January 4, 2019 • 38 mins
Apple stumbles after iPhone sales slow down; CES 2019 trends to watch out for; GE expands it's lineup of simple smart bulbs; LA's new earthquake warning app; Apps to help you get fit and be more mindful in 2019; the new robots delivering snacks on a college campus. Plus, questions from viewers about iOS's missing Wish List feature, better WiFi and backups.Mentioned:Follow Rich on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for CES coverage!https://www.instagram.com/richontech/ShakeAlertLA Earthquake Apphttps://www.lacity.org/blog/download-shakealertla-earthquake-early-warning-app-nowC by GEhttps://www.cbyge.com/Letter from Apple's Tim Cookhttps://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/Apps to Get Fithttps://ktla.com/2019/01/02/the-apps-that-will-help-you-get-fit-in-2019/Apps for Wellbeinghttps://ktla.com/2019/01/04/apps-that-can-help-you-become-more-mindful-in-2019/Snackbotshttps://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pepsicos-hello-goodness-snackbot-is-off-to-college-300772246.htmlNews Director's Office Podcasthttps://ktla.com/2019/01/03/the-news-directors-office-rich-demuro-ktla-5-tech-smart-reporter/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
What's up with Apple? A CS twenty nineteen preview? Where's
the wish list? In iOS? Twelve apps to help you
stay fit and be more mindful in twenty nineteen, plus snackbots.
What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on
Tech and welcome to the first episode of twenty nineteen.
(00:25):
I had a very good vacation for the most part.
I'll get into that in a moment, but very relaxing.
Didn't have to wake up at any specific time, had
some nice time off, had my mom in town from
New Jersey for the holidays, so that was cool, and
we got to see a couple of shows. I mean,
it was really nice. And we're gonna talk some tech.
Let's get started. I mean, there's not too much going on.
(00:47):
This is the week between the New Year and CS
or the holidays in CS, so not a whole lot happens,
but we will go through some of the things that
I thought were interesting. This is the show where I
kind of talk about this that I think you should
know about apps, gadgets, just tech news in general, and
I'll take some time to kind of discuss those things.
(01:08):
I do want to address one thing that did happen
over the holidays. That was an absolute tragedy. And if
you're in the LA area listening to this, you heard
about it. But my colleague Chris Burrows at KTLA passed
away truly truly tragic circumstances. And Chris and I had
(01:29):
worked together for many years here in Los Angeles. We
actually worked together before he came to LA. He was
on a TV show that I did. I do segments
for various TV stations, so he worked at the one
in New York City, so we actually kind of knew
each other before he even came here. And just very
tragic circumstances of his passing. And I just want to
say that I'm still in shock over what happened. I'm angry.
(01:53):
Here's a guy that was at the height or just
beginning a very successful career, really had so many things
going for him, and to see what happened was just
absolutely unbelievable to me. I mean, I woke up to
text messages from friends and I just could not believe it.
And I still don't believe it. It's been over a week,
(02:14):
and I just everything I think about is just all
the interactions we had over the years and the conversations
we had, and I keep searching for clues or anything
that could have led me to maybe help him, and
I obviously that probably would not happen. But I do
want to say my takeaway, and I've already kind of
(02:34):
shared my thoughts on my Facebook page, my Instagram and Twitter.
But my takeaway is just be the friend now that
you want to be to people, and don't wait, because
life is very short and things like this just kind
of reiterate that. So Chris Burrows, thinking of you, man,
and you were a very big inspiration to me here
(02:57):
because you were so successful and the way that you
had such an ease and air about yourself on air
is something that not many journalists can do. So am
thinking of you. All right, let's talk about CS twenty nineteen.
This is happening next week, and man, this is I've
been covering CS now for probably a decade, if not more.
(03:20):
I can't remember it. It might be about a decade now,
so maybe a little bit more, maybe eleven years, but
I don't want to count because it is the craziest
time of my year. Every year, the whole tech industry
descends upon Las Vegas. There's a million tech companies. This
show just keeps getting bigger and bigger because there's so
(03:40):
many accessory makers and smart home and just about everything
you can think of. It's all there in one place,
And how does a journalist like myself even attempt to
cover something like this? Now, in recent years, you set
a lot of stuff up, You get a lot of
advanced meetings with the Samsungs of the world, and you know,
whatever big companies that you have relationships with, you can
(04:02):
get in and kind of see what they're doing. But
the reality is, you never really know what's going to
be big at CS until you actually get there on
the ground and you start covering stuff and you start
experiencing things. Because all these pitches that we get in
our email it's tough to tell. I mean, they all
sound great, but are they really that good? So what
are we going to see at this year CS? I
(04:23):
think the big theme this year is really going to
be five G. And five G is the successor to
four G, which is basically faster internet on our phones
but also for our homes, our cars, basically everything. And
so five G is going to be a big kind
of catch all phrase that we're going to see all
over the place. Five G is going to happen in
(04:43):
twenty nineteen, but I don't think in a huge meaningful
way it will be there. But I think we're still
on a longer runway when it comes to five G.
So that's one thing. Health technology that'll be another one.
Robots there, of course, everywhere, all over the floor. So
I always try to find cool stuff about robots and
fun little videos to post digital assistance. So this is
(05:06):
a big one because Alexa and Google are kind of
fighting it out for the market share. Personally, I'm on
the Google side. I think Alexa has done some really
great things and Amazon has done a great job of
getting her everywhere. But the thing is I'm seeing is
kind of like assistant fatigue. I mean, every device, I'm
(05:26):
getting pitches from every single company about these assistants being
built into the devices. And a couple of years ago
it was all about the Internet getting built into these devices,
so we saw that happen. Now we see the assistants,
and then of course next year, who knows what'll be,
but the assistance that will be big because we'll see
kind of like where they're building them in. I didn't
think they can put them in anything else, but who knows,
(05:48):
machine learning, artificial intelligence, and of course driverless cars. I'm
getting some driverless car kind of rides at CES as
well this year, So those are the kind of the
big trends that I'll be on the lookout for. I
like to find the little gadgets that just kind of
help you out in everyday life that are really you know,
(06:10):
not like the thousand dollars things or the big picture things,
but a lot of the little things, they're just cool
gadgets that every company is out there showing off their stuff.
I like to discover the little things that I'll show
throughout the year, and a lot of things you get
a preview of, so you see stuff before it actually
is ready for the public. So we'll see stuff that
(06:31):
might come out, you know, in the second half of
the year, the third half, the third of the year,
third half, I don't think there's a third half of
the year. I think we'll just leave it at second half.
But my advice for CS is stay as healthy as possible.
I'm probably gonna be big on Instagram this year, so
if you're not following me there, find me on Instagram.
I'm at rich on Tech and I will show you
(06:53):
all the good stuff when it comes to CS twenty
nineteen in Las Vegas. And if you see me there,
say hi for sure. Even if I look busy, Believe me,
I'm always willing to say hi to folks. Let's talk
about a new app available to the city of Los
Angeles and residents here. It's called Shake alert LA. And
this is getting a lot of publicity because it's a
mobile app that sends alerts to users in La County
(07:16):
if there's an earthquake of magnitude five or more. And
this is not an earthquake alert app. This is supposed
to give you a little bit of a heads up
that you may soon feel shaking. So does it work.
I don't know. I've downloaded it to my phone. It
seems like it's pretty straightforward. The thing that a lot
(07:37):
of people are a little bit concerned about are the
privacy concerns, and I agree, because when you download this app,
you have to agree to give up your location at
all times. And I'm not sure why that is. I
guess so they can see the proximity of the earthquake
to you so they can give you a better alert,
or I guess so they can use your location services
(07:59):
to only deliver to you if you're in the LA area.
But here's the deal with these apps. And I did
a story on another app, which is I'm trying to
get some clarity on it. But there's another app, let's
see quake Alert. And this is an app that was
also done in partnership with the US Geological Survey. Let's see,
(08:23):
let's see quake Alert. I'm I'm on the beta program.
And so when I was talking to the folks at
Quake Alert, they were saying that it's really tough to
do an app like this because the notifications on Android
and iOS are not a perfect system. So you can
send a notification to a phone, but there is no
guarantee from the cellular providers or iOS or Android that
(08:46):
that alert will be received, or that notification will be
received in a timely manner. Now, I always wondered about
that because it seems like when you do these things
where you get a text message confirmation or a push
alert from like Facebook, they come through pretty much immediately.
But I think the problem is when you're talking about
a lot of people, like half a million people or
(09:08):
a million people, you can't really guarantee that all those
people are going to get that notification at the same time.
But they say it's an official pilot, So again, what
does pilot mean. It means that it may not work.
This is not a guarantee that you're going to get
a one minute alert of an earthquake. You know, you're
not guaranteed anything. But this is definitely probably going to help.
(09:30):
I think once we have the first quake that triggers
an alert on this app, we'll have a lot more
data about the effectiveness of this app. So if you
want to download it, it's available for Android and iOS.
It is called shake alert La Shake Alert La. And again,
this is a pilot program, so it's not going to
be perfect. And if you're worried about your privacy and
(09:51):
we're you know, the city and all these companies or
whoever is creating this app having access to your location
at all times, you may want to skip it because
you do have to enable that for it to work.
All right, let's go to the emails now. Ruth says, hey, Rich,
happy New Year along with your family. My question to
you is what internet company do you recommend? I have
(10:12):
Spectrum four hundred megabits per second and I'm paying eighty dollars.
I've been having problems with the Wi Fi. They've come
out to quote unquote fix it, but continues with the buffering. Therefore,
my ring isn't at its best. Help. Thank you, Ruth. Okay, Ruth.
I think the problem is not your internet, because four
hundred megabits per second is actually really fast. So at
(10:32):
my house, I only have one hundred. I wish I
had four hundred, But it's not your internet. I don't
think that there's a problem with the actual speed that's
coming in. And you can confirm this by hooking your
computer up with an Ethernet cable to the modem that
Spectrum provides and doing a quick speed test. And you
can do a speed test by just going to fast
dot com and seeing what that speed comes up as.
(10:55):
I don't think that's going to be your problem. I
think your problem is actually that your WiFi does not
your ring doorbell. And this is very common because the
routers that Spectrum and other companies provide are not necessarily
the best at blanket blanketing your entire home with internet.
Yeah it works around the device, and yeah it'll probably
work upstairs downstairs, but if you really look at these things,
(11:17):
half the time, you're getting really just half the speed
and maybe not in all portions of your home. So
Ruth I would recommend, if you really want to get
the value out of your eighty dollars a month, you
got to upgrade to one of these mesh networking systems
like ero ee Ro, Google Wi Fi or Netgear or
b I think those will definitely fix the issue and
(11:38):
it will make the Wi Fi reach the ring outside
your front door. I think that's going to really solve
all your problems. And here's a little quick tip for
you if you don't want to change the log in.
You know, when you change out your Wi Fi system,
you're gonna have to go around to all your different
gadgets and reconnect them with the new network credentials. The
(11:59):
network the Wi Fi I know network name and also
the password. So if you don't want to do that,
you can just name your new Wi Fi network the
same exact name as your old one and set the
password the same exact as your old network password. Once
you make the network name and also the password the same,
your devices should seamlessly find that new network on your
(12:20):
new equipment and log in as usual, it should be
pretty seamless. I did that at my place. I know
it's not the most secure thing to do because I
always recommend changing passwords when you upgrade stuff. But if
you don't want to go through the hassle of changing
all your smart home devices, you can definitely do that
and everything will follow in line. So that's a little
tip for you there. Now. I mentioned CS twenty nineteen
(12:42):
is happening very soon, but already companies are coming out
with some of their announcements, and this one I really
like because c Byge is a brand that was not
around for very long. But I was very very impressed
with the light bulbs that they sent me, and these
were the first generation of their life light bulbs. They
were basically just your standard light bulbs that kind of
(13:05):
you can use Google Home to adjust right. But the
secret of these light bulbs is that they do not
need a hub, and the Google Home app finds them instantly.
So if you haven't set up any of these smart
home devices like smart light bulbs, what happens is you
either need some sort of hub like Phillips Hugh. You
have a hub that you have to connect to your network.
(13:25):
The light bulbs talk to that hub, and then the
Google Home app or the Google Assistant will interface with
the I know it's kind of complicated, but they'll interface
on the back end with the hub and talk to
those light bulbs kind of through a third party. Right now,
with Ge, the way they do it is their bulbs
actually interface with Google Assistant directly. So here's how it worked.
(13:48):
I put one of the light bulbs in a socket
at my home, I opened up the Google Home app
on my phone and boom, right on the Google Home
app is said, Hey, we found a light bulb. Do
you want to set this thing up? And I was
so impressed because generally that's not the way it works.
You have to go to the h app, set up
the light bulb there, and then link the h app
to your Google Assistant and then it can then control
(14:10):
those devices. So this is kind of cutting out the middleman.
And now c BYGE has new light bulbs. These are
full color LEDs, and these are gonna come out. Now
they're not available right away, but they will come out
this quarter, so first quarter of twenty nineteen. So full
color LEDs. They're gonna have millions of color options, plus
(14:32):
tunable whites in sixty wah equivalent A nineteen a BR
thirty for recessed cans, and a custom sized light strip.
And these are all controllable with your voice or through
the app, or with custom routines and schedules, so that's
really cool. And the price point on these bulbs they
haven't said yet, but the original bulbs that they sent
(14:53):
me were a very good price. So I would say
definitely look into these things if you want something that's
super simple, especially if setting something up for someone else
in your family. Definitely check out c by ge because
I was very impressed. I love that they are seamlessly
integrated with Google Assistant. And again this is all working
through Bluetooth, so the bulbs have Bluetooth built into them,
(15:16):
so that your phone can recognize a Bluetooth bulb nearby
and then connect it to Google Assistant. Some other devices
that they're gonna have is a smart switch. So this
is really cool too, because a lot of times if
you're using these bulbs with the switches in, like for instance,
in my office at home, I have a bunch of
smart bulbs, but it's kind of a pain because sometimes
(15:38):
I turn off the light switch in the office, and
sometimes I leave it on and turn off the bulbs
with my voice. So when I turn off the light switch,
I can't then turn on the bulbs with my voice.
And if I leave them on and turn them off
with my voice, then the switch I have to flip
it down and then back up to turn them on.
So with these new smart switches, they will actually allow
(16:00):
you to turn your lights on and off. You can
dim them and control them away from home with just
the voice assistant or an app. And what's really cool
about that is that, let's say you have someone come
to your house and turn off all the light switches
like they normally would do when they leave a room,
then you can't control your light bulbs from afar. So
let's say you wanna Let's say you're on vage. Okay,
(16:22):
let me give you a scenario. Let's say I don't know.
Let's say I'm in New York City. My wife is
going to meet me in New York. Right, I'm there
day early for work. Right, she comes out of the house,
she turns off all the lights, and then she meets
me in New York And I said, oh no, I
want to leave those lights on so I can make
it look like someone's at our house, right and have
these lights turn on and off throughout the day. Well,
(16:42):
if you have one of these smart switches, even if
she flipped the switch off, you'll still be able to
control those light bulbs from afar using the app or
your voice or whatever. And I think that's pretty useful.
So in fact, it's nice too because you don't even
have to wire your house for new switches. You just
use the switches that GE has and you can now
dim your lights and turn them on, turn them off
(17:04):
whatever you want, and it's fully controllable from the app
or the light switches. So I think that's a really
nice edition. So again c by GE, I think they're
doing some cool stuff and we're gonna see a lot
more of this in the future as well. Let's talk
about Apple. Oh my gosh, Apple, Apple Apple. This was
one of the biggest stories of the week because Apple
revised their earnings estimates and they basically said that they
(17:29):
were gonna make about up to nine billion dollars less
than they originally thought. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm
not crying for Apple here. They are still making a
ton of money. But what happened with Apple is that
sales of iPhones were not as good as they expected.
So Apple said they Now, you can read this a
million different ways, and I'm not gonna go into it
(17:49):
too too much because it's been said and said and
over said. So I'm just gonna give you my quick
thoughts on this. But the bottom line is Apple said, look,
number one, our phones came out later in the year
than usual, and so they shipped later, which means that
in the fourth quarter of twenty eighteen, people didn't have
as much opportunity to purchase their phones. Okay, that could
be true. Then they said that China was also not
(18:12):
as strong as they expected, so weak economics in China
contributed to this less revenue or they expect less revenue.
And then they also said that folks upgraded their batteries
because battery replacements. Remember that whole thing with the battery
where they were throttling the phones and they said, okay, fine,
(18:33):
we'll let you replace your battery for thirty bucks. Well
that was throughout the end of the year, so that
ended actually on December thirty first. Now batteries go up
to their normal price of I believe I put this
in my book one hundred and one handy tech tips
for the iPhone. I believe it was either fifty nine
or oh gosh, now you're gonna make me find this,
so let's see battery. I think it was fifty nine dollars. Nope,
(18:56):
let's see seventy nine dollars. Seventy nine So yeah, So
the batteries now are okay, between forty nine and seventy
nine dollars for replacement, depending on your iPhone model. Before
they were charging twenty nine dollars. So they said a
lot of people took advantage of that. I don't know
if I'm buying that. I mean, yes, I think that
people did take advantage of the battery replacement and it
(19:18):
did make their phone feel newer because it wasn't as slow,
But I don't think that is nine billion dollars worth.
The other thing they did say is that consumers are
adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, and I
do agree with that. I think that once we saw
these carriers stop charging two hundred dollars for a phone,
and now that the phone is charging is costing closer
to one thousand dollars, it does make people wait longer
(19:42):
to upgrade their phone. We're seeing a longer upgrade cycle
in general because phones are just getting better and you
don't need a new one all the time. Even I
see this with my wife, I mean her phone, except
for the camera. She had an iPhone. What does she have?
A seven? And I did notice up to the the
camera is a little bit better. But I think with
like a ten R or a ten S, the I
(20:04):
do think the camera actually got a lot better with
the ten S and the ten R. So if you
are thinking of upgrading for the camera and you have
an older device, it is worth it. But the reality
is you don't necessarily need that. If things are working
just fine for you, it's fine. So anyway, Apple was
saying that a lot of these a lot of these
things all came to fruition at the same time, and
(20:26):
that impacted their quarterly revenue, and we don't know exactly what,
you know. They haven't reported the full revenue just yet,
but when they do, we'll kind of see what happened here.
But I think the bottom line is people are upgrading
their phones less and the iPhone is not as magical
as it used to be. There are so many other
options for phones there are so many more people keeping
(20:48):
their phones for longer, and there's not that one feature
every year that people are upgrading for, and phones are
costing a lot more. It's taking people two or three
years to pay off a phone. So we're gonna follow
Apple very closely. But I think that the reality is
this company's still doing very well. I still think that
they have a lot of great products. But do they
(21:08):
have that magical product in the pipeline that is just
going to keep this company going at the speed that
it was going at for so many years with the
iPhone and the iPad? I don't know. So a question
from Purple Butterfly, Let's see, Oh Pamela, Okay, Pamela, Purple Butterfly, Hello, Rich,
is there's still a wish list on the iOS app store?
(21:30):
I know there used to be one, but now I
can't seem to find it. And the answer Pamela is no,
And I agree, what a bummer. Apparently Apple removed us
this in iOS eleven. And I'm not sure why I
loved having the wish list, because a lot of times
you hear about apps that you're not necessarily ready to download,
and you just want to keep them on like a
little list so that you can refer to them later.
(21:52):
And I used to keep a lot of things on
my wish list, but now it's gone, So I will
be honest, I have not found a good way to
keep these things in a I have lots of different
lists and lots of different places, and when I need
to find an app that I heard about, I can
never seem to find it myself. So I think maybe
the best thing to do is just share the app
to you know, you can use the share button inside
(22:14):
the app store to share it to whatever you like.
So if that's maybe a list in reminders, maybe it's
a list in ever note, Maybe it's your email and
then you tag it with something so you can find
it later, or maybe on your notes app, you can
create a special list of you know, a list called
wish list or a folder called wish list, however you
want to do it. But Pamela, I agree. I don't
(22:35):
know why they got rid of that, but I guess,
you know, Apple knows what people are using, so I
guess maybe just people weren't using it as much, or
they just figure people have their lists and their reminders
in so many different places that they just don't need
a dedicated wish list inside the app store. Speaking of apps,
it is a new year, so I know a lot
of you are looking for ways to kind of, you know,
(22:55):
change things up in twenty nineteen, get healthy again, get
more mindful. So so on KTLA, we did a couple
segments with some apps that we looked at. We researched
a bunch of them. I narrowed it down to six
that I kind of liked for getting fit and having
some more wellness in your life and mindfulness in your
life in twenty nineteen. So let me go over some
of these apps. Carrot Fit, this is kind of an
(23:17):
interesting one. This is a developer we talked to out
of Philadelphia, I believe, and he's got this whole bunch
of apps, this whole family of apps based around this
snarky character named Carrot, and this app rewards you for
getting stuff done and punishes you for failing to get
stuff done. So his name is Brian Mueller. He is
the founder of these Carrot apps, and he basically started
(23:39):
out with a to do list, found that people like
this kind of angry motivation or this snarky motivation, and
came up with a whole bunch of other apps. So
there's Carrot Fit, there's the to do List, and there's
a weather app and maybe some others. But the thing
about this Carrot app is it has a seven minute
workout which helps you out. So if you have seven
minutes you want to get a little workout in, check
(23:59):
out car Fit. Charity Miles is an app that is
kind of cool because you're basically using your movements to
help charities. So after you complete a workout, it will
tell you how much money you raised for a charity
that you choose, and they work with a whole bunch
of different charities and the way they do this is
various brands sponsor kind of the donations that they're gonna
(24:23):
give to the charity. So after your workout, it will
tell you how much you raised and also who handed
over that money on your behalf. Now, when it comes
to music, I'm a big fan of music for my
workouts and I'm always kind of trying to find the
best music to get me motivated. This is a really
cool app. It's called fit Radio and they have a
whole bunch of playlists specifically for working out. And these
(24:45):
playlists are programmed by DJs. So it's got like clublike
mixes that have certain beats, certain genres, all in an
effort to help you move and you know, complement the
exercise that you're doing. So if you're on a spinning by,
it'll help you with that, if you're running, it'll help
you with that, if you're you know, whatever you're doing
working out. I personally always kind of like music remixes
(25:10):
for my workouts. So if there's like a pop song
that I like, or any sort of song that I like,
I usually like the remix of it for working out
specifically because I think that it, you know, just speeds
up the beat a little bit more when you're working
out now when it comes to being more mindful. In
twenty nineteen, couple of apps to try. One of them
is called pocket Yoga, and this is a very simple app,
(25:30):
but it has two hundred illustrated poses or more than that,
along with detailed voice instructions, so you can do all
the different poses like bird of Paradise or sleeping swan
or what's the other one, don't there's so warrior pose.
I'm not a big yoga person. I would love to be,
but I need to stretch more, but I guess yoga
to help me with that. But this is an app
(25:51):
that's three dollars and it also runs on all the
different platforms, so you've got Android, you got iOS and
also Apple TV, so if you want to practice at home.
But Yoga, I know a lot of people love it
for when it comes to kind of mindfulness and just
a general well being, So pocket Yoga can maybe help
you with that. Headspace this is one of the more
(26:12):
popular mindfulness apps meditation. It's funny because I guess they
all have to do with meditation, but you don't necessarily
hear that word thrown around because it's very intimidating. And
I agree meditation sounds like something that takes a lot
of work and a lot of effort in something I
might not know how to do as a layperson. So
Headspace helps you practice mindfulness and it's one of the
(26:35):
more popular meditation apps out there. They've got all kinds
of different little programs you can do, including a daily
a daily program. Let's see. Do they even call it
a daily meditation on there? I'm not sure, but I've
had this on my phone and I will admit, oh,
they call it everyday Headspace, so will and intention is
today's but they have all kinds stuff. They've got courses,
basic courses. Then you can go into the library and
(26:57):
find all kinds of things for stress and anxiety, a sleep,
personal growth, growth, work and productivity, oh my gosh, physical health, students, kids.
They even have Headspace Kids, which I've wanted to try
with my kids. I've done a little bit, but I
feel like they can't sis still enough to listen to
these things. But if you want to just try out
Headspace without even downloading the app, you can actually just
(27:19):
ask Lexa or Google just say open Headspace and you'll
get a little sample of what you can expect. But
according to the person we interviewed at Headspace, they say
that you can reduce stress in just ten days of
using the product for just ten minutes a day, So
I say it's worth it. I'm going to try to
do it this year, so I'll let you know how
it feels. But I know our society is so always on.
(27:42):
It's really tough to just stop for a moment and
just be But I'm gonna try to be better about that.
But I find I get nervous even if I'm not
doing something for like five ten minutes, so I need
to get over that. And finally, one more app called Pacifica.
This is a little bit more focused on kind of
like serious stress and anxiety. So this app has daily
(28:05):
tools for stress, anxiety, and depression. It's based on cognitive
behavioral therapy, so it has like deep breathing exercises, positive
visualizations and more. But this is like a serious one.
So Pacifica if you're really serious about stress and anxiety
and you want to do something to help yourself with that.
It's got a built in health tracker to help you
track your daily mood so you can look for patterns.
(28:27):
So if you're, you know, feeling down at your job
every day and you're sitting there wondering like what's going on?
I really, you know, I have good days, I have
bad days. If you really want to track that and see, Okay,
well maybe I notice like every Friday I'm happy, but
the rest of the week I'm not so happy. So
maybe you can kind of see the patterns, and this
app can help you identify those patterns and help you
(28:48):
do something about them. I'm not a doctor, I'm not
an expert, but I think that these things could definitely
help you because it's not just about exercising or just
about you know, being with friends. You know you have
to look inside a little bit. In this day and
age of twenty four to seven, always on all right?
Another email here from Mark pawsin Hey Rich. As a
(29:10):
solo operator of a small business, I use Google Suite,
seventeen hats and a couple other third party providers. We
use iPhones, iPads and a MacBook. My question is what's
your recommendation for backing everything up? Also the best affordable
way to clean out all the crap on my aging MacBook,
that is without having to go file by file which
would take forever. Thanks for any help, Mark Powsin. Mark,
(29:33):
I think it's tough to tell exactly what you want
to back up. But if you're backing up a business,
so with something like a MacBook, well, I mean, if
you have all three Apple products, I think iCloud is
definitely the easiest to kind of just have an overall
backup of whatever you've got on there. But then I
think after that, when it comes to a MacBook, you're
definitely gonna have to plug in external drive and do
(29:53):
a time capsule backup and that will take a snapshot
of your entire system, and I would definitely do that
as well. So I think with iPhone and iPad you're
going to be covered with iCloud. With the MacBook, definitely
do a time capsule backup. You can also do something
like a you know, like a back blaze or something
like that crash Plan, Carbonite backblaze. You know, there's so
(30:15):
many of these little like all in one backup solutions online.
You can check out one of those and see which
one you think is going to work the best for you.
But you know you want to have your stuff backed
up all the time. And also Google Photos if you
just want to back up your pictures, you can use that.
But the thing about your aging MacBook, if you want
to do a nice clean out of that, I recommend
(30:37):
clean my Mac. That's the program that I use, and
I find it to be very helpful. It will ferret
out all those old files, all the big files, clean
up all the garbage, like you said, the crap, and
I find that I've relied on that for many years
now and it does a great job. I think the
best thing that you can do is if you have
an aging MacBook, you probably want to format that hard
(30:58):
drive and start all over at some point, So when
you're mentally ready to do that, make sure you have
a good backup, and then wipe the thing clean using utility,
which is built into the Mac. You have to come
up with a way to restore the operating system on there,
which you can create a little thumb drive and install
like the latest Mac operating system on there and just
(31:20):
literally do a full format of your entire system and
then reinstall the latest operating system from the thumb drive.
And when you do that, I think you're going to
find that your computer is going to work a whole
lot better. I actually do this as a rule pretty
much every year as the new systems come out. I
(31:40):
did not do it with high Sierra, but I did
do it with Mojave or Mahave, Mahave, Mojave. I don't
know however you say that I didn't grow up in California,
but I did do it with Mojave and it worked
very nicely. And it's just nice because as you use
your computer for a long time, a lot of stuff
builds up on there, and it's just nice to kind
(32:01):
of start fresh, get all that stuff off of there.
I'm always testing out a lot of apps, So the
fact that I can go through and start fresh and
install just the apps I need, it's nice. But the
problem is you do lose a lot of stuff in
the process, not files and stuff, but just configurations. You
got to download and start over with everything. So maybe
every other year is easier to do if you're running
(32:23):
a business. Some people are really hesitant to do that.
I personally love it with my phones and my computers
because I'm testing so much stuff. It's nice to have
that clean start. Let's end things today with the snack Bot.
So if you're a student at the University of the
Pacific in Stockton, California, there is a new visitor on campus.
(32:43):
It is called the Snackbot. This is an outdoor, self
driving robot that brings snacks and beverages right to students.
And I would love this. When I was at USC,
we did not have anything like this. You actually had
to go downstairs to pick up something. In fact, students
are probably so spoiled now because you have all these
(33:03):
delivery services that yeah, we had like delivery, but it
was like pizza, Chinese food. It wasn't like now now
it's like I think kids live on this grub Hub
and all these different delivery services where you can have
Postmates anything delivered to your dorm. And I didn't have
the money for that. I don't know how people would
afford that, but you know, I was a broke college kid,
so I was eating as many free meals as I
(33:26):
could find. And yeah, anyway, so this is let's see,
PepsiCo is putting these things on campus. So you might think,
oh gosh, what are they stocked with? Well, Hello Goodness
apparently is a portfolio of better stuff. Let's see Hello Goodness.
So this is a portfolio I guess better foods for
(33:49):
you from Pepsi. So what are those foods? Smart Food,
Baked Lays, sun Chips, Pure Leaf Tea, Bubbly Life water,
and Starbucks cold Brew. Oh that's funny. We actually have
this vending machine at KTLA. It's held Hello Goodness. I
didn't realize that was like a brand from PepsiCo. So
it's I guess the lighter stuff that they sell. That's
(34:10):
you know, less sugar, you know, better for you kind
of stuff. But those are the things that are inside
this little vending machine. And here's how it works. From
nine to five nine am to five pm use the
snackbot app on campus and it will deliver the items
to more than fifty designated areas across the one hundred
and seventy five acre campus. So let's say you have
(34:32):
a break between classes. You can have this little snack
bot show up at your class outside your class and
you can just I guess, open the top of it
and pull out your snack. So it's fun. I mean,
there's vending machines all around campus in general, but these
are cool because they have a you know, they're rolling around.
It's just cool looking. So they have a range of
(34:54):
twenty miles on a charge, they have cameras and headlights
that allow them to see and navigate in full dark
or even the rain, and they have all wheel capabilities
so they can handle curbs and steep hills. So if
you're at the University of the Pacific, you have to
have one of their email addresses, so presumably a student
or faculty. The app is available for iOS, but pretty cool.
(35:16):
Robbie Technologies is the company I guess that's making the robot,
So Robbie dot io if you want to learn more
about that. But I just think this is a who
the fact that these little robots are scurring around on campus.
I mean, how fun is that? Right? And I'm sure
a lot of students are probably just trying this out
just to see what it's all about. All right, couple
of housekeeping notes before I go. First Off, thanks to
(35:37):
everyone who purchased the book over the holidays. I know
it was very much sold out through Amazon one hundred
and one handy tech tips for the iPhone. The reviews
are coming in. If you bought the book, please review
it on Amazon obviously, if it's a positive review. If
it's a negative review, get in touch with me, because
there's a couple of them on there that I'm kind
of like, huh, it's kind of weird because you know,
(36:00):
a couple of these negative reviews are a little suspect.
They're very not very specific. So the reviews that people
are leaving are very the positive reviews are very specific.
The negative reviews are very vague, and so I'm kind
of like, Okay, did you really read it? Did you
really don't like this book because it didn't have the
one tip you needed? Whatever you're saying, So anyway, leave
(36:22):
those reviews. It really helps people when they're finding this book.
Thank you so much to everyone who purchased it. I
really do appreciate it, and you guys for the most part.
From what I'm seeing from the reviews and also the
emails and tweets, you guys are loving it, so I'm
glad I was able to do that for you guys.
I do have signed copies available as well, so if
you want to sign copy from me, you can go
to my website rich on tech dot Tv. There's a
(36:44):
banner at the top that says order a signed copy
and I will get that out to you as well.
If you want to hear me on another podcast, I'm
in a podcast called The News Director's Office. This is
a podcast that they produce at KTLA with my boss Jason.
He is the news director here, which is basically the
person in charge of the news at KTLA. He interviews
(37:06):
interesting folks in the news business. So this is kind
of more behind the scenes. So if you're interested in
me as a human, how I got here, how my
career started, and all that good stuff, then definitely check
out the podcast. It's called The News Director's Office News
Director's Office, and you can find it on Apple Podcasts.
(37:29):
The episode that I was in was on January third,
So again, if you want to hear more about me,
learn more about me, how I got here, what it's
like to cover technology for a living. That's all in
the podcast, and it's fun. It's a fun little listen,
and you know, if you're curious about that stuff and
me as a person a little bit more behind the
scenes inside baseball, definitely check that one out. That's going
(37:53):
to do it for this episode of the show. If
you want notes to everything I talked about, check out
the show notes or go to my website rich on Tech. Again,
this is the year of Instagram for me, So if
you're not following me on Instagram, I am at rich
on Tech. Thanks so much for all of your emails
and tweets and messages. Keep them coming and let me
(38:13):
know what you like. I'm also doing a lot more
little videos on Instagram, kind of like how to's, behind
the scenes, all that good stuff. So let me know
what you think of those, and please share them with
your friends. Thanks so much for listening. I'm rich damiro
This is rich on Tech. I'll talk to you real soon.
What's up with Apple? A CS twenty nineteen preview? Where's
the wish list? In iOS? Twelve apps to help you
stay fit and be more mindful in twenty nineteen, plus snackbots.
What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on
Tech and welcome to the first episode of twenty nineteen.
(00:25):
I had a very good vacation for the most part.
I'll get into that in a moment, but very relaxing.
Didn't have to wake up at any specific time, had
some nice time off, had my mom in town from
New Jersey for the holidays, so that was cool, and
we got to see a couple of shows. I mean,
it was really nice. And we're gonna talk some tech.
Let's get started. I mean, there's not too much going on.
(00:47):
This is the week between the New Year and CS
or the holidays in CS, so not a whole lot happens,
but we will go through some of the things that
I thought were interesting. This is the show where I
kind of talk about this that I think you should
know about apps, gadgets, just tech news in general, and
I'll take some time to kind of discuss those things.
(01:08):
I do want to address one thing that did happen
over the holidays. That was an absolute tragedy. And if
you're in the LA area listening to this, you heard
about it. But my colleague Chris Burrows at KTLA passed
away truly truly tragic circumstances. And Chris and I had
(01:29):
worked together for many years here in Los Angeles. We
actually worked together before he came to LA. He was
on a TV show that I did. I do segments
for various TV stations, so he worked at the one
in New York City, so we actually kind of knew
each other before he even came here. And just very
tragic circumstances of his passing. And I just want to
say that I'm still in shock over what happened. I'm angry.
(01:53):
Here's a guy that was at the height or just
beginning a very successful career, really had so many things
going for him, and to see what happened was just
absolutely unbelievable to me. I mean, I woke up to
text messages from friends and I just could not believe it.
And I still don't believe it. It's been over a week,
(02:14):
and I just everything I think about is just all
the interactions we had over the years and the conversations
we had, and I keep searching for clues or anything
that could have led me to maybe help him, and
I obviously that probably would not happen. But I do
want to say my takeaway, and I've already kind of
(02:34):
shared my thoughts on my Facebook page, my Instagram and Twitter.
But my takeaway is just be the friend now that
you want to be to people, and don't wait, because
life is very short and things like this just kind
of reiterate that. So Chris Burrows, thinking of you, man,
and you were a very big inspiration to me here
(02:57):
because you were so successful and the way that you
had such an ease and air about yourself on air
is something that not many journalists can do. So am
thinking of you. All right, let's talk about CS twenty nineteen.
This is happening next week, and man, this is I've
been covering CS now for probably a decade, if not more.
(03:20):
I can't remember it. It might be about a decade now,
so maybe a little bit more, maybe eleven years, but
I don't want to count because it is the craziest
time of my year. Every year, the whole tech industry
descends upon Las Vegas. There's a million tech companies. This
show just keeps getting bigger and bigger because there's so
(03:40):
many accessory makers and smart home and just about everything
you can think of. It's all there in one place,
And how does a journalist like myself even attempt to
cover something like this? Now, in recent years, you set
a lot of stuff up, You get a lot of
advanced meetings with the Samsungs of the world, and you know,
whatever big companies that you have relationships with, you can
(04:02):
get in and kind of see what they're doing. But
the reality is, you never really know what's going to
be big at CS until you actually get there on
the ground and you start covering stuff and you start
experiencing things. Because all these pitches that we get in
our email it's tough to tell. I mean, they all
sound great, but are they really that good? So what
are we going to see at this year CS? I
(04:23):
think the big theme this year is really going to
be five G. And five G is the successor to
four G, which is basically faster internet on our phones
but also for our homes, our cars, basically everything. And
so five G is going to be a big kind
of catch all phrase that we're going to see all
over the place. Five G is going to happen in
(04:43):
twenty nineteen, but I don't think in a huge meaningful
way it will be there. But I think we're still
on a longer runway when it comes to five G.
So that's one thing. Health technology that'll be another one.
Robots there, of course, everywhere, all over the floor. So
I always try to find cool stuff about robots and
fun little videos to post digital assistance. So this is
(05:06):
a big one because Alexa and Google are kind of
fighting it out for the market share. Personally, I'm on
the Google side. I think Alexa has done some really
great things and Amazon has done a great job of
getting her everywhere. But the thing is I'm seeing is
kind of like assistant fatigue. I mean, every device, I'm
(05:26):
getting pitches from every single company about these assistants being
built into the devices. And a couple of years ago
it was all about the Internet getting built into these devices,
so we saw that happen. Now we see the assistants,
and then of course next year, who knows what'll be,
but the assistance that will be big because we'll see
kind of like where they're building them in. I didn't
think they can put them in anything else, but who knows,
(05:48):
machine learning, artificial intelligence, and of course driverless cars. I'm
getting some driverless car kind of rides at CES as
well this year, So those are the kind of the
big trends that I'll be on the lookout for. I
like to find the little gadgets that just kind of
help you out in everyday life that are really you know,
(06:10):
not like the thousand dollars things or the big picture things,
but a lot of the little things, they're just cool
gadgets that every company is out there showing off their stuff.
I like to discover the little things that I'll show
throughout the year, and a lot of things you get
a preview of, so you see stuff before it actually
is ready for the public. So we'll see stuff that
(06:31):
might come out, you know, in the second half of
the year, the third half, the third of the year,
third half, I don't think there's a third half of
the year. I think we'll just leave it at second half.
But my advice for CS is stay as healthy as possible.
I'm probably gonna be big on Instagram this year, so
if you're not following me there, find me on Instagram.
I'm at rich on Tech and I will show you
(06:53):
all the good stuff when it comes to CS twenty
nineteen in Las Vegas. And if you see me there,
say hi for sure. Even if I look busy, Believe me,
I'm always willing to say hi to folks. Let's talk
about a new app available to the city of Los
Angeles and residents here. It's called Shake alert LA. And
this is getting a lot of publicity because it's a
mobile app that sends alerts to users in La County
(07:16):
if there's an earthquake of magnitude five or more. And
this is not an earthquake alert app. This is supposed
to give you a little bit of a heads up
that you may soon feel shaking. So does it work.
I don't know. I've downloaded it to my phone. It
seems like it's pretty straightforward. The thing that a lot
(07:37):
of people are a little bit concerned about are the
privacy concerns, and I agree, because when you download this app,
you have to agree to give up your location at
all times. And I'm not sure why that is. I
guess so they can see the proximity of the earthquake
to you so they can give you a better alert,
or I guess so they can use your location services
(07:59):
to only deliver to you if you're in the LA area.
But here's the deal with these apps. And I did
a story on another app, which is I'm trying to
get some clarity on it. But there's another app, let's
see quake Alert. And this is an app that was
also done in partnership with the US Geological Survey. Let's see,
(08:23):
let's see quake Alert. I'm I'm on the beta program.
And so when I was talking to the folks at
Quake Alert, they were saying that it's really tough to
do an app like this because the notifications on Android
and iOS are not a perfect system. So you can
send a notification to a phone, but there is no
guarantee from the cellular providers or iOS or Android that
(08:46):
that alert will be received, or that notification will be
received in a timely manner. Now, I always wondered about
that because it seems like when you do these things
where you get a text message confirmation or a push
alert from like Facebook, they come through pretty much immediately.
But I think the problem is when you're talking about
a lot of people, like half a million people or
(09:08):
a million people, you can't really guarantee that all those
people are going to get that notification at the same time.
But they say it's an official pilot, So again, what
does pilot mean. It means that it may not work.
This is not a guarantee that you're going to get
a one minute alert of an earthquake. You know, you're
not guaranteed anything. But this is definitely probably going to help.
(09:30):
I think once we have the first quake that triggers
an alert on this app, we'll have a lot more
data about the effectiveness of this app. So if you
want to download it, it's available for Android and iOS.
It is called shake alert La Shake Alert La. And again,
this is a pilot program, so it's not going to
be perfect. And if you're worried about your privacy and
(09:51):
we're you know, the city and all these companies or
whoever is creating this app having access to your location
at all times, you may want to skip it because
you do have to enable that for it to work.
All right, let's go to the emails now. Ruth says, hey, Rich,
happy New Year along with your family. My question to
you is what internet company do you recommend? I have
(10:12):
Spectrum four hundred megabits per second and I'm paying eighty dollars.
I've been having problems with the Wi Fi. They've come
out to quote unquote fix it, but continues with the buffering. Therefore,
my ring isn't at its best. Help. Thank you, Ruth. Okay, Ruth.
I think the problem is not your internet, because four
hundred megabits per second is actually really fast. So at
(10:32):
my house, I only have one hundred. I wish I
had four hundred, But it's not your internet. I don't
think that there's a problem with the actual speed that's
coming in. And you can confirm this by hooking your
computer up with an Ethernet cable to the modem that
Spectrum provides and doing a quick speed test. And you
can do a speed test by just going to fast
dot com and seeing what that speed comes up as.
(10:55):
I don't think that's going to be your problem. I
think your problem is actually that your WiFi does not
your ring doorbell. And this is very common because the
routers that Spectrum and other companies provide are not necessarily
the best at blanket blanketing your entire home with internet.
Yeah it works around the device, and yeah it'll probably
work upstairs downstairs, but if you really look at these things,
(11:17):
half the time, you're getting really just half the speed
and maybe not in all portions of your home. So
Ruth I would recommend, if you really want to get
the value out of your eighty dollars a month, you
got to upgrade to one of these mesh networking systems
like ero ee Ro, Google Wi Fi or Netgear or
b I think those will definitely fix the issue and
(11:38):
it will make the Wi Fi reach the ring outside
your front door. I think that's going to really solve
all your problems. And here's a little quick tip for
you if you don't want to change the log in.
You know, when you change out your Wi Fi system,
you're gonna have to go around to all your different
gadgets and reconnect them with the new network credentials. The
(11:59):
network the Wi Fi I know network name and also
the password. So if you don't want to do that,
you can just name your new Wi Fi network the
same exact name as your old one and set the
password the same exact as your old network password. Once
you make the network name and also the password the same,
your devices should seamlessly find that new network on your
(12:20):
new equipment and log in as usual, it should be
pretty seamless. I did that at my place. I know
it's not the most secure thing to do because I
always recommend changing passwords when you upgrade stuff. But if
you don't want to go through the hassle of changing
all your smart home devices, you can definitely do that
and everything will follow in line. So that's a little
tip for you there. Now. I mentioned CS twenty nineteen
(12:42):
is happening very soon, but already companies are coming out
with some of their announcements, and this one I really
like because c Byge is a brand that was not
around for very long. But I was very very impressed
with the light bulbs that they sent me, and these
were the first generation of their life light bulbs. They
were basically just your standard light bulbs that kind of
(13:05):
you can use Google Home to adjust right. But the
secret of these light bulbs is that they do not
need a hub, and the Google Home app finds them instantly.
So if you haven't set up any of these smart
home devices like smart light bulbs, what happens is you
either need some sort of hub like Phillips Hugh. You
have a hub that you have to connect to your network.
(13:25):
The light bulbs talk to that hub, and then the
Google Home app or the Google Assistant will interface with
the I know it's kind of complicated, but they'll interface
on the back end with the hub and talk to
those light bulbs kind of through a third party. Right now,
with Ge, the way they do it is their bulbs
actually interface with Google Assistant directly. So here's how it worked.
(13:48):
I put one of the light bulbs in a socket
at my home, I opened up the Google Home app
on my phone and boom, right on the Google Home
app is said, Hey, we found a light bulb. Do
you want to set this thing up? And I was
so impressed because generally that's not the way it works.
You have to go to the h app, set up
the light bulb there, and then link the h app
to your Google Assistant and then it can then control
(14:10):
those devices. So this is kind of cutting out the middleman.
And now c BYGE has new light bulbs. These are
full color LEDs, and these are gonna come out. Now
they're not available right away, but they will come out
this quarter, so first quarter of twenty nineteen. So full
color LEDs. They're gonna have millions of color options, plus
(14:32):
tunable whites in sixty wah equivalent A nineteen a BR
thirty for recessed cans, and a custom sized light strip.
And these are all controllable with your voice or through
the app, or with custom routines and schedules, so that's
really cool. And the price point on these bulbs they
haven't said yet, but the original bulbs that they sent
(14:53):
me were a very good price. So I would say
definitely look into these things if you want something that's
super simple, especially if setting something up for someone else
in your family. Definitely check out c by ge because
I was very impressed. I love that they are seamlessly
integrated with Google Assistant. And again this is all working
through Bluetooth, so the bulbs have Bluetooth built into them,
(15:16):
so that your phone can recognize a Bluetooth bulb nearby
and then connect it to Google Assistant. Some other devices
that they're gonna have is a smart switch. So this
is really cool too, because a lot of times if
you're using these bulbs with the switches in, like for instance,
in my office at home, I have a bunch of
smart bulbs, but it's kind of a pain because sometimes
(15:38):
I turn off the light switch in the office, and
sometimes I leave it on and turn off the bulbs
with my voice. So when I turn off the light switch,
I can't then turn on the bulbs with my voice.
And if I leave them on and turn them off
with my voice, then the switch I have to flip
it down and then back up to turn them on.
So with these new smart switches, they will actually allow
(16:00):
you to turn your lights on and off. You can
dim them and control them away from home with just
the voice assistant or an app. And what's really cool
about that is that, let's say you have someone come
to your house and turn off all the light switches
like they normally would do when they leave a room,
then you can't control your light bulbs from afar. So
let's say you wanna Let's say you're on vage. Okay,
(16:22):
let me give you a scenario. Let's say I don't know.
Let's say I'm in New York City. My wife is
going to meet me in New York. Right, I'm there
day early for work. Right, she comes out of the house,
she turns off all the lights, and then she meets
me in New York And I said, oh no, I
want to leave those lights on so I can make
it look like someone's at our house, right and have
these lights turn on and off throughout the day. Well,
(16:42):
if you have one of these smart switches, even if
she flipped the switch off, you'll still be able to
control those light bulbs from afar using the app or
your voice or whatever. And I think that's pretty useful.
So in fact, it's nice too because you don't even
have to wire your house for new switches. You just
use the switches that GE has and you can now
dim your lights and turn them on, turn them off
(17:04):
whatever you want, and it's fully controllable from the app
or the light switches. So I think that's a really
nice edition. So again c by GE, I think they're
doing some cool stuff and we're gonna see a lot
more of this in the future as well. Let's talk
about Apple. Oh my gosh, Apple, Apple Apple. This was
one of the biggest stories of the week because Apple
revised their earnings estimates and they basically said that they
(17:29):
were gonna make about up to nine billion dollars less
than they originally thought. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm
not crying for Apple here. They are still making a
ton of money. But what happened with Apple is that
sales of iPhones were not as good as they expected.
So Apple said they Now, you can read this a
million different ways, and I'm not gonna go into it
(17:49):
too too much because it's been said and said and
over said. So I'm just gonna give you my quick
thoughts on this. But the bottom line is Apple said, look,
number one, our phones came out later in the year
than usual, and so they shipped later, which means that
in the fourth quarter of twenty eighteen, people didn't have
as much opportunity to purchase their phones. Okay, that could
be true. Then they said that China was also not
(18:12):
as strong as they expected, so weak economics in China
contributed to this less revenue or they expect less revenue.
And then they also said that folks upgraded their batteries
because battery replacements. Remember that whole thing with the battery
where they were throttling the phones and they said, okay, fine,
(18:33):
we'll let you replace your battery for thirty bucks. Well
that was throughout the end of the year, so that
ended actually on December thirty first. Now batteries go up
to their normal price of I believe I put this
in my book one hundred and one handy tech tips
for the iPhone. I believe it was either fifty nine
or oh gosh, now you're gonna make me find this,
so let's see battery. I think it was fifty nine dollars. Nope,
(18:56):
let's see seventy nine dollars. Seventy nine So yeah, So
the batteries now are okay, between forty nine and seventy
nine dollars for replacement, depending on your iPhone model. Before
they were charging twenty nine dollars. So they said a
lot of people took advantage of that. I don't know
if I'm buying that. I mean, yes, I think that
people did take advantage of the battery replacement and it
(19:18):
did make their phone feel newer because it wasn't as slow,
But I don't think that is nine billion dollars worth.
The other thing they did say is that consumers are
adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, and I
do agree with that. I think that once we saw
these carriers stop charging two hundred dollars for a phone,
and now that the phone is charging is costing closer
to one thousand dollars, it does make people wait longer
(19:42):
to upgrade their phone. We're seeing a longer upgrade cycle
in general because phones are just getting better and you
don't need a new one all the time. Even I
see this with my wife, I mean her phone, except
for the camera. She had an iPhone. What does she have?
A seven? And I did notice up to the the
camera is a little bit better. But I think with
like a ten R or a ten S, the I
(20:04):
do think the camera actually got a lot better with
the ten S and the ten R. So if you
are thinking of upgrading for the camera and you have
an older device, it is worth it. But the reality
is you don't necessarily need that. If things are working
just fine for you, it's fine. So anyway, Apple was
saying that a lot of these a lot of these
things all came to fruition at the same time, and
(20:26):
that impacted their quarterly revenue, and we don't know exactly what,
you know. They haven't reported the full revenue just yet,
but when they do, we'll kind of see what happened here.
But I think the bottom line is people are upgrading
their phones less and the iPhone is not as magical
as it used to be. There are so many other
options for phones there are so many more people keeping
(20:48):
their phones for longer, and there's not that one feature
every year that people are upgrading for, and phones are
costing a lot more. It's taking people two or three
years to pay off a phone. So we're gonna follow
Apple very closely. But I think that the reality is
this company's still doing very well. I still think that
they have a lot of great products. But do they
(21:08):
have that magical product in the pipeline that is just
going to keep this company going at the speed that
it was going at for so many years with the
iPhone and the iPad? I don't know. So a question
from Purple Butterfly, Let's see, Oh Pamela, Okay, Pamela, Purple Butterfly, Hello, Rich,
is there's still a wish list on the iOS app store?
(21:30):
I know there used to be one, but now I
can't seem to find it. And the answer Pamela is no,
And I agree, what a bummer. Apparently Apple removed us
this in iOS eleven. And I'm not sure why I
loved having the wish list, because a lot of times
you hear about apps that you're not necessarily ready to download,
and you just want to keep them on like a
little list so that you can refer to them later.
(21:52):
And I used to keep a lot of things on
my wish list, but now it's gone, So I will
be honest, I have not found a good way to
keep these things in a I have lots of different
lists and lots of different places, and when I need
to find an app that I heard about, I can
never seem to find it myself. So I think maybe
the best thing to do is just share the app
to you know, you can use the share button inside
(22:14):
the app store to share it to whatever you like.
So if that's maybe a list in reminders, maybe it's
a list in ever note, Maybe it's your email and
then you tag it with something so you can find
it later, or maybe on your notes app, you can
create a special list of you know, a list called
wish list or a folder called wish list, however you
want to do it. But Pamela, I agree. I don't
(22:35):
know why they got rid of that, but I guess,
you know, Apple knows what people are using, so I
guess maybe just people weren't using it as much, or
they just figure people have their lists and their reminders
in so many different places that they just don't need
a dedicated wish list inside the app store. Speaking of apps,
it is a new year, so I know a lot
of you are looking for ways to kind of, you know,
(22:55):
change things up in twenty nineteen, get healthy again, get
more mindful. So so on KTLA, we did a couple
segments with some apps that we looked at. We researched
a bunch of them. I narrowed it down to six
that I kind of liked for getting fit and having
some more wellness in your life and mindfulness in your
life in twenty nineteen. So let me go over some
of these apps. Carrot Fit, this is kind of an
(23:17):
interesting one. This is a developer we talked to out
of Philadelphia, I believe, and he's got this whole bunch
of apps, this whole family of apps based around this
snarky character named Carrot, and this app rewards you for
getting stuff done and punishes you for failing to get
stuff done. So his name is Brian Mueller. He is
the founder of these Carrot apps, and he basically started
(23:39):
out with a to do list, found that people like
this kind of angry motivation or this snarky motivation, and
came up with a whole bunch of other apps. So
there's Carrot Fit, there's the to do List, and there's
a weather app and maybe some others. But the thing
about this Carrot app is it has a seven minute
workout which helps you out. So if you have seven
minutes you want to get a little workout in, check
(23:59):
out car Fit. Charity Miles is an app that is
kind of cool because you're basically using your movements to
help charities. So after you complete a workout, it will
tell you how much money you raised for a charity
that you choose, and they work with a whole bunch
of different charities and the way they do this is
various brands sponsor kind of the donations that they're gonna
(24:23):
give to the charity. So after your workout, it will
tell you how much you raised and also who handed
over that money on your behalf. Now, when it comes
to music, I'm a big fan of music for my
workouts and I'm always kind of trying to find the
best music to get me motivated. This is a really
cool app. It's called fit Radio and they have a
whole bunch of playlists specifically for working out. And these
(24:45):
playlists are programmed by DJs. So it's got like clublike
mixes that have certain beats, certain genres, all in an
effort to help you move and you know, complement the
exercise that you're doing. So if you're on a spinning by,
it'll help you with that, if you're running, it'll help
you with that, if you're you know, whatever you're doing
working out. I personally always kind of like music remixes
(25:10):
for my workouts. So if there's like a pop song
that I like, or any sort of song that I like,
I usually like the remix of it for working out
specifically because I think that it, you know, just speeds
up the beat a little bit more when you're working
out now when it comes to being more mindful. In
twenty nineteen, couple of apps to try. One of them
is called pocket Yoga, and this is a very simple app,
(25:30):
but it has two hundred illustrated poses or more than that,
along with detailed voice instructions, so you can do all
the different poses like bird of Paradise or sleeping swan
or what's the other one, don't there's so warrior pose.
I'm not a big yoga person. I would love to be,
but I need to stretch more, but I guess yoga
to help me with that. But this is an app
(25:51):
that's three dollars and it also runs on all the
different platforms, so you've got Android, you got iOS and
also Apple TV, so if you want to practice at home.
But Yoga, I know a lot of people love it
for when it comes to kind of mindfulness and just
a general well being, So pocket Yoga can maybe help
you with that. Headspace this is one of the more
(26:12):
popular mindfulness apps meditation. It's funny because I guess they
all have to do with meditation, but you don't necessarily
hear that word thrown around because it's very intimidating. And
I agree meditation sounds like something that takes a lot
of work and a lot of effort in something I
might not know how to do as a layperson. So
Headspace helps you practice mindfulness and it's one of the
(26:35):
more popular meditation apps out there. They've got all kinds
of different little programs you can do, including a daily
a daily program. Let's see. Do they even call it
a daily meditation on there? I'm not sure, but I've
had this on my phone and I will admit, oh,
they call it everyday Headspace, so will and intention is
today's but they have all kinds stuff. They've got courses,
basic courses. Then you can go into the library and
(26:57):
find all kinds of things for stress and anxiety, a sleep,
personal growth, growth, work and productivity, oh my gosh, physical health, students, kids.
They even have Headspace Kids, which I've wanted to try
with my kids. I've done a little bit, but I
feel like they can't sis still enough to listen to
these things. But if you want to just try out
Headspace without even downloading the app, you can actually just
(27:19):
ask Lexa or Google just say open Headspace and you'll
get a little sample of what you can expect. But
according to the person we interviewed at Headspace, they say
that you can reduce stress in just ten days of
using the product for just ten minutes a day, So
I say it's worth it. I'm going to try to
do it this year, so I'll let you know how
it feels. But I know our society is so always on.
(27:42):
It's really tough to just stop for a moment and
just be But I'm gonna try to be better about that.
But I find I get nervous even if I'm not
doing something for like five ten minutes, so I need
to get over that. And finally, one more app called Pacifica.
This is a little bit more focused on kind of
like serious stress and anxiety. So this app has daily
(28:05):
tools for stress, anxiety, and depression. It's based on cognitive
behavioral therapy, so it has like deep breathing exercises, positive
visualizations and more. But this is like a serious one.
So Pacifica if you're really serious about stress and anxiety
and you want to do something to help yourself with that.
It's got a built in health tracker to help you
track your daily mood so you can look for patterns.
(28:27):
So if you're, you know, feeling down at your job
every day and you're sitting there wondering like what's going on?
I really, you know, I have good days, I have
bad days. If you really want to track that and see, Okay,
well maybe I notice like every Friday I'm happy, but
the rest of the week I'm not so happy. So
maybe you can kind of see the patterns, and this
app can help you identify those patterns and help you
(28:48):
do something about them. I'm not a doctor, I'm not
an expert, but I think that these things could definitely
help you because it's not just about exercising or just
about you know, being with friends. You know you have
to look inside a little bit. In this day and
age of twenty four to seven, always on all right?
Another email here from Mark pawsin Hey Rich. As a
(29:10):
solo operator of a small business, I use Google Suite,
seventeen hats and a couple other third party providers. We
use iPhones, iPads and a MacBook. My question is what's
your recommendation for backing everything up? Also the best affordable
way to clean out all the crap on my aging MacBook,
that is without having to go file by file which
would take forever. Thanks for any help, Mark Powsin. Mark,
(29:33):
I think it's tough to tell exactly what you want
to back up. But if you're backing up a business,
so with something like a MacBook, well, I mean, if
you have all three Apple products, I think iCloud is
definitely the easiest to kind of just have an overall
backup of whatever you've got on there. But then I
think after that, when it comes to a MacBook, you're
definitely gonna have to plug in external drive and do
(29:53):
a time capsule backup and that will take a snapshot
of your entire system, and I would definitely do that
as well. So I think with iPhone and iPad you're
going to be covered with iCloud. With the MacBook, definitely
do a time capsule backup. You can also do something
like a you know, like a back blaze or something
like that crash Plan, Carbonite backblaze. You know, there's so
(30:15):
many of these little like all in one backup solutions online.
You can check out one of those and see which
one you think is going to work the best for you.
But you know you want to have your stuff backed
up all the time. And also Google Photos if you
just want to back up your pictures, you can use that.
But the thing about your aging MacBook, if you want
to do a nice clean out of that, I recommend
(30:37):
clean my Mac. That's the program that I use, and
I find it to be very helpful. It will ferret
out all those old files, all the big files, clean
up all the garbage, like you said, the crap, and
I find that I've relied on that for many years
now and it does a great job. I think the
best thing that you can do is if you have
an aging MacBook, you probably want to format that hard
(30:58):
drive and start all over at some point, So when
you're mentally ready to do that, make sure you have
a good backup, and then wipe the thing clean using utility,
which is built into the Mac. You have to come
up with a way to restore the operating system on there,
which you can create a little thumb drive and install
like the latest Mac operating system on there and just
(31:20):
literally do a full format of your entire system and
then reinstall the latest operating system from the thumb drive.
And when you do that, I think you're going to
find that your computer is going to work a whole
lot better. I actually do this as a rule pretty
much every year as the new systems come out. I
(31:40):
did not do it with high Sierra, but I did
do it with Mojave or Mahave, Mahave, Mojave. I don't
know however you say that I didn't grow up in California,
but I did do it with Mojave and it worked
very nicely. And it's just nice because as you use
your computer for a long time, a lot of stuff
builds up on there, and it's just nice to kind
(32:01):
of start fresh, get all that stuff off of there.
I'm always testing out a lot of apps, So the
fact that I can go through and start fresh and
install just the apps I need, it's nice. But the
problem is you do lose a lot of stuff in
the process, not files and stuff, but just configurations. You
got to download and start over with everything. So maybe
every other year is easier to do if you're running
(32:23):
a business. Some people are really hesitant to do that.
I personally love it with my phones and my computers
because I'm testing so much stuff. It's nice to have
that clean start. Let's end things today with the snack Bot.
So if you're a student at the University of the
Pacific in Stockton, California, there is a new visitor on campus.
(32:43):
It is called the Snackbot. This is an outdoor, self
driving robot that brings snacks and beverages right to students.
And I would love this. When I was at USC,
we did not have anything like this. You actually had
to go downstairs to pick up something. In fact, students
are probably so spoiled now because you have all these
(33:03):
delivery services that yeah, we had like delivery, but it
was like pizza, Chinese food. It wasn't like now now
it's like I think kids live on this grub Hub
and all these different delivery services where you can have
Postmates anything delivered to your dorm. And I didn't have
the money for that. I don't know how people would
afford that, but you know, I was a broke college kid,
so I was eating as many free meals as I
(33:26):
could find. And yeah, anyway, so this is let's see,
PepsiCo is putting these things on campus. So you might think,
oh gosh, what are they stocked with? Well, Hello Goodness
apparently is a portfolio of better stuff. Let's see Hello Goodness.
So this is a portfolio I guess better foods for
(33:49):
you from Pepsi. So what are those foods? Smart Food,
Baked Lays, sun Chips, Pure Leaf Tea, Bubbly Life water,
and Starbucks cold Brew. Oh that's funny. We actually have
this vending machine at KTLA. It's held Hello Goodness. I
didn't realize that was like a brand from PepsiCo. So
it's I guess the lighter stuff that they sell. That's
(34:10):
you know, less sugar, you know, better for you kind
of stuff. But those are the things that are inside
this little vending machine. And here's how it works. From
nine to five nine am to five pm use the
snackbot app on campus and it will deliver the items
to more than fifty designated areas across the one hundred
and seventy five acre campus. So let's say you have
(34:32):
a break between classes. You can have this little snack
bot show up at your class outside your class and
you can just I guess, open the top of it
and pull out your snack. So it's fun. I mean,
there's vending machines all around campus in general, but these
are cool because they have a you know, they're rolling around.
It's just cool looking. So they have a range of
(34:54):
twenty miles on a charge, they have cameras and headlights
that allow them to see and navigate in full dark
or even the rain, and they have all wheel capabilities
so they can handle curbs and steep hills. So if
you're at the University of the Pacific, you have to
have one of their email addresses, so presumably a student
or faculty. The app is available for iOS, but pretty cool.
(35:16):
Robbie Technologies is the company I guess that's making the robot,
So Robbie dot io if you want to learn more
about that. But I just think this is a who
the fact that these little robots are scurring around on campus.
I mean, how fun is that? Right? And I'm sure
a lot of students are probably just trying this out
just to see what it's all about. All right, couple
of housekeeping notes before I go. First Off, thanks to
(35:37):
everyone who purchased the book over the holidays. I know
it was very much sold out through Amazon one hundred
and one handy tech tips for the iPhone. The reviews
are coming in. If you bought the book, please review
it on Amazon obviously, if it's a positive review. If
it's a negative review, get in touch with me, because
there's a couple of them on there that I'm kind
of like, huh, it's kind of weird because you know,
(36:00):
a couple of these negative reviews are a little suspect.
They're very not very specific. So the reviews that people
are leaving are very the positive reviews are very specific.
The negative reviews are very vague, and so I'm kind
of like, Okay, did you really read it? Did you
really don't like this book because it didn't have the
one tip you needed? Whatever you're saying, So anyway, leave
(36:22):
those reviews. It really helps people when they're finding this book.
Thank you so much to everyone who purchased it. I
really do appreciate it, and you guys for the most part.
From what I'm seeing from the reviews and also the
emails and tweets, you guys are loving it, so I'm
glad I was able to do that for you guys.
I do have signed copies available as well, so if
you want to sign copy from me, you can go
to my website rich on tech dot Tv. There's a
(36:44):
banner at the top that says order a signed copy
and I will get that out to you as well.
If you want to hear me on another podcast, I'm
in a podcast called The News Director's Office. This is
a podcast that they produce at KTLA with my boss Jason.
He is the news director here, which is basically the
person in charge of the news at KTLA. He interviews
(37:06):
interesting folks in the news business. So this is kind
of more behind the scenes. So if you're interested in
me as a human, how I got here, how my
career started, and all that good stuff, then definitely check
out the podcast. It's called The News Director's Office News
Director's Office, and you can find it on Apple Podcasts.
(37:29):
The episode that I was in was on January third,
So again, if you want to hear more about me,
learn more about me, how I got here, what it's
like to cover technology for a living. That's all in
the podcast, and it's fun. It's a fun little listen,
and you know, if you're curious about that stuff and
me as a person a little bit more behind the
scenes inside baseball, definitely check that one out. That's going
(37:53):
to do it for this episode of the show. If
you want notes to everything I talked about, check out
the show notes or go to my website rich on Tech. Again,
this is the year of Instagram for me, So if
you're not following me on Instagram, I am at rich
on Tech. Thanks so much for all of your emails
and tweets and messages. Keep them coming and let me
(38:13):
know what you like. I'm also doing a lot more
little videos on Instagram, kind of like how to's, behind
the scenes, all that good stuff. So let me know
what you think of those, and please share them with
your friends. Thanks so much for listening. I'm rich damiro
This is rich on Tech. I'll talk to you real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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