1: lot of money and they get comfortable and they just
Speaker 1: really can't innovate because guess what, when you're printing DVDs
Speaker 1: and you're selling them for twenty bucks a pop, it's
Speaker 1: really tough to give that up. And I totally understand that.
Speaker 1: And I feel like this with my job. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been at my job for ten years now at KTLA,
Speaker 1: and I feel like, I, Hey, I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: people out there that are looking at me saying, ugh,
Speaker 1: this guy does the same been doing the same thing
Speaker 1: for ten years, doesn't know anything new, doesn't care to
Speaker 1: try anything different, And honestly, like that's my biggest fear
Speaker 1: is I don't want to become that because I want
Speaker 1: to be. I constantly want to be innovating, and I
Speaker 1: want to be you know, even to this day trying
Speaker 1: new ways of reporting or new ways of gathering my
Speaker 1: reports are coming up with reports or the even the
Speaker 1: reports I do. I mean, I really like. This is
Speaker 1: why when people are always like, oh, you did a
Speaker 1: report on a beer brewery, how's that tech, It's like, well,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. Like I like to challenge myself and
Speaker 1: find the tech in different places. Yes, it's easy to
Speaker 1: find tech in a smartphone. I can do that every
Speaker 1: day of the week. But when I can get out
Speaker 1: there and really find novel ways of telling tech stories
Speaker 1: that don't involve a smartphone, that's really fun and that
Speaker 1: you know, it gets me going. And So anyway, Amazon
Speaker 1: acquiring MGM for eight and a half billion dollars, according
Speaker 1: to CNBC's second largest acquisition since it paid nearly fourteen
Speaker 1: billion dollars for Whole Foods in twenty seventeen. I can't
Speaker 1: believe that MGM is worth that much. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a historic company. What they're really getting here, according
Speaker 1: to what Amazon is saying, is the IP which is
Speaker 1: the intellectual property, and they've got a lot of it.
Speaker 1: I mean movies like Basic Instinct, James Bond, Legally Blonde,
Speaker 1: Poulter Guy, RoboCop, Rocky, Silence of the Lamb, Stargate, Thelma Luis,
Speaker 1: tomb Raider, Pink Panther, Thomas Crown Affair. Along with seventeen
Speaker 1: thousand shows, four thousand films. They also own Fargo, Handsmade
Speaker 1: Tale and Handmade Handmaid's Tale and Vikings, So every one
Speaker 1: of those things I just mentioned. Imagine there's going to
Speaker 1: be a reboot. I mean just it's going to be done, reboot,
Speaker 1: TV show whatever, and a lot of these movies will
Speaker 1: probably show up on Amazon Prime, which is really really
Speaker 1: good for the customer that's paying the one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty bucks a year for Amazon Prime, which yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: probably see a price increase for that this year, I think,
Speaker 1: especially through the pandemic where Amazon had a little bit
Speaker 1: of struggles, but they came out on top. You know,
Speaker 1: they're they're really doing a fantastic job. Like the delivery
Speaker 1: is so unbelievably reliable. And I talked about this in
Speaker 1: my last episode about ordering the soap from Doctor Squatch
Speaker 1: and it took you know, three weeks to get it,
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't believe it. Whereas I ordered something
Speaker 1: on Amazon yesterday morning at ten am and I got
Speaker 1: it by seven pm. And by the way, it's still
Speaker 1: sitting in my mailbox, which is really sad. So but
Speaker 1: I need it for today because I'm gonna start testing
Speaker 1: something and you know, I just needed that part. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so I predict a little bit of a price increase,
Speaker 1: maybe five bucks this year on Amazon Prime memberships, just
Speaker 1: because they're firing on all cylinders here. Amazon is just
Speaker 1: not slow going down, and you know, they've got a
Speaker 1: lot of cash, but they also need a lot of
Speaker 1: cash because they are they just continue to like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, there's no stopping in sight with this company.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see here. Uh, okay, okay, where am
Speaker 1: I here? Sandy says, Hey, Rich, you helped me before
Speaker 1: with your great advice and recommendations. I need a USB
Speaker 1: three point zero port hub plus USB C cable for
Speaker 1: my new MacBook Air. I'm sure you're aware this laptop
Speaker 1: only has two ports and that's not enough to support
Speaker 1: my external devices. Thank you, Sandy from Culver City, Sandy
Speaker 1: super easy. You need you need a USB C hub,
Speaker 1: and you can. There's a million of these things. I've
Speaker 1: been using one from Vava va v A. They sent
Speaker 1: this over to me to test, and it's been great.
Speaker 1: It's super simple. It's got HDMI output, it's got uh,
Speaker 1: let's see what else does I have. It's got three
Speaker 1: USB three point zero ports, it's got an SD card reader,
Speaker 1: it's got everything you need. So you just plug this
Speaker 1: into your computer and you get three USB slots as well,
Speaker 1: and so I say go with that. It's twenty five bucks.
Speaker 1: Looks like they even have it cheaper. But there's so
Speaker 1: many of these things. I mean, you can get them,
Speaker 1: you know, just just search USB three hub on Amazon
Speaker 1: and you can just you know, there's so many. But
Speaker 1: you know, the Vava is very popular. It depends how
Speaker 1: many ports you need. You can get one as cheap
Speaker 1: as fifteen bucks. I'm looking at this one from Anchor,
Speaker 1: but that is not a USB C Nope, you don't
Speaker 1: want that one. You got to look for one that
Speaker 1: has a USB C connector that goes into your computer.
Speaker 1: So that's what you need. That's like the magical part.
Speaker 1: And so I have another one that I bought just
Speaker 1: a random one on Amazon. I don't even know the
Speaker 1: name of it, but that's that's what you're looking for
Speaker 1: USB C hub and just go with the Vava one.
Speaker 1: That one's that one's pretty simple, they work great, and
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty good twenty five bucks. And yes, I
Speaker 1: am well aware. I had the before my current computer,
Speaker 1: I had the MacBook Pro that only I think it
Speaker 1: only had two yeah, because my new one has four,
Speaker 1: two on each side. And actually I gave that one
Speaker 1: to my son and I was plugging it in the
Speaker 1: other day and I was like, wait, you only have
Speaker 1: two things on here, and they're both on one side.
Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, or maybe they're on I forget. I
Speaker 1: can't go over there and look. But anyway, Yes, Apple
Speaker 1: is known for really being a little skimpy on the
Speaker 1: ports on their computers and on their devices. They've over
Speaker 1: the years, if you think about it, Apple has just
Speaker 1: continually gotten rid of every single way to plug things
Speaker 1: into their devices. And you can argue that that's to
Speaker 1: drive everything to the cloud, drive everything to their situation
Speaker 1: where you connect with their stuff, but the reality is
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of annoying, especially as as a quasi creator.
Speaker 1: I call myself. I mean, I'm not really a creator.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I am. I create stuff, not
Speaker 1: in a YouTube sense, but more on a I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I do stuff for social media. So but
Speaker 1: I'm not like a standard creator like an I Justine,
Speaker 1: you know, where she's you know, she's a creator. They
Speaker 1: term themselves that, where they're creating content on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: For I mean, I guess I am. I consider myself
Speaker 1: more like a journalist, you know, that's what historically you
Speaker 1: know as or a reporter, you know, but all the
Speaker 1: all the lines are blurred and you know how people
Speaker 1: see you nowadays. All right, let's talk about speaking of creating.
Speaker 1: You know, my whole journey with Google Photos, and I'm
Speaker 1: now paying fifty dollars a month for ten terabytes of storage,
Speaker 1: which is fine. I mean, yeah, it's a lot, but
Speaker 1: it's one of these things where you know, when you
Speaker 1: look at the tools you need to do your job.
Speaker 1: I need this tool and I'm not going to sit
Speaker 1: there and try to figure out a way to hack
Speaker 1: together you know, a situation and all this stuff just
Speaker 1: to you know, save you know, what might amount to
Speaker 1: you know, thirty bucks a month or something. You know,
Speaker 1: don't forget. It wasn't. I was already paying ten so
Speaker 1: and you're like, rich, well that's forty. But I get
Speaker 1: I get it. I get it. I know. It's one
Speaker 1: of these things. But here's the deal. It's I already paid.
Speaker 1: It's already been a month. I've already paid twice, I think,
Speaker 1: and so it's been fine. You know. It's just one
Speaker 1: of these things where when I look at my storage
Speaker 1: now I'm just I breathe a sigh of relief. I'm like, ah, Okay,
Speaker 1: my stuff is in there. It's okay. Now my next
Speaker 1: thing is actually backing up all that stuff, and I
Speaker 1: have a whole plan for that, but I won't get
Speaker 1: into that right now. But you know, Google Photos, and
Speaker 1: this is how this all kind of started. Google Photos
Speaker 1: is no longer it's no longer an unlimited free ride,
Speaker 1: right so you still get fifteen gigabytes of free storage,
Speaker 1: and for a lot of people that's gonna be fine,
Speaker 1: but now they're gonna start charging above that. Even there
Speaker 1: used to be an option in Google Photos to upload
Speaker 1: your photos in a compressed what they called high quality version,
Speaker 1: which would be unlimited and free forever. And yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not the case anymore. As of June first, even in
Speaker 1: that unlimited or I'm sorry, even that compressed high quality format,
Speaker 1: it is still counting against your storage quota. Now the
Speaker 1: trick is everything you uploaded before June first, in that
Speaker 1: high quality format is still free. It's very confusing, very
Speaker 1: very confusing. But anyway, I'm above it no matter what.
Speaker 1: So what I'm trying to tell you here is that
Speaker 1: Google is very aware of this. They're not trying to
Speaker 1: be evil, They're just realizing that there's four trillion photos
Speaker 1: in Google Photos. And yes, was Google Photos promised at
Speaker 1: inception as a free, unlimited storage place forever. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: probably never used the word forever, but they kind of
Speaker 1: insinuated it, and so yes, I'm a little annoyed. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, at this point, there's really no
Speaker 1: free unlimited storage anywhere. It's like any of these companies
Speaker 1: they used to hand out free storage like candy, and
Speaker 1: now it's like, nope, now we've got the cavities to fill.
Speaker 1: That sounded pretty good. That didn't make any sense, but hey,
Speaker 1: you know, it kind of worked. So what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to tell you is you now have some new tools
Speaker 1: like Google is like you know, look, we understand we're
Speaker 1: kind of being a little bratty with this whole situation,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna help you. We're gonna help you kind
Speaker 1: of get rid of some of the fluff in your account.
Speaker 1: So now if you go into your Google Photos, you've
Speaker 1: got several new tools. You tap your little profile picture,
Speaker 1: then you tap account storage, and it brings you to
Speaker 1: this new page that tells you a couple things. Number one,
Speaker 1: it tells you how many years you have left before
Speaker 1: your storage is going to be used up, and I
Speaker 1: have four years. Apparently I'm using about just under I'm
Speaker 1: using just under two terabytes of my ten and then
Speaker 1: it breaks it down, I'm using one point seventy five
Speaker 1: terabytes in Google Photos, and then one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: gigabytes in Google Drive, Gmail and more. Then it tells
Speaker 1: me how I can clear up some of this stuff.
Speaker 1: So you have four new options, large photos and videos,
Speaker 1: other apps, screen shots, and blurry photos. Blurry photos is
Speaker 1: the easiest one to start with. Just go in there
Speaker 1: and just delete blurry photos. You're not gonna save a
Speaker 1: ton of space, but you know you will save some
Speaker 1: space because some of my blurry photos, you know, they
Speaker 1: could be pretty big. Now the screenshot, I've got a
Speaker 1: gigabyte of screenshots, which may not seem like a lot
Speaker 1: with ten terabytes used, But if you're in fifteen gigs
Speaker 1: of storage and you free up a gigabyte of screen shots,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. And now some of these screenshots, I
Speaker 1: need a lot of screenshots to save. But a lot
Speaker 1: of my screen shots were like ten megabytes, so those
Speaker 1: are significantly pretty big. Other apps, I'm not really sure
Speaker 1: how they delineate like what was from other apps, but
Speaker 1: it looks like all the videos that I've uploaded to Instagram.
Speaker 1: Somehow I identifies those I don't know. And then large
Speaker 1: photos and videos, and that's a big one. Now I've
Speaker 1: got my first my first like ten videos. First one
Speaker 1: is nine gigs, second one is seven gigs, six gigs,
Speaker 1: five gigs, four five five five I guess five. And
Speaker 1: I can't really get rid of those because you know,
Speaker 1: they're all like my raw footage from like you know,
Speaker 1: different shoots and stuff. So but you can go through there,
Speaker 1: and it's a nice easy way to kind of just
Speaker 1: clean out your Google Drive Google photos and reclaim some
Speaker 1: space that you may need to either keep you under
Speaker 1: that fifteen gigabytes for free, or maybe you bumped up
Speaker 1: to one hundred gigabytes for like two bucks a month.
Speaker 1: You want to stand er that. Or maybe you bumped
Speaker 1: up to the two terabytes for ten bucks a month.
Speaker 1: You want to stander that. Or maybe you're like me
Speaker 1: and you just gave up on the world and now
Speaker 1: you're paying fifty dollars a month to Google for storage.
Speaker 1: All right? Next question, Greg says, Hey, Rich, I really
Speaker 1: enjoy your show. Is there a way to easily download
Speaker 1: monthly bills and bank and credit card statements without going
Speaker 1: to each site, logging on, navigating to where the statement is,
Speaker 1: downloading it, and finally organizing each statement into its proper folder.
Speaker 1: Oh you make this sound so tough. Right now, I
Speaker 1: received paper statements which I can scan, but I would
Speaker 1: like to avoid wasting all that paper. Thank you, Greg.
Speaker 1: Good question, And it's funny this is I actually kind
Speaker 1: of gave up on downloading all this stuff. I used
Speaker 1: to do it, and it's kind of you know, it's
Speaker 1: one of these things where the companies, a lot of them,
Speaker 1: will only keep like a certain amount of back statements,
Speaker 1: So if you really need to go back, you may
Speaker 1: not be able to. I've noticed on some of mine
Speaker 1: they're like a year and a half, summer, two years,
Speaker 1: some are like unlimited, some are like six months. So
Speaker 1: it probably isn't your best interest to download these statements.
Speaker 1: But then again, I don't know. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of up to you. I look over my stuff
Speaker 1: and kind of like, I don't know. Sometimes I download them,
Speaker 1: sometimes I forget too. But I agree it would be
Speaker 1: nice if there was a system that can do all this.
Speaker 1: But originally I was doing some research and I remember
Speaker 1: someone had emailed me about a website that does justice
Speaker 1: and they said they love it, and there may be
Speaker 1: different ones, but the one that I found was called
Speaker 1: file this, And originally I said that it had shut
Speaker 1: down because when I searched for it, it said file
Speaker 1: this pro or is going away, and it gave a
Speaker 1: list of alternatives. But now that I take a little
Speaker 1: bit of a closer look, it looks like that was
Speaker 1: just the pro version. It seems like the consumer version
Speaker 1: is still up and running and it does exactly what
Speaker 1: you say. It will log into all your different bills,
Speaker 1: you know, Fidelity, PayPal, Chase, Comcast, American Express, Target, At
Speaker 1: and T, Amazon, says it connects with over seven hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty different institutions and it will download those and
Speaker 1: file them for you. And if you look at their plans,
Speaker 1: it's free for up to six connections and five hundred
Speaker 1: gigs of five hundred megabytes of storage. You can pay
Speaker 1: two dollars a month or five dollars a month. My
Speaker 1: only concern this seems to do everything you need, and
Speaker 1: I actually think this looks really cool. I wish Google
Speaker 1: would buy this and just integrate it into clod Google Drive.
Speaker 1: But the only thing that concerns me is, like everything
Speaker 1: seems to be locked in, like twenty fifteen, like the
Speaker 1: entire website. Like if I look at like their Facebook, Okay,
Speaker 1: the last time they Facebook was twenty seventeen, Twitter, twenty
Speaker 1: eight teen, Google Plus. They have a link to which
Speaker 1: come on that's not been around forever. LinkedIn is not
Speaker 1: even available YouTube. The last time I uploaded a video
Speaker 1: was six years ago. So I think that you know,
Speaker 1: it may do what you need, and I guess I
Speaker 1: can test it out, but I'd just be a little concerned.
Speaker 1: I'm like, is this company still going? I did check
Speaker 1: their iOS app and it was updated in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: in June, so you know, that's a year ago. That's
Speaker 1: a little, you know, a little respectable. But anyway, again,
Speaker 1: the website is called file this, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: it does exactly what you need. Check it out, see
Speaker 1: if you're comfortable with it. But again, since it hasn't
Speaker 1: really done much in a couple of years, I'd be
Speaker 1: a little concerned linking up all my bank accounts. But
Speaker 1: maybe just test it with one that you don't care
Speaker 1: about as much and see how it works. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about spam calls. I know so many people
Speaker 1: get them. I get them. They're a nuisance. I don't
Speaker 1: get as many as I think I would get, but
Speaker 1: I do get them, and they're annoying. And you know
Speaker 1: when you get them, when you pick up the phone,
Speaker 1: even though you see the number and you're like, is
Speaker 1: this a number in my area? It kind of looks
Speaker 1: like a doctor, kind of looks like the school. I
Speaker 1: just pick it up, and you pick it up and
Speaker 1: you say hello, and immediately you know that you made
Speaker 1: a mistake because there's no one on the other end
Speaker 1: for like twenty seconds. And what's happening in that twenty
Speaker 1: seconds is the computer as it's dialing thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of numbers, it's like we got one, we got one,
Speaker 1: we got some of that picked up. And then they
Speaker 1: they forward that call to like some person that's sitting
Speaker 1: there with their laptop to go ahead and scam you
Speaker 1: or do whatever they do or sales pitch you or whatever.
Speaker 1: So and then by that time, I'm already like so
Speaker 1: compassionate for these people and I feel so bad that
Speaker 1: I can't just hang up on them. So they're like okay,
Speaker 1: They're like, like the other one the other day I
Speaker 1: picked up. It was like, hi, sir, you your Amazon.
Speaker 1: We're just confirming your Amazon order. And I'm like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: please confirm. And they're like did you order a you know,
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars camera? And I'm like oh, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: like oh, and that of course threw them off because
Speaker 1: they want you to be like, no, stop this. Let
Speaker 1: me give you all my information so you can stop this.
Speaker 1: And so I said yes I did, and they said, oh,
Speaker 1: did you send it to a Michael Blue Block And
Speaker 1: I'm like yes, I did. In fact, like oh uh
Speaker 1: do you know a Michael Blue Block? And I'm like
Speaker 1: yes I do. And it's just totally tripped them up
Speaker 1: and they hung up on me. Gotta have some fun anyway,
Speaker 1: So I consulted the privacy and security editor at Wirecutter,
Speaker 1: who wrote an article about stopping the calls. And the
Speaker 1: basic takeaway from this is that you have to download
Speaker 1: the free app that your wireless carrier provides. So they
Speaker 1: all have one. So on AT and T it's called
Speaker 1: AT and T Call Protect. They've got it for iOS
Speaker 1: and Android. On Verizon it's called Verizon Call Filter, and
Speaker 1: on T Mobile it's called T Mobile Scam Shield. And
Speaker 1: those are the three apps that you should be downloading.
Speaker 1: I mean, just download the one that corresponds with your
Speaker 1: carrier and activate it, and they will try to upsell you.
Speaker 1: All these apps, almost all of them try to upsell
Speaker 1: you into more, and just say no, just just ignore it.
Speaker 1: You don't need more. It'll just work, you know, It'll
Speaker 1: just work the way it is now. There's a couple
Speaker 1: other things you can do. If you have a landline,
Speaker 1: there's a service called Nomo Robo, and that's nothing new,
Speaker 1: it's been around forever. It is free for landlines only,
Speaker 1: not for phones. You can get it for phones like
Speaker 1: cell phones, but it's gonna cost you. On Android, you
Speaker 1: could do another thing, and this is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: So on Android you can download the basically replace your
Speaker 1: dialer app with Google's dialer and it has caller ID
Speaker 1: and spam protection built in and it's free. And when
Speaker 1: I downloaded it to test it, I had to turn
Speaker 1: on the caller ID and spam protection. So you can
Speaker 1: do that in the settings. Now. If you're on Samsung,
Speaker 1: their dialer also has as a built in caller or
Speaker 1: you know, caller ID and spam protection, but it may
Speaker 1: not be turned on, so you have to turn it
Speaker 1: on and activate it. And that's one of the things
Speaker 1: I love the most about Android versus iPhone is that
Speaker 1: for some reason there's no like maybe I can't maybe
Speaker 1: I have to pay for it on on iOS, but
Speaker 1: I can't figure out a way to get like caller
Speaker 1: ID on iOS runs on Android, like all the phones
Speaker 1: have it. I mean when you when I when I'm
Speaker 1: testing a Samsung and someone calls me, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: whatever company it is, it like shows up on the thing. Now.
Speaker 1: One thing they have on iOS that I love that
Speaker 1: doesn't on Android is you know, iOS sirie looks through
Speaker 1: all your emails and your text messages to look for
Speaker 1: names and phone numbers, and so if someone ever calls
Speaker 1: you and they put their phone number in their in
Speaker 1: their signature of their email, it'll say maybe it's this
Speaker 1: person you know on your caller ID, which I think
Speaker 1: is just amazing one of my favorite features on the
Speaker 1: iPhone for sure. Uh Okay, there's another option for blocking
Speaker 1: these calls, and this is of course a very drastic option,
Speaker 1: and this is blocking all unknown callers. You can do
Speaker 1: that on iPhone and on Samsung. They both have. On
Speaker 1: iPhone it's called Silence Unknown Callers. On Samsung it's called
Speaker 1: block Unknown Callers, and that's inside the dialer in iOS,
Speaker 1: it's inside the settings. Now, the problem with this situation is, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're if you don't have kids, maybe
Speaker 1: that's fine. If you don't have loved ones that you
Speaker 1: need to like, you know, worry about or something, you know,
Speaker 1: if it just depends on your spot in life, right like,
Speaker 1: if you're not worried about, you know, being like the
Speaker 1: emergency contact for anyone, sure turn it on. The problem
Speaker 1: is if you are, then it's going to be a
Speaker 1: problem because if you ever get an emergency call, it's
Speaker 1: not going to come through, and you know, so you've
Speaker 1: got that going on, and you've got the whole situation
Speaker 1: of let's say DoorDash, you order something from door dash
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, they call you to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're outside, and it's just not going to go through.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get it. And so there are a
Speaker 1: couple of little situations where calls need to come through
Speaker 1: that are not in your address book or you haven't
Speaker 1: interacted with recently, and those may just not work. So
Speaker 1: just be aware of that and otherwise, you know, those
Speaker 1: are the best ways to get rid of these spam
Speaker 1: calls for now. The one other thing to know and
Speaker 1: I kind of knew this and the Thorin let's say
Speaker 1: Thorin Klosowski, who I interviewed at Wirecutter, he said, the
Speaker 1: same thing, which is basically blocking the individual numbers, is
Speaker 1: not going to work. Like unless it's a particular like
Speaker 1: biller or someone that's calling you incessantly, like a car
Speaker 1: dealership for follow up, Like, yeah, blocking that number will work.
Speaker 1: But if it's just like blocking random spam numbers, it's
Speaker 1: not going to do anything. Because they use this technology
Speaker 1: that they basically change the number every time they call,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't they're not calling from the same number
Speaker 1: twice like almost ever. So that's what you need to
Speaker 1: know about blocking spam calls. Hope it helps you all, right,
Speaker 1: Next question, let's see here, Mary says, airline flights. Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: searching all your posts and finally found some posts where
Speaker 1: they were old and no longer contained information I needed. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess that's a Can you please send me some
Speaker 1: apps info on how to find the best price for
Speaker 1: air flights? Want to treat my son to Vegas for
Speaker 1: his fiftieth surprise birthday party. Oh I hope, hope he's
Speaker 1: not listening and I'm paying for his kid's airline flights. Wow,
Speaker 1: what a nice does she say her son? Okay, Wow,
Speaker 1: what a nice mom. It's all happening in October, but
Speaker 1: with things finally getting back to normal, I don't want
Speaker 1: to wait until last minute and prices get out of
Speaker 1: control or reach. If you could provide some apps info,
Speaker 1: I would greatly appreciate it. Mary. Well, Mary, let me
Speaker 1: tell you Number one. I predict that we are going
Speaker 1: to see a major increase in airline prices this year,
Speaker 1: and I've noticed it just with myself casually booking flight
Speaker 1: for the next year, and it's it's just like the
Speaker 1: nickel and diming is at an all time high. The
Speaker 1: prices are are good if you're on like the most
Speaker 1: random days, but if you're if you're on a day
Speaker 1: that's you know, an algorithm identified like hot day, you know,
Speaker 1: not hot temperature, but like, okay, this is a popular
Speaker 1: time to go. The algorithms are really juicing things up.
Speaker 1: And the reason is because these companies didn't make money
Speaker 1: for a year, and now they're saying, look, we're gonna
Speaker 1: start making some money. And we know you guys want
Speaker 1: to travel because we know you've been locked up at
Speaker 1: home for a year. And so I've noticed. I just
Speaker 1: booked a flight for my mom to come out to
Speaker 1: LA and it was expensive, and it was just it
Speaker 1: just kept going up and we ended up choosing you know,
Speaker 1: different days and different times to make it a little
Speaker 1: bit more reasonable. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: some of these flights are getting very very expensive. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know where you're coming from for Vegas, but
Speaker 1: the the only website, there's only one websit that I
Speaker 1: use to look at flights, and that is are you
Speaker 1: ready flights dot Google dot com. I don't think you
Speaker 1: need another website at all. Now with that said, I
Speaker 1: will tell you why a couple of reasons. Number one
Speaker 1: Google is they treat flights the way they treat all
Speaker 1: their search information. They take it all in, they process
Speaker 1: it using AI, and they spit out the data and
Speaker 1: what happens there when you're searching for flights, it will
Speaker 1: tell you the cheapest times, the cheapest days. It'll even
Speaker 1: tell you, hey, if you leave this day and you
Speaker 1: leave that day, it'll be a little bit cheaper. And
Speaker 1: there's just not a lot of fluff on the website.
Speaker 1: Now you might say, yeah, Kayak does a lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff. They've got the hacker fares. But Kayak is
Speaker 1: you know, it's good, but it's a little bit like
Speaker 1: it's all over the place. You know you're looking. It's
Speaker 1: like trying to sell you stuff to every other line
Speaker 1: is like an ad for something. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I think Kayak's great, but I just don't think it
Speaker 1: has the power of Google. And I just really really look,
Speaker 1: I've been booking flights for twenty years and I think
Speaker 1: Google is my It's my first stop and pretty much
Speaker 1: my only stop. Now let me give you the caveats.
Speaker 1: Southwest is not represented with pricing. Now sometimes I've noticed
Speaker 1: that Southwest will show up as a line item with
Speaker 1: the time the flight takes off, but not the price
Speaker 1: of the flight, which is really kind of worthless to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's nice to know sometimes there's an alternative.
Speaker 1: So that's number one. So if you're talking about Southwest,
Speaker 1: I would you know, if you're talking about a Southwest
Speaker 1: destination and you fly Southwest, I would definitely go directly
Speaker 1: to the Southwest website. So and then there's other airlines too,
Speaker 1: like these New Breeze and a Veo a lot of times,
Speaker 1: or Jet Suite X or I guess they're called JSX.
Speaker 1: Now you're not going to find them. Sometimes you may
Speaker 1: find them on Google. Sometimes you may not. You know,
Speaker 1: the smaller carriers sometimes do their own thing and they
Speaker 1: just kind of stick to themselves. So with that said,
Speaker 1: in this case, I would probably I would probably go
Speaker 1: to Southwest and see and if you're serviced by one
Speaker 1: of these new airlines, I would check their websites too
Speaker 1: if they're not represented on Google. But for me, my
Speaker 1: typical way to book is I will go to the
Speaker 1: Google website, you know the flights. I will look at
Speaker 1: my preferred days, then I click to see a calendar,
Speaker 1: and on the calendar, it will give me the cheapest
Speaker 1: days to fly. So I generally see, can I do
Speaker 1: those days? If I can, I'll reselect those days, and
Speaker 1: then on those days, it'll highlight the cheapest flight times
Speaker 1: in green, and I'll try to choose those. But the
Speaker 1: best advice I can give you is to book right now.
Speaker 1: I don't think these things are going to get any cheaper.
Speaker 1: And I think with some of the flexibility the airlines
Speaker 1: have given us with the change fees, it's just like,
Speaker 1: go ahead and book, and if you really need to,
Speaker 1: you can always change it. Now. The trick with the
Speaker 1: change is that you're never going to get your money back,
Speaker 1: but you will get it as a credit. But those credits,
Speaker 1: so it's like it's it's look, these airlines, they've made
Speaker 1: things a little bit easier. But believe me, they are
Speaker 1: sitting there in their rooms, in there around these conference tables,
Speaker 1: just dreaming of new ways to wring this money from
Speaker 1: our pockets. And yes, they're so nice that they let
Speaker 1: us change our flights now, which to me never made
Speaker 1: any sense. Like, why is it a big deal if
Speaker 1: I book my flight? Why can't I just change it
Speaker 1: to a different flight if I need to? And yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to pay the difference, but like, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: but I'd be willing to Like why did it take
Speaker 1: a pandemic for them to do that? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Southwest has had that flexibility forever, and it's like just
Speaker 1: such a nice flexibility. It also took away one of
Speaker 1: Southwest's biggest selling points, because now all the major airlines
Speaker 1: pretty much do that. But then they get people with
Speaker 1: these bargain fairs, these you know, economy basics and the
Speaker 1: you know, the savier fairs whatever they call them on
Speaker 1: the different airlines, and you get in one of those,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be tougher to change and tougher to
Speaker 1: get a seat and all this stuff. So and you're
Speaker 1: nickel and dying with everything. So again they're just coming
Speaker 1: up with the the every time my search a flight,
Speaker 1: I'm just amazed at the new ways of I heard
Speaker 1: one on KTLA we mentioned this that this new airline
Speaker 1: has a nine dollars fee for printing out your boarding
Speaker 1: pass or whatever the fee what three dollars whatever it
Speaker 1: is but like okay, wow, and I get it, and
Speaker 1: maybe there's a larger calling for them, for the for
Speaker 1: the environment, and they're saying, hey, look we want you
Speaker 1: to use your your phone as your boarding pass and
Speaker 1: that doesn't take any paper. But no, they're just trying
Speaker 1: to They're just trying to stick it to you and
Speaker 1: get a little extra cash at you. Yeah, isn't flying fun.
Speaker 1: I was on a flight the other day where they
Speaker 1: only took they didn't even take credit cards anymore. You
Speaker 1: had to have signed up with your credit card on
Speaker 1: the app for them to accept it. And this was
Speaker 1: on United and luckily I had my card in the app.
Speaker 1: I was able to buy something, but it, yeah, you
Speaker 1: couldn't even use you know, cash has been like no
Speaker 1: way for a while now. Used to be just cards.
Speaker 1: Now it's like not even cards anymore. Now it's like
Speaker 1: you already have to have your profile. They look at
Speaker 1: your seat number and they say, okay, we're going to
Speaker 1: charge this to the card on your profile. And I
Speaker 1: was like okay. Now, it was a test, but something
Speaker 1: tells me that will probably be next because think about it,
Speaker 1: I mean, less handling of things, you know, you number,
Speaker 1: you know, the other thing is they have your card
Speaker 1: now on file, so it's easier to upsell you in
Speaker 1: the air. So and it's it's also that idea of
Speaker 1: when you're not using cash or now even using a card,
Speaker 1: there's no pain, you know. Oh here, give me, give
Speaker 1: me a snack pack and just put it on my
Speaker 1: seat and you'll figure it out later. Right. One plus
Speaker 1: has a new wallpaper called well Paper, and it kind
Speaker 1: of is a visual reminder of your digital well being
Speaker 1: and it's pretty cool. I installed it on one of
Speaker 1: my devices to test it out, and just imagine your
Speaker 1: wallpaper changes throughout the day and it's responding to how
Speaker 1: much you're using your phone. So they've got a bunch
Speaker 1: of different category lifestyle and communication, entertainment, information, social tools, games,
Speaker 1: and they have three different designs. One is radial, one
Speaker 1: is glow, and one is tiles. And you know, based
Speaker 1: on what you're using throughout the day, the the wallpaper
Speaker 1: changes so you can see visually, like, okay, let me
Speaker 1: give an example. Entertainment is red. So if your whole
Speaker 1: phone screen is sort of taken up by red, by
Speaker 1: the red color, you've been spending a lot of time
Speaker 1: watching YouTube. And so if it's if it's all blue
Speaker 1: or purple. I can't really tell what this is. You
Speaker 1: know that means or navy. Then your whole day has
Speaker 1: been taken up by social media. So it's just kind
Speaker 1: of a neat way to visualize and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with that. It's kind of cool. I
Speaker 1: And the other thing you can do is like tap it.
Speaker 1: You can tap your phone screen like tap the wallpaper,
Speaker 1: and it will show you like usually there's nothing, there's
Speaker 1: no labels, but if you tap, it'll show you labels
Speaker 1: of kind of what's going on. So it's called digital
Speaker 1: well paper w E L L P A P E R.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find it by search in the in the
Speaker 1: Google play store. I found it by a link, so
Speaker 1: maybe it's on search now. Maybe it just took a
Speaker 1: little bit for to like kind of get in there.
Speaker 1: But it's it's cool. You know. If you're trying to
Speaker 1: like limit the amount of time that you're on these things,
Speaker 1: then I think it's a good thing to try. Let's see, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's get you another question. Stanley says a comment on
Speaker 1: today's segment, Sure a cheaper plan is possible and sounds
Speaker 1: great initially as someone who's gone down this route. I'm
Speaker 1: familiar with the pitfalls. After all, the savings have come
Speaker 1: from somewhere like customer service quality and data QoS. Oh,
Speaker 1: after all the savings have to come from somewhere like
Speaker 1: customer service quality and data QoS. Under these mv and os,
Speaker 1: your data is a lower priority compared to customers with
Speaker 1: plans through Verizon AT and T, T Mobile, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Good luck even getting competent or time customer service. A
Speaker 1: shame these pitfalls weren't mentioned otherwise. I enjoy your segments.
Speaker 1: Thank you Stanley for the feedback. This is on a
Speaker 1: segment we did on some of the cheaper cell phone
Speaker 1: plans out there, like the the US Mobile, the Visible,
Speaker 1: the Crickets, the you know what were the other ones? Cricket,
Speaker 1: the Mints, the Good to Go and what Stanley is
Speaker 1: saying is true. But when you're paying nine dollars a
Speaker 1: month for a cell phone plan, I don't think you're
Speaker 1: expecting to have the fastest data. I don't think you're
Speaker 1: you're worried about customer service as much. I don't think
Speaker 1: that you're interested in, you know, data throttling and all
Speaker 1: these things. I think you just want to pay nine
Speaker 1: bucks a month for a plan, And so I didn't
Speaker 1: mention this in the report because what's the point. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're you know, Stanley, you're clearly sounding like someone
Speaker 1: who knows this stuff because you use terms like QoS,
Speaker 1: MV and OS. You know, I think that you're a
Speaker 1: little bit ahead of the crowd when it comes to
Speaker 1: kind of some people are just looking to save money,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing wrong with that. And yes there are
Speaker 1: things like I did mention, you know, you're not going
Speaker 1: to get free Netflix. You know, it's not included with
Speaker 1: the plan, you know, look out for. I gave the
Speaker 1: pitfalls that I think were the most important, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, number one, you need to be sure that
Speaker 1: your data. You need to know if your plan has
Speaker 1: data that's cut off completely or data that's just slowed
Speaker 1: down to a crawl. And I mentioned, you know, let's
Speaker 1: say you get a three gigabyte data plan and after
Speaker 1: that your data's cut off, you can't use data on
Speaker 1: your phone. Now, I noticed most of the carriers are
Speaker 1: backed away from that because I think it's kind of
Speaker 1: a security thing, like you don't want to be trying
Speaker 1: to navigate and run out of your plan and next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like you can't do anything on your phone.
Speaker 1: So I think most of them will at this point
Speaker 1: slow down your data. But they slow it down. And
Speaker 1: I mentioned this slow so slow that you can't do anything.
Speaker 1: I mean I had this happen on one of my
Speaker 1: devices and it was like, oh my gosh, I literally
Speaker 1: can't do anything right now because it's so slow the data.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think I gave the pitfalls I
Speaker 1: think were the most important to most people. The fact
Speaker 1: that you know your data is a lower priority. I
Speaker 1: think you understand that when you're paying nine bucks a
Speaker 1: month or ten bucks a month, I think that you
Speaker 1: just kind of get that. And yeah, if you're paying
Speaker 1: ninety bucks to Verizon AT and T or T Mobile
Speaker 1: a month, yeah, you do expect a higher quality of service.
Speaker 1: I think that comes with the territory. But when you're
Speaker 1: paying twenty five dollars a month for unlimited through Visible,
Speaker 1: I think that you're pleasantly surprised every month that you're
Speaker 1: paying just twenty five dollars for unlimited service. And yes,
Speaker 1: that's what Visible does. And now that you have to
Speaker 1: join a party pay plan, but you can join just
Speaker 1: anyone's Party Play but a plan. But I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: I had a family member that I told about this,
Speaker 1: and they switched to the Visible and they switch to
Speaker 1: the Party Play for twenty five bucks a month, and
Speaker 1: they're impressed that every month they paid twenty five bucks
Speaker 1: for unlimited service on Verizon. And I have another family
Speaker 1: member that uses Mint Mobile and every month they pay
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars a month for their plan, and they can't
Speaker 1: believe it. And they're not worried about their data being
Speaker 1: deprioritized or this or that or customer service because they're
Speaker 1: not expecting anything. They're like, oh my gosh, I can't
Speaker 1: believe I'm paying fifteen dollars a month for service. And
Speaker 1: when I test out these plans, you know, I've got
Speaker 1: a Mint Mobile test plan and it's it's thirty bucks
Speaker 1: a month for unlimited, and I sit there and I
Speaker 1: use it, and I'm like, this is unbelievable. Now. Is
Speaker 1: it as good as my Verizon full paid plan? No?
Speaker 1: But is it just as amazing for the price, yes,
Speaker 1: if not better. So if I wasn't doing all kinds
Speaker 1: of uploads to social media and you know, all this
Speaker 1: stuff streaming, I would one hundred percent be on one
Speaker 1: of these plans one hundred percent, And would I expect
Speaker 1: the same service as one hundred dollars plan from Verizon
Speaker 1: or T Mobile or Att Absolutely not. But would I
Speaker 1: be pleasantly surprised every month and my service works for
Speaker 1: the price I'm paying. Yeah, And I'm totally good with that.
Speaker 1: And I you know, this is this is again. You know,
Speaker 1: I get I get two minutes a day on TV,
Speaker 1: and so you know, when I do write blog posts
Speaker 1: are a little bit longer to kind of I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's flush things out or flush things out,
Speaker 1: whatever the term is, but you know, I try to
Speaker 1: like expand on it in the blog to kind of
Speaker 1: like you know, and TV, It's like I've got a
Speaker 1: limited amount of time to get across my points, and
Speaker 1: so I try to make the points that I do
Speaker 1: put in there like the most relevant to the most people.
Speaker 1: And I think most people, especially since that story that
Speaker 1: you're talking about did extremely well, I think most people
Speaker 1: are just like, oh wow, I can get service for
Speaker 1: this cheap, like okay, sign me up. But and then
Speaker 1: they'll go to the blog and kind of see what
Speaker 1: the situation is with that service. But anyway, Stanley, Thank
Speaker 1: you for writing in and yes you're right what you
Speaker 1: what you come to the conclusion is not everything's for everyone,
Speaker 1: and you got to do your research no matter what.
Speaker 1: Even if you hear tech guy on TV like myself,
Speaker 1: or on the radio, or on my Instagram or on
Speaker 1: my podcast talk about something, you got to do your
Speaker 1: own research and see if it's right for you. Whether
Speaker 1: that's a gadget, whether that's switching your service, whether that
Speaker 1: is a website I recommend, or anything that I recommend.
Speaker 1: You know, there has to be a level of you
Speaker 1: got to research it and see if it works for you.
Speaker 1: That's gonna do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you would like to submit a question for me
Speaker 1: to answer, just go to my Facebook page Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash rich on tech and hit the big blue
Speaker 1: send email button. Also, I would love it if you
Speaker 1: would rate and review this podcast. Do it right now, please,
Speaker 1: That will help other people discover it. Just go to
Speaker 1: rate thispodcast dot com slash rich on Tech. You can
Speaker 1: find me on social media at rich on Tech. And remember,
Speaker 1: no matter where you live in the US, you can
Speaker 1: download the free Ktla plus app on Apple, TV, fireTV,
Speaker 1: and Oku, and you can watch all of my TV
Speaker 1: segments on demand. Once you open up the app, just
Speaker 1: scroll all the way down to where it says technology
Speaker 1: and you can see all of my previous segments. Just
Speaker 1: sit there on the couch and just watch them all binge.
Speaker 1: Watch them so a whole bunch of them, and you'll
Speaker 1: you'll find you know, You'll you'll get to you'll get
Speaker 1: to know me a little bit better if you see
Speaker 1: the stuff that I put on TV. Also, thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast. This is trending to be the
Speaker 1: best month ever since the pandemic started, which probably means
Speaker 1: that more of you are driving to work on a
Speaker 1: daily basis and commuting and starting to listening to podcasts again.
Speaker 1: So thanks for listening. My name is rich Damiro. There
Speaker 1: are so many ways you can spend an hour of
Speaker 1: your time. I really do appreciate you spending it with me.
Speaker 1: Stay safe, I'll talk to you real soon.