December 11, 2020 • 54 mins
Apple unveils $549 AirPods Max headphones; California gets on board with Apple and Google's COVID tracing system; Disney+ raising its price; Apple Music comes to Google smart speakers and displays; Google Photos plays nicer with Apple Photos; Google Assistant routines come to the home screen.Listeners ask about stronger two-factor authentication with YubiKey, a smartwatch to pair with a Samsung phone, a better podcast app than the one built into iPhone, an Android version of SanDisk iXpand drive, recovering a photo from a formatted SD card, opting out of Amazon's sidewalk network and why speed tests vary so much.Show page to leave a voice message:https://www.podpage.com/richontech/Follow Rich:https://twitter.com/richontechLinks:AirPods MaxTurn on CA COVID notificationsiPhone / AndroidDisney+ price hikeApple Music on Google speakersGoogle Photos and Apple PhotosGoogle Assistant routine shortcutsYubiKeyPocket Casts AppSanDisk iXpand for AndroidPhoto recovery softwareAmazon Sidewalk opt outRich's Favorite Things
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Apple launches very expensive headphones Disney Plus, ready's a price increase.
Google assistant routines are easier than ever. Plus your tech
questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this
is Rich on Tech the podcast right talk about the
tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also
(00:29):
the place where I answer the questions that you send me.
And boy, do you send a lot of them? Well,
I should say boys and girls. It's not just boys,
it's everyone. I mean I met boy as like, boy,
do you send a lot of them? And yeah, yeah, yeah,
I get them always. I mean Instagram, DMS, email, Facebook posts,
(00:54):
text messages. I mean, you guys, you find me, you
figure out how to get in touch with me, and
I reply to a lot of them. But this is
the place where I really take the time to kind
of share what I'm talking to you about privately with everyone,
whether you like it or not, if you email me
or text me, that's just what happens. I'm the tech
reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Yeah, it's
(01:20):
been quite the year. We're almost done with it, if
you can believe it. And I've been enjoying the holidays
a lot last night, we went to this. It's so
funny that a drive through Christmas light display is a thing,
but that's the thing here in Los Angeles. And we
went through this it's called like Wonderland last night. It
(01:42):
was really cool and they put a lot of work
into it. It was like, you know, a whole drive through.
We went to one that was just lights. This one
was sort of a whole wonderland, you know, with like
snow and you know, different buildings and just all kinds
of stuff and dancers moving around like it was. It
was pretty well done. I got to say, seventy bucks
for a car loads, so I mean, you know, it
(02:03):
wasn't cheap, but I mean, we're My wife and I
were discussing this and it's like, well, you know, if
you go to a movie for a family of four,
you're gonna easily spend seventy bucks. I mean, tickets alone
here in La are probably you know, depending on the
depending on the time in the theater. You know, I've
gotten them as low as like nine dollars for like
a cheap matinee to like as much as like eighteen
dollars depending on where you go.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So it can it can add up.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So that was fun.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And I've just been really enjoying the holidays with a
lot of holiday movies and music and decorating the house
because i've just been I figured out the word I
was trying to get last week. I've been nesting. That's
the word I was looking for. I not that you
think back all the way to last week's show, but
I do. Once I record the show. For the rest
of the week, I just it plays over and over
(02:48):
in my head and I'm like, what did I say wrong?
What did I say weird? What did I say bad?
What did I say good? Who did I offend? And
the one word that I was looking for last week
was nesting. That's what I've been doing. And so everything
is nice and cozy in my place, lots of fireplaces
at night.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
We finally got our fireplace.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Hooked up, and it's just been nice, lots of you know,
it's been really really fun. On Hulu, they have a
section of like all holiday stuff, and they have all
the old shows that I used to watch as a
kid with their holiday shows like Wonder Years, step by Step,
Family Matters, Full House, Brady Bunch, and it's just fun,
(03:27):
you know, it's it's nostalgic. That's what I need this
year to get through this because it's been such a
weird year. I can't go home for the holidays. We
canceled everything. We canceled Near's Eve, Christmas Eve, all of
our vacations this year. And yeah, I know, poor Rich,
I know, so tough, but.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
You know it is. It's been. It's been.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
We've been in our house for pretty much the whole year.
I mean, it's it's really interesting. Never have I spent
so much time at home, and it's fun. I like
the the aspect of everyone being together. And my wife
had to go to work today out of the house
and it was, you know, we had to rush in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh go go, go, get the kids ready.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And I was like, oh, you see, see the pandemic
there are some positives because you know, you haven't had
to rush out of the house like this in a
long time. So I spent a couple of days cleaning
up my Google drive. I think I talked about this
in the last show, but it just felt so good.
You know, I think I'm having deja vu. I think
I already talked about this, but anyway, I've been cleaning
(04:25):
up my Google Drive because you know, I'm on this
mission to get it, you know, as low as possible,
so I don't have to pay any extra come June
next year or whenever they're doing it. I think it's June,
and I've been I've been making some progress on that.
All right, let's get to some of the news. I
guess this was big news for the week. I mean,
if it's Apple, it's always big news, right. Apple introduced
(04:49):
a new pair of headphones called the AirPods Max. They love,
they love using. For a while, it was plus. Now
plus is anything like a subscription that you're paying extra for,
like Disney Plus US or the upcoming Apple Fitness Plus.
Anything with a plus at the end means they're going
to be slowly but surely sapping the money out of
your bank account over a long period of time. That's
(05:11):
what the plus means in any name, ESPN plus. Oh,
we'll take this six ninety nine a month. Where's the
Spotify Plus? All these music services started before there was
plus in the name. So the AirPods Max are headphones
that go over the ear. And the big headline that
you know everyone was talking about is that these are
(05:32):
five hundred and forty nine dollars WHOA for a.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Pair of headphones?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Now, I remember it was like ten years ago when
I bought my Bow's noise canceling headphones for a trip
to Japan. It was like my first international trip with KTLA,
and I was like, should I spend the three point
fifty on this pair of headphones? Oh my gosh, it's
so expensive. And by the way, I've had them ever since.
They still work great, although a little bit of the
pads are sort of wearing off, but you know, they're
(05:56):
they're still still cranking. And three point fifty was very
well spent because I've divided up by all the international
trips I've and air trips I've taken with them, and yeah,
you do by the hour, and it's like a penny
per hour at this point. So anyway, now I'm not
defending these AirPods Max. I know that that price is
extremely high. But with s said, they've got the Apple
(06:18):
Magic built in, they've got the noise cancelation, they've got
you know, three D audio, they've got adaptive sound.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
They come in five cool.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Colors, gray, silver, blue, green, pink, and you know it's breathable.
I did not get a sample of these from Apple,
so that goes to show the importance of my report
to them. But I did see that a lot of
the YouTubers got them, and you know, I didn't watch
any of the videos just yet, so I'll maybe do
(06:48):
that this weekend and see kind of what their response is.
I'm sure it's all gonna be cheery, because you know,
what are they gonna say. I mean, they're these these
headphones are probably beautiful, they probably sound great, and they're
probably nice and lightweight, just as advertised. But the reality is,
is the average person ready to plunk down five hundred
and forty nine dollars? Probably not? But will there be
(07:10):
enough people that say, yeah, I was thinking of spending
three fifty. I mean, what's another two hundred if I'm
going to three fifty? And I don't think that's me
per se, but there will be a lot of people,
especially I'm thinking like the frequent flyer set, sort of
the influencer set, the quasi celebrity set, and you know,
the business folks set, and you know, the typical person,
(07:33):
you know, the average Joe might get these. Yeah, probably not,
I don't think so. So twenty hours of audio and
you know, it does everything as you would imagine. It's
basically a beautiful pair of AirPods in a different form
function or different form factor. Five hundred forty nine dollars
shipping on Tuesday, December fifteenth. You know, I'll be honest
(07:55):
if I'm if I'm being completely honest with you, if
I was, you know, using an iPhone, which you know
I do, but I struggle because I always want to
switch to my Android. But if I'm using an iPhone,
you know, like permanently, which I have been for two years.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
But you know, I.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Feel like I use an iPhone, but I'm not like
one hundred percent committed, you know, but I still love it,
and I'm just like and I'll get to you know,
I don't want to get into all the reasons, but
you know, so anyway, I would be tempted because I'd
be like, you know what, if if I'm traveling again
on an airplane, like these are probably amazing and with
Siri built in and how lightweight they are, they probably
feel great. I mean, AirPods are pretty magical, and so
(08:35):
if you can get that same thing with a pair
of over the year headphones, I mean, that's pretty awesome.
All right, let's get to our first question, and this
one is a little different because I've got a new
podcast home. Just go to podcast dot rich on tech
dot TV or rich on TV, rich on TV, rich
(08:58):
on tech dot TV, slash podcast, and that will take
you to the new home for my podcast.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It looks really cool.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I'm testing this service called pod page and it's really
really slick and I love it. But the cool thing
about it is that in the lower right hand corner
there is a microphone and you can leave me a
voicemail and it's super easy. It's super fun and we
can do cool things like this.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Hey, Rich, my name's Charlie van Kirk. Been a fan
of the show for a long time, really enjoicing your segments.
And I'm a tech you guy too. One thing that
I just purchased is ub key five, the NFC version,
and I use last Pass. I've used it for years.
I also use last Past Authenticator app. I was just
(09:42):
wondering if you'd be able to do a segment, you know,
showing people the advantages of using hardware encryption and authentication
and maybe just kind of simplify it for people. It's
pretty complex stuff. You know, let people know that it's
not difficult to step your level of security a notch.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
All right now, thank you, Thank you Charlie for being
the very first person to use the microphone to leave
a voicemail. Love It Again podcast dot richon tech dot
tv or rich on tech dot tv Slash podcast will
bring you to the new home for the podcast. Okay,
to answer your question, Charlie, well, I love the fact
(10:24):
that you are staying extra extra secure with this ubikey.
I am aware of these. I have not used them,
nor have I tested them in the past, but I'm
looking at the website and it looks really cool. So
what sort of if I'm understanding this, it's kind of
like a physical key that unlocks your two factor authentication
for your various accounts. So instead of having to like
(10:46):
type in a number with like an authenticator app, you
would just use this and it would authenticate automatically and seamlessly.
Because the idea being is that you have this little
key and it's on your body, and you're the one
that that would be able to authenticate.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
So I imagine there's some sort of.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You know, since it is two factor, I need to
look into this more because I'm not exactly sure how
this works, but it seems cool and I'm trying to
figure out how it's better than my authenticator app. There's
obviously an extra level of security here that I'm missing
right now at first glance.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
But and here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I mean, I love the fact that you're trying to
get me to you know, my segment is on TV,
it's on mainstream media, and it's for an average audience
that is not necessarily techies, and so the challenge there
is honestly just getting people to use a password that
is not the same password for ten different websites is
(11:45):
really really tough. And I will say in recent years,
I have seen a lot more people show interest in
password managers, which I think is amazing. And you know,
I use one, my wife uses one. I told my
dad about it on or who'd I tell to just
use it? You know, Like the iPhone and Android have
them built in, and they're getting a little bit more
aggressive now, like it's kind of on by default. I
(12:07):
feel like when you download Chrome on Android or it's
called like Google smart lock or something, it's like the
first time you type in a pass word, it's like,
do you want us to save that for you, and
you're like what, Or I've noticed on iPhone it will
just suggest them for you if you're in Safari. So
we're making progress, folks. It's just a matter of like
this this UBI key is like next next level, and
so I'm not sure. In the past, I've kind of
(12:28):
shied away from this with a mainstream audience because it
it might like you also have to think on TV,
how do you tease something? How do you say to
people you know, you know why they should tune in
and watch your story, And with this one it would
be kind of tough. I mean, it's like, you know,
a better way to secure your accounts, you know, and
maybe it's easier, but again I need to research. So
thank you for the for the voicemail and thanks for
(12:50):
the story suggestion. I will definitely look into it. And
it looks cool. I remember so many years ago my
roommate was he had a job, and he sat down
at his computer and he had like this little keychain
thing that would like I think it was for like
e trade or something, and it would like randomly generate
a number every thirty seconds or whatever it was, and
it was a two factor authenticator and at the time
(13:12):
I didn't even know what it was, but he's like, yeah,
I got to pop in this number to make sure
it's me when I log in. I was like, oh, interesting,
So I'm guessing this ubkey sort of functions in that
way without a physical display.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Very cool.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Thanks again, Podcast dot Rich on tech dot TV. Leave
a voicemail and you might hear your voice on the
next podcast not just mine. Disney Plus is already raising
prices and I can't really complain about this one, but
I will tell you that I predicted this in this
very podcast last year when I announced that Disney Plus
(13:48):
was coming out for six ninety nine a month. So
what is happening here? Disney had a big announcement. They
said they have one hundred and thirty seven million paid subscribers,
which is eleven and a half million ESPN Plus subscribers,
thirty eight point eight million Hulu subscribers, and eighty six
point eight million Disney Plus subscribers. That's just since launched
(14:10):
in November twenty nineteen. So we are just one year
into Disney Plus and they think they're gonna hit three
hundred to three hundred and fifty million total subscribers by
twenty twenty four, and they say Disney Plus is gonna
release more than one hundred titles this year.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
But then they go on to say, oh, by the way,
March twenty six, twenty twenty one, Disney Plus is going
to be priced at seven ninety nine a month or
seventy nine ninety nine a year. So that's a dollar
extra a month. And for the yearly, I think it
used to be sixty nine ninety nine, so seventy nine
so eighty dollars a year divided by twelve is six
dollars and sixty seven cents a month. That is the
(14:47):
way to go. Save yourself a dollar thirty a month.
I mean, here's the thing about these subscriptions. It's great
that they're monthly, but I like the fact that you
can save yearly. But who wants to pay these bills yearly?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Like?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I don't like.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I like the idea of just the Like I've had
my Google my Google Drive account for so long at
ten dollars a month, and they keep bugging me to
pay ninety nine bucks for a year, which would save me.
You know, if you do the math, I think it's
twenty dollars a year saves me, but I just can't
get myself to do it because I'm like, ah, I
hate when these bills just like bill your account randomly,
(15:19):
Like I got my bill for like Nest and it
was like one hundred and fifty bucks for the year,
just like randomly, like it just shows up on your
card and you're like, oh, I forgot about that, or
like sirious XM used to be a big one that
used to do that, but now I have them bill me.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
You know, they send me.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
A paper bill, So I just don't like being surprised.
So I think this six seventy or seven ninety nine
a month is like easier to manage. But I'll say,
you know what, it's tough to really scoff at this
because Disney Plus has a lot of stuff. I mean,
if you watch one thing a month on there, you're
talking you're getting your values worth. I personally am watching
a lot of Hulu recently, and I have I pretty
(15:55):
much have all the streaming services because my feeling is
I just you know, when you add them all up
for me personally, it's kind of like what I was
paying for cable, and I'm just like This is so
much easier.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
It's so much better.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
The kids love it. I like having the choices. I
don't you know what, I don't subscribe to all. I
don't do Showtime, and there's a couple I don't do cable.
So I don't have like a you know, I don't
have like a YouTube TV kind of thing, but I
do have YouTube. But anyway, there you go seven ninety
nine a month. But here's the thing that that is
the problem. So a dollar is fine, but now we
(16:27):
also have Netflix that went up two dollars or is
going up two dollars on my next bill, So that's
three dollars a month now. And okay, the music services
they have not budged from nine ninety nine for a
long time, so I feel like maybe they're gonna sneak
in a dollar price increase in twenty twenty one, so
(16:47):
now they can be up to ten ninety nine a month.
I mean, it gets so when you have five or
six of these things, when they all start raising the bills,
you know, it's just like cable TV back in the day,
they always raised the bill like clockwork. Cable TV rates
went up every year, and that's sort of what we're
seeing with a lot of these streaming services. It's just
a little more staggered because not all of them do
(17:09):
the price increase every year, but enough of them do
where it's becoming kind of in line with what.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
We used to do with cable. So just something to watch,
something to be aware of.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
I'm not going to cancel Disney Plus anytime soon, and
I'm sure out of their ninety million subscribers, I don't
think a lot are going to get rid of it,
but you never know. All right, let's get to the
next question. Jennette says, Hello, Rich, my brother has an old,
at least five years or more, Samsung phone. He very
(17:38):
much wants a smart watch to link and use, but
I don't even know how to find a compatible item.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Can you help?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Not sure what questions I should be asking? Love your
segments from the most technologically challenged viewer, Jenny, Jenny, I
don't think you're my most technologically challenged viewer because you
were able to email.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Me, so that's a pro. There you go.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Let's see Samsung phone. So immediately what comes to mind
is a Samsung smart watch. But I'm not a big
fan of them, so I would say a fitbit, So
I think a fitbit would probably be his best bet.
It's a five year old Samsung, so I'm guessing he
doesn't need the latest, greatest, best whatever. So I would
say something like the Fitbit versa, and I think they're
(18:21):
up to the three you probably you know, you could
probably get away with the two, but I would go
with probably a fitbit. I would also kind of, you know,
see what he needs, see what he wants, Like, he
may not need all the features of the smart watch.
Maybe he just needs a regular fitbit or maybe even
like the whys they're coming out with the new smart watch.
(18:41):
Maybe wait till that one comes out in January, and
that's only twenty dollars. But the fitbits, you know, the
versus is kind of pricey. You're looking at probably over
one hundred dollars for that, but you can get cheaper
fitbits as well. It really depends what he wants to
do with this thing. If he really wants, like all
the features on a smart watch, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I'd probably go fitbit.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
You can also look into some of the Google Nah,
I'm not gonna recommend that those are too complicated, so
I would I would say go with a Fitbit. I
think that'll do what he needs. And if you can
wait until February for the wise Watch to come out,
I mean he's been waiting five years with his phone
to upgrade, so I mean, I'm sure he can wait
two months to get a new smart watch. But maybe
(19:21):
you want to get it for Christmas, so you know,
there you go. I would just say get the fitbit versa.
I think he'll be very happy with it. The main
thing about that, you know what, there's no downside. I
think he'll be just fine speaking of smartphones. You know, look,
I don't want to get into like the whole you know,
this whole coronavirus stuff. It's so it's so wild to
(19:43):
me that it has become polarizing to try to get
through this virus, right And look, do I want to
sit there and wear a mask every day? Of course,
not like I want to be on with my regular life.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
But I do. And when I go out, I respect the.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Rules that are around me. And do I want to
not eat in restaurants right now? Of course not. But
I live in California and those are the rules and
I'm following them and I get it. There are a
lot of people out there that you know, don't think
it's right, and believe me, like, do I think my
kids should have been in school?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Probably? But I get it.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
We're all in this together and we're all trying to
get through this. And so I was very surprised when
I posted my videos about California and their COVID nineteen
apps for the iPhone and Android that they finally got
on board with Google and Apple's API, which is called
Exposure Notifications. And I was, you know, I've been kind
(20:37):
of like tweeting out for a long time, like California,
what's going on? Why aren't you on board with this?
You know, because it's been around for a while. Well,
they finally did get on board this week with an
app called ca Notify. And the way this works is
if you have a you know, Android or iPhone, it
basically sends out a little tiny Bluetooth number that changes
(20:58):
like all the time, and when the two devices are
near each other within six feet for fifteen minutes, they
exchange those numbers. And what this does is if someone
comes down with COVID nineteen, they pop a special code
into their phone and their phone will then notify the
other phones that belong to those random numbers. It's all anonymous,
there's no location, and it was you know, this system
(21:20):
was created by like really smart people at Apple and Google,
and I mean, come on, these two giants are working together,
like there's not any secrets here. You know, they had
everything published. It was all up and up and like
you know, long story short, I published these videos and
everyone was just like Rich, oh my gosh, no way,
Like I'm not big brother government, well whatever, and like yeah,
(21:41):
I mean is does government always do like what's best?
I don't, you know, don't want to get into that either.
But the reality is, I think this program's pretty good.
I think if a lot of people use it, it
would help notify you earlier that you came into contact
with someone coronavirus. But the reality is a lot of
people don't want to use it. Clearly is evidence by
the comments on my social media. And maybe that's just
(22:03):
the commenters on social media.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Maybe you're listening and you're like Rich, yeah, you're crazy,
Like why would you ever want that on your phone?
Like more tracking? But the way I see it is
it has potential to help slow the spread, which means
I can get back to my normal life, and you know,
I think we all want that. But anyway, so I
have it turned on on my phones, and I you know,
I'm gonna leave it on.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I don't think it's gonna.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Work though, because of the reaction I saw. I don't
know if there's enough people that are on board with
this to make this truly worthwhile.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
And I think that's gonna be the downfall.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Of it is that it just doesn't have enough support
from people turning this on. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe maybe
it was just the dissenters that were loud on my
social media, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I recommend that
you turn it on. There is no personal information that's
collected now, and I will tell you if I thought
there was, because when when Los Angeles partnered with with
(22:57):
Citizen for their I think it was called a safe
Path something, I recommended that you don't use it because
it did use personal information, it had location, they didn't
turn off GPS it. You know, it was just the
privacy policy was like kind of tough to figure out,
and so I recommended that people did not participate in that.
And so with this one, I do think it's different,
(23:18):
and I do recommend that you participate. But again, you know,
we can have different opinions and it's fine. I'm not
you know, I'm not saying that you have to agree
with me, but I do think that if a lot
of people are on board, it probably would help in
the bigger scheme of things.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
But that's just you know, we'll leave it there.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Oh, I guess I should probably say that I do
have the videos on how to turn those on on
my Instagram at Richon Tech, and I've got the video
for iOS and Android. On iOS, it's really easy, you
literally just go into the settings and flip it on.
But on Android it's a little different. You actually have
to download the CAA Notify app to turn it on,
and you can easily turn either of them off at
(23:58):
the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
All right, let's see.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Midge says, I'm really frustrated with the podcast app on
my iPhone. I play a podcast and at the end
of it, I delete it and then the next day it
comes back.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
What am I doing wrong?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I choose to automatically download because I don't have un
limited data, so I'm picking from the download list when
I want to play them. I know it says it
will delete after twenty four hours, but I want to
go ahead and delete it to get it off that page.
I tried one of the podcasts apps you recommended a
while ago and didn't like it. Is there another podcast
app you like? I agree Midge that the podcast app
(24:33):
on iPhone is very, very complicated if you want to
do anything more than just like subscribe to a couple
shows and play them, but you can't build a playlist,
you know. It's like it's just very weird, and it
downloads everything all the time. It's like, if you ever
look in your storage on your iPhone, if you have
podcasts enabled, it's it's gobbling up like gigs and gigs
(24:54):
of data just by itself if you don't change the
default settings. And I've tried to change the defaut settings,
but there's there's no one way to turn them all
off or turn them all on. It's really really tricky.
So I agree it is a frustrating app, and I'm
not sure why Apple doesn't put more effort into like
giving it some features, or maybe purchasing one of the
other podcast apps and incorporating some of their features in there.
(25:15):
And there are a lot of alternatives. I mean, The
big difference is that you know, they just don't integrate
as well with your iPhone as the of course Apple
version does. But the one that I go back to
over and over is called pocket Casts, And again it's
got a lot of features under the hood. You don't
need to necessarily use all of them, but it does
(25:36):
have a lot of stuff. A couple of the features
I like is the ability to create smart playlists where
I like to back when I was like driving to work,
I like to have a podcast, like almost like a
playlist of all the little things I want to listen
to on my ride into work. And it can easily
do that and filter out by like Okay, I want
these five podcasts. I want them in this order, and
(25:58):
I want them to play only one episode, and I
want it to be the most recent, like you can
do that. It's powerful, and you can do where it
automatically downloads like a podcast that you star or it
can you know, it's just it just does a lot
of stuff. So I have my podcast kind of organized
by I have like interviews, and so I go through
and any interview I want to listen to in that list,
(26:20):
I download and then I look at my downloads and
see the list of things that I wanted to listen to,
and then I have like a tech list, and then
I have like a you know, like a news list,
and then I have, uh, what's the other one. I
have a special list for Leo Laporte. Every Monday, I
listen to his we call it the Leo log or
you know, the monologue that he does on Saturday morning.
(26:40):
Like I don't know if you know, but Leo on
his show, you know, for the when he first comes on,
he says like a it's like a ten minute like
I don't know what you call it monologue basically like
you know whatever, And so I like to listen to
that because I like to hear what he has to say.
So I listen to that on my commute and anyway,
that's on Monday mornings.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Anyway, you know, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
But that's kind of the podcast app that I always
go back to over and over. The one that I
want to love is called Overcast, but it just doesn't
have like one feature that I need for some reason,
and I'm not sure why. It's like I think the
one that filters whatever. Anyway, that's that's my thing. But
Overcast is also really nice, so that might have been
the one that I recommended. I think it's that one's
a little bit nuanced for a lot of people. But
(27:22):
pocket Cast is pretty good and pretty popular. So talking
about music, and I was really surprised at this announcement.
Apple Music is now available on Google smart speakers and displays.
I thought this was fantastic. I love to see that
Google continues to be a little bit more open than
(27:45):
you would expect when it comes to integrating different services.
Apple has gotten a lot better too, but they always
prefer their own stuff over anyone else for a long
long time, and they begrudgingly kind of incorporate other stuff.
But Google, I feel like they they always try to
do you know, like the right thing by you know,
(28:07):
incorporating every service and like giving you a choice. And
I think that that's lessening, but it's still going. And
I think these tech companies are realizing as they get
bigger and bigger, that they kind of need to do
this to you know, stay out of the the ire
of you know, all those those government regulators that want
to regulate them and say like, uh, well you gotta
(28:29):
break up because you know, uh all the it's like Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple,
Apple Apple Apple. Okay, Google, Google, Google Google Google.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Uh, and what's the other one? Oh?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Amazon, Amazon, Amazon and Amazon a little. So anyway, I
thought this was great that Apple Music can be a
default streaming music service in Google Assistant devices. And I
didn't think I'd see that day. And it's great now
for me personally, I it's it's really I'm like so
close to getting rid of my I I've been using
(29:00):
YouTube music for so long, but when you have an
Apple Watch, you kind of have to use Apple Music.
I've talked about using iHeartRadio as an alternative, but I
realized my mistake with that, and the mistake is that
you can't off load the music offline. So I was
up on a hike and there was no signal for
my watch and guess what. I could not listen to iHeartRadio.
(29:21):
And that was a it came to me. I was like, oh,
here's the downside of this setup. So as much as
I wanted to save that ten dollars a month, I'm
back to being an Apple Music subscriber so I can
download music to my Apple Watch and my wife as well.
But so my point is that I've always had Google
Play as my music of choice on the Google smart speakers,
(29:42):
but now I'm kind of like, okay, well now i
could use Apple Music. That's really cool. But the only thing,
and this is where they get kind of tricky. Google's
very smart. They link Google Play music or sorry, YouTube
music to a YouTube premium subscription, so you sort of
get it thrown in, and as far as I know,
there's not a way to separate them.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Maybe there is.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I'm going to look into that because I'd like to
save a little bit more money by getting rid of
YouTube music and just going with Apple Music because I
can use it everywhere now. But and yes, it works
on Android phones too, So anyway, that's it. You can
do all the stuff you need to do by saying,
h Google and you know.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Playing those Apple stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So to do this, you go into the home app
on your iPhone or Android and I got a little
notification on it that said, you.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Know, link Apple Music, which is pretty cool. I think
that's that's great.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Brian Smith writes in can you recommend an Android version
of the I expand sand disc flash drive shown in
your segment?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (30:45):
This was brilliant. I did a segment on KTLA. I'm
not saying this is brilliant. I'm saying the pick is brilliant.
So I did a segment on KTLA where I emailed
a couple of my tech friends and I said, hey,
would you mind just like you know, putting a camera
in front of your face and just saying, like what
your favorite gadget is of the year under fifty bucks
for like little stocking stuffer.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Well, I had no idea. Number one.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Almost every single person I email said yes, and I
was like thoroughly surprised. So if you're listening, thank you
for doing that. That was very very nice of you.
The second thing is I had no idea just how
popular this segment would be. It by clicks, it is
the most popular segment of the year. Now maybe that's
because all these you know, influencers you know, tweeted it
(31:26):
out to their friends and you know, of course the
network effect took over. Or maybe it was just because
so many people like the idea of under fifty dollars
gadgets recommended by tech experts. Whatever it was, it was
super duper popular. And the I'll just go over the
gadgets real quick, since i'm talking this up right. One
of them was this sand disc drive or I expand
(31:47):
from sand Disc and it was it was a It
was a pick from Jefferson Graham, who is my friend
over at USA Today.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
So let me just give you the picks.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Lamar Wilson, my pal from YouTube. He picked the Google
Nest Home Mini speaker. Brett from Tech with Brett on YouTube.
We become sort of pals on Twitter. He recommended the
gov LED light strips for eighteen bucks. Kevin Nether, who
is known as Kevin the Tech Ninja on YouTube. He
also picked the gov LED light strips. My pal Brian
(32:21):
Tong on YouTube. We used to work at scenet together.
He picked the airfly. This is like a Bluetooth splitter
slash coupler. I guess you can call it for forty
five bucks. Lance Yulanoff, he works on the Or he's
a guest on the Live with Kelly and Ryan Show.
He does tech stuff there and all kinds of he's been.
I mean, he's just you know, legend in tech. He
(32:42):
liked the Nintendo game and Watch for fifty bucks. Jefferson Graham,
like I said, USA Today Tech columnists, who just recently
announced his retirement from USA today, but he's still going
to be doing stuff, just not there. He recommended the
sand Disc I Expand flash Drive Go, which is all
drive you plug into the bottom of your iPhone and it,
you know, backs up the pictures. And so the question
(33:06):
is is there a Android version? The answer is yes.
In fact, pretty much any flash drive will plug into
the bottom of an Android phone. It's just copying the
pictures over that could be kind of tough, and that's
what the sand disc software does nicely. It does it automatically.
But if you go on sand discs I expand, if
you if you just type in sand disk I expand,
micro USB or USB C. It depends on what kind
(33:28):
of phone you have which device you would get, Brian.
So if you just search that on you on Google,
you'll find it, and yeah, they make it for sure.
Andrew Edwards gear Live. He picked the Chrome Cast with
Google TV for fifty bucks. Jacqueline Dallas from Nothing but
Tech we met at a one plus event many years ago,
(33:51):
or probably like three, but still and we've kept in touch.
She's doing really well on YouTube and she's she recommended
a USBC hub from Hutu for twenty three dollars, which
you got to have a USBC hub if you've got
one of these newer laptops. And Leo Laporte, my pal
that I just mentioned earlier, he recommended the au Key
(34:13):
Omnia one hundred watt charger, which I will probably end
up purchasing because he talked it up. And it's a
charger that's one hundred watts, so that means it can
charge everything, your computer, your phone, anything that's USBC from
a laptop to a tablet to a phone. And I'm
getting into this whole thing of you know, less is
more and so if I can plug everything into that
(34:34):
Omnia USBC charger, that's that's a win in my book.
And then I threw in my recommendation, which is the
Nano Leaf Essential Smart Bulb nineteen dollars. And this is
a smart bulb that is really tough to find, but
they sell it at the Apple Store and online on
the Apple Store, and it's just easy to set up,
it's fun, it's hubless, which means you know, it connects
(34:55):
easily to your iPhone or Android, and it changes to
sixteen million different colors. So there the picks, and that
was a fun story. I got emails, I got tweets.
I mean, people really liked that story. And my editor
Luis put it together. I gathered all the videos and
then I said, hey, ar, I wrote like kind of
a rough script, but he didn't follow it. He just
like kind of made a montage and graphics and it
(35:16):
just really came out nice. So if you want to
watch that, go to my website rich on tech dot
tv and look for I'll tell you what the uh
come on, I'll tell you what to look for on there.
It's tech experts recommend their favorite stocking stuffers under fifty
dollars speaking, I always say speaking. But Apple and Google
(35:39):
another thing that they're doing this is gosh a lot
of Apple and Google news this week, but it's kind
of light on tech news now right now because of
the holidays. But I thought this was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Again.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I love just when things get a little bit easier
in life. And now you can if you use Google Photos.
One of the big things that's always been kind of
a friction between the two is they don't necessarily sync
up that well when you want to make like albums
or like favorite some pictures.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
So now you can star a.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Photo in Google Photos and it will become a favorite
in Apple Photos, you know, with that little heart, or
vice versa. If you favorite a photo in Apple Photos,
you know, tap that little heart, it becomes starred in
Google Photos. I love this making my life easier. So
here's how you turn on this tiny, little life changing feature.
(36:30):
Go to Google Photos, tap your profile account photo in
the upper right hand corner, tap photo settings, Apple Photos,
and sink favorites, and then turn on SINK or turn
off SNC.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Now.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
I don't know, maybe this is not useful to anyone else,
but it's highly useful to me because as your resident instagrammer,
what I usually do, Like for instance, last night, when
I went to that Wonderland place, you know, the Winter
Wonderland I was talking about, I took a bunch of pictures,
you know, I take a lot of pictures, and then
the way I would posts them to Instagram is I
(37:01):
would go through my gallery heart the ones I think
are good, and then I would go into Instagram and
I would, you know, look for my favorites and then
they would all be there, like in a row, instead
of having to look through each one individually. Now, with
Google Photos, which is my preferred photos app, I would
have to not use that. I would have to go
into Apple Photos and heart them there, because you know,
(37:25):
on iOS it does not interface with Google Photos. Now
an Android it does, but it doesn't even show your favorites.
It's it's getting there. We're getting there on Android. And
in fact, this is the extent to which I test stuff,
just so you know. And this is why I say
when I struggle carrying an iPhone versus Android, it's because
I love aspects of both, because I use both of
(37:47):
them so much. So, for instance, on Android, I love
how there's a lot less clicks required to do things. So,
for instance, on iPhone, when you want to connect to
something on Bluetooth, you have to swipe down, you have to,
you know, look at your little Bluetooth indicator in the
control center. You have to press and hold to see
all the Bluetooth and then you have to press settings
(38:07):
and then it brings you to settings. It's like ten clicks.
On Android, you literally just swipe down from the top,
press and hold on the Bluetooth and it brings you
directly to the settings. So it's just like a couple
steps less, and it's like that with a lot of
things on Android anyway, So to challenge myself, because I
do think social media is way tougher on an Android
than it is on iPhone, I was like, Okay, I'm
going to post all these pictures that I took, which
(38:30):
I took, by the way, with the Samsung S twenty
fe and they came out pretty darn good. I gotta
say that phone is really rocking. I took them all
with that, and I went through the gallery on Samsung
and I favorited the pictures that I liked, and then
I went into Instagram and I found the native gallery
(38:51):
chooser and it worked, and I posted all the pictures
and anyway, if you want to see them, we can
go on Instagram and see those. But so I you know,
I do this stuff for a reason. There's a method
to my madness so that I understand how these things work,
because if I only used an iPhone every single day
of my life and never went to an Android or
never went back and forth, I wouldn't really understand the
nuances between the two, and it's tough to compare in
(39:12):
contrast if you're not using them. So it all worked out,
and I always joke that whenever I post something from
my Android. It never does as well as stuff I
post from iPhone. I'm not sure if they favor iPhone
posts on social media for some reason, but that post
did find so I guess that's not really a thing.
I'm not going to spread conspiracy theories here in the
(39:34):
rich on Tech podcast, Marty is it March. I'm guessing
it's Marty, but it looks like they put an extra
letter in. Marty says, help please. I adopted my son
and lost a very valuable picture of him and his
biological father when he was a baby that was deleted
from an SD card during a Samsung S twenty fe
(39:57):
factory or set.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Oh wow, we were just talking about the S twenty Fi.
Please let me know if you have any solutions or suggestions.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Oh Marty, I hate hey, hey, hey.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Hearing this, and this is why I say.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Please back up your pictures. Please back up your pictures.
Don't do it tomorrow, don't do it the next day.
Don't say you distrust the cloud. Please just back up
your pictures. You can use Amazon Photos, you can use
Google Photos, you can use one drive.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
There are so many ways to back up pictures these days.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Please get them into the cloud and that way, you
don't have something like this happened. You shouldn't have pictures
in just one place. And with that said, I've not
actually ever tried to do this myself, but there is
software that can recover lost data on things or erased data,
(40:58):
and this one they sent me some info on it,
but it's called Stellar Info s T E l l
A r Info dot com.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
And what I like about this.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Is they have a free data recovery software up to
one gig, so that is what I would say. And
they say recover lost or deleted documents, email, data files, videos, photos,
retrieve data from a laptop, PC, hard driver, USB stick,
recover files due to drive formatting or corruption. Drive formatting
is what you mentioned. So up to a gig you
(41:30):
should you should be able to get this picture back
theoretically if if you know, this software works. So again
I haven't tried it personally, but stellarinfo dot com slash uh.
Just go to their website and it should say somewhere
on there free Data recovery.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah, it does when you click it.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
So they sent me a little note about this a
couple of months ago, and I just kept it in
my notes because I knew i'd get a question about this,
and sure enough I did. And I hate to get
a questions like this because it's really sad to me.
I hate people losing their pictures. And I think I
told the story last week, but I can't remember. But
when you know, I had all these gigs of pictures
(42:11):
from my sister and my dad on my Google Drive
because when I was upgrading their phones, they'd be like,
I'd be like, all right, now, what would you like
me to do with your pictures? Like, Ah, don't care
about them? And I go, what do you mean you
don't care about them? Of course you care about the
pictures that were on your phone. Why would you just
get rid of all these pictures because you're upgrading to
a new phone and it's just you know, they didn't
want to clog up their memory or whatever. And I
(42:32):
was like, look, I'll take the pictures and I'll put
them my Google Drive and one of these days I'll
get him back to you. And I think it was
like before Google Photos, so it was like there was
no easy way to like just kind of put their
pictures back because they don't want to pay for like
iCloud drive or something dumb like that, and I already
gave my dad the warning. I said, look, once we
get all these pictures in there, you may have to
(42:52):
pay the two dollars a month, you know, to Google Photos,
because they're going to start charging. And he's like, oh,
that's okay. I mean, you know, hopefully that's okay, you
pictures all right. Here's another reason I was. I was
talking about the reasons why I like Android, certain aspects
of it better than iPhone, and this is a prime example.
So they added this feature this week called a Google
(43:16):
Assistant Routines shortcuts. So I have one Google Assistant routine
that I use almost every single night is called turn
on my night Stands, and it turns on my night
stands next to my bed, and it also dims them
to a reading light level, so nice level. I had
at one point some like nice soothing music play as
well on the speaker. I turn that off because you know,
(43:38):
I don't know why I turned it off, but I
just did. But it was kind of like a bedtime routine, right.
So but the thing is, every single night I feel
kind of dumb going into my room and be like,
h Google, turn on the night stands. It just sounds weird, right,
So now you can take these little routines that you
build and you can make a home screen shortcut out
(43:59):
of them. And of course, every time I go into
my room at night, I always take my phone and
I put it out on my charger.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
So what would I do. I would just unlock it
and boom.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I would press a little routine and write on the
home screen and there it goes. Now, I don't always
use my Android, so you know this doesn't work on iPhone.
You can't make a little routine that's pinned to your
home screen because well, you know what, I take that back.
You probably could with shortcuts, So you know what, I
take that. I totally take that back.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
You could. It's just not gonna be as pretty.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
So I like the idea that you can do this,
and I think it's going to make people use routines
a lot more.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
It's easy.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
When I opened up my Google Home app, it literally
had like when I went into the routine, So if
you click routines, it had like a big kind of
pop up that said pin this to your home screen.
I said, ah, there, it is so cool, and I
did it and I pinned it and there it is
and it's.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
A great little feature. So build some routines.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
I was talking about this on Twitter and my friend
Dave Malcoff, he's a reporter at the Weather Channel well,
but he just like takes everything to the next level.
Like I do things like kind of you know, like
halfway there, he does it like, you know, the full way.
So I was saying how I had a couple of
these routines and he's like, he tweeted me and he's like, Oh,
I've got a routine that when I go into my
(45:15):
office and start editing, there's an emotion sensor under my
desk that notices my legs and it will cue this
routine which dims the lights and it turns on XM
chill serious, XM im my smart speaker, and I think,
I don't know if it does something else, but I
was like, ah see, that's cool, and so I need
to do that for my office because I do like
(45:36):
to have my lights at a certain level and a
little music playing in the background. So I'm calming, you know.
I do like the XM chill. That's one of my
favorite stations as well, but I haven't done that yet.
So I need to do that. And we just need to.
It's just some of this smart home stuff can get
a little intimidating because it's like how many things like
I you know, it's like, oh, I got the Christmas
tree on. I've got all these things like with the
(45:58):
smart stuff, and you know, it's fun, but it does
take a little bit of work to set it up.
But once you set it up and you kind of
get used to it and you remember to do it,
it is kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
So there you have it.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Let's see here, Sharon says, I have a ring doorbell
and saw your piece on Fox two now that's my
station in Saint Louis. Thanks for watching there. I saw
that piece this morning about sidewalk internet for Alexa and Ring.
I hope this isn't a silly question, but if I'm
not logged into my Alexa app, well I need to
(46:33):
log in and turn off the sidewalk option. If I
don't log in, will it default to sidewalk? Thanks sent
for my iPad iPhone Sharon, Sharon, great question, and it's
not a silly question because it's exactly what Amazon doesn't
want people to do. This is why they made sidewalk
on by default, because half the people that you know
(46:56):
set up an Alexa. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to
say that word and echo. You know, they set it
up and they just don't think twice about the app.
Maybe they deleted off their phone, maybe they don't need
it anymore. Maybe the thing comes set up from the factory.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
I don't know. I'm not sure why you don't have
the Alexa.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Oh sorry, the app on your phone, but I mean
because I feel like you need it to set up
the device. But anyway, correct, if you do not have
the app and you're not logged in, it will automatically
trigger sidewalk on your device, and it's it'll be turned
on by default. And that's what Amazon wants because they
want as many devices as possible to be on this
(47:33):
sidewalk network. So yes, I would recommend if you don't
want to be a part of it, you have to
download the app a L e Xa and go into
these settings. You can follow the instructions I posted on
the blog post. If you look at richontech dot tv
or on my scroll through my Instagram and you'll see
the post with the app on there, and I show
(47:54):
you exactly how to turn it off. And again I've
said that I'm leaving mine on. I'm excited. I think
sidewalk is kind of cool, even though I know that
I was having a big debate with my brother. He
was saying that, you know, no way would he ever
do this. Well, maybe he would like later on, but
he's not going to be part of the first wave.
And I'm like, all, I understand that, but I'm kind
of a tech optimist. I think it's really cool and
(48:16):
I see the potential of this thing. I just hope
that I'm proven right and not wrong, and I hope
that there's no major security gaffes with the Amazon sidewalk. Anyway,
if you want to get out of it, download the
app and change those settings, all right. I thought this
was interesting for several reasons. This is an article from
(48:38):
Fast Company, and they did a little piece about how
a new study from a Utah pharmacy student suggests that
mail order prescriptions are spending too much time in too
hot or too cold temperatures in root to your house.
And I thought this was interesting for a couple reasons.
Number one, recently Amazon started their own pharmacy like mail
(49:00):
delivery kind of thing, our mail order prescription thing, and
you know, anytime I think of stuff that arrives through
the mail, I always think about the whole temperature thing,
because if you think about it, when you leave stuff
in your car or overnight in a truck, it gets
really hot or really cold. And so I always think
about this, like we're members of a wine club, and
(49:21):
you know, it's like, okay, well, they actually wait to
ship the wine even though it's just coming from California.
They wait to ship it, you know, a on a
week where the temperatures are not extreme. And I was like, oh, okay,
that's smart, because you don't want it to, you know,
turn to vinegar in a hot fed X truck. So
with these prescriptions, they found that in the winter, packages
(49:43):
spend sixty eight to eighty seven percent of the time
in conditions outside the ideal range for medications, and twenty
seven to fifty four percent during the summer. Most medications
are purposely formulated to be stored at room temperature around
sixty eight to seventy seven degrees, and they shipped like
forty eight bubble wrapped packages to six cities nationwide during
(50:04):
the summer and winter. So I bring this up just
because I always think about this, like the other day,
I ordered these energy drinks from Amazon. It was a
good deal on Slick Deals, so I got them as
like five bucks.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
But I thought about it.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
I was like, Ah, it's so funny, Like how how
much they shake around these energy drinks, like on the
way to my house. I mean, aren't you told like
not to shake cans? But like, you know, these these
truck people, you know, the people in the trucks don't
even know what they're karting, you know, so it's like
they don't know that they're shaking up this stuff.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
It's just really interesting. Anyway.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
I just mentioned that because I always think about that
kind of stuff, and I'm glad that I'm not weird,
because I do think about like I always thought about
like ordering like chocolate off Amazon. My wife likes this
certain kind of chocolate that's like super duper expensive, and
I know it's ridiculous, but it's really good and it's
like got all these good ingredients and stuff, you know,
Like a friend at work recommended it to her. Now
(50:56):
she eats it. But it's expensive. It's like, you know,
a couple bucks for a bar. And I was like, oh,
I bet you. Amazon has it cheaper. And I was like, oh, okay, well,
isn't it gonna be like a melted blob by the
time I get it? And then I think, well, wait
a second, doesn't it have to like get from wherever
it comes from the factory to the grocery store. So
I mean, clearly it's not being anyway.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
So this is the way my mind works.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Since you're listening to the rich on Tech podcast, I
like to give you insight into my brain, and you
know that's the way it works. Those are the things
that I think of. All right, final question before we go.
Dave says, I have Spectrum cable four hundred megabits per second. Oh,
I have Spectrum Cable four hundred megabits per second and
the Ero Wi Fi mesh. When I conduct a Wi
(51:39):
Fi speed test, I get wildly different results. I'm running
the test on a six year old Samsung tablet and
a Samsung S eight phone. Most recent results show fifteen
up thirteen down on the tablet versus three eighty two up,
twenty three down on the phone. Or I guess vice versa.
Why in your opinion the big difference?
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Thanks Dave.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Dave, I think it comes down to the antennas on
these devices. The essay is relatively new, so it probably
has better antennas than the six year old Samsung tablet.
That would be my guess. But having done a lot
of these speed tests myself, I mean, you're not a
nerd unless you're doing speed tests at least a couple
times a week. I mean, it's like one of my
(52:21):
favorite things to do. It's just like I'm always doing
a speed test, like just out of curiosity, what's what's
my speed here? So I would say it's probably due
to the antennas and the tablet versus the antennas in
the phone, if I had to guess, I don't want
to get too complicated, but there's different arrays. There's different
types of antenna arrays that you know, newer gadgets like
(52:44):
the new Roku.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
One of the big selling points.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
When when I was in my you know, meeting with
them and they were telling me about the what's new
on the Ultra versus the old one. They said, oh,
the range is like fifty percent greater because we, you know,
we the antenna array is better. It's like, well interesting,
And I remember when Amazon came out with their tablets,
they mentioned that there. I think it was called like memommo,
and it's like, you know, gives you better range on
(53:09):
these tablets, and it's like stuff you don't think about,
you know, as an average consumer, you're not necessarily thinking
about the fact that, you know, what do you get
for a four hundred dollars tablet versus a fifty dollars tablet.
They both seem to do the same thing. They let
you watch Netflix, but the little nuances are things like
that the antenna range to drop off, how fast it
you know, like those kind of things. So that would
(53:31):
be my guest Dave, And I'm sure that's probably what
it is. Oh I hear it. That is the sound
that means it is the end of the show. If
you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
all you have to do is go to rich on
tech Actually, you know it's even easier now, so easy.
(53:53):
All you have to do is go to rich on
tech dot TV slash podcast and click contact and you'll
get a little form that gives you all the information
you need, or you can press the microphone button at
the lower right hand corner of the page. Richon tech dot,
TV slash Podcast. We'll take you right there and leave
(54:17):
those voicemails. It's kind of fun. I used to do calls,
and I just I wish I can get back to that,
but it's so complicated, but I love doing the phone calls.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
You can find me online.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Oh, I'd also like I'd also like it if you
would rate and review this podcast to help other people
discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com
slash rich on tech. You can find me online at
rich on tech. Thank you so much for listening. My
name is rich Dmiro. Stay safe, I will talk to
you real soon
Apple launches very expensive headphones Disney Plus, ready's a price increase.
Google assistant routines are easier than ever. Plus your tech
questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this
is Rich on Tech the podcast right talk about the
tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also
(00:29):
the place where I answer the questions that you send me.
And boy, do you send a lot of them? Well,
I should say boys and girls. It's not just boys,
it's everyone. I mean I met boy as like, boy,
do you send a lot of them? And yeah, yeah, yeah,
I get them always. I mean Instagram, DMS, email, Facebook posts,
(00:54):
text messages. I mean, you guys, you find me, you
figure out how to get in touch with me, and
I reply to a lot of them. But this is
the place where I really take the time to kind
of share what I'm talking to you about privately with everyone,
whether you like it or not, if you email me
or text me, that's just what happens. I'm the tech
reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Yeah, it's
(01:20):
been quite the year. We're almost done with it, if
you can believe it. And I've been enjoying the holidays
a lot last night, we went to this. It's so
funny that a drive through Christmas light display is a thing,
but that's the thing here in Los Angeles. And we
went through this it's called like Wonderland last night. It
(01:42):
was really cool and they put a lot of work
into it. It was like, you know, a whole drive through.
We went to one that was just lights. This one
was sort of a whole wonderland, you know, with like
snow and you know, different buildings and just all kinds
of stuff and dancers moving around like it was. It
was pretty well done. I got to say, seventy bucks
for a car loads, so I mean, you know, it
(02:03):
wasn't cheap, but I mean, we're My wife and I
were discussing this and it's like, well, you know, if
you go to a movie for a family of four,
you're gonna easily spend seventy bucks. I mean, tickets alone
here in La are probably you know, depending on the
depending on the time in the theater. You know, I've
gotten them as low as like nine dollars for like
a cheap matinee to like as much as like eighteen
dollars depending on where you go.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So it can it can add up.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So that was fun.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And I've just been really enjoying the holidays with a
lot of holiday movies and music and decorating the house
because i've just been I figured out the word I
was trying to get last week. I've been nesting. That's
the word I was looking for. I not that you
think back all the way to last week's show, but
I do. Once I record the show. For the rest
of the week, I just it plays over and over
(02:48):
in my head and I'm like, what did I say wrong?
What did I say weird? What did I say bad?
What did I say good? Who did I offend? And
the one word that I was looking for last week
was nesting. That's what I've been doing. And so everything
is nice and cozy in my place, lots of fireplaces
at night.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
We finally got our fireplace.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Hooked up, and it's just been nice, lots of you know,
it's been really really fun. On Hulu, they have a
section of like all holiday stuff, and they have all
the old shows that I used to watch as a
kid with their holiday shows like Wonder Years, step by Step,
Family Matters, Full House, Brady Bunch, and it's just fun,
(03:27):
you know, it's it's nostalgic. That's what I need this
year to get through this because it's been such a
weird year. I can't go home for the holidays. We
canceled everything. We canceled Near's Eve, Christmas Eve, all of
our vacations this year. And yeah, I know, poor Rich,
I know, so tough, but.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
You know it is. It's been. It's been.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
We've been in our house for pretty much the whole year.
I mean, it's it's really interesting. Never have I spent
so much time at home, and it's fun. I like
the the aspect of everyone being together. And my wife
had to go to work today out of the house
and it was, you know, we had to rush in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh go go, go, get the kids ready.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And I was like, oh, you see, see the pandemic
there are some positives because you know, you haven't had
to rush out of the house like this in a
long time. So I spent a couple of days cleaning
up my Google drive. I think I talked about this
in the last show, but it just felt so good.
You know, I think I'm having deja vu. I think
I already talked about this, but anyway, I've been cleaning
(04:25):
up my Google Drive because you know, I'm on this
mission to get it, you know, as low as possible,
so I don't have to pay any extra come June
next year or whenever they're doing it. I think it's June,
and I've been I've been making some progress on that.
All right, let's get to some of the news. I
guess this was big news for the week. I mean,
if it's Apple, it's always big news, right. Apple introduced
(04:49):
a new pair of headphones called the AirPods Max. They love,
they love using. For a while, it was plus. Now
plus is anything like a subscription that you're paying extra for,
like Disney Plus US or the upcoming Apple Fitness Plus.
Anything with a plus at the end means they're going
to be slowly but surely sapping the money out of
your bank account over a long period of time. That's
(05:11):
what the plus means in any name, ESPN plus. Oh,
we'll take this six ninety nine a month. Where's the
Spotify Plus? All these music services started before there was
plus in the name. So the AirPods Max are headphones
that go over the ear. And the big headline that
you know everyone was talking about is that these are
(05:32):
five hundred and forty nine dollars WHOA for a.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Pair of headphones?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Now, I remember it was like ten years ago when
I bought my Bow's noise canceling headphones for a trip
to Japan. It was like my first international trip with KTLA,
and I was like, should I spend the three point
fifty on this pair of headphones? Oh my gosh, it's
so expensive. And by the way, I've had them ever since.
They still work great, although a little bit of the
pads are sort of wearing off, but you know, they're
(05:56):
they're still still cranking. And three point fifty was very
well spent because I've divided up by all the international
trips I've and air trips I've taken with them, and yeah,
you do by the hour, and it's like a penny
per hour at this point. So anyway, now I'm not
defending these AirPods Max. I know that that price is
extremely high. But with s said, they've got the Apple
(06:18):
Magic built in, they've got the noise cancelation, they've got
you know, three D audio, they've got adaptive sound.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
They come in five cool.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Colors, gray, silver, blue, green, pink, and you know it's breathable.
I did not get a sample of these from Apple,
so that goes to show the importance of my report
to them. But I did see that a lot of
the YouTubers got them, and you know, I didn't watch
any of the videos just yet, so I'll maybe do
(06:48):
that this weekend and see kind of what their response is.
I'm sure it's all gonna be cheery, because you know,
what are they gonna say. I mean, they're these these
headphones are probably beautiful, they probably sound great, and they're
probably nice and lightweight, just as advertised. But the reality is,
is the average person ready to plunk down five hundred
and forty nine dollars? Probably not? But will there be
(07:10):
enough people that say, yeah, I was thinking of spending
three fifty. I mean, what's another two hundred if I'm
going to three fifty? And I don't think that's me
per se, but there will be a lot of people,
especially I'm thinking like the frequent flyer set, sort of
the influencer set, the quasi celebrity set, and you know,
the business folks set, and you know, the typical person,
(07:33):
you know, the average Joe might get these. Yeah, probably not,
I don't think so. So twenty hours of audio and
you know, it does everything as you would imagine. It's
basically a beautiful pair of AirPods in a different form
function or different form factor. Five hundred forty nine dollars
shipping on Tuesday, December fifteenth. You know, I'll be honest
(07:55):
if I'm if I'm being completely honest with you, if
I was, you know, using an iPhone, which you know
I do, but I struggle because I always want to
switch to my Android. But if I'm using an iPhone,
you know, like permanently, which I have been for two years.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
But you know, I.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Feel like I use an iPhone, but I'm not like
one hundred percent committed, you know, but I still love it,
and I'm just like and I'll get to you know,
I don't want to get into all the reasons, but
you know, so anyway, I would be tempted because I'd
be like, you know what, if if I'm traveling again
on an airplane, like these are probably amazing and with
Siri built in and how lightweight they are, they probably
feel great. I mean, AirPods are pretty magical, and so
(08:35):
if you can get that same thing with a pair
of over the year headphones, I mean, that's pretty awesome.
All right, let's get to our first question, and this
one is a little different because I've got a new
podcast home. Just go to podcast dot rich on tech
dot TV or rich on TV, rich on TV, rich
(08:58):
on tech dot TV, slash podcast, and that will take
you to the new home for my podcast.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It looks really cool.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I'm testing this service called pod page and it's really
really slick and I love it. But the cool thing
about it is that in the lower right hand corner
there is a microphone and you can leave me a
voicemail and it's super easy. It's super fun and we
can do cool things like this.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Hey, Rich, my name's Charlie van Kirk. Been a fan
of the show for a long time, really enjoicing your segments.
And I'm a tech you guy too. One thing that
I just purchased is ub key five, the NFC version,
and I use last Pass. I've used it for years.
I also use last Past Authenticator app. I was just
(09:42):
wondering if you'd be able to do a segment, you know,
showing people the advantages of using hardware encryption and authentication
and maybe just kind of simplify it for people. It's
pretty complex stuff. You know, let people know that it's
not difficult to step your level of security a notch.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
All right now, thank you, Thank you Charlie for being
the very first person to use the microphone to leave
a voicemail. Love It Again podcast dot richon tech dot
tv or rich on tech dot tv Slash podcast will
bring you to the new home for the podcast. Okay,
to answer your question, Charlie, well, I love the fact
(10:24):
that you are staying extra extra secure with this ubikey.
I am aware of these. I have not used them,
nor have I tested them in the past, but I'm
looking at the website and it looks really cool. So
what sort of if I'm understanding this, it's kind of
like a physical key that unlocks your two factor authentication
for your various accounts. So instead of having to like
(10:46):
type in a number with like an authenticator app, you
would just use this and it would authenticate automatically and seamlessly.
Because the idea being is that you have this little
key and it's on your body, and you're the one
that that would be able to authenticate.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
So I imagine there's some sort of.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You know, since it is two factor, I need to
look into this more because I'm not exactly sure how
this works, but it seems cool and I'm trying to
figure out how it's better than my authenticator app. There's
obviously an extra level of security here that I'm missing
right now at first glance.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
But and here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I mean, I love the fact that you're trying to
get me to you know, my segment is on TV,
it's on mainstream media, and it's for an average audience
that is not necessarily techies, and so the challenge there
is honestly just getting people to use a password that
is not the same password for ten different websites is
(11:45):
really really tough. And I will say in recent years,
I have seen a lot more people show interest in
password managers, which I think is amazing. And you know,
I use one, my wife uses one. I told my
dad about it on or who'd I tell to just
use it? You know, Like the iPhone and Android have
them built in, and they're getting a little bit more
aggressive now, like it's kind of on by default. I
(12:07):
feel like when you download Chrome on Android or it's
called like Google smart lock or something, it's like the
first time you type in a pass word, it's like,
do you want us to save that for you, and
you're like what, Or I've noticed on iPhone it will
just suggest them for you if you're in Safari. So
we're making progress, folks. It's just a matter of like
this this UBI key is like next next level, and
so I'm not sure. In the past, I've kind of
(12:28):
shied away from this with a mainstream audience because it
it might like you also have to think on TV,
how do you tease something? How do you say to
people you know, you know why they should tune in
and watch your story, And with this one it would
be kind of tough. I mean, it's like, you know,
a better way to secure your accounts, you know, and
maybe it's easier, but again I need to research. So
thank you for the for the voicemail and thanks for
(12:50):
the story suggestion. I will definitely look into it. And
it looks cool. I remember so many years ago my
roommate was he had a job, and he sat down
at his computer and he had like this little keychain
thing that would like I think it was for like
e trade or something, and it would like randomly generate
a number every thirty seconds or whatever it was, and
it was a two factor authenticator and at the time
(13:12):
I didn't even know what it was, but he's like, yeah,
I got to pop in this number to make sure
it's me when I log in. I was like, oh, interesting,
So I'm guessing this ubkey sort of functions in that
way without a physical display.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Very cool.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Thanks again, Podcast dot Rich on tech dot TV. Leave
a voicemail and you might hear your voice on the
next podcast not just mine. Disney Plus is already raising
prices and I can't really complain about this one, but
I will tell you that I predicted this in this
very podcast last year when I announced that Disney Plus
(13:48):
was coming out for six ninety nine a month. So
what is happening here? Disney had a big announcement. They
said they have one hundred and thirty seven million paid subscribers,
which is eleven and a half million ESPN Plus subscribers,
thirty eight point eight million Hulu subscribers, and eighty six
point eight million Disney Plus subscribers. That's just since launched
(14:10):
in November twenty nineteen. So we are just one year
into Disney Plus and they think they're gonna hit three
hundred to three hundred and fifty million total subscribers by
twenty twenty four, and they say Disney Plus is gonna
release more than one hundred titles this year.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
But then they go on to say, oh, by the way,
March twenty six, twenty twenty one, Disney Plus is going
to be priced at seven ninety nine a month or
seventy nine ninety nine a year. So that's a dollar
extra a month. And for the yearly, I think it
used to be sixty nine ninety nine, so seventy nine
so eighty dollars a year divided by twelve is six
dollars and sixty seven cents a month. That is the
(14:47):
way to go. Save yourself a dollar thirty a month.
I mean, here's the thing about these subscriptions. It's great
that they're monthly, but I like the fact that you
can save yearly. But who wants to pay these bills yearly?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Like?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I don't like.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I like the idea of just the Like I've had
my Google my Google Drive account for so long at
ten dollars a month, and they keep bugging me to
pay ninety nine bucks for a year, which would save me.
You know, if you do the math, I think it's
twenty dollars a year saves me, but I just can't
get myself to do it because I'm like, ah, I
hate when these bills just like bill your account randomly,
(15:19):
Like I got my bill for like Nest and it
was like one hundred and fifty bucks for the year,
just like randomly, like it just shows up on your
card and you're like, oh, I forgot about that, or
like sirious XM used to be a big one that
used to do that, but now I have them bill me.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
You know, they send me.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
A paper bill, So I just don't like being surprised.
So I think this six seventy or seven ninety nine
a month is like easier to manage. But I'll say,
you know what, it's tough to really scoff at this
because Disney Plus has a lot of stuff. I mean,
if you watch one thing a month on there, you're
talking you're getting your values worth. I personally am watching
a lot of Hulu recently, and I have I pretty
(15:55):
much have all the streaming services because my feeling is
I just you know, when you add them all up
for me personally, it's kind of like what I was
paying for cable, and I'm just like This is so
much easier.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
It's so much better.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
The kids love it. I like having the choices. I
don't you know what, I don't subscribe to all. I
don't do Showtime, and there's a couple I don't do cable.
So I don't have like a you know, I don't
have like a YouTube TV kind of thing, but I
do have YouTube. But anyway, there you go seven ninety
nine a month. But here's the thing that that is
the problem. So a dollar is fine, but now we
(16:27):
also have Netflix that went up two dollars or is
going up two dollars on my next bill, So that's
three dollars a month now. And okay, the music services
they have not budged from nine ninety nine for a
long time, so I feel like maybe they're gonna sneak
in a dollar price increase in twenty twenty one, so
(16:47):
now they can be up to ten ninety nine a month.
I mean, it gets so when you have five or
six of these things, when they all start raising the bills,
you know, it's just like cable TV back in the day,
they always raised the bill like clockwork. Cable TV rates
went up every year, and that's sort of what we're
seeing with a lot of these streaming services. It's just
a little more staggered because not all of them do
(17:09):
the price increase every year, but enough of them do
where it's becoming kind of in line with what.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
We used to do with cable. So just something to watch,
something to be aware of.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
I'm not going to cancel Disney Plus anytime soon, and
I'm sure out of their ninety million subscribers, I don't
think a lot are going to get rid of it,
but you never know. All right, let's get to the
next question. Jennette says, Hello, Rich, my brother has an old,
at least five years or more, Samsung phone. He very
(17:38):
much wants a smart watch to link and use, but
I don't even know how to find a compatible item.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Can you help?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Not sure what questions I should be asking? Love your
segments from the most technologically challenged viewer, Jenny, Jenny, I
don't think you're my most technologically challenged viewer because you
were able to email.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Me, so that's a pro. There you go.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Let's see Samsung phone. So immediately what comes to mind
is a Samsung smart watch. But I'm not a big
fan of them, so I would say a fitbit, So
I think a fitbit would probably be his best bet.
It's a five year old Samsung, so I'm guessing he
doesn't need the latest, greatest, best whatever. So I would
say something like the Fitbit versa, and I think they're
(18:21):
up to the three you probably you know, you could
probably get away with the two, but I would go
with probably a fitbit. I would also kind of, you know,
see what he needs, see what he wants, Like, he
may not need all the features of the smart watch.
Maybe he just needs a regular fitbit or maybe even
like the whys they're coming out with the new smart watch.
(18:41):
Maybe wait till that one comes out in January, and
that's only twenty dollars. But the fitbits, you know, the
versus is kind of pricey. You're looking at probably over
one hundred dollars for that, but you can get cheaper
fitbits as well. It really depends what he wants to
do with this thing. If he really wants, like all
the features on a smart watch, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I'd probably go fitbit.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
You can also look into some of the Google Nah,
I'm not gonna recommend that those are too complicated, so
I would I would say go with a Fitbit. I
think that'll do what he needs. And if you can
wait until February for the wise Watch to come out,
I mean he's been waiting five years with his phone
to upgrade, so I mean, I'm sure he can wait
two months to get a new smart watch. But maybe
(19:21):
you want to get it for Christmas, so you know,
there you go. I would just say get the fitbit versa.
I think he'll be very happy with it. The main
thing about that, you know what, there's no downside. I
think he'll be just fine speaking of smartphones. You know, look,
I don't want to get into like the whole you know,
this whole coronavirus stuff. It's so it's so wild to
(19:43):
me that it has become polarizing to try to get
through this virus, right And look, do I want to
sit there and wear a mask every day? Of course,
not like I want to be on with my regular life.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
But I do. And when I go out, I respect the.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Rules that are around me. And do I want to
not eat in restaurants right now? Of course not. But
I live in California and those are the rules and
I'm following them and I get it. There are a
lot of people out there that you know, don't think
it's right, and believe me, like, do I think my
kids should have been in school?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Probably? But I get it.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
We're all in this together and we're all trying to
get through this. And so I was very surprised when
I posted my videos about California and their COVID nineteen
apps for the iPhone and Android that they finally got
on board with Google and Apple's API, which is called
Exposure Notifications. And I was, you know, I've been kind
(20:37):
of like tweeting out for a long time, like California,
what's going on? Why aren't you on board with this?
You know, because it's been around for a while. Well,
they finally did get on board this week with an
app called ca Notify. And the way this works is
if you have a you know, Android or iPhone, it
basically sends out a little tiny Bluetooth number that changes
(20:58):
like all the time, and when the two devices are
near each other within six feet for fifteen minutes, they
exchange those numbers. And what this does is if someone
comes down with COVID nineteen, they pop a special code
into their phone and their phone will then notify the
other phones that belong to those random numbers. It's all anonymous,
there's no location, and it was you know, this system
(21:20):
was created by like really smart people at Apple and Google,
and I mean, come on, these two giants are working together,
like there's not any secrets here. You know, they had
everything published. It was all up and up and like
you know, long story short, I published these videos and
everyone was just like Rich, oh my gosh, no way,
Like I'm not big brother government, well whatever, and like yeah,
(21:41):
I mean is does government always do like what's best?
I don't, you know, don't want to get into that either.
But the reality is, I think this program's pretty good.
I think if a lot of people use it, it
would help notify you earlier that you came into contact
with someone coronavirus. But the reality is a lot of
people don't want to use it. Clearly is evidence by
the comments on my social media. And maybe that's just
(22:03):
the commenters on social media.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Maybe you're listening and you're like Rich, yeah, you're crazy,
Like why would you ever want that on your phone?
Like more tracking? But the way I see it is
it has potential to help slow the spread, which means
I can get back to my normal life, and you know,
I think we all want that. But anyway, so I
have it turned on on my phones, and I you know,
I'm gonna leave it on.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I don't think it's gonna.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Work though, because of the reaction I saw. I don't
know if there's enough people that are on board with
this to make this truly worthwhile.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
And I think that's gonna be the downfall.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Of it is that it just doesn't have enough support
from people turning this on. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe maybe
it was just the dissenters that were loud on my
social media, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I recommend that
you turn it on. There is no personal information that's
collected now, and I will tell you if I thought
there was, because when when Los Angeles partnered with with
(22:57):
Citizen for their I think it was called a safe
Path something, I recommended that you don't use it because
it did use personal information, it had location, they didn't
turn off GPS it. You know, it was just the
privacy policy was like kind of tough to figure out,
and so I recommended that people did not participate in that.
And so with this one, I do think it's different,
(23:18):
and I do recommend that you participate. But again, you know,
we can have different opinions and it's fine. I'm not
you know, I'm not saying that you have to agree
with me, but I do think that if a lot
of people are on board, it probably would help in
the bigger scheme of things.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
But that's just you know, we'll leave it there.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Oh, I guess I should probably say that I do
have the videos on how to turn those on on
my Instagram at Richon Tech, and I've got the video
for iOS and Android. On iOS, it's really easy, you
literally just go into the settings and flip it on.
But on Android it's a little different. You actually have
to download the CAA Notify app to turn it on,
and you can easily turn either of them off at
(23:58):
the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
All right, let's see.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Midge says, I'm really frustrated with the podcast app on
my iPhone. I play a podcast and at the end
of it, I delete it and then the next day it
comes back.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
What am I doing wrong?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I choose to automatically download because I don't have un
limited data, so I'm picking from the download list when
I want to play them. I know it says it
will delete after twenty four hours, but I want to
go ahead and delete it to get it off that page.
I tried one of the podcasts apps you recommended a
while ago and didn't like it. Is there another podcast
app you like? I agree Midge that the podcast app
(24:33):
on iPhone is very, very complicated if you want to
do anything more than just like subscribe to a couple
shows and play them, but you can't build a playlist,
you know. It's like it's just very weird, and it
downloads everything all the time. It's like, if you ever
look in your storage on your iPhone, if you have
podcasts enabled, it's it's gobbling up like gigs and gigs
(24:54):
of data just by itself if you don't change the
default settings. And I've tried to change the defaut settings,
but there's there's no one way to turn them all
off or turn them all on. It's really really tricky.
So I agree it is a frustrating app, and I'm
not sure why Apple doesn't put more effort into like
giving it some features, or maybe purchasing one of the
other podcast apps and incorporating some of their features in there.
(25:15):
And there are a lot of alternatives. I mean, The
big difference is that you know, they just don't integrate
as well with your iPhone as the of course Apple
version does. But the one that I go back to
over and over is called pocket Casts, And again it's
got a lot of features under the hood. You don't
need to necessarily use all of them, but it does
(25:36):
have a lot of stuff. A couple of the features
I like is the ability to create smart playlists where
I like to back when I was like driving to work,
I like to have a podcast, like almost like a
playlist of all the little things I want to listen
to on my ride into work. And it can easily
do that and filter out by like Okay, I want
these five podcasts. I want them in this order, and
(25:58):
I want them to play only one episode, and I
want it to be the most recent, like you can
do that. It's powerful, and you can do where it
automatically downloads like a podcast that you star or it
can you know, it's just it just does a lot
of stuff. So I have my podcast kind of organized
by I have like interviews, and so I go through
and any interview I want to listen to in that list,
(26:20):
I download and then I look at my downloads and
see the list of things that I wanted to listen to,
and then I have like a tech list, and then
I have like a you know, like a news list,
and then I have, uh, what's the other one. I
have a special list for Leo Laporte. Every Monday, I
listen to his we call it the Leo log or
you know, the monologue that he does on Saturday morning.
(26:40):
Like I don't know if you know, but Leo on
his show, you know, for the when he first comes on,
he says like a it's like a ten minute like
I don't know what you call it monologue basically like
you know whatever, And so I like to listen to
that because I like to hear what he has to say.
So I listen to that on my commute and anyway,
that's on Monday mornings.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Anyway, you know, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
But that's kind of the podcast app that I always
go back to over and over. The one that I
want to love is called Overcast, but it just doesn't
have like one feature that I need for some reason,
and I'm not sure why. It's like I think the
one that filters whatever. Anyway, that's that's my thing. But
Overcast is also really nice, so that might have been
the one that I recommended. I think it's that one's
a little bit nuanced for a lot of people. But
(27:22):
pocket Cast is pretty good and pretty popular. So talking
about music, and I was really surprised at this announcement.
Apple Music is now available on Google smart speakers and displays.
I thought this was fantastic. I love to see that
Google continues to be a little bit more open than
(27:45):
you would expect when it comes to integrating different services.
Apple has gotten a lot better too, but they always
prefer their own stuff over anyone else for a long
long time, and they begrudgingly kind of incorporate other stuff.
But Google, I feel like they they always try to
do you know, like the right thing by you know,
(28:07):
incorporating every service and like giving you a choice. And
I think that that's lessening, but it's still going. And
I think these tech companies are realizing as they get
bigger and bigger, that they kind of need to do
this to you know, stay out of the the ire
of you know, all those those government regulators that want
to regulate them and say like, uh, well you gotta
(28:29):
break up because you know, uh all the it's like Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple,
Apple Apple Apple. Okay, Google, Google, Google Google Google.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Uh, and what's the other one? Oh?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Amazon, Amazon, Amazon and Amazon a little. So anyway, I
thought this was great that Apple Music can be a
default streaming music service in Google Assistant devices. And I
didn't think I'd see that day. And it's great now
for me personally, I it's it's really I'm like so
close to getting rid of my I I've been using
(29:00):
YouTube music for so long, but when you have an
Apple Watch, you kind of have to use Apple Music.
I've talked about using iHeartRadio as an alternative, but I
realized my mistake with that, and the mistake is that
you can't off load the music offline. So I was
up on a hike and there was no signal for
my watch and guess what. I could not listen to iHeartRadio.
(29:21):
And that was a it came to me. I was like, oh,
here's the downside of this setup. So as much as
I wanted to save that ten dollars a month, I'm
back to being an Apple Music subscriber so I can
download music to my Apple Watch and my wife as well.
But so my point is that I've always had Google
Play as my music of choice on the Google smart speakers,
(29:42):
but now I'm kind of like, okay, well now i
could use Apple Music. That's really cool. But the only thing,
and this is where they get kind of tricky. Google's
very smart. They link Google Play music or sorry, YouTube
music to a YouTube premium subscription, so you sort of
get it thrown in, and as far as I know,
there's not a way to separate them.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Maybe there is.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I'm going to look into that because I'd like to
save a little bit more money by getting rid of
YouTube music and just going with Apple Music because I
can use it everywhere now. But and yes, it works
on Android phones too, So anyway, that's it. You can
do all the stuff you need to do by saying,
h Google and you know.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Playing those Apple stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
So to do this, you go into the home app
on your iPhone or Android and I got a little
notification on it that said, you.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Know, link Apple Music, which is pretty cool. I think
that's that's great.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Brian Smith writes in can you recommend an Android version
of the I expand sand disc flash drive shown in
your segment?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (30:45):
This was brilliant. I did a segment on KTLA. I'm
not saying this is brilliant. I'm saying the pick is brilliant.
So I did a segment on KTLA where I emailed
a couple of my tech friends and I said, hey,
would you mind just like you know, putting a camera
in front of your face and just saying, like what
your favorite gadget is of the year under fifty bucks
for like little stocking stuffer.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Well, I had no idea. Number one.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Almost every single person I email said yes, and I
was like thoroughly surprised. So if you're listening, thank you
for doing that. That was very very nice of you.
The second thing is I had no idea just how
popular this segment would be. It by clicks, it is
the most popular segment of the year. Now maybe that's
because all these you know, influencers you know, tweeted it
(31:26):
out to their friends and you know, of course the
network effect took over. Or maybe it was just because
so many people like the idea of under fifty dollars
gadgets recommended by tech experts. Whatever it was, it was
super duper popular. And the I'll just go over the
gadgets real quick, since i'm talking this up right. One
of them was this sand disc drive or I expand
(31:47):
from sand Disc and it was it was a It
was a pick from Jefferson Graham, who is my friend
over at USA Today.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
So let me just give you the picks.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Lamar Wilson, my pal from YouTube. He picked the Google
Nest Home Mini speaker. Brett from Tech with Brett on YouTube.
We become sort of pals on Twitter. He recommended the
gov LED light strips for eighteen bucks. Kevin Nether, who
is known as Kevin the Tech Ninja on YouTube. He
also picked the gov LED light strips. My pal Brian
(32:21):
Tong on YouTube. We used to work at scenet together.
He picked the airfly. This is like a Bluetooth splitter
slash coupler. I guess you can call it for forty
five bucks. Lance Yulanoff, he works on the Or he's
a guest on the Live with Kelly and Ryan Show.
He does tech stuff there and all kinds of he's been.
I mean, he's just you know, legend in tech. He
(32:42):
liked the Nintendo game and Watch for fifty bucks. Jefferson Graham,
like I said, USA Today Tech columnists, who just recently
announced his retirement from USA today, but he's still going
to be doing stuff, just not there. He recommended the
sand Disc I Expand flash Drive Go, which is all
drive you plug into the bottom of your iPhone and it,
you know, backs up the pictures. And so the question
(33:06):
is is there a Android version? The answer is yes.
In fact, pretty much any flash drive will plug into
the bottom of an Android phone. It's just copying the
pictures over that could be kind of tough, and that's
what the sand disc software does nicely. It does it automatically.
But if you go on sand discs I expand, if
you if you just type in sand disk I expand,
micro USB or USB C. It depends on what kind
(33:28):
of phone you have which device you would get, Brian.
So if you just search that on you on Google,
you'll find it, and yeah, they make it for sure.
Andrew Edwards gear Live. He picked the Chrome Cast with
Google TV for fifty bucks. Jacqueline Dallas from Nothing but
Tech we met at a one plus event many years ago,
(33:51):
or probably like three, but still and we've kept in touch.
She's doing really well on YouTube and she's she recommended
a USBC hub from Hutu for twenty three dollars, which
you got to have a USBC hub if you've got
one of these newer laptops. And Leo Laporte, my pal
that I just mentioned earlier, he recommended the au Key
(34:13):
Omnia one hundred watt charger, which I will probably end
up purchasing because he talked it up. And it's a
charger that's one hundred watts, so that means it can
charge everything, your computer, your phone, anything that's USBC from
a laptop to a tablet to a phone. And I'm
getting into this whole thing of you know, less is
more and so if I can plug everything into that
(34:34):
Omnia USBC charger, that's that's a win in my book.
And then I threw in my recommendation, which is the
Nano Leaf Essential Smart Bulb nineteen dollars. And this is
a smart bulb that is really tough to find, but
they sell it at the Apple Store and online on
the Apple Store, and it's just easy to set up,
it's fun, it's hubless, which means you know, it connects
(34:55):
easily to your iPhone or Android, and it changes to
sixteen million different colors. So there the picks, and that
was a fun story. I got emails, I got tweets.
I mean, people really liked that story. And my editor
Luis put it together. I gathered all the videos and
then I said, hey, ar, I wrote like kind of
a rough script, but he didn't follow it. He just
like kind of made a montage and graphics and it
(35:16):
just really came out nice. So if you want to
watch that, go to my website rich on tech dot
tv and look for I'll tell you what the uh
come on, I'll tell you what to look for on there.
It's tech experts recommend their favorite stocking stuffers under fifty
dollars speaking, I always say speaking. But Apple and Google
(35:39):
another thing that they're doing this is gosh a lot
of Apple and Google news this week, but it's kind
of light on tech news now right now because of
the holidays. But I thought this was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Again.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I love just when things get a little bit easier
in life. And now you can if you use Google Photos.
One of the big things that's always been kind of
a friction between the two is they don't necessarily sync
up that well when you want to make like albums
or like favorite some pictures.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
So now you can star a.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Photo in Google Photos and it will become a favorite
in Apple Photos, you know, with that little heart, or
vice versa. If you favorite a photo in Apple Photos,
you know, tap that little heart, it becomes starred in
Google Photos. I love this making my life easier. So
here's how you turn on this tiny, little life changing feature.
(36:30):
Go to Google Photos, tap your profile account photo in
the upper right hand corner, tap photo settings, Apple Photos,
and sink favorites, and then turn on SINK or turn
off SNC.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Now.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
I don't know, maybe this is not useful to anyone else,
but it's highly useful to me because as your resident instagrammer,
what I usually do, Like for instance, last night, when
I went to that Wonderland place, you know, the Winter
Wonderland I was talking about, I took a bunch of pictures,
you know, I take a lot of pictures, and then
the way I would posts them to Instagram is I
(37:01):
would go through my gallery heart the ones I think
are good, and then I would go into Instagram and
I would, you know, look for my favorites and then
they would all be there, like in a row, instead
of having to look through each one individually. Now, with
Google Photos, which is my preferred photos app, I would
have to not use that. I would have to go
into Apple Photos and heart them there, because you know,
(37:25):
on iOS it does not interface with Google Photos. Now
an Android it does, but it doesn't even show your favorites.
It's it's getting there. We're getting there on Android. And
in fact, this is the extent to which I test stuff,
just so you know. And this is why I say
when I struggle carrying an iPhone versus Android, it's because
I love aspects of both, because I use both of
(37:47):
them so much. So, for instance, on Android, I love
how there's a lot less clicks required to do things. So,
for instance, on iPhone, when you want to connect to
something on Bluetooth, you have to swipe down, you have to,
you know, look at your little Bluetooth indicator in the
control center. You have to press and hold to see
all the Bluetooth and then you have to press settings
(38:07):
and then it brings you to settings. It's like ten clicks.
On Android, you literally just swipe down from the top,
press and hold on the Bluetooth and it brings you
directly to the settings. So it's just like a couple
steps less, and it's like that with a lot of
things on Android anyway, So to challenge myself, because I
do think social media is way tougher on an Android
than it is on iPhone, I was like, Okay, I'm
going to post all these pictures that I took, which
(38:30):
I took, by the way, with the Samsung S twenty
fe and they came out pretty darn good. I gotta
say that phone is really rocking. I took them all
with that, and I went through the gallery on Samsung
and I favorited the pictures that I liked, and then
I went into Instagram and I found the native gallery
(38:51):
chooser and it worked, and I posted all the pictures
and anyway, if you want to see them, we can
go on Instagram and see those. But so I you know,
I do this stuff for a reason. There's a method
to my madness so that I understand how these things work,
because if I only used an iPhone every single day
of my life and never went to an Android or
never went back and forth, I wouldn't really understand the
nuances between the two, and it's tough to compare in
(39:12):
contrast if you're not using them. So it all worked out,
and I always joke that whenever I post something from
my Android. It never does as well as stuff I
post from iPhone. I'm not sure if they favor iPhone
posts on social media for some reason, but that post
did find so I guess that's not really a thing.
I'm not going to spread conspiracy theories here in the
(39:34):
rich on Tech podcast, Marty is it March. I'm guessing
it's Marty, but it looks like they put an extra
letter in. Marty says, help please. I adopted my son
and lost a very valuable picture of him and his
biological father when he was a baby that was deleted
from an SD card during a Samsung S twenty fe
(39:57):
factory or set.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Oh wow, we were just talking about the S twenty Fi.
Please let me know if you have any solutions or suggestions.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Oh Marty, I hate hey, hey, hey.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Hearing this, and this is why I say.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Please back up your pictures. Please back up your pictures.
Don't do it tomorrow, don't do it the next day.
Don't say you distrust the cloud. Please just back up
your pictures. You can use Amazon Photos, you can use
Google Photos, you can use one drive.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
There are so many ways to back up pictures these days.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Please get them into the cloud and that way, you
don't have something like this happened. You shouldn't have pictures
in just one place. And with that said, I've not
actually ever tried to do this myself, but there is
software that can recover lost data on things or erased data,
(40:58):
and this one they sent me some info on it,
but it's called Stellar Info s T E l l
A r Info dot com.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
And what I like about this.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Is they have a free data recovery software up to
one gig, so that is what I would say. And
they say recover lost or deleted documents, email, data files, videos, photos,
retrieve data from a laptop, PC, hard driver, USB stick,
recover files due to drive formatting or corruption. Drive formatting
is what you mentioned. So up to a gig you
(41:30):
should you should be able to get this picture back
theoretically if if you know, this software works. So again
I haven't tried it personally, but stellarinfo dot com slash uh.
Just go to their website and it should say somewhere
on there free Data recovery.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah, it does when you click it.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
So they sent me a little note about this a
couple of months ago, and I just kept it in
my notes because I knew i'd get a question about this,
and sure enough I did. And I hate to get
a questions like this because it's really sad to me.
I hate people losing their pictures. And I think I
told the story last week, but I can't remember. But
when you know, I had all these gigs of pictures
(42:11):
from my sister and my dad on my Google Drive
because when I was upgrading their phones, they'd be like,
I'd be like, all right, now, what would you like
me to do with your pictures? Like, Ah, don't care
about them? And I go, what do you mean you
don't care about them? Of course you care about the
pictures that were on your phone. Why would you just
get rid of all these pictures because you're upgrading to
a new phone and it's just you know, they didn't
want to clog up their memory or whatever. And I
(42:32):
was like, look, I'll take the pictures and I'll put
them my Google Drive and one of these days I'll
get him back to you. And I think it was
like before Google Photos, so it was like there was
no easy way to like just kind of put their
pictures back because they don't want to pay for like
iCloud drive or something dumb like that, and I already
gave my dad the warning. I said, look, once we
get all these pictures in there, you may have to
(42:52):
pay the two dollars a month, you know, to Google Photos,
because they're going to start charging. And he's like, oh,
that's okay. I mean, you know, hopefully that's okay, you
pictures all right. Here's another reason I was. I was
talking about the reasons why I like Android, certain aspects
of it better than iPhone, and this is a prime example.
So they added this feature this week called a Google
(43:16):
Assistant Routines shortcuts. So I have one Google Assistant routine
that I use almost every single night is called turn
on my night Stands, and it turns on my night
stands next to my bed, and it also dims them
to a reading light level, so nice level. I had
at one point some like nice soothing music play as
well on the speaker. I turn that off because you know,
(43:38):
I don't know why I turned it off, but I
just did. But it was kind of like a bedtime routine, right.
So but the thing is, every single night I feel
kind of dumb going into my room and be like,
h Google, turn on the night stands. It just sounds weird, right,
So now you can take these little routines that you
build and you can make a home screen shortcut out
(43:59):
of them. And of course, every time I go into
my room at night, I always take my phone and
I put it out on my charger.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
So what would I do. I would just unlock it
and boom.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I would press a little routine and write on the
home screen and there it goes. Now, I don't always
use my Android, so you know this doesn't work on iPhone.
You can't make a little routine that's pinned to your
home screen because well, you know what, I take that back.
You probably could with shortcuts, So you know what, I
take that. I totally take that back.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
You could. It's just not gonna be as pretty.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
So I like the idea that you can do this,
and I think it's going to make people use routines
a lot more.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
It's easy.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
When I opened up my Google Home app, it literally
had like when I went into the routine, So if
you click routines, it had like a big kind of
pop up that said pin this to your home screen.
I said, ah, there, it is so cool, and I
did it and I pinned it and there it is
and it's.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
A great little feature. So build some routines.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
I was talking about this on Twitter and my friend
Dave Malcoff, he's a reporter at the Weather Channel well,
but he just like takes everything to the next level.
Like I do things like kind of you know, like
halfway there, he does it like, you know, the full way.
So I was saying how I had a couple of
these routines and he's like, he tweeted me and he's like, Oh,
I've got a routine that when I go into my
(45:15):
office and start editing, there's an emotion sensor under my
desk that notices my legs and it will cue this
routine which dims the lights and it turns on XM
chill serious, XM im my smart speaker, and I think,
I don't know if it does something else, but I
was like, ah see, that's cool, and so I need
to do that for my office because I do like
(45:36):
to have my lights at a certain level and a
little music playing in the background. So I'm calming, you know.
I do like the XM chill. That's one of my
favorite stations as well, but I haven't done that yet.
So I need to do that. And we just need to.
It's just some of this smart home stuff can get
a little intimidating because it's like how many things like
I you know, it's like, oh, I got the Christmas
tree on. I've got all these things like with the
(45:58):
smart stuff, and you know, it's fun, but it does
take a little bit of work to set it up.
But once you set it up and you kind of
get used to it and you remember to do it,
it is kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
So there you have it.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Let's see here, Sharon says, I have a ring doorbell
and saw your piece on Fox two now that's my
station in Saint Louis. Thanks for watching there. I saw
that piece this morning about sidewalk internet for Alexa and Ring.
I hope this isn't a silly question, but if I'm
not logged into my Alexa app, well I need to
(46:33):
log in and turn off the sidewalk option. If I
don't log in, will it default to sidewalk? Thanks sent
for my iPad iPhone Sharon, Sharon, great question, and it's
not a silly question because it's exactly what Amazon doesn't
want people to do. This is why they made sidewalk
on by default, because half the people that you know
(46:56):
set up an Alexa. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to
say that word and echo. You know, they set it
up and they just don't think twice about the app.
Maybe they deleted off their phone, maybe they don't need
it anymore. Maybe the thing comes set up from the factory.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
I don't know. I'm not sure why you don't have
the Alexa.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Oh sorry, the app on your phone, but I mean
because I feel like you need it to set up
the device. But anyway, correct, if you do not have
the app and you're not logged in, it will automatically
trigger sidewalk on your device, and it's it'll be turned
on by default. And that's what Amazon wants because they
want as many devices as possible to be on this
(47:33):
sidewalk network. So yes, I would recommend if you don't
want to be a part of it, you have to
download the app a L e Xa and go into
these settings. You can follow the instructions I posted on
the blog post. If you look at richontech dot tv
or on my scroll through my Instagram and you'll see
the post with the app on there, and I show
(47:54):
you exactly how to turn it off. And again I've
said that I'm leaving mine on. I'm excited. I think
sidewalk is kind of cool, even though I know that
I was having a big debate with my brother. He
was saying that, you know, no way would he ever
do this. Well, maybe he would like later on, but
he's not going to be part of the first wave.
And I'm like, all, I understand that, but I'm kind
of a tech optimist. I think it's really cool and
(48:16):
I see the potential of this thing. I just hope
that I'm proven right and not wrong, and I hope
that there's no major security gaffes with the Amazon sidewalk. Anyway,
if you want to get out of it, download the
app and change those settings, all right. I thought this
was interesting for several reasons. This is an article from
(48:38):
Fast Company, and they did a little piece about how
a new study from a Utah pharmacy student suggests that
mail order prescriptions are spending too much time in too
hot or too cold temperatures in root to your house.
And I thought this was interesting for a couple reasons.
Number one, recently Amazon started their own pharmacy like mail
(49:00):
delivery kind of thing, our mail order prescription thing, and
you know, anytime I think of stuff that arrives through
the mail, I always think about the whole temperature thing,
because if you think about it, when you leave stuff
in your car or overnight in a truck, it gets
really hot or really cold. And so I always think
about this, like we're members of a wine club, and
(49:21):
you know, it's like, okay, well, they actually wait to
ship the wine even though it's just coming from California.
They wait to ship it, you know, a on a
week where the temperatures are not extreme. And I was like, oh, okay,
that's smart, because you don't want it to, you know,
turn to vinegar in a hot fed X truck. So
with these prescriptions, they found that in the winter, packages
(49:43):
spend sixty eight to eighty seven percent of the time
in conditions outside the ideal range for medications, and twenty
seven to fifty four percent during the summer. Most medications
are purposely formulated to be stored at room temperature around
sixty eight to seventy seven degrees, and they shipped like
forty eight bubble wrapped packages to six cities nationwide during
(50:04):
the summer and winter. So I bring this up just
because I always think about this, like the other day,
I ordered these energy drinks from Amazon. It was a
good deal on Slick Deals, so I got them as
like five bucks.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
But I thought about it.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
I was like, Ah, it's so funny, Like how how
much they shake around these energy drinks, like on the
way to my house. I mean, aren't you told like
not to shake cans? But like, you know, these these
truck people, you know, the people in the trucks don't
even know what they're karting, you know, so it's like
they don't know that they're shaking up this stuff.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
It's just really interesting. Anyway.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
I just mentioned that because I always think about that
kind of stuff, and I'm glad that I'm not weird,
because I do think about like I always thought about
like ordering like chocolate off Amazon. My wife likes this
certain kind of chocolate that's like super duper expensive, and
I know it's ridiculous, but it's really good and it's
like got all these good ingredients and stuff, you know,
Like a friend at work recommended it to her. Now
(50:56):
she eats it. But it's expensive. It's like, you know,
a couple bucks for a bar. And I was like, oh,
I bet you. Amazon has it cheaper. And I was like, oh, okay, well,
isn't it gonna be like a melted blob by the
time I get it? And then I think, well, wait
a second, doesn't it have to like get from wherever
it comes from the factory to the grocery store. So
I mean, clearly it's not being anyway.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
So this is the way my mind works.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Since you're listening to the rich on Tech podcast, I
like to give you insight into my brain, and you
know that's the way it works. Those are the things
that I think of. All right, final question before we go.
Dave says, I have Spectrum cable four hundred megabits per second. Oh,
I have Spectrum Cable four hundred megabits per second and
the Ero Wi Fi mesh. When I conduct a Wi
(51:39):
Fi speed test, I get wildly different results. I'm running
the test on a six year old Samsung tablet and
a Samsung S eight phone. Most recent results show fifteen
up thirteen down on the tablet versus three eighty two up,
twenty three down on the phone. Or I guess vice versa.
Why in your opinion the big difference?
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Thanks Dave.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Dave, I think it comes down to the antennas on
these devices. The essay is relatively new, so it probably
has better antennas than the six year old Samsung tablet.
That would be my guess. But having done a lot
of these speed tests myself, I mean, you're not a
nerd unless you're doing speed tests at least a couple
times a week. I mean, it's like one of my
(52:21):
favorite things to do. It's just like I'm always doing
a speed test, like just out of curiosity, what's what's
my speed here? So I would say it's probably due
to the antennas and the tablet versus the antennas in
the phone, if I had to guess, I don't want
to get too complicated, but there's different arrays. There's different
types of antenna arrays that you know, newer gadgets like
(52:44):
the new Roku.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
One of the big selling points.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
When when I was in my you know, meeting with
them and they were telling me about the what's new
on the Ultra versus the old one. They said, oh,
the range is like fifty percent greater because we, you know,
we the antenna array is better. It's like, well interesting,
And I remember when Amazon came out with their tablets,
they mentioned that there. I think it was called like memommo,
and it's like, you know, gives you better range on
(53:09):
these tablets, and it's like stuff you don't think about,
you know, as an average consumer, you're not necessarily thinking
about the fact that, you know, what do you get
for a four hundred dollars tablet versus a fifty dollars tablet.
They both seem to do the same thing. They let
you watch Netflix, but the little nuances are things like
that the antenna range to drop off, how fast it
you know, like those kind of things. So that would
(53:31):
be my guest Dave, And I'm sure that's probably what
it is. Oh I hear it. That is the sound
that means it is the end of the show. If
you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
all you have to do is go to rich on
tech Actually, you know it's even easier now, so easy.
(53:53):
All you have to do is go to rich on
tech dot TV slash podcast and click contact and you'll
get a little form that gives you all the information
you need, or you can press the microphone button at
the lower right hand corner of the page. Richon tech dot,
TV slash Podcast. We'll take you right there and leave
(54:17):
those voicemails. It's kind of fun. I used to do calls,
and I just I wish I can get back to that,
but it's so complicated, but I love doing the phone calls.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
You can find me online.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Oh, I'd also like I'd also like it if you
would rate and review this podcast to help other people
discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com
slash rich on tech. You can find me online at
rich on tech. Thank you so much for listening. My
name is rich Dmiro. Stay safe, I will talk to
you real soon
Host
Rich DeMuro
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