July 25, 2019 • 46 mins
A new iPhone feature that will let you fix photos after you take them; Samsung says a "fixed" Galaxy Fold smartphone will launch in September; DoorDash changes the way tips work after uproar; Nintendo has a phantom Joy-Con issue; Flighty is a flight tracking app for travel geeks and the Costco membership card finally goes digital. Listeners ask if Fitbit is slurping up all of their data, what the best and safest email service is, a recommended app to send money and Google Assistant vs Alexa compared for smart home control.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
A unique new photo feature on the next iPhone, A
new app for travel geeks. Costco goes digital. Plus we're
answering your pressing tech questions. What is going on on
rich Demiro? This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where
I talk about the stuff I think you should know
about happening in the tech world. Plus, I'm answering your
tech questions. Joining me is producer Megan. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I am good. It is been a good week. How's
your week been so far?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
My week's been good. It's been busy, It's gone by
so fast.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Megan goes through two phases of life. She goes through
just getting done with vacation and then getting ready to
go back on vacation. So you're going back out of
town again already, aren't you? Where are you going now?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I'm going to Hawaii?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
But that's not this is not this weekend.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
It's next week, next week?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Okay? If I just reveal a surprise that no?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
No?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, Well, so you post on Instagram like getting Hawaii ready,
So I figured it like the sea around days, although
you didn't say where you were going, right, that could
have been a secret. Oh, not a secret. Okay, I
mean you clearly you're just an open book. You don't
care the post.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
It takes you to kawai the last time I see.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Instagram is so tricky with all these like weird little
like nothing is apparent like what like I didn't realize
you can click the post? Yeah you know. Anyways, So
why listen to a show like this megan to.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Learn about tech and how to you know, make it
through the world today.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yes, so let me give you an example of why
you're just the average person. You're sitting there, you like rich,
all this tech stuff. It baffles me. I don't get it.
How does it affect me? Big deal? Come on, all
this stuff you talk about I don't really understand. But
here's why you listen to a show like this, because
number one, I am breaking it down in a way
that you can understand. We don't talk about stuff that
doesn't really apply to the average person. We're talking about
(01:51):
stuff that affects you. The apps you can use, the
everyday decisions you're making, whether you want to get a
fire TV or a Roku or Chrome cast. These are
the kind of things that we discussed on a weekly basis,
so that when it comes time for you to make
that decision. You remember, oh yeah, Rich did mention that
the Chrome cast doesn't have that feature, or the Roku
does that, but the Amazon doesn't. So you just have
(02:12):
this thing. I'm not saying this is an end all
for every decision you ever after make, but it just
gives you that basis of knowledge. Right. So an example,
how to colleague come up to me here at work
and she comes up to me with her brand new
cell phone and she says, hey, Rich, is this a
good phone that I got? It's from Verizon. I look
at it. I said, oh, that's the pixel. That's a
fantastic phone. But why'd you go with the original pixel?
(02:34):
It's like, what do you mean original? I'm like, that's
the first pixel that ever came out, by the way
back in twenty sixteen. You're talking a phone that's three
years old, right. So she said, I don't know, that's
the one that they said was like the best one.
And I said, well, they just came out with. I said,
how much did you pay for this? Did you get?
You obviously got it for free. She goes, no, it
was like six hundred dollars. Wait what hold on? So
(02:54):
now you bought a phone that's this this old, plus
you paid this much money, and I did, you know,
I just wanted to make sure I confirmed, you know.
I was like, I, you know, I noticed the phone
from the way it looked that it was a Pixel,
but I just wanted to confirm because it's been a
while since I played with the original Pixel. So I
looked at it. I said, okay, and it was still nice,
the software was still fresh and everything. But I said
to her, you know that Google just came out with
(03:16):
two new pixels that, by the way, are better than
this phone and cheaper. Yeah, and Verizon sells them, so
why would you not get that? And I wasn't yelling
at her, but I was explaining that I wanted to know. Yeah.
I was just very curious what happened in this transaction
at the Verizon store. Why a salesperson would lead her
(03:36):
to a phone that is three years old versus one
that came out two months ago. You remember, we went
to the Google event and I featured those phones, the
Pixel three A and the Pixel three A XL. So
I told her the differences. I said, well, here's the
difference the Pixel three A, which is a phone that
sells for three ninety nine unlocked, which is a smaller size.
She complained that she got the Xcel, which was kind
(03:58):
of big for her hands, and I said, well, the
Pixel three A is even smaller, so it'd be even
easier in your hands too. So all these things added
up to I said, you know what, I think you
got to go back to the store. She goes back
to the store. Ask her today and I said, did
you get your new phone?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, they had to order it. So I said, did
you ask them why they tried to sell you a
phone that was three years old? And she said they
basically ran around that and kind of gave her the
run around. And at the end of the day, I
think what it came down to is that the Pixel
three A was sold out at that location, OK, and
they didn't feel like going through the trouble of ordering
(04:34):
her device. Maybe they get more commission on a phone
that's in house, and plus it's an older phone, so
they make more on it.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, but I'm confused if it's three years old. I mean,
the phone itself is not, but if it's a.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Three year old, it might be three years old. It
could have been sitting there for three years.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, why is it six hundred dollars? Why isn't gone down?
What did it start at? It started at like nine hundred?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, I probably started it like a probably closer to
eight hundred, maybe something like that. I'm not really sure.
I don't remember what the price of that phone was.
But the reality is, this is why you listen to
a show like this because in your mind, you might
have a little bit of a memory of Rich talking
about a new pixel phone. You may not remember the
model number, you may not remember the details, but you said,
(05:16):
Rich just talked about a brand new pixel phone a
couple of weeks ago on the podcast, and I remember
him saying it was less expensive. Just those two keywords
in your head alone should be enough to make you realize,
hold on, why am I going for a phone that's
three years old? When I do remember this guy talking
about a phone that's newer and better and cheaper. And
it's just that kind of knowledge base that you build
by listening to a show like this that does help
(05:37):
you out in real life. So I just figured i'd
share that story because I thought it was quite interesting.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, and they can always if they if they remember
that you talked about it, but they don't remember what week.
They can go to KTLA dot com and they can
search pixel and it'll come up. Because we post our
show to KTA dot com.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, we post the show to KTLA dot com. You
can There's a great website called Listen Notoes dot com
which you can search for basically a topic in any podcast,
including ours. There is my website rich on tech dot tv.
So anyway, there's lots of ways, but remember a keyword
or two and it will definitely help you.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So we're gonna start with a question.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, okay, So this first question comes from Deb Pollock
and she asks do you know of a digital smart
calendar that you write on that will sync with your
calendar on your phone? I know there are notebooks that
do that. Thank you in advance.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
This is a tricky one because I don't think that
there's something exactly what she's talking about, Like, I don't
think there's like a perfect product for this, right. But
I did a little research and have you ever heard
of Moleskine. These are like these little notebooks that people
carry around.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, I have.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So I've been a big fan of these things for
a while.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Are they digital?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, that's the thing. So there was two angles I
was looking at here, So one I don't if you remember,
in China we saw that that device that looked like
a tablet. It was almost like an ink display that
you drew on.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, I remember that, and I can't remember what.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
The name of it is, but I remember it being
really cool and it was like it was like pen
and paper. It was like almost like a legal pad,
but it was digital and you can type on it.
I don't think that would do what she's looking for,
because I think what she wants to do is actually
write something in a calendar digitally and then the event
carries over to her phone, right, And I'm not sure
(07:26):
that there's a good, really good solution for that. So
the closest thing I found is from mole Skein. They
have something called the Smart Writing System, and what this
is is one of their notebooks, and it says that
it bridges the analog and the digital, so you can
write in their little notebook and you know, you get
smart Writing set and it looks like whatever you're writing
(07:47):
in the notebook shows up in your phone on their
app as well. I don't think this is perfect, and
it's also quite expensive because you have to buy the
special notebooks, you have to buy the special software whatever. Yeah,
but that's probably the clince you're going to get to
a solution like this. Maybe if if you're listening and
you have something that works for this. I would think
that something like the Samsung Note would work for this
(08:10):
because I do know that they convert handwriting into digital,
so on that device you could probably use your handwriting
to write into the calendar and then that will convert
into text. So that's probably the other solution, but that
requires getting a whole new phone and adopting a system.
But they are coming out with a new note on
August seventh, So if you want to wait to see
(08:31):
if that's the case or if that's going to work
for you, that probably is your best bet. So check
out mole skin as well. But if you have a solution,
email me for sure. So switching gears from Samsung to Apple.
Apple is going to release their new iPhones later in September.
We already know that, but of course now the rumors
are trickling out a speculation on what this phone is
(08:53):
going to have. So there's been a lot of rumors
that they're going to switch over from the lightning port,
which is what they have now, to something called USBC,
which is what's on the iPad Pro. Remember when we
went to the event in New York City that they
changed the or do you not go to that? Was
that before your time?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I think that was before your time?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Okay, Apple? This was Apple. They did an event in
Brooklyn where they launched their new iPad pro and on
the bottom before I started, on the bottom, they had USBC,
which is what all the androids use, which is kind
of the standard connector these days. It's right here on
the side of my laptop and on your new laptop.
But everyone thought, okay, well now they're doing it on
the iPad, they'll do it on the iPhone as well.
(09:30):
Doesn't seem to be the case, so according to the
latest rumors, they're still going to stick with lightning. I
think that's smart for now. I know everyone wants like
this changeover, but it's kind of a big deal to
switch all your stuff, especially if you're in an iPhone world. Yeah,
you know, I think it'll be fine because USBC is everywhere,
But if you don't have other things, you're not really
caring too much. Like if you just have an iPhone
(09:51):
you charge with your cable you have. You don't want
to change that cable right now.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Now, if you're like me and you have a bunch
of different things android, iPhone, tablet, you know, computer that
you USBC, doesn't matter. I'd rather have one device and
one connector for every device. I'd rather, I should say.
So that's one thing. The other thing that's going away
is the three D touch. Have you ever used that
on your phone? So three D three D touch doesn't
(10:15):
it should? Yeah, press press hard on a on an
icon like on Safari, Press hard, okay, and it doesn't
do anything. Let me say, so, let's see if we
press Yeah, see how you press hard and it brings
up those little menus. So that's called three D touch.
And clearly, since you didn't know about it, there's a
billion other people that don't know about it either. So
they're getting rid of that. And what they're doing is
(10:36):
something called haptic touch. And I was testing this out
on the I'm writing my book for iOS thirteen right now,
and I was testing out haptic touch yesterday. The way
it works on the new iPhone is really weird because
now when you press and hold an app on your
screen like this, You no longer get the wobbly option. Oh,
(10:57):
it now gives you this. It now gives you how
do you say done? It now gives you this little
hard press menu along with an option to rearrange icons.
So it's like one extra step now to rearrange your icons.
So anyway, that's changing in the new iPhone. And then
the camera is the big story. There's gonna be three
cameras on the back of the new iPhone, at least
(11:18):
the upper models, you know, the top models, maybe all three,
but the extra space is going to have a wide
angle lens. And we saw this with the Samsung Galaxy
S ten. It had a wide angle lens, which is amazing.
I love having the wide angle lens because you can
get more creative with your pictures. It's really fun, especially
if you're traveling there's a big mountain or you know,
(11:39):
big building that you want to fit in there. Yeah
so and you just they just look unique because you
have this nice wide angle. If you're a realtor, that's
a great use of it taking pictures of inside people's
homes where you want to get the whole room captured.
So the way that. Of course, Apple likes to one
up things, so they're not only going to have this
wide angle lens apparently, but according to Bloomberg, they're gonna
have a new feature that utilize is it called smart frame.
(12:01):
And so when you take your regular picture, the iPhone
will take your regular picture. Let's say I take a
picture of you, but it's also going to take a
wide angle picture around you. So later on, let's say
that I had I noticed later on that I want
to include a little bit more of something to the
left of you or to the right of you. Yeah,
Now I can use that wide angle to kind of
(12:22):
see the whole canvas, and you can like crop it
exactly recrop. So it's kind of fun and it's a
smart idea and it's interesting. Now Apparently, according to this
Bloomberg article, the extra data is going to be thrown
away at it after a certain period of time, because
you could imagine that in some pictures when you take
a wider angle that you're not really thinking of, there
(12:45):
might be something in that picture that you didn't think of.
And I'll just give an example. Let's say I take
a picture of Megan and there's a wineglass next to
you right, and in a picture that I frame up,
that wineglass isn't in there. Yeah, But then all of
a sudden when I go work, Yeah, at work, and
when I go to the bigger picture, it's it's like
there's the wine glass, Like ooh yeah, maybe don't want
someone seeing that. So they're going to automatically throw away
(13:05):
the extra data after a certain amount of time.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Which is so it's two pictures or is it one?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
It kind of reminds me of like the live picture.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, so I was gonna say, it's like live.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, you won't see it unless you go to look
at it.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Okay, got it.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
But if you flip through someone's camera roll and you
kind of look at all the larger pictures, you're like,
oh interesting, Like yeah, it's kind of like that Instagram
versus reality. It's like the Instagram is like perfectly posed,
but like when you go to the wide shot, it's
like you just see like it's a mess behind them
or like like cables and stuff. So anyway, kind of fun,
good stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Our next question comes from Peter Garcia, Google assistant or
Alexa Hey Rich and Family, wondering if you can help.
I'm a big Apple products fan. My dogs are even
called Mac and Apple. My question is what would be
more friendly to my Apple ecosystem between Alexa and Google assistant,
(13:59):
calendar's map, contacts, controlling other devices, etc. I know what
Siri is behind on this front. I also realized I
should have asked this before prime date to take advantage
of the sales.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
My mistake. Anyway, hope you can help.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
And my wife and I are big fans watching you
on Kate Tla.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Well, thank you, Peter, Peter, Peter. So this is the
million dollar question. I am in my house. I am
all in on Google, and I think that Google has
done a fantastic job of the smart home. The smart home,
I mean, I think they're doing a really good job
at controlling stuff. The thing that I've noticed between Alexa
(14:37):
and Google is that Google seems to understand my commands
way better than Alexa. So when I had Alexa setup,
I'd say, can you change the lights to green in
the living room. I don't know why you'd want that,
but if you did, it would be like, sorry, we
don't see the living room lights. You have nothing named
living room lights because I call them living room dual
(15:01):
lights or something. You know what I mean, like, it
needs the exact way you've named things to like work properly.
Whereas with Google, on the other hand, if I'm in
my kitchen and I say turn on the kitchen lights,
or if I just say turn on the lights, it
will turn on just the kitchen lights, because it's smart
enough to know that that Google Home is in your kitchen,
you're in your kitchen. It's assuming you just want the
kitchen lights on. It's that smart. So that's why I
(15:23):
would say go towards the Google stuff. But Peter, you're
saying you want this to work with your iPhone and
your iPhone ecosystem, and I feel like, and I don't
know this to be certain, but I feel like the
Alexa products might work a little bit better with Apple
because they have their own app that works on the
iPhone and you can import your contacts. I assume you
(15:46):
can put your calendar in there, whereas with Google, it's
much more like it kind of knows you're using Google
products and it gets all the data from your Google products.
So in this case, I would probably lean towards the
Amazon side of things. And it's a problem that we're
all facing right now and that's that none of these
products really play nicely with each other. So if you
(16:08):
have an iPhone, it's like you're using Siri all day
at work, and then when you get home, you've got
to remember what the Alexa or Google commands are and
vice versa. If you're using Alexa at home, and by
the way, I've probably just activated everyone's device and I
apologize for that like a thousand times. But if you're
using a at home and then you have an Android phone,
now you're using Google commands there. So it's like this
(16:31):
whole big thing. But if you probably if you have
an Android phone, maybe you won't with Google anyway at
home because you had Android. So I think that's the
that's the kind of the differences I would see in
the two products.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, do you think Apple's going to come out with
their own smart They are.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
They have the home Pod, which works, and they have
home Kit, and they have Siri, which works. But the
problem is they have not taken the home in as
big of a way as these other two companies have.
So right now, when it comes to home automation and
smart home, you've got Google and you've got Alexa. It's
a two horse race. Yeah, series there and home Kit
(17:08):
is there, but the amount of products you can get
that work with it are just it's a blip on
the radar, and that's why most people don't consider it
because they're looking at all the stuff they want, the
cameras and all this stuff, and it's just not really
available in a big way through Apple. Apple's trying to
change that and they're doing a lot of cool stuff.
One of the things they announced with iOS thirteen and
home Kit is that if you want to offer a
(17:31):
smart home camera with Apple, they will give you it's
like free iCloud storage for your clips, so for like
they require like a certain amount of time. So basically
they're gonna challenge these two incumbents based on like some
of the services you get out of them, like privacy
number one, and also like free storage. Like right now,
if you buy a Ring camera or a Nest camera,
(17:54):
you're not getting any free storage with those cameras. You
have to buy that and that costs money every year.
Wise came that's a twenty dollars camera, they do give
you storage for free. The Amazon Cloud Cam they do
give you some storage for free for fourteen days. So
Apple is really going to push these companies, which is good.
It's a little bit more competitive that way.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Let's talk about the Galaxy Fold from Samsung. This is
the phone that was a oh my gosh, a complete
failure at launch. Remember this was the phone that they
sent to a couple of journalists, not myself included, which
I still feel like that's why they this whole thing
failed because they never sent it to me.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
That's why.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
That's why. That's what they get for.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
That's what happens when you don't let rich try the phone.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
So a bunch of these reporters got the phone. They
immediately had problems with the screen. And this is their
two thousand dollars Galaxy Fold smartphone, which looks like two
phones folded up like almost like a taco you know,
like a taco phone, a taco phone. So Samsung took it.
They did not launch the phone. They said, we're going
to go back to the drawing board. We're going to
(18:56):
evaluate this device. And finally now they're saying they figure
it out. So here's what they've done. The top protective
layer of the display, which a lot of reporters peeled
off by accident, they're making it very apparent that you
don't peel that off, So that's number one. Then some
other reporters had problems with little crumbs and things getting
behind the screen and ruining the screen because it got
(19:17):
in through the hinge. So they said that they're going
to reinforce the device so that you can't get external
particles under the screen. And the way they're doing that
is they're putting extra top and bottom hinges, like protection
caps on the hinges, and then additional metal layers underneath
the display, and then they also made the space between
the hinge and the body reduced. Now I'm not an engineer,
(19:40):
but I don't know how you when this phone was
supposed to launch, How do you have a million phones
sitting in a warehouse do all these changes and now
you have to retrofit these phones. I don't know. Yeah,
seems like I don't want this thing. I feel like
it's just not gonna go well, like especially for two
thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
And if they run into more issues.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Oh god, it game over.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It's like it's a little bit embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
That would be really bad. But Samsung is the king
of embarrassment because you know, they already had that first
issue with the exploding phone. So I hope that this
will be okay. But I don't see anyone purchasing this
phone in a big way, right because it just seems
like you have that phone. Oh, isn't that the one
that had all the problems? Like why would you spend
(20:25):
two thousand dollars on a phone like that?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Exactly?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I could see if they did a fire sale of
like three ninety nine just to get it out there
and prove that it's amazing, But.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I think they need to lower the price too.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
They might. They have not said if the price is
going to lower, because don't forget this phone is now
like six months past its original date or whatever. So
in the lifetime of a phone, it's not worth nineteen
eighty anymore because the processor and everything inside is kind
of lesser because you've got things getting better, all right.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So this next question comes from your Facebook page from
Vicky Faine. Good afternoon, Hoping this isn't a completely lame question.
I'm wanting to get a fipbit or other similar device
to track my steps. My concern is that when I
sink it to my phone, my information on my phone
is not as secure. Can the manufacturer of these devices
(21:14):
track my activity on my phone banking, shopping, etc. If yes,
is there a way to prevent that from happening? Do
you have any recommendations for these devices? And then she says,
want you to know how much I appreciate all you
do for us olders as she calls them, get an
understanding of all that technology has to offer, Vicki Vicky.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
So the question is if she gets a fipbit, she
connects it to her phone, does fipbit suddenly have access
to all of her activity on her phone, including banking
and all these other things she's doing. The short answer
is no. Does fipbit have a better idea of who
you are and what you're doing and when you're sleeping
and when you're running and when you're walking, and where
you're going to work and where you're going to play? Yes,
(21:59):
so think about it. Yeah, there's GPS and a lot
of these devices, or if there's not GPS on the
fippit you get, they sync up to the GPS on
your phone. So in that way, fipbit is getting a
very good picture of who you are, what you do,
where you go banking. No, they're not getting your banking
info as far as I know, what was the other one? Shopping, shopping, shopping.
(22:20):
That's an interesting one because theoretically this is just theoretically,
I don't know the fippit does this. But if you
go into a gap and you have your fippit on,
they know that GPS and they know that you linger
in that little area that they geos, you know, sync
to your GPS. They say, oh, we assume that Vicky
went to a gap yesterday. Now they could be selling
(22:41):
that data. We don't know, they could be collecting that data.
We don't know. Yeah, but it's very likely because you
are handing over GPS data to them. So shopping now,
shopping online probably not so much. They're not looking at
your web browser. They're not doing that kind of stuff.
But it's an interesting thought, and it's I'm glad that
you're thinking this way, Vicky, because the more that we do,
(23:01):
the more we have to think this way. And what
is the implications of these gadgets that we welcome into
our lives. Right and you think about the Google Home
in your house that's listening all the time. You think
about an Apple Watch. Believe me, the Apple Watch is
collecting a lot more data than it's displaying on its screen. Yeah,
and Apple is looking through that data. I remember one
time that and this is pretty common. But these apps
(23:26):
and Apple Watch and things, they can see what you're
doing on your watch, how you're using your watch, and
how you're scrolling through your watch, and how you're you know,
how do you get to the stopwatch? Do you Siri?
Or do you scroll through your apps on the watch?
You know that kind of stuff that all goes into
their internal reports and they say, we noticed that every
single person in America and they wake up, they start
(23:46):
a stop watch, So let's put a shortcut to a
stopwatch on the home screen when they wake up. Let's
just put that on there. Those are the kind of
things that they think of. And I'm just just an example, okay,
but it's the kind of stuff that, like, you might
not think about as a random person, but the developers
are thinking about ways of making our lives easier. Why
do you think every night before I go to sleep,
my watch tells me what my resting heart rate is.
(24:07):
Because it's at the end of the day, and they're
saying like, okay, well you've had a whole day. Like
here's just kind of some stats that we might think
you find interesting. And then this morning when I woke
up and said, here's your walking heart rate, which I
thought was interesting. So yeah, it's like all these little
things that you just don't think of. But I like
the Vicky's thinking that way, because too, you have to.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Well, it's also like how last week with the face app,
and then suddenly there's this backlash, like you're giving away
all your pictures and all your personal information. Like it's
great that people are actually concerned because a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
One story, a couple of years ago people were downloading
that flashlight app that had GPS built in. And you
download an app and it says, can we have access
to your GPS? And everyone's saying yes, why would you
give access to GPS on a flashlight appy doesn't need
to know where you are. But a couple of years
ago that was like the top app and it was
like millions of downloads and everyone said yeah. And nowadays,
if you've got a flashlight app and you downloaded and
(25:00):
said we want to access to your photo library, you'd
be like what for?
Speaker 3 (25:03):
What?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
No deny? Right, And it's also good that the manufacturers
when Android first started out, and maybe Apple was like
this a little bit, but when Android first started out,
you would just give blanket permission to everything. So if
you were an app, you just got if I had
if I needed one thing from you, like your photo library,
it would say everything that would give like twenty five things.
You'd be like, sure, that's so great. So yeah, it
(25:26):
is creepy. This is an issue that Nintendo Switch owners
have been experiencing, and I've seen it on my kids
Nintendo Switch and it was really bugging me, really bugging
me because he would hand me his switch, which he's
obsessed with, but I would get it and I try
to do something on it, and everything on the screen
was just moving without me touching anything. I'm like, what
is going on here? This is like the weirdest thing.
(25:48):
And so I said Justin that's my brother's name. I
said to my son Parker. I said, look, I'm like,
you got to clean your hands before you use this,
because you know kids and their crumbs and dirty hands
and all this stuff. I go because it's getting all
messed up, like this thing is either gummed up or
there's like stuff underneath the controller whatever it is. And
he's like, h no, it's clean, it's fine. So I
cleaned the whole thing with alcohol, like wiped it down,
(26:10):
and still same problem. I thought maybe the screen was
messed up. Here's what was happening. It's a problem called
the joy Con drift, and apparently a lot of people
have had this issue where when you're not using the controllers,
the screen, the stuff on the screen still moves. Now,
people have kind of narrowed it down to it's something
(26:30):
with the controller. It's still being it has phantom movements
basically inside of it. Whether that's from use or a
defect in manufacturing, nobody's really sure. So these people have
been talking about this on Reddit and online and game
forms forever. Nintendo has not really publicly acknowledged this, but
there was a lawsuit I think it was last week,
(26:53):
let's just say a week ago recently, depending on when
you're listening to this, that said, hey, this is a
class action suit. You guys know about this. You got
to stop this. Well, now Nintendo is saying, according to
a leaked memo that Vice got a hold of, that
they will fix this problem for free, even if your
JOYCN controllers are out of warranty. Now if you're not
familiar with what a Nintendo switch is like, are you.
(27:16):
It's got the middle part and it's got the two
controllers that snap on the sides, So theoretically you can
just fix the problem by replacing those two controllers with
a fresh set. Those controllers are eighty dollars. So I
planned on just buying a new set of controllers for
my son for his birthday. Yeah, now, maybe I'll just
call Nintendo and get them replaced. I'll probably just buy
them because it's easier to goat on Amazon.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
But did you go to like best Buy or you
you'd have to go through No.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I think you have to go through Nintendo. So Nintendo's
official official statement, according to The Verge, they said, at Nintendo,
we take great pride in creating quality products. We're continuously
making improvements to them. We are aware of recent reports
that some JOYCN controllers are not responding correctly. We want
our customer that's funny, they said. We want our consumers
to have fun with Nintendo Swim, and if anything falls
(28:01):
short of this goal, we always encourage them to visit
support dot Nintendo dot com so we can help. Kind
of a little cop out right now, there's no formal
replacement program in place. My suspicion is that that will
change depending on how widespread.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Only Nintendo n be like, oh, like you know, it's
gonna start to spread, and more and more people will
be aware.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
At least they're aware. Like for me, I thought it
was something my son had done, right, and now I'm
seeing this, I'm like, no, he and here I am
yelling at him every day.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Parker, you dirty, gotta wash your hands every time you
play video games?
Speaker 1 (28:33):
So classic, yeah, classic, rich. So the reality is now,
the more people that know about this, the more Nintendo
might say, okay, fine, we'll replace those for free. Here's
a formal program. If you bought one, send them in
or hopefully not even send him in. Just do a
claim online and we'll send you a new pair for
what it's worth. A a out of warranty repair is
(28:53):
forty dollars, but it's easier to just buy the new
pair for eighty I think for most people instead of
getting the old ones, especially when you don't know what
the issue is.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, all right, So our next question comes from Pam Jacobsen.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Money sharing apps is the subject.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Instead of sending a check monthly I'm wondering about a
safe app to send money directly to my son's bank account.
I am technologically challenged and do not do online biking
due to my paranoia.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
So she wants to send money to her son's bank account,
but she doesn't want to do it online. Right, Well,
there are I mean, this has been going on forever
you can, I mean ever since I was in college
when I needed like a couple hundred bucks and I
like bank, My dad like, please give you send me money.
So you know, you use something like money Graham or
Western Union. I mean those are like the the og
(29:49):
have you heard of those? Western Union so a lot
of people use it, but Western Union is like an
old school like it started out as like a telegraph
company where you would literally go into a store verbally
say a message. Some would type it out and you know,
or send it somehow over wire to another location in
the US and they print it out and send it
and give it to you. Okay, Now they're using that
(30:10):
to transfer money, but again these are old school ways.
They're also going to cost you more money. So Money
Graham looking at their website, if you do it online,
it's five dollars. Now if you do it in store.
I don't know how much it is. It's probably more
than that because you're going in store, so it doesn't
Let's see if there's like a I'm sure there's a
price list online. But the reality is, why put yourself
(30:31):
through all this trouble.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
I'm just confused about a safe app. But she doesn't
want to do online banking.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Right, so I don't those two things? Okay, Well, she
could be saying she doesn't want to sign up for
her online banking app. But there are third party apps
like you could use like PayPal, or you can use
some while I was gonna tell you, my favorite is Zell,
which is that, to me, is the best money transfer
(30:58):
protocol out there right now. The reason for that is
because it's built into most banks. Yeah, so if you
go into your app, if you have Bank of America
or I'm not sure, is Chase one of them? I don't.
I bet you they're the one that's they hold out.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I know that. Yeah, wells Fargo is with zel.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Okay, let's see if Chase is. I bet you they're not.
Let's say, oh they are. Okay, so Chase is there?
Give me a bank, Give me a bank, Wells Fargo
that's on there. Give me another one.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Oh, I can't.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Bank of America America Uh oh uh oh are they
not on there? Oh, there's the ANO. They're on there. Okay,
So all the major banks are on there. And plus,
if you're looking through this, look at all these banks
and nobody knows about Zel because they don't advertise. I
don't know what the deal is. But if you go
(31:43):
into your banking app and next time someone says, hey,
can you venmo me, which I don't Venmo. I don't
like Venmo. You know this, right, I'm a hater on Venmo.
Then if they say can you venmo me, just say, hey,
will you accept Zell? A lot of people will say yes.
And I just had to pay someone the other day
and they said, you know, except Zelle And they said no.
I said, well, how about PayPal? I'll do PayPal, but
not Zell? Sorry, but not but not.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
You like if I use Sell on my Wells Fargo app,
don't I need like your just in my phone.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Number, email address?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
So and the first time you do that, let's say
you just say here, just try to send me a
hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Okay, So just send me, I'll do one fifty, okay.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Just to make sure it works. So you send me
one fifty. You type in my email address right, and
then it will send. If I've never used Zell before,
just went through, I'll get a message thank you. I'll
get a message that says, hey, can you confirm this
one hundred and fifty dollars payment for Megan? And you
go into your bank account and you basically confirm the
email address and phone number that you want to be
associated with Zel from now on. When someone zell's you,
(32:43):
that money goes in your account like within minutes, and
it's really.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Really like to wait two days with them, I know.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
And this is free also, so it's now Here's why
people don't like it because the big banks came up
with Zell and so that's why people don't like it
because they don't like the big banks and they just
think it's shady. So you don't even need to download it.
It's in your app, whatever app you have, like from
your bank, It's already in there, okay, So yeah, I'm
(33:10):
going yeah, no need to download the app. I mean,
you can download the app, but it's literally in your
bank's app. So I think you can sign up, okay,
So it's saying yeah, so I think that app that
you're looking at is for as. If your bank doesn't
support it, you can sign up a third party perfect,
So either way you're covering. I think she just do Zell.
I think just go at Zell and it's built into
your bank. So just you got to sign up for
(33:33):
online banking. It's safe. I've been using it for ten
years now. I mean it's been fine.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
That's all I know.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, door Dash is changing the way tips work. We
talked about this story on air and online, and actually
I talked about it online first, and then because it
was so popular, I talked about it on air and
on my Facebook page and it got a lot of
people talking about it. So the long of the short
of it is that New York Times didn't arty where
(34:00):
one of the reporters went out and tried their hand
at being a delivery person for a bunch of different
delivery places, and the whole idea of the article was
just to see kind of what it was like. Well,
inside that article, it came out how the tipping works
for DoorDash, and that's the main thing that everyone retweeted about.
The article, and what the guy says is, here's how
(34:21):
it works. Your DoorDash courier, Megan, you turn on the app.
It says, hey, we're gonna pay you seven dollars guaranteed
to deliver this salad to this address, and you say,
do I accept being I'll accept. You accept that job,
and next thing you know, you get a tip of
five dollars from the person that you deliver it to.
How much do you think you'd get from DoorDash.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
You would get seven dollars?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Okay, so the tip just goes.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
To where the tip goes to DoorDash.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Okay, Well that's the way they did it, so nobody
would think that. Why would you think that.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
You think they would rip Okay, okay, okay, sorry, sorry,
it's because I know the story.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, you know the story. You're too involved in the story, Megan.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Think wou The average person would think.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Twelve dollars because they guaranteed seven and someone gave you
five extra. Right, That's not the way it worked. The
way it worked is DoorDash would say, yeah, DoorDash would say,
oh cool, now we only have to now we only
have to put in two dollars because this person gave
in five, so we still pay Megan her seven that
she was guaranteed, but we only had to pay out
two in that circumstance. Everyone thought that was kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
So DoorDash couriers.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Do they get like some sort of thing that says
you got a tip? Or do they just never find
out that they got a tip?
Speaker 1 (35:33):
I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
You imagine how much money?
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yeah, they pocketed, that's what's so crazy. So when people
heard about this, they just started discussing it online. Yeah,
and nobody seems to think that's right, and a lot
of the other companies don't do it that way.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Now, I will tell you when I was a waiter
in New Jersey, the way the law worked there, and
this was many years ago. Nope, this was at a
place called on the Border. Oh okay, have you ever
heard of it? It was like a Mexican place. So
it was owned by Chili's. I think it's still around.
So when I was there, I was paid two dollars
and fifteen cents an hour, which was fifty percent of
the minimum wage at the time, which I think was
(36:07):
like five dollars an hour New Jersey. Clearly back in
the day it was not very good. So I was
paid whatever, maybe it was two eighty five, whatever it was,
it was two dollars in something. But the way they
got around it is they said, will you make a
certain amount of money in tips every hour that brings
your hourly wage up to five or six or eight
or whatever it was. And I was like, that's weird.
So when I got to California and I worked at CBK,
(36:29):
when I made whatever it was minimum wage back then,
I think it was five or six or seven dollars,
I couldn't believe that I got that in addition to
my tips at CBK, because California is very they're a
little bit more progressive than the rest of the country
when it comes to like new laws and stuff. New
Jersey is too nowadays, but back then, clearly they weren't.
So I thought it was like the most amazing thing
(36:50):
back in the day when I got all this money
for my base hourly wage and I got tips. Well, nowadays,
when you think about DoorDash just taking that money, that's
not very nice.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
I feel like a.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Lot of these couriers, you know, they do Postmates, they
do door dash, they do like you know, and so
they probably know already. I'd rather do Postmas because I'll
get my tip. Absolutely, you don't make as much.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
But here's how they get around that on the app side,
because don't forget it's a cat and mouse game with
these delivery people. Because you think you always see these
Uber and Lyft drivers with the little stickers on their car,
they're doing both. The problem with doing both in any
of these situations is that you don't necessarily hit your
bonuses by doing both. So the way that like these
companies get around it is like with Lyft and Uber,
(37:33):
they want you to keep the app open or do
a certain amount of drives in an hour because they
know that the average driver who who is just doing
Uber can do let's say six pick up and drop
offs in an hour. But the person who's shifting between
both trying to make the maximum amount of money, you know,
being a little sketchy or looking out for themselves, I
guess I should say, is not going to hit those targets,
(37:53):
so they don't get the bonus. So the way that
they entice these people to be loyal is by offering
bonuses that and according to the New York Times article,
are kind of tough to hit. But again they're there, right,
so anyway, that's anyway. So the guy who started DoorDash,
which I've interviewed, Tony Schue a couple of years ago,
by the way, he said that going forward, we're going
to change the door dash earnings structure so that it
(38:16):
will increase by the exact amount of customer tips on
every order. They didn't share specifics, but the fear is
now that instead of guaranteeing a minimum of seven as
in our original example, they would now guarantee just a
minimum of four, based on the fact that we'll assume
that people are gonna tip. So now, two things I
learned from this. Number one, always tipping cash. Yeah, even
(38:36):
if you're tipping through the app in the future, it
still seems like it just seems better to do cash.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
And you know that they're getting that.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Okay, let's get to question quickly, and then I've got
one more thing I want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Okay, last question is from Facebook from Pam Coonlean Coon Line,
wondering what you think the best slash safest emails are
for personal use.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Oh okay, so I think the best is Gmail, if
you I mean, that's that's a simple one right, Yeah,
that's so yeah, I mean that's Gmail is like the best.
It's just easy, it works everywhere. I'm talking best on
like a average use case space. You know, just you
just want email that works and this and that safest,
i'd say, is something called proton mail. And so proton
(39:24):
Mail is totally encrypted. It's made by the Swiss, so
you know that they're I don't know, Swiss just seems sophisticated, right,
like I don't know anything about that, but yeah, I've
been to Switzerland and it was very nice. But they're
the use well, okay, people have bank accounts in Switzerland
because it's like yeah, it's it's like protected or whatever.
So according to their website, the user data, all the
(39:46):
servers are located in Switzerland. This means your user data
is protected by strict Swiss privacy laws. So proton mail
is the one that you want to use if you're
doing the secure route. So and it has end to
end encryption. I don't know why you need it, but
you never know. I don't know what PAM does. I'm
looking a basic account is free, but then you probably
(40:07):
want to go with the plus. You probably want to
try the basic and then switch to plus plus is
four pounds a month, which whatever the math is a
couple bucks whatever, five dollars a month. Who knows something
like that. Let me talk about two apps before we
close out the show here. Number one is for travel nerds.
It's called a flight y. This is really cool as
you download it. Yet I told you about this. Oh
(40:30):
my gosh, you have to download this for your flights
to Hawaii. So it's a iOS app, only iOS right now,
And it's a flight tracking app, and there's a million
of them out there. But what I like about this
one is that it is all about the data. So
you get so much data about your flight, including delays.
It has delay predictors, so immediately when you type in
(40:53):
your flight number and you kind of put your flights
in there, or you can do it automatically if you pay.
But for the average person depends, this app is really
not for the average person. It's for the person who
really likes to fly as a frequent flyer. So you've
got all kinds of alerts on if your flight's gonna
be delayed. You get all kinds of data on your flight,
like what kind of plane you're gonna be on, what
the history of that is and it just is really cool.
(41:16):
So download it. It's called flight e fl I g
h t Y. Now there is a fourteen day trial,
but after that it is pricey nine bucks a month
or fifty dollars for the year as an intro rate,
So you have to be serious about flying.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Oh, you're gonna test it.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
I'm gonna test it. I might do the fifty dollars
for the year just because it's a one time thing,
and I mean I'll do I'm doing the fourteen days.
I've got a couple of flights coming up, so I'm
gonna do that at the beginning of my flights. But
I'm gonna do that. But the just look in ato
this thing on my phone. There's just so many cool
features and it's beautifully designed. Yeah, for me, an app
when it's I can tell if an app is going
(41:51):
to be good when I launch it for the first
time and I see the design and the effort that
a developer puts into the beautiful design and the thoughtfulness,
I know that's gonna be a good app because if
they're putting that much thought into what the app looks
like when you first open it, and the homepage and
the flow screens and all that stuff. The app is
going to be really good, and so this one has
a ton of data. They're saying the developer nine to
(42:13):
five Mac talk to the developer. They say, we never
need to we push They basically they say that the
Flighty is unfiltered and unbiased. If you think about it.
Airlines don't really want to tell you the truth, because
I've been where they don't tell you anything. When you're
waiting at the gate and all of a sudden, I'll
get a trip alert from like Trippet or something saying
your flight's delayed. I'm like, wait, why am I getting
(42:35):
this from a third party and not the speaker system
here or whatever? And so these are these are little
things that do help when you're traveling because in the
case of a flight being delayed or changed or something,
if you can be first in line to get like
to the next flight that's going out, that can make
all the difference. There might only be three seats, and
so if you have the heads up that that your flight,
that your current flight is canceled and the next one,
(42:56):
everyone's gonna be trying to jump on there, those three
minutes that you get the word before everyone else can
really help you get them on the next next flight.
The other app I want to tell you about, pretty
basics called the Costco app. But the Costco app has
gotten an upgrade and you can now use it as
your digital membership card. Now, Megan, I don't see you
(43:16):
as a major Costco persons, do you really?
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Okay, I didn't really love Costco type kids.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Costco for the hot dogs and the pizza.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Oh they are good. Allar fifty for a hot dog
and a drink is pretty good. My mom and I
like to go yeah yeah, just random like Costco dates.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
You've actually gone and just like walked around.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
And it's great, and my kids love the samples and
all that good stuff. But I mean, I've always loved
Costco because I love their business model and I love
how they do things. But I really started to appreciate
them with a family because you buy stuff in bulk
and it like before and I'd buy stuff in bulk
half it would go bad. Now if you buy stuff
in bulk with kids, it's like you definitely use it all.
So you can now use your Costco app as your
(43:58):
digital membership card iOS and Android, So no worries there.
I was not able to verify mine. I tried to
set this up last night, like maybe my ZIP code
is wrong or something, maybe they have my old ZIP
or something. I don't know, so I couldn't successfully set
this up. But it's in the app. It all works
and you just have to verify who you are sign
up with the log in, all that good stuff. The
big question I got on my Facebook page was will
(44:19):
this work with Costco Gas? A lot of people like
buying gas there, and the answer is not at this
time because you need to swipe your card or insert
your card at the pump, which this is a scan.
But for me personally, this is awesome because I don't
carry around my Costco card because I don't It's like
one of those places I go once a month if that,
and so I'm not carrying around a card to my
(44:41):
wallet just for that. Women are a little different because
you carry around a larger wallet that you carry in
a purse. But for me, I carry everything in my
back pocket. So the less I have, the less thick
my wallet is. I don't want like some guys don't
care they have like this giant thick wallet. You ever
see that.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
You should see my dad's wallet.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
It's like really old, like falls apart whenever he opens
it up, doesn't.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
It And like all little things fall out.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Like he has like three new wallets.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
He won't use him.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
He's just like loves his old.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Guys get very attached to their wallets because they they
kind of like they get like molded to you and right,
that sounds kind of care but they kind of they
get broken in, let's put it that way.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
So but now I so I used to be a
big like I only want to get a new wallet
like once every ten years. Guy. Now I like to
get one like almost every year because I.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Just like, you know, new stuff.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Yeah, just you know, just throw out the old wallet, yeah,
with the money inside. Thanks so much for listening to
the show. Please subscribe if you have not done so already,
just search rich on tech in your favorite podcast app.
That could be Apple Podcasts, pocket casts, and overcasts. Those
are a few good ones. And if you have a
question that you would like answered on the show, just
go to rich on tech dot tv and hit contact
(45:54):
up at the top of the page. And don't forget
to sign up for my newsletter that is at rich
on tech Dot TV as as well. Right near that
contact button, it says newsletter producer Megan, did you enjoy
this week's show?
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yes? I did?
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Why because I just felt like we had some funny moments.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
That's always good and that's always important.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Like real life or you know, nothing worked very serious.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, nothing's funny, all right.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
You can find Megan where on Twitter?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
On Twitter producer Megan within H.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
And you can find me on Twitter as well. I
am at Rich Demiro everywhere else, I am at Rich
on tech Thanks so much for listening. Have a great day.
We'll talk to you real soon.
A unique new photo feature on the next iPhone, A
new app for travel geeks. Costco goes digital. Plus we're
answering your pressing tech questions. What is going on on
rich Demiro? This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where
I talk about the stuff I think you should know
about happening in the tech world. Plus, I'm answering your
tech questions. Joining me is producer Megan. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I am good. It is been a good week. How's
your week been so far?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
My week's been good. It's been busy, It's gone by
so fast.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Megan goes through two phases of life. She goes through
just getting done with vacation and then getting ready to
go back on vacation. So you're going back out of
town again already, aren't you? Where are you going now?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I'm going to Hawaii?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
But that's not this is not this weekend.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
It's next week, next week?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Okay? If I just reveal a surprise that no?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
No?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, Well, so you post on Instagram like getting Hawaii ready,
So I figured it like the sea around days, although
you didn't say where you were going, right, that could
have been a secret. Oh, not a secret. Okay, I
mean you clearly you're just an open book. You don't
care the post.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
It takes you to kawai the last time I see.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Instagram is so tricky with all these like weird little
like nothing is apparent like what like I didn't realize
you can click the post? Yeah you know. Anyways, So
why listen to a show like this megan to.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Learn about tech and how to you know, make it
through the world today.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yes, so let me give you an example of why
you're just the average person. You're sitting there, you like rich,
all this tech stuff. It baffles me. I don't get it.
How does it affect me? Big deal? Come on, all
this stuff you talk about I don't really understand. But
here's why you listen to a show like this, because
number one, I am breaking it down in a way
that you can understand. We don't talk about stuff that
doesn't really apply to the average person. We're talking about
(01:51):
stuff that affects you. The apps you can use, the
everyday decisions you're making, whether you want to get a
fire TV or a Roku or Chrome cast. These are
the kind of things that we discussed on a weekly basis,
so that when it comes time for you to make
that decision. You remember, oh yeah, Rich did mention that
the Chrome cast doesn't have that feature, or the Roku
does that, but the Amazon doesn't. So you just have
(02:12):
this thing. I'm not saying this is an end all
for every decision you ever after make, but it just
gives you that basis of knowledge. Right. So an example,
how to colleague come up to me here at work
and she comes up to me with her brand new
cell phone and she says, hey, Rich, is this a
good phone that I got? It's from Verizon. I look
at it. I said, oh, that's the pixel. That's a
fantastic phone. But why'd you go with the original pixel?
(02:34):
It's like, what do you mean original? I'm like, that's
the first pixel that ever came out, by the way
back in twenty sixteen. You're talking a phone that's three
years old, right. So she said, I don't know, that's
the one that they said was like the best one.
And I said, well, they just came out with. I said,
how much did you pay for this? Did you get?
You obviously got it for free. She goes, no, it
was like six hundred dollars. Wait what hold on? So
(02:54):
now you bought a phone that's this this old, plus
you paid this much money, and I did, you know,
I just wanted to make sure I confirmed, you know.
I was like, I, you know, I noticed the phone
from the way it looked that it was a Pixel,
but I just wanted to confirm because it's been a
while since I played with the original Pixel. So I
looked at it. I said, okay, and it was still nice,
the software was still fresh and everything. But I said
to her, you know that Google just came out with
(03:16):
two new pixels that, by the way, are better than
this phone and cheaper. Yeah, and Verizon sells them, so
why would you not get that? And I wasn't yelling
at her, but I was explaining that I wanted to know. Yeah.
I was just very curious what happened in this transaction
at the Verizon store. Why a salesperson would lead her
(03:36):
to a phone that is three years old versus one
that came out two months ago. You remember, we went
to the Google event and I featured those phones, the
Pixel three A and the Pixel three A XL. So
I told her the differences. I said, well, here's the
difference the Pixel three A, which is a phone that
sells for three ninety nine unlocked, which is a smaller size.
She complained that she got the Xcel, which was kind
(03:58):
of big for her hands, and I said, well, the
Pixel three A is even smaller, so it'd be even
easier in your hands too. So all these things added
up to I said, you know what, I think you
got to go back to the store. She goes back
to the store. Ask her today and I said, did
you get your new phone?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, they had to order it. So I said, did
you ask them why they tried to sell you a
phone that was three years old? And she said they
basically ran around that and kind of gave her the
run around. And at the end of the day, I
think what it came down to is that the Pixel
three A was sold out at that location, OK, and
they didn't feel like going through the trouble of ordering
(04:34):
her device. Maybe they get more commission on a phone
that's in house, and plus it's an older phone, so
they make more on it.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, but I'm confused if it's three years old. I mean,
the phone itself is not, but if it's a.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Three year old, it might be three years old. It
could have been sitting there for three years.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, why is it six hundred dollars? Why isn't gone down?
What did it start at? It started at like nine hundred?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, I probably started it like a probably closer to
eight hundred, maybe something like that. I'm not really sure.
I don't remember what the price of that phone was.
But the reality is, this is why you listen to
a show like this because in your mind, you might
have a little bit of a memory of Rich talking
about a new pixel phone. You may not remember the
model number, you may not remember the details, but you said,
(05:16):
Rich just talked about a brand new pixel phone a
couple of weeks ago on the podcast, and I remember
him saying it was less expensive. Just those two keywords
in your head alone should be enough to make you realize,
hold on, why am I going for a phone that's
three years old? When I do remember this guy talking
about a phone that's newer and better and cheaper. And
it's just that kind of knowledge base that you build
by listening to a show like this that does help
(05:37):
you out in real life. So I just figured i'd
share that story because I thought it was quite interesting.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, and they can always if they if they remember
that you talked about it, but they don't remember what week.
They can go to KTLA dot com and they can
search pixel and it'll come up. Because we post our
show to KTA dot com.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, we post the show to KTLA dot com. You
can There's a great website called Listen Notoes dot com
which you can search for basically a topic in any podcast,
including ours. There is my website rich on tech dot tv.
So anyway, there's lots of ways, but remember a keyword
or two and it will definitely help you.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So we're gonna start with a question.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, okay, So this first question comes from Deb Pollock
and she asks do you know of a digital smart
calendar that you write on that will sync with your
calendar on your phone? I know there are notebooks that
do that. Thank you in advance.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
This is a tricky one because I don't think that
there's something exactly what she's talking about, Like, I don't
think there's like a perfect product for this, right. But
I did a little research and have you ever heard
of Moleskine. These are like these little notebooks that people
carry around.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, I have.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So I've been a big fan of these things for
a while.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Are they digital?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, that's the thing. So there was two angles I
was looking at here, So one I don't if you remember,
in China we saw that that device that looked like
a tablet. It was almost like an ink display that
you drew on.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, I remember that, and I can't remember what.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
The name of it is, but I remember it being
really cool and it was like it was like pen
and paper. It was like almost like a legal pad,
but it was digital and you can type on it.
I don't think that would do what she's looking for,
because I think what she wants to do is actually
write something in a calendar digitally and then the event
carries over to her phone, right, And I'm not sure
(07:26):
that there's a good, really good solution for that. So
the closest thing I found is from mole Skein. They
have something called the Smart Writing System, and what this
is is one of their notebooks, and it says that
it bridges the analog and the digital, so you can
write in their little notebook and you know, you get
smart Writing set and it looks like whatever you're writing
(07:47):
in the notebook shows up in your phone on their
app as well. I don't think this is perfect, and
it's also quite expensive because you have to buy the
special notebooks, you have to buy the special software whatever. Yeah,
but that's probably the clince you're going to get to
a solution like this. Maybe if if you're listening and
you have something that works for this. I would think
that something like the Samsung Note would work for this
(08:10):
because I do know that they convert handwriting into digital,
so on that device you could probably use your handwriting
to write into the calendar and then that will convert
into text. So that's probably the other solution, but that
requires getting a whole new phone and adopting a system.
But they are coming out with a new note on
August seventh, So if you want to wait to see
(08:31):
if that's the case or if that's going to work
for you, that probably is your best bet. So check
out mole skin as well. But if you have a solution,
email me for sure. So switching gears from Samsung to Apple.
Apple is going to release their new iPhones later in September.
We already know that, but of course now the rumors
are trickling out a speculation on what this phone is
(08:53):
going to have. So there's been a lot of rumors
that they're going to switch over from the lightning port,
which is what they have now, to something called USBC,
which is what's on the iPad Pro. Remember when we
went to the event in New York City that they
changed the or do you not go to that? Was
that before your time?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I think that was before your time?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Okay, Apple? This was Apple. They did an event in
Brooklyn where they launched their new iPad pro and on
the bottom before I started, on the bottom, they had USBC,
which is what all the androids use, which is kind
of the standard connector these days. It's right here on
the side of my laptop and on your new laptop.
But everyone thought, okay, well now they're doing it on
the iPad, they'll do it on the iPhone as well.
(09:30):
Doesn't seem to be the case, so according to the
latest rumors, they're still going to stick with lightning. I
think that's smart for now. I know everyone wants like
this changeover, but it's kind of a big deal to
switch all your stuff, especially if you're in an iPhone world. Yeah,
you know, I think it'll be fine because USBC is everywhere,
But if you don't have other things, you're not really
caring too much. Like if you just have an iPhone
(09:51):
you charge with your cable you have. You don't want
to change that cable right now.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Now, if you're like me and you have a bunch
of different things android, iPhone, tablet, you know, computer that
you USBC, doesn't matter. I'd rather have one device and
one connector for every device. I'd rather, I should say.
So that's one thing. The other thing that's going away
is the three D touch. Have you ever used that
on your phone? So three D three D touch doesn't
(10:15):
it should? Yeah, press press hard on a on an
icon like on Safari, Press hard, okay, and it doesn't
do anything. Let me say, so, let's see if we
press Yeah, see how you press hard and it brings
up those little menus. So that's called three D touch.
And clearly, since you didn't know about it, there's a
billion other people that don't know about it either. So
they're getting rid of that. And what they're doing is
(10:36):
something called haptic touch. And I was testing this out
on the I'm writing my book for iOS thirteen right now,
and I was testing out haptic touch yesterday. The way
it works on the new iPhone is really weird because
now when you press and hold an app on your
screen like this, You no longer get the wobbly option. Oh,
(10:57):
it now gives you this. It now gives you how
do you say done? It now gives you this little
hard press menu along with an option to rearrange icons.
So it's like one extra step now to rearrange your icons.
So anyway, that's changing in the new iPhone. And then
the camera is the big story. There's gonna be three
cameras on the back of the new iPhone, at least
(11:18):
the upper models, you know, the top models, maybe all three,
but the extra space is going to have a wide
angle lens. And we saw this with the Samsung Galaxy
S ten. It had a wide angle lens, which is amazing.
I love having the wide angle lens because you can
get more creative with your pictures. It's really fun, especially
if you're traveling there's a big mountain or you know,
(11:39):
big building that you want to fit in there. Yeah
so and you just they just look unique because you
have this nice wide angle. If you're a realtor, that's
a great use of it taking pictures of inside people's
homes where you want to get the whole room captured.
So the way that. Of course, Apple likes to one
up things, so they're not only going to have this
wide angle lens apparently, but according to Bloomberg, they're gonna
have a new feature that utilize is it called smart frame.
(12:01):
And so when you take your regular picture, the iPhone
will take your regular picture. Let's say I take a
picture of you, but it's also going to take a
wide angle picture around you. So later on, let's say
that I had I noticed later on that I want
to include a little bit more of something to the
left of you or to the right of you. Yeah,
Now I can use that wide angle to kind of
(12:22):
see the whole canvas, and you can like crop it
exactly recrop. So it's kind of fun and it's a
smart idea and it's interesting. Now Apparently, according to this
Bloomberg article, the extra data is going to be thrown
away at it after a certain period of time, because
you could imagine that in some pictures when you take
a wider angle that you're not really thinking of, there
(12:45):
might be something in that picture that you didn't think of.
And I'll just give an example. Let's say I take
a picture of Megan and there's a wineglass next to
you right, and in a picture that I frame up,
that wineglass isn't in there. Yeah, But then all of
a sudden when I go work, Yeah, at work, and
when I go to the bigger picture, it's it's like
there's the wine glass, Like ooh yeah, maybe don't want
someone seeing that. So they're going to automatically throw away
(13:05):
the extra data after a certain amount of time.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Which is so it's two pictures or is it one?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
It kind of reminds me of like the live picture.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, so I was gonna say, it's like live.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, you won't see it unless you go to look
at it.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Okay, got it.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
But if you flip through someone's camera roll and you
kind of look at all the larger pictures, you're like,
oh interesting, Like yeah, it's kind of like that Instagram
versus reality. It's like the Instagram is like perfectly posed,
but like when you go to the wide shot, it's
like you just see like it's a mess behind them
or like like cables and stuff. So anyway, kind of fun,
good stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Our next question comes from Peter Garcia, Google assistant or
Alexa Hey Rich and Family, wondering if you can help.
I'm a big Apple products fan. My dogs are even
called Mac and Apple. My question is what would be
more friendly to my Apple ecosystem between Alexa and Google assistant,
(13:59):
calendar's map, contacts, controlling other devices, etc. I know what
Siri is behind on this front. I also realized I
should have asked this before prime date to take advantage
of the sales.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
My mistake. Anyway, hope you can help.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
And my wife and I are big fans watching you
on Kate Tla.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Well, thank you, Peter, Peter, Peter. So this is the
million dollar question. I am in my house. I am
all in on Google, and I think that Google has
done a fantastic job of the smart home. The smart home,
I mean, I think they're doing a really good job
at controlling stuff. The thing that I've noticed between Alexa
(14:37):
and Google is that Google seems to understand my commands
way better than Alexa. So when I had Alexa setup,
I'd say, can you change the lights to green in
the living room. I don't know why you'd want that,
but if you did, it would be like, sorry, we
don't see the living room lights. You have nothing named
living room lights because I call them living room dual
(15:01):
lights or something. You know what I mean, like, it
needs the exact way you've named things to like work properly.
Whereas with Google, on the other hand, if I'm in
my kitchen and I say turn on the kitchen lights,
or if I just say turn on the lights, it
will turn on just the kitchen lights, because it's smart
enough to know that that Google Home is in your kitchen,
you're in your kitchen. It's assuming you just want the
kitchen lights on. It's that smart. So that's why I
(15:23):
would say go towards the Google stuff. But Peter, you're
saying you want this to work with your iPhone and
your iPhone ecosystem, and I feel like, and I don't
know this to be certain, but I feel like the
Alexa products might work a little bit better with Apple
because they have their own app that works on the
iPhone and you can import your contacts. I assume you
(15:46):
can put your calendar in there, whereas with Google, it's
much more like it kind of knows you're using Google
products and it gets all the data from your Google products.
So in this case, I would probably lean towards the
Amazon side of things. And it's a problem that we're
all facing right now and that's that none of these
products really play nicely with each other. So if you
(16:08):
have an iPhone, it's like you're using Siri all day
at work, and then when you get home, you've got
to remember what the Alexa or Google commands are and
vice versa. If you're using Alexa at home, and by
the way, I've probably just activated everyone's device and I
apologize for that like a thousand times. But if you're
using a at home and then you have an Android phone,
now you're using Google commands there. So it's like this
(16:31):
whole big thing. But if you probably if you have
an Android phone, maybe you won't with Google anyway at
home because you had Android. So I think that's the
that's the kind of the differences I would see in
the two products.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, do you think Apple's going to come out with
their own smart They are.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
They have the home Pod, which works, and they have
home Kit, and they have Siri, which works. But the
problem is they have not taken the home in as
big of a way as these other two companies have.
So right now, when it comes to home automation and
smart home, you've got Google and you've got Alexa. It's
a two horse race. Yeah, series there and home Kit
(17:08):
is there, but the amount of products you can get
that work with it are just it's a blip on
the radar, and that's why most people don't consider it
because they're looking at all the stuff they want, the
cameras and all this stuff, and it's just not really
available in a big way through Apple. Apple's trying to
change that and they're doing a lot of cool stuff.
One of the things they announced with iOS thirteen and
home Kit is that if you want to offer a
(17:31):
smart home camera with Apple, they will give you it's
like free iCloud storage for your clips, so for like
they require like a certain amount of time. So basically
they're gonna challenge these two incumbents based on like some
of the services you get out of them, like privacy
number one, and also like free storage. Like right now,
if you buy a Ring camera or a Nest camera,
(17:54):
you're not getting any free storage with those cameras. You
have to buy that and that costs money every year.
Wise came that's a twenty dollars camera, they do give
you storage for free. The Amazon Cloud Cam they do
give you some storage for free for fourteen days. So
Apple is really going to push these companies, which is good.
It's a little bit more competitive that way.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Let's talk about the Galaxy Fold from Samsung. This is
the phone that was a oh my gosh, a complete
failure at launch. Remember this was the phone that they
sent to a couple of journalists, not myself included, which
I still feel like that's why they this whole thing
failed because they never sent it to me.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
That's why.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
That's why. That's what they get for.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
That's what happens when you don't let rich try the phone.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
So a bunch of these reporters got the phone. They
immediately had problems with the screen. And this is their
two thousand dollars Galaxy Fold smartphone, which looks like two
phones folded up like almost like a taco you know,
like a taco phone, a taco phone. So Samsung took it.
They did not launch the phone. They said, we're going
to go back to the drawing board. We're going to
(18:56):
evaluate this device. And finally now they're saying they figure
it out. So here's what they've done. The top protective
layer of the display, which a lot of reporters peeled
off by accident, they're making it very apparent that you
don't peel that off, So that's number one. Then some
other reporters had problems with little crumbs and things getting
behind the screen and ruining the screen because it got
(19:17):
in through the hinge. So they said that they're going
to reinforce the device so that you can't get external
particles under the screen. And the way they're doing that
is they're putting extra top and bottom hinges, like protection
caps on the hinges, and then additional metal layers underneath
the display, and then they also made the space between
the hinge and the body reduced. Now I'm not an engineer,
(19:40):
but I don't know how you when this phone was
supposed to launch, How do you have a million phones
sitting in a warehouse do all these changes and now
you have to retrofit these phones. I don't know. Yeah,
seems like I don't want this thing. I feel like
it's just not gonna go well, like especially for two
thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
And if they run into more issues.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Oh god, it game over.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It's like it's a little bit embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
That would be really bad. But Samsung is the king
of embarrassment because you know, they already had that first
issue with the exploding phone. So I hope that this
will be okay. But I don't see anyone purchasing this
phone in a big way, right because it just seems
like you have that phone. Oh, isn't that the one
that had all the problems? Like why would you spend
(20:25):
two thousand dollars on a phone like that?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Exactly?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
I could see if they did a fire sale of
like three ninety nine just to get it out there
and prove that it's amazing, But.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I think they need to lower the price too.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
They might. They have not said if the price is
going to lower, because don't forget this phone is now
like six months past its original date or whatever. So
in the lifetime of a phone, it's not worth nineteen
eighty anymore because the processor and everything inside is kind
of lesser because you've got things getting better, all right.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
So this next question comes from your Facebook page from
Vicky Faine. Good afternoon, Hoping this isn't a completely lame question.
I'm wanting to get a fipbit or other similar device
to track my steps. My concern is that when I
sink it to my phone, my information on my phone
is not as secure. Can the manufacturer of these devices
(21:14):
track my activity on my phone banking, shopping, etc. If yes,
is there a way to prevent that from happening? Do
you have any recommendations for these devices? And then she says,
want you to know how much I appreciate all you
do for us olders as she calls them, get an
understanding of all that technology has to offer, Vicki Vicky.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
So the question is if she gets a fipbit, she
connects it to her phone, does fipbit suddenly have access
to all of her activity on her phone, including banking
and all these other things she's doing. The short answer
is no. Does fipbit have a better idea of who
you are and what you're doing and when you're sleeping
and when you're running and when you're walking, and where
you're going to work and where you're going to play? Yes,
(21:59):
so think about it. Yeah, there's GPS and a lot
of these devices, or if there's not GPS on the
fippit you get, they sync up to the GPS on
your phone. So in that way, fipbit is getting a
very good picture of who you are, what you do,
where you go banking. No, they're not getting your banking
info as far as I know, what was the other one? Shopping, shopping, shopping.
(22:20):
That's an interesting one because theoretically this is just theoretically,
I don't know the fippit does this. But if you
go into a gap and you have your fippit on,
they know that GPS and they know that you linger
in that little area that they geos, you know, sync
to your GPS. They say, oh, we assume that Vicky
went to a gap yesterday. Now they could be selling
(22:41):
that data. We don't know, they could be collecting that data.
We don't know. Yeah, but it's very likely because you
are handing over GPS data to them. So shopping now,
shopping online probably not so much. They're not looking at
your web browser. They're not doing that kind of stuff.
But it's an interesting thought, and it's I'm glad that
you're thinking this way, Vicky, because the more that we do,
(23:01):
the more we have to think this way. And what
is the implications of these gadgets that we welcome into
our lives. Right and you think about the Google Home
in your house that's listening all the time. You think
about an Apple Watch. Believe me, the Apple Watch is
collecting a lot more data than it's displaying on its screen. Yeah,
and Apple is looking through that data. I remember one
time that and this is pretty common. But these apps
(23:26):
and Apple Watch and things, they can see what you're
doing on your watch, how you're using your watch, and
how you're scrolling through your watch, and how you're you know,
how do you get to the stopwatch? Do you Siri?
Or do you scroll through your apps on the watch?
You know that kind of stuff that all goes into
their internal reports and they say, we noticed that every
single person in America and they wake up, they start
(23:46):
a stop watch, So let's put a shortcut to a
stopwatch on the home screen when they wake up. Let's
just put that on there. Those are the kind of
things that they think of. And I'm just just an example, okay,
but it's the kind of stuff that, like, you might
not think about as a random person, but the developers
are thinking about ways of making our lives easier. Why
do you think every night before I go to sleep,
my watch tells me what my resting heart rate is.
(24:07):
Because it's at the end of the day, and they're
saying like, okay, well you've had a whole day. Like
here's just kind of some stats that we might think
you find interesting. And then this morning when I woke
up and said, here's your walking heart rate, which I
thought was interesting. So yeah, it's like all these little
things that you just don't think of. But I like
the Vicky's thinking that way, because too, you have to.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Well, it's also like how last week with the face app,
and then suddenly there's this backlash, like you're giving away
all your pictures and all your personal information. Like it's
great that people are actually concerned because a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
One story, a couple of years ago people were downloading
that flashlight app that had GPS built in. And you
download an app and it says, can we have access
to your GPS? And everyone's saying yes, why would you
give access to GPS on a flashlight appy doesn't need
to know where you are. But a couple of years
ago that was like the top app and it was
like millions of downloads and everyone said yeah. And nowadays,
if you've got a flashlight app and you downloaded and
(25:00):
said we want to access to your photo library, you'd
be like what for?
Speaker 3 (25:03):
What?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
No deny? Right, And it's also good that the manufacturers
when Android first started out, and maybe Apple was like
this a little bit, but when Android first started out,
you would just give blanket permission to everything. So if
you were an app, you just got if I had
if I needed one thing from you, like your photo library,
it would say everything that would give like twenty five things.
You'd be like, sure, that's so great. So yeah, it
(25:26):
is creepy. This is an issue that Nintendo Switch owners
have been experiencing, and I've seen it on my kids
Nintendo Switch and it was really bugging me, really bugging
me because he would hand me his switch, which he's
obsessed with, but I would get it and I try
to do something on it, and everything on the screen
was just moving without me touching anything. I'm like, what
is going on here? This is like the weirdest thing.
(25:48):
And so I said Justin that's my brother's name. I
said to my son Parker. I said, look, I'm like,
you got to clean your hands before you use this,
because you know kids and their crumbs and dirty hands
and all this stuff. I go because it's getting all
messed up, like this thing is either gummed up or
there's like stuff underneath the controller whatever it is. And
he's like, h no, it's clean, it's fine. So I
cleaned the whole thing with alcohol, like wiped it down,
(26:10):
and still same problem. I thought maybe the screen was
messed up. Here's what was happening. It's a problem called
the joy Con drift, and apparently a lot of people
have had this issue where when you're not using the controllers,
the screen, the stuff on the screen still moves. Now,
people have kind of narrowed it down to it's something
(26:30):
with the controller. It's still being it has phantom movements
basically inside of it. Whether that's from use or a
defect in manufacturing, nobody's really sure. So these people have
been talking about this on Reddit and online and game
forms forever. Nintendo has not really publicly acknowledged this, but
there was a lawsuit I think it was last week,
(26:53):
let's just say a week ago recently, depending on when
you're listening to this, that said, hey, this is a
class action suit. You guys know about this. You got
to stop this. Well, now Nintendo is saying, according to
a leaked memo that Vice got a hold of, that
they will fix this problem for free, even if your
JOYCN controllers are out of warranty. Now if you're not
familiar with what a Nintendo switch is like, are you.
(27:16):
It's got the middle part and it's got the two
controllers that snap on the sides, So theoretically you can
just fix the problem by replacing those two controllers with
a fresh set. Those controllers are eighty dollars. So I
planned on just buying a new set of controllers for
my son for his birthday. Yeah, now, maybe I'll just
call Nintendo and get them replaced. I'll probably just buy
them because it's easier to goat on Amazon.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
But did you go to like best Buy or you
you'd have to go through No.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I think you have to go through Nintendo. So Nintendo's
official official statement, according to The Verge, they said, at Nintendo,
we take great pride in creating quality products. We're continuously
making improvements to them. We are aware of recent reports
that some JOYCN controllers are not responding correctly. We want
our customer that's funny, they said. We want our consumers
to have fun with Nintendo Swim, and if anything falls
(28:01):
short of this goal, we always encourage them to visit
support dot Nintendo dot com so we can help. Kind
of a little cop out right now, there's no formal
replacement program in place. My suspicion is that that will
change depending on how widespread.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Only Nintendo n be like, oh, like you know, it's
gonna start to spread, and more and more people will
be aware.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
At least they're aware. Like for me, I thought it
was something my son had done, right, and now I'm
seeing this, I'm like, no, he and here I am
yelling at him every day.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Parker, you dirty, gotta wash your hands every time you
play video games?
Speaker 1 (28:33):
So classic, yeah, classic, rich. So the reality is now,
the more people that know about this, the more Nintendo
might say, okay, fine, we'll replace those for free. Here's
a formal program. If you bought one, send them in
or hopefully not even send him in. Just do a
claim online and we'll send you a new pair for
what it's worth. A a out of warranty repair is
(28:53):
forty dollars, but it's easier to just buy the new
pair for eighty I think for most people instead of
getting the old ones, especially when you don't know what
the issue is.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, all right, So our next question comes from Pam Jacobsen.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Money sharing apps is the subject.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Instead of sending a check monthly I'm wondering about a
safe app to send money directly to my son's bank account.
I am technologically challenged and do not do online biking
due to my paranoia.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
So she wants to send money to her son's bank account,
but she doesn't want to do it online. Right, Well,
there are I mean, this has been going on forever
you can, I mean ever since I was in college
when I needed like a couple hundred bucks and I
like bank, My dad like, please give you send me money.
So you know, you use something like money Graham or
Western Union. I mean those are like the the og
(29:49):
have you heard of those? Western Union so a lot
of people use it, but Western Union is like an
old school like it started out as like a telegraph
company where you would literally go into a store verbally
say a message. Some would type it out and you know,
or send it somehow over wire to another location in
the US and they print it out and send it
and give it to you. Okay, Now they're using that
(30:10):
to transfer money, but again these are old school ways.
They're also going to cost you more money. So Money
Graham looking at their website, if you do it online,
it's five dollars. Now if you do it in store.
I don't know how much it is. It's probably more
than that because you're going in store, so it doesn't
Let's see if there's like a I'm sure there's a
price list online. But the reality is, why put yourself
(30:31):
through all this trouble.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
I'm just confused about a safe app. But she doesn't
want to do online banking.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Right, so I don't those two things? Okay, Well, she
could be saying she doesn't want to sign up for
her online banking app. But there are third party apps
like you could use like PayPal, or you can use
some while I was gonna tell you, my favorite is Zell,
which is that, to me, is the best money transfer
(30:58):
protocol out there right now. The reason for that is
because it's built into most banks. Yeah, so if you
go into your app, if you have Bank of America
or I'm not sure, is Chase one of them? I don't.
I bet you they're the one that's they hold out.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I know that. Yeah, wells Fargo is with zel.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Okay, let's see if Chase is. I bet you they're not.
Let's say, oh they are. Okay, so Chase is there?
Give me a bank, Give me a bank, Wells Fargo
that's on there. Give me another one.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Oh, I can't.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Bank of America America Uh oh uh oh are they
not on there? Oh, there's the ANO. They're on there. Okay,
So all the major banks are on there. And plus,
if you're looking through this, look at all these banks
and nobody knows about Zel because they don't advertise. I
don't know what the deal is. But if you go
(31:43):
into your banking app and next time someone says, hey,
can you venmo me, which I don't Venmo. I don't
like Venmo. You know this, right, I'm a hater on Venmo.
Then if they say can you venmo me, just say, hey,
will you accept Zell? A lot of people will say yes.
And I just had to pay someone the other day
and they said, you know, except Zelle And they said no.
I said, well, how about PayPal? I'll do PayPal, but
not Zell? Sorry, but not but not.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
You like if I use Sell on my Wells Fargo app,
don't I need like your just in my phone.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Number, email address?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
So and the first time you do that, let's say
you just say here, just try to send me a
hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Okay, So just send me, I'll do one fifty, okay.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Just to make sure it works. So you send me
one fifty. You type in my email address right, and
then it will send. If I've never used Zell before,
just went through, I'll get a message thank you. I'll
get a message that says, hey, can you confirm this
one hundred and fifty dollars payment for Megan? And you
go into your bank account and you basically confirm the
email address and phone number that you want to be
associated with Zel from now on. When someone zell's you,
(32:43):
that money goes in your account like within minutes, and
it's really.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Really like to wait two days with them, I know.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
And this is free also, so it's now Here's why
people don't like it because the big banks came up
with Zell and so that's why people don't like it
because they don't like the big banks and they just
think it's shady. So you don't even need to download it.
It's in your app, whatever app you have, like from
your bank, It's already in there, okay, So yeah, I'm
(33:10):
going yeah, no need to download the app. I mean,
you can download the app, but it's literally in your
bank's app. So I think you can sign up, okay,
So it's saying yeah, so I think that app that
you're looking at is for as. If your bank doesn't
support it, you can sign up a third party perfect,
So either way you're covering. I think she just do Zell.
I think just go at Zell and it's built into
your bank. So just you got to sign up for
(33:33):
online banking. It's safe. I've been using it for ten
years now. I mean it's been fine.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
That's all I know.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, door Dash is changing the way tips work. We
talked about this story on air and online, and actually
I talked about it online first, and then because it
was so popular, I talked about it on air and
on my Facebook page and it got a lot of
people talking about it. So the long of the short
of it is that New York Times didn't arty where
(34:00):
one of the reporters went out and tried their hand
at being a delivery person for a bunch of different
delivery places, and the whole idea of the article was
just to see kind of what it was like. Well,
inside that article, it came out how the tipping works
for DoorDash, and that's the main thing that everyone retweeted about.
The article, and what the guy says is, here's how
(34:21):
it works. Your DoorDash courier, Megan, you turn on the app.
It says, hey, we're gonna pay you seven dollars guaranteed
to deliver this salad to this address, and you say,
do I accept being I'll accept. You accept that job,
and next thing you know, you get a tip of
five dollars from the person that you deliver it to.
How much do you think you'd get from DoorDash.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
You would get seven dollars?
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Okay, so the tip just goes.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
To where the tip goes to DoorDash.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Okay, Well that's the way they did it, so nobody
would think that. Why would you think that.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
You think they would rip Okay, okay, okay, sorry, sorry,
it's because I know the story.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, you know the story. You're too involved in the story, Megan.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Think wou The average person would think.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Twelve dollars because they guaranteed seven and someone gave you
five extra. Right, That's not the way it worked. The
way it worked is DoorDash would say, yeah, DoorDash would say,
oh cool, now we only have to now we only
have to put in two dollars because this person gave
in five, so we still pay Megan her seven that
she was guaranteed, but we only had to pay out
two in that circumstance. Everyone thought that was kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
So DoorDash couriers.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Do they get like some sort of thing that says
you got a tip? Or do they just never find
out that they got a tip?
Speaker 1 (35:33):
I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
You imagine how much money?
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yeah, they pocketed, that's what's so crazy. So when people
heard about this, they just started discussing it online. Yeah,
and nobody seems to think that's right, and a lot
of the other companies don't do it that way.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Now, I will tell you when I was a waiter
in New Jersey, the way the law worked there, and
this was many years ago. Nope, this was at a
place called on the Border. Oh okay, have you ever
heard of it? It was like a Mexican place. So
it was owned by Chili's. I think it's still around.
So when I was there, I was paid two dollars
and fifteen cents an hour, which was fifty percent of
the minimum wage at the time, which I think was
(36:07):
like five dollars an hour New Jersey. Clearly back in
the day it was not very good. So I was
paid whatever, maybe it was two eighty five, whatever it was,
it was two dollars in something. But the way they
got around it is they said, will you make a
certain amount of money in tips every hour that brings
your hourly wage up to five or six or eight
or whatever it was. And I was like, that's weird.
So when I got to California and I worked at CBK,
(36:29):
when I made whatever it was minimum wage back then,
I think it was five or six or seven dollars,
I couldn't believe that I got that in addition to
my tips at CBK, because California is very they're a
little bit more progressive than the rest of the country
when it comes to like new laws and stuff. New
Jersey is too nowadays, but back then, clearly they weren't.
So I thought it was like the most amazing thing
(36:50):
back in the day when I got all this money
for my base hourly wage and I got tips. Well, nowadays,
when you think about DoorDash just taking that money, that's
not very nice.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
I feel like a.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Lot of these couriers, you know, they do Postmates, they
do door dash, they do like you know, and so
they probably know already. I'd rather do Postmas because I'll
get my tip. Absolutely, you don't make as much.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
But here's how they get around that on the app side,
because don't forget it's a cat and mouse game with
these delivery people. Because you think you always see these
Uber and Lyft drivers with the little stickers on their car,
they're doing both. The problem with doing both in any
of these situations is that you don't necessarily hit your
bonuses by doing both. So the way that like these
companies get around it is like with Lyft and Uber,
(37:33):
they want you to keep the app open or do
a certain amount of drives in an hour because they
know that the average driver who who is just doing
Uber can do let's say six pick up and drop
offs in an hour. But the person who's shifting between
both trying to make the maximum amount of money, you know,
being a little sketchy or looking out for themselves, I
guess I should say, is not going to hit those targets,
(37:53):
so they don't get the bonus. So the way that
they entice these people to be loyal is by offering
bonuses that and according to the New York Times article,
are kind of tough to hit. But again they're there, right,
so anyway, that's anyway. So the guy who started DoorDash,
which I've interviewed, Tony Schue a couple of years ago,
by the way, he said that going forward, we're going
to change the door dash earnings structure so that it
(38:16):
will increase by the exact amount of customer tips on
every order. They didn't share specifics, but the fear is
now that instead of guaranteeing a minimum of seven as
in our original example, they would now guarantee just a
minimum of four, based on the fact that we'll assume
that people are gonna tip. So now, two things I
learned from this. Number one, always tipping cash. Yeah, even
(38:36):
if you're tipping through the app in the future, it
still seems like it just seems better to do cash.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
And you know that they're getting that.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Okay, let's get to question quickly, and then I've got
one more thing I want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Okay, last question is from Facebook from Pam Coonlean Coon Line,
wondering what you think the best slash safest emails are
for personal use.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Oh okay, so I think the best is Gmail, if
you I mean, that's that's a simple one right, Yeah,
that's so yeah, I mean that's Gmail is like the best.
It's just easy, it works everywhere. I'm talking best on
like a average use case space. You know, just you
just want email that works and this and that safest,
i'd say, is something called proton mail. And so proton
(39:24):
Mail is totally encrypted. It's made by the Swiss, so
you know that they're I don't know, Swiss just seems sophisticated, right,
like I don't know anything about that, but yeah, I've
been to Switzerland and it was very nice. But they're
the use well, okay, people have bank accounts in Switzerland
because it's like yeah, it's it's like protected or whatever.
So according to their website, the user data, all the
(39:46):
servers are located in Switzerland. This means your user data
is protected by strict Swiss privacy laws. So proton mail
is the one that you want to use if you're
doing the secure route. So and it has end to
end encryption. I don't know why you need it, but
you never know. I don't know what PAM does. I'm
looking a basic account is free, but then you probably
(40:07):
want to go with the plus. You probably want to
try the basic and then switch to plus plus is
four pounds a month, which whatever the math is a
couple bucks whatever, five dollars a month. Who knows something
like that. Let me talk about two apps before we
close out the show here. Number one is for travel nerds.
It's called a flight y. This is really cool as
you download it. Yet I told you about this. Oh
(40:30):
my gosh, you have to download this for your flights
to Hawaii. So it's a iOS app, only iOS right now,
And it's a flight tracking app, and there's a million
of them out there. But what I like about this
one is that it is all about the data. So
you get so much data about your flight, including delays.
It has delay predictors, so immediately when you type in
(40:53):
your flight number and you kind of put your flights
in there, or you can do it automatically if you pay.
But for the average person depends, this app is really
not for the average person. It's for the person who
really likes to fly as a frequent flyer. So you've
got all kinds of alerts on if your flight's gonna
be delayed. You get all kinds of data on your flight,
like what kind of plane you're gonna be on, what
the history of that is and it just is really cool.
(41:16):
So download it. It's called flight e fl I g
h t Y. Now there is a fourteen day trial,
but after that it is pricey nine bucks a month
or fifty dollars for the year as an intro rate,
So you have to be serious about flying.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Oh, you're gonna test it.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
I'm gonna test it. I might do the fifty dollars
for the year just because it's a one time thing,
and I mean I'll do I'm doing the fourteen days.
I've got a couple of flights coming up, so I'm
gonna do that at the beginning of my flights. But
I'm gonna do that. But the just look in ato
this thing on my phone. There's just so many cool
features and it's beautifully designed. Yeah, for me, an app
when it's I can tell if an app is going
(41:51):
to be good when I launch it for the first
time and I see the design and the effort that
a developer puts into the beautiful design and the thoughtfulness,
I know that's gonna be a good app because if
they're putting that much thought into what the app looks
like when you first open it, and the homepage and
the flow screens and all that stuff. The app is
going to be really good, and so this one has
a ton of data. They're saying the developer nine to
(42:13):
five Mac talk to the developer. They say, we never
need to we push They basically they say that the
Flighty is unfiltered and unbiased. If you think about it.
Airlines don't really want to tell you the truth, because
I've been where they don't tell you anything. When you're
waiting at the gate and all of a sudden, I'll
get a trip alert from like Trippet or something saying
your flight's delayed. I'm like, wait, why am I getting
(42:35):
this from a third party and not the speaker system
here or whatever? And so these are these are little
things that do help when you're traveling because in the
case of a flight being delayed or changed or something,
if you can be first in line to get like
to the next flight that's going out, that can make
all the difference. There might only be three seats, and
so if you have the heads up that that your flight,
that your current flight is canceled and the next one,
(42:56):
everyone's gonna be trying to jump on there, those three
minutes that you get the word before everyone else can
really help you get them on the next next flight.
The other app I want to tell you about, pretty
basics called the Costco app. But the Costco app has
gotten an upgrade and you can now use it as
your digital membership card. Now, Megan, I don't see you
(43:16):
as a major Costco persons, do you really?
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Okay, I didn't really love Costco type kids.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Costco for the hot dogs and the pizza.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Oh they are good. Allar fifty for a hot dog
and a drink is pretty good. My mom and I
like to go yeah yeah, just random like Costco dates.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
You've actually gone and just like walked around.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
And it's great, and my kids love the samples and
all that good stuff. But I mean, I've always loved
Costco because I love their business model and I love
how they do things. But I really started to appreciate
them with a family because you buy stuff in bulk
and it like before and I'd buy stuff in bulk
half it would go bad. Now if you buy stuff
in bulk with kids, it's like you definitely use it all.
So you can now use your Costco app as your
(43:58):
digital membership card iOS and Android, So no worries there.
I was not able to verify mine. I tried to
set this up last night, like maybe my ZIP code
is wrong or something, maybe they have my old ZIP
or something. I don't know, so I couldn't successfully set
this up. But it's in the app. It all works
and you just have to verify who you are sign
up with the log in, all that good stuff. The
big question I got on my Facebook page was will
(44:19):
this work with Costco Gas? A lot of people like
buying gas there, and the answer is not at this
time because you need to swipe your card or insert
your card at the pump, which this is a scan.
But for me personally, this is awesome because I don't
carry around my Costco card because I don't It's like
one of those places I go once a month if that,
and so I'm not carrying around a card to my
(44:41):
wallet just for that. Women are a little different because
you carry around a larger wallet that you carry in
a purse. But for me, I carry everything in my
back pocket. So the less I have, the less thick
my wallet is. I don't want like some guys don't
care they have like this giant thick wallet. You ever
see that.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
You should see my dad's wallet.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
It's like really old, like falls apart whenever he opens
it up, doesn't.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
It And like all little things fall out.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Like he has like three new wallets.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
He won't use him.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
He's just like loves his old.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Guys get very attached to their wallets because they they
kind of like they get like molded to you and right,
that sounds kind of care but they kind of they
get broken in, let's put it that way.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
So but now I so I used to be a
big like I only want to get a new wallet
like once every ten years. Guy. Now I like to
get one like almost every year because I.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Just like, you know, new stuff.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Yeah, just you know, just throw out the old wallet, yeah,
with the money inside. Thanks so much for listening to
the show. Please subscribe if you have not done so already,
just search rich on tech in your favorite podcast app.
That could be Apple Podcasts, pocket casts, and overcasts. Those
are a few good ones. And if you have a
question that you would like answered on the show, just
go to rich on tech dot tv and hit contact
(45:54):
up at the top of the page. And don't forget
to sign up for my newsletter that is at rich
on tech Dot TV as as well. Right near that
contact button, it says newsletter producer Megan, did you enjoy
this week's show?
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Yes? I did?
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Why because I just felt like we had some funny moments.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
That's always good and that's always important.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Like real life or you know, nothing worked very serious.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, nothing's funny, all right.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
You can find Megan where on Twitter?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
On Twitter producer Megan within H.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
And you can find me on Twitter as well. I
am at Rich Demiro everywhere else, I am at Rich
on tech Thanks so much for listening. Have a great day.
We'll talk to you real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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