One messaging app to rule them all

Samsung Galaxy S21 review; a new app called Beeper hopes to unify messages from across various apps; Fossil makes an LTE smartwatch for Verizon customers; a report on what tweens and teens are exposed to social media apps; Edge gets a password generator feature; Netflix getting a shuffle button.Listeners ask about Amazon discontinuing its lending library feature, whether cable channels will go away, if Starry internet is legit, if an iPhone upgrade deal is too good to be true and if the Amber X personal cloud storage device is worth it.Follow Rich on InstagramSamsung Galaxy S21 reviewBeeper appFossil smartwatchBark tween/teen reportEdge password featureNetflix shuffle buttonStarry InternetSynology NASibi cloud deviceSee 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

Speaker 1 (00:09):
My review of the Samsung Galaxy S twenty one Ultra
one messaging app to rule them all. Fossil has a
new smart watch that actually sounds pretty cool. Plus your
tech questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich Damiro and
this is Rich on Tech, the podcast right talk about
the tech stuff I think you should know about. It

(00:31):
is also the place right answer the questions you send me.
I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Hope you are having a fantastic day. We are well
into twenty twenty one. I'm still having trouble writing all
the dates right now because they're very tricky. It's like
one twenty two, twenty one, one, twenty three, twenty one, one,

(00:54):
twenty four, twenty one, one, nineteen twenty one, one, twenty
twenty one, one, twenty one, twenty one. It's just been
really funny, and I know there's like a whole bunch
of like are they call palindromes where they're you know,
the same forwards and backwards for all these dates recently anyway,
So I guess I'm not alone and having trouble because
there is something going on with the dates recently. But

(01:15):
welcome to the show. If you're listening for the first time,
thank you for finding me. If you're listening for the
second time, well thanks for tuning back in. If you're
listening for the two hundredth time, I probably do have
that many shows, actually, because I've been doing this podcast
in one form or another for a very long time now,
and it's gone. If you've listened throughout the years, it's

(01:36):
gone through different kind of variations. I guess you can
say sometimes it was like a ten minute daily thing.
Other times it was like an interview thing, and you know,
now it's kind of settled upon this format, which I like.
But honestly, if I had my way, if I had
one hundred percent like the way Rich Demiro wants to
do this show, I would do a live call in

(01:56):
show every single day, and that's all I would do,
and you know, just talk about some of the things
happening in the tech world, plus do the calls live.
But this is the next best thing because it's a
little bit what's the word is it asynchronous? You know,
the let's see, asynchronous means not existing or happening at
the same time, So that's kind of what it is,

(02:17):
right now, so it's asynchronous because you can send me
questions at any time and I can answer them on
my schedule, which is really helpful because my schedule is
kind of all the way over all over the place.
But yeah, like today, I'm doing the podcast in just
a slightly different time than typical, but it all works
out anyway. Welcome to the show. Thanks for tuning in

(02:39):
and listening. And let's just get right to it, because
it just seems like every week I get more and
more questions. So let's just start with the Samsung Galaxy
S twenty one Ultra. I think last week I talked
about the phone, but I didn't give you my opinion
on it. And my opinion on this phone is that
I love it. So it's basically all the problems I

(03:01):
had with a Samsung phone are gone, and honestly, I
kind of want to switch. The only thing that's keeping
me right now is actually two things. The size of
the device, and I feel like maybe I get used
to that because I'm so used to the size of
the iPhone at this point, and the quality of certain apps,

(03:21):
and by certain I mean definitely social media apps are
not as good on Samsung. I don't know why that is,
but it just they don't look as good and they
don't perform as well, and I don't know why that is,
and I mean, I kind of know why, but it's
just really frustrating because this is a powerhouse of a phone.
So everything that I had an issue with they have

(03:43):
seemed to fix. And you know, for starters, it's got
that big screen, it's got the crazy camera set up
on the back, which is you know, like four cameras.
Two are dedicated to zoom, so you can go up
to ten times optical. Then they've got up to one
hundred times space zoom, which last year was unusual, and
this year it actually works. Now I don't think you
ever really need one hundred time zoom, but it actually

(04:06):
does work physically, so when you're zooming in on something.
Last year, you'd have to hold the phone really steady.
Of course it would, you know, you couldn't at a
hundred times because any tiny movement would would mess up
your subject. Well, this time around, they use AI to
kind of focus lock on your subject, and it actually
does that, so that works. There's so many features on

(04:28):
the camera, it's just like you'll never use them all.
I mean, if you go into more, I mean there's
like ar doodle, there's a promo, there's panoramic, there's food,
there's night, there's portrait, portrait video, pro video, super slow mo,
slow motion, hyperlapse, director's view, and you know, it just
goes on and on. Then when you get into the settings,
you've got you know you've got. You can take forty

(04:48):
megapixel front facing camera photos. You can take one hundred
and eight megapixel back camera photos. You can take three
three quarters nine sixteen one to one square pictures or
full pictures. You can take selfies. By One of my
favorite features actually on this device is that when you're
taking a selfie, you can just hold up your hand
like your palm to the camera and it recognizes that

(05:09):
and then it snaps in a picture, which is just
little things like that. Everyday pictures and videos I find
work really well on this camera. They're not you know,
are they one hundred percent as good as as iPhone?
Not always, but sometimes the iPhone messes up. So I
mean it's like, you know, if you take a hundred pictures,
sometimes you know you're gonna say, ah, the iPhone kind

(05:31):
of did better, and other times you can say oh wow,
the Samsung. You can't. You can't match it. So at
this point it's kind of like, you know, some things
the iPhone's gonna do better, some things the Samsung's gonna
do better. I posted a picture on my Twitter of
my afternoon espresso and I don't have one every afternoon,
but many I do, and you know, people are debating
like which one's better, Like, oh this, the left is better,

(05:53):
the right is better the left. They were almost identical
with some subtle nuances to them, And again it comes
down to like maybe the next picture you take the
Samsung will be better versus the iPhone. So I really
am very happy with this device. I love the fact
that you can use the stylus, even though you know
I don't. I would have to get used to just
keeping a stylus in my pocket, I think for that feature.

(06:14):
The whole memory card being gone is definitely a bummer
because it would have been nice to buy a cheaper
phone and then put the memory card in the whole
Samsung taking away the antenna for the Samsung pay eh,
I mean, it's fine. So many places take mobile payment now,
it's fine, And honestly, it was quite tricky to use
the Samsung Pay at a place that didn't accept mobile payments,

(06:35):
because they'd always kind of like be like, no, no,
we don't take mobile payments. You're like, no, no, let
me try this, and they don't really like you fooling
around with payments. The software features the object eraser is
really cool. The ability to share pictures without revealing their
location is really cool. The build in Google Feed is
really cool. So I have no problems recommending this phone.
It's a really great device. And other than the size,

(06:58):
I think it's perfect. And you know, it's heavy, it's big,
but if you want a powerful phone, that's what you
have to kind of go for. And I think the
lesser models, you know, when it comes to like the
S twenty and the S twenty or sorry, the S
twenty one and the S twenty one plus. I didn't
extensively test those. They did send a S twenty for
me to test, but honestly, if I was gonna go

(07:20):
with that size, I'd probably go with the iPhone because
it's going to be a better device. This has the
S twenty one Ultra has everything you need and more
than the iPhone. So that's the difference and why you'd
want to go with this device. If I'm gonna go
with a smaller device that has you know, three time
zoom and you know, a decent screen and whatever and
no no memory card slot, I'd probably just go with

(07:41):
the iPhone at that size. So if you want the
bigger phone, the best, all these cool features, then you
kind of have to go with the with the Ultra.
And that's kind of the dilemma I see myself in.
Also the Apple Watch and AirPods. I have been testing
the Samsung answer to the AirPods, the new ones, the
the Galaxy Buds Pro, and they're good. I mean, I

(08:04):
don't think there is as my favorite as the AirPods.
Just kind of the AirPods stick in my ears, they
just like stay there. The Samsung ones fall out a
little bit easier, but they still they work really well
and they're they're good. So Samsung in twenty twenty one,
you get a good job. I think that you're getting
closer to what the Android lovers kind of want, but

(08:25):
also the everyday person kind of wants. And you know,
if it wasn't for I Message and some of these
other things like the Apple Watch that are really keeping
people locked into the iPhone, you know, and the better
app selection there. I think that you're doing a really
good job, so keep up the good work. And I
think that if you are looking for a Samsung S
twenty one, I have no reservations with any of the

(08:48):
devices that they made this year. I personally would lean
towards the Ultra. But if you want a smaller device
the Ultra, the S twenty one plus is probably a
good middle ground. I haven't tested that one. The S
twenty one is you know about the size of an
iPhone so or an iPhone twelve. I should say, all right,
let's move on, wrong one. Let's move on to the
first question. Let's see and via Facebook says Facebook dot

(09:14):
com slash rich on tech. Did you know that Amazon
eliminated their coal the lending library that was once a
benefit of Prime membership? It went away January fourth, twenty
twenty one. Nice they let members know ahead of time.
Oh yes. The Kindle lending library was kind of a
small feature that was cool but most people did not

(09:36):
know about. And this feature specifically was if you owned
a physical Kindle, they would let you lend out like
I think it was one book at a time or
something like that, and you can go on this Kindle
Lending library and find things like free ebooks basically, and
I did it for a couple of books, and I
thought it was like kind of a secret little weapon

(09:58):
that they had in there that was kind of cool,
like a little benefit. And I don't know if it
ever expanded to like people that had, you know, the
Kindle app, but I think it was anyway, I you know,
they it looks like from an article I said, they
replaced it with like Prime Reading, which I do get
emails about that. But anyway, the Kindle Lending Library, honestly,

(10:20):
it's cool, but it was always so limited anyway, and
what you can get, and it was, you know, tricky
because you can only have one thing out of a
time or something like that. So it's gone. It's I'm
always sad when things go away. But you know, I'm
sure Amazon had the details on how many people actually
took advantage. And what I use now is called libby
l Ibby, which is an amazing app that lets you

(10:42):
get pretty much any ebook for free. Anyway, it is
limited because you're you're actually lending them out from your
local library and there are time limits on that but
I find that it's it's pretty amazing, and so that's
what I've been using to read on my kindle ninety
nine percent of the time. In fact, I went through
my book. I just finished the Instagram book. It was

(11:02):
called I think it was called No Filter. Yeah, no Filter,
and it's called The Inside Story of Instagram, which was great,
and I read it for free through Libby, and when
I was done, it was time for a new book.
And the only downside I find to Libby is that
your books, the books that are available, don't always match
up with your timeframe of when you're done and ready

(11:22):
for a new book. So I ended up downloading a
sample of another book I wanted to read through through
face Sorry, I downloaded a sample through my you know,
just Amazon. And then when I was done with the sample,
it was like, oh, do you want to continue reading
this for eleven dollars and fifty cents? And I couldn't
bring myself to pay because I'm so used to Libby

(11:45):
now and I like getting my stuff for free through Libby.
So but that book's not available right away, so anyway,
I know, I know, but anyway, that's you know, sad
that it's gone but I think that there must have
been a certain amount of people that used it and
didn't take advantage of it. So Amazon said goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
All right, so WhatsApp. You know, they had this big

(12:07):
thing with WhatsApp where they wanted to change their privacy
policy because they I don't know if you can. I
don't know if you can hear this, But I've got
my son in the other room that he can play
like you have no idea. He can play. You know,
I'm working from home and my kid, my nine year old,

(12:29):
I'm not kidding. He can play like you have no idea.
He can take his toys and just play for an
hour in his room and in between his zoom sessions
at school, he goes into his room and he's just
absolutely wild with his play. And it's fantastic. I love
it because it's real play. It gets a little wild,

(12:49):
and you know, he crashes his toys around and stuff.
But like, I don't care, Like my wife is, like
his whole room, the walls are all messed up because
he crashes his toys. Said, I don't care. He's playing
with real toys. Kid does this these days, and so
he screams he yells. He you know, he's got all
these little things that he does with his toys, and
I love it, love it, love it. So if you
can hear that, that's why I'm laughing because it's just

(13:10):
so loud in the background. Anyway, you probably can't hear
it because this mic is really good. But anyway, if
you do, that's what's happening. And kudos to my kid.
I keep telling him start a YouTube channel. He does
have a YouTube channel, but he does like you know,
playing roadblocks and all these other well Roadblocks is banned
in our house, but he does Minecraft, and so you know,
I said, Parker, you really need to do a YouTube

(13:33):
channel where you play with toys and kids just watch
you play with them, because that's really interesting and that's
kind of a lost art with kids these days. My
other kid, my six year old, you know, he'll play
with him a little bit, but you know, these kids,
like I used to play all the time, and my
wife and I were discussing this, like we played NonStop,
like that's all we did, you know, video games once
in a while, but then we played. And anyway, so

(13:54):
I love that he plays and he sets little Google
home alarms that you know, tell him when it's time
to go back to class. Anyway, I digress. If you
wanted a longer podcast, you got it. Okay. So WhatsApp,
they tried to change their policy or their privacy policy,
and people revolted and they said, WhatsApp, we're out now.
I don't really think they need to do that. But

(14:16):
a lot of people have been downloading Signal and Telegram,
and so I did a story on KTLA kind of
explaining the differences between these two apps, and there is
a difference. And number one, I don't think that people
need to flock from WhatsApp. If you're using it, stick
with it. You're fine, especially if you're using Instagram and Facebook.
I mean, it's all the same company. And you know,
if you're not worried about your privacy on Facebook and Instagram,

(14:38):
then you shouldn't be worried about your privacy on Signal
on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is actually very secure because it does
use end to end encryption by default, and not many
apps do that. And what that means is that nobody
can see your messages, not even Facebook, even if they
ever wanted to. So it's very secure. And the reason

(15:01):
why I didn't choose WhatsApp in the past as my
preferred messenger is because it was too secure. I wanted
to be able to access my messages on various devices
at the same time, and when I tried that with WhatsApp,
you couldn't. And that was why I never actually used it,
And I kind of liked Facebook Messenger better because it's
a privacy trade off. If you want to access your

(15:23):
messages across a whole bunch of devices like I do,
you can't. You can use encryption, but you can't use
end to end encryption, and that's what makes all these
other apps. So I ended up using Telegram as my
preferred messaging app for the past couple of years, which
is fine, but I find out it doesn't have end
to end and that's why now Signal does have end
to end. And this is another one that a lot

(15:44):
of people are downloading. And Elon Musk famously tweeted, I
say famously it was a couple of weeks ago, but
he just said, you Signal and this app is end
to end encrypted, and you know, again, it's very secure.
It's the most secure messaging I think you can have
online at this point for the average person. I'm sure
there's something more high powered out there, but for the

(16:06):
average person that could download an app to their iPhone,
I think signal is the most secure. Telegram is secure,
it's just not end to end. Now, if you want
end to end in telegram, before you message someone, you
have to do something what's called a secret chat, and
then that will be end to end. But when I
tested that, my secret chats don't show up on my
various devices because I think it has something to do

(16:27):
with the end to end where it just it can't
put those on various devices because of the encryption. So anyway,
WhatsApp has delayed its changes until May fifteenth. And if
you really want to know the changes that WhatsApp wanted
to do. What they wanted to do is keep your
private messages private. So your personal messages person to person

(16:48):
would still remain end to end encrypted, but the messages
that you send to a business, Facebook wanted to be
able to scan those messages so that they could sell
ads against those messages. And why does that make a
lot of sense? Well, because they figured, Okay, if I'm
a travel agency and I'm communicating with people through WhatsApp,
well and let's say I text the well, let's say

(17:08):
I'm the travel agency, and then you know, I'm the
person on the other end that's texting the travel agency.
While I text the travel agency, hey, do you have
any deals to Maui Hawaii? And Facebook's little bots pick
up on Maui Hawaii and next thing you know, now
they're sending me ads based on Maui or they're selling
me ads sold against my Maui Hawaii interests. And it

(17:30):
makes a lot of sense because you know, while even
Facebook said a lot of people aren't private messaging businesses
right now, but they do see that as a huge
growth area in the future. And they are so right
about that because we're already seeing this with Instagram, where
when you message a business on Instagram or you follow
a business, people just DM them, or on Twitter they
dm them. And I think that Facebook sees the writing

(17:52):
on the wall when it comes to messaging businesses. It's
going to become a very popular way to sort of
get in touch with businesses quickly, and they want to
be a to make money off of that. So I
get it. And again it's it's like, do you really
need those messages to be secure anyway? I mean, you're
sending them to a stranger. So I'm not advocating for
less privacy, but I don't think that if you message

(18:13):
a business, you have any sort of idea that that
message would not be shared among a whole bunch of people.
If I message United Airlines on Twitter, do I think
one person is reading that message? No, many people are
reading it. They're sending it through all kinds of systems
that scan it for like, you know, various things, whatever
I say, and getting it to the right department. And

(18:33):
you know, I think that Facebook, it's tricky. They bought
WhatsApp for a lot of money and you know they
want to make a return on that, and anyway, it
makes a lot of sense. So there you have it.
Now you know the difference. So if you want the
most private, personalized or private messaging, you got to go Signal.
But there are some downsides to that. Again, you know,
I message is just as secure, it's very secure. Well

(18:56):
maybe not just as secure as Signal, but it's very secure.
And so if you're on that, you know, the toughest
part is getting your friends to switch to these various
messaging apps. If they're not on there, they're useless. So
if you can get them a switch, great. If you can't,
just stick with what you got. As long as it's
not text messaging. That's the most insecure messaging out there.
Anyone can read anything you send through text, so don't
use text all right. Next question, Amber, via my Facebook

(19:24):
page Facebook dot com slash rich on text says, with
all the new plus channel streaming, HBO Max and Discovery Plus,
for example, moving shows from cable, do you think cable
services will become obsolete? The answer is probably yes at
some point. Amber, This is a very slow process. It's
kind of like when people have been saying how newspapers

(19:45):
are gonna die forever, and you know, they kind of
have like the delivery to your doorstop, yeah, or your driveway,
I should say, And you know, I was a paperboy
when I was a kid, so believe me, I have
a deep, deep love for newspapers, and I don't get
any delivered. I love the newspaper, and I do read
the Wall Street Journal on a regular basis. But do

(20:07):
I get it delivered? No? Do I love the app? Yes,
I love what I love flipping through the newspapers when
I was, you know, back in my New York city days,
every day, and even very you know what, throughout my
entire life, I always subscribe to newspapers because I love
the idea that it's not siloed. You can be flipping
through the newspaper and you're reading a story that's interesting

(20:30):
and your eyes move to a different part of the
page and huh, I would never normally look up this story,
but here it is on this page, and I'm gonna
read about it. And it opens your mind to things
that in this world these days, with our siloed media,
we are we are just seeing the stuff that we
want to see, and it's very important to see all

(20:50):
kinds of stuff. And that's what the newspaper to me,
always embodied that I'd be reading about, you know, the
stuff that I want to read about, but on that
same page or my a tiny little article about a
company that I don't necessarily know about or care about,
but I'm gonna discover it. And I think that can
be applied to various aspects of the paper and various
sections of the newspaper. And so do I think cable

(21:12):
is going away? Yes, slowly but surely. But I don't
think it's gonna go away right away. But you are
seeing it tougher. Do I think anyone's starting a cable
channel anytime soon? I don't think so. I mean, to
me personally, when I see the programming grid on a
you know, like a TVO kind of screen, I don't

(21:32):
understand why you would need that anymore, because to me,
everything's on demand now. When it comes to live sports
or live news, that's a little bit different. I still
think those are best consumed live. But even on the
evening News last night, I heard them say at the end,
you know, if you don't catch us live, be sure
to DVR us, And I thought that was interesting because
they are recognizing that people do DVR, and you know,

(21:55):
I think that there's a place for that too. I mean,
you know, the station I work for, we're on almost
all day, so I mean you can tune in and
pretty much catch the news at almost any time. But
if you happen to get home at seven thirty and
you know, we're not actively in a newscast and you
TVO the seven PM or the six pm newscast and
then played at seven thirty when you get home, that's fine.

(22:17):
I mean, it makes sense you're probably not gonna watch it.
Three days later, like you would show that you might
might have historically recorded. So good question. I personally am
all in on the streaming services. I love them. I
love the flexibility of them. I love how you can
cancel and resubscribe. The only thing that I think someone
does need to tackle is the whole idea of organization.

(22:38):
It really is tough to find the stuff you want
to watch and figure out where it's playing. And also,
you know, shows could be on a much longer runway
than they ever were for having people discover them. So
Queen's Gambit, for instance, Queen is it Queen's Gambit or
gamble Queen's Gambit? Right, yeah, Queen's Gambit. I had some

(23:00):
friends over socially distanced, very safe in our backyard. This
was months ago, and they said, oh, you got to
watch this show, The Queen's Gambit, And I was like, okay,
I know, there's so many great shows. This was probably
two months before anyone said, oh my gosh, it's the
best show ever, which I still haven't watched, but I
know people love it. So my point is, you know,

(23:20):
how do we find out about these shows? It's kind
of tough, you know, without just the main shows that
are on the main networks. Now there's so many ways
to find new shows, So good question. All right, the
play is still going strong with Fossil has launched a
new LTE equipped smartwatch and this is exclusively on Verizon.

(23:43):
It's called the Fossil Gen five LT Touchscreen smart Watch.
Is that really the name of this thing. It's kind
of a weird name, but it sounds pretty cool. It
sounds like a nice smart watch for users on Android.
It uses wear Os, it's got eight gigabytes of story Bridge,
it's got the snap Dragon Wear thirty one hundred inside

(24:04):
whatever that means. It has LTE, which means you can
sync it with your smartphone using Varizon number Share. And
I have this with my iPhone and what it does
is it basically means that your iPhone and your Apple
Watch are synced up. So if you get a call,
you can leave your your iPhone at home and you
can still just get all your texts and voice, you know,

(24:24):
calls when you're out and about. I love it and
this is a nice alternative on the Android side of things.
Comes in two colors, combination of black straps on a
smoke tone stainless steel and blush straps on a rose
gold case, so it sounds like they're targeting, you know,
whatever your style is. There forty five millimeters case size,

(24:47):
endless strap options. Let's see. It's got a swim proof
speaker so you can have calls functionality and responses from
Google Assistant, which you know, that's kind of neat because
you can hear this all through. So if you're out
and about, you've got the speaker on it, you can
just make your calls hands free through the speaker. It's
got eight gigs of storage, which is fine. It's not

(25:08):
that much, but it's probably good enough. It's got extended
battery mode. It's got daily mode, it's got a time
only mode, so it sounds like they know battery life
is sort of an issue with these things. But you know,
I haven't tested it, so I can't tell you how
it lasts. It's got a one point three inch touchscreen display.
It is swim proof, like I said, which is pretty cool.
It's got NFC so you can have your Tap to

(25:30):
pay in there. It's got GPS, it's got heart rate accelerometer, gyroscope,
ambient light, microphone, and speaker. So I think this sounds
like a winner if you're on Android. Three hundred and
fifty dollars available at Verizon exclusively. So this does come
with a couple of caveats. You have to be on Verizon,
you have to be on Android. But I think the

(25:51):
main thing that's lacking in the Android ecosystem right now
is a nice smart watch that rivals the Apple Watch.
If you've listened to this podcast before, you know I've
said that I love my Apple Watch, and in fact,
it is one of the things that is the glue
for the iOS ecosystem or the Apple ecosystem, and Apple

(26:11):
knows this. Why do you think they haven't made I
Message work with Android? Why do you think they don't
make the iPhone work with Android? Yeah, they could say
all day that it's proprietary and it needs the iPhone.
No it does not. They came out with the way
of using the Apple Watch with the family set up.
You set it up through the iPhone. It never needs
to connect to the iPhone ever. Again, and it's limited,

(26:32):
it's not as perfect, but again, you know, the Apple
knows what they're doing. They're continuing to make their ecosystem.
Whenever you hear the Apple ecosystem in the same line
you always hear sticky or it keeps you in. These
are the products that you know, kind of lock you
in lock in. With Android, we don't have any of
that because there is no lock in. You can take

(26:54):
all your stuff out of Android in about ten seconds
and you can sign into an iPhone and your email
is there, You're everything's there, you know. So I don't
know my switching to the Fossil anytime soon. I don't
think so, but I might want to test it out.
I might request a review unit to test this thing
out because I think that Android users need an alternative

(27:16):
and something that works nicely. And it sounds like this one,
you know, checks off all the boxes of what you'd want.
I don't. The other one is is Fitbit. You know.
There they just got purchased by Google and that deal
is done. So maybe we'll see a nice Fitbit smart
watch that is really really good and a little bit
closer to what Apple offers, especially with the apps and integrations.

(27:39):
I mean, that's really the magic of the Apple Watch
is that they you know, they had a while where
the apps were not really doing much on Apple Watch,
and now they've gotten to the point where like there
are some pretty useful things on Apple Watch. Well I
take that back. Most of it is pretty much the
standard stuff built in, but there are enough apps on
there that there are functionality that you know sometimes you

(27:59):
know you want to use and they work pretty well.
So all right, let's go to podpage dot com slash
rich on tech podpage dot com slash rich on tech
for a voice message. This is this is where you

(28:20):
can leave a voicemail on my page and uh, I
will I will hear it. So that's what Donald did.
Let's hear you. Donald, Hey, you're rich. What do you
think about the Microsoft Surface pro Dude?

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Just got I want to know what do you think
about it? Thank you? All right, now I'm not sure
if Donald said Surface pro Dude or Surface pro Duo,
so I you know, I don't know. Well, okay, so

(28:57):
if you're talking about the Surface pro Duo. Oh, the
surface pro Duo is a is Microsoft's smartphone slash tablet
slash foldable device and it's you know, it's a small
foldable device. And this is funny. This is I Justine
when I was up at CS she brought her Surface Duo.

(29:19):
They did not send me one for review. Purposes. I
guess they figured my audience was not interested in this.
But you know, it is kind of a niche device
because it's expensive and it's a first generation, and I
probably I might have talked a little bit of trash
about it because I said that, you know, it's kind
of a first generation, i'd stay away from it. So
maybe they heard that and they just said, no, we're

(29:40):
not gonna even bother with you, Rich. But whatever the
reason is, Justine said she actually likes it a lot.
It's a great size, she loves how it opens up.
And while she did not let me touch it because
of COVID reasons, you know, it looked cool. But I'll
be honest, she was on her iPhone most of the time,
so I mean, you know, but she said she loves

(30:02):
browsing the web on it and doing all that cool stuff.
And I look, I think that this kind of device
is part of our future. There are definitely gonna be
more iterations of this, and I think the biggest downside
was the camera on that device. But otherwise, I mean, yeah,
something that folds up and you can use it for
texting and browsing the web and all that stuff. I
think it's great now the Surface Pro if you were

(30:25):
talking about that, I mean, Microsoft has had a lot
of success with the Surface lineup, and I think they're
doing a great job. And I think, in fact, Microsoft
in general is really doing a nice job with their
top to bottom kind of integration of apps and services.
And I really have not seen a dud out of
Microsoft in a while, and I think that they are

(30:47):
doing a really nice job. I think they understand that
there is a there's a large amount of people out
there that do not necessarily need Apple products, and they
want to be a little bit more productive, and they
want something on the Windows side because they're more a
little bit more business oriented. And so these Surface devices
have been great because they double as a you know,

(31:07):
a tablet and a laptop. And I think we've seen
Apple not copy, but we've seen inspiration because Surface was
doing this way way long ago, where you had a
device that could stand up on its own and has
a keyboard case and a stylus. And we kind of
see the identical thing now with Apple with their iPad
pro and they all kind of support a stylist. They

(31:29):
all have got the keyboard cases, they all can stand
up on their side. So again, different people need different things,
and I think that these are are a great little device.
And it kind of depends what you want to do.
Are you in the Apple ecosystem or are you more
business oriented with the Microsoft stuff because your company uses
all Microsoft so and I think they've seen a lot

(31:52):
of a lot of take up with the you know,
with the business side of things with teams, especially during
the pandemic. And also, let's not forget Microsoft Edge. I've
talked about how good that browser is. So I think
no matter what she asked about Donald, whether it was
the Duo or the Surface Pro, I think they're both

(32:13):
great products. I think the Duo I would not recommend
purchasing because I just don't think that it's there just yet.
But I think it's something to watch. And again, just
like Microsoft was pretty early with the original Surface, I
think the Duo is a little bit early when it
comes to foldables. Even with Samsung, we saw their first
foldable to the second gen, they did a great job

(32:33):
of improving it. In fact, I was just watching a
video with all the YouTubers saying with their favorite gadget
of the year was, and a lot of them was
the Z fold they really really the z Fold two specifically,
they loved it, and I love that device when I
had it. It's just again, it's not for me right now,
but I think it's one of those things to keep
an eye on. So good question. All right, let's move

(32:55):
on to I thought this was pretty interesting. Bark is
a company that analyzes social media and apps that your
kids are using. And they've got like kind of like,
you know, a lot of parents will email me and say, hey, Rich,
how do I monitor what my kid's doing on Snapchat
and all these things. Bark will analyze like thirty plus
apps and platforms to see kind of like what your

(33:17):
kids are doing, and they could send you alerts based
on AI. So instead of having to go through every
text message that your kids is that your kids are sending,
AI will say this one looks a little sus you
might you might want to look into that one. So
they analyzed, uh, let's see, let's see. They analyzed children's
online activity with a specific focus on kids ten to eighteen,

(33:41):
and they analyzed more than I don't know two billion
messages across thirty apps. And here are the trends. Seventy
six percent of teens and eighty two percent, oh, seventy
six percent of tweens and eighty two percent of teens
experienced cyber bullying. Forty five percent of tweens and six
six percent of teens engaged in conversations about depression. Now,

(34:03):
that was just unheard of when I was a kid.
I mean, I honestly didn't even really know what that
was when I was a kid. And now my wife
being a therapist, I mean I definitely or yeah, counselor
therapist for teens, I mean I definitely hear more about that,
which is just wild. Seventy percent of teens and eighty
seven percent of teens encountered nudity or content of a

(34:25):
sexual nature. That's scary, because again, when I was a kid,
didn't really have that either. Forty one percent of tweens
and sixty six percent of teens were involved in self
harm slash suicidal situation. That's really scary. Seventy eight percent
of tweens, ninety one percent of teens engaged in conversations
surrounding drugs and alcohol, and eighty eight percent of tweens

(34:48):
and ninety four percent of teens expressed or experienced violent
subject matter or thoughts. So I think the takeaway from
this is that your kids are being exposed to a
lot of stuff, whether you realize that not, especially being home,
especially being on computers, especially how connected they are. I mean,
my kid the other day was on Minecraft and I

(35:08):
was looking at his chats over his shoulder for a second,
and the person on the other end was asking my
kid if they can call them, and he was saying,
I don't know. You know, I said, hold on, what's
going on here? And the person was like, hey, you know,
I don't really like to use voice to text. It's
so much easier just to just to call. Can I

(35:29):
call you? And my kid doesn't know who this person is.
And so my point is you have to be really
on top of this stuff because I don't know who
this person was that my kid was communicating with, which
is scary as a parent to begin with. But you know,
this person was sounding like someone I don't want my
kid to talk to, and so my kid was like, well,

(35:49):
he's just saying that he wants to you know, it's
easier to talk. And I said, I don't know. That's
that's a little weird. And anyway, so you gotta be
you gotta be careful about this stuff. Let's see. So
the apps that are the scariest for all these different
things I just talked about. Top app for flagged for
suicidal stuff is Twitter. Top app for depression Twitter. These

(36:13):
are apps that are flagged by ai as seeing the
most conversations dealing with these things. Top app flagged for
severe body concerns, body issue concerns, body image concerns, TikTok,
no surprise there, severe bullying Twitter. Let's see top apps. Okay, yeah, so,

(36:35):
if I'm reading this correctly as a parent, Twitter is
the problem. Instagram is a close second because a lot
of kids are on there. But realistically, what this comes
down to is where the kids communicating and it's yeah,
I mean it's Twitter, it's Instagram. So you just got
to be aware of this stuff. I don't have the answers.
I really don't, because I'm seeing what's happening with my

(36:57):
kids in lockdown and they're on their computers more or
they're just doing more things than I ever did at
their age on devices, And I don't really have advice
except that you have to kind of just monitor and
stay on top of this stuff and do the best
you can and just kind of be aware that it's happening,
and just don't pretend that you don't think it's happening,

(37:19):
because it's happening. All right, let's get to another question.
God really Debbie Downer over here in that section of
the podcast, let's talk to Don. Don says, I live
in Westchester very close. Oh shoot, well, I guess I
could say where they live. I live in Westchester, very
close to Lax. Today we had a sales guy from
Starry Internet come by to offer us free internet for

(37:42):
six months as they are beta testing in our area.
I've never heard of them, Starry dot com. Do you
know anything about this service? You're the first person I
thought to ask, sincerely, Don, Yes, Don, I do know
about this service. So I was at an event back
when you can go to a little get togethers, about
probably three years ago at this point that the people

(38:03):
from Starry were there, and they said, we're launching wireless
internet in Los Angeles. That's going to be fifty megabits
per second. And I said, what how are you doing that?
Like this was unheard of, right, even fifty megabits was
like fast back then, And so I said, I don't
think you could do that, and sure enough, a couple
years later, they actually did. They showed me the little

(38:23):
modem they had and I asked them how they were
going to do it. I said, is this coming from
the you know, is this coming from the sky, Like,
where's this coming from? And it was coming from wireless
antennas that they installed on top of buildings and then
that would, you know, somehow beam the Internet into the
building with the wireless kind of router in your or
so basically they've put an antenna somewhere, you know, either

(38:44):
near your building or on top of it, and then
they would give you a modem that was wireless and
it would grab that signal from over the air and
then put it into your house or your apartment. And
so they've done a pretty good job. They've expanded, for sure.
I think it's back then they pitched it to me,
it was like fifty bucks a month for fifty megabits
per second, and I don't know if that's changed. I can,

(39:05):
I guess I can look it up, but yeah, go
for it. I mean, if they're giving you six months free,
I would definitely do that. So now it looks like outrageous, Okay.
Their website says thirty dollars a month for fast internet,
and that is up to one hundred megabits per second,
and fifty dollars a month now gives you up to

(39:25):
two hundred megabits per second. And I guess they're using
five G to accomplish this, So I'm guessing they're piggybacking
on either you know, Verizons five G network or AT
and T's five G. But again, this all goes into
kind of the idea that I've talked about on the

(39:46):
show for many years that when we get this five
G super fast internet in a lot of places, it's
going to be game changing because you are now going
to have a choice at your house of T Mobile
as you're internet, Verizon as your internet, AT and T
as your Internet, and that's huge. So you know, you

(40:08):
don't have to do you don't have to go with
just the people that can wire a line to your place,
which you know right now, that's pretty much what most
people are limited to. So it's gonna open up competition,
it's gonna be great, It's gonna be you know, less contracts.
I mean, right now, I don't think there's any contracts
with any of these, but it's gonna be good, and
so more competition is going to be better, and we're
just gonna continue to see these five G networks build

(40:30):
out in a bigger and better way. All right, let's
go to the next story on my list here. This
this is an interesting one. We've we've heard about these
things before. They keep trying them. I'm telling you this
just to be aware of it. But I don't think
it's gonna succeed. But hopefully it does, but I don't
think so. So there's a new app called Beeper, and

(40:51):
what they're trying to do is unify all of your
messaging into one app. And it works with WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger,
I Message, Android Messages, Telegram, Twitter, Slack, Hangouts, Instagram, Skype,
and a whole lot more. Now I don't know number one,
the idea that one inbox can work with all these

(41:12):
different messaging apps. I mean, I have got to see
it to believe it. We've seen this before and it's
never as pretty or as good as you want. And
the big one here that a lot of people are
talking about is the fact that this will work with
I Message. And you think to yourself, well, wait, nothing
works with I Message. And the reality is how they're

(41:34):
making it work with I message is a little bit
of foolery, a little bit of trickery here. And the
trick here is that they are actually giving you an
iPhone for s that is jailbroken, that you keep kind
of like in your house, connected to the internet, so
that that can be the relay for your I message

(41:55):
at all times. Now, that is a very very scary
thing because you know, it's it's weird. It's a workaround. Yes,
does it work, probably, but will it will they find
a loophole or will Apple close loophole? Probably, So you
can't really build a business on something like you know,
kind of wedging. You're wedging a you know, you're wedging

(42:18):
into a hole that you just can't really stay in,
you know, because Apple is going to figure out a
way around this. Now maybe they won't. Maybe because there's
been other things over the years that do something similar.
And you know, there's these programs that make you install
like a server on your computer to relay your eye messages,
but your your computer has to be on the whole time,

(42:39):
and that's just not very realistic. So I guess with
the phone it kind of makes sense. You just keep
the phone plugged in at all times in your house.
It's on Wi Fi and somehow it relays the message.
But again it has to be jail broken because there's
nothing that would be able to tap into that I message.
That would just be an app you can standard install

(43:00):
on your phone. So this gets very complicated. It's called Beeper.
You can check it out. But again, it's also ten
bucks a month. And people are excited because it sounds
great to have all your messages in one place and
finally be free of Apple's lock on your I message.
But the reality is, I don't think it's gonna work.
But we'll say maybe I'm wrong. Sometimes I am wrong.

(43:24):
All right, let's take another message from podpage dot com,
slash rich on tech, podpage dot com, slash rich on tech.
If you want to leave a voicemail, just look in
the lower right hand corner for the microphone and you
can leave a voicemail just like Michael did.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Hey Rich, this is Michael from micro Break podcast and
I just wanted to thank you for your show. I
learned something every single time I listened to it, and
I've been listening for the past few years. As a
matter of fact, it was one of the first podcasts
that I ever listened to and subscribe to. I just
wanted to thank you. You've also been an inspiration and
starting my own podcast, and I really appreciate everything you do.

(44:03):
Keep up the great work, and thanks again for your
technical advice.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Wow. Well, thank you Michael. Michael. I often I recognize
the name because I often see you tweeting me on Twitter,
so I will check out your podcast, the micro Break Podcast.
So yeah, you know, I'm not listening to as many
podcasts these days as I would like, and so I'm

(44:28):
not like I used to have my I used to
have like a podcast playlist that I would listen to
on basically anytime I was in the car. So anytime
I was driving to work, driving home, driving to my stories,
I would listen to so many podcasts. And because I'm
not driving, it's really tough for me to listen. And
I don't really listen to podcasts at home for some reason.

(44:49):
I don't know if I'm programmed wrong or what, but
I can't really listen to podcasts in the background. Number one.
And I also can't listen to podcasts while I'm working.
I can't have my ear like on a podcast, you know,
with like headphones in while I'm trying to work, So
that just doesn't work with me. And if I listen
while I'm working, like if I have it on like

(45:09):
a smart speaker in the background, I don't listen to
the podcast because I can't really hear it. So anyway,
there's a there's a lot of stuff that I Anyway,
I don't know what my point was, but thank you
Michael for listening. I get so distracted. I'm not kidding.
I'm sitting here doing this podcast. My watch is going
off like crazy. I'm gonna take that off because it

(45:31):
just keeps vibrating. My computer keeps going off. I guess
people are texting. Oh now, my phone's going on. I
can't win. There's just too many things, Oh my gosh,
too much technology surrounding me. I want to focus just
for an hour so I can do this podcast. But Michael,
thank you for that. And when I get to listening
to podcasts more, believe me, I will listen to more.
All right, let's get oh my gosh, another Michael, another Michael.

(45:54):
For the next question, Michael says, hey, Rich, I went
to my carrier store of Verizon to see about up
creating my old iPhone six plus and expected to pay
the seven hundred dollars for a newer model. They said
if I traded it in, they would give me five
hundred dollars towards an iPhone twelve, but I'd have to
sign up for a new unlimited plan that would last
for two years. I really don't care about the two
year commitment because I've been with them for twelve years.

(46:15):
But I don't see how they can give me five
hundred dollars towards a new phone. I've always bought directly
from Apple and they would only give me fifty dollars
for it. I've never been on a monthly plan, so
it's strange new territory for me. I'm sixty eight years old,
I have a brother and sister. On my plan, I
pay ninety five dollars for two gigs a month. However,
they've given me an extra two gigs for being a
retired vet. Thank you for your service. I do appreciate that, Michael. Together,

(46:39):
we use less than two gigs a month, so the
data is not an incentive. They also said my monthly
bill would only increase by five dollars. I've always believed
that if it sounds too good to be true, it
probably is. But I thought i'd write to see if
you can enlighten me a bit on how these monthly
plans work. Thank you for your time and information you
can give me. Michael, you are very smart for saying
if it sounds too good to be true, probably is,

(47:01):
And for this deal, I'd probably say, here's okay. Number one,
these carriers are not just out of the kindness of
their heart giving you a very expensive phone for very cheap.
So you kind of nailed it in certain ways. You
said that you have to sign up for a new
unlimited plan. That's your first red flag and it would

(47:21):
last for two years. Now you are kind of okay.
The thing is, the plan is contract free. There is
no contract with the plan. But here's where they get you.
That seven hundred dollars are giving you for that iPhone
twelve towards the iPhone twelve. It is pro rated, which
means it is spread out over twenty four months. So

(47:46):
the way they do it is that if you cancel
before those twenty four months are up, guess what You've
lost your promotion, and now that promotion you have to
pay it back and you owe, I don't know the
full amount, I think. And them telling you that your
plan is only going to go up five dollars a month,
I don't believe that at all. You've got three people

(48:07):
on your plan. There is no way that you can
get three people on a plan for one hundred dollars
a month. That's just that's not possible through Verizon on
an unlimited plan. Now, unlimited plans at Verizon might start
at eighty dollars a month, and that's you know, for
the three of you. But or they may say that
your plan's only going up five dollars. They didn't mention
the other two plans that you also have to pay,

(48:29):
So I you know, I think so. I used to
sell cell phones a long time ago, and the joke
was always, you know, we used to give the phones
away for a penny and you sign up for the plan.
And back then it was like minutes, you know, you
got like three hundred minutes, probably like twenty five minutes,
whatever it was. It was so long ago, but like clockwork,
people would get their phone for a penny and they'd
come back into the store after a month when they

(48:52):
got their first bill or a month and a half,
they'd be like, what's this five hundred dollars bill? And
they didn't realize that their whole, entire, the whole, the
whole thing was that you got your phone for a penny,
but your monthly plan was so expensive. And by the way,
you had to pay a month upfront, so you're pro
rated by the time you got out of the store.
I mean you were. You know this, this fifty dollars
a month plan would turn into one hundred and fifty

(49:13):
two hundred dollars and people would be like, why is
my bill two hundred dollars? And then we politely explain
all the details that we kind of glazed over. Now,
I was never misleading, believe me, but I think some
people were. And those were the people I had to
clean up after with their bills when they came in
and so anyway, but I think that's what's happening here.
I don't want to say that the person is being nefarious,

(49:35):
but I think that they're leaving some things out and
not explaining other things properly. But there is no such
thing as just a free seven hundred dollars phone anymore.
They are getting you some way and in this case,
they are making up the price of that phone over
the increased charges to your monthly plan over time, and
that's that's really what they're doing. I've seen people where

(49:56):
they activate an additional line on like an iPad to
get it for free, and it's never free. It is
never free. You're always paying in some way, even if
you're paying more for your monthly service than you have
to because for you, Michael, honestly, I would recommend switching
to what's called Visible and you can get a unlimited

(50:17):
plan for forty dollars a month, and if you have
your brother and sister on it, it even drops down further
because they take off five dollars a month for each
additional person, so you can have you for forty and
actually I think it goes down for all three of you,
so I think it would end up being like thirty
dollars a month for each of you. So anyway, that's
what I would look into, Michael, as as a way

(50:38):
to really save money. You'll have to pay for your phone,
but you can actually save money month in, month out
and not really need to think about all this stuff.
All right. I talked about Microsoft Edge and Microsoft just
a little bit ago. But you know, so I ended
up switching back to Chrome, which I'm kind of regretting,
even though I just love Chrome. But I should go

(50:58):
back to Edge. But Edge they continue to do cool things.
Now they're adding a password generator, and I'm getting a
lot of questions in the new year about passwords and
password management, and for good reason, because everyone's getting hip
to the fact that we don't want to be hacked
and we want our passwords to be strong. So use
a password program. You can use last pass, you can

(51:20):
use Dashlane, you can use one password, or I recommend
if you are on a platform, like if you're only
using Google stuff an Android phone along with Chrome on
your computer, you can use built into Chrome, they have
a password function. So let's see where you find it.
You go into more tools. You can go into let's

(51:41):
see okay, sorry settings, and let's see autofill and then passwords,
and you can say offer to save passwords, and boom.
You can just Chrome. When you come up against a
website that needs a password, it will help you make one,
it will save that for you, it will retrieve it

(52:01):
the next time you try to log in. And you
can also you know, copy and paste passwords out of
Chrome into other products as well, and it all work
on your Android phone. Now if you are using iOS
stuff or an Apple stuff only, so I'm talking iOS
Android or iOS iPhone and an Apple computer and iPad,

(52:24):
then go ahead and use what's built into Apple, which
is their own password program. So you can go into
settings and go into passwords and then it can say
autofill passwords and just turn that on and make sure
that iCloud keychain is turned on. And now again the
same thing. When you get up against a password or

(52:45):
a form that needs to be filled out with a password,
or a new app you sign up for, it will say, hey,
we'll suggest a password for you. It will save those,
it will plug them back in when you need them,
and it's pretty simple. And on your desktop if using
Safari or you know, Mac computer, it will do the
same thing. Now, if you're using a bunch of different
devices like I am, you want to use one of

(53:06):
these third party services, So now Edge has one, so
you can use that and you know, or you can
use one of these other ones I mentioned, like last past,
dash Lane or one Password. But anyway, in the new
Microsoft Edge, they do have the new password generator and keeper,
so you can just use that as well. Yeah, there

(53:27):
you have it. All right, let's get to another question here.
So many questions. Hey rich love keeping up with you
and all the updates and reviews. Question amber X, personal
cloud storage. Have you had a chance to review these
types of devices yet? Thank you for your time, Leo.

(53:50):
So amber X, gotta look this one up because I
was not aware of this. Your privacy first, personal cloud
and the immediate thing I see on this website is indiegog.
So I'm gonna say nothing against indiegg or against kickstarters,
but honestly, I don't know. I mean, I don't know

(54:13):
if this is a thing that you want to purchase
because it's is it available, is it shipping? Let's see
estimated shipping April twenty twenty one, So maybe it's great,
but you know, let's wait till April twenty twenty one
for our decision on this thing. It's basically, from what

(54:35):
I can see, it looks like a file your own
personal cloud storage device that you can put, you know,
all your stuff in, and it's like kind of like
Google Drive, but from anywhere. Now, if you want something
like this, there's a couple of things that are already
available that do it already, and so I would recommend
looking into something called EB which is IBI and they

(54:55):
already have a device that will collect your photos and
it's made by Western Digital, and so you know, it's
a company that's reputable and it's private, nothing shared with
the cloud, and that is ninety dollars for one terabyte
of storage and again no monthly fees. You can plug
your stuff into the back of it, like your cards,
and it will it will find all that stuff. Or
you can put an app on your phone and it

(55:19):
will find the stuff on your app as well. You know,
the app will find the pictures that you take on
your phone. So EB is the thing that I recommend.
If you want a little bit of more of a
industrial solution, there is a drive that I use called
Sonology s y Nloguy and Sonology is more of a

(55:40):
build your own solution. It's basically a network attached storage
drive that you put in your house and the magic
is really their software. They do all kinds of stuff,
but you put a hard drive in this or a
couple and next thing you know, you can put all
your stuff on there, save it, store it, and it
will work. I don't use this anymore because I don't
really have a reason too. But if you know, if

(56:01):
you still want to have all your stuff private and
on your own cloud, you know, those are the ways
to do it. I actually need to set this back
up again because I need to sync my Google Drive
to it. I used to have it synked back when
Google Drive would sink your Google Photos. I would have
a copy of my Google Photos sync to my Synology
at all times. Ever since they made Google Photos its

(56:21):
own thing and very locked up and you can't just
synk it with anything, which is really unfortunate. I I'm
kind of in a tough place right now because the
only way to get your Google photos is to download
them completely. And I do think that Google needs to
address this issue and make either an agreement with something
like an eb or something like a Synology to let

(56:44):
you sink your photos in your collection to a hard
drive or I mean literally, they just need they just
need to link up with a Wi Fi connected hard
drive with software and say, you know, and just have
one thing where you can just say a click and say,
just please download a copy of my photos at all times,
like keep this in sync with my Google Photos, and

(57:04):
I don't know why Google is not doing that, because
it's kind of a major, a major issue for me
as someone who has built up an entire collection inside
Google Photos in the cloud. I need a physical copy
of my photos somewhere and I need them with me
at all times, and right now I don't have that,
which is kind of a problem. So good question. But
yet check out the alternatives that I mentioned. All right,

(57:28):
let's see, let's do maybe one more story. Netflix coming
out with a shuffle button. And the only reason I
mentioned this because I think it's cool, but I think
they could go a step further so that you know,
I'm sorry. But and maybe I've talked about this in
the show. But if you're sitting down to Netflix with
literally no clue as to what you want to watch,
and you're so desperate you have to press a shuffle

(57:50):
button to like have something start playing without you doing anything,
you've got a lot of time on your hands. So
and yes, I sit down to the TV and sometimes
I don't know to watch, and I do sit there
in my limited time that I watch stuff, but I
kind of have an idea of what I want to see,
and especially with YouTube, you know, and all these things.
They have personalized homepages to help you find that stuff,

(58:12):
but like, you should be a little bit more targeted,
but you know, if you're not whatever. But what I
do think would be cool is if they took this
shuffle feature a little bit further and they actually shuffled
movie scenes. I think that would be cool. So if
I'm sitting down to watch Netflix and maybe or maybe
I just want my TV on in the background, I

(58:33):
can just hit shuffle, like shuffle sports movie scenes, shuffle
notable you know, crime movie scenes, shuffle notable holiday scenes
for the holidays. I think that would be cool. And
I don't think it would take much for Netflix to
do that because all their stuff is probably cataloged anyway.
But that's the future i'd like to see. I'm sorry

(58:54):
to knock you if you think this. The shuffle feature
is really cool, but I don't know. I'm sorry, but
I'm not gonna sit down and like discover a new
movie by pressing a shuffle button and like next thing,
you know, I'm like, oh wow, cool, I'll just sit
here for the next two hours watching this, Like, don't
don't think so. I like the idea of it more
being in the background. The shuffle, the shuffle scene feature
is what I want. And yeah, the stuff that they're shuffling,

(59:18):
they say will be based on an algorithm of stuff
you've previously watched. But I can't imagine a world where
I sit down on a Friday night and I just
press a shuffle button on Netflix and let Netflix just
play some random show for me. I just can't imagine that.
So I guess it's popular enough where people want it,
but for me personally, I just don't need that. All right,

(59:44):
let's see here. Oh my gosh, so many questions, so
many questions. Let's see what else. Okay, let's do this question.
That's my final question. Let's see. Patricia writes in a
couple of questions regarding this year's CEO, of which I
still miss attending for work. I saw the segment regarding

(01:00:04):
the new Samsung Galaxy S twenty one Ultra. I am
not in need of a new phone. However, with the
constant changes with the cameras, perhaps late twenty twenty one
early twenty twenty two, I would consider, based on your
tech experience between Apple users since two thousand and five
and Samsung, which do you prefer would be used for
phone camera and some store docs and minimal social network,

(01:00:25):
maybe play a game once in a while. You could
say I'm old school, I use the phone for basics.
So good question, Patricia. But I find that it's really
tough for me to tell you whether you should go
with Samsung or Apple, because I really think that it
comes down to sort of your personal preference and a
user's personal preference. So you know, what Apple fans like
about Apple products is that it's simple, it works. All

(01:00:48):
the accessories kind of come from Apple. They all work
together seamlessly, and there are also tons of third party
options for accessories, things like cases and add ons and
outs and lights and all kinds of stuff that works
around the iPhone. I mean, it's in its entire industry.
And you also have the best selection of apps on

(01:01:09):
the iPhone. And I'm not just saying that to be facetious,
Like apps seem to work better on iOS. I don't
know what it is if the developers take longer to
code them, or if there's less devices to code for
so they just work better and they seem prettier. But
that's just the case now with Samsung. I think what
you get there is you get sort of the anti iPhone, right.

(01:01:31):
iPhone is the thing that a lot of people have.
When you have a Samsung, you're kind of saying, I'm
not having an iPhone. Right when you see someone that
has a Samsung, you kind of ask, oh, why, I
don't know why. That's just the reason. It was kind
of what we do. And so people have their reasons for, oh,
I don't really care about phones, I just got this,
or I like Samsung because I don't like Apple, or

(01:01:52):
I like Samsung for this feature X feature, and I
feel like with Samsung they are kind of known as
always pushing the envelope. So the features you see on
the Samsung devices eventually come to Apple a couple years later.
But Apple does put their own spin on them, and
many times they perfect them, Like I wouldn't be surprised
if we see a space zoom feature on the iPhone

(01:02:13):
in a couple of years. But it might be perfected,
you know, whereas we're seeing it right now for the
past two years on Android with Samsung. But it's is
it perfect?

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
Does it work yes? Is it cool? Yes? Now the
price ranges is also another thing. Now I think Apple's
gotten a lot better about having phones and various price
ranges in recent years, but Samsung has been known for
having phones and all kinds of price ranges, and their
phones are also I would say, much more discounted with

(01:02:43):
various deals than the Apple phones are. So you say
you want basic, it really depends. If you've been using
iPhone and you're fine with it since two thousand and five,
then stick to iPhone. All your stuff's in there, You've
got all the apps that you purchased. But if you
want to change, you want to try something different, go
with the S twenty and see how you like it.
I don't think you need the Ultra because you said
you're basic, and you know, if you don't need all

(01:03:04):
those extra features, why pay for them. And I do
think if you were doing if you told me you're
doing something like video capture or content creation or editing
or social media posting, I would say iPhone is a
little bit better for that. Or if you said I
need a smart watch, I do think iPhone is better.
But I think this Samsung is going to be perfectly

(01:03:25):
fine if you you know, if you so choose. I
would also look into something like the Pixel five because
or the Pixel four A five G because they have
that has a slightly bigger screen, It's got great software,
and it will probably do the things that you need.
It really depends if you want to If you want
to step away from iPhone, then I think you'll be fine.
On the Android side. At this point, they're between the

(01:03:46):
Samsung Galaxy S twenty lineup or sorry, did I say
S twenty this whole time S twenty one lineup and
the Pixel the latest pixels. I think you're gonna find
something that is gonna suit your needs. So good question.
I don't get it very often anymore, but it is
something that you know, people do wonder about. And for myself,
I think that Samsung. You know, like I said, I

(01:04:09):
love iPhone, I mean I really do. I think there's
so many amazing things you can do on it. But
I also see the beauty of the operating system on
Android that just kind of lets you do as you please.
You know, you can really customize it to your to
a great, great extent. All right, Well, that music means
it is the end of the show. Thank you so
much for listening. If you'd like to submit a question

(01:04:30):
for me to answer, you can do it. Two ways
You can go to rich on Tech dot tv slash podcast,
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(01:04:54):
You can find me on all social media platforms at
rich on Tech. That's Instagram, that Facebook, that's Twitter. I've
been spending most of my time on Instagram these days,
but I am popping in on all of them for sure.
My name is rich Demiro. Thank you so much for listening.
Have a fantastic day, Stay safe, and I will talk
to you very soon.