iOS 26 features, smarter spam call blocking & cool new camera app (125, June 14, 2025)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Apple unveils the newest features for iPhone and a whole
new look called liquid Glass. Google brings one of my
favorite apps back from the dead, and Anchor recalls one
of its most popular products. I'll have details on what
to look for, plus your tech questions answered. What's going

(00:21):
on on rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech.
This is the show where I talk about the tech
stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
the tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open
up those phone lines at triple eight rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(00:45):
zero one eight eight eight rich one oh one. Give
me a call if you have a question about technology.
Email is also open. Just go to richon Tech dot
tv and hit contact. We've got a couple of good
guests this week. Stephanie Whitesman joins me to talk about
Speech a Fly. If you're not familiar, this is the

(01:06):
popular text to speech app that helps people listen to.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
The information they want to learn or absorb.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
I showed my wife that app last night and she
was like, Oh, that's really cool. John Mills and Dave Merritt.
You'll probably remember the name of this app, Watch Dudy.
They're gonna explain how their app became a must have
download during the LA wildfires back in January. Well, this
week I drove up to Cooper Tino for Apple's Worldwide

(01:35):
Developers Conference twenty twenty five. You might be saying, Rich,
why do you always drive? Are you afraid to fly?

Speaker 3 (01:41):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I am not.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
In fact, I love to fly, but I also love
driving even more now I get it. It might be
a couple of hours in the car, but this is
a time for me. It's me time, time to think,
time to reflect, and of course listen to audiobooks. I
finished two of them on the trip. I actually did
something I've never done before. I started reading the physical

(02:03):
book and then I finished it with the audio version.
Like I got halfway through the print and I was like,
wait a second, I can listen to the rest of
this thing, and of course flip around the dial. It's
just fun to be in the car the open road.
Isn't that like the dream? Just be there and enjoy things.
So I got up to Apple Park, and I've been
going to Apple events for years. The Bay Area feels

(02:25):
very familiar to me. The Apple campus, if you've never been,
is a very interesting place. I mean it's very new.
You know, they just built this giant, spaceship looking campus.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
What is it like?

Speaker 1 (02:37):
It is just like the iPhone, It's polished, it's elegant.
There's so much thought put into the design. Think glass stone,
curved edges, free snacks for the journalists, which is pretty cool.
And I'm not kidding. They've got the visitor center that
anyone can go to. You can't get on campus as
a lay person, but anyone can go to the visitor center,

(03:00):
which includes sort of a cafe and then an Apple Store.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
And it's a nice big Apple store. And I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
There are lines out the door to buy stuff at
this Apple store because they sell shirts and things that
you can only get at Apple Campus up in Coopertino.
One sweatshirt in particular, they just launched It's only there
thing sells for like eighty dollars.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
There's a line all day to buy that. All day long.
I was gonna get a couple for the kids. By
the time I got in there, I was like, na way,
I'm not waiting this line. Sorry, kids, But the best
part about getting to these Apple events is not only
being their first person, but you know, seeing all the
other tech people mingling, but also talking with the Apple
folks who build this stuff. And I talk about this

(03:42):
with every event I go to, whether it's Samsung, whether
it's Google, whether it's Apple, any event, you get to
talk to the people who build this stuff, who know
it best, They know the features inside and out. Plus
you get to see it all before the public does,
so that's really cool. An Apple, of course, runs these
events almost like a tech version of cirqu Da Sila.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Right. It's all smooth.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
They've got everything figured out and nothing is left to chance.
Although I will say, first time I've ever seen this
at an Apple event, there was a protester. Someone jumped
up in the audience, said he was an Apple employee
and he was protesting something. But you know, and it
was very interesting the way Apple handled it. They didn't
jump on the guy. They sort of let him say

(04:25):
what he wanted to say. No one skipped a beat
on stage, but they just let him out. And I
can guarantee you that guy's not an Apple employee anymore,
probably not, But Anyway, if you want to get a
similar experience to what it feels like going to the
Apple campus, just walk into any Apple stores the same thing.
It's like a little slice of tech utopia in a
world that's not always perfect.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
So what did Apple do?

Speaker 1 (04:46):
They previewed all their updates across the iPhone, the iPad,
the Mac, the watch, Apple TV, and much more. They
didn't really talk much about AI per se, and they
didn't admit that Siri is behind in a but they
did say that, you know, Siri is not where they
want it to be, where they promised it would be

(05:06):
last year.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Apple has a way with words.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
I'm sure this was very thoughtfully scripted, but they basically
said the Smarter, the Smarter SII is coming next year
or sometime in the next year. They said, So for now,
what do we get? We get a lot of new stuff,
but mostly software updates. Apple's new design style is called
liquid Glass. Think smooth, rounded, translucent. Yes, kind of inspired

(05:33):
by the campus that I just mentioned. It's also going
to look bubbly and modern, and I think it's gonna
be very polarizing. I had a chance to play with this,
and it's very, very different than what we're used to
on the iPhone. They also add a lot of depth
and motion to the screen, so they have like these
three D lock screens you can do like your pictures
pop out. Almost Apple never uses the term three D,

(05:55):
they use spatial. But yes, it's all very much inspired
by that headset they came out with a couple of
years ago called the Vision Pro and so all this
is sort of inspired by Vision OS. And the other
big announcement was that the version numbers will now match
the year, so it's not gonna be iOS nineteen, it's
gonna be iOS twenty six, kind of like the way

(06:15):
car car designers do it. The model year for the
car is like the next year, So now iOS twenty
six is what we're getting on the iPhone. That was
front and center. Lots of new features on the iPhone.
Call screening is number one, so unknown callers will have
to say why they're calling, and that will show up
on your lock screen. So once they say hey, it's

(06:37):
Jan from the furniture company, that will show up on
the lock screen. You can decide if you want to
answer it, ignore it, or block, but your phone won't
even ring until this person says why they're calling, which
is pretty smart. So that'll help get rid of a
lot of the spam calls that just are nonsense. Then
in messages, same thing, you've got a new filter for
your unknown senders, because we get all these messages and say, hey,

(06:57):
we've got a great job opportunity. You don't have to
do anything, but we'll pay you up to three thousand
dollars a day to do nothing. It's remote, by the way, Yeah,
that's bogus, So that's gonna be filtered into its own thing.
Then they've also got whold assist. So when the iPhone
hears hold music, like if you're calling an airline utility company,
your phone will say, hey, do you want us to

(07:18):
hold for you?

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Now? It doesn't.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
It just basically listens to the music and it waits
for the person to pick up the customer service rep.
And as soon as they pick up, they say, hey,
hang on, hold on, I'm gonna go grab the person,
and then your phone will make a sound. You run
to your phone and now you can talk to them.
So basically you can just do what you need to
do while your phone is listening. What else, in messages,
they've got these animated and colorful chat backgrounds, so now

(07:42):
you can customize your chats. They've also got polls in
your group chats, so if you want to ask everyone
what they want for dinner on a Friday night, Hey,
do you want pizza? Do you want tacos? You want Italian? Whatever,
you can ask it in a poll. The Camera app
is getting simplified, so now at the bottom there's just
two big clear options, photo and video. If you want

(08:02):
all your other options, you can tap or swipe and
they're all there. It's just they're kind of hidden away
until you need them. In the Photos app, they are
bringing back the tabs that we miss so much, So
now at the bottom you will see two tabs, one
for your library, which is all of your pictures, and
one for collections, which is the way it used to be.

(08:23):
Live translation is getting expanded. Now you can live translate
your calls, your messages FaceTime. Apple Maps is going to
save a searchable list of all the places you visit often,
which not everyone's gonna like.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Thankfully, you can turn that off.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Visual Intelligence this is kind of Apple's version of Circle
to Search. Not as good, but it's a start and
it does work, so you can search photos you can
copy text, search that text whatever you want. Let's see
accessibility upgrades, Braille access, accessibility reader, and better live list
and support. This is where you can use your iPhone

(08:58):
mic to send audio to your air or your hearing aids.
So your iPhone sort of acts as like a remote microphone.
You can aim it towards the person you're trying to
listen to. The Apple Watch gets a new AI workout
Buddy Custom Motivation. It'll say, hey, you just ran you know,
five miles. If you do zero point twenty five more,
it'll be past your best mileage. Ever then they've got

(09:19):
a new risk gesture on the Apple Watch. So now
you can flick your risks, sort of rotate your wrist
up and that will dismiss a notification or it will
bring you back to the home screen. So are these
updates revolutionary, No, but they're good little upgrades for the
billion plus iPhone users out there, and to iPhone users

(09:39):
they're new.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
Now.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
I know, if you're using an Android you're saying, rich,
come on, give me a break. We've had these features forever.
Yes you have, but you have to come from the
aspect of the iPhone user. They're not interested in switching.
They're not interested in changing things up to them. This
is new on Android, you can download an app and
customize anything you want on your phone. On Apple, it's

(10:01):
just not that way. So they have to wait until
Apple gives them these features, and for them, it's new.
So what do you need to get these new features?
I iPhone eleven or newer to get iOS twenty twenty
six or iOS twenty six, or an iPhone se two
or later, that's the twenty twenty model, of course. To
get the AI features, you'll need an iPhone fifteen Pro

(10:23):
or later. Now, there will be a public beta in July,
but that could be filled with bugs, so I don't
recommend that you put it on your phone or your
phone that's your daily driver, but if you're curious, you
can test it out in July.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
The final software will land in September. So there you
have it.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
All the updates from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. I'll have
more about what they announced throughout the show, but first
let's get some of your calls eight a' eight rich
one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. Coming up, I'll tell you about
the anchor recall they are recalling one of their power banks.
I'll tell you which one and how to identify it
and what you can do. This is rich on Tech.

(11:05):
I don't know if this happened to you, but this
happened to me this week. I was trying to do
a whole bunch of things on my phone. None of
them were working. This was Thursday, and I'm sitting there, Okay,
first service doesn't work, second service doesn't work, third service
doesn't work. And that I'm like, Okay, something is a

(11:25):
little bit odd here. Well, turn out there was a
major Google cloud outage that caused all kinds of disruptions
across the Internet. And affected services were cloud Flare, Spotify, Discord, Snapchat,
and even some AI coding tools.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
So what happened? Let's see do we know what happened?

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Doesn't really say why it happened, but they're still assessing
to see what.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
I guess just went out.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
But here's the takeaway from this is number one, you know,
when these things happen, they seem to be to a
cloud provider, and we often wonder, like what is going
on here? So when in doubt, you got to go
online and see. So I ended up posting to my
Instagram saying here's what's happening, and of course the comments
started flooding in from people saying, yeah, it's happening to

(12:14):
me too. But the other thing is this just under
this shows how much we are reliant on these cloud providers.
Like you think you're using a service, but a lot
of these services are relying on one of the big
back end providers, which is Google, Amazon with AWS, and
Microsoft with Azure. So these are the providers that are

(12:37):
sort of the back end for a lot of these
products that we use. So none of them are safe
from this stuff. So again, major Google Cloud outage happened
last week. That's what explains all of the issues that
you might have experienced with some of your cloud services.
Dario writes in on the website, I was recently shown

(12:58):
a black and white photo of mine that was colorized, sharpened,
and even animated. I'm curious what app would you recommend
that can do this at a decent price. Well, there's
a couple that I've tested, and I will tell you
my favorites. Number one, if you want something that's just
on the website, you can try my Heritage. They have

(13:18):
a feature called in color and this is just a
website where you can go to You do have to
log in, but you can drop in a black and
white photo and it will basically turn it into a
color photo. The images will have a watermark, but it's
free to use and it works. Then you've got remedy
r e m I NI. This is an app that
can restore old photos. Again, a lot of these apps

(13:41):
are sort of freemium where they want you to subscribe
or pay, but they'll do stuff even for free. And
then the other one is photomine PHO t O m
y N and this allows you to even scan your
photos if you have them, old pictures, even slides and
it will do all the stuff that you said. And
of course they do have a free version, but if

(14:01):
you want unlimited, you're gonna have to pay. But those
are the three. I think the animated one is my heritage.
I think they have the one's that animates your pictures.
But that's that's an interesting effect. It kind of brings
your old pictures to life. And it's a little little creepy,
I'll be honest. I tested it out. So one of
the more interesting things out there. Okay, we've got coming up,

(14:24):
I'm gonna tell you about the Anchor recall. Anchor is
a company that makes portable chargers very popular. This is
a product that has been recommended by many tech folks
over the years. It's one of those portable battery banks.
And yeah, they are recalling it because of a potential fire.
So I will tell you what to look for on
that device, and I will tell you how to identify

(14:47):
it and also what you can get replacement or some cash.
And the website rich on tech dot tv I for
we want more information. This is episode number one, twenty five.
So if you go to the websit I search episode one,
you can get show notes to every single thing that
I talk about. And while you're there, please don't forget
to sign up for my free newsletter. It's all online

(15:09):
at richontech dot tv. My name is rich Demiro. More
show coming up right after this. Welcome back to rich
on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking
technology at triple eight rich one O one. That's eight
eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.

(15:34):
Easy way to submit your emails there, just hit contact
and you can get your question on the air. That way,
it seems like sometimes it's interesting. Sometimes people prefer the website,
sometimes people prefer the phone line.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Just sort of depends on.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
I guess where the moon is that weekend.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
I told you about this Anchor recall, So if you
bought a portable charger from Anchor in the last few years,
it could pose a fire hazard. This is a recall
between Anchor and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. They're
recalling their powercre ten thousand power bank. This is a
very popular model of their power bank, model number A

(16:11):
twelve sixty three. Again A twelve sixty three. These were
sold in the US between June twenty sixteen and December
twenty twenty two. They could overheat and catch fire. It's
a very popular device. Many many folks tech folks have
recommended Anchor products over the years, so there's probably a
lot of these out there. The issue is obviously the battery.

(16:34):
It could melt, smoke, or ignite. So check your unit.
Look on the bottom from model A twelve sixty three,
or you can go online to Anchor's online serial number
checker to see that yours to confirm that yours is affected.
If it qualifies, you can get a replacement or a
thirty dollars gift card.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
My tip is, the.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Numbers are so tiny on this thing that you're not
gonna be able to see them with your naked eye
unless you are Superman. So you My advice is to
take a picture of the little area with the model
number and the serial number, and then zoom in on
that picture once you take it, so you can actually
read the numbers. You'll thank me later for that one. Again,

(17:13):
if you have one of these, don't use it. Do
not throw it in the trash. You have to dispose
of it at a certified hazardous waste site, not your
curb side recycling container. So go on my website. Rich
on tech dot tv. I've got all the information on
that anchor recall. That's a big one. A lot of
people do have that. Let's see here. We got a

(17:35):
question from Let's see. Christina from Los Angeles writes in
Hey there, I was hoping you can help me with
a few things.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Recently, I got a new iPhone.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
My iCloud space is very limited because the things, mostly
photos from my last phone, were carried onto the new one.
I would really like to upload my photos onto one
of those SD card readers. However, I would like to
get one where an app isn't necessary. Do you know
anything like that. Well, number one the caveat is I
do not recommend that you only have these things on

(18:11):
an SD card because if that card gets lost, stolen, ruined,
that's it.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
There goes your photos.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
So I do recommend that you expand your iCloud space
if possible, keep these things in the cloud. That is
the best way to keep them backed up, in addition
to on your phone. Right, the ideal backup is in
three places. Place number one is the original That would
be your phone, Place number two would be iCloud, and
place number three would be the SD card. So that
is the ideal situation. Is everyone going to do that?

(18:40):
Probably not. It's a lot of work to do that.
So at the very least I would like them on
your phone and an iCloud. iCloud is not very expensive.
I understand the long term of this, but if you
lose your pictures, like I get so many emails from
people that do, it's a real bummer. People do not
like losing their pictures, understandably. So with that said, I mean, yes,

(19:00):
you can drag these onto a flash drive that you
plug into the bottom of your phone. But that's going
to take a really long time. I'm not sure why
you don't want an app. So there's a great one
from sand Disc. It's called the Phone Drive for iPhone. Mean,
let me look this thing up sand Disc Phone Drive

(19:22):
for iPhone.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Okay, very very simple. It's forty dollars.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
You plug this into the bottom of your phone and
it comes with an app that will back up the
photos from your phone onto this little drive. It's a
flash drive, same thing you've been using for years that
you plug into your computer, but it plugs into the
bottom of your phone. Did you mention the model number
your phone, Well, you said you got a new iPhone,
so I'm guessing it's USBC. So you plug this in

(19:49):
forty dollars, gives you sixty four gigabytes. One hundred and
twenty eight gigs is fifty dollars, and two hundred and
fifty six gigs is seventy dollars.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Plug it into the bottom your phone and.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
It's it's got the nice fast speed and it's going
to back up the photos from your phone.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
That's what I would do.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
This also by the word by the let's see, yeah,
iPhone iPad a sand disc mobile app, So I don't
see why you wouldn't want to use this with the
app now, I think when you set app, maybe you
meant you didn't want to use like an Amazon Photos
or something like that. And by the way, that's another
great way to back up your pictures. If you're an
Amazon Prime Member, you can download the Amazon Photos app

(20:31):
and back up your photos for free, unlimited amounts of them.
As long as you are a Prime member, you'll be
able to keep that. If you're not a Prime member,
you'll want to download those. But the good news is
you got to get these things into a couple of
different places. So again, this is called the sand disc
phone drive for iPhone. It's a little flask drive. You
can plug it right into the bottom of your phone,

(20:53):
back up those pictures and it's gonna be super easy.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Let's see. Is it even cheaper on Amazon?

Speaker 1 (20:57):
Probably is, No, it's not same price on Amazon thirty
nine to ninety five, thirty nine ninety nine. That's a
great gift for dad too, Father's Day weekend. Why not
get him that, get his pictures backed up?

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
Nintendo switched to We talked about this on the show.
Officially the fastest selling game system of all time, Nintendo
says it sold three point five million switch to consoles
in just four days. That makes it the fastest selling
home video game console ever. Yes, ahead of the PS
five and PS four for comparison.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
This is from the Verge.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
They said the PS five took seven weeks to reach
four point four million units, the PS four took two
point one sold two point one million in sixteen days.
So people were excited. Why well, pent up demand this thing.
It's been eight years since they had a new switch console.
Nintendo very smart and the way they marketed this, and

(21:55):
there were some tariff concerns. People want to buy early
because they're not sure if the price is going to
go up. We haven't seen that happen with this, but
we did on the accessories. They did raise some prices there,
but not on the switch itself. Nintendo wants to sell
fifteen million of these by March twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Seems like they will.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
The original Switch sold one hundred and fifty million, but
that's been out for eight years. The question is can
Nintendo keep this momentum going. They need some really good
titles to get this thing going, that's for sure. Right now,
they've got the Mario Kart World, which is different but
it's familiar. And then they've got Donkey Kong Bonanza coming

(22:35):
out and that. You know, those are two good games,
but they are not console selling games. That's the thing.
If you have one of the old consoles, what's the
reason to upgrade? You got to be a diehard Nintendo fan.
It sounds like they found those three point five million
diehards in the first four days. Now they've got to
find many more, and of course we've got a bunch

(22:55):
of months until the holidays. This thing is not as
easy to get as walking into a stor right now,
but if you put your mind to.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
It, you'll be able to get it again. That's a
Nintendo switch too.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
If you want to see my thoughts on that, you
can go to my website rich on Tech dot tv
look at last week's newsletter. All right, coming up, I've
been playing with this downloaded the Developer beta iPad os
twenty six.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
It turns your iPad into more like a Windows machine.
I'll explain coming up right here on rich on Tech
Welcome back, to rich on Tech rich Demiro here hanging
out with you talking technology at triple eight Rich one
O one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. The website for the show rich

(23:41):
on Tech dot TV. I know a lot of you
are looking for the show notes on the Anchor recall
that is in the show Notes episode one twenty five.
You can find the link there to check your serial
number see if you can get a replacement for your
Anchor PowerCore one thousand, model number twelve sixty three. It's unfortunate,

(24:02):
you know, Anchor I think has had a pretty good
track record up until now. But you know, these things happen.
They're manufacturing these things at scale. We never want to
see a recall, especially on such a popular product, but
it does happen. Did they say how many they had
out there? Let's see, they didn't. Trying to see if
they have a number. Sometimes they'll include like a number

(24:24):
of how many they've had. Now they didn't say that.
So earlier I was talking about the WWDC announcements. One
of those, one of the biggest changes I would argue
bigger than the iPhone is iPad OS twenty six and
Apple made a huge change here to the way that
the iPad works. The software is getting a complete overhaul

(24:46):
and it is now more like a desktop computer. This
is something that people have been wondering when Apple would
do for a long time. The problem is it's very
confusing for Apple because they've got this iPad and then
they've got the Mac laptops. What's the difference at this point.
They both can have a keyboard, they both can have

(25:07):
a lot of different apps. So one is touchscreen, one
is not. Now with this software, you could probably install
this software on a MacBook. I mean you can't, but
I'm just saying if they wanted to, and it's the
same thing. It's it's basically Windows. I mean a windowing
It's not Windows like Microsoft, but a windoing system. So
each app now can be in its own window. And

(25:30):
I was playing with it this morning and yeah, I
mean it's not polished just yet, like I think it's
a little quirky, but it's there and it's what people wanted.
You could just open up a whole bunch of apps,
arrange them, resize, put them all over your screen. It's
not like the old days of the iPad operating system
where you had to snap everything into grids. No, now
everything is free floating. Now, don't forget. This does not

(25:52):
come out until September, so you can't get this right now.
But the developers have access. So I have the developers beta,
which means I can play with this. And I also
got the hands on up at Apple's campus in Coopertino,
so I've gotten to play with this extensively from the
experts that showed me how to use it.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
So you've got your windows where you can put them
anywhere you want.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
You can also tile them if you've got an expose
a view, which means you can move your there's like
a swipe up or I'll show you all of your
windows at once. And this brings that new liquid glass design.
So again the liquid glass thing. I think some people
are gonna love it. Some people are not gonna like it.
It's very polarizing if you ask me, because it's such

(26:35):
a departure from what we've had. Oh, by the way,
you can now have background tasks on the iPad. That's
something that's never been done before. Why well, if you
want to edit a video and final cut on the iPad,
you can export it and do other things while that's
exporting in the background. Yeah, this is a whole new
way to think about the iPad. What else here folders.

(26:58):
The folders now were in the dock, so you can
put folders in your dock, which means you can access
files much easier.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Again just like a Mac computer.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
The files app is all new, so you've got all
kinds of customizations you can have in the files app.
You can have it you view the files in different ways,
you can list them, sort them whatever you want. You
can also make them color like you can make all
the files different colors to file folders, and you can
add emojis to them as well. So again big departure.

(27:32):
And then you've got the new Preview app which is
coming to the iPad. So before you could look at
PDFs on the iPad, no problem. Now this is like
the entire Preview app is on the iPad. So if
you want to view a PDF, market up fill in things,
Apple pencil is on there, autofill is on there, again,
more like a computer. The Journal app is also coming

(27:55):
to the iPad. If you use that, they've got three
D graphing and the math notes they've got a calligraphy
pen in the notes app, which is interesting. I used
to love cligraphy pens when I was a kid. I know,
I was a Weirdoh I still am.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Whatever.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Cligraphy is cool, Like I used to have the clicker,
like I used to have to get the cligraphy pen
and then the ink cartridge. You would snap into it
and that thing nine out of ten times would leak
all over you and you would just have ink everywhere.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
But it was super cool.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yes, So the public beta coming next month, that is
in July, and the full release will be in this fall.
This is gonna support iPads with the A sixteen chip
or later or the M one chip or later, So
a sixteen chip, M one chip. If you want to
see what you've got in your iPad, you can go
into the settings about type that into Google and see

(28:48):
what you've got inside. Sometimes it says it on the
iPad the chip. I think, all right, I've done a
lot about Apple. Let's give you a Samsung users something fun.
If you have a Samsung Galaxy, you can get a
year of Perplexity Pro for free right now, no strings attached.
This is one of the top AI assistants. If you're

(29:10):
not familiar with Perplexity check it out Perplexity dot ai
what perplexity. What's unique about Perplexity is the way that
it gives you a full answer to your question. And yes,
these are things that Google can do, these are things
that chatcybt can do, things that copilot can do, but
Perplexity kind of they kind of came out with this first.

(29:33):
So if you say something like give me a full
biography on actually say, that's not even a good idea.
You can just type in something like someone's name, like
a famous actor, Adam, give me a famous actor's name.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Okay, Tom Cruise.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
So when you type in Tom Cruise, immediately says Tom Cruise, movies, age,
net worth, height, mission impossible. Maybe I just want to
Tom Cruise bio boom. Type that in and now it
gives me a full response of everything you need to
know about Tom Cruise, stuff that previously you might have
had to look up on Google click a million links

(30:12):
and find this stuff. No, now it's got everything, and
by the way, it's all recent and in real time,
and then at the end it gives you a whole
bunch of related questions. So it's really really a nice
way of learning. And I love their feature which is
Current Events, so you can search all their current events
are sorry. Discover is their main kind of like almost

(30:33):
like their news, so you can go through and look
up just all the current events, all the stuff that's happening,
and it's all in real time. It's really really well done.
So how do you get this for free? What do
you get with the pro Well, you get unlimited pro searches,
access to all the different models, they have image generation
file uploads, AI summaries.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
All kinds of stuff.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
It's basically just the best that they have to offer
for twenty dollars a month, but you're getting it for free.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
If you have a Galaxy phone, how do you do this?

Speaker 1 (31:01):
If you have Perplexity on your Samsung phone, go ahead
and delete it and then you have to re download
it from the Samsung Galaxy Store. Did you even know
that Samsung had their own store? Probably not, but now
you do. And that's why they're doing deals like this,
because they want you to go in that store and
see what there is to offer. Download Perplexity from the
Samsung Galaxy Store, sign up or log in, do not

(31:22):
give any credit card, no information about payment, and then
all of a sudden it will upgrade you magically to
Perplexity Pro for a year, and you should get an
email that says you've been upgraded and now you have
access to all this great stuff. I went ahead once
I did this and installed this now in all my phones,
and that's what they want you to do. They want
you to use Perplexity Pro because there's a lot of

(31:44):
competition in the AI world.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
You've got Perplexity Now.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
I think that Google's AI mode is excellent, and I
would say it's the closest to Perplexity. I would say
it's a direct response to Perplexity. That's why they had
to make.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
This in Google. So but again, Perplexity's been doing it longer.
They do a great job.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
I'll put the information on how to claim the free
year Perplexity Pro on my website.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Rich on Tech dot TV. All right, coming up, I'll
tell you which.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
App is back with a surprise redesign on the iPhone.
This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at
triple eight Rich one O one. That's eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. The website
for the show rich on Tech dot TV. There you

(32:33):
can go to get show notes. You can also sign
up for my newsletter and uh see what we're talking
about here on the rich On Tech Radio show. Coming
up this hour, we've got some guests. Well, we've got
Stephanie Weitzman to talk about speech a FI. If you
haven't tried this app, it is really it's really interesting.
It basically takes any article pretty much anything you want

(32:53):
to read, uh, but it makes it so you can
listen to it. So it's a text to speech app.
Works on your phone, works on your computer. And I
even did my own voice, Like I recorded my own
voice into this app last night. You can create an
AI clone so you can listen to yourself talking. Should
I see if I can play that? Let's see here,

(33:15):
Uh so you it doesn't take very long to do
it at all. So let's see this is uh oh gosh,
this is Steve Job's speech that he gave many years
ago at a commencement. Of course, it's got to process
the file, so maybe that's not going to work so
well right now, I might have to come back to that.
Let's see if I have a something that's already processed.

(33:37):
There we go, okay, right now Gwyneth Paltrow is my voice.
But here's here's my own voice rich on tech. Let's
see if this sounds like me.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Tell me if you.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
In a more theoretical discussion about the simulation.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Theory, like I don't know if that sounds like living
in a digital facsimile.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Of I don't think so. Okay, So here's what I did.
I think I re courted it. I was in like
a very echoe room, and I did it kind of
very in passing. So I'm gonna do it in the
studio here. I'll, you know, I'll do it during the break.
I'll record it. Only takes like twenty seconds, so I'll
pretend that never happened. But we do have Stephanie Weisman
to talk about Speech of five, really really interesting app

(34:18):
that reads anything to you out loud.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
And then we've got more.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Of your questions, emails, calls, all that good stuff, plus
the tech news of the week. This was really interesting.
Sam Altman, I don't know if you're reading his blog posts,
but the guy has a lot of thoughts. He's the uh,
you know, the guy behind open ai chat EBT. He's
got a lot of thoughts on things. He says that
the gentle singularity is underway. So he says, AI superintelligence

(34:44):
is already in motion, and we're already in the early stages.
It's very gradual, right. Systems like CHATCHYBT says, are he
being used by hundreds of millions already every day, and
they're more capable than any individual human in some areas.
Think about that, they've already created kind of like the
smartest being in the world.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
And it's not like Google.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Right, Google's very smart, has all the answers, but it's
not the same as a chat GPT where it synthesizes
things from a lot of different places. So here's his
timeline of AI growth twenty twenty five, AI agents doing
meaningful cognitive work that's sort of happening right now, twenty
twenty six. Next year, he believes that AI systems will

(35:26):
make original scientific discoveries. They will see things that humans
have missed or never we're able to do. They will
figure them out, and then in twenty twenty seven robots
capable of real world tasks.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Think about that.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Right now, AI lives in a little chatbot, little chat
screen on your computer, on your phone, But imagine when
this this smarts, these smarts are built into a humanoid robot,
which many companies are working on right now, and you
can teach them to do things like right now, if
you go into chat GBT and you need to do something,
you can teach it how to do that. So that

(36:03):
is the main thing that you need to know about that.
Whatever you want to teach chat GBT, it will figure
it out. You say, here's how I do this, Now
do it, and yes, it will do it. But imagine
when you can put that into a robot. That's when
it's going to get really interesting. So he believes that
intelligence and energy will become abundant, removing long standing barriers
to progress. And if you're wondering, by the way, about

(36:25):
this whole have you heard this thing like, oh, just
one question on chat GBT uses a gallon of water
or you know, enough electricity to power up a whole city.
So he addresses that a single question on chat GBT,
a single query uses about point three four wat hours
of electricity. Now what does that mean? Nobody knows, but
he says it it's about what an oven uses in

(36:48):
one second. And then how about the water point zero
zero zero zero eight five.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Gallons of water?

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Per query that's around one fifteenth of a teaspoon of water,
so probably had to use chat GBT for those conversions.
He compares what we're going through is a slow motion singularity,
massive changes that feels gradual because we're living through it.
Two years ago. If you would have thought about the

(37:17):
stuff that chatchbt could do, you wouldn't believe it. Now
people are doing it every day, synthesizing things, summarizing things,
coming up with business plans, proofreading things, writing essays, writing stories.
I was using Google's vo today VO three, which is
their AI video generator. Oh, I haven't even talked about

(37:38):
this on the show. It is so incredible. It is unbelievable.
It creates high quality eight second videos with AI. You
type what you want it to do and it makes
that and you can do anything. It is unbelievable. By
the way, it also has speech and audio, so if
you want a bird pecking at a tree in a

(38:03):
sci fi world, it can do that. It generates stuff
that is just so realistic. I'm my mind is boggled
right now.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
Now.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
You do have to, I think, to use this you
have to have a membership to Google's AI, which I do,
but unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
The ultra plan.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
If you want the real like right now, I only
have access to Vo three Fast, which is just their
fast generation. That's like twenty dollars a month. If you
want VO three, which is their ultra like high quality,
you gotta pay for the Google's ultraplan, which is two
hundred and fifty dollars a month. And some people will
do that, Like there will be someone who uses this

(38:43):
to create an entire music video, an entire movie. But
again it's got to be eight second clips. But again,
it's got native audio generation as well, which is the
new thing. So it's called they call it flow, that's
their video generator. I mean all these things like we're
gonna need like a class just in the names of
all these AI products. But is he what does Altman

(39:05):
continue to say? Here's a great examp. I thought he
gave the greatest example in this blog post about how
AI is being used versus how social media algorithms were
being used. He warned about the risks of misaligned AI,
and the best example he gave was social media algorithms

(39:25):
who do they favor?

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Not us? They don't benefit us in any way, shape
or form.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
They only benefit the platform, But his argument is that
AI actually benefits the people using it if it's used properly.
He also believes that wealth creation will outpace job loss,
So all these things about you know, people worried about jobs,
he will. He says that there will be new opportunities.
So again he says, we are living it, this gentle singularity.

(39:54):
If you want to, I'll put a link to his
blog post on my website. Rich on tech dot TV
just I mean, these people are thinking.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
About so much stuff real quick before we go to break.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Mattle in from La Crescenta writes in I recently deleted
my account on How's Houzz. I think that's one of
those home apps. I was advised by them to please
delete our cookies from your browser. Is that necessary? I
don't think so, Madeline. I don't think you need to
delete those cookies after you closed an account, unless you're
worried about staying logged in or them tracking you. If

(40:27):
you want to clear them out, it's a pretty simple process.
It all depends on your browser. But if you have Chrome,
just tap the three dots in the upper right hand corner.
It'll say history or sorry, says delete browsing.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Data.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
You tap that and you can do time range, last hour,
last twenty four, all four weeks, all time. The thing
you have to know about that if you delete your
browsing data, it's not only a delete House, but it
might delete a lot of other logins from other websites.
So for that reason I probably would not do it. Now,
if you want to delete it for just how you
can go to their website. Is it house dot com? Yeah,

(41:05):
and then tap the two little looks like a setting
icon next to the website and it says cookies and
site data, and there you can delete all that just
for House. Okay, I just deleted that, so now the
log in everything will be reset.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Great question eight.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
To eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. You got a
question about technology, Give me a call website for the
show richon Tech dot.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Tv coming up.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
I'll tell you about two really cool apps for taking
pictures and editing them.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Triple eight rich one on one. That's eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. So, uh,
earlier I was talking about speech of five and cloning
my voice. We're gonna have the guests on very soon.
But uh, I just recloned my voice. So tell me
if you think it took about fifteen seconds. Tell me

(42:03):
if you think this sounds like me.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
What's going on?

Speaker 3 (42:07):
I'm Rich Tomiro and this is is Rich on Tech.
This iss the show where I talk about the tech
stuff I think you should know about and answer your
questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting,
useful and fun. Phone lines are open a te triple
eight Rich one hundred and one. That's eight eight eight
seven four two four.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
One zero one. Give me a call if you have
a question about technology. I mean there's a resemblance there.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
It's you know, it's much more robotic than my voice,
but you know, in a pinch, yeah, it's a it's like, yeah,
it's it's a little high.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Interesting, but hey, you know what, it's a start. I
mean this and that, by the way, that took about
took about ten seconds to do. You record fifteen seconds
of your audio and that's it. So we're gonna have
the uh Stephanie Weitzman speech of SPEECHIFI on the show
in this hour and she gonna explain what that app

(43:01):
is all about, what it's useful for.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
And by the way, there's a lot of other voices.
That's just me. They also have Snoop Dogg.

Speaker 4 (43:06):
Here Snoop Dogg, Big, Snoop deal Wg and I'm an
English voice from the United States.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
They also have Gwyneth Paltrow.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
Welcome to Speechify. Speechify can read to you in the
highest quality digital voice.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
They also have mister Beast.

Speaker 5 (43:20):
Basically, I hate reading, so I just upload every document
I get to speech I find.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
My kids know who that is.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
And then they have all these other, you know, just
regular voices. So I mean, it's it's really if you
like to listen to stuff, it's a great way to
listen to articles. Anyway, I will we'll have more about
that interview in just a little bit. Samsung is back
at it. I cannot believe that it's almost been a
year since their foldables came out, but now they're teasing
new foldables coming out soon, a thinner, lighter generation of

(43:50):
Galaxy Z foldables. They say they are the thinnest, lightest,
and most durable foldables yet. If you remember Samsung Star
this journey in twenty nineteen with the original Galaxy Fold.
I still remember being invited to the Samsung store and
they said, hey, we have a new phone for you
to check out, and I couldn't believe I'd never seen

(44:11):
a folding screen in my life before like that. And
sure enough they had to recall it from the reviewers
because they had some growing pains there.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
But you got to give Samsung credit.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
They do try a lot of stuff, and they've definitely
polished it since then, and I do see a fair
amount of these things out in the wild now. They're
very popular over in Asia and in Europe. They have
not been as popular here in the US, but they
are definitely growing in popularity. The whole idea is that,
you know, merging a smartphone, the portability of a smartphone

(44:44):
with the productivity of a tablet.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
It's all in one. But the problem is that I've
seen is that the screens on the outside were just too.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Small to be truly useful. So now theoretically we'll see
a bigger screen on the outside. Samsung says this year's
models were engineered to be even easy. You're to use
one handed and fit more comfortably in your pocket. They
promise an ultra experience, so more performance.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
The thing on these was that the cameras were not
as good as the standard you know as twenty five ultra.
Now if they can get that ultra camera on the foldable,
there's nothing stopping it.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Theoretically.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
They also say there's gonna be new hinge designs and
materials to make them tough enough for daily use. And
they have not given an official launch date just yet,
but let's be honest, these things typically happen in July
or August, So that's what I'm guessing, is a July
or August launch date for the Samsung Unpacked event, which

(45:41):
they would have sometime this summer. Don't know where it is,
where it's going to be, what the dates are. But
if you're looking for a new foldable hold off, maybe
this whole twenty three and ME thing. Remember this all
this they went to bankruptcy, they got purchased by this
other company. While tech Crunch reports that fifteen percent of
twenty three and MES users about two million people asked

(46:03):
the company to delete their genetic data. This was after
the biotech company Regenerate Regeneron won a court approved auction
to buy twenty three and meters for two hundred and
fifty six million dollars. By the way, when I was
up in the Bay Area, I drove past the twenty
three and ME headquarters. I didn't know I was going
to drive past it, but I happened to, and not thing.

(46:24):
I mean, it's a big headquarters. I just thought about it.
I was like, Ah, all those people in there that
are wondering, like what their fate is. It's probably such
a high you know, high flying company for so long
and now you know, purchased for mere pennies on the dollar.
This thing used to be worth like six billion dollars.
Twenty four states, twenty twenty three and plus one states,

(46:48):
including New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania, are suing to block
the sale of private DNA data without user consent. Twenty
three and Me's data privacy trust was shaken after a
twenty twenty three breach exposed data from six point nine
million users. The company blame their customers for not enabling
multi factor authentication, but come on, you don't let you

(47:10):
don't let all that data get out anyway. People are
getting rid of their data from twenty three and meters quickly.
All right, I told you about this app that got
a surprise redesign. Google just dropped a new version of Snapseed,
version three point oh. This was one of my most
recommended apps for so many years because it was so

(47:31):
simple to use and all the features were free as
opposed to like the photoshops and all these other photo
editing apps that would charge, Snapseed kept it free. So
Snapseed three point zero is brand new. If you don't
have it on your iPhone, I highly recommend you ad
it or if you have it.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Update it.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
It's the first big update in years. Many people thought
that Google abandoned the app, but it's all gotten a redesign.
It's got a nice new clean interface, new floating button
to add your pictures to it, and they've got a
new just all kinds of stuff, a new film style filter,
and it's just really easy to use. So my favorite

(48:09):
feature that I've recommended it for is called healing, so
you can easily if you have a little blemish on
your picture you want to get something out of there,
you just tap healing and just rub over like the
area that needs to go and goodbye. It's kind of
like the simplest possible way to remove like a little
blemish or anything you don't want in your photo.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Now I get it. We have AI for all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
You can erase things, change pictures, but this was kind
of the OG way of doing it, and so that's
still available, still free. And then of course the tools.
The new film style is really cool because if you
go to these apps on the iPhone or Samsung, a
lot of them costs money to change the film styles.
This one has like I don't know, it looks like
two dozen of them, all for free. Polaroids six hundred,

(48:55):
Fuji Pro four hundred. H If you're a film person,
you know how to do this. Technicolor. Oh, that one
looks really good. I took a picture of me outside
of the Arawan. If you've never been to La, if
you visit La, you gotta go to an arawon. It
is it's its own world. You've never seen prices like
this at a grocery store. It's wild. I mean it

(49:18):
really is. And all this stuff is happening in the world.
You go into Arawan, You're like, Wow, this is just
a whole different world of that I'm not really privy
to on a daily basis. But it's fun. I have
one thing that I go to. Yeah, Kim just chimed
in said, I'm not paying twenty five dollars for a smoothie. Yes,
they're known for smoothies that are literally twenty five dollars
that's before the ad ins. But I guess it makes

(49:40):
your skin glow. I cannot bring myself to buy one
of those. All right, coming up, we're gonna talk to
Stephanie Witzman about speech a fi right here on rich
On Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro
here hanging out with you talking technology at triple eight
Rich one oh one. That's eight seven four two four

(50:02):
one zero one. Give me a call if you have
a question about technology. We'll get back to those phone
lines in just a moment. But first we are here
at WWDC at the Apple Podcast Studios, and we are
talking to some winners of the Apple Design Awards. One
of those apps is called Speechify. It is very cool,
and here to talk to me about it is Stephanie Weitzman.

(50:24):
Thanks so much for joining me.

Speaker 6 (50:26):
Thank you Rich for having me.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Now you're actually the mom of the creators of this app,
Cliff and Tyler. Yes, but you also work there I do.

Speaker 6 (50:35):
I work as a recruiting manager at Speechify and a
recruit engineers from all over the world.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Wow, that's amazing. So, first off, explain what Speechify is
all about.

Speaker 6 (50:44):
Yes, of course, so Speechify is a text to speech app,
but a whole lot more than that. And our goal
is that learning should not be a barrier because of reading.
And our goal is that every human being in the
world should have the best possible reading experience and we
really focus on that.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
And what's interesting about this app it won the Apple
Design Award for Inclusivity correct, And so this app supports
fifty plus languages, and it's also really helpful for users
with dyslexia, ADHD and vision impairments because it allows you
to consume content in the way that's best.

Speaker 6 (51:25):
For you exactly exactly. So Specify is great for everyone,
but it's life changing when it comes to people with disabilities.
And this is something that I have experienced being Cliff's
mom who has he's severely dyslexic, and this is how
he came up with the idea for the app because

(51:45):
there was no software out there when he was seventeen
eighteen going into college. The only software available, was very
clunky and it worked at a one x speed and
cliff because all of his reading was consumed through his
ear at three x speed. It was very boring for
him because he also has add so people have dyslexia

(52:07):
add low vision. The funny story is that our co founder,
my other son, Tyler, is blind in one eye and
he was born blind in one eye, so he also
had He has myopia, so he gets eyestrained. But he's
also a phenomenal coder and so he started coding when
he was ten. When the app store opened, he had

(52:28):
apps on the app Store in two thousand and eight.
He came to us when he was eleven years old
and said, Mom, can I have ninety nine dollars please?
And I said why and he said, there's this think
of the app Store and I want to be on it.
So he taught himself to code, but still with the eyes,
it was a lot of strain. So he uses speechify
because of his vision. And then there are people other
situations such as people who've had concussions, or people who

(52:53):
have encephalitis who cannot talk, autism, have speech apraxia. We've
had people who are mute who said You've changed our
lives because the app is being read. We can use
the app to talk, it's our mouth. So we constantly
get stories of people who have disabilities saying I'm crying,
I've found your app. This has changed my life.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
How long has this journey been?

Speaker 6 (53:18):
So the company was founded eight years ago and we've
been partnership with Apple for the last eight years on
the iOS app twenty seventeen, and we really started before
the AI boom, So we started with the speed variability.
I think the core part of the product is the
fact that you can see the words and listen at
the same time and have the words highlighted out to

(53:41):
you at any speed that you choose. And then with
the AI boom, Tyler went to Stanford. He has a
master's degree. He specialized in and AI. It was the
right timing. He already had many apps under his belt
and he just built a phenomenal AI model, which is
probably the most sophisticated AI audio model that exists. And

(54:05):
that was the started to train the voices. So now
we have over two hundred voices in all languages, and
by the way, people who want to learn the language,
people who don't have English mother tongue, for instance, really
enjoy using the app because maybe their visual reading is
weaker than their ability to understand, so they can use

(54:30):
the app to help with their English, and they can
also listen in their own language if they want. They
can slow down the speed if they want, They can
go faster if they want. For people with add sometimes
they actually want to speed up so they won't be bored.
And we have all these amazing voices in different languages
and even different accents.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
So the way I understand the app, and I've used
it before, I've actually so for my radio show, I
listened to a lot of articles, right, and so sometimes
reading those articles can get be time consuming.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
And it's just a handsome time. It's easier to consume
them via audio.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Can you explain kind of like how that works, that
process of what people are feeding into this app to
learn from.

Speaker 6 (55:09):
Yes, so it's extremely streamlined, streamlined, and you can really
do it from the most basic level of selecting texts,
copying it and then pasting it physically into the app.
That's one way. Another is just to copy a link
paste it into the app. Another way would be to
take a PDF and share it like you would share

(55:31):
you know, to I Message or to any other application.
Specify has that ability that you just share that in.
You might not know this, but we're fully integrated with Gmail,
so you can connect your Gmail and your Google Drive
inside the app and then have your emails read out
to you automatically from within the app.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
And so once you share into the app, it will
read to you whatever you put in there. Yes, but
also you've got these celebrity I mean, there's so many
voices to choose from their very realistic sounding. Yes, and
then you've got celebrity voices. How did you get people
like Snoop Dogg and Gwene Paltrow on board?

Speaker 6 (56:10):
Yes, so I think Gwinnos was the first. So Cliff
and Gwinnos were friends and she said, yeah, I'm in.
So she has beautiful intonation. A lot of people really
enjoy listening to her voice, and I think it started
to work from there. We also have mister Beast.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Is there one voice that's the most popular?

Speaker 6 (56:31):
One's voice? It's probably the most popular.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Yes, son, Yes, so he has a voice on the app.

Speaker 6 (56:38):
Oh, of course he's had a voice. Yeah. I think
he had the first AI voice on the app that
we used.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
Yeah, oh, that's so wild.

Speaker 6 (56:45):
And his AI voice is pretty much indistinguishable from his
real voice, and I'm his mom. Wow, and the intonation
is perfect and sometimes I get goosebumps because it really
is hard to differentiate.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
That's wild.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
Now, speaking of AI, you have some AI features in
the app, like AI summaries.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Can you explain that?

Speaker 6 (57:03):
Yes, So say, for example, Rich, you're prepping for a
podcast and you have an article that you want to,
you know, learn very quickly, so you can upload that
to the app, listen to it, but then say, okay,
actually I would like you know, a summary to go
just before that I can glance at. So then you
can choose a short version, a medium version, or a

(57:25):
long version. And you can even generate an AI quiz
and say I want to have ten questions about what
I just read, and it will ask you the questions
and give you a multiple choice option. So if anyone
is studying, they can like take the material they want
to prep for the exam and then make a little
quiz out of it.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Wow, that's great for learners. That's really incredible.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
Ye.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Now you mentioned the accessibility and the inclusivity. Yes, but
really anyone can.

Speaker 6 (57:54):
Use this app absolutely, I, for instance, don't I probably
you as well. I don't have a lot of time,
and if I have time, I want to go out
hiking and walking and that's when I do my reading.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
So Ever since I started my radio show, I've realized
how much information when you consume a lot of information
it is. It's strenuous when you're reading, yes, but when
you're listening it is, like you said, very natural. And
I never I kind of like thought about that. The
way our brain processes things. It just seems much easier
to process the audio version of things versus like sitting

(58:29):
there reading and you have to be comfortable, and you
have to have a good lighting and this and that.
There's like a lot that goes into reading that just
audio is so much easier.

Speaker 6 (58:37):
Yes, because we evolved to storytelling. That's how we evolved.
And so if you know, you have kids at home,
and for anyone listening out there, if they have kids
at home and they want them to be ahead of
the game, they need to practice their listening more than anything.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Well, we say that as parents all the time and
in various ways. All Right, we're talking with Stephanie Weisman
of Speechify. They want a twenty twenty five I have
Apple Design Award for Inclusivity.

Speaker 6 (59:03):
I think one of the things that's special with our
company is it draws people who really have a passion
for helping people with disabilities. One of our key principles
is leading with love, and you really feel that throughout
the company.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Thank you so much for joining me today, Stephanie. The
website speechified dot com.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Check it out.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
It's the number one speech to text reading app and
it does have some incredible features.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
I'll put a link on my website.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Rich on tech dot tv thanks to Apple for lending
us their podcast studios today eighty eight rich one O
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Back after this, Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, Talking technology eighty
eight rich one on one eighty eight seven four to
two four one zero one. The website for the show
rich on Tech dot tv. You can send an email
just by hitting contact. That's what John did. He says,
I love all your tech information. I watch you on KTLA,

(01:00:07):
follow you on Instagram, listen to your podcast, and get
your weekly newsletter. Oh my gosh, that's one, two, three,
four things. Okay, well, I don't think you missed a
thing there, John. Here's my question. If someone steals your iPhone,
can you require a passcode or face ID to power
it off? That's the first thing thieves do to prevent tracking.

(01:00:29):
If Apple doesn't do this, maybe they should.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
I don't think you can require a passcode to turn
off the iPhone, but it does make sense that that
would be something that's smart. But here's the thing. Actually,
I think if they have the iPhone off, they can
do less with it than on. So if it's on,
at least it's secured and it's locked, and they can't
really do anything.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
But it is a good question.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
There is something that Apple introduced called Stolen Device Protector.
I's two things about this. Number one, if you ever
turned off your iPhone, you notice that there is a.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Where's my iPhone here? It is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
It basically says this iPhone is still trackable even when
it's off. So even with the power off. A lot
of these devices are still trackable even with the power off.
So that's a recent feature that they've added to these things.
So they keep a little power reserve that even when
it's off it's still going to be trackable as far
as I know. And then the other thing is the
stolen Device protection. This is something that is optional that

(01:01:34):
Apple added that you can turn on and basically, when
your phone is away from familiar places like your house
or your work, it will require face ID or touch
ID only, which means even if they figured out your passcode,
which is a problem. There is this big thing where
where thieves would watch people in a bar put in

(01:01:55):
their passcode on their phone and then swipe the phone
out of their hand and then go run away and
type in the passcode, and now they have access to
the whole phone, and then they would immediately do things
like change your Apple password, they would go into your
bank account, all that stuff, They would open up every
app and they would just keep your phone unlocked, and

(01:02:17):
of course they'd probably change the timeout on the phone
as well. So Apple did this thing called stolen Device protection.
So now when your phone is away from a familiar place,
so let's say you are not at home, you're not
at work, someone swipes your phone, they can't do anything
to that phone unless they have face ID or touch ID.
They cannot try the passcode to access things like saved

(01:02:39):
passwords or your payment information or anything else. There's also
a one hour delay to do anything like changing your
Apple ID password, and this gives you time to mark
your iPhone as lost and protect your account. And you
can turn this on permanently, so it works anywhere that
is in settings. Let's see if I can find this

(01:03:02):
stolen device protection. So if you just okay, it's under
passcode stolen device protection, you got to type in your
passcode to get that access. And if you turn that on,
let's see where is it down stolen device protection. So
this adds another layer of security to your iPhone. And

(01:03:22):
the event that is stolen and someone knows your passcode
seems like something that would be a small number of people,
but no, this was a major problem. Wall Street Journal
was very instrumental in reporting about this, and they basically
got Apple to change this because if you think about it,
if someone knows your passcode, they could get anything on
your phone. So anyway, if you're worried about that, turn

(01:03:45):
on stolen device protection. But yes, Apple and these other
software companies continue to figure out ways of getting you know,
of protecting us from the bad guys. Let's see another
question here, Robert writes in good afternoon. I'm a recent
finder of your show and I've been loving every minute

(01:04:05):
of it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Thank you, Robert.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
Is there any update on the Apple Watch having a
built in continuous glucose monitor CGM, thanks Robert.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
Not yet.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
We know that Apple has been working on this non
invasive glucose monitoring tech for years, but it is still
in development and they have not mentioned a word about it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
But it is Apple.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
They've got lots of smart people and they are not
the only company that is working on this so right now,
and if you look at the FDA, they put out
a big blog post that says there is no product
that does continuous glucose monitoring from a smartphone non invasive
right now. You still need a separate sensor like those

(01:04:47):
from Dexcom or Abbot, and a lot of those can
actually sync through your iPhone or Apple Watch through apps.
But right now, there is not a dedicated wearable that
does this like an Apple watch or smart watch.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
So if you see those advertised, it's just not possible
right now. There will be.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
I did actually test a couple of years ago at CS,
the big electronics show in Vegas. I tested a watch
that did the CGM, but it was more of like
an algorithm, so it was and it wasn't perfect. But
you know, and I've never heard anything more about this watch,
but I think there's a lot of companies working on this,
and I think we will have a breakthrough at some point,

(01:05:27):
maybe with Apple even and maybe twenty twenty seven or
something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Who knows.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
But this is the holy grail of technology when it
comes to health because so many people need these monitors
right now. You have to have one of those little
things you kind of stamp onto your skin, usually last
like maybe one to two weeks. I've actually got one
at home that I picked up at cs'. They're marketing

(01:05:53):
it as a way to monitor this stuff for anyone
if you're just interested in your glucose. I've yet, I'm
a little scared to put it on my skin. They
say you don't feel anything because there's a little part
that goes in you almost I don't know if it's
a little needle or what, but it does go in
your skin. But yeah, that's so Robert. Nothing to update
just yet there, Jeffrey writes in from Beaverton, Oregon, listening

(01:06:18):
on FM one on one point one in Portland. I
recently upgraded from a sixty five inch to a seventy
five inch high Sense TV. After watching for an hour
or two, the audio gradually goes out of sync with
the video. I've tried adjusting sound settings. Nothing seems to
fix the problem. Am I doomed to have Costco replace it?
What are my options? Thank you great show by the way,
Well thanks for tuning in, Jeffrey. That is definitely frustrating.

(01:06:43):
I'd say it's a deal breaker for this TV. So
get it back to Costco and replace it and see
if you have the same problem. Sounds like you've already
done the whole adjustments. If you go into your settings,
they usually have some sort of like lip sync adjustment.
I would try all those if they're not working. If
it says you've already adjusted sound settings, so but look

(01:07:05):
for this specifically the lip sync adjustment. Now, if you're
using an external sound bar, they usually have their own
lip sync adjustments as well, so you might want to
try that. You could try a factory reset on both
the TV and your soundbar. If none of that works,
get it back to Costco. This is one of the
reasons why people like buying electronics at Costco. They will

(01:07:25):
take it back and they will they will make good
on that. Sounds like you just got it. So I
have a High Sense personally. I've had no problems with it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
My neighbor came over the other day, she was looking
for a new TV and I said, I love this thing.
And people are a little they're a little concerned. They're like, well,
I don't know about the High Sense brand. I haven't
really heard about it. I'm like, believe me, gets recommended.
It's really good for the price, and I've i've we
love it. It took a little bit of getting used to,
but it works great. And yeah, you know, the Lgs

(01:07:57):
and the Sonys of the world, they're probably better picture wise,
but you're going to pay a whole lot. More eighty
eight rich one on one eighty eight seven four two
four one zero one website rich on tech dot Tv.
If you want links to anything I mentioned, or send
me an email, it's all right there. More rich on
Tech coming your way right after this. Welcome back to

(01:08:20):
rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with you.
The website for the show rich on Tech dot TV.
You know, uh, I'm my I don't know where my
manners are. I told you that I finished two books
earlier today, and I did not tell you which books
they were, did I? I don't think I did. Uh

(01:08:40):
So let me tell you about the two books that
I did read. Uh So, there's this whole thing about
listening versus reading the books or reading books, like I
is there a difference, I don't know. I mean I
like to do both. I like to read physical books.
I also like to listen to them as well. I
think they both work. And typically I'm listening to a
nonfiction book in the car, and then I'm reading a

(01:09:04):
fiction book at home. That's kind of like my delineation.
But I did read two nonfiction books. First was Retail Gangster,
So if you grew up on the East Coast, you
might remember Crazy Eddie. This was the iconic New York
City area electronics chain from the eighties and the nineties.

(01:09:24):
They had ads everywhere. They were known for undercutting competitor prices.
But if you read this book behind the scenes, oh
my gosh, the entire thing was built on fraud, and
the book dives into how it all unraveled. You know
it's going to end bad, but the build up is
just so well done. This was actually a listener Jeffrey

(01:09:46):
that recommended this book to me. Retail Gangster, The inside,
real life story of Crazy Eddie. And the interesting part
that I didn't realize as a kid is that the
guy in the commercials was not it was not the
owner of the store. Now maybe that was clear when
I was, you know, back in the day, but it
wasn't clear to me until I read this book. But anyway,

(01:10:08):
Retail Gangster, if you grew up in the New York
City area and you're curious about Crazy Eddy, it's a
deep dive. I mean, you're you're gonna get the full story. Yeah,
nobody beats The Whiz was another. That was another. I mean,
there were electronics chains back in the day. There was
a lot of competition. It's not like today, we're Best
Buys the only game in town. Back in the day,

(01:10:28):
there's a lot of regional chains in just the New
York City area. I mean there was the regional chains
like the Whiz, PC, Richard and Son, Crazy Eddy, and
then you had all the tiny, small, kind of like
mom and pop places, but they would all have these
advertisements in the back of like the newspapers with how
much their prices were, and you would basically bring that

(01:10:50):
newspaper into one of the other stores and say, hey,
can you beat this price and they would buy like
a dollar or two, but you felt like you were
getting a good deal. But anyway, Retail Gangster was excellent.
Listen to the audiobook if you like, you know, if
you like audiobooks, or you can read the book. The
other one I read, which I finished. We had the
guests on the show Patrick McGee Apple in China and

(01:11:13):
this book. I started reading the physical book and then
I finished with the audiobook. Now, this is all about
Apple's manufacturing ties with China and how every decision that
Apple and China made kind of affected China's tech economy.
And I would say that the book argues that that
China learned how to build the most complex consumer tech

(01:11:37):
products from Apple, and now they're taking that knowledge and
using it to power their own rise of electronics brands
like the Huaweis of the world, the Shaomis of the world.
This is a really now talk about crazy eddy anyone
can understand and like that story. Apple in China is
a much more inside baseball story.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
So if you were not.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
If you're not into supply chain logistics, if you're not
really into the whole geopolitics of Apple and China and
contract manufacturing, global supply Chaine, you're probably not gonna like
this one because it's a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
It's a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
But Patrick does an amazing job of weaving this story,
and I think the thesis. I don't want to give
away the story, but like all this stuff about building
an iPhone in America or the tariffs and all these things,
I mean, Apple is in a really precarious position with
their relationship with China because it is so intricate. It

(01:12:33):
is not something they can easily just ditch and still
be the company they are.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
They're trying.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
They're trying to build some stuff in Vietnam, build some
stuff in India, but it's not like what they're doing
in China, And so Apple and China is a really
a great deep dive if you're into this. By the way,
I was at a little cocktail party with Apple. They
invited some folks that went up to the event for
a party the night before, like a little get can't

(01:12:59):
even tell this. I'm Apples are so secretive with everything,
like just by telling you this, I might I may
be extra Apple forever, hopefully not. I don't think it's
a it was a you know, secret that there was
a little party. But anyway, so they this was like
I think the first time they did this, but they
had a lot of the journalists just kind of mingling. Anyway,
the PR person comes up to me and they're like, oh,

(01:13:21):
you listen to an audiobook on the way up? Would
you listen to the I'm like, probably don't want to
hear this. But Apple and China, it's not the book
that the company really not necessarily something the company would
promote or have it an Apple store. Let's put it
that way, all right. Uh, let's see here Yahoo Mail.
If you're using Yahoo Mail the app, they've got a
new feature called Ketchup, not catch up like the condiment

(01:13:44):
catch up, c atch catch up, to catch up feature
to fight inbox overload. It's AI powered design for people
who check email often but feel overwhelmed. It gives you little,
scannable previews of unread messages with two simple options, delete
it or keep it in your inbox so you can

(01:14:06):
tap and go.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
This happens this.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
I do this all day long on my phone I
use Gmail, but I swipe left and right swipe to
get rid of the emails out of my inbox. I
don't necessarily check the whole thing. But this is great
because it gives you a little AI preview of what
the email is all about, so you say, okay, I
need to keep this, or no, I can get rid
of it. So it's built like a game with a
celebration screen when you finish. Yahoo says almost half of

(01:14:30):
its younger users have missed events because of inbox chaos.
This is only available on the Yahoo Mail app for
iOS and Android, and so my other advice to you
is unsubscribe liberally. Unsubscribe to the emails that you do
not need to get. I am brutal when it comes

(01:14:53):
to unsubscribing, So do it. When you get an email,
like let's say it's from the company that you just
ordered food from.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
The other day.

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
Now they're sending you, oh, hey, we have a new
uh you know, a new type of beef for the
new flavoring.

Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
No, you do not need to know that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
When you feel like that bowl again, you will order
from that company again. You don't need to get their
emails every day because these companies are relentless. You order
one thing from a department store, now you're getting an
email every single day. Delete them. You're not gonna miss out.
You're not gonna get You're not gonna miss out in
the promo codes, who cares unless it's a company that
you really need to order from. Often get rid of

(01:15:32):
the emails. You can always go to simplycodes dot com
and find a promo code there, or you can sign
up for the newsletter again and they will send you
a new promo code. But my wife, uh, I want
to name names.

Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
Whoops.

Speaker 1 (01:15:45):
I look at a lot of people while they're checking
their email over their shoulder, and I cannot believe the
nonsense and garbage and trash that is in there, just
clogging up their inbox. I get emails from all over
the world every day, from all of you, and my
inbox is pristine. Right now, I have thirty two messages
in there. You know why, because I barely get any

(01:16:08):
junk stuff. I've got my I've got my inbox down
to a science. I even have a filter that when
the word unsubscribe is in an email anywhere in there,
if there's a non subscribe link, I get my it
gets flagged the big red message that says unsubscribe eligible.
I've set up a filter in Gmail to search for

(01:16:30):
that word unsubscribe in a message, and then it flags
it with that big giant label that says unsubscribe eligible
and big red text, and that reminds me immediately that
this is not a personal email. This is not something
I need to have in my inbox. I can get
rid of this and be off that list at any
given time, and I do it often. I mean I'm

(01:16:51):
talking often. I mean it's sad. I feel bad for
these companies that I just I unsubscribe, Like sorry, yes,
I bought a candle from your shop ten years ago.
I don't need your email. Eighty eight rich one O
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. The website for the show rich on Tech
dot TV. If you want those two book recommendations, I'll

(01:17:13):
put him in the show notes. This is episode one
twenty five. My name is rich Demiro. You are listening
to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
triple eight rich one oh one.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
That's eight eight eight.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Seven four to two four one zero one. The website
for the show Rich on tech dot TV. We got
an email from Let's see here, Betsy from Gainesville, Georgia.
My husband uses an Android volt strictly for phone calls.
No apps, no web, no photos. Despite being on the

(01:17:57):
Donut call registry, he still gets fifteen to twenty five
spam calls a day. Burn that phone, Betsy, I'm wondering
if he should get a new phone.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Oh, she didn't say that. I did.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
He's wondering if he should get a new number. Is
there a better way to stop these calls?

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
Number one, I am not familiar with the Android vault.
What is the Android vault?

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Let's see.

Speaker 6 (01:18:20):
That.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
I don't think that's a phone. There is no Android
vault that I know of. But anyway, he's got an
Android phone. Fifteen to twenty five spam calls a day
is a lot, So there's a couple of things he
could do. Number one, I would go into the phone
app on this device and look for any call blocking

(01:18:43):
or spam protection features, because a lot of Androids have
these tools to silence suspected spam. Now, the other thing
you can do, let me see, I thought at some
point you could download the Google phone app. Let me
see if that's still a possibility because they have built
in spam protection. Okay, I'm on my Samsung Phone by Google.

(01:19:06):
We're learning as we go along here on the show today,
So I opened up this Okay, set as default phone.
Can only start and receive calls if it's your default
phone app.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Now, this is the magic of Android that you can
literally change your phone app. Who would have thought, yeah,
I just change it.

Speaker 5 (01:19:21):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
Let's see if it's got the spam protection settings. Yes
it does. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
Okay, Betsy, we just solved your problem. Go into the
Google Play. Tell your husband to go into Google Play
and you can download search for Google Phone. Okay, let
me just make sure that comes upright Google Phone, and
make sure it says phone by Google from Google LLC.

Speaker 2 (01:19:49):
Tap that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
Install it. And then when you install it, you want
to go into the settings.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
So let me find it. Here it is.

Speaker 1 (01:19:57):
Go tap the the three dots in the upper right
hand corner. It says settings, caller ID and spam. Turn
that on, identify businesses and spam numbers and there you go,
and then you can even block numbers. Block. There you
go block calls from unknown numbers, it'll automatically block high

(01:20:18):
risk scam calls. Oh my gosh, this is like I
didn't even realize they had this. I remember reading about
I mean I did because clearly I said something, but
it's been a while since I realized that you can
actually download a new caller app. So if you're struggling
with spam calls on your Android phone, try the phone
app from Google. So that's number one. I would do that, Betsy,

(01:20:41):
That'll probably help you out. The other thing you can
do depending on the phone brand that you have, the
cellular brand, or the cellular carrier you have, they all
have their own call filter app. So T Mobile has
scam shield at and T has something called Active Armor.
Verizon has something called call Filter. So you can download
those whatever whatever carrier you have, download that turn that on,

(01:21:06):
and then they also have free apps that you can download.
But sometimes people report with the free apps they actually
get more spam calls. But I mean that who knows.
But there's a couple brands here. I'm trying to see
if they still have it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
Yeah, so hia h I y a.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
They've got some apps you can get Hya's spam Blocker
Block spam and spam calls displays caller ID that may
cost something, It may may have a cost involved in it,
but that's another way to do it. And then True
Caller is another app that some people like that can
help you cut down on spam calls.

Speaker 2 (01:21:47):
So you got a lot of options there, Betsy.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
I don't think you need to get a new phone
number if you try some of those, but that's what
I'd recommend. I'll put it all linked up on my website.
Rich on tech dot tv Susan, I love the radio show,
but I'm too scared to call in. I have an
iPhone fourteen plus and I keep getting an email that
says your cloud storage iCloud space is full, and then

(01:22:12):
there's a bunch of weird numbers and letters. I get
a I get one of these every day. Oh gosh,
should I open it? And if so, what should I do? No,
this is totally bogus. Yeah, that is totally bogus, Susan.

(01:22:33):
You do not need to open that up. You do
not need to worry about this. These scammers, what they
do is they are trying to trick you into clicking
a fake link that will will basically make you give
up your personal information. You may log into iCloud, you
may whatever it is. They're trying to trick you, and

(01:22:54):
that's really what's happening here. So if you are truly
concerned about your iCloud storage, number one, you'll know, oh,
because your phone will tell you. You'll get a little
pop up notification that says iCloud is full. They don't
send a text to tell you that, as far as
I know. But if you're worried about your iCloud storage
and you want to check, you can go directly to
the settings on your phone. Go to settings, tap your

(01:23:15):
name at the top and you'll see it says iCloud.
You tap that and it will say storage. Mine says
one point four used of two terabytes. Oh, how am
I using two terabytes of storage on iCloud. That's that's
a lot. It's all because of my kids. A lot
of that, let's see a lot of that is my

(01:23:38):
family usage.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
No, it's all me. It's my iCloud drive.

Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
I've got eight hundred gigabytes in there and then four
hundred gigs of backups. By the way, pro tip, if
you're trying to free up space on your iCloud, look
at your backups. Sometimes when you get a new phone,
you actually have a couple of backups you do not
need in there. So for instance, I'm looking at this,
it's got my iPhone in here, but then it has

(01:24:01):
my old iPhone that I do not need backed up.
So keep in mind you can get rid of some
of those sometimes and clear out space. Just be careful
if you're deleting anything that you know what you're doing.
But Susan, yeah, you can safely ignore those. It's unfortunate
that these people do this, but yes they are. They're
really trying to trick you. And by the way, on

(01:24:22):
my Instagram at rich on Tech, I'm always posting people
are forwarding me the latest greatest scam messages they're getting
and I will break them down and kind of explain
why they're a scam on my Instagram. So if you're
not following me there at rich on Tech, follow me
there for sure. All right, I've got a minute. I
don't know if I can get through another question, but

(01:24:42):
I can. Oh, I can tell you about this app
real quick in a minute. If you're looking for I'm
a sucker for some of these apps that make your
photos look really cool. I'm always jealous of people when
they post like super cool looking photos to Instagram because
I never really edit mine. But there's an app called
west w e st. It's a photo app. It's like
a camera app that makes your pictures look like old

(01:25:04):
school film. And it's made by an independent developer college student.
And it's only on iOS. But take pictures and it
looks like film. It's so cool. It's got grain, light leaks,
bloom glitches. It's totally free. If you want to upgrade
for the pro features, it's eight dollars, but you don't
need to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
It's one time fee. But I took a picture in
a bar the other night with this app.

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
It looks so cool. I mean, it's just really really cool.
So again, the app is called west w e st
Camera App. Try it out. You are listening to Rich
on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro

(01:25:49):
here hanging out with you talking technology at Triple eight
rich one oh one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. We are here at Apple's
WWDC in the Apple Podcast Studios, and my guests are
founders of a app that was used very much through
the LA wildfires, and of course continues to be used

(01:26:11):
to update folks on any sort of wildfires. John Mills
and Dave Merritt are co founders of Watch Duty.

Speaker 2 (01:26:18):
Welcome to the show, Thanks for having us. Thank you
so this app.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
The reason we're talking to you is you got an
Apple Design Award for Social Impact and that is an
understatement for this app. During the LA wildfires, pretty much
every person in La I know downloaded this app.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
Can you explain what watch Duty is all about?

Speaker 4 (01:26:38):
Well, Watch Judy started out of the problem that folks
in LA first encountered. There's not a lot of information
when these disasters are striking. We've been doing this for
about four years and so I live out in the
woods and really experienced this problem firsthand, and it's been
a growing issue. And then unfortunately La found out just
why we exist in early January.

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):
How long had the app been around before these wildfires
sort of thrust it to the forefront.

Speaker 4 (01:27:06):
Well, we started, David and I started writing software in
May of twenty twenty one. We launched in August of
twenty twenty one, and it's been growing ever since. And
there's been plenty of fires that we've been covering and
they're just not affecting massive communities, right, the effect our
community is where we live out in the woods. But
unfortunately La again found out just why we exist now and.

Speaker 1 (01:27:26):
What was the reason for creating the app. I mean
you said it was just bringing the information to folks
that need it.

Speaker 4 (01:27:31):
Well, I mean I've been through a bunch of fires
where there's no information.

Speaker 3 (01:27:34):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:27:35):
If a helicopter is over my head, flying in circles
dropping water on a neighboring ranch with no alert and
no warning, and you're just sitting there trying to figure
out is this real? Is this happening? Why is this
not being told to us? And so it turns out
that is just the underlying problem that continues to happen honestly, And.

Speaker 1 (01:27:52):
Dave, how did you get the people to actually update
this app? Like where's it getting this information from? Because
the app presents on a map all the fires and
then live updates about what's happening with those fires.

Speaker 3 (01:28:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:28:04):
I think something that's not always readily apparent is that
there's a huge team of expert volunteers and paid staff
that are doing this reporting, that are verifying and vetting
with a code of conduct all of the potential new
fire starts all of the updates about the fires. So
you know, what you see in reports, what you see
in push certifications around a new fire is really just

(01:28:27):
the tip of what's happening behind the scenes with a
big community of really concerned community members and paid staff
that are trying to bring relevant and timely information to people.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
Well, who are these people that are doing this? And
I know you have like volunteers and people, So.

Speaker 5 (01:28:42):
It all started as volunteers. You know, a lot of
these people started out on Facebook and Twitter in their
own communities kind of doing this dissemination of information, listening
to radios, and a lot of what we did was
build a platform for them to just do this in
a better place.

Speaker 3 (01:28:58):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:28:59):
We we believe that these push notifications, these life like,
potentially life altering notifications, shouldn't be kind of filtered in
between your niece's birthday and the next ad you might
get on another social media.

Speaker 2 (01:29:11):
So by giving them a platform.

Speaker 5 (01:29:14):
To do this, you know, we've allowed you know, X
first like X firefighters, retired first responders kind of you know,
radio enthusiasts, people that have been tracking fires for a
long time to work together and collaborate as opposed to
doing it independently and a place to share that in
a really cohesive way in the application.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
How do you think the app did during the LA wildfires.

Speaker 4 (01:29:37):
Well, and we were number one app in the abstor nationwide.
Unfortunately Dave and the team and I was I used
to be an engineer, so I pretend to be useful
when that stuff happens. But you know, Dave and the engineers,
we're sleeping in shifts. You know, we're doing one hundred
thousand requests a second, which is twice what Wikipedia does
with a team of four engineers at the time. And
so you know, I'm making phone calls to you know,

(01:29:57):
our donors and vendors, whether at Schoogle, Apple Book, a
HEROICU salesforce and others who are giving us infrastructure to
keep this thing up. And then they you know, the
reporters themselves listening to radios day and night. Right we're
door toashing them food, We're trying to get them to
go to sleep, and others are stepping in for them.
I mean, it was an all hands on deck, you
know event for probably two weeks, I'd say, to not

(01:30:20):
sleep right for probably about a month after that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:22):
I mean, it was very humbling.

Speaker 5 (01:30:23):
You know, it's like you build these things for potential
scenarios like this, you see it in action and it's
staggering to see the impact. I never imagined when John
and I were developing this thing as a group of
volunteers that ten million people would be using it in
a week and a lot of life altering kind of
decision making points. Just seeing the numbers roll by. Honestly,

(01:30:44):
during the actual thing, it was like John said, all
hands on deck.

Speaker 2 (01:30:47):
I wasn't.

Speaker 5 (01:30:48):
I didn't really have enough time for the daydreaming about impact.
But afterwards it was very humbling and very rewarding to
see kind of that we were able to help people
in those moments of you know, real real stress and panic.

Speaker 1 (01:31:02):
Now this is sort of set up as a nonprofit,
but the app, can you explain that relationship between you
asked for donations and I'm sure people came through during
the fires, but can you explain that side of the
app because it's a little unique compared to most apps.

Speaker 4 (01:31:16):
I mean, it's actually very simple. We're just a nonprofit organization,
so there's no you know, there's no other strange things
going on. A parent company and a for profit nonprofit
is just a nonprofit organization, similar to like AARP and
Triple A and other nonprofits are just a nonprofit that
provide a service. And so it's actually much more straightforward
than one would think. I just think that with a

(01:31:38):
world of open AI, people like, what's the catch here,
I'm like, well, there isn't a catch, which is kind
of hard for people to believe, right, But like, we
live in this community, it is important to us that
this stays the same, it stays independent and doesn't change.
And frankly, all of us through work at Watch Duty,
use the thing every day just like everyone else does.

Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
Can you give me an idea of where it's available.

Speaker 4 (01:31:58):
Yeah, we're currently in twenty two states. When we first started,
it was just in three counties in California. The next
year was all of California. That I was I think
six or seven states, then ten, now twenty two, and
we're trying to make it all the way across the
East coast. And then we're going to be launching our
flood monitoring and other programs for other natural disasters.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
Okay, so you're going to do that's next? Is flood monitoring.

Speaker 4 (01:32:20):
Any natural disaster? Really is our purview, right, So if
there's unseen danger that you can't see or get information about,
we want to be there to help.

Speaker 5 (01:32:29):
Like John mentioned, I think what we're really looking at
now is deepening our product around fire and continue to
be the best that there is there, but also realizing
that you know, a lot of disasters people have that
same problem of what I do? Where do I go
to get good information to help me make decisions during
these moments unpacking the car and these figure like do

(01:32:49):
I leave the house, do I stay? Do I go
get my grandmother? So that problem exists everywhere. So we're
seeing where we fit into the rest of the ecosystem
around natural disasters to help people out.

Speaker 1 (01:33:00):
Now, you guys got the Apple Design Award for Social
Impact for It's especially the help during the twenty twenty
five California wildfires. What does this mean to you to
get this award for this app?

Speaker 5 (01:33:12):
It's a big honor, you know, it's it's really you know,
I think more about the community of people that did
this reporting than the app itself. You know, the app
is again this like the visible aspect, But you know,
we wouldn't be here accepting this reward if it wasn't
for what the reporters did and all the time and
effort that that's really a whole nonprofit put into it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:32):
What about people that want to get involved? Can people
get involved in if they want to be a reporter
for their area?

Speaker 4 (01:33:37):
They do, And we find a lot of volunteers. I
mean watchdidty dot org, slash volunteers where people show up
and and bring the skills whether it's you know your
engineer or you're a radio operator x firefighter. So we
have lots of people who show up for us and
join the band and make this thing bigger and bigger
and more powerful. What's on the horizon for Watch Judy, Well,
I think what's interesting is, like, you know, we it's

(01:33:59):
a shame that we're so popular, right, And so what
we've come to realize is that first responders and governments,
telecommunication companies, power companies are also relying on watch duty.
So we have a business to business and business to
government arm where we're able to sell them more features
which allow them to get better situational awareness, and then
all that money goes to support the nonprofit operations. So

(01:34:22):
we're trying to do is actually build a healthy nonprofit
that can stand on it zone two feet and really
be a help to those who serve us.

Speaker 2 (01:34:29):
And so anything you learn from this that you can
share with people that might have an idea for an app.

Speaker 4 (01:34:34):
Yeah, I think for you know, young developers or people
building apps, like, focusing on value creation is all that matters. Right,
Like people look at us and they say nonprofit for profit,
what's this? What's that? I'm like, you're missing the point.
The point is how do you create an immense amount
of value for people that really need it? Right, So,
there's a lot of apps that are copycats, there's very
few that are original and focusing on original ideas and

(01:34:55):
focusing on your customer humanity for in our case, right
like all humans on earth, and so we didn't really
worry about money. We worried about impact and how do
we make a difference.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
John Mills and Dave Merrick, co founders of the app
watch Duty. It is available in the app Store and
the website watchduty dot org.

Speaker 2 (01:35:13):
Thanks so much for joining me today, Thank you for
having us. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:35:16):
More rich on Tech coming your way right after this.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you talking technology. The website for the show
Rich on tech dot TV. Before we get to the feedback,

(01:35:36):
just a couple of two more items of note number one.
There's a great app called Voice Notes Voice Nototes dot Com.
I've been using this since day one. It continues to
get better and better. Think of this as a notepad
but AI powered, and it's also dictation based, or you

(01:35:57):
can write in notes as well. So now they have
their first they have their first app for the Mac computer,
Windows coming soon, but they've got them for Android, they
got them for iPhone, they've got a web app.

Speaker 2 (01:36:08):
It's really great.

Speaker 1 (01:36:09):
And what I use this as is sort of a
voice memo app, transcription tool, memory bank, like all in one.
So what I really use it for is when people
tell me stuff about themselves, I put it in here
so I remember. And then the best part is you
can use AI to ask later about your notes. So
you can say, tell me everything I know about John, right,

(01:36:30):
if you know you work with John, or he's a salesperson,
whatever you do business with them, mentions he got a
couple of kids going off to college. You can, you know,
just dictate all this information in here or whatever. Just
you can apply it to any aspect of your life.
But really really cool. They've got voice notes, meeting recorder,
AI summarizer ask AI and it's really really cool. Definitely

(01:36:53):
check it out. It's called Voicenotes dot com. They just
came out with their MacApp. I'm a big believer, and yeah,
it's pretty cool. The other thing to do is there's
an article from the Intelligence dot com about how to
upgrade unsupported Windows ten PCs to Windows eleven. They basically
talk about using a tool called rufus that can help

(01:37:16):
you bypass the official requirements we've talked about, like the
TPM Secure Boot four g four gigabytes a RAM. Now
this a little techier than this show gets. But if
you're trying to upgrade an unsupported Windows PC to Windows eleven,
try it out. I mean, it's a great step by
step guide. I'll put on the website at Richontech dot tv.

Speaker 2 (01:37:40):
Now for the feedback.

Speaker 1 (01:37:41):
Bill from Kingston, Pennsylvania writes in, Hey, rich just a
heads up. The little light bulb at the top of
your rich On Tech website isn't working. I try to
on chromin Edge cleared cookies, it still leads to a
blank page. Is there another way to see past episodes.
I really enjoy the weekly podcasts bill. The light bulb
has been removed and now it is replaced with episodes.

(01:38:02):
I thought that was a little bit clearer for people.
So if you want to listen to a past episode
or get links to anything I mentioned, just tap episodes
up at the top of the list.

Speaker 2 (01:38:12):
Let's go to uh, let's see here.

Speaker 1 (01:38:15):
Mike from California writes in thanks for your tip in
your email about the AT and T Senior Plan. I
chatted with an AT and T rep and in order
to get that discount, you can only have up to
two lines on your account. It's actually forty five dollars
per line. If you have three, like I do. That
is correct, Mike. The forty dollars monthly rate only applies
to two lines max. It's still a pretty good discount.

(01:38:38):
This is the new AT and T fifty five plus
Senior Plan. If you have two lines, it's actually thirty
five dollars a month. Forty dollars is for the one line.
So if you've got that, if you're on any other
plan with AT and T and you're a senior citizen,
definitely Why does senior citizens sound so old? Fifty five
plus is not that old, but senior plan a fifty
five plus plan, let's call it. But anyway, a lot

(01:39:00):
of people wrote to me saying they requested that plan
from AT and T. It's brand new, so I would
jump on it if you can. It'll save you a
lot of money. Steve from Scranton, Pennsylvania, listening on WTRWFM
rights in that call you had about hacking Windows eleven
onto an old computer, way too technical and too long

(01:39:20):
for your audience. In my opinion, I keep it shorter
and just point people to search online for those kinds
of instructions. Steve, great point. Yes it got a little Techye.
I allowed it to go because I was impressed at
the caller's knowledge and getting this out there. But yeah,
I told you about the the intelligence dot com unsupported

(01:39:40):
Windows upgrade and that's.

Speaker 2 (01:39:42):
Just as easy. So I'll put that on the website.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
Jay writes in let's see. A wonderful website for searching
family history is FamilySearch dot org. It's completely free and
it's the largest family history database in the world. Also
connected to the site are hundreds of family family search
centers around the globe with volunteers who can help people
build out their family tree FamilySearch dot org.

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
Okay, there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:40:11):
Another website suggested by Jay moving right along Neil from Ohio,
oh I should have grouped this in with the earlier person.
I just heard your amazing caller talk about MBR to
GBT GPT.

Speaker 2 (01:40:25):
Great tip.

Speaker 1 (01:40:27):
I recently got a refurbished laptop with Windows ten and
noticed a couple of things during the upgrade process. First,
Windows Update offered me an older version of Windows eleven.
I skipped that and check the optional update section, and
sure enough I had the most recent official version, which
I installed.

Speaker 2 (01:40:42):
Also, while my system was.

Speaker 1 (01:40:44):
Already using GPT, secure boot wasn't enabled, Windows warned me
that some security features wouldn't work unless I turned it on,
so I did. Feels like Windows eleven is evolving in
some strange ways.

Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
I love your show. I look forward to it every week.
Thank you, Neil.

Speaker 1 (01:40:58):
See you know it just goes to show we've got
a wide range of folks on this show. Tom from
more Park writes in hey, Rich, I saw your newsletter
mention of just watch. Great recommendation. I use that site,
along with Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb to find where movies
and shows are streaming, whether free or paid. But I've
also got a new site to share Next dash episode
dot net. It's been super helpful for tracking when new

(01:41:22):
episodes drop. You can build a custom calendar with only
the shows you're watching, and it will show you exactly
what airs and when. For anyone juggling multiple streaming shows,
this is a game changer. Wow, Tom, that is That's
a good one. Next dash Episode dot Net. Unfortunately, with
my timeframes of watching shows, I basically can binge them

(01:41:43):
when the entire season's done, after like four seasons of
the show, because I just don't have that much time
to watch TV.

Speaker 2 (01:41:48):
But if you do, that sounds like a great thing
to do. Let's see here, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:41:56):
Guy from mar Vista writes in thanks for your piece
about the wise old camera with the lens oh telescopic lens.
It was exactly what I needed for my outdoor camera
fixture and it works great. I love your segment on
KTLA and KFI. Keep up the great work keeping us
consumers informed.

Speaker 2 (01:42:13):
Thank you guy.

Speaker 1 (01:42:15):
And then we've got let's see here a couple of
Carol from San Fernando. Thanks for your tech tips. I
wanted to share feedback on my experience using whisper Flow. Sadly,
it's no better than the built in Apple Mic. I
was hoping for something more accurate. I just wanted to
report my unsatisfactory experience with the flow app and hope
better solutions are coming.

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):
Carol, I think you have the wrong app.

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
It's whisper wispr Flow, and it is the best voice
to text dictation I've ever seen on the iPhone.

Speaker 2 (01:42:45):
I think you downloaded the wrong app.

Speaker 1 (01:42:46):
I'll be honest, because it is definitely better than the
built in Apple Mic and you will experience that in
just one try. Rain from California says hey, Rich, thanks
for the tip on whisper Flow. I'm using my Microsoft
Surface tablet and just like you said, it works seamlessly.

Speaker 2 (01:43:01):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:43:02):
There you go see and uh, Steve writes in I
have a form of als and my speech is affected.
Siri has done an okay job, but whisper flow is
almost one hundred percent accurate. It is by far the
best dictation software I've ever tried, and I am so
grateful to have found it. Thank you one hundred times
over for telling me about it.

Speaker 2 (01:43:22):
Again.

Speaker 1 (01:43:22):
It's whisper flow wispr flow on the iPhone. It'll change
your life.

Speaker 2 (01:43:27):
That's going to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:28):
For this episode links to everything I mentioned on my
website rich on Tech dot TV, follow me on social
at rich on Tech. Next week we're going to talk
to Mollie Defrank about her two week tech reset for kids,
and the CEO of Clicks is going to talk about
their keyboard case. Thanks so much for listening. There are
so many ways you can spend your time. I really
do appreciate you spending it right here with me. One reminder,

(01:43:50):
please do not text and drive. Whatever it is, it
can wait. It's not just for your safety, but for
the safety of everyone around us, including our kids, which
will soon be driving. Thanks to everyone who makes this
show possible. Adam on the board today, Kim on the phones,
I know we had some issues with the phone lines today.
In case that wasn't clear, I can tell you at

(01:44:11):
the end.

Speaker 2 (01:44:11):
Now it's over.

Speaker 1 (01:44:13):
Thanks for hanging with me Kim today. My name is
rich Demiro. I will talk to you real soon.

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Episode Transcript

Host

Rich DeMuro

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