December 18, 2020 • 48 mins
Rich talks about hosting CES 2021's virtual show; a review of Apple Fitnes+; Samsung promises better video and photo quality, more foldable phones in 2021; HBO Max comes to Roku; Apple TV+ comes to Chromecast with Google TV; Malicious Chrome extensions; Apple Privacy labels; Google Pay $21 signup bonus.Listeners ask about a program to update their address book, a replacement for Google Play Music Manager, how much RAM to get on a new MacBook laptop, whether to buy an unlocked phone; canceling cable for YouTube TV and getting holiday backgrounds on Zoom on iPhone.LinksFollow RichCES 2021Apple Fitness+Samsung 2021 previewHBO Max on RokuApple TV+ on ChromecastMalicious Chrome extensionsGoogle Pay sign up bonusSunshine Contacts appPlex music managerHoliday Zoom backgroundsRich's Favorite ThingsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Apple Fitness Plus launches, I'll share my thoughts on it.
I've got an announcement to make about CS twenty twenty one,
lots of streaming apps finally make it to lots of
different places. Plus your tech questions answered? What is going on?
My name is Rich Dmiro and this is Rich on Tech,
the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff that
(00:31):
I think you should know about. It's also the place
where I answer the questions you send me. Yes, I'm
the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles
and also for Nextstar TV stations nationwide. It's been interesting because,
you know, Katla was purchased by a new company that
I used to work for actually, which is kind of
interesting back in my early days of my career, and
(00:55):
you know, we own a whole bunch of TV stations,
and so they're starting to notice that I do this
little report and they're starting to use them, and so
it's really been fun to kind of see my stuff
just popping up in different places across the US. We
used to be on a bunch of stations with Tribune,
our old company, and we're still on a lot of
those stations, but now it's like you know, every station
has access, which is kind of fun. So it's been
(01:17):
really good expanding, you know, the reach and just kind
of doing what I do and what you know, my
thesis on all of this stuff, my mission statement has
always been sort of helping people understand technology, you know,
in an easy way, and helping the everyday person. So
you know, there's every one of us has to use technology,
(01:37):
whether we like it or not. That's just the reality
of the world in twenty twenty. So you have your phone,
and it really all stems from the phone. You have
your phone and you kind of say, oh, smart light
looks kind of cool. One of those Amazon echoes looks
kind of cool. And next thing, you know, you've got
all this stuff and you're just trying to figure it out.
And you know, then you have the apps and you know,
(01:57):
privacy and so I just try to every one of
my reports, I just try to be helpful and I
hope that comes through because that's that's really what my
mission is. I can't believe that we are done, almost
done with twenty twenty. I mean, I just can't believe it.
I can remember sitting in a van at CS doing
(02:19):
the podcast at the beginning of the Year in twenty
twenty in Las Vegas, and literally I can remember it
like it's yesterday, and here we are a year later,
almost a year later, and honestly, this is the year
that sort of didn't happen because we've been quarantined and
just you know, not leaving our home and this and that.
So wow, I just can't believe it. But holidays are here.
(02:42):
I'm excited. This is the last show of twenty twenty,
which is pretty wild. Be back next year. But let
me and I hope you're you know, I hope you're
staying safe during the holidays. I know all my plans
are canceled. I was supposed to go to New Jersey.
That is not happening. Then we were supposed to go
to Arizona. That's not happening. We are just staying put
because it just seems like the thing to do this year.
(03:04):
And honestly, I'll enjoy the time, the downtime and just sit.
I'm gonna finally install Big sur on my computer and
hopefully get organized once again, you know, kind of reset
for the new year. And the new year is gonna
kick off pretty strong, because I have an announcement to
make I will be working pretty closely with CS twenty
one this year or next year because I am going
(03:26):
to be one of their hosts for the digital show.
So we've talked a lot about CS in this podcast
because it's kind of the biggest event of the year.
I get so many of my story ideas, I get
so many of my videos, my social media videos I get.
I mean, I get so much from CS every year,
b roll like I have in my Google Photos. You know,
(03:47):
I'm sitting here editing stuff for this for the segments,
and you know, I just go into my CES video
I'm like, oh, I have a shot of a ring
video doorbell, or I have a shot of a microphone,
or I have a shot of that smart toilet. And
it's become sort of a little a place where I
just get stuff that I need and you know, anyway,
So CS twenty twenty one is going to be their
(04:08):
first all digital show, happening in happening in January. It
is virtual, so no need to go to Las Vegas.
This year. They're gonna have over one hundred conference sessions.
They're gonna have more than a thousand exhibitors from around
the world. AI five G Digital health, smart cities, vehicle tech,
(04:28):
and then they're gonna have this thing called the CS
Digital Venue, and this is in partnership with Microsoft, and
this is what I'll be doing. And it's basically kind
of a live anchor desk where you'll see myself and
a couple other folks and I'm very excited about who
those other folks are. But we will be kind of
navigating the show, doing you know, tech updates, interviews, all
(04:51):
kinds of stuff. I haven't even heard like everything I'm doing,
but it sounds awesome. And here's why I get to play.
I say play with, but work with. Okay, it's it's
not play, it's work. I justine, which I love. I mean,
we've we actually did CS together many years ago, and
we've been you know, we stayed in touch ever since.
My friend Brian Tong, who you know, we worked at
(05:13):
c net together. He is doing a great job on
his own with his own YouTube channel. I mean just
really really doing a nice job. But it's a lot
of work. I watch him work, and it's well, I
don't like to sit there and watch him at it,
but I talk to him very often on text, and
you know, believe me, he's working hard. And then Naomi Kyle,
who I don't know personally but I'm aware of, and
(05:36):
she is an actress, producer, does a lot of stuff
in the video game world, so it'll be nice to
have her perspective as well, because that's a huge part
of this. So you've got four of us and it's
just kind of cool. So we will be hosting CS
twenty twenty one virtually and I'm excited for it. Last
day for media registration complimentary media registration is January eighth,
(05:59):
and CS twenty twenty one takes place January eleventh through fourteenth.
I know, I believe that I'm a start on like
the I think it's the eighth maybe or the ninth,
just to get prepped, but it's gonna be fun. And
then CS returns to Las Vegas January fifth through eighth,
twenty twenty two, So mark your calendars January eleventh through fourteenth.
(06:22):
You'll see me online and if you you know, see
me wave high. So exciting because everyone was asking me like,
what are you doing for CS? And I couldn't really
tell them for a while because I was, you know,
contracts hadn't been signed in all that stuff. But now
that it's a done deal. And thank you to KTLA
by the way for letting me do this, because of course,
(06:45):
you know, they had to approve, so that was exciting,
all right. Tony McDowell says, is there an address program
that you can input once and it updates the address book, email,
et cetera. Also when you delete a name, you only
have to do it once, Tony. You know, Tony, I
have been looking for something like this for a long
time and there's not really there's not really a one
(07:08):
size fits fits all with this sort of thing. There
used to be something I loved back in the day
called Plaxo, which, if you've been in tech for a
little bit that might ring a bell. It was this
program that was sort of spammy, but it was great.
You would upload your whole address book to this program
and it would send an email to all your contacts
and say, hey, can you update you know, just take
a look and make sure everything looks right. And it
(07:28):
was brilliant. And then if someone I think there was
like a opt in that if you just said, hey,
you know, keep my stuff updated at all times, you
could go into your own app and update your info
and everyone else who's using Plaso on the network would
also see your latest info. I thought it was brilliant,
but people just thought it was spammy, and it never
really took off, and I think Comcast bought it at
(07:49):
some point, and you know, of course it doesn't really
exist anymore. But I have been testing something new called
Sunshine Contacts, and this is very similar. It's very similar
to what but Plaxo was trying to do, maybe in
a less invasive way. They don't send out automatic updates,
but you can send like a link to a friend
or a contact and say, hey, would you mind just
(08:11):
taking a look at this and updating your stuff? Now,
this app is actually from the former CEO of Yahoo,
Mersa Meyer. She came up. I don't know if she
came up with it, but she's kind of behind this
and it's been interesting on my iPhone now. The last
I checked, when I went into there, it somehow goes
through all your emails and like finds the contacts. So
(08:31):
now I have twenty three thousand, eight hundred and seventy
six contacts imported fifteen thousand, nine hundred and thirty six
total without duplicates fourteen thousand, nine hundred and twelve enhanced
by sunshine. So I have enough contacts now to last
me seventeen lifetimes. And it's interesting what they do when
(08:53):
they you know, you go into a contact and it
kind of uses I don't know, some sort of I
don't know. I don't know how it does it, but
it gives you the info, you know, when you tap
into the contact, and then not only does it give
you the info, but it gives you like some other
info you have, and then it marks it as obsolete somehow,
and some of it's pretty good. So anyway, it's not perfect.
It's interesting. It's it's opt or. It's beta right now.
(09:14):
So you have to have an invitation. I don't know
if can I invite people. I don't even I don't
even see a way to invite people, but you can,
you know. It took me a little bit to to
get on there, but it shouldn't take too long. But anyway,
that's the one I've been testing. There's other ones, like
there's ever Contact. I mean, there's a couple of things
like that, but I found that, you know, full contact,
(09:36):
I just found that not many of them work that well.
And honestly, the thing that I think works. The best
is really just Siri. If you connect your email to
you know, your iPhone, like if you log into their
email app, it will search sort of like the signatures
in your email and kind of put a serie kind
of uses all the informations that when you look someone up,
(09:59):
it will tell you you, you know, hey, here's the information
we think we have for them, based on you know,
your previous It even is smart enough to know that,
like the last time they texted you, it came from
this number, so that's the number that it kind of
puts at the top of the list when you go
to call them. I mean, it's pretty smart, and it's
something that's not very nuanced in the iPhone, like people
don't really or not very apparent. It's very nuanced, so
(10:20):
people don't realize that that's happening. But I think that's
a really cool little feature. And now this Sunshine Contacts,
I don't know because it's updated all my contacts my
address book, and I don't know if there's any going
back at this point. I have so many contacts in here,
I don't even know what to do with myself. Oh
my gosh. Okay, speaking of Apple, Apple Fitness Plus launched
(10:41):
this week and I was an early tester, which is
kind of cool. So they sent me they actually had
to send me. Well I don't mean if I can,
can I really talk about that, but anyway, they had
to send me the software early to try it out,
so it was cool. It was great, I really have.
I've grown to love it and it's now part of
my life. Apple Fitness Plus Now. The thing to know
(11:02):
about it is it requires an Apple Watch. These are
fitness classes that are on your iPhone, your iPad, or
Apple TV, but you have to have an Apple Watch
to sort of unlock it, and a subscription which is
ten dollars a month, which I think is very reasonable.
You can also bundle that with one of their Apple
you know subscription bundle plans. What is it called Apple
(11:23):
one And so to get it, you have to update
all of your apps. So I sat there and I
like updated my Apple TV and the iPad and the
Apple Watch and the iPhone and it showed up on
all of them. It's fourteen point three if you're keeping track.
And with the Apple TV. It's kind of cool because
it works on any Apple TV, even if it's not yours,
which is really interesting. So let's say you were at
(11:43):
an Airbnb and they had an Apple TV. When you
have your when you open up the fitness app on
that Apple TV, it kind of scans the room for
any Apple Watches, It sees yours, and then it says, okay,
do you want to log in? And you just tap
you know, yes on your watch and it kind of
up it handshakes with the TV somehow. And I thought
that was really cool because if I had an Airbnb,
(12:06):
like if I was an owner of one, I would
that would push me over to put like, you know,
an Apple TV in there, because you know, anyone who
comes there with an Apple Watch could get a quick
workout in, which is kind of cool. So the workouts
across all kinds of things. It's not, you know, it's
not a one trick pony. It's not just like one
type of workout. They do it all hit, dance, strength, core.
I mean, it's all there, and it's great. They always
(12:27):
have three instructors, which I really like. So one is
doing the typical, one's doing a beginner, one's doing in advance.
The instructors are really cool. They're all kind of you know,
very apply, you know, excited, and enthusiastic and just a
nice mix of folks from different backgrounds and different abilities
as well, which is really cool because you know, some
(12:48):
of these trainers in these programs that you know, they
are all these like young fit people, and you know,
not everyone's like that, so it's kind of nice that
they have a very wide range of folks, which is
really really nice. The best part is really kind of
the on screen data that it gets from your Apple Watch.
I've grown to love that, and you know, if you
have an Apple Watch, you know it's all about closing
(13:08):
those those circles or those rings rather and so for me,
pretty much every day I'm trying to do that unless
I'm knowingly taking a day off from any sort of exercise.
And so like yesterday, I went on a little run
and then I came back home and I was like, oh,
let me do ten minutes of strength and then a
five minute cool down, and so it was great. There's
no live classes, so that's a big difference between this
(13:29):
and Peloton, but I don't really think that's missing, Like
I don't really I'm still gonna stick with the peloton
for the spin classes at least for now, but I
do like the Apple Fitness Plus for everything else. So
I love the strength, I love the hit, I love
the core, and the mindful cool downs have been really
nice too, and new classes come out on Mondays. So
(13:50):
I don't think that people are gonna flock over from
Peloton to this, but it makes me very happy that
I did not buy a Peloton bike. I'm glad I
bought a you know, a generic by that works with
all services, because if I feel like it, I can
use the Apple Fitness Spin class, or I can use
the Peloton Spin Class, or if something better comes along tomorrow,
I can use that as well. So for all those reasons,
(14:13):
I think that Apple Fitness Plus is really cool. If
you have an Apple Watch, you definitely have to try
it out. You get a month free if you you know,
for all users, three months free if you bought an
Apple Watch after September fifteenth through March thirty first. And
I don't know what to say except for the fact
that I just love this. I love having another option.
I love the fact that they have ten minute classes,
(14:34):
because ten minutes to me, I mean, like the other night,
I was literally dumb with my day and I just
waiting for my wife to get out of a meeting,
and I was just like, you know what, let me
just do a ten minute class with the kids. And
so we just sat there, we all picked up some
weights and we just did like a ten minute strength
class and it felt so good. And then I was like, oh,
let me do one more. And so then I did
like a ten minute core class, and so I just
(14:55):
got twenty minutes of working out, you know, basically in
a day that I knew I wasn't going to. So
so I really think that it's a really cool addition
to the portfolio. Of course, it keeps people in the
Apple ecosystem, and you know, but as long as you're
putting out good stuff, why not. Eric says, Hey, Rich,
(15:17):
I enjoy your podcast. I appreciate your knowledge. Any suggestions
for a music manager app for Android. As you know,
Google play Music went away put people into YouTube music
and I'm not so far enjoying the user experience with
that app. Any suggestions on other apps or services that
would work. I do have a small catalog of purchase
music I would need to store in the cloud with
(15:37):
the service as well. Thank you, Eric in Visalia, California.
Is that like the onions Vesalia. So I've gotten this
question from a lot of people. In fact, when I
get this many questions from people, I'm like, do I
need to do a segment on KTLA. I feel like
it's a small use case scenario of these folks that
are still out there that are sort of using their
(15:59):
own music collection of MP three's on their phone. I
don't think that's a very popular thing to do right now.
Obviously people have moved to streaming, but I think for
you know, some of the more techier folks or the
people who have built up a collection that they like,
they still want to stick with it and not pay
the ten dollars a month, which I'm totally fine with,
but when it comes so for most of the folks,
(16:19):
I've just been recommending, you know, use the YouTube music
because it plays your own files and it's got I
believe it still has the cloud element. I know Spotify
also plays local files, but I don't think you can
upload them to the cloud. So I think there's two ways,
or a couple of ways you can do this. I
think one is you can do plex. I think plex
(16:41):
is probably the best way to do this. And what
plex does is it kind of you just make your
own server and it's specifically created for music, movies, TV shows, photos,
it's just everything. And so I think that that's probably
the way to do it is just just get plex
and you know there is a there is like a pricing.
(17:02):
Let's see where is the pricing on this thing? If
you have to go premium, so I don't know how
much it is, let's see it doesn't really I hate
websites that don't just have like a pricing, like I
have to create an account to see what the price is.
Come on Plex, let me just see how much it is.
Let's see plex pricing.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I like these websites say literally just say pricing and
you can just like there's literally not a place that
I can see how much it costs. Oh, here we
go five dollars a month, forty dollars for the year,
I mean, or one hundred and twenty dollars for the lifetime.
I would do the forty dollars for the year. Right now,
they're doing a forty eight hour sale for twenty percent
(17:42):
off a lifetime. I would proably wouldn't go lifetime because
you might change your mind, but a yearly is definitely
a better deal than monthly, or maybe just start with
monthly and see if you like it and then go
to the yearly. But I would just do plex. I
think that's gonna I think that's gonna be the best
case for what you need. I think you could probably
build your own tracks and SoundCloud, but I'm not sure
that that's really I'm not sure that's the spirit of
(18:03):
what they do. Maybe it is, I mean, maybe that
would work, but it doesn't seem like it would. Samsung
is getting ready for twenty twenty one. They have already
put out a blog post about their new phones that
they're gonna concentrate on, and we've already heard rumors that
they're going to launch their new phones early in January
(18:24):
versus February, which is pretty interesting. And I think that
that's a good idea because you know, people are really
buying the iPhone twelve a lot, I think, or considering it,
and with the Samsungs, you know, not so much. Like
I feel like, yes, they did fine with the S
twenty lineup, but it was not the breakout, crazy hit
that they wanted, and the reason for that is that
(18:45):
the S twenty Ultra was really kind of a bomb
and It's really sad because that's an amazing device, but
it just the camera never lived up to the expectations.
And I would argue that the S twenty Fe was fantastic,
the Note Ultro was amazing, but just that's not the
phone for everyone. That's not a mainstream mass phone. But
(19:07):
it did pretty well, but it's just not the phone
for everyone. So when I'm sitting here as a tech
person recommending you a phone, the S twenty Ultra was
just not something that I recommend it to people. Now,
the S twenty Fe, the Fan Edition, I did, but
it doesn't it's not the high end phone that people,
you know, everyone wants. So looking forward to twenty twenty
one with Samsung, what do we have? So a couple
(19:29):
things from this blog post that they put out. I
thought this was really interesting. They are Samsung Galaxies will
be more than ready to meet the demands of the
video obsessed in twenty twenty one. When it comes to
advancement in this space, it's going to be an epic
new year. I love the sound of that because I
am all about video on my smartphone, and that's a
(19:50):
primary reason why I use the iPhone, because it just
you can't match it. It's just the video is so
good on there, it's just unbelievable, and editing on there
is so amazing. Our engineers and developers have been expanding
our on device AI, enabling our devices to continually learn
from daily activities to take better pictures, maximize battery life,
(20:13):
optimize displays, and more. They talk about privacy. Number one
goal is and always will be to create experiences users
can trust knowing we'll treat their data with the utmost
care every step of the way. So that's interesting, it's
kind of sounding aptly. And then they talk about expanding
their portfolio of foldables and we're gonna never stop trying
(20:35):
to outdo ourselves, so be on the lookout for super intelligent,
pro grade camera and video capabilities in twenty twenty one.
And here's a line that had everyone going nuts. We've
also been paying attention to people's favorite aspects of the
Galaxy Note experience and are excited to add some of
its most well loved features to other devices in our lineup,
which led a lot of people to think that they're
going to get rid of the Note and just put
(20:56):
the stylust in the S twenty one Ultra. Who knows.
I mean, they may do that. We'll see, but I'm
excited reading that blog post. If they can get me
to switch to Android, I'm all for it. I mean
I was ready to switch with the S twenty Ultra
and the note. The note was just too big for me,
and I just it was just I don't need the
(21:17):
stylist per se. But if they build that into the
S twenty and that's smaller form factor, slightly smaller, I'm
all for it. And it would be tough to move
from iPhone in the Apple Watch, but I would probably
come up with somewhere in the middle where I maybe
still wear the Apple Watch but use the Android. But
we'll say, you hear me drinking my tea?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
All right?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Should we check a voicemail? Let's check a voicemail. If
you haven't left a voicemail for the show, you can
do so at rich on tech dot TV slash podcast.
There's a little microphone in the lower right hand corner
and you can leave a message just like Jeff Thomas did.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Hey Rich, Jeff Thomas, listen to your show your podcast
not just have one simple to make and that's it. Otherwise,
I really liked it that as you give and glad
to know that you and Brian Tong are good friends
because you guys in terms of how you just keep
(22:22):
it real for everyone, stay safe, man.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
All right, So, clearly some technical difficulties with that voicemail.
And I'm not sure what happened there. It could have
been a connection thing or whatever, but I kind of
heard I think he said I have one comment to
make that. I think you said you're amazing. That's just
what I heard, So I'm gonna take that. But I
don't know, but it just sounded like you just, you know,
Jeff is a fan of the show, just wanted to,
(22:48):
you know, leave a voicemail and voice that. And I
love it. So thanks Jeff for leaving the voicemail. Try
it again. I'm not sure. I tried doing this on
like Chrome on my iPhone. It definitely is a little quirky.
It seems to work best on a desktop web browser
to hit the microphone. But I mean, you would think that,
you know, since everyone's using phones, and especially with the iPhone,
(23:08):
and this is I don't want to get into the
differencestween an iPhone Android, but it always everything's a little
more complicated because when you're in a browser on the iPhone,
it's always like a browser inside of a browser, inside
of an app. If you're getting to somewhere from an app,
it's very complicated. But anyway, that's the way the architecture
set up most of the time on the iPhone, so
I feel like that has something to do with it.
But like when I tried to do this from Instagram,
(23:30):
it was like it was a web browser inside Instagram
from a link. It just was weird. So anyway, thank
you Jeff for the voicemail. I'll do a question as well,
since you know that was sort of a just a comment.
Steve Brown says, first off, I really enjoy your podcast.
I really appreciate what you do for us in the
tech world. I watch you on KTLA. Enjoy your podcast.
(23:51):
I've been an Apple across the board for decades, but
never had a MacBook Pro. I'm looking at getting a
new m one MacBook Pro, but had a few questions.
I'm a photographer with thirty years and do a lot
of photo editing with Pixel Made or Pro. I started
dabbling in video using emovies. I might upgrade to final cut.
My question is do I need sixteen gigs a RAM
or should I be good with the eight I've read
(24:12):
conflicting articles online stating that with the powerful M one chip,
sixteen isn't needed for what I would do. I don't
mind spending the extra two hundred, but if it wouldn't
make a difference, I'd rather throw the money into some
extra memory or use external drives. I'd appreciate and respect
your feedback, Steve from Long Beach. All right, Steve, definitely
go with the sixteen gigs. I have not personally tested
(24:35):
the M one, but everything I've seen from other tech folks,
they love it. It's fast, it's amazing. Apple of course
applied their magic and did a great job. But I
come from the world that you can never have enough memory.
And yes, a lot of the new apps will be
written and optimized for this computer, but some of them
(24:55):
may not be. And I would just especially if you're
telling me you're getting into videos, I think that, yeah,
you'll be able to edit a little simple things on
your you know, with just eight gigs. You know, I
could edit little videos on my iPhone. But I think
if you you know, this is a this is a
MacBook that you're going to keep for at least three
to four years, I'm guessing, so you know, if not more,
(25:19):
and so why you know you're going the the eleven
hundred bucks, go the extra two hundred, right, So that's
what i'd recommend. Always, always, always get the extra when
you buy laptop. You got to max out to your
budget the memory and the storage because you will always
need more of both of those things. That is what
I recommend. We got a little bit of news this week,
(25:41):
good news if you're in the streaming world, and I
just I gotta say, I'm seeing what's happening here and
I'm I'm very much liking it. And I'm not sure
if it's due to like the whole anti trust, you know,
crackdowns that have been going on, or these tech companies
are just realizing that they can't be emote. But I
like what's going on and I'm seeing it more and more.
(26:03):
And two announcements this week. Number one, HBO Max coming
to Roku and they made this announcement and you know,
they said just in time for Wonder Woman eighty four,
nineteen eighty four, which is gonna be on HBO Max
streaming on Christmas Day. I asked my wife I'm like,
do you think we'll be able to watch that on
Christmas Day? She's like, I don't know, but definitely the
(26:24):
day after if I can't get to it on Christmas Day.
But there you have it, HBO Max on Roku. This
was a you know, really a big missing piece on Roku.
So many people emailed me saying, rich, where is HBO Max.
And it's confusing because like the old HBO app was
on there and it's just you know, not a good thing.
So it took them what six months to make a deal.
(26:46):
And this is because these platforms like Roku, and you know,
I would say Roku and fire tv probably have a
lot of what's the word the power when you negotiation
power because they are the two biggest And so it's
no longer Oh, I'm HBO Max and I just published
(27:08):
my app to rokuh. It doesn't seem to work that
way anymore. Maybe back in the day it did, but
it doesn't seem to work that way now. You have
to be approved and you have to be negotiated in
and that means that Roku wants a little cut of
the money because HBO Max, you know, if they're just
on the platform and you know, if any if everyone
(27:28):
just used Roku to access these apps and Roku didn't
get a little cut of the you know, action, Roku
would not survive because their business is not selling those
streaming sticks. Their business is advertising, and so they get
a little bit of a commission. I don't know what
what they get. I mean, that's all, that's all private,
but they do get something, whether it's a cut of
(27:49):
someone who signs up to HBO Max through Roku, or
when they stream they get like a little portion of
you know, some ad time on there, or they get
you know, some free movies for their HBO or their
Roku channel. There's something, you know, there's some kind of
deal that's made. So anyway, the deal has been made,
and we all know that HBO Max can be showing
all the Warner Brothers films next year on for thirty
(28:10):
days on HBO Max. That's gonna be amazing. I mean,
what a good year to be an HBO Max subscriber.
To get at least I mean, in this article in
the Roku blog, one Matrix, four Dune, Suicide Squad and
Space Jam and New Legacy. So at least four movies
right there. The other piece of news is that Apple
TV app is coming to chrome Cast with Google TV.
(28:32):
And this is a big win because when I initially
set up my Chrome Cast with Google TV, I was
scratching my head and I was like, no, what am
I missing here over Apple t Oh yeah, oh yeah,
missing the Apple TV the Apple TV app, And sure
enough it's coming to Google chrome cast with Google TV.
Does it say when it says let's see the all
(28:56):
new early next year, which I'm I mean, come on,
that's like a long I mean early next year. It
could be like any that could be like January, February, March.
Why does it take so long? I mean, how long
does it take to make an Apple TV app for Android?
So with the Apple TV app, it's very confusing because
so a couple things you'll be able to do. You'll
be able to watch Apple TV plus stuff, you know,
(29:17):
the stuff that needs a subscription, but you'll also be
able to watch, you know, all the movies that you
purchased in the past on Apple TV or through Apple
or iTunes whatever. You know. It gets so complicated because
it's you know, it's so it's there's too many Apple
things with Apple. Everything is Apple, Apple, Apple something. Let's
(29:37):
see it says this makes Chrome cast with Google TV
one of the only streaming devices with all the major
video subscriptions. But I think at this point that's uh
kind of that's no longer the case because now HBO
Max has made its way to Roku and fire TV,
and I think that was the last holdout. I mean,
you know, these major apps are mostly on these platforms
(29:58):
at this point. Oh wow, I guess that will be
my new audio for the voicemails. Let's go to another
voicemail at rich on tech dot tv slash podcast. This
is from Jerry Rick.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
It's Jerry Good. Heard you mentioned the ear muffs on
your bows headsets and showing where signs on them. Same
thing happened to my wife. So I ordered some new
muffs from Amazon and it comes with a little tool
for inserting them. Hope this helps enjoy your podcast and
your segments on kate La and buy now now.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
This is why I love doing a podcast with an
amazing community of folks like Jerry, because I mentioned on
my podcast, I don't know if it was last week
or the week before, probably last week when I talked
about the AirPods Max headphones from apple that my bows.
You know, when you put them on, there's sort of
like little little fragments of the ear muffs or whatever
(30:52):
you call them, the pads on the ears that sort
of stay on my ear because they're kind of disintegrating.
And he said, you know they're on Amazon and you
can get you know, replacement, And why didn't I think
of that? I mean, that's such a bowse replacement earpads,
I mean so brilliant. There they are left and right
now these are twelve ninety nine. Now I will say
(31:16):
the ones, okay, the ones that came with it are
extremely comfortable. And yes they have the official ones which
are thirty five dollars, so you can get anything as
cheap as twelve ninety nine sixteen ninety nine, or you
can go official and get the thirty five dollars. But
I love that. It's great, great voicemail. Thank you, Jerry.
And I don't know, I'm I'm a little bit tempted
(31:38):
to splurge on those headphones, but I don't know, it's
like it's it's a big that's a big investment. And
I'm looking at some of the reviews and they're not
like glowing, so I don't know. Maybe maybe just stick
with what I got and go with that. All right,
let's do another question here from Kathy. Hey, Rich, love
your tips. I'm a long time iPhone user, want to
(31:59):
upgrade to get a better camera. I'm currently using the
iPhone seven. Can you suggest a next step up on
getting a better camera? I don't want the Pro model,
just want a better pictures and don't want to spend
a bundle. Also, if I get something unlocked, does that
mean AT and T my preferred provider can insert their
SIM card. Help Kathy in Kansas City. So, Kathy, to
answer your first question, I would recommend I'd recommend the
(32:21):
iPhone twelve and I would trade in the iPhone seven.
You're not going to get a whole bunch for that,
but I would trade that in and go with that.
And you know, see what the deal is there, I
you know, and I think that you know. The reason
I recommend the twelve is because realistically you could go.
I would also say the eleven is just fine as well.
And the reason why I would say the eleven is
(32:43):
because you want you know, the eleven had a good
camera on it, So I think that the well, actually
I think you have to go eleven pro. Yeah, I
think you have to go. Let me see here. It's
been a while since I looked at this. But the
you know, because Apple's only selling certain phones. So let's
see what they're selling in the eleven lineup. They are
(33:04):
selling Oh interesting, so they're selling just the eleven, not
the eleven pro. Okay, but I think the eleven will
be fine. So I mean, if you want to go
with the eleven, you can do that. But I would
just say, duke a price comparison between the twelve, just
the standard twelve and the eleven, and see how much
that is. Now, when it comes to your second question,
if I get something unlocked, that means AT and T,
(33:25):
my preferred provider can insert their SIM. Yes, so unlocked
means that the phone will work with any carrier. But
here's the thing. You don't necessarily need unlocked if you're
sticking with your carrier and if they give you a
better deal, I would go with that because unlocked is
good for people like me that you know, are finicky
and we switch providers and we're moving from Google five
(33:46):
to Verizon, to Sprint to T Mobile, and we're trying
to you know, we're always moving around, not that I'm
doing that often, but you know, it's just and it.
You know, it's just nice when you sell your phone,
it's easy to sell because it's unlocked. But if you're
sticking with AT and T, like you said, you have
an iPhone seven, which tells me you've probably had this
phone for a good you know, four years, so uh,
you know, just stick with AT and T and get
(34:07):
their deal and see if it's better than what Apple
offers you, which I think it would be. So it's
if you're not moving providers, it's not a big deal
to stick with the lock device to AT and T
and after a certain amount of time anyway, they will
unlock it, which is generally you know, when your contract,
not that you have a contract, but like when your
phone is paid off usually that's what it is. And
most people are doing their phones on a on a
(34:30):
monthly installment anyway, So buying unlocked doesn't really mean anything
because even if you wanted to move, you couldn't because
you have to pay off your phone. So I feel like,
if your carrier's given you a good deal, no need
to go the unlocked route. But yes, if you're buying
from the Apple website. I would probably go the unlocked
route for sure, So I hope that makes sense. All right,
(34:52):
Let's talk about third party extensions, and this is this
disconfirms my fears about all these Chrome extensions that I
install the time. And I think that Google and I
think I heard that they're going to start kind of
clamping down a little bit on these things because I
think it's a big privacy hole. So when you install
a lot of these extensions, it says this can read
(35:12):
and change site data like what like you can see
every website that I'm going to because I install this
extension that shouldn't be but it is. And so a
vast you know, they make security products. They identified malware
in twenty eight third party Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge extensions.
And what they do is they redirect your traffic to
(35:34):
ads or phishing sites to try to steal your information
or just make money off of you. And this is
what happens when you do a search and it brings
you to some like googly looking site, but it's not
it's like my search, my way, and like it's like
what has all ads on the screen? You're like, how
did that happen? When I just did a Google search. Well,
it's a it's malware redirecting you. So these extensions, they
(35:56):
are all about downloading videos from various platforms, which is
very popular because people are always trying to like, you know,
download videos and put them on their Instagram or their
Facebook page. And so a lot of these extensions piggyback
on popular names like video downloader for Facebook, Vimeo video downloader,
Instagram story downloader, VK on block and you know, they
(36:18):
they basically, you know, hijack your computer. And so you know,
some of these extensions are still available. Others have probably
been taken down. But they said three million people have
installed these and I've got the full list on my
website or I'll put it in the show notes. But
the reality is this just makes me very, you know,
wary about these these third party extensions I have. I
(36:41):
have a couple of them. I'll tell you which ones
I use. I use Pocket, I use ever Note, I
use print Friendly, I use Buffer And how do I
see the rest of my extensions? They like hide them, honey,
keep a let's see grammarly. And then I have a
couple that a popcart screen recorder, auto scroll. See I'm
(37:04):
gonna turn some of these off because I don't need them.
But yeah, I mean it's like one of these things
that you know you have to I mean you kind
of have to like be just be aware when you
put these extensions, and you know, if they get installed
on your computer, you know accidentally, that could be you know,
a problem too. And the extensions in Chrome have really
greatly increased the functionality of the web browser. But at
(37:26):
the same time, again, they are sort of a glaring
security hole, I think, and I think that in twenty
twenty one, we're going to see Google do a lot
more to make sure that stuff like this does not happen.
All right, let's see, Chris says, I have a question.
(37:47):
We're looking to cancel our cable. It's two hundred and
sixteen dollars a month. We're looking at YouTube TV it's
sixty five bucks a month. What's your thoughts on it.
We move from California to Boise three years ago, but
we still watch your show. We enjoy it. Thank you, Chris. Well.
The thing about switching from cable to YouTube TV or
any of these streaming services is that you're not gonna
(38:09):
get You have to still pay for internet and when
you get rid of the bundle, they boost your monthly
for your internet. So if you're paying to sixteen a month,
that is high. But you probably have everything in that bundle.
I'm guessing you probably have high speed internet, you probably
have a phone line, and you also have you know,
a top of the line cable TV package that you
(38:29):
probably don't need because you're probably not using all of it.
So if you switch to YouTube TV, which I thought
YouTube TV just raised prices, let me see how much
it is. Okay, yeah, it's sixty five bucks. Okay, so
sixty five dollars that includes the DVR. So yeah, I
mean I love YouTube TV. I think it's one of
the best out there as long as it has the
(38:49):
channels that you want in Boise. Yeah, Now, the thing
is your internet is gonna go up. So right now,
you know, whatever you're paying for internet in that bundle,
you know, whatever it's it's going to be more expensive.
Now you might get a deal to switch to a
new provider or whatever. But you're looking at let's say
another let's just say it was sixty to eighty a month,
you're still looking at only one hundred and you know,
(39:12):
one hundred and fifty bucks, so you're still saving fifty
dollars a month with this changeover. The only thing you
just need to be aware of is if your local
channels are available on YouTube tv. You can go to
YouTube tv and type in your zip code and it
will tell you that in a second. But otherwise sure,
now I would argue, do you even need YouTube tv?
You know? With all these other services, don't forget you
(39:32):
have to pile those on top of this price as well.
So unless you're not subscribing to Netflix or Disney Plus
or Hulu or HBO Max, you know, yeah, that's one fifty.
But now when you add all those in, now you're
back up to two sixteen. So to me, the idea
of cutting the cord, which I did a couple of
years ago, has never been about saving money, because I'm
(39:54):
still not convinced I'm saving money at this point with
all the subscriptions. But what I love is that I'm
in control, and so if I wanted to cancel anything,
I can, And it's a matter of these services have
to provide a value for me for me to continue
with them, and so far, you know, so good. I mean,
I pay for you know, pretty much all of them
at this point, Netflix, Hulu with no ads, Disney plus
(40:20):
what else do I have? HBO Max Right now, we're
doing a Hallmark channel for all their sappy Christmas movies.
But you know again, I'm gonna cancel that when Christmas
is over. So for seven bucks a month, it's been
great and I feel like we've gotten our value because
we've watched you know, four movies. Of course, I'm sharing
that log in with several folks. Can I say that? No,
(40:43):
I'm not. No one does that, and so you know,
it's one of these things where you just have to
decide if it's worth it. I think it's worth it
because of the control you get, and you get a
slicker interface for me. I get my interface on either
you know, a Roku device or a Chrome cast or
Apple TV, which is infinitely better than what most of
(41:04):
the cable companies offer you. So for all those reasons, Chris,
go ahead, drop the cable and pick up YouTube TV.
And if you don't like it, guess what, you can
get rid of it and you don't have to call
someone to come over to your house to do it.
Story out of Apple all the well, I guess not
all the developers, but maybe some of them are going nuts,
but definitely Facebook. You know, these privacy labels are now
on the iPhone in the app store. So if you
(41:25):
go into the app store, if you select one of
the apps that you like, you can scroll down and
see what their privacy policy is. So let's go to
Snapchat and if we scroll down, it's kind of like
a nutrition facts label but for app privacy and so
data use to track you contact info identifiers, data link
(41:47):
to you, purchases, contact info, user content identifiers, diagnostics, location,
contact search history, usage data. Wow. Snapchat, you know, tracks everything,
and that's kind of what they're doing is bringing to
light the fact that these apps, as much as we
love them, you know, their business is making money. And
how do they make money by tracking the heck out
of us? And that means, you know, watching everything we
(42:10):
do on Snapchat to sort of make us use Snapchat
more and also target ads to us. And that just
happens with every one of these apps. And so these
little nutrition facts labels for data is what it's all about.
And if you know, so, the main thing is that
Facebook is going kind of you know, they're saying, look,
(42:30):
you know now that we have to, you know, put
all this out there. It looks scary. Number one. And
then number two, they're saying that the they're not able
to target our businesses, can't buy ads and target small
business or people as well as they used to be
able to. And that's probably true because now on you know,
on iPhone, you can choose to not be you know,
(42:51):
not hand over your location, your bluetooth, your precise location.
I mean, there's a lot of privacy of privacy protections
in place on the iPhone this year than there ever
have been, and so it is, it is tough for
these companies that have built their entire business on targeting ads.
It makes it a lot tougher for them. And I
(43:12):
would argue that, yeah, it's you know, especially if you
have a small business that you're used you're used to
targeting people in a very specialized way. It does take
that away and that is tough. But I'm not crying
for Facebook. I mean, you know, they've had some privacy
issues in the past, and you know, I think that
it's nice that Apple is is kind of giving a
(43:32):
wake up call to everyone with this privacy and we've
taken it for granted for so many years on the
phones that yeah, we're all just being tracked and everything's
being seen, and they've really given us a lot of
the the power back to the consumer. Whether a consumer
chooses to use all of it is remains to be seen.
And it's also very confusing even myself when I get,
(43:53):
you know, an app, it's like Google Maps has been
using your location in the background. Do you want to
switch to just you know, just when you're using the app?
And I'm like, oh yeah, sure, oh wait, no, no,
Like there's some of these things that they write, these
little warning labels are tricky. You have to really read
them before you accept anything that they say. But it's
nice to know that we can do that, all right.
(44:17):
Final question from Babs happy holidays. Is there a way
to do a holiday or any other backgrounds on Zoom
with an iPhone? And I had to do some searching
on this, but yes, there is a way to do it.
And you have to start a meeting in Zoom on
your iPhone. So make sure that your iPhone has Zoom downloaded,
you know, sign in all that good stuff, do new meeting,
(44:38):
start a meeting, and then you know, you get this
weird thing that says to hear others. Please join audio
call using Internet audio, which makes no sense to me.
I don't even know what that means. But that means
that you're using the audio on your phone, like you're
not calling, you're just whatever weird, weird message from them.
Then you go to more and it says virtual background
and you've got three to choose from that are defaults
(45:00):
or you can add your own and let's see, I
can put a nice background there. Done, and there you
go right on your iPhone. So it may not be
every version of the iPhone software, Like if you have
an older phone, it may not work because I do
know that the virtual backgrounds take a little heavy lifting.
So if you have like I don't know, but I
do know on this iPhone, which is the newest one,
(45:23):
it does work. So there you go again, just open
up the app and go into more and virtual background
and there you have it all. Right, final story, real quick.
Just Google Pay is Google's new app that's sort of
like their venmo slash, you know, banking app whatever, payment
to payment, person to person. But right now they're trying
to get people to sign up and you can net
twenty one dollars if you refer someone to the app,
(45:46):
So if you bring a new user to the app,
you get twenty one dollars and the person that signed
up also gets twenty one dollars as long as they
spend ten dollars using the app. It used to be
you could refer like a whole bunch of people, ten people.
Now you can only do three because I guess so
many people did this. So if you want an easy
twenty one bucks, refer a friend to this and boom. Also,
(46:09):
they have an offer at Target in the US if
you spend fifty using Google Pay at Target, you'll get
twenty one dollars cash back, which is really cool and
that's awesome. It's funny. I was at the gas station
the other day and I saw a sticker with a
QR code for Google Pay. So clearly Google is really
going all out on this mobile payment app this time,
(46:30):
because you know, at my local gas station it had
the sticker, which is you know, goes to show that
they're really promoting this app. The thing is I can't
sign up for I don't know what the problem is,
but my phone number is clearly in some sort of
Google limbo because when I go to sign up It
just gives me an error message every single time. And
I tried both my phone numbers, my cell phone and
(46:52):
my Google Voice and it just didn't work. So I
don't know what the deal is. But I'd like to
sign up, but I can't, so I don't know. You
know what that music means. It means that is going
to do it for this episode of the show. If
you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
just go to richon tech dot TV slash podcast and
you can hit a little voicemail microphone or of course
(47:15):
you can send an email as well. It says contact
on there. Just hit that and boom, it'll get right
to me. Probably won't get it till next year's show,
but yeah, because this is it. This is the last
show of twenty twenty. Also, I would love it if
you would rate and review this podcast to help other
people discover it. You can also just go to rich
on tech dot, TV, slash podcast and you'll see a
(47:37):
rate button. See everything's in one place now. How cool
is that? You can also find me at rich on
tech and I think those social media links are there
as well. My name is rich Demiro. I want to
say a sincere thanks to you for listening in twenty twenty.
I really do appreciate it. I have a blast doing
this show. I know there's been some changes with the
show over twenty twenty, but I feel feel like it's
(48:00):
gotten to a really good place, and I'm happy where
it's at. I love the community that we've built with
the show. The questions keep coming, the comments. It is
so interesting to me that, just as many people say
when they email me that hey, Rich, I listen to
your podcast, as people say they hear me on the
radio or on KTLA or some other stations that I'm on,
and I just love it. So Thank you so much.
(48:22):
Have a fantastic holiday season. Hang in there. We are
almost through this pandemic. I do believe that. Stay safe.
I'm going to talk to you in twenty twenty one.
My name is Rich Demiro. Have a fantastic day. I'll
talk to you real soon.
Apple Fitness Plus launches, I'll share my thoughts on it.
I've got an announcement to make about CS twenty twenty one,
lots of streaming apps finally make it to lots of
different places. Plus your tech questions answered? What is going on?
My name is Rich Dmiro and this is Rich on Tech,
the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff that
(00:31):
I think you should know about. It's also the place
where I answer the questions you send me. Yes, I'm
the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles
and also for Nextstar TV stations nationwide. It's been interesting because,
you know, Katla was purchased by a new company that
I used to work for actually, which is kind of
interesting back in my early days of my career, and
(00:55):
you know, we own a whole bunch of TV stations,
and so they're starting to notice that I do this
little report and they're starting to use them, and so
it's really been fun to kind of see my stuff
just popping up in different places across the US. We
used to be on a bunch of stations with Tribune,
our old company, and we're still on a lot of
those stations, but now it's like you know, every station
has access, which is kind of fun. So it's been
(01:17):
really good expanding, you know, the reach and just kind
of doing what I do and what you know, my
thesis on all of this stuff, my mission statement has
always been sort of helping people understand technology, you know,
in an easy way, and helping the everyday person. So
you know, there's every one of us has to use technology,
(01:37):
whether we like it or not. That's just the reality
of the world in twenty twenty. So you have your phone,
and it really all stems from the phone. You have
your phone and you kind of say, oh, smart light
looks kind of cool. One of those Amazon echoes looks
kind of cool. And next thing, you know, you've got
all this stuff and you're just trying to figure it out.
And you know, then you have the apps and you know,
(01:57):
privacy and so I just try to every one of
my reports, I just try to be helpful and I
hope that comes through because that's that's really what my
mission is. I can't believe that we are done, almost
done with twenty twenty. I mean, I just can't believe it.
I can remember sitting in a van at CS doing
(02:19):
the podcast at the beginning of the Year in twenty
twenty in Las Vegas, and literally I can remember it
like it's yesterday, and here we are a year later,
almost a year later, and honestly, this is the year
that sort of didn't happen because we've been quarantined and
just you know, not leaving our home and this and that.
So wow, I just can't believe it. But holidays are here.
(02:42):
I'm excited. This is the last show of twenty twenty,
which is pretty wild. Be back next year. But let
me and I hope you're you know, I hope you're
staying safe during the holidays. I know all my plans
are canceled. I was supposed to go to New Jersey.
That is not happening. Then we were supposed to go
to Arizona. That's not happening. We are just staying put
because it just seems like the thing to do this year.
(03:04):
And honestly, I'll enjoy the time, the downtime and just sit.
I'm gonna finally install Big sur on my computer and
hopefully get organized once again, you know, kind of reset
for the new year. And the new year is gonna
kick off pretty strong, because I have an announcement to
make I will be working pretty closely with CS twenty
one this year or next year because I am going
(03:26):
to be one of their hosts for the digital show.
So we've talked a lot about CS in this podcast
because it's kind of the biggest event of the year.
I get so many of my story ideas, I get
so many of my videos, my social media videos I get.
I mean, I get so much from CS every year,
b roll like I have in my Google Photos. You know,
(03:47):
I'm sitting here editing stuff for this for the segments,
and you know, I just go into my CES video
I'm like, oh, I have a shot of a ring
video doorbell, or I have a shot of a microphone,
or I have a shot of that smart toilet. And
it's become sort of a little a place where I
just get stuff that I need and you know, anyway,
So CS twenty twenty one is going to be their
(04:08):
first all digital show, happening in happening in January. It
is virtual, so no need to go to Las Vegas.
This year. They're gonna have over one hundred conference sessions.
They're gonna have more than a thousand exhibitors from around
the world. AI five G Digital health, smart cities, vehicle tech,
(04:28):
and then they're gonna have this thing called the CS
Digital Venue, and this is in partnership with Microsoft, and
this is what I'll be doing. And it's basically kind
of a live anchor desk where you'll see myself and
a couple other folks and I'm very excited about who
those other folks are. But we will be kind of
navigating the show, doing you know, tech updates, interviews, all
(04:51):
kinds of stuff. I haven't even heard like everything I'm doing,
but it sounds awesome. And here's why I get to play.
I say play with, but work with. Okay, it's it's
not play, it's work. I justine, which I love. I mean,
we've we actually did CS together many years ago, and
we've been you know, we stayed in touch ever since.
My friend Brian Tong, who you know, we worked at
(05:13):
c net together. He is doing a great job on
his own with his own YouTube channel. I mean just
really really doing a nice job. But it's a lot
of work. I watch him work, and it's well, I
don't like to sit there and watch him at it,
but I talk to him very often on text, and
you know, believe me, he's working hard. And then Naomi Kyle,
who I don't know personally but I'm aware of, and
(05:36):
she is an actress, producer, does a lot of stuff
in the video game world, so it'll be nice to
have her perspective as well, because that's a huge part
of this. So you've got four of us and it's
just kind of cool. So we will be hosting CS
twenty twenty one virtually and I'm excited for it. Last
day for media registration complimentary media registration is January eighth,
(05:59):
and CS twenty twenty one takes place January eleventh through fourteenth.
I know, I believe that I'm a start on like
the I think it's the eighth maybe or the ninth,
just to get prepped, but it's gonna be fun. And
then CS returns to Las Vegas January fifth through eighth,
twenty twenty two, So mark your calendars January eleventh through fourteenth.
(06:22):
You'll see me online and if you you know, see
me wave high. So exciting because everyone was asking me like,
what are you doing for CS? And I couldn't really
tell them for a while because I was, you know,
contracts hadn't been signed in all that stuff. But now
that it's a done deal. And thank you to KTLA
by the way for letting me do this, because of course,
(06:45):
you know, they had to approve, so that was exciting,
all right. Tony McDowell says, is there an address program
that you can input once and it updates the address book, email,
et cetera. Also when you delete a name, you only
have to do it once, Tony. You know, Tony, I
have been looking for something like this for a long
time and there's not really there's not really a one
(07:08):
size fits fits all with this sort of thing. There
used to be something I loved back in the day
called Plaxo, which, if you've been in tech for a
little bit that might ring a bell. It was this
program that was sort of spammy, but it was great.
You would upload your whole address book to this program
and it would send an email to all your contacts
and say, hey, can you update you know, just take
a look and make sure everything looks right. And it
(07:28):
was brilliant. And then if someone I think there was
like a opt in that if you just said, hey,
you know, keep my stuff updated at all times, you
could go into your own app and update your info
and everyone else who's using Plaso on the network would
also see your latest info. I thought it was brilliant,
but people just thought it was spammy, and it never
really took off, and I think Comcast bought it at
(07:49):
some point, and you know, of course it doesn't really
exist anymore. But I have been testing something new called
Sunshine Contacts, and this is very similar. It's very similar
to what but Plaxo was trying to do, maybe in
a less invasive way. They don't send out automatic updates,
but you can send like a link to a friend
or a contact and say, hey, would you mind just
(08:11):
taking a look at this and updating your stuff? Now,
this app is actually from the former CEO of Yahoo,
Mersa Meyer. She came up. I don't know if she
came up with it, but she's kind of behind this
and it's been interesting on my iPhone now. The last
I checked, when I went into there, it somehow goes
through all your emails and like finds the contacts. So
(08:31):
now I have twenty three thousand, eight hundred and seventy
six contacts imported fifteen thousand, nine hundred and thirty six
total without duplicates fourteen thousand, nine hundred and twelve enhanced
by sunshine. So I have enough contacts now to last
me seventeen lifetimes. And it's interesting what they do when
(08:53):
they you know, you go into a contact and it
kind of uses I don't know, some sort of I
don't know. I don't know how it does it, but
it gives you the info, you know, when you tap
into the contact, and then not only does it give
you the info, but it gives you like some other
info you have, and then it marks it as obsolete somehow,
and some of it's pretty good. So anyway, it's not perfect.
It's interesting. It's it's opt or. It's beta right now.
(09:14):
So you have to have an invitation. I don't know
if can I invite people. I don't even I don't
even see a way to invite people, but you can,
you know. It took me a little bit to to
get on there, but it shouldn't take too long. But anyway,
that's the one I've been testing. There's other ones, like
there's ever Contact. I mean, there's a couple of things
like that, but I found that, you know, full contact,
(09:36):
I just found that not many of them work that well.
And honestly, the thing that I think works. The best
is really just Siri. If you connect your email to
you know, your iPhone, like if you log into their
email app, it will search sort of like the signatures
in your email and kind of put a serie kind
of uses all the informations that when you look someone up,
(09:59):
it will tell you you, you know, hey, here's the information
we think we have for them, based on you know,
your previous It even is smart enough to know that,
like the last time they texted you, it came from
this number, so that's the number that it kind of
puts at the top of the list when you go
to call them. I mean, it's pretty smart, and it's
something that's not very nuanced in the iPhone, like people
don't really or not very apparent. It's very nuanced, so
(10:20):
people don't realize that that's happening. But I think that's
a really cool little feature. And now this Sunshine Contacts,
I don't know because it's updated all my contacts my
address book, and I don't know if there's any going
back at this point. I have so many contacts in here,
I don't even know what to do with myself. Oh
my gosh. Okay, speaking of Apple, Apple Fitness Plus launched
(10:41):
this week and I was an early tester, which is
kind of cool. So they sent me they actually had
to send me. Well I don't mean if I can,
can I really talk about that, but anyway, they had
to send me the software early to try it out,
so it was cool. It was great, I really have.
I've grown to love it and it's now part of
my life. Apple Fitness Plus Now. The thing to know
(11:02):
about it is it requires an Apple Watch. These are
fitness classes that are on your iPhone, your iPad, or
Apple TV, but you have to have an Apple Watch
to sort of unlock it, and a subscription which is
ten dollars a month, which I think is very reasonable.
You can also bundle that with one of their Apple
you know subscription bundle plans. What is it called Apple
(11:23):
one And so to get it, you have to update
all of your apps. So I sat there and I
like updated my Apple TV and the iPad and the
Apple Watch and the iPhone and it showed up on
all of them. It's fourteen point three if you're keeping track.
And with the Apple TV. It's kind of cool because
it works on any Apple TV, even if it's not yours,
which is really interesting. So let's say you were at
(11:43):
an Airbnb and they had an Apple TV. When you
have your when you open up the fitness app on
that Apple TV, it kind of scans the room for
any Apple Watches, It sees yours, and then it says, okay,
do you want to log in? And you just tap
you know, yes on your watch and it kind of
up it handshakes with the TV somehow. And I thought
that was really cool because if I had an Airbnb,
(12:06):
like if I was an owner of one, I would
that would push me over to put like, you know,
an Apple TV in there, because you know, anyone who
comes there with an Apple Watch could get a quick
workout in, which is kind of cool. So the workouts
across all kinds of things. It's not, you know, it's
not a one trick pony. It's not just like one
type of workout. They do it all hit, dance, strength, core.
I mean, it's all there, and it's great. They always
(12:27):
have three instructors, which I really like. So one is
doing the typical, one's doing a beginner, one's doing in advance.
The instructors are really cool. They're all kind of you know,
very apply, you know, excited, and enthusiastic and just a
nice mix of folks from different backgrounds and different abilities
as well, which is really cool because you know, some
(12:48):
of these trainers in these programs that you know, they
are all these like young fit people, and you know,
not everyone's like that, so it's kind of nice that
they have a very wide range of folks, which is
really really nice. The best part is really kind of
the on screen data that it gets from your Apple Watch.
I've grown to love that, and you know, if you
have an Apple Watch, you know it's all about closing
(13:08):
those those circles or those rings rather and so for me,
pretty much every day I'm trying to do that unless
I'm knowingly taking a day off from any sort of exercise.
And so like yesterday, I went on a little run
and then I came back home and I was like, oh,
let me do ten minutes of strength and then a
five minute cool down, and so it was great. There's
no live classes, so that's a big difference between this
(13:29):
and Peloton, but I don't really think that's missing, Like
I don't really I'm still gonna stick with the peloton
for the spin classes at least for now, but I
do like the Apple Fitness Plus for everything else. So
I love the strength, I love the hit, I love
the core, and the mindful cool downs have been really
nice too, and new classes come out on Mondays. So
(13:50):
I don't think that people are gonna flock over from
Peloton to this, but it makes me very happy that
I did not buy a Peloton bike. I'm glad I
bought a you know, a generic by that works with
all services, because if I feel like it, I can
use the Apple Fitness Spin class, or I can use
the Peloton Spin Class, or if something better comes along tomorrow,
I can use that as well. So for all those reasons,
(14:13):
I think that Apple Fitness Plus is really cool. If
you have an Apple Watch, you definitely have to try
it out. You get a month free if you you know,
for all users, three months free if you bought an
Apple Watch after September fifteenth through March thirty first. And
I don't know what to say except for the fact
that I just love this. I love having another option.
I love the fact that they have ten minute classes,
(14:34):
because ten minutes to me, I mean, like the other night,
I was literally dumb with my day and I just
waiting for my wife to get out of a meeting,
and I was just like, you know what, let me
just do a ten minute class with the kids. And
so we just sat there, we all picked up some
weights and we just did like a ten minute strength
class and it felt so good. And then I was like, oh,
let me do one more. And so then I did
like a ten minute core class, and so I just
(14:55):
got twenty minutes of working out, you know, basically in
a day that I knew I wasn't going to. So
so I really think that it's a really cool addition
to the portfolio. Of course, it keeps people in the
Apple ecosystem, and you know, but as long as you're
putting out good stuff, why not. Eric says, Hey, Rich,
(15:17):
I enjoy your podcast. I appreciate your knowledge. Any suggestions
for a music manager app for Android. As you know,
Google play Music went away put people into YouTube music
and I'm not so far enjoying the user experience with
that app. Any suggestions on other apps or services that
would work. I do have a small catalog of purchase
music I would need to store in the cloud with
(15:37):
the service as well. Thank you, Eric in Visalia, California.
Is that like the onions Vesalia. So I've gotten this
question from a lot of people. In fact, when I
get this many questions from people, I'm like, do I
need to do a segment on KTLA. I feel like
it's a small use case scenario of these folks that
are still out there that are sort of using their
(15:59):
own music collection of MP three's on their phone. I
don't think that's a very popular thing to do right now.
Obviously people have moved to streaming, but I think for
you know, some of the more techier folks or the
people who have built up a collection that they like,
they still want to stick with it and not pay
the ten dollars a month, which I'm totally fine with,
but when it comes so for most of the folks,
(16:19):
I've just been recommending, you know, use the YouTube music
because it plays your own files and it's got I
believe it still has the cloud element. I know Spotify
also plays local files, but I don't think you can
upload them to the cloud. So I think there's two ways,
or a couple of ways you can do this. I
think one is you can do plex. I think plex
(16:41):
is probably the best way to do this. And what
plex does is it kind of you just make your
own server and it's specifically created for music, movies, TV shows, photos,
it's just everything. And so I think that that's probably
the way to do it is just just get plex
and you know there is a there is like a pricing.
(17:02):
Let's see where is the pricing on this thing? If
you have to go premium, so I don't know how
much it is, let's see it doesn't really I hate
websites that don't just have like a pricing, like I
have to create an account to see what the price is.
Come on Plex, let me just see how much it is.
Let's see plex pricing.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I like these websites say literally just say pricing and
you can just like there's literally not a place that
I can see how much it costs. Oh, here we
go five dollars a month, forty dollars for the year,
I mean, or one hundred and twenty dollars for the lifetime.
I would do the forty dollars for the year. Right now,
they're doing a forty eight hour sale for twenty percent
(17:42):
off a lifetime. I would proably wouldn't go lifetime because
you might change your mind, but a yearly is definitely
a better deal than monthly, or maybe just start with
monthly and see if you like it and then go
to the yearly. But I would just do plex. I
think that's gonna I think that's gonna be the best
case for what you need. I think you could probably
build your own tracks and SoundCloud, but I'm not sure
that that's really I'm not sure that's the spirit of
(18:03):
what they do. Maybe it is, I mean, maybe that
would work, but it doesn't seem like it would. Samsung
is getting ready for twenty twenty one. They have already
put out a blog post about their new phones that
they're gonna concentrate on, and we've already heard rumors that
they're going to launch their new phones early in January
(18:24):
versus February, which is pretty interesting. And I think that
that's a good idea because you know, people are really
buying the iPhone twelve a lot, I think, or considering it,
and with the Samsungs, you know, not so much. Like
I feel like, yes, they did fine with the S
twenty lineup, but it was not the breakout, crazy hit
that they wanted, and the reason for that is that
(18:45):
the S twenty Ultra was really kind of a bomb
and It's really sad because that's an amazing device, but
it just the camera never lived up to the expectations.
And I would argue that the S twenty Fe was fantastic,
the Note Ultro was amazing, but just that's not the
phone for everyone. That's not a mainstream mass phone. But
(19:07):
it did pretty well, but it's just not the phone
for everyone. So when I'm sitting here as a tech
person recommending you a phone, the S twenty Ultra was
just not something that I recommend it to people. Now,
the S twenty Fe, the Fan Edition, I did, but
it doesn't it's not the high end phone that people,
you know, everyone wants. So looking forward to twenty twenty
one with Samsung, what do we have? So a couple
(19:29):
things from this blog post that they put out. I
thought this was really interesting. They are Samsung Galaxies will
be more than ready to meet the demands of the
video obsessed in twenty twenty one. When it comes to
advancement in this space, it's going to be an epic
new year. I love the sound of that because I
am all about video on my smartphone, and that's a
(19:50):
primary reason why I use the iPhone, because it just
you can't match it. It's just the video is so
good on there, it's just unbelievable, and editing on there
is so amazing. Our engineers and developers have been expanding
our on device AI, enabling our devices to continually learn
from daily activities to take better pictures, maximize battery life,
(20:13):
optimize displays, and more. They talk about privacy. Number one
goal is and always will be to create experiences users
can trust knowing we'll treat their data with the utmost
care every step of the way. So that's interesting, it's
kind of sounding aptly. And then they talk about expanding
their portfolio of foldables and we're gonna never stop trying
(20:35):
to outdo ourselves, so be on the lookout for super intelligent,
pro grade camera and video capabilities in twenty twenty one.
And here's a line that had everyone going nuts. We've
also been paying attention to people's favorite aspects of the
Galaxy Note experience and are excited to add some of
its most well loved features to other devices in our lineup,
which led a lot of people to think that they're
going to get rid of the Note and just put
(20:56):
the stylust in the S twenty one Ultra. Who knows.
I mean, they may do that. We'll see, but I'm
excited reading that blog post. If they can get me
to switch to Android, I'm all for it. I mean
I was ready to switch with the S twenty Ultra
and the note. The note was just too big for me,
and I just it was just I don't need the
(21:17):
stylist per se. But if they build that into the
S twenty and that's smaller form factor, slightly smaller, I'm
all for it. And it would be tough to move
from iPhone in the Apple Watch, but I would probably
come up with somewhere in the middle where I maybe
still wear the Apple Watch but use the Android. But
we'll say, you hear me drinking my tea?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
All right?
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Should we check a voicemail? Let's check a voicemail. If
you haven't left a voicemail for the show, you can
do so at rich on tech dot TV slash podcast.
There's a little microphone in the lower right hand corner
and you can leave a message just like Jeff Thomas did.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Hey Rich, Jeff Thomas, listen to your show your podcast
not just have one simple to make and that's it. Otherwise,
I really liked it that as you give and glad
to know that you and Brian Tong are good friends
because you guys in terms of how you just keep
(22:22):
it real for everyone, stay safe, man.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
All right, So, clearly some technical difficulties with that voicemail.
And I'm not sure what happened there. It could have
been a connection thing or whatever, but I kind of
heard I think he said I have one comment to
make that. I think you said you're amazing. That's just
what I heard, So I'm gonna take that. But I
don't know, but it just sounded like you just, you know,
Jeff is a fan of the show, just wanted to,
(22:48):
you know, leave a voicemail and voice that. And I
love it. So thanks Jeff for leaving the voicemail. Try
it again. I'm not sure. I tried doing this on
like Chrome on my iPhone. It definitely is a little quirky.
It seems to work best on a desktop web browser
to hit the microphone. But I mean, you would think that,
you know, since everyone's using phones, and especially with the iPhone,
(23:08):
and this is I don't want to get into the
differencestween an iPhone Android, but it always everything's a little
more complicated because when you're in a browser on the iPhone,
it's always like a browser inside of a browser, inside
of an app. If you're getting to somewhere from an app,
it's very complicated. But anyway, that's the way the architecture
set up most of the time on the iPhone, so
I feel like that has something to do with it.
But like when I tried to do this from Instagram,
(23:30):
it was like it was a web browser inside Instagram
from a link. It just was weird. So anyway, thank
you Jeff for the voicemail. I'll do a question as well,
since you know that was sort of a just a comment.
Steve Brown says, first off, I really enjoy your podcast.
I really appreciate what you do for us in the
tech world. I watch you on KTLA. Enjoy your podcast.
(23:51):
I've been an Apple across the board for decades, but
never had a MacBook Pro. I'm looking at getting a
new m one MacBook Pro, but had a few questions.
I'm a photographer with thirty years and do a lot
of photo editing with Pixel Made or Pro. I started
dabbling in video using emovies. I might upgrade to final cut.
My question is do I need sixteen gigs a RAM
or should I be good with the eight I've read
(24:12):
conflicting articles online stating that with the powerful M one chip,
sixteen isn't needed for what I would do. I don't
mind spending the extra two hundred, but if it wouldn't
make a difference, I'd rather throw the money into some
extra memory or use external drives. I'd appreciate and respect
your feedback, Steve from Long Beach. All right, Steve, definitely
go with the sixteen gigs. I have not personally tested
(24:35):
the M one, but everything I've seen from other tech folks,
they love it. It's fast, it's amazing. Apple of course
applied their magic and did a great job. But I
come from the world that you can never have enough memory.
And yes, a lot of the new apps will be
written and optimized for this computer, but some of them
(24:55):
may not be. And I would just especially if you're
telling me you're getting into videos, I think that, yeah,
you'll be able to edit a little simple things on
your you know, with just eight gigs. You know, I
could edit little videos on my iPhone. But I think
if you you know, this is a this is a
MacBook that you're going to keep for at least three
to four years, I'm guessing, so you know, if not more,
(25:19):
and so why you know you're going the the eleven
hundred bucks, go the extra two hundred, right, So that's
what i'd recommend. Always, always, always get the extra when
you buy laptop. You got to max out to your
budget the memory and the storage because you will always
need more of both of those things. That is what
I recommend. We got a little bit of news this week,
(25:41):
good news if you're in the streaming world, and I
just I gotta say, I'm seeing what's happening here and
I'm I'm very much liking it. And I'm not sure
if it's due to like the whole anti trust, you know,
crackdowns that have been going on, or these tech companies
are just realizing that they can't be emote. But I
like what's going on and I'm seeing it more and more.
(26:03):
And two announcements this week. Number one, HBO Max coming
to Roku and they made this announcement and you know,
they said just in time for Wonder Woman eighty four,
nineteen eighty four, which is gonna be on HBO Max
streaming on Christmas Day. I asked my wife I'm like,
do you think we'll be able to watch that on
Christmas Day? She's like, I don't know, but definitely the
(26:24):
day after if I can't get to it on Christmas Day.
But there you have it, HBO Max on Roku. This
was a you know, really a big missing piece on Roku.
So many people emailed me saying, rich, where is HBO Max.
And it's confusing because like the old HBO app was
on there and it's just you know, not a good thing.
So it took them what six months to make a deal.
(26:46):
And this is because these platforms like Roku, and you know,
I would say Roku and fire tv probably have a
lot of what's the word the power when you negotiation
power because they are the two biggest And so it's
no longer Oh, I'm HBO Max and I just published
(27:08):
my app to rokuh. It doesn't seem to work that
way anymore. Maybe back in the day it did, but
it doesn't seem to work that way now. You have
to be approved and you have to be negotiated in
and that means that Roku wants a little cut of
the money because HBO Max, you know, if they're just
on the platform and you know, if any if everyone
(27:28):
just used Roku to access these apps and Roku didn't
get a little cut of the you know, action, Roku
would not survive because their business is not selling those
streaming sticks. Their business is advertising, and so they get
a little bit of a commission. I don't know what
what they get. I mean, that's all, that's all private,
but they do get something, whether it's a cut of
(27:49):
someone who signs up to HBO Max through Roku, or
when they stream they get like a little portion of
you know, some ad time on there, or they get
you know, some free movies for their HBO or their
Roku channel. There's something, you know, there's some kind of
deal that's made. So anyway, the deal has been made,
and we all know that HBO Max can be showing
all the Warner Brothers films next year on for thirty
(28:10):
days on HBO Max. That's gonna be amazing. I mean,
what a good year to be an HBO Max subscriber.
To get at least I mean, in this article in
the Roku blog, one Matrix, four Dune, Suicide Squad and
Space Jam and New Legacy. So at least four movies
right there. The other piece of news is that Apple
TV app is coming to chrome Cast with Google TV.
(28:32):
And this is a big win because when I initially
set up my Chrome Cast with Google TV, I was
scratching my head and I was like, no, what am
I missing here over Apple t Oh yeah, oh yeah,
missing the Apple TV the Apple TV app, And sure
enough it's coming to Google chrome cast with Google TV.
Does it say when it says let's see the all
(28:56):
new early next year, which I'm I mean, come on,
that's like a long I mean early next year. It
could be like any that could be like January, February, March.
Why does it take so long? I mean, how long
does it take to make an Apple TV app for Android?
So with the Apple TV app, it's very confusing because
so a couple things you'll be able to do. You'll
be able to watch Apple TV plus stuff, you know,
(29:17):
the stuff that needs a subscription, but you'll also be
able to watch, you know, all the movies that you
purchased in the past on Apple TV or through Apple
or iTunes whatever. You know. It gets so complicated because
it's you know, it's so it's there's too many Apple
things with Apple. Everything is Apple, Apple, Apple something. Let's
(29:37):
see it says this makes Chrome cast with Google TV
one of the only streaming devices with all the major
video subscriptions. But I think at this point that's uh
kind of that's no longer the case because now HBO
Max has made its way to Roku and fire TV,
and I think that was the last holdout. I mean,
you know, these major apps are mostly on these platforms
(29:58):
at this point. Oh wow, I guess that will be
my new audio for the voicemails. Let's go to another
voicemail at rich on tech dot tv slash podcast. This
is from Jerry Rick.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
It's Jerry Good. Heard you mentioned the ear muffs on
your bows headsets and showing where signs on them. Same
thing happened to my wife. So I ordered some new
muffs from Amazon and it comes with a little tool
for inserting them. Hope this helps enjoy your podcast and
your segments on kate La and buy now now.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
This is why I love doing a podcast with an
amazing community of folks like Jerry, because I mentioned on
my podcast, I don't know if it was last week
or the week before, probably last week when I talked
about the AirPods Max headphones from apple that my bows.
You know, when you put them on, there's sort of
like little little fragments of the ear muffs or whatever
(30:52):
you call them, the pads on the ears that sort
of stay on my ear because they're kind of disintegrating.
And he said, you know they're on Amazon and you
can get you know, replacement, And why didn't I think
of that? I mean, that's such a bowse replacement earpads,
I mean so brilliant. There they are left and right
now these are twelve ninety nine. Now I will say
(31:16):
the ones, okay, the ones that came with it are
extremely comfortable. And yes they have the official ones which
are thirty five dollars, so you can get anything as
cheap as twelve ninety nine sixteen ninety nine, or you
can go official and get the thirty five dollars. But
I love that. It's great, great voicemail. Thank you, Jerry.
And I don't know, I'm I'm a little bit tempted
(31:38):
to splurge on those headphones, but I don't know, it's
like it's it's a big that's a big investment. And
I'm looking at some of the reviews and they're not
like glowing, so I don't know. Maybe maybe just stick
with what I got and go with that. All right,
let's do another question here from Kathy. Hey, Rich, love
your tips. I'm a long time iPhone user, want to
(31:59):
upgrade to get a better camera. I'm currently using the
iPhone seven. Can you suggest a next step up on
getting a better camera? I don't want the Pro model,
just want a better pictures and don't want to spend
a bundle. Also, if I get something unlocked, does that
mean AT and T my preferred provider can insert their
SIM card. Help Kathy in Kansas City. So, Kathy, to
answer your first question, I would recommend I'd recommend the
(32:21):
iPhone twelve and I would trade in the iPhone seven.
You're not going to get a whole bunch for that,
but I would trade that in and go with that.
And you know, see what the deal is there, I
you know, and I think that you know. The reason
I recommend the twelve is because realistically you could go.
I would also say the eleven is just fine as well.
And the reason why I would say the eleven is
(32:43):
because you want you know, the eleven had a good
camera on it, So I think that the well, actually
I think you have to go eleven pro. Yeah, I
think you have to go. Let me see here. It's
been a while since I looked at this. But the
you know, because Apple's only selling certain phones. So let's
see what they're selling in the eleven lineup. They are
(33:04):
selling Oh interesting, so they're selling just the eleven, not
the eleven pro. Okay, but I think the eleven will
be fine. So I mean, if you want to go
with the eleven, you can do that. But I would
just say, duke a price comparison between the twelve, just
the standard twelve and the eleven, and see how much
that is. Now, when it comes to your second question,
if I get something unlocked, that means AT and T,
(33:25):
my preferred provider can insert their SIM. Yes, so unlocked
means that the phone will work with any carrier. But
here's the thing. You don't necessarily need unlocked if you're
sticking with your carrier and if they give you a
better deal, I would go with that because unlocked is
good for people like me that you know, are finicky
and we switch providers and we're moving from Google five
(33:46):
to Verizon, to Sprint to T Mobile, and we're trying
to you know, we're always moving around, not that I'm
doing that often, but you know, it's just and it.
You know, it's just nice when you sell your phone,
it's easy to sell because it's unlocked. But if you're
sticking with AT and T, like you said, you have
an iPhone seven, which tells me you've probably had this
phone for a good you know, four years, so uh,
you know, just stick with AT and T and get
(34:07):
their deal and see if it's better than what Apple
offers you, which I think it would be. So it's
if you're not moving providers, it's not a big deal
to stick with the lock device to AT and T
and after a certain amount of time anyway, they will
unlock it, which is generally you know, when your contract,
not that you have a contract, but like when your
phone is paid off usually that's what it is. And
most people are doing their phones on a on a
(34:30):
monthly installment anyway, So buying unlocked doesn't really mean anything
because even if you wanted to move, you couldn't because
you have to pay off your phone. So I feel like,
if your carrier's given you a good deal, no need
to go the unlocked route. But yes, if you're buying
from the Apple website. I would probably go the unlocked
route for sure, So I hope that makes sense. All right,
(34:52):
Let's talk about third party extensions, and this is this
disconfirms my fears about all these Chrome extensions that I
install the time. And I think that Google and I
think I heard that they're going to start kind of
clamping down a little bit on these things because I
think it's a big privacy hole. So when you install
a lot of these extensions, it says this can read
(35:12):
and change site data like what like you can see
every website that I'm going to because I install this
extension that shouldn't be but it is. And so a
vast you know, they make security products. They identified malware
in twenty eight third party Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge extensions.
And what they do is they redirect your traffic to
(35:34):
ads or phishing sites to try to steal your information
or just make money off of you. And this is
what happens when you do a search and it brings
you to some like googly looking site, but it's not
it's like my search, my way, and like it's like
what has all ads on the screen? You're like, how
did that happen? When I just did a Google search. Well,
it's a it's malware redirecting you. So these extensions, they
(35:56):
are all about downloading videos from various platforms, which is
very popular because people are always trying to like, you know,
download videos and put them on their Instagram or their
Facebook page. And so a lot of these extensions piggyback
on popular names like video downloader for Facebook, Vimeo video downloader,
Instagram story downloader, VK on block and you know, they
(36:18):
they basically, you know, hijack your computer. And so you know,
some of these extensions are still available. Others have probably
been taken down. But they said three million people have
installed these and I've got the full list on my
website or I'll put it in the show notes. But
the reality is this just makes me very, you know,
wary about these these third party extensions I have. I
(36:41):
have a couple of them. I'll tell you which ones
I use. I use Pocket, I use ever Note, I
use print Friendly, I use Buffer And how do I
see the rest of my extensions? They like hide them, honey,
keep a let's see grammarly. And then I have a
couple that a popcart screen recorder, auto scroll. See I'm
(37:04):
gonna turn some of these off because I don't need them.
But yeah, I mean it's like one of these things
that you know you have to I mean you kind
of have to like be just be aware when you
put these extensions, and you know, if they get installed
on your computer, you know accidentally, that could be you know,
a problem too. And the extensions in Chrome have really
greatly increased the functionality of the web browser. But at
(37:26):
the same time, again, they are sort of a glaring
security hole, I think, and I think that in twenty
twenty one, we're going to see Google do a lot
more to make sure that stuff like this does not happen.
All right, let's see, Chris says, I have a question.
(37:47):
We're looking to cancel our cable. It's two hundred and
sixteen dollars a month. We're looking at YouTube TV it's
sixty five bucks a month. What's your thoughts on it.
We move from California to Boise three years ago, but
we still watch your show. We enjoy it. Thank you, Chris. Well.
The thing about switching from cable to YouTube TV or
any of these streaming services is that you're not gonna
(38:09):
get You have to still pay for internet and when
you get rid of the bundle, they boost your monthly
for your internet. So if you're paying to sixteen a month,
that is high. But you probably have everything in that bundle.
I'm guessing you probably have high speed internet, you probably
have a phone line, and you also have you know,
a top of the line cable TV package that you
(38:29):
probably don't need because you're probably not using all of it.
So if you switch to YouTube TV, which I thought
YouTube TV just raised prices, let me see how much
it is. Okay, yeah, it's sixty five bucks. Okay, so
sixty five dollars that includes the DVR. So yeah, I
mean I love YouTube TV. I think it's one of
the best out there as long as it has the
(38:49):
channels that you want in Boise. Yeah, Now, the thing
is your internet is gonna go up. So right now,
you know, whatever you're paying for internet in that bundle,
you know, whatever it's it's going to be more expensive.
Now you might get a deal to switch to a
new provider or whatever. But you're looking at let's say
another let's just say it was sixty to eighty a month,
you're still looking at only one hundred and you know,
(39:12):
one hundred and fifty bucks, so you're still saving fifty
dollars a month with this changeover. The only thing you
just need to be aware of is if your local
channels are available on YouTube tv. You can go to
YouTube tv and type in your zip code and it
will tell you that in a second. But otherwise sure,
now I would argue, do you even need YouTube tv?
You know? With all these other services, don't forget you
(39:32):
have to pile those on top of this price as well.
So unless you're not subscribing to Netflix or Disney Plus
or Hulu or HBO Max, you know, yeah, that's one fifty.
But now when you add all those in, now you're
back up to two sixteen. So to me, the idea
of cutting the cord, which I did a couple of
years ago, has never been about saving money, because I'm
(39:54):
still not convinced I'm saving money at this point with
all the subscriptions. But what I love is that I'm
in control, and so if I wanted to cancel anything,
I can, And it's a matter of these services have
to provide a value for me for me to continue
with them, and so far, you know, so good. I mean,
I pay for you know, pretty much all of them
at this point, Netflix, Hulu with no ads, Disney plus
(40:20):
what else do I have? HBO Max Right now, we're
doing a Hallmark channel for all their sappy Christmas movies.
But you know again, I'm gonna cancel that when Christmas
is over. So for seven bucks a month, it's been
great and I feel like we've gotten our value because
we've watched you know, four movies. Of course, I'm sharing
that log in with several folks. Can I say that? No,
(40:43):
I'm not. No one does that, and so you know,
it's one of these things where you just have to
decide if it's worth it. I think it's worth it
because of the control you get, and you get a
slicker interface for me. I get my interface on either
you know, a Roku device or a Chrome cast or
Apple TV, which is infinitely better than what most of
(41:04):
the cable companies offer you. So for all those reasons, Chris,
go ahead, drop the cable and pick up YouTube TV.
And if you don't like it, guess what, you can
get rid of it and you don't have to call
someone to come over to your house to do it.
Story out of Apple all the well, I guess not
all the developers, but maybe some of them are going nuts,
but definitely Facebook. You know, these privacy labels are now
on the iPhone in the app store. So if you
(41:25):
go into the app store, if you select one of
the apps that you like, you can scroll down and
see what their privacy policy is. So let's go to
Snapchat and if we scroll down, it's kind of like
a nutrition facts label but for app privacy and so
data use to track you contact info identifiers, data link
(41:47):
to you, purchases, contact info, user content identifiers, diagnostics, location,
contact search history, usage data. Wow. Snapchat, you know, tracks everything,
and that's kind of what they're doing is bringing to
light the fact that these apps, as much as we
love them, you know, their business is making money. And
how do they make money by tracking the heck out
of us? And that means, you know, watching everything we
(42:10):
do on Snapchat to sort of make us use Snapchat
more and also target ads to us. And that just
happens with every one of these apps. And so these
little nutrition facts labels for data is what it's all about.
And if you know, so, the main thing is that
Facebook is going kind of you know, they're saying, look,
(42:30):
you know now that we have to, you know, put
all this out there. It looks scary. Number one. And
then number two, they're saying that the they're not able
to target our businesses, can't buy ads and target small
business or people as well as they used to be
able to. And that's probably true because now on you know,
on iPhone, you can choose to not be you know,
(42:51):
not hand over your location, your bluetooth, your precise location.
I mean, there's a lot of privacy of privacy protections
in place on the iPhone this year than there ever
have been, and so it is, it is tough for
these companies that have built their entire business on targeting ads.
It makes it a lot tougher for them. And I
(43:12):
would argue that, yeah, it's you know, especially if you
have a small business that you're used you're used to
targeting people in a very specialized way. It does take
that away and that is tough. But I'm not crying
for Facebook. I mean, you know, they've had some privacy
issues in the past, and you know, I think that
it's nice that Apple is is kind of giving a
(43:32):
wake up call to everyone with this privacy and we've
taken it for granted for so many years on the
phones that yeah, we're all just being tracked and everything's
being seen, and they've really given us a lot of
the the power back to the consumer. Whether a consumer
chooses to use all of it is remains to be seen.
And it's also very confusing even myself when I get,
(43:53):
you know, an app, it's like Google Maps has been
using your location in the background. Do you want to
switch to just you know, just when you're using the app?
And I'm like, oh yeah, sure, oh wait, no, no,
Like there's some of these things that they write, these
little warning labels are tricky. You have to really read
them before you accept anything that they say. But it's
nice to know that we can do that, all right.
(44:17):
Final question from Babs happy holidays. Is there a way
to do a holiday or any other backgrounds on Zoom
with an iPhone? And I had to do some searching
on this, but yes, there is a way to do it.
And you have to start a meeting in Zoom on
your iPhone. So make sure that your iPhone has Zoom downloaded,
you know, sign in all that good stuff, do new meeting,
(44:38):
start a meeting, and then you know, you get this
weird thing that says to hear others. Please join audio
call using Internet audio, which makes no sense to me.
I don't even know what that means. But that means
that you're using the audio on your phone, like you're
not calling, you're just whatever weird, weird message from them.
Then you go to more and it says virtual background
and you've got three to choose from that are defaults
(45:00):
or you can add your own and let's see, I
can put a nice background there. Done, and there you
go right on your iPhone. So it may not be
every version of the iPhone software, Like if you have
an older phone, it may not work because I do
know that the virtual backgrounds take a little heavy lifting.
So if you have like I don't know, but I
do know on this iPhone, which is the newest one,
(45:23):
it does work. So there you go again, just open
up the app and go into more and virtual background
and there you have it all. Right, final story, real quick.
Just Google Pay is Google's new app that's sort of
like their venmo slash, you know, banking app whatever, payment
to payment, person to person. But right now they're trying
to get people to sign up and you can net
twenty one dollars if you refer someone to the app,
(45:46):
So if you bring a new user to the app,
you get twenty one dollars and the person that signed
up also gets twenty one dollars as long as they
spend ten dollars using the app. It used to be
you could refer like a whole bunch of people, ten people.
Now you can only do three because I guess so
many people did this. So if you want an easy
twenty one bucks, refer a friend to this and boom. Also,
(46:09):
they have an offer at Target in the US if
you spend fifty using Google Pay at Target, you'll get
twenty one dollars cash back, which is really cool and
that's awesome. It's funny. I was at the gas station
the other day and I saw a sticker with a
QR code for Google Pay. So clearly Google is really
going all out on this mobile payment app this time,
(46:30):
because you know, at my local gas station it had
the sticker, which is you know, goes to show that
they're really promoting this app. The thing is I can't
sign up for I don't know what the problem is,
but my phone number is clearly in some sort of
Google limbo because when I go to sign up It
just gives me an error message every single time. And
I tried both my phone numbers, my cell phone and
(46:52):
my Google Voice and it just didn't work. So I
don't know what the deal is. But I'd like to
sign up, but I can't, so I don't know. You
know what that music means. It means that is going
to do it for this episode of the show. If
you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
just go to richon tech dot TV slash podcast and
you can hit a little voicemail microphone or of course
(47:15):
you can send an email as well. It says contact
on there. Just hit that and boom, it'll get right
to me. Probably won't get it till next year's show,
but yeah, because this is it. This is the last
show of twenty twenty. Also, I would love it if
you would rate and review this podcast to help other
people discover it. You can also just go to rich
on tech dot, TV, slash podcast and you'll see a
(47:37):
rate button. See everything's in one place now. How cool
is that? You can also find me at rich on
tech and I think those social media links are there
as well. My name is rich Demiro. I want to
say a sincere thanks to you for listening in twenty twenty.
I really do appreciate it. I have a blast doing
this show. I know there's been some changes with the
show over twenty twenty, but I feel feel like it's
(48:00):
gotten to a really good place, and I'm happy where
it's at. I love the community that we've built with
the show. The questions keep coming, the comments. It is
so interesting to me that, just as many people say
when they email me that hey, Rich, I listen to
your podcast, as people say they hear me on the
radio or on KTLA or some other stations that I'm on,
and I just love it. So Thank you so much.
(48:22):
Have a fantastic holiday season. Hang in there. We are
almost through this pandemic. I do believe that. Stay safe.
I'm going to talk to you in twenty twenty one.
My name is Rich Demiro. Have a fantastic day. I'll
talk to you real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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