August 29, 2019 • 45 mins
Apple sends out invites for it's special event on September 10; Testing out Sprint 5G; Yelp gets more personalized; Fitbit unveils the Versa 2 smartwatch; Apple apologies for Siri snafu. Listeners ask about the CamScanner app, the best VPNs, GPS luggage trackers and how virtual numbers work on the Apple Card.Follow Rich:https://instagram.com/richontech/Follow Meghan:https://twitter.com/producermeghan
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
The Apple event invites have arrived. Google Photos gets a
useful new feature, Fitbit has a new smart watch, testing
out sprints new five G Plus. I'm answering your tech questions.
What's going on? I'm Rich Dimiro. This is Rich on Tech.
This is the podcast where I talk about the tech
(00:26):
stuff I think you should know about. Plus, I answer
the questions that you email me, you tweet me, you
send me, you DM me, however you get message in
a bottle.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
You asked me at the market, ask.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Me at the market, set me up at the market. Yeah, oh,
inside jokes. They're always such a fun way to start
a podcast. What's up, producer, Megan, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
This week is flying by.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I thought this was a very fast week. It was
a quick week, and now we have Labor Day approaching,
So either we'll have more people listening to the podcast
or more people not listening because they're on vacation. What
are you doing? I'll be on vacation. I'm taking the
day off, so I can't wait. I I've got a
family trip plan, so I'm excited to do that and
(01:10):
little R and R. I may not turn on my
phone for the I'll probably have my phone on I
probably won't be on social media. You know that. I
said in last week's episode that I had acquired a
Pixel three Excel smartphone, so I've been using that and
it's interesting. Number One, I will tell you when you
use Android, like I go back and forth throughout the
year with Android and iOS just to stay fresh. So
(01:32):
it's funny because in the afternoons I'm all iOS because
I've been writing the book, and in the mornings I've
been using the Pixel And the funniest thing to me,
it was not funny. It's kind of sad that the
Android stuff does a lot of things better when it
comes to like anticipating your next move, but almost in
the camera, almost everything else is worse. Like I hate
to just knock it, but like I've gotten so used
(01:54):
to some of the simplest things on iosa, everything just
works when you get on Android. It's like who knows
what's gonna work. You try something, it's like it just
doesn't work. Like yesterday, what was I was trying to
like upload something? So you know, this way I like
to test both is I went through my normal workflow
of shooting an entire social media video on my phone
and editing it and posting it all through my phone
(02:18):
on my pixel, which is something that's very simple to
do on an iPhone. Well, the pixel, It's like it
just everything was a lot slower. Everything was just took
a little bit more time, and then when you upload it,
it's just I don't know. It's it's really tough because
I love Android and I love iOS, but I see
the beauty of why Apple has pulled so far ahead
because everything just seems to work. So long story short,
(02:41):
what I was gonna mention is one of the features
that I'm really loving that they're adding to Android, which
is really cool, and it just appeared on my pixel.
I'm not running any special software, but it's called Focus Mode.
And what you do is you set up the apps
that distract you, and then with one tap, you can
press this focus mode. And those taps are those apps
not only get grayed out, but you can't use them,
(03:05):
but you also don't see any notifications from them during
that time. So I've been loving this because I'm let's
face it, we're all easily distracted with our smartphones. This
is just one of those things that makes it so
easy to just say, you know what, I want to
do something right now, I need a half an hour
or an hour or a couple of hours, and I'm
just going to enable this mode. And it's not forever, right,
But it's just one of those things where if you
(03:26):
want to check it, you turn it off and all
your notifications then pop up. So you turn it on,
they go away, don't it's really got.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
That stressed you out when they all pop up again.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
No, I have my notification set so only important ones
actually notify me. So on Twitter, I don't get all
the tweets, I don't get all the likes and stuff,
And on Instagram, I don't get everything, so I only
get a couple anyway, and on Facebook I don't get
any so but anyway, it's just one of those cool
things that I've just been loving and I know you
can do. I actually wrote about this, I think, in
a blog post about you can kind of hack that
(03:57):
same feature on the iPhone if you who's the downtime feature.
But it's not as simple. It's not as like easy,
like there's not one tap to enable and disable, which
maybe Apple will do that in the future, because I
think that's really cool. One other thing I wanted to
bring up before we get into the meat of the podcast,
is back up your stuff, Backup, Backup, back Up. Last
(04:17):
week's show, I talked about how my computer crashed, and
the main thing I was worried about was the fact
that my son's iPad pictures were on there. I went
into my time machine backup, which I don't do all
the time, but I do it kind of regularly, and
I will tell you that the pictures are there. Ooh, big,
big relief. So yeah. So my other point is I've
(04:41):
been kind of holding off with the computer of kind
of reformatting it and seeing if the hard drive is
totally shot or if it can just be reformatted and
set up again. But now I know I can try
it because I have a picture safe and sound so good. Okay,
So okay, let's move on to the first story of
the podcast, which is the Apple Invite have officially gone
out join us on September tenth for a special event.
(05:05):
And it's funny because you noticed this but I didn't.
It says by innovation only, not invitation only. And it's
tough to describe what it looks like, but it's a
orb of an Apple logo kind of split in half.
Like a I would call it series style, like a
kind of that wavy look, and it's in different colors.
And this is happening at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino,
(05:28):
where it normally does now. September tenth, twenty nineteen. This
is the date that I had marked on my calendar.
They didn't want to do it on September eleventh. Obviously,
September ninth is Monday, it's too early, So September tenth perfect. Yeah,
So that is the date that I will be up in. Uh,
where's it Coupertino? I was gonna say San Clementy for
(05:48):
some reason? Where is that? I was gonna say San Clementi,
But no San Francisco or Coupertino, gotcha? So very exciting, exciting.
What are you looking forward to most? Because I've been
playing with the iOS thirteen, so it's like I already
know everything that's happening with iOS. It's just a matter
of what's going to happen with the iPhone.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I mean, I feel like it's just going to look
exactly the same, which is what we've spoken about. There's
the camera that's the wide wide angle camera right that
you can now if you.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Take a picture, recrop it and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Recrop it. I mean, I don't know if I'm going.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
To get it, because I what do you want? iPhone eight?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I'm on eight.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I still have a home button. It might be
time for an upgrade. It might be time.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
It might be time.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Oh that's the wrong time. This is the right time.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Okay, all right, So this.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
For that sound if your first time listener means it
is time for producer Megan to select one of the
questions that you have emailed or sent me and read
it out.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
So this first question comes from Rich's Facebook page, which
is Facebook dot com slash Rich on tech as Morelda writes,
she said, not sure if you've posted on issues regarding
the cam Scanner app, but she currently has a Samsung
Note E and she uses the app regularly. And she's
(07:04):
noticed that several tech sites are saying to delete the
app off your phone.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Asapp it's safe to say that?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Or she asks is it safe to upload documents to
Google Drive or email them to myself? I would like
to preserve them somehow. Also, what alternative apps do you recommend?
And she says she's a big fan and she's freaking out.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Okay, I would probably get rid of this app just
based on principle alone, and that would be my thought.
I've never used cam Scanner. I'm not a fan of it.
I'm actually it's funny. In life, I'm never a fan
of like the number one thing. I'm always a fan
of it. I talked about this before. I'm always a
fan of the number two thing, except when it comes
(07:48):
to courses PEPSI. Oh, okay, But like everything else, like
almost everything else in life, if it's the number one,
I'm generally not gravitated.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Towards it, Like I found iOS Android. Do you gravitate
towards Android?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I actually do, But that's funny. That's not for Anny,
That's that's more for different reasons. But I'm talking just
in general when it comes to big brands, because I
always feel like, I don't know if you remember this,
but there used to be ads for like Avus. I
think it was like we do someone one of them
tried harder, like Hurts. I think was like the main company,
and then like aviis like tried harder, and like it
(08:20):
just seems to me that the second always tries harder.
So anyway, Cam Scanner the way big tangent.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
This is like a very broad general but like I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
But you see what I'm saying, Like, I always like
kind of the second, like the underdog, I guess you
can say, because I feel like they try harder. Yeah,
And it's always why on Yelp, I never call the
first person that is in the list of results. I
always call the second because the first is getting so
many phone calls. They're the top dog, they have too
much business. I always go with the second guy. It's
getting a little less phone calls, right.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
I mean, I see that you're trying to say.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
So cam Scanner I never really used cause I think
it was one of the more popular scanning apps on androids.
So that's I just disliked it immediately. But they here's
what happened. So cam Scanner apparently Kasperski who they investigated
cam Scanner, which is a phone pdf yeah, scans things
like into PDFs. But they found a malicious software on
(09:18):
I get it's kind of tough to explain, but bottom line,
somehow this program was allowing malicious software to be installed
on your phone once you install this app. And the
scary part about it is that this app was available
through Google Play, which is weird because you would think
that they would scan that app for anything malicious, which
(09:39):
is odd. So long story short, I would say personally
that you probably want to uninstall cam Scanner, ditch it.
Even though cam Scanner officially said that they detected an
advertisement at SDK provided by a third party named ad Hub,
integrated in Android version five point eleven point seven has
(10:01):
been reported for containing a malicious module that produces unauthorized
advertising clicks. So basically, this little module inside their program
was using your phone to create cash for this advertising
company ad Hub. Not good, not very not a very
nice use of your phone. This is why I always
(10:22):
also favor paid versions of apps from independent developers versus
you know, I call them garbage apps, the apps that
are just like these big apps that just have a
lot of users, but all their their whole goal is
like just infiltrate your phone with.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Advertising like Instagram.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
No, not Instagram there, that's a nice app, but just
just ran I don't know, I just I just I'm
really not hot on this camp scanner app. Yeah, because
I just don't. Let me just see how many downloads.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
This definitely delete, so I.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Would delete it they they do have a way that
you can get rid of uh, you know, upload or
download an update that doesn't have all this malware. But
I would just get rid of it. So I personally
would you either in Google Drive. You can just go
to Google Drive and there's a big blue button that
says scan in the lower right hand corner. You press
the big blue plus sign and then just says scan.
(11:10):
You can just use Google Drive to scan your stuff
into PDFs. That's number one. That's my main recommendation. Then
I would recommend Adobe Scan, which is you know, it's
a little bloated, but it will work. And then on
the iPhone, I actually like, let me say, I've got
two apps. I like Scannable, which is my favorite that
does not have an Android counterpart, and the other one
(11:30):
is doc Scanner from Zoho that's my new favorite, and
they also do not have an Android equivalent. So get
rid of cam scanner. That's bad bad actor, bad bad
bad acting. I don't even know what that means. Speaking
of apologies, Apple is apologizing. See what happens to the
(11:51):
best of them. Apple is apologizing because they you found
out that they were listening to their your serie commands
so they had a bunch of people at Apple listening
to Siri commands, which makes sense. How do you make
things better if you don't listen to what people are
saying and listen to the computer's response. I'm not surprised
that any voice commands are being listened to. I mean
(12:14):
they have to be listened to. Apple says that they
listen to less than two percent, or I guess less
than point zero two percent, So that's not that many.
But when you do it times how many Siri commands are,
it's a lot.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
They call it Siri grating, which makes sense. So if
you say, hey, Siri, what's the weather and it says
the NFL game is starting at three pm today, they
would want to know that that was not the right
response to your question. That makes sense, And the only
way they know that is if someone if a human
listens and goes, wait, she didn't ask about the NFL game,
but it sounded like Seattle Seahawks, so it misinterpreted. You see,
(12:49):
I'm saying what's the weather in Seattle and it says
the Seahawks play tonight at three pm? You know that
kind of thing. So three changes they're making. Number one
they're no longer going to retain audio recordings of what
you say to Siri. Number two, you have to opt in.
So if you want your recordings to be used by
these people to make Siri better, you will opt in.
(13:09):
A lot of people will opt in because if you
look at the flow of Siri of the way you
set up an iPhone right now, it says data and analytics,
and it's like the default is, yes, I want to
opt in. I always opt out, by the way, Oh
you do, I always always opt out.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh I thought you were going to say, you do opt.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
In, always opt out? Because why I bought your phone
for one thousand dollars. Why am I the guinea pig
that's giving you all my data to make your.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Phone better and make someone else the guinea pig.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Now I'm fine with you doing it or whoever else,
I don't know, but personally, like, I like to be
more private, So why am I giving you? Like if
you want to pay me for those analytics like Google
on there, I do this Google Play like rewards or whatever,
and they ask me questions and they pay me like
hard cash that I can use for Google Play goods.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Anyway, So if I wanted to opt out.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Right, now you can opt out. This is this is
they still have to they have to enable this. Yeah,
and then when customers opt in, only Apple employees will
be allowed to listen to audio samples. So they're not
going to use like third party randos to do that.
That's good.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
So this next question comes from actually someone who emailed
you on your website, which is rich on tech dot tv.
You just click the contact button and you fill out
your question. So this comes from Mike and he asks,
I'll be traveling next month and with lost luggage on
the rise, would you happen to know any low cost
(14:31):
GPS luggage trackers?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I love this question.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
This is a good question. I'm curious where is he
getting his data that lost luggage is on the rise.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I don't know. But I hear about people losing their luggage.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Do you really never hear that?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Come on, I never hear of people losing Okay, tell
me a story.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, okay, yesterday day, not me. I was watching someone story.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Okay, random story. Do you know this person?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
No?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I don't know them?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Okay, never mind, no, no, hold on, you don't know
this person. You can't. This is This is like when
people tell me they'll be like, oh, everyone's going to Fiji.
I'm like who, They're like, well, I see them my stories.
Do you know those people?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
No, Still, it happens. I have a friend that lost
her Anyways.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
It's fine. I feel like you don't think it happens.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I've traveled. I've traveled around the world. I've traveled around
the world. So of you, yes, and for this job
and I knock on wood, have yet to ever have
a piece of luggage missing?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Wake Really, I've had two.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
In ten I've actually, hold on, I've been I've been
flying for twenty something years. I can remember one time
that I have my luggage lost. And this was back
in the nineties. Wow. So I feel like luggage has
gotten a lot better. Okay, like the whole luggage process
with airlines. But that's besides the post.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I've had. It happened twice.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
If it makes you feel better, then get a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I don't think I would buy a tracker. I'm just
saying now.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
With that said, I used to keep a tile in
my suitcase in case it did get lost.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Get out of here.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
But you know if it did. Okay, So here's the
challenge of tracking your luggage. Number one, you have to
have a GPS tracker because something like a tile may
or may not work. You want exact tracking. So there
used to be a product called track Dot and that
was the big one, and it was pretty inexpensive. It
was like fifty bucks and it would track your luggage
for I think it was like three years. I used
(16:32):
to have one of these. They sent me a test model.
It worked for like two years. I don't remember if
I ever actually put it in my luggage. That was
number that's gone out of business. Okay, So the three
that I found that are still around. There is one
from Sprint called Tracker plus Tracker Safe and Sound, and
this is two dollars and fifty cents a month for
(16:54):
twenty four months. Can you do the math on that? Okay?
Two dollars and fifty cents a month for twenty four
months plus five dollars a month for service, and that
seems like a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
If he's five dollars a month for.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Service plus plus twenty four dollars a month, I mean
two dollars and fifty cents a month for twenty four months. Okay, Okay,
that's number one. Then you've got the Geobit location monitor,
which we did a story on and this is a
good little tracker that can be used for anything, including
kids and elderly. This is one hundred and thirty dollars
plus nine dollars a month for two years, or you
can get it month a month for thirteen dollars a month.
(17:29):
Then you've got the Luglock tracker, which is seventy dollars
and it's sold out so you can't even get that one.
Then they have a new one called gig which is
one hundred dollars month. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
By the way, this is this.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Is my point. Just to trust that your airline is
gonna have your luggage when you get there, and if
they don't, I mean number one, I always do. I
try to do carry on as much as possible. That's different,
I know, But my point is I'm just saying this
person is saying Mike is saying that he's traveling next month. Yeah,
which means he's telling me he's not a frequent traveler.
(18:01):
So in the span of that one time he travels,
I say, take your chances and save the three hundred
dollars or whatever. We just decided this cost to have this.
And here's the other thing. If you you know, if
you bought your you know these companies the time that
they did lose the luggage, they will buy you new
clothes and they will also bring your luggage to your
place for you.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah, okay, but what if Mike's diamond necklace was it?
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Don't put your diamond necklace in luggage. Don't everything I
have in my supers.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
I think what we're trying to say is you should
probably carry on if you're really, really, really worried, save
save the one hundred and eighty dollars on the tracker
and just carry.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Am I getting angrier as the podcast? No.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
I feel like I feel like every time I have
one idea, you're just like, Nope, how right.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I gotta I gotta label these Why you're getting frustrated.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
This is when Megan has an idea.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Okay, okay, well that was just not nice.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It launched their new smart watch. It's called the Versa two.
When the Versa came out, the original one, I was
a big believer in that watch. I really liked it.
I liked it as a alternative to the Apple Watch,
and I still do. I still think the Versa is
the best alternative to the Apple Watch. The reason why
is because it's simple. It works with every phone, including
(19:21):
iOS and Android devices, and it's just a it's it's
just a kind of the basic nice tracker, and I
thought it had a lot of features. The things I
didn't like about it was the music and the slowness.
Now they fix those, so they say the Versa two
is faster. Now Spotify is built in. Before you only
had Pandora, which is really cool. They built in Alexa,
but I don't care about that at all. I don't
(19:42):
want Alexa on my smart watch again the anger I don't.
Here's the thing, so now you're talking. If you have
a Google phone and a Fippit Versa, now you're talking,
you have to use Alexa on your wrist and Google
on your phone. It's just or if you have an
iPhone and you're using this, now you have to use
Siri on your phone and Alex on your wrist. Nightmare
(20:06):
things to talk to. Thank you a lot of keeping trying.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
I already talk to myself enough, so you do.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
This is about the only time someone listens to you
when you talk.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Oh do you guys hear this?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Let's see five day battery life on the fipbit versa two,
which is really nice. The other thing I really like,
and this was my other problems about the Fippit versus
the Apple Watch. When you lift your wrist with the
Apple Watch, it lights up immediately to show you what's
on the screen. The versa there's a tiny delay, which
is really frustrating when you're using this thing and you
(20:41):
want to just glance at the time. So now they
do have an all day on mode which will only
give you two days a battery life. But to me,
I'd much rather have that. Yeah, because when you lift
up your wrist, the clearly Fippit can't figure out how
to get the beauty of the Apple Watch, where it
just comes immediately to life. Yeah, as soon as you
lift your wrist. For some reason, phippeit can't get that.
That's why they're doing the always on.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So it also looks a lot like the Apple Watch.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
It does look a lot like the Apple Watch, so
you might fool your friends.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Be like, yes, maybe I'll just get the Fippit versus.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Well, I feel like that we talk to Alexa all
the time, especially when you're near other things.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I like about this. It has a sleep score, which
is something the Apple Watch does not do. Maybe the
Apple Watch with the next generation will do sleep, but
that's a that's a glaring omission.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
That's weird that they that it does.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
We need sleep. On the Apple Watch, they do oxygen tracking,
which is really cool because a lot of people, if
you have like sleep apnea, this will be handy to
kind of see like how often it happens. You can
show your doctor be like, look, my oxygen is going
like this while I'm sleeping, like up and down and
up and down, and your doctor can maybe do some
more tests and you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Or if you have like sleep paralysis, which you don't
know what it is, Is this what you have?
Speaker 1 (21:50):
When are we going to get into Megan's sleep issues? Here,
no sleep paralysis, so tell me again. You basically wake
up and you feel like you can't move.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Yeah, which, by the way, Rich didn't know what this
was and I had. I said, oh, I have sleep proalysis.
He was like, I've never heard of that. So basically, yeah,
it's like say you're taking a nap.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Right and like that'd be a dream.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Okay, that sounds like you're saying you're just taking a nap,
and then it's this feeling where your your brain is awake,
like you're trying to wake up, but your body's asleep.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
That's so weird. So you feel like you carry but
you can't move.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
But see, I feel you feel paralyzed.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I feel like you were talking about the thing where
if you're in a dream and you're trying to move,
it feels like you're moving through water or like, olass,
it's really slow. Oh okay, never had those dreams totally.
You're trying to run from someone. It's like you literally feel.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Like have you ever liked when you're falling asleep?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Oh? Yeah, you're like any fast you like?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Actually, yeah, that's my favorite. I love when that happens.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
That happens on the plane all the time, where.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
You're just like, oh my gosh, I hate sleeping on planes.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Love it. Two hundred dollars for the fippit. It's available
on a Fippit versus two. It's available on September fifteenth,
twenty nineteen. The thing I don't like about fippit, they
like everyone else has real that subscriptions seem to be
a nice source of income now Fippit is offering a
ten dollars a month service, which I don't even I'm
not even gonna go into what it includes because just
by principle, I don't want it. I don't want another subscription.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
So many subscriptions?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
How many?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
All right?
Speaker 3 (23:16):
So this next question comes from Bruce. He emailed you
and he wrote Rich, I've called Apple about this and
ended up at Goldman Sachs. They weren't completely sure about
their answer. The question is if I set up a
monthly subscription, say for Netflix, and give them my card
number to draw it from each month, then later I
generate a new card for a purchase online, does that
(23:39):
negate the number Netflix is using? In other words, each
time I generate a new number, are the old ones trashed?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Is he talking about credit card?
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yes, he's talking about Apple card. Oh okay, got it interesting?
So he said he couldn't find the answer to this,
and yeah, So the Apple Card is is Apple's new
credit card which is linked to the iPhone and it
works in several ways. Number One, you sign up for it,
you get it immediately on your phone. Then you can
request to have a physical card sent to you. The
physical card has no numbers on it. So how do
(24:08):
you use a number? You create a virtual number inside
the app. And this can be handy for several reasons,
the first being that it's for security. If you are
doing like a free trial online or sketchy website, you
can use a virtual number and it won't affect your
credit card and that's kind of nice. And you can
(24:28):
cut off that virtual number at any time. So let's
say you do a Netflix trial and you're like, eh,
I don't want this anymore. Instead of like calling Netflix,
you could literally just like turn off that number. So,
and this is not the first credit card to do this.
A lot of the other banks offer these virtual numbers.
I think it sounds very complicated to like do this,
like to set up different numbers all the time. Yeah,
but I can see where it can come in handy,
(24:49):
especially with free trials, because you just don't want to
deal with getting charged for a free trial that you
don't want. What he's asking is if he generates one number,
does it push out the old number and then all
of a sudden, all his subscriptions on that number go
like haywire. Yeah, that's not how it works. You can
pretty much generate new numbers and keep the old numbers.
(25:10):
You'll see a whole list of your numbers and then
you can delete them as you want. That's how it
normally works, and that's that's the way it would work
to make the most sense, because if you do want
to set these things up, like you can type in
on your you know, I haven't used this can I
don't have the Apple card. But if you theoretically would
type in like Netflix card, and it would just generate
the number and you have it labeled as your Netflix card, Okay.
And then next thing, you know, you want to sign
(25:31):
up for a subscription for your kids for something like
one of those box you know they come every month,
like a science experiment box or something. But you think
that you're going to like totally ghost the company, and
you're just like, I don't want to really get this,
but I'll just try it. So you put in that
number and then after a month, you just delete that number, okay,
after you get your box. So that's the way I
understand it. I think that that's cool, and I'm not
(25:52):
you know, you know me, I love credit cards, but
I hate credit cards. I you know, I love the
credit cards for the convenience, but I like spending money
that I feel and so totally I get the Apple
card I feel like is actually kind of in the
middle there. And I I find that the tap to
pay is really interesting because we've talked about this before.
If I am handing you cash, it's gonna take a
(26:14):
little bit longer for you to pull it out of
my hand. Right if I'm handing you my debit card,
it's going to take a little bit less time, but
similar to that, you still feel it. If I hand
you my credit card, I'm just like doing a dance
move and I'm like swiping it or putting that chip
in whatever. It's no big deal, even for when it's
one hundred three hundred, four hundred dollars transaction, even the
biggest transaction, I still don't feel it. Tap to pay
(26:37):
I feel like might even be less friction than the
credit card because it's so easy to just tap your phone. Yeah,
do you have this setup tap to pay?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I have?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
You mean, well, there are credit cards that have the tap.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
There are some credit cards. Now I know that's even
more I don't have tap to pay. So you have
a card that has the tap to pay? Yes, So
that's kind.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Of and it's funny because they don't even like I
was paying for something. Once I was like, where do
I tap this card? And they were like, oh, I
don't know, yeah, and I was like, oh, well, it says.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Like anyways, so I just it's the same as a
credit card to me.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah, feel the same.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Feeling of like I won't see this for a month, right,
And that's so the Apple card.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
The Apple card, you would see it because now with
the app, it's it's all in the app, itemized, like
immediately your transaction. So anyway, I will not be getting
the Apple card. But I'm not saying like that. It's
it's terrible, like if you're on top of your finances
and all that stuff like it can be. It can
be a good tool, let's put it that way. But
the virtual cards, yes, you should be able to delete
(27:36):
those at will and have several of them at the
same time to manage everything that you've got. All right,
let's see, do you want to talk about Yelp. I
want to talk about Yelp. This is the first time
that Yelp kind of revamped their app to be personalized. Now.
In the past, I always had my way of searching Yelp.
Did I ever tell you how I do it? No,
(27:56):
So when I search Yelp, I would do something like,
let's say I was in San Francisco for the day
and I wanted to eat at a restaurant. I would
go into Yelp and I would search restaurants, and then
I would go into the the sort filters and I
would do by most reviewed, which is near me, So
that would tell me not the most popular restaurant, per se,
but kind of it's like the restaurant that has the
(28:17):
most like people are going and they're reviewing. This restaurant's trendy.
It's kind of yeah, like people know about it. So
I'd just be like, well, that's basically the restaurant that
I need to go to. Go ahead, try see what's
in this area. You can, I'll talk about what Yelp's
doing is. So that was always my way of finding
like the little hotspots without a lot of work, you know,
because if you're only in a city for a day,
you don't want to really spend a lot of time
(28:37):
researching restaurants. So I'd just be like, let me just
go to the place everyone's reviewing. So I would do
that most reviewed?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Okay, I see it. Do you find a place why
it's loading?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
So most reviewed? That's sponsored okay, carda.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Mom, Nope, keep going. They changed it so now you
have to look for all results there. It is Pink
hot Dogs seven thousand. So that's not a place that
I would normally go, but it's kind of funny. Have
you ever been there?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Okay, if you I had it once they came here
to the station. I'm not a big hot dog person,
so I don't really like seek them out, but I
will eat one. But it's just funny because if I
was in La, like that is one of the places
that you should probably hit up. Everyone knows pinks and
so it kind of worked. The second one, i'd never
heard of Republic. Oh I've heard of it, but it
sounds fancy, so I would. I also buy the way,
(29:24):
so it's that's nothing.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
That's absolutely easy.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
I would totally a five dollars if it's if it
gets up to the five, I would. I would have
a little pause anything, swipe that credit card one dollar,
sign to four. No big deal. I'm kidding. It's actually funny. No,
what's funny is when I travel on business, I am
definitely like a cheaper eater, so I will I don't
(29:48):
want to name names with some of my other colleagues here,
but I will generally try to find places that are
like two to three versus like a force four dollars sign.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
But you told me that I can only eat at
one one dollar.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Hey, Megan, don't give everyone your secrets here. I'm just kidding, Okay,
So for the first time, you can now tell Yelp
what your preferences are. And those preferences now are your diet,
so you can specify if you're gluten free, halal quito, kosher, pescatarian, vegan,
or vegetarian, or as Megan likes to call it, all
the above.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Good one.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
You can do your lifestyle, which is car owners, homeowners, parents,
and pet owners. You can do wheelchair accessibility. You can
also choose your favorite food and drink categories, including happy hour, bronze,
Chinese pizza. And then you can choose your interests like bookstores,
late night, late nights, date nights, hair salons, hiking, home decor,
kid activities, and more. And immediately what came to mind
(30:42):
when I saw this new feature which yelp gave me
early access to for a week. I'll just humble brag there.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
But don't toot your own horn.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I'm just saying i'd access this access to this feature
quicker than more people. But the first thing I thought
of is, oh my gosh, I'm handing over all my
datity yelps so they can now sell this to advertisers.
But Yelp says that they do keep this information private
and it's only shared with the app, So I don't
know how true that is, but that's what they're saying.
(31:12):
So bottom line, love Yelp. By the way, Yelp is great.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, not sponsored by Yelp, but like love Yelp.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
But once you choose these things about your life, it
makes sense. If you are vegan, it would make sense
for Yelp to put the vegan restaurant, or not even
a vegan restaurant, let's just say a restaurant is known
for like some great vegan options. It would put those
towards the top of the list. The only thing that
they're doing here that's kind of weird to me is
it throws me off. They put little hearts next to
(31:40):
things that are sort of tailored for you. Yeah, to me,
when I see a heart, that means something is heart healthy,
like a healthy restaurant. Really it just to me, it
just seems like it's heart healthy, but it means no.
This is personalized. So the other thing they do that's
really cool is they tell you why something is sort
of elevated for you. It'll say, yelpers report that this
(32:01):
location has a lot of vegan options, or Yelpers like
this place for its kid friendly pancakes. Right, It'll kind
of give that information so you understand why it shows
those I think that this is very much evolving. I
don't think it's perfect. I don't think that Yelp has
a level of AI that Google has just yet. But
it's a start, and it's a good way to kind
of personalize the Yelp experience. I worry a little bit
(32:23):
about things being too personalized where it's like, rich, you
love pizza, just keep going to pizza places. I don't
want that to happen.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Yeah, But at the same time, it's like, you do
eat a lot of.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Pizza, Hey, but you would what now you're saying, just
because I'm Italian, I eat a lot of pizza. Huh,
all right, I do.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Love pizza though, right, so.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I will have Italian food any day of the week.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
There you go. You probably want to try different places too,
and yeah, I want to help.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I did try Boba tea though, I loved it, so
now maybe I'll heart Boba all right.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
This next question comes from Facebook. Monica writes, what's your
opinion on VPNs?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Another VPN question? We got one? I think last week?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
She keeps reading about added security for online banking fraud?
Are they that secure? This from from Monica?
Speaker 1 (33:14):
No, I mean, who's Monica reading this from? Okay?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
So yeah, I know everyone's citing things and we don't
really know.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Well, here's what happened. I will tell you where they're
hearing it, Megan. They're hearing it from ads. When they
browse online, A lot of the stuff they see is
sort of clutter and it's ads. It's advertising. I'm at
the gym and I'm watching on the TV, like what
I sometimes don't connect or I do connect what I
see on TV to questions that I get because people
are heavily being advertised and I've seen My.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Sister asked me this question this weekend, and I was like,
how do you not like I didn't know what a
VPN was until I started working with you, because.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
We because I always use one to secure all my travels. Yeah,
but anyways, I will tell you my thoughts on VPNs.
The main number one is a vp Okay, VPN is
virtual private network. And if you have a job at
a corporation, a lot of times you will use a
corporate VPN to access your network at work. And what
that does is think of a VPN as a tunnel.
(34:11):
It's a direct line from your computer tunnel under all
the crap that's on the internet, right to your company
so that you can access company servers. You can access
company files, company data without Imagine you're in a tunnel
that has just you know, it's totally secured. No one
can get into that tunnel because it's kind of like
there's a big like, you know, there's just no way in.
(34:32):
So you can take that tunnel to your company's network.
That's what a VPN is in its simplest definition. What
people use VPNs for normally is to get around geo
location restrictions that a lot of websites put on so
that you can't access stuff from certain places. So for instance,
let's say Netflix had a show in Germany that's not
(34:54):
offered in the US. A lot of people would use
a VPN to say they're in Germany and then they can,
you know, watch that show that's yeah in Germany.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
That was the question my sister asked me.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
She said, do you recommend any VPNs so that I
can so that you can watch Netflix from other countries. Yes,
she's not leaving the country anytime soon. I don't know where,
but she's planning ahead.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
She's planning ahead. Another one the another way people do
it is with sporting events. A lot of a lot
of the games are blacked out. So let's say, and
I never understood this, I'm not a big sports guy,
but let's say you live in Los Angeles and you
have a subscription to NFL Sunday Ticket. Who's our team
here in LA? Like, who's the football team? The Rams? No,
(35:36):
not the Trojan Sorry the Rams. You can't watch Rams
games on Sunday Ticket because they want you to watch
it on broadcast TV. Makes no sense, Okay, same thing
for baseball. You're in Atlanta, you can't watch I believe
it's the Braves. You can't watch the Braves when you
have a subscription at MLB TV because they want you
(35:58):
to tune into. However, the Braves are broadcast on TV.
Now I'm not sure if that's still the way it is,
but that's crazy. Generally, how VPNs came into the public
spotlight is because people wanted to get around these rules,
and so that's the main thing. There's other reasons to
have VPNs when it comes to securing your data. Here's
when I recommend using a VPN. Number one, if you're
at a hotel like a Hilton or whatever main hotel chain,
(36:21):
nine times out of ten, you don't need a VPN
unless you're accessing really secure stuff. Generally, I try not
to access my bank account on anything that's not LTE connection,
So I would, yep, if you're on public Wi Fi,
I would not access bank accounts. Now, is it secure, Yes,
it is, but because your bank is encrypted, but there
is a little bit better of a chance that someone
(36:42):
might be able to do something when you're on a
public network versus LTE, which is much more secure cellular,
if you're on a random if you love getting on
random Wi Fi networks, like that's like.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
One of my favorite things to do in life.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I actually just hop on random.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Megan loves to get on random.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
But it's true. It's it's you know, it's one of
those things where if you because some people are are
sort of Wi Fi like they love always getting on
Wi Fi like they just they do the save battery.
I don't know what it's for, but it's like they
just don't use their data whatever it is. Like, Yeah, personally,
I avoid Wi Fi at all costs, Like, if I
can use my cellular, I'm gonna use that. But some
people just love to always like, you know what the
(37:21):
Wi Fi is for this place, I'm like, I don't know,
Like I don't care. So that's the other reason is
if you're always using random Wi Fi networks, then I
would probably use a vv VPNs I recommend. I don't
really have one, but the one that a lot of
people like is I believe it's called Private Internet Access.
I think that's the one that a lot of people use.
I think that's the I think that's the one people use.
(37:45):
There's just so many are there's so many.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I don't know any so I can't recommend any.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Nor it is another one that people like we use here, yeah,
but we use a corporate one. So it doesn't really care. Okay,
So yeah, okay. Now with that said, if you are
traveling to a country like I would definitely use a
VPN for all of your stuff and may have to.
Or if you're in Russia, or if you're in a
country like follow the trend here Russia, China, you get it.
If you going to Italy, you don't need one, You're fine. Okay.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
I want to go to Italy, so do I.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
I'd love to get some pizza. All right, Two quick
things I want to get through before the end of
the show. We tried out Sprint's new five G network,
which is called True Mobile five G, and I will
tell you it's cool that they lit this up in
Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, and Washington, and I tried
it out. They gave me a phone to try it
out on and it's the one plus or no, they
give me the one plus. No, they gave me a
Samsung five G phone. It's cool if it works. So
(38:39):
my advice on five G. You're gonna be hearing a
lot of hype about five G. I don't think you
need to worry about hopping on five G or I
don't think you need to upgrade now if you have
no need for it, you know, like if you're just
thinking like, oh now, if you're a nerd like me
who loves like I will never forget. When Sprint got
what they called the Vision network back in the day,
I was living in Treeport and they turn on this
Sprint Vision it was called, and it was like a
(39:00):
faster three G network that they launched. I had to
get the phone the first day I ran to Sprint.
I got the phone and it was it was a
flip phone and it had a little tiny screen. But
I was like, this is the fastest data you've ever experienced,
and I had to have it. And I'm still like that.
I'm a nerd. So if I was a Sprint customer
and I was upgrading my phone, I would definitely get
(39:21):
one of these five G phones because that's just who
I am. If your average person doesn't really care, like
your four G is just fine. It works everything.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
And if you're a gamer, if you're.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
A gamer, that's a good thing. If you're gaming on
your phone, it could give you a little advantage on
Fortnite because there's less latency. But I will tell you
the main thing I learned in reporting. The Sprint story
is that Sprint is not using millimeter wave, which is
what Verizon and AT and Tier. Using millimeter wave does
not travel as far, but it gives you much faster speeds.
(39:49):
So the reason SO and Sprint what they're doing is
they're kind of using a modified I don't I don't
really know, but basically they're modifying their LTE network to
accommodate five G speeds, so they're not as fast. They're
averaging about two hundred versus on Verizon AT and T
you'll probably average closer to like a thousand. Wow, But
do you need all that at the end of the day. Yeah,
(40:11):
I mean it'd be nice.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Sprint says their average five G download is two hundred
and three megabits per second, which is six times faster
than their LTE which is thirty five megabits per second.
But bottom line, it's cool. I love believe me. Seeing
those speed tests and that thing just go off the
chart was kind of cool. All right. One more thing
to mention, Google Photos got a really cool feature. It
might still be rolling out, it's already live in my
Google Photos, but it's really really cool. And that is
(40:36):
you can now search for text inside pictures. So if
you were in Italy and you remember some random sign
that you saw, it would be an Italian. Yeah, that's true.
Probably maybe well man, maybe it recognized different languages. I
don't know. But let's I'll give you a better example.
Let's say you travel a lot for work, and you
take pictures of your receipts, and you want to remember
(40:58):
you need to submit a receipt for that Burger place
that you went to. You can type in Burger and
that receipt would show up. It's a really cool little feature.
It's it's just makes Google Photos that much more useful.
And so try it out. Just try searching for some things.
I've started to use Google Photos now to take pictures
of my receipts for that reason, because now it's so easy.
I used to not do that because I used to
(41:19):
use them in Google Drive. But now it's like, just
go ahead. One more thing. The Microsoft Surface event will
be happening October second in New York City, and we
are expected to expecting to see some new surface laptop,
surface tablets, whatever whatever they got. And I'm predicting too
that the pixel from Google the new one will be
(41:41):
around that same date, October first or third in New York.
Hopefully it's in New York, so I only have to
go to one place and hit up. That'd be ideal.
That's like best case scenario. That'd be like.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
That that there you go, there you go.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
All right. I think that's gonna do it for the show, Megan.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Really, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
That's it. I talked. I talked way too much this show.
You didn't, Yeah, I did, because I went off about
cam Scanner. I just did.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
Know.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
You're just excited, you know.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
I get very excited about technology, and I get very
excited about all the stuff that we talked about.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Its probably a good sign that you love what you do.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
That is a good sign. How did you enjoy the show?
Speaker 2 (42:25):
I thought it was fun.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
You seemed a little disappointed that it was not what
there wasn't as much. Maybe you didn't get as many
questions and as you want, Oh.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, to feel bad.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Do you have a really good question that we should
extend the show?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Sorry, I'm just reading them.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Don't be sorry.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Actually, I think we're good.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
I think we're good. Okay, good, Okay, Well there you
have it, all right, well, I do want to mention
that I was on another podcast. It was called The
Valve Show Side Show. If you're in Los Angeles, we
have the station called one O four three MYFM Valentine
and Morning. I went into this show and you came
with me, and you saw they just started recording without
even me knowing that we were doing the podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Yeah, it was funny.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
They literally just called me to like they emailed me.
They're like, would you come to the one oh four
to three studios on Friday, September whatever August. I'm like, sure, whatever,
and I go there and it's like I had no
idea what they were gonna do, what they're gonna talk about,
what they wanted whatever, And it's just like all of
a sudden we get in. They're like, what's up, Rich,
And I'm like, uh, saying all this stuff and they're like, oh, yeah,
we're done with the podcast. We just rolled for like
(43:29):
forty minutes on whatever you said.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
I'm like, what, you know you were on air?
Speaker 1 (43:33):
You know I was on air on the radio.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I think you some of your interview from the podcast
was also on air.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yeah, it's very weird, different, It's very different than us,
like yeah, you know, when I'm recording you. What do
you mean the red lights?
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Oh yeah, and also like for broadcast, like when you're
watching Channel five, like everything's live.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Yeah, but on radio, on radio, it's all blurred.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I don't think people know that.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
No, it's all it's all very very.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Giving away secrets.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
No, I will tell you that Val did say that
he likes to be as live as possible as opposed
to some other morning show hosts out there, which will
remain unnamed. Oh, now, we're giving away scenes anyway. If
you want to check it out, just search Val Show
sideshow in your favorite podcasting app, or just go to
my website rich on tech dot tv and you can
(44:23):
just click the link and listen to the podcast. I
think I said too much, which is why I said.
I keep telling my wife I'm no longer doing podcasts
except my own because I always say too much.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
On that.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, I did I reveal things about KTLA that should
not be revealed.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Oh I think you were. I thought it was great.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Okay, you're too hard. You weren't the one saying it.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
True.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, you don't have to deal with the repercussions.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
That's also true, all.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Right, anything else I should mention. You can find our
website rich on tech dot tv. If you're a new
listener to the show, please subscribe, rate and review the show.
Just go to I don't know however you do that
on Apple podcasts. Just leave a rating whatever it is,
you know, as long as it's five stars. If it's not,
don't bother a little shout out yeah and if you yeah. Okay,
now I'm just talking to talk, so thanks so much
(45:08):
for listening. Producer Meghan, thanks so much for joining me
on the show. Have a fantastic day. We will talk
to you real soon. Bye bye.
The Apple event invites have arrived. Google Photos gets a
useful new feature, Fitbit has a new smart watch, testing
out sprints new five G Plus. I'm answering your tech questions.
What's going on? I'm Rich Dimiro. This is Rich on Tech.
This is the podcast where I talk about the tech
(00:26):
stuff I think you should know about. Plus, I answer
the questions that you email me, you tweet me, you
send me, you DM me, however you get message in
a bottle.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
You asked me at the market, ask.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Me at the market, set me up at the market. Yeah, oh,
inside jokes. They're always such a fun way to start
a podcast. What's up, producer, Megan, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
This week is flying by.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I thought this was a very fast week. It was
a quick week, and now we have Labor Day approaching,
So either we'll have more people listening to the podcast
or more people not listening because they're on vacation. What
are you doing? I'll be on vacation. I'm taking the
day off, so I can't wait. I I've got a
family trip plan, so I'm excited to do that and
(01:10):
little R and R. I may not turn on my
phone for the I'll probably have my phone on I
probably won't be on social media. You know that. I
said in last week's episode that I had acquired a
Pixel three Excel smartphone, so I've been using that and
it's interesting. Number One, I will tell you when you
use Android, like I go back and forth throughout the
year with Android and iOS just to stay fresh. So
(01:32):
it's funny because in the afternoons I'm all iOS because
I've been writing the book, and in the mornings I've
been using the Pixel And the funniest thing to me,
it was not funny. It's kind of sad that the
Android stuff does a lot of things better when it
comes to like anticipating your next move, but almost in
the camera, almost everything else is worse. Like I hate
to just knock it, but like I've gotten so used
(01:54):
to some of the simplest things on iosa, everything just
works when you get on Android. It's like who knows
what's gonna work. You try something, it's like it just
doesn't work. Like yesterday, what was I was trying to
like upload something? So you know, this way I like
to test both is I went through my normal workflow
of shooting an entire social media video on my phone
and editing it and posting it all through my phone
(02:18):
on my pixel, which is something that's very simple to
do on an iPhone. Well, the pixel, It's like it
just everything was a lot slower. Everything was just took
a little bit more time, and then when you upload it,
it's just I don't know. It's it's really tough because
I love Android and I love iOS, but I see
the beauty of why Apple has pulled so far ahead
because everything just seems to work. So long story short,
(02:41):
what I was gonna mention is one of the features
that I'm really loving that they're adding to Android, which
is really cool, and it just appeared on my pixel.
I'm not running any special software, but it's called Focus Mode.
And what you do is you set up the apps
that distract you, and then with one tap, you can
press this focus mode. And those taps are those apps
not only get grayed out, but you can't use them,
(03:05):
but you also don't see any notifications from them during
that time. So I've been loving this because I'm let's
face it, we're all easily distracted with our smartphones. This
is just one of those things that makes it so
easy to just say, you know what, I want to
do something right now, I need a half an hour
or an hour or a couple of hours, and I'm
just going to enable this mode. And it's not forever, right,
But it's just one of those things where if you
(03:26):
want to check it, you turn it off and all
your notifications then pop up. So you turn it on,
they go away, don't it's really got.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
That stressed you out when they all pop up again.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
No, I have my notification set so only important ones
actually notify me. So on Twitter, I don't get all
the tweets, I don't get all the likes and stuff,
And on Instagram, I don't get everything, so I only
get a couple anyway, and on Facebook I don't get
any so but anyway, it's just one of those cool
things that I've just been loving and I know you
can do. I actually wrote about this, I think, in
a blog post about you can kind of hack that
(03:57):
same feature on the iPhone if you who's the downtime feature.
But it's not as simple. It's not as like easy,
like there's not one tap to enable and disable, which
maybe Apple will do that in the future, because I
think that's really cool. One other thing I wanted to
bring up before we get into the meat of the podcast,
is back up your stuff, Backup, Backup, back Up. Last
(04:17):
week's show, I talked about how my computer crashed, and
the main thing I was worried about was the fact
that my son's iPad pictures were on there. I went
into my time machine backup, which I don't do all
the time, but I do it kind of regularly, and
I will tell you that the pictures are there. Ooh, big,
big relief. So yeah. So my other point is I've
(04:41):
been kind of holding off with the computer of kind
of reformatting it and seeing if the hard drive is
totally shot or if it can just be reformatted and
set up again. But now I know I can try
it because I have a picture safe and sound so good. Okay,
So okay, let's move on to the first story of
the podcast, which is the Apple Invite have officially gone
out join us on September tenth for a special event.
(05:05):
And it's funny because you noticed this but I didn't.
It says by innovation only, not invitation only. And it's
tough to describe what it looks like, but it's a
orb of an Apple logo kind of split in half.
Like a I would call it series style, like a
kind of that wavy look, and it's in different colors.
And this is happening at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino,
(05:28):
where it normally does now. September tenth, twenty nineteen. This
is the date that I had marked on my calendar.
They didn't want to do it on September eleventh. Obviously,
September ninth is Monday, it's too early, So September tenth perfect. Yeah,
So that is the date that I will be up in. Uh,
where's it Coupertino? I was gonna say San Clementy for
(05:48):
some reason? Where is that? I was gonna say San Clementi,
But no San Francisco or Coupertino, gotcha? So very exciting, exciting.
What are you looking forward to most? Because I've been
playing with the iOS thirteen, so it's like I already
know everything that's happening with iOS. It's just a matter
of what's going to happen with the iPhone.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I mean, I feel like it's just going to look
exactly the same, which is what we've spoken about. There's
the camera that's the wide wide angle camera right that
you can now if you.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Take a picture, recrop it and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Recrop it. I mean, I don't know if I'm going.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
To get it, because I what do you want? iPhone eight?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I'm on eight.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I still have a home button. It might be
time for an upgrade. It might be time.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
It might be time.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Oh that's the wrong time. This is the right time.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Okay, all right, So this.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
For that sound if your first time listener means it
is time for producer Megan to select one of the
questions that you have emailed or sent me and read
it out.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
So this first question comes from Rich's Facebook page, which
is Facebook dot com slash Rich on tech as Morelda writes,
she said, not sure if you've posted on issues regarding
the cam Scanner app, but she currently has a Samsung
Note E and she uses the app regularly. And she's
(07:04):
noticed that several tech sites are saying to delete the
app off your phone.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Asapp it's safe to say that?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Or she asks is it safe to upload documents to
Google Drive or email them to myself? I would like
to preserve them somehow. Also, what alternative apps do you recommend?
And she says she's a big fan and she's freaking out.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Okay, I would probably get rid of this app just
based on principle alone, and that would be my thought.
I've never used cam Scanner. I'm not a fan of it.
I'm actually it's funny. In life, I'm never a fan
of like the number one thing. I'm always a fan
of it. I talked about this before. I'm always a
fan of the number two thing, except when it comes
(07:48):
to courses PEPSI. Oh, okay, But like everything else, like
almost everything else in life, if it's the number one,
I'm generally not gravitated.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Towards it, Like I found iOS Android. Do you gravitate
towards Android?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I actually do, But that's funny. That's not for Anny,
That's that's more for different reasons. But I'm talking just
in general when it comes to big brands, because I
always feel like, I don't know if you remember this,
but there used to be ads for like Avus. I
think it was like we do someone one of them
tried harder, like Hurts. I think was like the main company,
and then like aviis like tried harder, and like it
(08:20):
just seems to me that the second always tries harder.
So anyway, Cam Scanner the way big tangent.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
This is like a very broad general but like I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
But you see what I'm saying, Like, I always like
kind of the second, like the underdog, I guess you
can say, because I feel like they try harder. Yeah,
And it's always why on Yelp, I never call the
first person that is in the list of results. I
always call the second because the first is getting so
many phone calls. They're the top dog, they have too
much business. I always go with the second guy. It's
getting a little less phone calls, right.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
I mean, I see that you're trying to say.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
So cam Scanner I never really used cause I think
it was one of the more popular scanning apps on androids.
So that's I just disliked it immediately. But they here's
what happened. So cam Scanner apparently Kasperski who they investigated
cam Scanner, which is a phone pdf yeah, scans things
like into PDFs. But they found a malicious software on
(09:18):
I get it's kind of tough to explain, but bottom line,
somehow this program was allowing malicious software to be installed
on your phone once you install this app. And the
scary part about it is that this app was available
through Google Play, which is weird because you would think
that they would scan that app for anything malicious, which
(09:39):
is odd. So long story short, I would say personally
that you probably want to uninstall cam Scanner, ditch it.
Even though cam Scanner officially said that they detected an
advertisement at SDK provided by a third party named ad Hub,
integrated in Android version five point eleven point seven has
(10:01):
been reported for containing a malicious module that produces unauthorized
advertising clicks. So basically, this little module inside their program
was using your phone to create cash for this advertising
company ad Hub. Not good, not very not a very
nice use of your phone. This is why I always
(10:22):
also favor paid versions of apps from independent developers versus
you know, I call them garbage apps, the apps that
are just like these big apps that just have a
lot of users, but all their their whole goal is
like just infiltrate your phone with.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Advertising like Instagram.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
No, not Instagram there, that's a nice app, but just
just ran I don't know, I just I just I'm
really not hot on this camp scanner app. Yeah, because
I just don't. Let me just see how many downloads.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
This definitely delete, so I.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Would delete it they they do have a way that
you can get rid of uh, you know, upload or
download an update that doesn't have all this malware. But
I would just get rid of it. So I personally
would you either in Google Drive. You can just go
to Google Drive and there's a big blue button that
says scan in the lower right hand corner. You press
the big blue plus sign and then just says scan.
(11:10):
You can just use Google Drive to scan your stuff
into PDFs. That's number one. That's my main recommendation. Then
I would recommend Adobe Scan, which is you know, it's
a little bloated, but it will work. And then on
the iPhone, I actually like, let me say, I've got
two apps. I like Scannable, which is my favorite that
does not have an Android counterpart, and the other one
(11:30):
is doc Scanner from Zoho that's my new favorite, and
they also do not have an Android equivalent. So get
rid of cam scanner. That's bad bad actor, bad bad
bad acting. I don't even know what that means. Speaking
of apologies, Apple is apologizing. See what happens to the
(11:51):
best of them. Apple is apologizing because they you found
out that they were listening to their your serie commands
so they had a bunch of people at Apple listening
to Siri commands, which makes sense. How do you make
things better if you don't listen to what people are
saying and listen to the computer's response. I'm not surprised
that any voice commands are being listened to. I mean
(12:14):
they have to be listened to. Apple says that they
listen to less than two percent, or I guess less
than point zero two percent, So that's not that many.
But when you do it times how many Siri commands are,
it's a lot.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
They call it Siri grating, which makes sense. So if
you say, hey, Siri, what's the weather and it says
the NFL game is starting at three pm today, they
would want to know that that was not the right
response to your question. That makes sense, And the only
way they know that is if someone if a human
listens and goes, wait, she didn't ask about the NFL game,
but it sounded like Seattle Seahawks, so it misinterpreted. You see,
(12:49):
I'm saying what's the weather in Seattle and it says
the Seahawks play tonight at three pm? You know that
kind of thing. So three changes they're making. Number one
they're no longer going to retain audio recordings of what
you say to Siri. Number two, you have to opt in.
So if you want your recordings to be used by
these people to make Siri better, you will opt in.
(13:09):
A lot of people will opt in because if you
look at the flow of Siri of the way you
set up an iPhone right now, it says data and analytics,
and it's like the default is, yes, I want to
opt in. I always opt out, by the way, Oh
you do, I always always opt out.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh I thought you were going to say, you do opt.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
In, always opt out? Because why I bought your phone
for one thousand dollars. Why am I the guinea pig
that's giving you all my data to make your.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Phone better and make someone else the guinea pig.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Now I'm fine with you doing it or whoever else,
I don't know, but personally, like, I like to be
more private, So why am I giving you? Like if
you want to pay me for those analytics like Google
on there, I do this Google Play like rewards or whatever,
and they ask me questions and they pay me like
hard cash that I can use for Google Play goods.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Anyway, So if I wanted to opt out.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Right, now you can opt out. This is this is
they still have to they have to enable this. Yeah,
and then when customers opt in, only Apple employees will
be allowed to listen to audio samples. So they're not
going to use like third party randos to do that.
That's good.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
So this next question comes from actually someone who emailed
you on your website, which is rich on tech dot tv.
You just click the contact button and you fill out
your question. So this comes from Mike and he asks,
I'll be traveling next month and with lost luggage on
the rise, would you happen to know any low cost
(14:31):
GPS luggage trackers?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I love this question.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
This is a good question. I'm curious where is he
getting his data that lost luggage is on the rise.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I don't know. But I hear about people losing their luggage.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Do you really never hear that?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Come on, I never hear of people losing Okay, tell
me a story.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, okay, yesterday day, not me. I was watching someone story.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Okay, random story. Do you know this person?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
No?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I don't know them?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Okay, never mind, no, no, hold on, you don't know
this person. You can't. This is This is like when
people tell me they'll be like, oh, everyone's going to Fiji.
I'm like who, They're like, well, I see them my stories.
Do you know those people?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
No, Still, it happens. I have a friend that lost
her Anyways.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
It's fine. I feel like you don't think it happens.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
I've traveled. I've traveled around the world. I've traveled around
the world. So of you, yes, and for this job
and I knock on wood, have yet to ever have
a piece of luggage missing?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Wake Really, I've had two.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
In ten I've actually, hold on, I've been I've been
flying for twenty something years. I can remember one time
that I have my luggage lost. And this was back
in the nineties. Wow. So I feel like luggage has
gotten a lot better. Okay, like the whole luggage process
with airlines. But that's besides the post.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I've had. It happened twice.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
If it makes you feel better, then get a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I don't think I would buy a tracker. I'm just
saying now.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
With that said, I used to keep a tile in
my suitcase in case it did get lost.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Get out of here.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
But you know if it did. Okay, So here's the
challenge of tracking your luggage. Number one, you have to
have a GPS tracker because something like a tile may
or may not work. You want exact tracking. So there
used to be a product called track Dot and that
was the big one, and it was pretty inexpensive. It
was like fifty bucks and it would track your luggage
for I think it was like three years. I used
(16:32):
to have one of these. They sent me a test model.
It worked for like two years. I don't remember if
I ever actually put it in my luggage. That was
number that's gone out of business. Okay, So the three
that I found that are still around. There is one
from Sprint called Tracker plus Tracker Safe and Sound, and
this is two dollars and fifty cents a month for
(16:54):
twenty four months. Can you do the math on that? Okay?
Two dollars and fifty cents a month for twenty four
months plus five dollars a month for service, and that
seems like a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
If he's five dollars a month for.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Service plus plus twenty four dollars a month, I mean
two dollars and fifty cents a month for twenty four months. Okay, Okay,
that's number one. Then you've got the Geobit location monitor,
which we did a story on and this is a
good little tracker that can be used for anything, including
kids and elderly. This is one hundred and thirty dollars
plus nine dollars a month for two years, or you
can get it month a month for thirteen dollars a month.
(17:29):
Then you've got the Luglock tracker, which is seventy dollars
and it's sold out so you can't even get that one.
Then they have a new one called gig which is
one hundred dollars month. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
By the way, this is this.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Is my point. Just to trust that your airline is
gonna have your luggage when you get there, and if
they don't, I mean number one, I always do. I
try to do carry on as much as possible. That's different,
I know, But my point is I'm just saying this
person is saying Mike is saying that he's traveling next month. Yeah,
which means he's telling me he's not a frequent traveler.
(18:01):
So in the span of that one time he travels,
I say, take your chances and save the three hundred
dollars or whatever. We just decided this cost to have this.
And here's the other thing. If you you know, if
you bought your you know these companies the time that
they did lose the luggage, they will buy you new
clothes and they will also bring your luggage to your
place for you.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah, okay, but what if Mike's diamond necklace was it?
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Don't put your diamond necklace in luggage. Don't everything I
have in my supers.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
I think what we're trying to say is you should
probably carry on if you're really, really, really worried, save
save the one hundred and eighty dollars on the tracker
and just carry.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Am I getting angrier as the podcast? No.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
I feel like I feel like every time I have
one idea, you're just like, Nope, how right.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I gotta I gotta label these Why you're getting frustrated.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
This is when Megan has an idea.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Okay, okay, well that was just not nice.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It launched their new smart watch. It's called the Versa two.
When the Versa came out, the original one, I was
a big believer in that watch. I really liked it.
I liked it as a alternative to the Apple Watch,
and I still do. I still think the Versa is
the best alternative to the Apple Watch. The reason why
is because it's simple. It works with every phone, including
(19:21):
iOS and Android devices, and it's just a it's it's
just a kind of the basic nice tracker, and I
thought it had a lot of features. The things I
didn't like about it was the music and the slowness.
Now they fix those, so they say the Versa two
is faster. Now Spotify is built in. Before you only
had Pandora, which is really cool. They built in Alexa,
but I don't care about that at all. I don't
(19:42):
want Alexa on my smart watch again the anger I don't.
Here's the thing, so now you're talking. If you have
a Google phone and a Fippit Versa, now you're talking,
you have to use Alexa on your wrist and Google
on your phone. It's just or if you have an
iPhone and you're using this, now you have to use
Siri on your phone and Alex on your wrist. Nightmare
(20:06):
things to talk to. Thank you a lot of keeping trying.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
I already talk to myself enough, so you do.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
This is about the only time someone listens to you
when you talk.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Oh do you guys hear this?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Let's see five day battery life on the fipbit versa two,
which is really nice. The other thing I really like,
and this was my other problems about the Fippit versus
the Apple Watch. When you lift your wrist with the
Apple Watch, it lights up immediately to show you what's
on the screen. The versa there's a tiny delay, which
is really frustrating when you're using this thing and you
(20:41):
want to just glance at the time. So now they
do have an all day on mode which will only
give you two days a battery life. But to me,
I'd much rather have that. Yeah, because when you lift
up your wrist, the clearly Fippit can't figure out how
to get the beauty of the Apple Watch, where it
just comes immediately to life. Yeah, as soon as you
lift your wrist. For some reason, phippeit can't get that.
That's why they're doing the always on.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So it also looks a lot like the Apple Watch.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
It does look a lot like the Apple Watch, so
you might fool your friends.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Be like, yes, maybe I'll just get the Fippit versus.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Well, I feel like that we talk to Alexa all
the time, especially when you're near other things.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I like about this. It has a sleep score, which
is something the Apple Watch does not do. Maybe the
Apple Watch with the next generation will do sleep, but
that's a that's a glaring omission.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
That's weird that they that it does.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
We need sleep. On the Apple Watch, they do oxygen tracking,
which is really cool because a lot of people, if
you have like sleep apnea, this will be handy to
kind of see like how often it happens. You can
show your doctor be like, look, my oxygen is going
like this while I'm sleeping, like up and down and
up and down, and your doctor can maybe do some
more tests and you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Or if you have like sleep paralysis, which you don't
know what it is, Is this what you have?
Speaker 1 (21:50):
When are we going to get into Megan's sleep issues? Here,
no sleep paralysis, so tell me again. You basically wake
up and you feel like you can't move.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Yeah, which, by the way, Rich didn't know what this
was and I had. I said, oh, I have sleep proalysis.
He was like, I've never heard of that. So basically, yeah,
it's like say you're taking a nap.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Right and like that'd be a dream.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Okay, that sounds like you're saying you're just taking a nap,
and then it's this feeling where your your brain is awake,
like you're trying to wake up, but your body's asleep.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
That's so weird. So you feel like you carry but
you can't move.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
But see, I feel you feel paralyzed.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I feel like you were talking about the thing where
if you're in a dream and you're trying to move,
it feels like you're moving through water or like, olass,
it's really slow. Oh okay, never had those dreams totally.
You're trying to run from someone. It's like you literally feel.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Like have you ever liked when you're falling asleep?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Oh? Yeah, you're like any fast you like?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Actually, yeah, that's my favorite. I love when that happens.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
That happens on the plane all the time, where.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
You're just like, oh my gosh, I hate sleeping on planes.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Love it. Two hundred dollars for the fippit. It's available
on a Fippit versus two. It's available on September fifteenth,
twenty nineteen. The thing I don't like about fippit, they
like everyone else has real that subscriptions seem to be
a nice source of income now Fippit is offering a
ten dollars a month service, which I don't even I'm
not even gonna go into what it includes because just
by principle, I don't want it. I don't want another subscription.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
So many subscriptions?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
How many?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
All right?
Speaker 3 (23:16):
So this next question comes from Bruce. He emailed you
and he wrote Rich, I've called Apple about this and
ended up at Goldman Sachs. They weren't completely sure about
their answer. The question is if I set up a
monthly subscription, say for Netflix, and give them my card
number to draw it from each month, then later I
generate a new card for a purchase online, does that
(23:39):
negate the number Netflix is using? In other words, each
time I generate a new number, are the old ones trashed?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Is he talking about credit card?
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yes, he's talking about Apple card. Oh okay, got it interesting?
So he said he couldn't find the answer to this,
and yeah, So the Apple Card is is Apple's new
credit card which is linked to the iPhone and it
works in several ways. Number One, you sign up for it,
you get it immediately on your phone. Then you can
request to have a physical card sent to you. The
physical card has no numbers on it. So how do
(24:08):
you use a number? You create a virtual number inside
the app. And this can be handy for several reasons,
the first being that it's for security. If you are
doing like a free trial online or sketchy website, you
can use a virtual number and it won't affect your
credit card and that's kind of nice. And you can
(24:28):
cut off that virtual number at any time. So let's
say you do a Netflix trial and you're like, eh,
I don't want this anymore. Instead of like calling Netflix,
you could literally just like turn off that number. So,
and this is not the first credit card to do this.
A lot of the other banks offer these virtual numbers.
I think it sounds very complicated to like do this,
like to set up different numbers all the time. Yeah,
but I can see where it can come in handy,
(24:49):
especially with free trials, because you just don't want to
deal with getting charged for a free trial that you
don't want. What he's asking is if he generates one number,
does it push out the old number and then all
of a sudden, all his subscriptions on that number go
like haywire. Yeah, that's not how it works. You can
pretty much generate new numbers and keep the old numbers.
(25:10):
You'll see a whole list of your numbers and then
you can delete them as you want. That's how it
normally works, and that's that's the way it would work
to make the most sense, because if you do want
to set these things up, like you can type in
on your you know, I haven't used this can I
don't have the Apple card. But if you theoretically would
type in like Netflix card, and it would just generate
the number and you have it labeled as your Netflix card, Okay.
And then next thing, you know, you want to sign
(25:31):
up for a subscription for your kids for something like
one of those box you know they come every month,
like a science experiment box or something. But you think
that you're going to like totally ghost the company, and
you're just like, I don't want to really get this,
but I'll just try it. So you put in that
number and then after a month, you just delete that number, okay,
after you get your box. So that's the way I
understand it. I think that that's cool, and I'm not
(25:52):
you know, you know me, I love credit cards, but
I hate credit cards. I you know, I love the
credit cards for the convenience, but I like spending money
that I feel and so totally I get the Apple
card I feel like is actually kind of in the
middle there. And I I find that the tap to
pay is really interesting because we've talked about this before.
If I am handing you cash, it's gonna take a
(26:14):
little bit longer for you to pull it out of
my hand. Right if I'm handing you my debit card,
it's going to take a little bit less time, but
similar to that, you still feel it. If I hand
you my credit card, I'm just like doing a dance
move and I'm like swiping it or putting that chip
in whatever. It's no big deal, even for when it's
one hundred three hundred, four hundred dollars transaction, even the
biggest transaction, I still don't feel it. Tap to pay
(26:37):
I feel like might even be less friction than the
credit card because it's so easy to just tap your phone. Yeah,
do you have this setup tap to pay?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I have?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
You mean, well, there are credit cards that have the tap.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
There are some credit cards. Now I know that's even
more I don't have tap to pay. So you have
a card that has the tap to pay? Yes, So
that's kind.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Of and it's funny because they don't even like I
was paying for something. Once I was like, where do
I tap this card? And they were like, oh, I
don't know, yeah, and I was like, oh, well, it says.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Like anyways, so I just it's the same as a
credit card to me.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah, feel the same.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Feeling of like I won't see this for a month, right,
And that's so the Apple card.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
The Apple card, you would see it because now with
the app, it's it's all in the app, itemized, like
immediately your transaction. So anyway, I will not be getting
the Apple card. But I'm not saying like that. It's
it's terrible, like if you're on top of your finances
and all that stuff like it can be. It can
be a good tool, let's put it that way. But
the virtual cards, yes, you should be able to delete
(27:36):
those at will and have several of them at the
same time to manage everything that you've got. All right,
let's see, do you want to talk about Yelp. I
want to talk about Yelp. This is the first time
that Yelp kind of revamped their app to be personalized. Now.
In the past, I always had my way of searching Yelp.
Did I ever tell you how I do it? No,
(27:56):
So when I search Yelp, I would do something like,
let's say I was in San Francisco for the day
and I wanted to eat at a restaurant. I would
go into Yelp and I would search restaurants, and then
I would go into the the sort filters and I
would do by most reviewed, which is near me, So
that would tell me not the most popular restaurant, per se,
but kind of it's like the restaurant that has the
(28:17):
most like people are going and they're reviewing. This restaurant's trendy.
It's kind of yeah, like people know about it. So
I'd just be like, well, that's basically the restaurant that
I need to go to. Go ahead, try see what's
in this area. You can, I'll talk about what Yelp's
doing is. So that was always my way of finding
like the little hotspots without a lot of work, you know,
because if you're only in a city for a day,
you don't want to really spend a lot of time
(28:37):
researching restaurants. So I'd just be like, let me just
go to the place everyone's reviewing. So I would do
that most reviewed?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Okay, I see it. Do you find a place why
it's loading?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
So most reviewed? That's sponsored okay, carda.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Mom, Nope, keep going. They changed it so now you
have to look for all results there. It is Pink
hot Dogs seven thousand. So that's not a place that
I would normally go, but it's kind of funny. Have
you ever been there?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Okay, if you I had it once they came here
to the station. I'm not a big hot dog person,
so I don't really like seek them out, but I
will eat one. But it's just funny because if I
was in La, like that is one of the places
that you should probably hit up. Everyone knows pinks and
so it kind of worked. The second one, i'd never
heard of Republic. Oh I've heard of it, but it
sounds fancy, so I would. I also buy the way,
(29:24):
so it's that's nothing.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
That's absolutely easy.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
I would totally a five dollars if it's if it
gets up to the five, I would. I would have
a little pause anything, swipe that credit card one dollar,
sign to four. No big deal. I'm kidding. It's actually funny. No,
what's funny is when I travel on business, I am
definitely like a cheaper eater, so I will I don't
(29:48):
want to name names with some of my other colleagues here,
but I will generally try to find places that are
like two to three versus like a force four dollars sign.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
But you told me that I can only eat at
one one dollar.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Hey, Megan, don't give everyone your secrets here. I'm just kidding, Okay,
So for the first time, you can now tell Yelp
what your preferences are. And those preferences now are your diet,
so you can specify if you're gluten free, halal quito, kosher, pescatarian, vegan,
or vegetarian, or as Megan likes to call it, all
the above.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Good one.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
You can do your lifestyle, which is car owners, homeowners, parents,
and pet owners. You can do wheelchair accessibility. You can
also choose your favorite food and drink categories, including happy hour, bronze,
Chinese pizza. And then you can choose your interests like bookstores,
late night, late nights, date nights, hair salons, hiking, home decor,
kid activities, and more. And immediately what came to mind
(30:42):
when I saw this new feature which yelp gave me
early access to for a week. I'll just humble brag there.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
But don't toot your own horn.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I'm just saying i'd access this access to this feature
quicker than more people. But the first thing I thought
of is, oh my gosh, I'm handing over all my
datity yelps so they can now sell this to advertisers.
But Yelp says that they do keep this information private
and it's only shared with the app, So I don't
know how true that is, but that's what they're saying.
(31:12):
So bottom line, love Yelp. By the way, Yelp is great.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, not sponsored by Yelp, but like love Yelp.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
But once you choose these things about your life, it
makes sense. If you are vegan, it would make sense
for Yelp to put the vegan restaurant, or not even
a vegan restaurant, let's just say a restaurant is known
for like some great vegan options. It would put those
towards the top of the list. The only thing that
they're doing here that's kind of weird to me is
it throws me off. They put little hearts next to
(31:40):
things that are sort of tailored for you. Yeah, to me,
when I see a heart, that means something is heart healthy,
like a healthy restaurant. Really it just to me, it
just seems like it's heart healthy, but it means no.
This is personalized. So the other thing they do that's
really cool is they tell you why something is sort
of elevated for you. It'll say, yelpers report that this
(32:01):
location has a lot of vegan options, or Yelpers like
this place for its kid friendly pancakes. Right, It'll kind
of give that information so you understand why it shows
those I think that this is very much evolving. I
don't think it's perfect. I don't think that Yelp has
a level of AI that Google has just yet. But
it's a start, and it's a good way to kind
of personalize the Yelp experience. I worry a little bit
(32:23):
about things being too personalized where it's like, rich, you
love pizza, just keep going to pizza places. I don't
want that to happen.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Yeah, But at the same time, it's like, you do
eat a lot of.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Pizza, Hey, but you would what now you're saying, just
because I'm Italian, I eat a lot of pizza. Huh,
all right, I do.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Love pizza though, right, so.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I will have Italian food any day of the week.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
There you go. You probably want to try different places too,
and yeah, I want to help.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I did try Boba tea though, I loved it, so
now maybe I'll heart Boba all right.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
This next question comes from Facebook. Monica writes, what's your
opinion on VPNs?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Another VPN question? We got one? I think last week?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
She keeps reading about added security for online banking fraud?
Are they that secure? This from from Monica?
Speaker 1 (33:14):
No, I mean, who's Monica reading this from? Okay?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
So yeah, I know everyone's citing things and we don't
really know.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Well, here's what happened. I will tell you where they're
hearing it, Megan. They're hearing it from ads. When they
browse online, A lot of the stuff they see is
sort of clutter and it's ads. It's advertising. I'm at
the gym and I'm watching on the TV, like what
I sometimes don't connect or I do connect what I
see on TV to questions that I get because people
are heavily being advertised and I've seen My.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Sister asked me this question this weekend, and I was like,
how do you not like I didn't know what a
VPN was until I started working with you, because.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
We because I always use one to secure all my travels. Yeah,
but anyways, I will tell you my thoughts on VPNs.
The main number one is a vp Okay, VPN is
virtual private network. And if you have a job at
a corporation, a lot of times you will use a
corporate VPN to access your network at work. And what
that does is think of a VPN as a tunnel.
(34:11):
It's a direct line from your computer tunnel under all
the crap that's on the internet, right to your company
so that you can access company servers. You can access
company files, company data without Imagine you're in a tunnel
that has just you know, it's totally secured. No one
can get into that tunnel because it's kind of like
there's a big like, you know, there's just no way in.
(34:32):
So you can take that tunnel to your company's network.
That's what a VPN is in its simplest definition. What
people use VPNs for normally is to get around geo
location restrictions that a lot of websites put on so
that you can't access stuff from certain places. So for instance,
let's say Netflix had a show in Germany that's not
(34:54):
offered in the US. A lot of people would use
a VPN to say they're in Germany and then they can,
you know, watch that show that's yeah in Germany.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
That was the question my sister asked me.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
She said, do you recommend any VPNs so that I
can so that you can watch Netflix from other countries. Yes,
she's not leaving the country anytime soon. I don't know where,
but she's planning ahead.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
She's planning ahead. Another one the another way people do
it is with sporting events. A lot of a lot
of the games are blacked out. So let's say, and
I never understood this, I'm not a big sports guy,
but let's say you live in Los Angeles and you
have a subscription to NFL Sunday Ticket. Who's our team
here in LA? Like, who's the football team? The Rams? No,
(35:36):
not the Trojan Sorry the Rams. You can't watch Rams
games on Sunday Ticket because they want you to watch
it on broadcast TV. Makes no sense, Okay, same thing
for baseball. You're in Atlanta, you can't watch I believe
it's the Braves. You can't watch the Braves when you
have a subscription at MLB TV because they want you
(35:58):
to tune into. However, the Braves are broadcast on TV.
Now I'm not sure if that's still the way it is,
but that's crazy. Generally, how VPNs came into the public
spotlight is because people wanted to get around these rules,
and so that's the main thing. There's other reasons to
have VPNs when it comes to securing your data. Here's
when I recommend using a VPN. Number one, if you're
at a hotel like a Hilton or whatever main hotel chain,
(36:21):
nine times out of ten, you don't need a VPN
unless you're accessing really secure stuff. Generally, I try not
to access my bank account on anything that's not LTE connection,
So I would, yep, if you're on public Wi Fi,
I would not access bank accounts. Now, is it secure, Yes,
it is, but because your bank is encrypted, but there
is a little bit better of a chance that someone
(36:42):
might be able to do something when you're on a
public network versus LTE, which is much more secure cellular,
if you're on a random if you love getting on
random Wi Fi networks, like that's like.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
One of my favorite things to do in life.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I actually just hop on random.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Megan loves to get on random.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
But it's true. It's it's you know, it's one of
those things where if you because some people are are
sort of Wi Fi like they love always getting on
Wi Fi like they just they do the save battery.
I don't know what it's for, but it's like they
just don't use their data whatever it is. Like, Yeah, personally,
I avoid Wi Fi at all costs, Like, if I
can use my cellular, I'm gonna use that. But some
people just love to always like, you know what the
(37:21):
Wi Fi is for this place, I'm like, I don't know,
Like I don't care. So that's the other reason is
if you're always using random Wi Fi networks, then I
would probably use a vv VPNs I recommend. I don't
really have one, but the one that a lot of
people like is I believe it's called Private Internet Access.
I think that's the one that a lot of people use.
I think that's the I think that's the one people use.
(37:45):
There's just so many are there's so many.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I don't know any so I can't recommend any.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Nor it is another one that people like we use here, yeah,
but we use a corporate one. So it doesn't really care. Okay,
So yeah, okay. Now with that said, if you are
traveling to a country like I would definitely use a
VPN for all of your stuff and may have to.
Or if you're in Russia, or if you're in a
country like follow the trend here Russia, China, you get it.
If you going to Italy, you don't need one, You're fine. Okay.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
I want to go to Italy, so do I.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
I'd love to get some pizza. All right, Two quick
things I want to get through before the end of
the show. We tried out Sprint's new five G network,
which is called True Mobile five G, and I will
tell you it's cool that they lit this up in
Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, and Washington, and I tried
it out. They gave me a phone to try it
out on and it's the one plus or no, they
give me the one plus. No, they gave me a
Samsung five G phone. It's cool if it works. So
(38:39):
my advice on five G. You're gonna be hearing a
lot of hype about five G. I don't think you
need to worry about hopping on five G or I
don't think you need to upgrade now if you have
no need for it, you know, like if you're just
thinking like, oh now, if you're a nerd like me
who loves like I will never forget. When Sprint got
what they called the Vision network back in the day,
I was living in Treeport and they turn on this
Sprint Vision it was called, and it was like a
(39:00):
faster three G network that they launched. I had to
get the phone the first day I ran to Sprint.
I got the phone and it was it was a
flip phone and it had a little tiny screen. But
I was like, this is the fastest data you've ever experienced,
and I had to have it. And I'm still like that.
I'm a nerd. So if I was a Sprint customer
and I was upgrading my phone, I would definitely get
(39:21):
one of these five G phones because that's just who
I am. If your average person doesn't really care, like
your four G is just fine. It works everything.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
And if you're a gamer, if you're.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
A gamer, that's a good thing. If you're gaming on
your phone, it could give you a little advantage on
Fortnite because there's less latency. But I will tell you
the main thing I learned in reporting. The Sprint story
is that Sprint is not using millimeter wave, which is
what Verizon and AT and Tier. Using millimeter wave does
not travel as far, but it gives you much faster speeds.
(39:49):
So the reason SO and Sprint what they're doing is
they're kind of using a modified I don't I don't
really know, but basically they're modifying their LTE network to
accommodate five G speeds, so they're not as fast. They're
averaging about two hundred versus on Verizon AT and T
you'll probably average closer to like a thousand. Wow, But
do you need all that at the end of the day. Yeah,
(40:11):
I mean it'd be nice.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Sprint says their average five G download is two hundred
and three megabits per second, which is six times faster
than their LTE which is thirty five megabits per second.
But bottom line, it's cool. I love believe me. Seeing
those speed tests and that thing just go off the
chart was kind of cool. All right. One more thing
to mention, Google Photos got a really cool feature. It
might still be rolling out, it's already live in my
Google Photos, but it's really really cool. And that is
(40:36):
you can now search for text inside pictures. So if
you were in Italy and you remember some random sign
that you saw, it would be an Italian. Yeah, that's true.
Probably maybe well man, maybe it recognized different languages. I
don't know. But let's I'll give you a better example.
Let's say you travel a lot for work, and you
take pictures of your receipts, and you want to remember
(40:58):
you need to submit a receipt for that Burger place
that you went to. You can type in Burger and
that receipt would show up. It's a really cool little feature.
It's it's just makes Google Photos that much more useful.
And so try it out. Just try searching for some things.
I've started to use Google Photos now to take pictures
of my receipts for that reason, because now it's so easy.
I used to not do that because I used to
(41:19):
use them in Google Drive. But now it's like, just
go ahead. One more thing. The Microsoft Surface event will
be happening October second in New York City, and we
are expected to expecting to see some new surface laptop,
surface tablets, whatever whatever they got. And I'm predicting too
that the pixel from Google the new one will be
(41:41):
around that same date, October first or third in New York.
Hopefully it's in New York, so I only have to
go to one place and hit up. That'd be ideal.
That's like best case scenario. That'd be like.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
That that there you go, there you go.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
All right. I think that's gonna do it for the show, Megan.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Really, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
That's it. I talked. I talked way too much this show.
You didn't, Yeah, I did, because I went off about
cam Scanner. I just did.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
Know.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
You're just excited, you know.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
I get very excited about technology, and I get very
excited about all the stuff that we talked about.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Its probably a good sign that you love what you do.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
That is a good sign. How did you enjoy the show?
Speaker 2 (42:25):
I thought it was fun.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
You seemed a little disappointed that it was not what
there wasn't as much. Maybe you didn't get as many
questions and as you want, Oh.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, to feel bad.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Do you have a really good question that we should
extend the show?
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Sorry, I'm just reading them.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Don't be sorry.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Actually, I think we're good.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
I think we're good. Okay, good, Okay, Well there you
have it, all right, well, I do want to mention
that I was on another podcast. It was called The
Valve Show Side Show. If you're in Los Angeles, we
have the station called one O four three MYFM Valentine
and Morning. I went into this show and you came
with me, and you saw they just started recording without
even me knowing that we were doing the podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Yeah, it was funny.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
They literally just called me to like they emailed me.
They're like, would you come to the one oh four
to three studios on Friday, September whatever August. I'm like, sure, whatever,
and I go there and it's like I had no
idea what they were gonna do, what they're gonna talk about,
what they wanted whatever, And it's just like all of
a sudden we get in. They're like, what's up, Rich,
And I'm like, uh, saying all this stuff and they're like, oh, yeah,
we're done with the podcast. We just rolled for like
(43:29):
forty minutes on whatever you said.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
I'm like, what, you know you were on air?
Speaker 1 (43:33):
You know I was on air on the radio.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I think you some of your interview from the podcast
was also on air.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yeah, it's very weird, different, It's very different than us,
like yeah, you know, when I'm recording you. What do
you mean the red lights?
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Oh yeah, and also like for broadcast, like when you're
watching Channel five, like everything's live.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Yeah, but on radio, on radio, it's all blurred.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I don't think people know that.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
No, it's all it's all very very.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Giving away secrets.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
No, I will tell you that Val did say that
he likes to be as live as possible as opposed
to some other morning show hosts out there, which will
remain unnamed. Oh, now, we're giving away scenes anyway. If
you want to check it out, just search Val Show
sideshow in your favorite podcasting app, or just go to
my website rich on tech dot tv and you can
(44:23):
just click the link and listen to the podcast. I
think I said too much, which is why I said.
I keep telling my wife I'm no longer doing podcasts
except my own because I always say too much.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
On that.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, I did I reveal things about KTLA that should
not be revealed.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Oh I think you were. I thought it was great.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Okay, you're too hard. You weren't the one saying it.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
True.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, you don't have to deal with the repercussions.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
That's also true, all.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Right, anything else I should mention. You can find our
website rich on tech dot tv. If you're a new
listener to the show, please subscribe, rate and review the show.
Just go to I don't know however you do that
on Apple podcasts. Just leave a rating whatever it is,
you know, as long as it's five stars. If it's not,
don't bother a little shout out yeah and if you yeah. Okay,
now I'm just talking to talk, so thanks so much
(45:08):
for listening. Producer Meghan, thanks so much for joining me
on the show. Have a fantastic day. We will talk
to you real soon. Bye bye.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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