February 27, 2020 • 47 mins
Samsung's top of the line smartphone is having trouble keeping pictures and videos in focus; Firefox makes browsing more private; Netflix reveals top 10 lists for the first time ever; the Gif pronunciation debate is settled over peanut butter; Why bad guys in movies don't use iPhones and food delivery apps are the most expensive way to eat.Listeners ask about meeting Rich in person, best antivirus software, dash cam recommendations, Roku versus Fire TV stick and background location privacy on iPhone apps.Follow Richhttps://www.instagram.com/richontech/Follow Meghanhttps://twitter.com/producermeghan
LinksSamsung is aware of focus issue on S20https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/26/21155255/samsung-galaxy-s20-camera-issues-update-promisedFirefox private browsinghttps://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/02/25/firefox-continues-push-to-bring-dns-over-https-by-default-for-us-users/Netflix top 10 listshttps://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/see-whats-popular-on-netflixGif pronunciation debatehttps://amzn.to/2VzEKpriPhone x bad guyshttps://youtu.be/69GjaVWeGQM?t=169Expensive food delivery appshttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/technology/personaltech/ubereats-doordash-postmates-grubhub-review.htmlRich's new favorite phone casehttps://amzn.to/3a9GCcoSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Get full access to Rich on Tech at richontech.tv/subscribe
LinksSamsung is aware of focus issue on S20https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/26/21155255/samsung-galaxy-s20-camera-issues-update-promisedFirefox private browsinghttps://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/02/25/firefox-continues-push-to-bring-dns-over-https-by-default-for-us-users/Netflix top 10 listshttps://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/see-whats-popular-on-netflixGif pronunciation debatehttps://amzn.to/2VzEKpriPhone x bad guyshttps://youtu.be/69GjaVWeGQM?t=169Expensive food delivery appshttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/technology/personaltech/ubereats-doordash-postmates-grubhub-review.htmlRich's new favorite phone casehttps://amzn.to/3a9GCcoSee 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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
My thoughts on the S twenty focus issues GIF versus
Jeff might finally be solved. Netflix breaks down and reveals
what people are actually watching. Plus your tech questions answered?
What's going on on Rich Damiro And this is Rich
on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech
(00:31):
stuff I think you should know about. Plus I answer
the questions that you send me. My name is Rich Damiro.
I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Joining me is trustee producer Meghan, who is so glad
she didn't swap her iPhone for the Samsung Galaxy S
twenty just yet.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
No, I almost did.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
You were like ready to pull the trigger on that one,
weren't you.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
That is a funny, funny joke.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Now, Meghan is one hundred percent iPhone. In fact, she
judges anyone who does not have an iPhone.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
That's not true. Little just a little judgment.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
If you went out on a date with someone and
they pulled out not just an android phone, no, an
Android with a crack screen. What would you do? Oh? Like,
I imagine all your friends have iPhones.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Imagine all your friends have iPhones too.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Actually they all do so except my brother okay, but yeah,
most of the other everyone. I do have a friend
that doesn't and it's you know, and I don't judge.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Do you think it's an l a thing.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I think it's definitely. It's a it's a pressure thing.
It's a simplicity thing. Yeah, it's a you know. But
there are people who like Android and there's no problem
with it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I don't have any anything really against it. I don't
think I would like not date someone just because they
have an Android, but it would be so mean.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
But like, just imagine texting them would be kind of
because you know, I messages, I message and you're like, uh,
I mean, I guess you could use Telegram, which is
what we use here at the tech.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
For Oh, that's true. I'll be like, hey, I know
this is date number one, but do you mind if
we text on Telegram and then.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
You can easily block them, which would be you know,
because it's so easy to block people.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh okay, true.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Let's uh, let's start with the speaking of Samsung. Let's
talk with the sam Let's talk about the Galaxy S twenty.
I've been using this phone for about a week. Remember
last podcast, I said that I put my sim card
in the phone. Yeah, well my SIM card is out
and it's back in my iPhone.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
As you could not you couldn't do the Samsung Life I.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Okay, number one, Okay, notwithstand. I'll get into like the
issues with the phone first or I guess second. But
the first thing is everything in my life had to change,
everything from the just the way I get stuff from
my computer or to the phone, from the phone to
the computer. I message, which was like I wanted to
text two friends and know we're on this little group
(03:04):
I message, and I couldn't text them because I was like, oh,
I don't want to start a new group with them
that's now going to show up in green. So that
was a problem. The earphones, Like I just switched to
the Samsung Galaxy Buds, but then when I used my computer,
I switched back to the AirPods because I wanted I
didn't want to have to pair up something again. Apple
watched I already mentioned that, Like, so okay, they're not lazy,
(03:25):
but they're thing there. I understand why people stay in
their lane because you have all this stuff set up
and you don't want to change. And yes, you could change,
and you can swap everything out, but a it's very costly.
Like for my watch, for instance, I was sitting there going,
what am I going to do for a watch? Because
I use my Apple Watch and that required me. I
(03:46):
was at cost going I'm like, well, maybe I buy
this Samsung Galaxy Watch, or maybe I get a Fitbit.
And again I gave away my last fitbit to a friend,
so I should have kept it because maybe that would
have made life easier. But anyway, I see all these
little things. Then I was trying to research different programs
to use because now the programs I used on my
iPhone just aren't available on the androids. A lot of
(04:08):
little things, and I see how people get. I know,
they call it like lock in, but it's real and
it doesn't make you lazy or bad or not trying
to try something new. It's just you know what works
and you kind of stick to it.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Now, with that all said, I love the Samsung Galaxy
S twenty Ultra a lot. There are so many things
to love about this device. The software is fast, it's smooth,
the screen is just unbelievable. I bought this little case
for it from Spegan, which is now my favorite case.
By the way, I bought it from my iPhone as well.
Oh cool, it's arriving today. It's called the Spegan Ultra
(04:46):
Hybrid S. It's a nice case and it's super simple.
It's only like fifteen bucks on Amazon. But it has
a kickstand, so I was able to watch movies on
the plane. Yeah, it's so cool. So you just set
your phone up, Like, why doesn't every case have this? Yeah,
so I just watched movies on the plane on with
my phone like sitting up like you know, on its side. Okay,
(05:09):
other things. Everything about it is really amazing, everything like
the quality of the software, the speed, the just you know,
unlocking is a little bit tougher than the iPhone with
a face ID, right because you have to use your
fingerprint or you can set up their version of face ID,
but it doesn't work as well. Okay, you know some
of the software isn't available, but I love what you
can do on Android, so I kind of get over
(05:30):
that because I love having like shortcuts on my screen,
and I love having the universal search box for Google
right at the bottom of my screen. I love having
my Samsung Pay which works with any basically anywhere, even
if they don't take Apple pay or Google Pay. It
still works.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Really.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
It emulates the magnetic strip on a credit card. Oh
so kind of it kind of I don't know what
you call emanates it out from your phone, like if
you just hold it near they're like, oh, sorry, you
don't take Apple Play. You're like, watch this and it works.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, that's not what you think.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
So that's cool. Now I'm describing a lot of things
that are available just on Android, but the physical like
the size of the phone. I'm fine with the feel
of the phone just everything. Like the quality of the
device is very high. Now with that said, let me
get to the biggest problem I found with this phone
because I went to the New York Toy Fair in
New York City and I shot my entire story on
(06:25):
the video camera on this device.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I can't believe you did that.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And I had my simcard in here for my texts
and everything. So I was doing everything on this phone,
making calls, receiving calls, everything, setting my alarm at night.
I was a little bit concerned because it's been a
long time since I use bedtime on the iPhone, and
it's super simple to set my alarm. I just scroll
a little dial to the time I want to wake up,
it gently arises me to wake This was a little
(06:50):
different because it's like, okay, now I'm setting a real alarm.
I don't know if it's going to go off. So
I tested a bunch of times. Anyway, all those things,
one thing, Okay, my biggest issue with the Samsung is
when I get a notification on the screen. So here's
a notification, Megan said, Okay, sales is over where we're
doing the podcast, you said to me, and there's a
(07:12):
little reply thing I can hit right here, right well.
On the iPhone, when you hit that reply or touch
the notification, it immediately brings you into that app from
the lock screen because it's looked at your face or
your fingerprint is on there, your thumb is on the
fingerprint reader, and now it just brings you right in there.
On Android, that doesn't happen on this device, and so
you have to kind of tap it once and then
(07:36):
it's really complicated to explain, but you have to tap
it once and then it says use biometrics. Okay, so
I put my face and now it says swiped it open,
and I swiped open, and it still didn't bring me
in there. So my point is I can much faster
reply much faster to notifications on the iPhone for some reason,
and it's a little thing, but over the day, when
you're doing one hundred and fifty notifications that you're replying to,
(07:59):
it all adds up to a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Other than that, I think that the Android platform is
totally fine now when it comes to content creation. Here's
what I noticed, and a lot of other reviewers are
noticing this as well, But I noticed my phone was
not focusing. And I've noticed that some of the pictures
in general on the Samsung device are soft, which means
when you take a picture, it just looks kind of weird.
You're like, wait, was that in focus? And especially when
(08:24):
you're doing video, if you put the video camera up
to something, it's just not in focus. So when I
was doing all my interviews and everything for the Toy Fair,
I kept having to manually tap the screen to focus.
Now on iPhone that feature is available, I rarely, if ever,
have to use it.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
It like auto focuses on what you're what you're focusing.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
On, even when you move your phone like quickly, and
on the Samsung I did not notice that at all.
It's really bad.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Like did you notice that last year with the Samsung.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
No, I've never noticed that. In fact, I specifically remember
when I used to have a Samsung device and this
guy I was on a shoot out in like Virginia.
He was like, why do you use Samsung? And I
was like, oh, because it's so much better than the
iPhone And he's like really, And I'm like, well, take
a look at this, and I showed him my hand
and I put my phone, my Samsung, in front of
it and showed him how quickly it focused. And I
(09:11):
was like, and look how clear that is and how
focused it is. Now I move it somewhere else, and
he's like, oh wow, that's great. And I was like, now,
look at the iPhone. It didn't focus as fast. iPhones
come a long way since then, Samsung this one. I
feel like they took a step back.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
So then there must be a glitch.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
There might be a glitch. According to the Verge, there
is going to be a software update to improve the camera,
but they would not acknowledge any specific problem. And here's
the thing. My idea is that they have had this
device in production now, like in development now for a year.
Let's say, you don't have a device in production for
(09:44):
a year and nobody notices this weird little glitch until
you give it to people and all of a sudden
it's like, oh, we'll fix that. Rarely happens. Yeah, you
can't just fix something like nobody noticed this, nobody used
the video camera.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It's the same with sorry, but the foldable screen last year,
like everyone was like peeling the screen off.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So sometimes Samsung can't catch break. So at this point
I cannot recommend the Samsung S twenty Ultra. I don't
know if this problem is on the other two, the
two leading up to the phone, the S twenty and
the S twenty plus, but the Ultra, I will say
it's kind of a deal breaker. Like I said, I
had my simcard in this device, and I found myself
being like I can't wait to get back to the
iPhone now. Hopefully they fix this. But it's not just
(10:28):
me that's seeing this. All the reviewers are saying the
same thing, right, and it's clearly an issue. And I
don't know how they're going to spin this or try
to figure this out. But if I bought this phone
for fourteen hundred dollars and I saw the way it
was focusing at that toy fair.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
That's insane.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I'd be really angry. And by the end of the
toy fair, I ended up using my iPhone to to
shoot a couple more videos and I was like, Okay,
I'm not crazy. This thing is amazingly clear and focused
on everything.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So I need the new iPhone anyway.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So there you have it. That's my spiel. I will
have my Yeah. That's that's it for now. So cool.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Okay. So this first message comes from Jeanette. She said,
I just wanted to tell you what an honor it
was to meet you in person at the Bourbank Airport.
You were so nice, just like you are on TV.
Kat A five is the only news I watched. Thank
you for keeping us informed. We learned so much from you.
Sorry you missed your meeting and SF have a nice day.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That is Jeannette, Jeanette, Well, thank you, Jeanette. This is
a funny thing about being on TV is that you're
always being watched and judged silently no matter where you are.
And I tell my kids this all the time because
people come up to me all the time, like literally
every day every day, no matter even in New York
at the Toy Fair. Yeah, I was coming out of
the men's restroom and some guys like, we're jeh on tech,
(11:51):
what's up? And it's like, now, if I can't if
I was walking around with like a sour look on
my face and kind of like angry or treating people
really rude, it'd be awkward. Yeah, And I don't think
you should be doing that in general, But being on TV,
it's like people are watching you, and well, I feel
like I am who I am most of the time.
Like I'm not really a different person on TV. Right,
(12:12):
That's very clear because it's just like I am who
I am.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
But at the same time, it's like an instances like
this we were I was in probably one of the
most frustrated moments of my life where I was trying
to get up to San Francisco for a meeting with Samsung. Yeah,
and we didn't make it. Our flight was totally delayed,
and I could have been, like, you know, very angry
and visibly because I was with my photographer and I
could have been being rude to the people on the
podium at Southwest. I could have been really mad. Yeah,
(12:36):
and you know what, I wasn't and this woman saw
me at my worst and here's what she said.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
You weren't bad, So anyway I would have been so frustrated.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
It is frustrating. Anyway. It's a weird thing when you're
on television to I always say this for every person
that comes up to you and says hello or says
something or asks for a picture, there's fifty more people
in that room, probably one other that like also also
that don't say anything, right, but they do tell their
friends and they're like, oh, I saw Rich and oh
(13:05):
my god, what a jerk. He was at the register
at Ralph's, you know, yeah, at the grocery store here,
or oh, seems like a nice guy, had a smile
on his face, he was with his kids, you know,
his wife. Whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, No, I think that's important. You don't want to
be a jerk.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
No, I try not to be. Well, thank you, um
Nest camera outage. This is kind of a big deal
because a lot of people use Nest cameras, including myself,
to keep an eye on their home, and this just
kind of goes to show what could potentially happen when
we rely on these cameras to secure our homes. These
(13:40):
cameras are cloud connected. They do a lot of the
lifting heavy lifting in the cloud. They record everything in
the cloud. And on Monday, February twenty fourth, from eleven
to fifty five am until four to twenty Wonder where
they got that number Pacific time? Noah, Wait what these
stopped working? So you had a blackout period for cameras
across the nation that we're using Nest for four plus hours,
(14:06):
four hours twenty five minutes. Imagine that.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
That's insane.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Now, not only the cameras not work, they also didn't
record anything to the cloud during that time, so you had,
in effect a total blackout of these cameras for four
plus hours.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's infuriating.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Now, they gave me five bucks as a refund. I
didn't notice this on my own camera because I wasn't
like looking at the time. But if something happened at
your house during that time, I would be so angry.
Let's say you got a break in during that time.
Now you have no video the whole point of having
that cameras. I'm sure there was.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Wait, so how did that happen?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
They said it was a update to their server caused
a connectivity issue. I mean, but that's a big deal.
And as we rely on these cloud things more and more.
Here's what my thought is. Imagine you're a hacker. Yeah,
you do the biggest hack where you hack the Nest servers.
You get them to black out for twelve hours, and
now it's a free for all across the nation.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah. Or like if someone heard that there was a blackout,
they could just find a house that has a Nest camera.
I'd be like, oo, exactly near no one, Well, no one,
we'll know because what if people don't trace of me?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
They tweet when when something like this happens, no cameras
are down. Oh, now they search. Maybe someone has a
search on their Twitter for a safe search that says
Nest down, and they just wait for a whole bunch
of those tweets and then they go strike.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Could they just be saying it's a server thing, that
they were updating the server.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I think it probably. I mean, that's kind of a
catch all for like we made a mistake.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
If I was a security company, I don't, I mean,
you don't know, lie, But like I feel like they
wouldn't want to say, you know, we were hacked.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
No, I don't. I don't think in this instance they were,
but maybe they were. You never know. I mean usually
they come out and say something big picture and then
maybe they narrow it down later in a security.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Block, updating or hacked server.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
All right. This next question comes from Erica, and if
you want Rich to answer your tech questions, just go
to his web site rich on tech dot tv and
hit the contact button. Erica asks, can you please tell
me what the best anti virus software is?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Ooh interesting? I get this question so much. People are
obsessed with antivirus software. And here's my thought on it.
I think that you should have it number one. If
you have Windows ten, it's kind of built in. It's
called Windows Defender, and that's Microsoft's built in virus protection.
So I would say, make sure that's up to date,
make sure you haven't disabled that, make sure you haven't
(16:33):
gotten rid of that. Now after that, I feel like
a lot of these antivirus softwares are very spammy and
they kind of bogged down your system. Like let's just
say the big company out there that you know, I'm
not going to mention the name, but there's a big
company that everyone knows is synonymous with anti virus.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I've had that antivirus before, and I just feel like
it's a lot going on for nothing, and so people
turn to these other apps that might maybe use less
resources on their system. So with all that said, I
mean to me, on my Mac, I was recommending Silance,
which we did a story with, which I thought was
(17:13):
really cool because it was it was sort of immediate
and it was just a very cool AI powered But
then BlackBerry bought them, and I'm not sure that they
even do personal BlackBerry. Yeah, let's see if they even
do Silence anti virus. Let's see if they do it
anymore for like consumers. And I thought this was cool
because they do it in like real time, so uh,
(17:35):
let's see. Yeah, they do have it, Okay, Silance Smart antivirus.
So that's the one that I'd still recommend Windows in
Mac compatible okay. And it's what's cool about it is
that it's kind of anti virus with a brain, so
it looks at what's happening on your computer and if
it notices something that's going on that's bad in real time,
it'll stop that from happening, which compared to the other
(17:58):
way most antivirus works. It has a large definition of stuff,
and any file that you bring onto your system, it
kind of checks it across that definition and it says, oh,
this is one of the bad files. This Silence works
by kind of identifying things in real time that are bad. Okay,
so that's kind of cool. Other than that, I would
look at something like a vast which I like, and
then malware bytes I also like. And again, a lot
(18:20):
of these things they start out free and then they
want you to be paid. Silence is just totally paid.
It's forty nine dollars a year for ten devices. I
think that's well worth it. Yeah, so good question. Speaking
of security, Firefox continues to kind of push user security.
I don't know how many people are using Firefox these
days anymore. Remember what it was kind of a popular
(18:40):
way to surf the internet. A lot of people use
Chrome nowadays, which has a lot of security built in.
But when you're using Chrome, a lot of your data
is being siphoned off to Google because it's owned by Google.
And why do they want you to use a browsers
so that they have more of a knowledge of who
you are and what you're doing. Well, now Firefox is
doing this new thing called DNS over HTTPS, and this
(19:03):
gets really techy, really nerdy, But the bottom line, when
you type in a website into your computer like Yahoo
dot com, and most websites are encrypted at this point.
So when you go to Yahoo, everything you do on
there is now private. Basically most websites. If you look
there's a little padlock next to the website. That means
that whatever you type into that website no one can
(19:24):
really see because it's encrypted. It means it's kind of
enshrouded in secrecy between your computer and the computer on
the receiving end. Back in the day, it wasn't, so
anything you did was just kind of interceptible by anyone. Right,
long story short, when you type in that Yahoo dot com,
that first thing you type in your ISP and other people,
(19:45):
because of the way it's looked up, can see what
you're typing in. Okay, So even though they can't see
what happens once you get to that website, like your
bank website, they can see that you went to your
bank website. So what Firefox is doing is they are
actually starting to do these look ups in a secured way.
So when you type in, you know, Yahoo dot com,
it needs to convert that into an address like one
nine two dot zero dot nine dot one. It will
(20:07):
do that in an encrypted way, which means it's still secret,
which means that your internet service provider, the person who
brings the internet into your home, will not be able
to see a lot of the things that you do
on the web. Okay, whereas before they could still collect
a whole bunch of data about people and know that
they're visiting whatever website, shopping websites, and they can sell
that data, they can cross reference it, now they no
(20:29):
longer have. If you're using Firefox, they will basically not
really see anything that you're doing. So it's like a
little step of security. Yeah, and now, I know a
lot of people's minds go to kind of dirty or
things with this stuff, but it's not always for that.
There's a lot of countries in the world where you're
not as free as you are in America. So even
(20:49):
looking up something about a dictator or who knows any
kind of government stuff may put you in on a
watch list or whatever. Oh interesting, And so again this
is all in making life a little bit more private,
especially in those moments when you may not realize that
someone has access to this data and Internet service providers
(21:11):
still have a lot of access to the data and
the things that are happening in your home with your internet,
and so by kind of closing some of these little holes,
it patches some of the privacy leaks out there. And
again this is something that only Firefox is doing. And
by the way, I mentioned like kind of the world
scope of things, this is only turned on by default
(21:31):
in the US. If you're in a different country using Firefox,
you have to go into the settings and turn on
DNS over https. Megan Cool.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
This next question comes from tam Roku versus Firestick question mark,
what are the advantages and disadvantages of each and which
is better?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Oh, that's a good question. Advantages disadvantages. Okay, So Firestick
is Amazon, which means number one, they're pushing a lot
of Amazon stuff. So when you log on to a Firestick,
it's the whole screen is filled with stuff. Some of
it is advertising, a lot of it is kind of
like the new shows on Amazon. A lot of it
is stuff you've watched before. It's very cluttered, and I
(22:17):
feel like it is all over the place when it
comes to the clutter on the screen. And yes, your
apps and stuff are on there, but there's just a
lot of stuff going on. And I find that for
every tile on that screen on my Fire, I am
clicking almost zero of them, Like they're not really I
don't want, Like whatever they're surfacing, I'm not using. So
I'm just going into my Netflix app or I'm going
(22:38):
into my YouTube app or whatever. I'm not really looking
at all the other stuff. So if you now on
the flip side, if you love Amazon and you love
Amazon shows, this is gonna be your best and watching
free Amazon stuff, this is gonna be your best way
of a conduit to those to those properties on the
flip side. Roku and they've always been like this is
kind of like the Switzerland, and I've said this before,
(23:00):
of streaming. They get your apps on screen. Yes, they're
to advertising, Yes they're pushing their own Roku channel. Yes
they're trying to get you to sign up for certain
new apps and channels and stuff. But at the end
of the day, Roku is kind of like, if I
had to describe it, Fire Fire TV is very busy,
whereas Roku just kind of sits there and waits for
you to do something.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, it's clean, Yeah, I love Roku and then we
have fire TV sticks in our house too.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And it's a difference. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I mean like I don't really use those TVs, but
I don't like I don't really like the look of it,
Like I think it's it like you said, it's too cluttered.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, I recently switched to Apple TV, which is when
you talk about the least of everything, it's there's nothing
on there, right, no ads, there's no nothing. They don't
push you to anything. It's just your apps, just like
the iPhone.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
But it's funny. I had to kind of explain to
my dad the other day because I was like, Apple
TV and then there's Apple TV. Plus he was like, wait,
what that is? And so that's something that's also confusing.
But Apple TV is very it's like the cleanest.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yes, it is the cleanest. It's also the most expensive, right.
Roku has a price range for everyone. Fire TV stick
you can, you know, give them out like Halloween candy.
They're so cheap. Yeah, my choice between those two things,
i'd probably I think they're both great. It really depends
what you like. My biggest beef with the Fire TV
is I can never ever just I just want to
(24:22):
see what the top movie rentals are. I can never
find that on my Fire TV. And that's what really
pushed me over the edge with the Apple is. I'm
just like, if I can't find this, this is I
love to just see what the top movies are, and
on Fire I just can't find it. It's like it's
just it's there somewhere, but it's like it's like top
Prime Choice, Top Prime Romantic Choices, top Prime action movies,
(24:44):
top Prime TV shows. I'm like, just give me movies
that are people are renting and watching.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah, I have a question kind of related to this.
We've talked a lot about like how you've changed your
like cable situation. What are you doing right now? Because
I have an aunt who she's like, all I want
to watch is The Bachelor, and but I have direct
TV And I was like, well then you should just
(25:09):
have Hulu. But then she was like, but you know
then we want sports occasionally. So what is your what
are you doing again?
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So what I'm doing is I can tell you two things.
So number One, I don't watch a lot of TV,
so I don't need any I've recently canceled my direct
TV now which was sixty bucks a month. I do
have a device that allows me. It's called Tableau, which
allows me to take in an antenna signal. Before I
was using the Amazon Fire TV recast Tableau, same thing,
(25:39):
except it works across all the different platforms and it's
just a little tiny box that you plug your antenna into.
And now you have an app on your TV screen
on your Fire or your Apple TV or your Roku
that lets you access your local channels over the air,
and you can also record them to if you want.
Oh wow, it costs five bucks a month if you
want the program data for a longer period of time.
I don't need that because I just tune in live.
(26:00):
So when I was watching like the Grammys Boom, just
tune in live.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Right And ABC is an over the channel, So like.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Ninety nine percent of the time, the stuff you want
to watch, like the big events are free. Now when
it comes to sports, that's where things get tricky. So
with me personally, I watch USC football. I would say
some of the games are on over the air on
ABC seven or something like that, or NBC when it's
Notre Dame a lot of times on ESPN, So how
(26:27):
do I get ESPN right now? I don't have a solution.
I haven't. It was past football season when I got
rid of direct TV now, so this next season will
be an issue. I don't know what I'm gonna do,
so that's gonna be a part of it. But I
would say the other thing you could do. There's a
service called low cast, And this is what my mom does.
She went from having Direct TV Now for sixty bucks
a month to now she pays five dollars a month
(26:49):
for low cast, and it's if you don't feel like
putting an antenna on your house, you download this app
and you donate five dollars a month to them. They
have an antenna somewhere and then they stream the pannels
to your TV. Wow. Now the broadcasters don't necessarily like
that model because they're not necessarily getting paid for that.
So now they don't get paid for antenna either. And
(27:11):
the way low cast argues is that, well, we're just
an extended antenna signal. Right, We're just taking the antenna
signal from a nice rooftop somewhere and just piping it
into your TV. Broadcasters like, eh, we don't know if
that's you know, allowed, So they're kind of operating in
a gray area. So far, so good. They've been around
for a bit. But that's another box, Tableau t t
(27:33):
A b l oh t A.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
So you just need like one tableau box.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, and it'll service all your TVs. Now there's a
certain amount you can watch from those. I think it's
two TVs at once or two channels at once. But yeah,
that's that's a way of doing it. And there's also
I did when I when I wanted to watch something
on a channel that I did not get, I did
subscribe to Fubo TV for one day and I just
signed up for a free and it got me. I
(28:01):
think it was the Grammys or something. It was whatever
whatever I couldn't get on something. I think it was
a Grammy pre show maybe, and it was on E
and I didn't have E. So I just signed up
for a day, got the show, and boom, I was done.
Oh maybe it was Super Bowl anyway, good question. Speaking
of streaming TV, Netflix is finally finally showing us the
(28:23):
most popular TV shows and movies on its Yes, finally,
it's been so long and I get it Netflix. And
we've talked about this on the podcast where they'd love
to be personalized, and they want to make everything perfect
for you. Sometimes I just want to see what is
popular across everyone, not just myself. This is kind of
(28:44):
like a dating app. It's like, now everyone's dating on
these apps, and you're literally picking the person that's the
equivalent of you, except either you know, male or female,
or you know whatever you prefer. But it's just like you,
except in another human Like, well, I like bagel, so
they should like bagels. I like romantic comedies.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
They should like love bagels.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I like going to Hawaii, so they should like going
to Hawaii. I like food at fancy restaurants, so they
should like you're literally picking the same person, except because
these little apps let you pick every aspect of the
person rather than you know, the old days anyway. So
Netflix to me is kind of like that. It's like,
we only want to show you what we think you'll
love because of what you watched before. Well, guess what,
(29:25):
I'm a dynamic person. I may want to watch some
random movie like I watched that dumb to All the
Boys I loved before whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Oh you did, Yeah it was not very good, started
it and then I was like, I'm bored.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Really it was very much sponsored by like Subway. Like
remember they kept getting like Subway subs.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
In that movie.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Okay, so those kind of things like I don't. I
will sample weird things like that every once in a while,
Like that Cheer show. People are saying, that's very good and.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Like the old show No cheer.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Oh it's it's about cheerleading. Yeah it's it's the premise
is cheerleading, but it's really about like determination and drive
and all this stuff. So again I might check that out.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Right.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Okay, so now you can see top ten lists on Netflix,
and they're going to show you the top ten most
popular series and the top ten films when you click
on the movies and TV show tabs not on your
home screen, I guess, so you have to go into
the tab.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
And the best part is any show that when you're
browsing that's into the top ten, it will have a
little top ten batge so you can see, like this
is the top ten. And I think that's kind of
fun rather than they always put these weird things like
trending on Netflix, popular on Netflix. Just show me the
top ten, give me the list. I can handle it.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, I can handle it.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
You can't handle the truth.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Honestly, I don't know if I can handle the truth. Okay,
this next question comes from Cleveland. Do you know of
any dashcams that record overnight without being plugged into the
power outlet of your car. I would like to be
able to record both facing out and inward if possible.
The outward facing would be ideal in the event of
(31:02):
any accident while parked or a theft.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Well, I would say that a lot of the dash
cams will do this functionality no matter what. So even
if a dash cam requires power from your car, uh,
just look. Okay, So here's what you look for. Look
for a dash can that has an on board battery.
And what it does is it will it'll plug into
your cigarette lighter and it'll be charging this battery on board,
(31:30):
So most of the time it's powered by your car,
but when you turn off your car, it will still
have enough juice in it to roll camera if your
car is hit. And so that's the other thing you
need to look for is a g shock sensor. And
all that looks is for a movement, you know, like
a boom boom boom like and you can usually set
the sensitivity for that. So if you want just you know,
(31:51):
if someone runs a car at the you know, Ralph's
parking lot, I said Ralphs twice in this podcast, you
know the grocery store parking lot. If someone runs a
car into your car, you may not want that to
trigger a recording, like you're really gonna go after that person.
I would hunt them down. Now you have a new car,
do you have that feeling of like there is a
(32:13):
moment when have you gotten a ding on it yet?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
No?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Okay, but you know there's a time Wait.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
That's a lot. I got a tiny, tiny, tiny little ding.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
When I was Isn't that the worst feeling?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I like almost cried.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, it's just you know what's gonna happen when you
have a new car, and it's just but it's.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Like, it's the worst.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I've had my car for like three years. And at
this point I don't care anymore because my kids will
take the door lease. Well I know, but so now
do you care less because of that?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
No?
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I care more because I large you at the end.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, yeah, I think they end. Sometimes they don't know,
but maybe they won't even notice.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I feel like I feel like they have to understand
when a car is going through normal wear and tear. Yeah,
it's gonna get dings throughout three years of a lease, right.
And I've heard stories from people out of return cars.
Sometimes they look over them like with a fine tooth comb.
Other times they don't care, right, And so it just
kind of depends.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
I guess maybe if you're like gonna lease another car
from them, Yeah, like.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Exactly, we'll look the other way, don't.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Oh, we will look at the like missing tire.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
That's exactly what I was just gonna say. Did we
deliver this car with four tires or three? Only three?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
You're getting another porche It's fine.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Well look the other right. So the couple of things
you want to look for in your camera is a
g shock sensor and an onboard battery. With that said,
the camera that I like is the Vava camera. Via Va,
I don't believe that it records both the front and
the back. The other camera to look at is the
owl cam, And the other one I tried was called
the Pure Cam, and that one was great. Every quord
(33:43):
that has all the things I just talked about. What
it did not do is it did not have good
software on your iPhone, so it was really poor software,
and that's what kept me from using that. We've talked
about this on the podcast before Jiff versus GIF. In fact,
I think it was this last podcast that we had
a whole talk about this pronunciation debate, and now it
(34:06):
might be coming to an end thanks to a marketing
stunt by Jeff Peanut Butter. Jeff Peanut Butter came out
with two special jars that help you explain to yourself
how you should pronounce Jeff versus Giff. Jeff. You know
the peanut butter. It's always been pronounced Jeff with a
j if. Giff is written g if. A lot of
(34:28):
people call it a jiff, but they're saying hard G
for GIF and soft G for jiff the peanut butter. Okay,
hard G for the graphic, the leaping animated image, soft
jay for the peanut butter. So now you care. It
is actually easy to remember, huh.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I know. I Yeah, it is like j I just
always called gifts gifts.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah you did, I But it's funny because of the game.
The guy who came out with.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Who right you were telling me this last week.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Said, Jeff, I remember this is south by Southwest them.
But here's the thing. It stands for, like we said
last week, graphics interchange format with graph fixedrookok, I don't
want to get through this, but Griff, long story short,
the bottles of peanut butter sold out instantly on Amazon.
They were selling a two pack, you know, the two
bottles a pair for ten bucks, Okay, And I guess
(35:25):
people went crazy over these things, and it's kind of fun.
I could see why. Yeah, And they put more on
Amazon and those sold out in like one minute. So
I do have a pair of bottles coming to me.
They're supposed to arrive today. I was hoping they were
in time for today's TV hits. I didn't get them
in time, so maybe I'll show them off next week.
But I like the idea of just having this on
(35:46):
my desk so I always remember. I'm like Giff, Jiff.
And again, it's a marketing stunt, but it's kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I like it. It's cute, all right. This next question
comes from Steve. Except for Alert, the location settings on
my iPhone apps are set to while I'm using the app.
But I also know that once I open an app,
it stays open until I close it individually while it
(36:13):
is in this state that is open but non current use.
Is it still reporting my location?
Speaker 1 (36:21):
This is a great question. Yeah, and the short answer
is yes, but no. And so here's what's happening on you.
He's talking about the iPhone, right, Yeah, So on the iPhone,
when you open up an app, when you're using it,
your anything goes like it. You know, whatever permissions you've
given it, whether it's your location, microphone camera, whatever, it
can access those things when it shifts to the background.
(36:44):
There are two ways it can.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Be handled, so when you change to another app, you
still have it.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Like kind of in your recent apps.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
All my apps open all the time.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
But you're okay, because the way that the iPhone works
is it puts apps to sleep in the background. Now
that the time app the time that it takes to
go to sleep is could be a potential issue. So
some apps like to stay awake in the background so
that they can do certain things all the time. So
like a music streaming app has gotten special permission from
(37:14):
Apple to stay awake in the background because otherwise it
wouldn't be able to stream music. A mapping app has
special permission to work in the background so that it
can gather your GPS coordinates and give you directions. Now,
other apps have firm rules for how long they can
stay accessing system resources in the background before Apple says
(37:34):
night night, goodbye, see you later. So the longer. The
short of it is, if it's not a nefarious app
that is trying to do something evil and it's been
coded word, if it's not been coded in an evil way,
it will eventually go to sleep. And that's why Apple
always says you do not need to close out your
recent apps unless they are behaving badly, and then you
can go ahead and swipe them closed. Otherwise you're doing
(37:57):
just fine. Your apps in the background should not be
accessing stuff that they shouldn't be able to access in
the foreground.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
That answer it, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Now with that said, on Android, whole different story system.
Our apps can use resources in the background on Android
much easier than they can on iOS. That's also the
reason why the battery lasts longer on iOS because basically
the app that you're using is pretty much the only
thing that's happening on your phone at that time, Versus Android,
a lot of things could be happening in the background. Now,
(38:30):
there's advantages to that on Android, and I'll just go
into one. One example is Google Photos. So on Android,
Google Photos can work in the background even if you
haven't opened the app to upload all your pictures in
the background. With iOS, it only gets that permission when
you open up the app, and maybe in the background
when you have it on a charger and it has
been properly coded to kind of ping the server and say, hey,
(38:52):
I've got some pictures here. Can I upload these real quick?
And your iPhone says, well, you can't use this all night.
You can't just stay open and transmitting data all night,
but we'll give you a couple of minutes to kind
of refresh things. That's called background refresh. Okay, it's very complicated,
but it's done for a reason. On the iPhone, they've
optimized the iPhone in such a heavy way to make
the battery last and also make sure that these apps
(39:13):
aren't doing things they shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Good to know.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Uh, okay, oh shoot, we have a couple of things,
all right, I want to get to Okay, this is
really interesting. We'll do two more things. Okay, but this
is really interesting. This director said that on camera you
won't see bad guys in movies using the iPhone because
Apple does not allow their products to be portrayed in
that light. This is knives out director Ryan Johnson in
(39:40):
an interview with Variety. With an interview with Vanity Fair.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Another funny thing. I don't know if I should say
this or not, not because it's like Lasiba's or some
because it's going to screw me on the next mystery
movie that I write, but forget, I'll say it's very interesting.
Apple they let you use iPhones and movies, but in
the is very pivotal. If you're ever watching a mystery movie,
bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera. So no, every
(40:10):
single filmmaker who does a bad guy in their movie
it's supposed to be a secret wants to murder me.
Right now, Let's see what Jamie's saying.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Interesting, interesting, interesting revelation. That's again knives out director Ryan
Johnson in a YouTube interview for Vanity Fair YouTube video.
And what he's saying is that I think here's what
he's saying. I'm reading between the lines. He says that
you can't really have an iPhone in the hands of
a villain on screen because Apple doesn't like that. I
(40:37):
think What he is not saying is this is when
Apple is supplying the phones for the production. If you
ever watch Modern Family, every device on that show was
an Apple device. At the end of the show, it
says promotional consideration provided by Apple, because Apple gave those
directors a whole bunch of stuff and they were able
to use them in their show. Along with that whole
(40:58):
bunch of free stuff to use iPad and tablets and
you know, imax and all these iPhones in the show.
They also had a little line in that that said,
here's how you will not use these products. You're not
going to show them doing bad things. You're not going
to show people throwing them and crashing them and you know,
getting into car accidents using them in the car. You
know what I mean. There's a whole bunch of regulations
that come along with these free products. But if you
(41:20):
and I are doing a music video and we don't
ask Apple for free phones or permission, we could do
whatever we want with these phones. So if villain Meghan
is on screen crushing you know, a character with her
bare hands, you can have an iPhone and make a
call after that.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Villain Meghan.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Okay, finally, I just want to mention one more thing,
because I've talked about this before with you, and I
just think this is super interesting. New York Times did
a little informal survey of how expensive it is to
eat using food delivery apps, and it is fascinating because
I've always had this hypothesis, right, I always call it.
(42:02):
I call it the most expensive way to eat. In fact,
I would argue that getting food delivery at this point
is almost more expensive than going to a restaurant and eating. Yeah, yeah,
because you're paying all these service charges and fees. And
what people don't even realize is when you look at
the menu on uber eats.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Or Postmates, they like it's the they redo the menu
for the app. So it's like five dollars rice is
actually now ten dollars rice, so you're paying double exactly.
Its insane.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
So they looked at grub Hub, door Dash, Postmates, Uber Eats,
and the restaurant. So for instance, a six inch turkey
breast sub at Subway, if you got two of them,
would be twelve dollars and fifty eight cents at the restaurant.
Get it through uber eats, it's fourteen dollars and seventy
eight cents on the menu. By the way, this doesn't
include the extra fees on the menu at Postmates fourteen
seventy eight, door Dash fourteen seventy eight, grub Hub eleven
(42:49):
ninety eight. Then you've got your delivery fee anywhere from
a dollar ninety nine to three one nine. Then you've
got your service fee. A lot of times they'll say, oh,
free delivery this, you know on a Tuesday night with
this code. Well they don't tell you is that you
still pay a service fee yep, and then you pay
sales tax, which of course you.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Pay the party thing on Postmates. I always like, when
I'm lazy, i might do it, and then I'm like, no,
it all adds up to the same thing.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
They've created fees so that they can credit you fees.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yeah, but it's like false advertising. They're like, oh, it's
free this, but yeah. Anyways, so the total.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Cost for these two subs if you ate them at
the restaurant thirteen dollars twenty one cents, or I guess
if you got them at the restaurant, if you pick
them up. Total costs and Uber each twenty five dollars,
Postmates twenty two dollars, Door Dash nineteen dollars, grub Hub
sixteen dollars. Markups range from twenty five percent to ninety
one percent. Now here's the thing. When you're ordering Postmates
(43:43):
for twenty one fifty two for two subs, for someone
to bring it to your house seems pretty reasonable. You're
not really thinking about the fact that it's thirteen bucks
if you went and drove there yourself, because all this
convenience of this person bringing it to your home. But
that's still a markup of sixty three percent.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
A couple other things about this is that Ubers service
charges were the most unpredictable. It seemed like grub Hub
was kind of the cheapest out of these when it
comes to the markup. And the bottom line is that
there's not really much you can do about this. If
you like these delivery apps, you are paying a premium.
(44:19):
And what I always say, and I've used them, don't
like I'm not preaching here, but it's almost like there
are nights when I'm sitting there so ready to order
one of these apps, one of these food apps, and
I'm just like, you know what, let me just go
and just make something myself. Like it's actually cheaper for
me to go to the grocery store and just buy
(44:40):
something that I can make that night.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
I was going to Postmates to potle and then I thought, well,
maybe they have free delivery, like weirdly, and I went
to their site and they had free delivery and it
was the same as if I had gone in store.
So I use their free delivery service.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Yeah, and that's a lot of these companies right now
are experimenting with using Postmates and grub Hub and all
these other things. Yeah, but then they're sort of when
they get their own thing in place, they're using their
own delivery, right, So it's we're in a middle time.
But anyway, Yeah, I thought, look up the New York
Times article. It's very fascinating. It's kind of eye opening.
And by the way, my go to simplest thing ever
is just a protein like a salmon or a chicken
(45:19):
or a steak. Buy one of those, and then you
get some rice, and then you buy some veggies. My
go to is just broccoli and bell pepper.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Are you saying just to like make your own dinner.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah, you make your own bowl and then you put
some of that, you put some of that. Karaoke stuff
on it. I mean it's so easy. I made them
last night, and it's I mean, a whole family of
four could eat for like five bucks or ten dollars
instead of forty dollars.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
You know, it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
All right, that's gonna do it for this episode of
the show. For links to what we talked about, take
a look at the show notes. If you have a
question for me Megan, tell them how to submit it.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
If you want Rich to answer your tech question, go
to his website rich on Tech dot tv and hit
the contact.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
And please rate and review the podcast. It helps other
people discover it. All you have to do is go
to rate this podcast dot com, slash rich on tech,
or if you have a friend, just ask them right Yeah.
Fit pro SF recently wrote Rich is awesome. I've been
(46:20):
a fan since his days before c net. If you
want timely relevant tech news from mobile commuting, computing iPhones, iPads, tablets,
et cetera, to apps, Wi Fi, routers and network tips,
internet providers, practical Internet security, anything tech including smart spending
on your tech. Rich Demiro is your man. Wow. Wah,
(46:42):
Now if I can only get.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
My your dings right?
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Yeah, Well, you can't get it all right. You can
find me on Instagram. I am rich on Tech. My
name is rich dmiro On, behalf of producer Megan and
everyone else that it takes to get this show on
the air. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you real
soon
My thoughts on the S twenty focus issues GIF versus
Jeff might finally be solved. Netflix breaks down and reveals
what people are actually watching. Plus your tech questions answered?
What's going on on Rich Damiro And this is Rich
on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech
(00:31):
stuff I think you should know about. Plus I answer
the questions that you send me. My name is Rich Damiro.
I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Joining me is trustee producer Meghan, who is so glad
she didn't swap her iPhone for the Samsung Galaxy S
twenty just yet.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
No, I almost did.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
You were like ready to pull the trigger on that one,
weren't you.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
That is a funny, funny joke.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Now, Meghan is one hundred percent iPhone. In fact, she
judges anyone who does not have an iPhone.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
That's not true. Little just a little judgment.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
If you went out on a date with someone and
they pulled out not just an android phone, no, an
Android with a crack screen. What would you do? Oh? Like,
I imagine all your friends have iPhones.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Imagine all your friends have iPhones too.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Actually they all do so except my brother okay, but yeah,
most of the other everyone. I do have a friend
that doesn't and it's you know, and I don't judge.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Do you think it's an l a thing.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I think it's definitely. It's a it's a pressure thing.
It's a simplicity thing. Yeah, it's a you know. But
there are people who like Android and there's no problem
with it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I don't have any anything really against it. I don't
think I would like not date someone just because they
have an Android, but it would be so mean.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
But like, just imagine texting them would be kind of
because you know, I messages, I message and you're like, uh,
I mean, I guess you could use Telegram, which is
what we use here at the tech.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
For Oh, that's true. I'll be like, hey, I know
this is date number one, but do you mind if
we text on Telegram and then.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
You can easily block them, which would be you know,
because it's so easy to block people.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh okay, true.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Let's uh, let's start with the speaking of Samsung. Let's
talk with the sam Let's talk about the Galaxy S twenty.
I've been using this phone for about a week. Remember
last podcast, I said that I put my sim card
in the phone. Yeah, well my SIM card is out
and it's back in my iPhone.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
As you could not you couldn't do the Samsung Life I.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Okay, number one, Okay, notwithstand. I'll get into like the
issues with the phone first or I guess second. But
the first thing is everything in my life had to change,
everything from the just the way I get stuff from
my computer or to the phone, from the phone to
the computer. I message, which was like I wanted to
text two friends and know we're on this little group
(03:04):
I message, and I couldn't text them because I was like, oh,
I don't want to start a new group with them
that's now going to show up in green. So that
was a problem. The earphones, Like I just switched to
the Samsung Galaxy Buds, but then when I used my computer,
I switched back to the AirPods because I wanted I
didn't want to have to pair up something again. Apple
watched I already mentioned that, Like, so okay, they're not lazy,
(03:25):
but they're thing there. I understand why people stay in
their lane because you have all this stuff set up
and you don't want to change. And yes, you could change,
and you can swap everything out, but a it's very costly.
Like for my watch, for instance, I was sitting there going,
what am I going to do for a watch? Because
I use my Apple Watch and that required me. I
(03:46):
was at cost going I'm like, well, maybe I buy
this Samsung Galaxy Watch, or maybe I get a Fitbit.
And again I gave away my last fitbit to a friend,
so I should have kept it because maybe that would
have made life easier. But anyway, I see all these
little things. Then I was trying to research different programs
to use because now the programs I used on my
iPhone just aren't available on the androids. A lot of
(04:08):
little things, and I see how people get. I know,
they call it like lock in, but it's real and
it doesn't make you lazy or bad or not trying
to try something new. It's just you know what works
and you kind of stick to it.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Now, with that all said, I love the Samsung Galaxy
S twenty Ultra a lot. There are so many things
to love about this device. The software is fast, it's smooth,
the screen is just unbelievable. I bought this little case
for it from Spegan, which is now my favorite case.
By the way, I bought it from my iPhone as well.
Oh cool, it's arriving today. It's called the Spegan Ultra
(04:46):
Hybrid S. It's a nice case and it's super simple.
It's only like fifteen bucks on Amazon. But it has
a kickstand, so I was able to watch movies on
the plane. Yeah, it's so cool. So you just set
your phone up, Like, why doesn't every case have this? Yeah,
so I just watched movies on the plane on with
my phone like sitting up like you know, on its side. Okay,
(05:09):
other things. Everything about it is really amazing, everything like
the quality of the software, the speed, the just you know,
unlocking is a little bit tougher than the iPhone with
a face ID, right because you have to use your
fingerprint or you can set up their version of face ID,
but it doesn't work as well. Okay, you know some
of the software isn't available, but I love what you
can do on Android, so I kind of get over
(05:30):
that because I love having like shortcuts on my screen,
and I love having the universal search box for Google
right at the bottom of my screen. I love having
my Samsung Pay which works with any basically anywhere, even
if they don't take Apple pay or Google Pay. It
still works.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Really.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
It emulates the magnetic strip on a credit card. Oh
so kind of it kind of I don't know what
you call emanates it out from your phone, like if
you just hold it near they're like, oh, sorry, you
don't take Apple Play. You're like, watch this and it works.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, that's not what you think.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
So that's cool. Now I'm describing a lot of things
that are available just on Android, but the physical like
the size of the phone. I'm fine with the feel
of the phone just everything. Like the quality of the
device is very high. Now with that said, let me
get to the biggest problem I found with this phone
because I went to the New York Toy Fair in
New York City and I shot my entire story on
(06:25):
the video camera on this device.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I can't believe you did that.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And I had my simcard in here for my texts
and everything. So I was doing everything on this phone,
making calls, receiving calls, everything, setting my alarm at night.
I was a little bit concerned because it's been a
long time since I use bedtime on the iPhone, and
it's super simple to set my alarm. I just scroll
a little dial to the time I want to wake up,
it gently arises me to wake This was a little
(06:50):
different because it's like, okay, now I'm setting a real alarm.
I don't know if it's going to go off. So
I tested a bunch of times. Anyway, all those things,
one thing, Okay, my biggest issue with the Samsung is
when I get a notification on the screen. So here's
a notification, Megan said, Okay, sales is over where we're
doing the podcast, you said to me, and there's a
(07:12):
little reply thing I can hit right here, right well.
On the iPhone, when you hit that reply or touch
the notification, it immediately brings you into that app from
the lock screen because it's looked at your face or
your fingerprint is on there, your thumb is on the
fingerprint reader, and now it just brings you right in there.
On Android, that doesn't happen on this device, and so
you have to kind of tap it once and then
(07:36):
it's really complicated to explain, but you have to tap
it once and then it says use biometrics. Okay, so
I put my face and now it says swiped it open,
and I swiped open, and it still didn't bring me
in there. So my point is I can much faster
reply much faster to notifications on the iPhone for some reason,
and it's a little thing, but over the day, when
you're doing one hundred and fifty notifications that you're replying to,
(07:59):
it all adds up to a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Other than that, I think that the Android platform is
totally fine now when it comes to content creation. Here's
what I noticed, and a lot of other reviewers are
noticing this as well, But I noticed my phone was
not focusing. And I've noticed that some of the pictures
in general on the Samsung device are soft, which means
when you take a picture, it just looks kind of weird.
You're like, wait, was that in focus? And especially when
(08:24):
you're doing video, if you put the video camera up
to something, it's just not in focus. So when I
was doing all my interviews and everything for the Toy Fair,
I kept having to manually tap the screen to focus.
Now on iPhone that feature is available, I rarely, if ever,
have to use it.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
It like auto focuses on what you're what you're focusing.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
On, even when you move your phone like quickly, and
on the Samsung I did not notice that at all.
It's really bad.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Like did you notice that last year with the Samsung.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
No, I've never noticed that. In fact, I specifically remember
when I used to have a Samsung device and this
guy I was on a shoot out in like Virginia.
He was like, why do you use Samsung? And I
was like, oh, because it's so much better than the
iPhone And he's like really, And I'm like, well, take
a look at this, and I showed him my hand
and I put my phone, my Samsung, in front of
it and showed him how quickly it focused. And I
(09:11):
was like, and look how clear that is and how
focused it is. Now I move it somewhere else, and
he's like, oh wow, that's great. And I was like, now,
look at the iPhone. It didn't focus as fast. iPhones
come a long way since then, Samsung this one. I
feel like they took a step back.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
So then there must be a glitch.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
There might be a glitch. According to the Verge, there
is going to be a software update to improve the camera,
but they would not acknowledge any specific problem. And here's
the thing. My idea is that they have had this
device in production now, like in development now for a year.
Let's say, you don't have a device in production for
(09:44):
a year and nobody notices this weird little glitch until
you give it to people and all of a sudden
it's like, oh, we'll fix that. Rarely happens. Yeah, you
can't just fix something like nobody noticed this, nobody used
the video camera.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It's the same with sorry, but the foldable screen last year,
like everyone was like peeling the screen off.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So sometimes Samsung can't catch break. So at this point
I cannot recommend the Samsung S twenty Ultra. I don't
know if this problem is on the other two, the
two leading up to the phone, the S twenty and
the S twenty plus, but the Ultra, I will say
it's kind of a deal breaker. Like I said, I
had my simcard in this device, and I found myself
being like I can't wait to get back to the
iPhone now. Hopefully they fix this. But it's not just
(10:28):
me that's seeing this. All the reviewers are saying the
same thing, right, and it's clearly an issue. And I
don't know how they're going to spin this or try
to figure this out. But if I bought this phone
for fourteen hundred dollars and I saw the way it
was focusing at that toy fair.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
That's insane.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I'd be really angry. And by the end of the
toy fair, I ended up using my iPhone to to
shoot a couple more videos and I was like, Okay,
I'm not crazy. This thing is amazingly clear and focused
on everything.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So I need the new iPhone anyway.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So there you have it. That's my spiel. I will
have my Yeah. That's that's it for now. So cool.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Okay. So this first message comes from Jeanette. She said,
I just wanted to tell you what an honor it
was to meet you in person at the Bourbank Airport.
You were so nice, just like you are on TV.
Kat A five is the only news I watched. Thank
you for keeping us informed. We learned so much from you.
Sorry you missed your meeting and SF have a nice day.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That is Jeannette, Jeanette, Well, thank you, Jeanette. This is
a funny thing about being on TV is that you're
always being watched and judged silently no matter where you are.
And I tell my kids this all the time because
people come up to me all the time, like literally
every day every day, no matter even in New York
at the Toy Fair. Yeah, I was coming out of
the men's restroom and some guys like, we're jeh on tech,
(11:51):
what's up? And it's like, now, if I can't if
I was walking around with like a sour look on
my face and kind of like angry or treating people
really rude, it'd be awkward. Yeah, And I don't think
you should be doing that in general, But being on TV,
it's like people are watching you, and well, I feel
like I am who I am most of the time.
Like I'm not really a different person on TV. Right,
(12:12):
That's very clear because it's just like I am who
I am.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
But at the same time, it's like an instances like
this we were I was in probably one of the
most frustrated moments of my life where I was trying
to get up to San Francisco for a meeting with Samsung. Yeah,
and we didn't make it. Our flight was totally delayed,
and I could have been, like, you know, very angry
and visibly because I was with my photographer and I
could have been being rude to the people on the
podium at Southwest. I could have been really mad. Yeah,
(12:36):
and you know what, I wasn't and this woman saw
me at my worst and here's what she said.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
You weren't bad, So anyway I would have been so frustrated.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
It is frustrating. Anyway. It's a weird thing when you're
on television to I always say this for every person
that comes up to you and says hello or says
something or asks for a picture, there's fifty more people
in that room, probably one other that like also also
that don't say anything, right, but they do tell their
friends and they're like, oh, I saw Rich and oh
(13:05):
my god, what a jerk. He was at the register
at Ralph's, you know, yeah, at the grocery store here,
or oh, seems like a nice guy, had a smile
on his face, he was with his kids, you know,
his wife. Whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, No, I think that's important. You don't want to
be a jerk.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
No, I try not to be. Well, thank you, um
Nest camera outage. This is kind of a big deal
because a lot of people use Nest cameras, including myself,
to keep an eye on their home, and this just
kind of goes to show what could potentially happen when
we rely on these cameras to secure our homes. These
(13:40):
cameras are cloud connected. They do a lot of the
lifting heavy lifting in the cloud. They record everything in
the cloud. And on Monday, February twenty fourth, from eleven
to fifty five am until four to twenty Wonder where
they got that number Pacific time? Noah, Wait what these
stopped working? So you had a blackout period for cameras
across the nation that we're using Nest for four plus hours,
(14:06):
four hours twenty five minutes. Imagine that.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
That's insane.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Now, not only the cameras not work, they also didn't
record anything to the cloud during that time, so you had,
in effect a total blackout of these cameras for four
plus hours.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's infuriating.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Now, they gave me five bucks as a refund. I
didn't notice this on my own camera because I wasn't
like looking at the time. But if something happened at
your house during that time, I would be so angry.
Let's say you got a break in during that time.
Now you have no video the whole point of having
that cameras. I'm sure there was.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Wait, so how did that happen?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
They said it was a update to their server caused
a connectivity issue. I mean, but that's a big deal.
And as we rely on these cloud things more and more.
Here's what my thought is. Imagine you're a hacker. Yeah,
you do the biggest hack where you hack the Nest servers.
You get them to black out for twelve hours, and
now it's a free for all across the nation.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah. Or like if someone heard that there was a blackout,
they could just find a house that has a Nest camera.
I'd be like, oo, exactly near no one, Well, no one,
we'll know because what if people don't trace of me?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
They tweet when when something like this happens, no cameras
are down. Oh, now they search. Maybe someone has a
search on their Twitter for a safe search that says
Nest down, and they just wait for a whole bunch
of those tweets and then they go strike.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Could they just be saying it's a server thing, that
they were updating the server.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I think it probably. I mean, that's kind of a
catch all for like we made a mistake.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
If I was a security company, I don't, I mean,
you don't know, lie, But like I feel like they
wouldn't want to say, you know, we were hacked.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
No, I don't. I don't think in this instance they were,
but maybe they were. You never know. I mean usually
they come out and say something big picture and then
maybe they narrow it down later in a security.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Block, updating or hacked server.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
All right. This next question comes from Erica, and if
you want Rich to answer your tech questions, just go
to his web site rich on tech dot tv and
hit the contact button. Erica asks, can you please tell
me what the best anti virus software is?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Ooh interesting? I get this question so much. People are
obsessed with antivirus software. And here's my thought on it.
I think that you should have it number one. If
you have Windows ten, it's kind of built in. It's
called Windows Defender, and that's Microsoft's built in virus protection.
So I would say, make sure that's up to date,
make sure you haven't disabled that, make sure you haven't
(16:33):
gotten rid of that. Now after that, I feel like
a lot of these antivirus softwares are very spammy and
they kind of bogged down your system. Like let's just
say the big company out there that you know, I'm
not going to mention the name, but there's a big
company that everyone knows is synonymous with anti virus.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I've had that antivirus before, and I just feel like
it's a lot going on for nothing, and so people
turn to these other apps that might maybe use less
resources on their system. So with all that said, I
mean to me, on my Mac, I was recommending Silance,
which we did a story with, which I thought was
(17:13):
really cool because it was it was sort of immediate
and it was just a very cool AI powered But
then BlackBerry bought them, and I'm not sure that they
even do personal BlackBerry. Yeah, let's see if they even
do Silence anti virus. Let's see if they do it
anymore for like consumers. And I thought this was cool
because they do it in like real time, so uh,
(17:35):
let's see. Yeah, they do have it, Okay, Silance Smart antivirus.
So that's the one that I'd still recommend Windows in
Mac compatible okay. And it's what's cool about it is
that it's kind of anti virus with a brain, so
it looks at what's happening on your computer and if
it notices something that's going on that's bad in real time,
it'll stop that from happening, which compared to the other
(17:58):
way most antivirus works. It has a large definition of stuff,
and any file that you bring onto your system, it
kind of checks it across that definition and it says, oh,
this is one of the bad files. This Silence works
by kind of identifying things in real time that are bad. Okay,
so that's kind of cool. Other than that, I would
look at something like a vast which I like, and
then malware bytes I also like. And again, a lot
(18:20):
of these things they start out free and then they
want you to be paid. Silence is just totally paid.
It's forty nine dollars a year for ten devices. I
think that's well worth it. Yeah, so good question. Speaking
of security, Firefox continues to kind of push user security.
I don't know how many people are using Firefox these
days anymore. Remember what it was kind of a popular
(18:40):
way to surf the internet. A lot of people use
Chrome nowadays, which has a lot of security built in.
But when you're using Chrome, a lot of your data
is being siphoned off to Google because it's owned by Google.
And why do they want you to use a browsers
so that they have more of a knowledge of who
you are and what you're doing. Well, now Firefox is
doing this new thing called DNS over HTTPS, and this
(19:03):
gets really techy, really nerdy, But the bottom line, when
you type in a website into your computer like Yahoo
dot com, and most websites are encrypted at this point.
So when you go to Yahoo, everything you do on
there is now private. Basically most websites. If you look
there's a little padlock next to the website. That means
that whatever you type into that website no one can
(19:24):
really see because it's encrypted. It means it's kind of
enshrouded in secrecy between your computer and the computer on
the receiving end. Back in the day, it wasn't, so
anything you did was just kind of interceptible by anyone. Right,
long story short, when you type in that Yahoo dot com,
that first thing you type in your ISP and other people,
(19:45):
because of the way it's looked up, can see what
you're typing in. Okay, So even though they can't see
what happens once you get to that website, like your
bank website, they can see that you went to your
bank website. So what Firefox is doing is they are
actually starting to do these look ups in a secured way.
So when you type in, you know, Yahoo dot com,
it needs to convert that into an address like one
nine two dot zero dot nine dot one. It will
(20:07):
do that in an encrypted way, which means it's still secret,
which means that your internet service provider, the person who
brings the internet into your home, will not be able
to see a lot of the things that you do
on the web. Okay, whereas before they could still collect
a whole bunch of data about people and know that
they're visiting whatever website, shopping websites, and they can sell
that data, they can cross reference it, now they no
(20:29):
longer have. If you're using Firefox, they will basically not
really see anything that you're doing. So it's like a
little step of security. Yeah, and now, I know a
lot of people's minds go to kind of dirty or
things with this stuff, but it's not always for that.
There's a lot of countries in the world where you're
not as free as you are in America. So even
(20:49):
looking up something about a dictator or who knows any
kind of government stuff may put you in on a
watch list or whatever. Oh interesting, And so again this
is all in making life a little bit more private,
especially in those moments when you may not realize that
someone has access to this data and Internet service providers
(21:11):
still have a lot of access to the data and
the things that are happening in your home with your internet,
and so by kind of closing some of these little holes,
it patches some of the privacy leaks out there. And
again this is something that only Firefox is doing. And
by the way, I mentioned like kind of the world
scope of things, this is only turned on by default
(21:31):
in the US. If you're in a different country using Firefox,
you have to go into the settings and turn on
DNS over https. Megan Cool.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
This next question comes from tam Roku versus Firestick question mark,
what are the advantages and disadvantages of each and which
is better?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Oh, that's a good question. Advantages disadvantages. Okay, So Firestick
is Amazon, which means number one, they're pushing a lot
of Amazon stuff. So when you log on to a Firestick,
it's the whole screen is filled with stuff. Some of
it is advertising, a lot of it is kind of
like the new shows on Amazon. A lot of it
is stuff you've watched before. It's very cluttered, and I
(22:17):
feel like it is all over the place when it
comes to the clutter on the screen. And yes, your
apps and stuff are on there, but there's just a
lot of stuff going on. And I find that for
every tile on that screen on my Fire, I am
clicking almost zero of them, Like they're not really I
don't want, Like whatever they're surfacing, I'm not using. So
I'm just going into my Netflix app or I'm going
(22:38):
into my YouTube app or whatever. I'm not really looking
at all the other stuff. So if you now on
the flip side, if you love Amazon and you love
Amazon shows, this is gonna be your best and watching
free Amazon stuff, this is gonna be your best way
of a conduit to those to those properties on the
flip side. Roku and they've always been like this is
kind of like the Switzerland, and I've said this before,
(23:00):
of streaming. They get your apps on screen. Yes, they're
to advertising, Yes they're pushing their own Roku channel. Yes
they're trying to get you to sign up for certain
new apps and channels and stuff. But at the end
of the day, Roku is kind of like, if I
had to describe it, Fire Fire TV is very busy,
whereas Roku just kind of sits there and waits for
you to do something.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, it's clean, Yeah, I love Roku and then we
have fire TV sticks in our house too.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And it's a difference. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I mean like I don't really use those TVs, but
I don't like I don't really like the look of it,
Like I think it's it like you said, it's too cluttered.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, I recently switched to Apple TV, which is when
you talk about the least of everything, it's there's nothing
on there, right, no ads, there's no nothing. They don't
push you to anything. It's just your apps, just like
the iPhone.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
But it's funny. I had to kind of explain to
my dad the other day because I was like, Apple
TV and then there's Apple TV. Plus he was like, wait,
what that is? And so that's something that's also confusing.
But Apple TV is very it's like the cleanest.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yes, it is the cleanest. It's also the most expensive, right.
Roku has a price range for everyone. Fire TV stick
you can, you know, give them out like Halloween candy.
They're so cheap. Yeah, my choice between those two things,
i'd probably I think they're both great. It really depends
what you like. My biggest beef with the Fire TV
is I can never ever just I just want to
(24:22):
see what the top movie rentals are. I can never
find that on my Fire TV. And that's what really
pushed me over the edge with the Apple is. I'm
just like, if I can't find this, this is I
love to just see what the top movies are, and
on Fire I just can't find it. It's like it's
just it's there somewhere, but it's like it's like top
Prime Choice, Top Prime Romantic Choices, top Prime action movies,
(24:44):
top Prime TV shows. I'm like, just give me movies
that are people are renting and watching.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah, I have a question kind of related to this.
We've talked a lot about like how you've changed your
like cable situation. What are you doing right now? Because
I have an aunt who she's like, all I want
to watch is The Bachelor, and but I have direct
TV And I was like, well then you should just
(25:09):
have Hulu. But then she was like, but you know
then we want sports occasionally. So what is your what
are you doing again?
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So what I'm doing is I can tell you two things.
So number One, I don't watch a lot of TV,
so I don't need any I've recently canceled my direct
TV now which was sixty bucks a month. I do
have a device that allows me. It's called Tableau, which
allows me to take in an antenna signal. Before I
was using the Amazon Fire TV recast Tableau, same thing,
(25:39):
except it works across all the different platforms and it's
just a little tiny box that you plug your antenna into.
And now you have an app on your TV screen
on your Fire or your Apple TV or your Roku
that lets you access your local channels over the air,
and you can also record them to if you want.
Oh wow, it costs five bucks a month if you
want the program data for a longer period of time.
I don't need that because I just tune in live.
(26:00):
So when I was watching like the Grammys Boom, just
tune in live.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Right And ABC is an over the channel, So like.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Ninety nine percent of the time, the stuff you want
to watch, like the big events are free. Now when
it comes to sports, that's where things get tricky. So
with me personally, I watch USC football. I would say
some of the games are on over the air on
ABC seven or something like that, or NBC when it's
Notre Dame a lot of times on ESPN, So how
(26:27):
do I get ESPN right now? I don't have a solution.
I haven't. It was past football season when I got
rid of direct TV now, so this next season will
be an issue. I don't know what I'm gonna do,
so that's gonna be a part of it. But I
would say the other thing you could do. There's a
service called low cast, And this is what my mom does.
She went from having Direct TV Now for sixty bucks
a month to now she pays five dollars a month
(26:49):
for low cast, and it's if you don't feel like
putting an antenna on your house, you download this app
and you donate five dollars a month to them. They
have an antenna somewhere and then they stream the pannels
to your TV. Wow. Now the broadcasters don't necessarily like
that model because they're not necessarily getting paid for that.
So now they don't get paid for antenna either. And
(27:11):
the way low cast argues is that, well, we're just
an extended antenna signal. Right, We're just taking the antenna
signal from a nice rooftop somewhere and just piping it
into your TV. Broadcasters like, eh, we don't know if
that's you know, allowed, So they're kind of operating in
a gray area. So far, so good. They've been around
for a bit. But that's another box, Tableau t t
(27:33):
A b l oh t A.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
So you just need like one tableau box.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, and it'll service all your TVs. Now there's a
certain amount you can watch from those. I think it's
two TVs at once or two channels at once. But yeah,
that's that's a way of doing it. And there's also
I did when I when I wanted to watch something
on a channel that I did not get, I did
subscribe to Fubo TV for one day and I just
signed up for a free and it got me. I
(28:01):
think it was the Grammys or something. It was whatever
whatever I couldn't get on something. I think it was
a Grammy pre show maybe, and it was on E
and I didn't have E. So I just signed up
for a day, got the show, and boom, I was done.
Oh maybe it was Super Bowl anyway, good question. Speaking
of streaming TV, Netflix is finally finally showing us the
(28:23):
most popular TV shows and movies on its Yes, finally,
it's been so long and I get it Netflix. And
we've talked about this on the podcast where they'd love
to be personalized, and they want to make everything perfect
for you. Sometimes I just want to see what is
popular across everyone, not just myself. This is kind of
(28:44):
like a dating app. It's like, now everyone's dating on
these apps, and you're literally picking the person that's the
equivalent of you, except either you know, male or female,
or you know whatever you prefer. But it's just like you,
except in another human Like, well, I like bagel, so
they should like bagels. I like romantic comedies.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
They should like love bagels.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I like going to Hawaii, so they should like going
to Hawaii. I like food at fancy restaurants, so they
should like you're literally picking the same person, except because
these little apps let you pick every aspect of the
person rather than you know, the old days anyway. So
Netflix to me is kind of like that. It's like,
we only want to show you what we think you'll
love because of what you watched before. Well, guess what,
(29:25):
I'm a dynamic person. I may want to watch some
random movie like I watched that dumb to All the
Boys I loved before whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Oh you did, Yeah it was not very good, started
it and then I was like, I'm bored.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Really it was very much sponsored by like Subway. Like
remember they kept getting like Subway subs.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
In that movie.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Okay, so those kind of things like I don't. I
will sample weird things like that every once in a while,
Like that Cheer show. People are saying, that's very good and.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Like the old show No cheer.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Oh it's it's about cheerleading. Yeah it's it's the premise
is cheerleading, but it's really about like determination and drive
and all this stuff. So again I might check that out.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Right.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Okay, so now you can see top ten lists on Netflix,
and they're going to show you the top ten most
popular series and the top ten films when you click
on the movies and TV show tabs not on your
home screen, I guess, so you have to go into
the tab.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
And the best part is any show that when you're
browsing that's into the top ten, it will have a
little top ten batge so you can see, like this
is the top ten. And I think that's kind of
fun rather than they always put these weird things like
trending on Netflix, popular on Netflix. Just show me the
top ten, give me the list. I can handle it.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, I can handle it.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
You can't handle the truth.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Honestly, I don't know if I can handle the truth. Okay,
this next question comes from Cleveland. Do you know of
any dashcams that record overnight without being plugged into the
power outlet of your car. I would like to be
able to record both facing out and inward if possible.
The outward facing would be ideal in the event of
(31:02):
any accident while parked or a theft.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Well, I would say that a lot of the dash
cams will do this functionality no matter what. So even
if a dash cam requires power from your car, uh,
just look. Okay, So here's what you look for. Look
for a dash can that has an on board battery.
And what it does is it will it'll plug into
your cigarette lighter and it'll be charging this battery on board,
(31:30):
So most of the time it's powered by your car,
but when you turn off your car, it will still
have enough juice in it to roll camera if your
car is hit. And so that's the other thing you
need to look for is a g shock sensor. And
all that looks is for a movement, you know, like
a boom boom boom like and you can usually set
the sensitivity for that. So if you want just you know,
(31:51):
if someone runs a car at the you know, Ralph's
parking lot, I said Ralphs twice in this podcast, you
know the grocery store parking lot. If someone runs a
car into your car, you may not want that to
trigger a recording, like you're really gonna go after that person.
I would hunt them down. Now you have a new car,
do you have that feeling of like there is a
(32:13):
moment when have you gotten a ding on it yet?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
No?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Okay, but you know there's a time Wait.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
That's a lot. I got a tiny, tiny, tiny little ding.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
When I was Isn't that the worst feeling?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I like almost cried.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, it's just you know what's gonna happen when you
have a new car, and it's just but it's.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Like, it's the worst.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I've had my car for like three years. And at
this point I don't care anymore because my kids will
take the door lease. Well I know, but so now
do you care less because of that?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
No?
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I care more because I large you at the end.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, yeah, I think they end. Sometimes they don't know,
but maybe they won't even notice.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I feel like I feel like they have to understand
when a car is going through normal wear and tear. Yeah,
it's gonna get dings throughout three years of a lease, right.
And I've heard stories from people out of return cars.
Sometimes they look over them like with a fine tooth comb.
Other times they don't care, right, And so it just
kind of depends.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
I guess maybe if you're like gonna lease another car
from them, Yeah, like.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Exactly, we'll look the other way, don't.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Oh, we will look at the like missing tire.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
That's exactly what I was just gonna say. Did we
deliver this car with four tires or three? Only three?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
You're getting another porche It's fine.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Well look the other right. So the couple of things
you want to look for in your camera is a
g shock sensor and an onboard battery. With that said,
the camera that I like is the Vava camera. Via Va,
I don't believe that it records both the front and
the back. The other camera to look at is the
owl cam, And the other one I tried was called
the Pure Cam, and that one was great. Every quord
(33:43):
that has all the things I just talked about. What
it did not do is it did not have good
software on your iPhone, so it was really poor software,
and that's what kept me from using that. We've talked
about this on the podcast before Jiff versus GIF. In fact,
I think it was this last podcast that we had
a whole talk about this pronunciation debate, and now it
(34:06):
might be coming to an end thanks to a marketing
stunt by Jeff Peanut Butter. Jeff Peanut Butter came out
with two special jars that help you explain to yourself
how you should pronounce Jeff versus Giff. Jeff. You know
the peanut butter. It's always been pronounced Jeff with a
j if. Giff is written g if. A lot of
(34:28):
people call it a jiff, but they're saying hard G
for GIF and soft G for jiff the peanut butter. Okay,
hard G for the graphic, the leaping animated image, soft
jay for the peanut butter. So now you care. It
is actually easy to remember, huh.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I know. I Yeah, it is like j I just
always called gifts gifts.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah you did, I But it's funny because of the game.
The guy who came out with.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Who right you were telling me this last week.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Said, Jeff, I remember this is south by Southwest them.
But here's the thing. It stands for, like we said
last week, graphics interchange format with graph fixedrookok, I don't
want to get through this, but Griff, long story short,
the bottles of peanut butter sold out instantly on Amazon.
They were selling a two pack, you know, the two
bottles a pair for ten bucks, Okay, And I guess
(35:25):
people went crazy over these things, and it's kind of fun.
I could see why. Yeah, And they put more on
Amazon and those sold out in like one minute. So
I do have a pair of bottles coming to me.
They're supposed to arrive today. I was hoping they were
in time for today's TV hits. I didn't get them
in time, so maybe I'll show them off next week.
But I like the idea of just having this on
(35:46):
my desk so I always remember. I'm like Giff, Jiff.
And again, it's a marketing stunt, but it's kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I like it. It's cute, all right. This next question
comes from Steve. Except for Alert, the location settings on
my iPhone apps are set to while I'm using the app.
But I also know that once I open an app,
it stays open until I close it individually while it
(36:13):
is in this state that is open but non current use.
Is it still reporting my location?
Speaker 1 (36:21):
This is a great question. Yeah, and the short answer
is yes, but no. And so here's what's happening on you.
He's talking about the iPhone, right, Yeah, So on the iPhone,
when you open up an app, when you're using it,
your anything goes like it. You know, whatever permissions you've
given it, whether it's your location, microphone camera, whatever, it
can access those things when it shifts to the background.
(36:44):
There are two ways it can.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Be handled, so when you change to another app, you
still have it.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Like kind of in your recent apps.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
All my apps open all the time.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
But you're okay, because the way that the iPhone works
is it puts apps to sleep in the background. Now
that the time app the time that it takes to
go to sleep is could be a potential issue. So
some apps like to stay awake in the background so
that they can do certain things all the time. So
like a music streaming app has gotten special permission from
(37:14):
Apple to stay awake in the background because otherwise it
wouldn't be able to stream music. A mapping app has
special permission to work in the background so that it
can gather your GPS coordinates and give you directions. Now,
other apps have firm rules for how long they can
stay accessing system resources in the background before Apple says
(37:34):
night night, goodbye, see you later. So the longer. The
short of it is, if it's not a nefarious app
that is trying to do something evil and it's been
coded word, if it's not been coded in an evil way,
it will eventually go to sleep. And that's why Apple
always says you do not need to close out your
recent apps unless they are behaving badly, and then you
can go ahead and swipe them closed. Otherwise you're doing
(37:57):
just fine. Your apps in the background should not be
accessing stuff that they shouldn't be able to access in
the foreground.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
That answer it, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Now with that said, on Android, whole different story system.
Our apps can use resources in the background on Android
much easier than they can on iOS. That's also the
reason why the battery lasts longer on iOS because basically
the app that you're using is pretty much the only
thing that's happening on your phone at that time, Versus Android,
a lot of things could be happening in the background. Now,
(38:30):
there's advantages to that on Android, and I'll just go
into one. One example is Google Photos. So on Android,
Google Photos can work in the background even if you
haven't opened the app to upload all your pictures in
the background. With iOS, it only gets that permission when
you open up the app, and maybe in the background
when you have it on a charger and it has
been properly coded to kind of ping the server and say, hey,
(38:52):
I've got some pictures here. Can I upload these real quick?
And your iPhone says, well, you can't use this all night.
You can't just stay open and transmitting data all night,
but we'll give you a couple of minutes to kind
of refresh things. That's called background refresh. Okay, it's very complicated,
but it's done for a reason. On the iPhone, they've
optimized the iPhone in such a heavy way to make
the battery last and also make sure that these apps
(39:13):
aren't doing things they shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Good to know.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Uh, okay, oh shoot, we have a couple of things,
all right, I want to get to Okay, this is
really interesting. We'll do two more things. Okay, but this
is really interesting. This director said that on camera you
won't see bad guys in movies using the iPhone because
Apple does not allow their products to be portrayed in
that light. This is knives out director Ryan Johnson in
(39:40):
an interview with Variety. With an interview with Vanity Fair.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Another funny thing. I don't know if I should say
this or not, not because it's like Lasiba's or some
because it's going to screw me on the next mystery
movie that I write, but forget, I'll say it's very interesting.
Apple they let you use iPhones and movies, but in
the is very pivotal. If you're ever watching a mystery movie,
bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera. So no, every
(40:10):
single filmmaker who does a bad guy in their movie
it's supposed to be a secret wants to murder me.
Right now, Let's see what Jamie's saying.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Interesting, interesting, interesting revelation. That's again knives out director Ryan
Johnson in a YouTube interview for Vanity Fair YouTube video.
And what he's saying is that I think here's what
he's saying. I'm reading between the lines. He says that
you can't really have an iPhone in the hands of
a villain on screen because Apple doesn't like that. I
(40:37):
think What he is not saying is this is when
Apple is supplying the phones for the production. If you
ever watch Modern Family, every device on that show was
an Apple device. At the end of the show, it
says promotional consideration provided by Apple, because Apple gave those
directors a whole bunch of stuff and they were able
to use them in their show. Along with that whole
(40:58):
bunch of free stuff to use iPad and tablets and
you know, imax and all these iPhones in the show.
They also had a little line in that that said,
here's how you will not use these products. You're not
going to show them doing bad things. You're not going
to show people throwing them and crashing them and you know,
getting into car accidents using them in the car. You
know what I mean. There's a whole bunch of regulations
that come along with these free products. But if you
(41:20):
and I are doing a music video and we don't
ask Apple for free phones or permission, we could do
whatever we want with these phones. So if villain Meghan
is on screen crushing you know, a character with her
bare hands, you can have an iPhone and make a
call after that.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Villain Meghan.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Okay, finally, I just want to mention one more thing,
because I've talked about this before with you, and I
just think this is super interesting. New York Times did
a little informal survey of how expensive it is to
eat using food delivery apps, and it is fascinating because
I've always had this hypothesis, right, I always call it.
(42:02):
I call it the most expensive way to eat. In fact,
I would argue that getting food delivery at this point
is almost more expensive than going to a restaurant and eating. Yeah, yeah,
because you're paying all these service charges and fees. And
what people don't even realize is when you look at
the menu on uber eats.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Or Postmates, they like it's the they redo the menu
for the app. So it's like five dollars rice is
actually now ten dollars rice, so you're paying double exactly.
Its insane.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
So they looked at grub Hub, door Dash, Postmates, Uber Eats,
and the restaurant. So for instance, a six inch turkey
breast sub at Subway, if you got two of them,
would be twelve dollars and fifty eight cents at the restaurant.
Get it through uber eats, it's fourteen dollars and seventy
eight cents on the menu. By the way, this doesn't
include the extra fees on the menu at Postmates fourteen
seventy eight, door Dash fourteen seventy eight, grub Hub eleven
(42:49):
ninety eight. Then you've got your delivery fee anywhere from
a dollar ninety nine to three one nine. Then you've
got your service fee. A lot of times they'll say, oh,
free delivery this, you know on a Tuesday night with
this code. Well they don't tell you is that you
still pay a service fee yep, and then you pay
sales tax, which of course you.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Pay the party thing on Postmates. I always like, when
I'm lazy, i might do it, and then I'm like, no,
it all adds up to the same thing.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
They've created fees so that they can credit you fees.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yeah, but it's like false advertising. They're like, oh, it's
free this, but yeah. Anyways, so the total.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Cost for these two subs if you ate them at
the restaurant thirteen dollars twenty one cents, or I guess
if you got them at the restaurant, if you pick
them up. Total costs and Uber each twenty five dollars,
Postmates twenty two dollars, Door Dash nineteen dollars, grub Hub
sixteen dollars. Markups range from twenty five percent to ninety
one percent. Now here's the thing. When you're ordering Postmates
(43:43):
for twenty one fifty two for two subs, for someone
to bring it to your house seems pretty reasonable. You're
not really thinking about the fact that it's thirteen bucks
if you went and drove there yourself, because all this
convenience of this person bringing it to your home. But
that's still a markup of sixty three percent.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
A couple other things about this is that Ubers service
charges were the most unpredictable. It seemed like grub Hub
was kind of the cheapest out of these when it
comes to the markup. And the bottom line is that
there's not really much you can do about this. If
you like these delivery apps, you are paying a premium.
(44:19):
And what I always say, and I've used them, don't
like I'm not preaching here, but it's almost like there
are nights when I'm sitting there so ready to order
one of these apps, one of these food apps, and
I'm just like, you know what, let me just go
and just make something myself. Like it's actually cheaper for
me to go to the grocery store and just buy
(44:40):
something that I can make that night.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
I was going to Postmates to potle and then I thought, well,
maybe they have free delivery, like weirdly, and I went
to their site and they had free delivery and it
was the same as if I had gone in store.
So I use their free delivery service.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Yeah, and that's a lot of these companies right now
are experimenting with using Postmates and grub Hub and all
these other things. Yeah, but then they're sort of when
they get their own thing in place, they're using their
own delivery, right, So it's we're in a middle time.
But anyway, Yeah, I thought, look up the New York
Times article. It's very fascinating. It's kind of eye opening.
And by the way, my go to simplest thing ever
is just a protein like a salmon or a chicken
(45:19):
or a steak. Buy one of those, and then you
get some rice, and then you buy some veggies. My
go to is just broccoli and bell pepper.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Are you saying just to like make your own dinner.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah, you make your own bowl and then you put
some of that, you put some of that. Karaoke stuff
on it. I mean it's so easy. I made them
last night, and it's I mean, a whole family of
four could eat for like five bucks or ten dollars
instead of forty dollars.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
You know, it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
All right, that's gonna do it for this episode of
the show. For links to what we talked about, take
a look at the show notes. If you have a
question for me Megan, tell them how to submit it.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
If you want Rich to answer your tech question, go
to his website rich on Tech dot tv and hit
the contact.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
And please rate and review the podcast. It helps other
people discover it. All you have to do is go
to rate this podcast dot com, slash rich on tech,
or if you have a friend, just ask them right Yeah.
Fit pro SF recently wrote Rich is awesome. I've been
(46:20):
a fan since his days before c net. If you
want timely relevant tech news from mobile commuting, computing iPhones, iPads, tablets,
et cetera, to apps, Wi Fi, routers and network tips,
internet providers, practical Internet security, anything tech including smart spending
on your tech. Rich Demiro is your man. Wow. Wah,
(46:42):
Now if I can only get.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
My your dings right?
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Yeah, Well, you can't get it all right. You can
find me on Instagram. I am rich on Tech. My
name is rich dmiro On, behalf of producer Megan and
everyone else that it takes to get this show on
the air. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you real
soon
Host
Rich DeMuro
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