February 5, 2021 • 51 mins
Apple makes it easier to unlock iPhone while wearing a mask; Jeff Bezos steps down as Amazon CEO; Apple Car inches closer to reality; an app to freeze up your webcam; security issues with inexpensive video doorbells and cameras.Listeners ask about paying for iPhone virus protection, the best way to print out photos, controlling kids' screen time and online access, if the S21 is worth buying, and the easiest way to de-dupe photos on the iPhone.Follow Rich!Apple Watch unlocks iPhoneBezos letterApple CarFreezingCam.comVideo doorbell security issuesControl kids screen timePhoto de-dupe AppRichOnTech.tvSee 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
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
You can now unlock your iPhone with your Apple Watch,
dangerous smart doorbells, freezing your webcam on purpose? Plus your
tech questions answered? What's going on on rich Demiro? And
this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk
about the tech stuff I think you should know about,
and it is the place right answer the questions that
(00:32):
you send me. So who am I? The tech reporter
at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. That is where
I present stories on a wide variety of consumer tech
topics on a daily basis. I also post stuff to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
I'm having a lot of fun there lately because, oh,
(00:53):
let me just tell a quick story. I had no
idea this book was so impactful. Story. My kid and
I are in Target and this has nothing to do
with tech, but we're in Target and my kid sees
a book that he wants to get two of them.
One was like a dinosaur book. The other one was
(01:13):
this book called Love You Forever. And so I get
him the books and my wife I didn't have a
chance to read it to him first. My wife read
it to him the next night or so, and he
comes into my office the next morning and he just
puts the book on my desk. He goes, Dad, can
you please return this? I said, what why? I just
(01:34):
I don't want it. I didn't know it was so sad.
I'm like, oh, okay, So I take the book and
I you know, at dinner that night, I'm talking to
my wife about the book, and I'm like, what's the deal.
She's like, oh, just go ahead, try to read it
to him. So I started reading this book called Love
You Forever. And let's just say it is nearly impossible
to get through this book without needing at least a
(01:58):
box of tissues. And I don't know what it is.
If it's the words, if it's the way it's written,
if it's the combination of the pictures. But I was like,
I was, Oh my gosh, it was really really interesting.
And so I said, wow, if this happened to me,
I wonder if someone else out there has ever heard
of this book or had this happen. And I posted
(02:18):
my Facebook and sure enough, the comments just come flooding in.
And clearly I was very late to the train with
with the Love You Forever book. Because it's been around forever.
People know it, people know it to be a tear
jerker and just the way it is. So anyway, if
you really want to challenge yourself, I think there needs
to be a TikTok challenge with this book because you
(02:41):
can't make it through the end without If your eyes
are dry by the end, there might be something wrong
with you. I'm just saying. So, I think there should
be a TikTok challenge once these kids discover this book,
because well they wouldn't be it probably wouldn't affect them,
but they should give it to their parents. The TikTok
challenge should be they give this book to their pay parents,
record them reading it and see how far they get
(03:02):
before Niagara falls. Anyway, I hope you're having a fantastic day.
I hope you're having a great week and everything's good
over here. Just really excited about where the future lies
with this whole pandemic, you know, getting through it. It
feels like there's a little light at the end of
(03:23):
the tunnel at this point. I mean, people I know
that are close to me have gotten the vaccine and
that is very exciting. And I just the numbers where
I live in Los Angeles have been dropping, so that's good. Restaurants,
I got a haircut the other day. Can't believe that
little ding for the haircut. And anyway, so it's good.
(03:44):
I'm feeling good and I have a lot of hope
for things getting better. Speaking of the pandemic Apple with
the iPhone, they're now letting you use your Apple Watch
as a way to unlock your iPhone. This is a
new feature coming to iOS fourteen point five, which'll be
the next version of the mobile operating system. They did
come out with a beta for developers and a public beta,
(04:07):
but I don't really recommend that you download the public
beta unless I don't know. I always find that they're exciting,
but you know, then you kind of regret it at
the end of the day because now your phone is
not on the standard track, and it's you know, unless
you're a real real techi that it's just it's kind
of a headache sometimes because there's a little bug that
affects something that you want to do, it's going to
be a problem. And so that's for that reason I
(04:29):
just kind of stay away. I used to do the
public betas, but I don't really do it anymore. If
you have a test device, fine, but this new feature
will allow you to put on a in Settings on
the Apple Watch or Settings on the iPhone, rather under
face ID and passcode, you can opt into iPhone unlock
with Apple Watch, and so the iPhone will recognize when
(04:49):
you are wearing a mask and you try to unlock
your iPhone, and it will default to checking to see
if the Apple Watch is on your wrist. If it's
on your wrist and it's unlocked, and you haven't removed
it from your wrist, and you know, I'm sure Apple
has some little secret security baked into this whole process,
it will then go ahead and unlock your phone. You'll
feel a haptic feedback on your watch or on your wrist,
(05:11):
so that you know that your watch has unlocked your phone.
I think this is fantastic. It's not a new idea.
I mean, Android has had this forever. It's smart unlock.
I mean they've had this forever, forever, forever. But the
difference here is you know they're using I guess they're
using Bluetooth to do it. The other thing is that
(05:32):
this feature already works with the Mac, which I'm not
even sure it ever works right with me. I sometimes
it works, sometimes it doesn't. I don't know. I don't
even notice. But I had the idea for this last
month in January, and I tweeted out, I said, you know, Apple,
and I said exactly this, and so for that reason,
thank you for listening. Apple. You did what I said.
(05:55):
And although I'm not going to be downloading it anytime
soon until the real software comes out, I should say
the final software comes out, that is exciting because it
is a pain to type in your password so many times.
And I noticed this mostly at the grocery store when
I've got some sort of list on my phone of
what i want to buy, and I'm constantly unlocking my
(06:15):
iPhone like with the passcode, and it's kind of a lot.
The other thing is that let's see here, so Apple
Pay does not work using this method, so you can't
be at the checkout and just you know, do Apple
Pay from your phone. But if you have Apple Pay
set up on your watch, then you can do it
that way anyway. So there you have it easier to
wear a mask and use your iPhone. All right, let's
(06:41):
get to our first question. Let's see here. Oh, well,
it's not on here. Let me get it here. I
had to restart my computer because it actually was like
frozen or something. I don't know what happened. That was
where I've got all these extensions inslved right now, which
I think are messing up everything because I'm testing them
for like these shopping add ons. So I'm doing a
(07:03):
segment for KTLA or planning a segment about that. So
I've been testing all these shopping add ons from like,
you know what is this retail me not or at Tucin.
I don't know all these other ones anyway. All right,
Pete says Rich, could you please tell us about this
new security app total av for iPhones for three dollars
seems too good to be true. Check on this for
(07:24):
your followers please. I have an iPhone twelve. Pete. I've
said this once before and I will say it again.
Here's my thoughts about total av. You do not need
this for your iPhone. You do not need it for
your iPhone. Let me say it one more time. You
do not need this for your iPhone. Nothing against Total AV.
I'm sure they make great products, but the fact is,
(07:47):
there just is not a need for antivirus software on
an iPhone. Now. The reason I say this is because
the iPhone's operating system architecture is totally different than something
like a Windows computer, And even the Mac computer is
so locked down now that I would actually be surprised.
(08:07):
I'm sure there's more ways into a Mac, but your iPhone,
there's really only two ways to kind of exploit this
if you have everything running as the standard kind of
set up, like if you're not if you're not jail broken,
you don't have like third party apps that you've sideloaded somehow.
But really, realistically, the two ways someone could you know,
hack into your phone is through your messages and I
(08:29):
Message and then through Safari, and I Message has been
really really locked down in iOS fourteen, so that's even
more secure. And then in Safari they do find some
exploits every once in a while, but again it's not
something generally that could like take over your whole phone
unless it's a major, major exploit. So for the average
(08:50):
person that's just sitting there thinking that they might get
a virus on their phone, on their iPhone specifically, it
just doesn't really happen. And so I think when it
comes comes to the iPhone and this total av I
just don't think you need it. I think it's a
lot to do for something that is just it. You're
paying for something that just doesn't really do much on
(09:12):
an iPhone because the architecture of the iPhone is that
a program can't sit there and like constantly scan everything
that's happening on it because everything is so locked down.
Let me see how much? What are the features that
they say, okay, Total av iOS and iPhone app helps
you keep you safe from online criminals through VPN and
website filtering, as well as anti fraud and theft services
(09:35):
such as data breach alerts and Locate Device Location tracker. Well,
device location is already it's already built into the iPhone
with find my iPhone, data breach check, webshield, device locator system, security,
secure search browser. I don't want to use this random
third party browser. Photo manager, Battery monitor, I mean it
(09:58):
tells you how much battery I've left on the iPhone,
Private connection VPN okay, Total av Free, I mean, so
I just again, I think the main thing here is
to get you to do that in app purchase for
a lot of stuff that you may not necessarily need
on your phone. How much are they charging for this
in app purchase? Fifty three ninety nine for the year.
(10:20):
So what they do is they get you to get
the the app, perhaps for free or for three dollars
like you said, and then next thing you know, they're
hitting you up for fifty three dollars. So I would say, Pete,
just skip it. That's my advice until I'm proven wrong.
I'm actually gonna do a segment where I talk to
an iPhone security expert and I'm gonna challenge it. I'm
(10:40):
gonna say, like, do people need this stuff? I don't
think they do. That's been my advice for many years now.
And I'm talking specifically on the iPhone Android, a little
questionable Mac computers, a little questionable Windows computers. Most of
the time, I just recommend that you use the built
in defender program, but specifically iPhones. Like I said, if
(11:00):
you are not sideloading stuff, I just don't think you
need this stuff. So good question, Thanks for asking it,
and hopefully I'll have a segment soon where I get
answers from an iPhone security expert. Well, you probably heard
the news this week that Jeff Bezos is stepping down
from role of CEO at Amazon. He has done some
(11:21):
amazing things at this company, and this is a company
that if you could remember, several years ago, people actually
wondered if Amazon would ever make money. How wild is that?
And now we've gone from that to an Amazon that
can deliver almost anything you can imagine to your front
(11:43):
door in two hours to one day. I mean, we
have the super speedy delivery because we live in Los Angeles,
and it's just unbelievable how fast things can get to
your house from Amazon when you live in an area
that they fully service, where they are fully up and running,
an area that's still you know, more suburban when they
(12:03):
get it, when they get into things like you know,
the little delivery robots and the delivery drones and people
on bikes. I mean, it's just it's unlimited what this
company can do right now, there's a lot of momentum
behind them. It is. If you have an Amazon Prime membership,
basically that's your shopping search engine. You don't even care
(12:23):
to look anywhere else. And I found myself trying to
look for things in other places. You know, if I'm
buying a TV, or if I'm buying anything, but if
it's something that's pretty simple and I know that it's
going to be on Amazon, that's pretty much where I go,
and I remember when Amazon Prime first came out, it
was I think it was fifty nine bucks, maybe it
(12:45):
was even less. But now it's up to I think
one point thirty nine or something like that. But it's
well worth it. People over last they said one hundred
million people pay for that. Just that alone is amazing.
In his letter to employees, Jeff says, the journey began
twenty seven years ago. Amazon was just an idea. It
had no name. Now they employ one point three million people.
(13:06):
Invention is the root of our success. We pioneered customer reviews,
one click personalized recommendations, which I still don't think they're
there just yet. I still think there is a huge
opportunity on Amazon to upsell folks with more recommendations based
on what they are, what they've purchased in the past,
and things like that. I don't see a lot of that.
When I shop on Amazon, I basically buy the stuff
(13:28):
that I come in for and that's it. Prime shipping,
walk out shopping, Climate, Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, Marketplace, I mean
so many things not to mention Aws. Now they have
a new person stepping in to become CEO. Andy Jasse
and you know, Jeff Bezos is still going to be
on the executive board or let's see what's he going
(13:51):
to yeah, chief of the Amazon chriff of the Amazon board.
He said. The thing is, you know, being CEO of
Amazon is a very big responsibility. It consumes you twenty
four and he wants to spend his time on other
things like you know, his fund, Blue Origin, all the
space stuff, the Washington Post and some other things he
has going on. But he thinks Amazon's going to continue
(14:12):
to figure out new and exciting ways of doing things.
And it's always scary when the figurehead leaves a company
like this. I mean, yes, he'll still be involved. But
you know how much of this came from him? I
don't know. At the beginning, sure a lot of it.
But as it goes on, did it come from him
or does it come from committees and ideas? Who knows?
I guess time will tell. But my favorite is the
(14:34):
last lines of his letter. He said, keep inventing. Don't
despair when at first the idea looks crazy, Remember to wander,
let curiosity be your compass. It remains day one and
I shared a note about this on my social media.
It remains. Day one is just so powerful. Imagine I've
been doing my job at KTLA for ten years now,
(14:57):
and if I think of the next couple of years
as today is day one, imagine what that does for
your thinking. You have a fresh outlook on things. This
podcast is the first podcast, and how would you do
it differently if you were just coming into this versus
doing it for two hundred episodes? So I thought that
was really powerful and it really resonated. And one of
(15:18):
these days I'm going to print out all these little
things that I clipped from Instagram, all these little inspirational quotes.
I want to put them in my office because they're
only inspirational if you look at them and you reference
them right. Otherwise you kind of forget about them. But
it really does do a lot. I love the inspirational stuff,
even if I find inspiration of things. I don't necessarily
seek out inspirational quotes, but I do find things inspiring
(15:40):
and those are the best kind for me, all right.
Thomas writes in Hey, Rich, I love your show. Thank
you for providing such great information. I want to select
and print one hundred family images for each year starting
in twenty ten. I am worried that they will eventually
be lost in the cloud if I print them and
(16:00):
put them in albums. Should I buy a printer and
print them myself or should I use the service like
Shutterfly Nation's photo lab at Arama. The factors I want
to consider are quality, durability, cost, time, investment, ease of use,
and thank you so much for your guidance, best Thomas
Wow durability fifty years. I think that you should. I
(16:24):
don't think I would go the printer route. If you're gonna, well,
you're gonna print hundred images each year, you don't say that,
you don't really say what size these pictures are gonna be.
I would think that you should probably just go with
a printing lab because since you are doing so many pictures,
I think it's probably easiest to just do that. So
(16:47):
at Arama I have gotten pictures printed from because they
did a unique size that I needed and I was
very impressed because they are a photo company, a camera company,
and so I thought they did a really great job.
I forget what I ordered from there, so you know,
I would definitely I would go with one of these systems,
(17:08):
you know, like the adder. Where is the Adorama Prints.
Let's see, there we go photo printing. So uh oh
they oh wow, well maybe they use Okay, they call
it printiq p R I n T I q U E,
And so I think I'd go with something I would test.
Here's what I would do personally, I would try about
(17:30):
three of these services myself and see which one I'm
most impressed with. So pick the same picture and upload
it to you know, this, uh printique. I would upload
it to like a Shutterfly and Nation's photo Lab I'm
not as familiar with, but I would upload it to that.
Now here's the other thing you can do, And this
(17:51):
is a great search just to know in general. But
if you type in Shutterfly into the search engine, you
type and Shutterfly versus, and this will give you a
whole list of similar printing places. I guess. So upcome Snapfish, MPIs,
mixed book, Nations, photo Lab, chat books. Now some of
(18:13):
these are actually oh, Amazon Photos, let's not forget about
that one. So some of these are more for photo books.
But I'm not sure if you're you say you're gonna
put them an album, So I'm guessing you just want
the pictures. So that's what I would do so, I
would look up Nations Photo Lab versus and that should
bring up more of the professional ones, which is MPIs
(18:34):
or Shutterfly. And we all know that Costco recently, or
you maybe you don't know, but Costco recently stopped doing
their in store printing. But of course you can still
print not in store, you know, you can mail or
upload things to them. But once you get the pictures
back from these various services, I would analyze them, see
which one you like the best, see which one has
the best mix of quality and also the price that
(18:59):
you pay for it, and then go from there and
also look on their website at their FAQs and see
how long they say their pictures are going to last. Now,
you know, to me, it seems like, you know, the
printed pictures last pretty long. I think if you're going
the printer route, like a printer that you'd use at home,
I'm sure they have all that information on the printer
(19:20):
itself when you purchase it, how long these pictures are
expected to last. And what you're talking about doing I've
wanted to do as well for many many years. I
always say I want to print, you know, a bunch
of pictures and put them in albums, and I want
to do this once for every month, so you know,
like January twenty twenty one, it's a great month to
start and just pick out, you know, a bunch of
pictures and print them and put them on your on
(19:42):
your you know, shelf at home, and then when people
come over, when people start coming over again, it's such
a natural thing for people to just pull this off
your coffee table or off a shelf and just start
flipping through all your great pictures. Now, I know Google
will do this for you automatically. I believe they will
pick a bunch of pictures out of your Google Photos
and automatically send them to you. I haven't tested this,
(20:04):
so I don't know if you can go in and
kind of switch things out before you print them. But
I also know that you can just say, like, hey,
make me a photo book. I mean, the photo printing
on Amazon Is or on Google Photos is pretty elaborate,
and they're using AI to pick your pictures, so I
would also check into that one. All right, good question,
And uh yeah, maybe I'll do that one of these days,
(20:26):
because I used to print pictures a lot and I
just kind of stopped, all right, let's get to some
of the rumor mill news. I don't typically do a
lot of rumor mill stuff just because, you know, I
try to make this show something of news you can use,
like I like it to be informative, but like you know,
helpful for your life. And all the Apple rumors in
(20:47):
the world, there are so many podcasts dedicated to them,
and that's fine if you want to keep up with
all the rumors, that's great. Personally, you know, I keep
an eye on the rumors, but this show is not
about rumors. It's about real life stuff. And the problem is,
you know, there are some things that just bubble up
to a place where you have to talk about them,
and this Apple Car has sort of gotten to that
(21:08):
place because we just keep hearing so much about the
Apple Car. I'm not going to spend a whole bunch
of time on it. But CNBC reporting that Apple is
going to sign a deal or has sign a deal,
or is very close to signing a deal with Hyundai
Kia and they're going to make the Apple Car at
their plant in Georgia. And this is a multi billion
dollar deal. It's not just a Kia or a Hyundai.
(21:29):
That's sort of branded as Apple, and it's it's kind
of like remember when the iPhone came out, and you
know they use fox con to manufacture it, but AT
and T was kind of the carrier. So imagine that
Hyundai Kia. Their technology is the base of this car,
but Apple is the developer and the designer, and they
(21:51):
kind of dictate everything except for maybe how the car goes, right,
I'm not sure. I mean, we'll see, but the production
they're saying is maybe gonna happen in twenty twenty four.
And you know, this could be big for Apple if
they if they capture a bit of the market place
because it you know, cars are a huge market, and
(22:11):
you know it has all the inklings of an Apple product. Right.
It's a thing that people would like to be done better.
It's a thing that could be electric, it's a thing
that could be high tech. It's a thing that you
upgrade all the time. I mean, look at the least
the phone least people lease their phones all the time.
Now they can lease their cars. I mean they're already
doing that too. So it has all the markings of
(22:31):
a of an area that's ripe for disruption. But cars
have been very tricky and Tesla I think has done
a good job of disrupting. But and I think Apple
can do it given the base they have and the
money they have. But it's not like an overnight done deal.
But with all that said, would I buy an Apple Car? Probably?
(22:51):
In fact, I've been saving up for a Tesla, and
you know, maybe I'll just wait. I think I'm gonna
wait a little bit longer to purchase. But if I did,
I mean, maybe I'll just wait till twenty twenty four
when one of these comes out. The only problem is
buried inside all these headlines it says the Apple car,
the Apple car, the Apple car is the fact that
the first generation Apple car might only be for delivery companies.
(23:14):
They say it's going to be fully autonomous, which I
don't know, we'll see. I mean, there's a lot to
unpack with the Apple Car. But again, this is why
I don't do too many rumors, because it could happen,
it could never happen, and it could happen completely differently
than whateveryone's reporting. All Right, Tammy says, Hello, I was
(23:37):
wondering how I can control what my son does or sees,
or how much time he spends on his iPhone. I
have an app called kids Lock, but I'm not very
happy with it, and Tammy, the reason you're probably not
very happy with it is because it's tough to lock
down things on the iPhone. I'm assuming again with the iPhone,
(24:00):
it's very tricky. On Android, you can do whatever you want,
Developers can make whatever you want happen. On iPhone, it's
very tricky because there are very specific rules and regulations
that developers have to abide by when it comes to
the way that the apps interact with the rest of
the phone. So I'm guessing that this app does everything
through a VPN if I had to guess, because on
(24:22):
the iPhone you can't just have an app come in
and say, oh, we're going to restrict your time on YouTube,
We're going to restrict your calls and text. It just
really can't do that kind of stuff as far as
I know. Yeah, kids Block does not block basic functions
like calling and texting. So if you can't block that,
how can you really be called a kids lock, Right,
So I think this must use a VPN. Yeah, that's
(24:47):
some I'm guessing anyway, So what I use at my house,
I'll just tell you what I use. I use a
combination of things. I use screen time, which I think
is probably your best bet if you're on the iPhone.
If your kid is on the iPhone, and it just
takes a little bit of set up, you put them
on the family plan, you set it up. You can
do it all from your phone and then it just
carries over to their device, and you can give them
(25:09):
a certain amount of time for websites. You can give
them a certain amount of time for apps. You can
make down time, which means you know your kid can't
do certain things at certain times. You can block all
websites except for ones that you approve. So maybe you
only want PBS kids to be available, you can do that,
or you can say I only want Apple approved dumb
you know, kid sites, or you can say block adult sites.
(25:31):
Whatever you want to do, you can pretty much do it.
The main thing that you can't do, and I find
that this is the toughest thing, is that, well you
can you can sign you can assign time limits for apps,
like for YouTube. But if your kid is like mine,
they use a combination of things. Like my kids also
use a computer and they also use a TV, So
I use a thing called Circle, which can do these
(25:55):
things across everything. So it can it can put time
limits across everything. It can you know, block out apps,
it can block out certain you know, anything you want,
and your opportunities are unlimited with Circle. But Circle is
a device that physically plugs into your network and controls
it that way. And so you do have to pay.
It's like one hundred bucks one hundred and twenty bucks,
(26:15):
but you get a year free and then after that
you have to pay for the service. But I find
that if you want the most control, you got to
go with Circle, because, like in my house, sometimes we
go through times where we completely block YouTube where it
is just no dice, you can't get onto it, and
you can just do that. We can also limit the
time on YouTube across all their devices. So let's say
(26:37):
they spend fifteen minutes on their iPad watching YouTube, and
then you know, fifteen minutes in the bedroom watching YouTube,
and then fifteen minutes on the main TV watching YouTube.
It will be smart enough to add all that time
up to be to reach their forty five minute limit. Now,
there are a lot of downsides to this, and believe me,
I'm always giving my kids more time extra time, screen time.
(26:58):
You know, everything shuts down at six pm, so they
give me a hard time for that. It is not easy.
You know, the more you lock this stuff down, the
more it does affect you as a parent because you
have to then spend the time to unlock it or
give them more time when they run out or when
you know, on a weekend or something. So and it
does take a lot of time to set up. But
I think at the end of the day, the easiest
(27:18):
thing to do is just to start with screen time
and if that doesn't do what you need, then you
move on into some other aspects of limiting this stuff.
But believe me, it is a struggle. Even in my home,
we have effectively blocked roadblocks completely and you know, the
rest of the stuff is all timed out. But believe me,
my kids get around it. What they've done now is,
(27:40):
you know, since YouTube is timed on all the main
TVs and all their computers, they now watch YouTube on
the smart displays and so they'll just they'll just sit
in one in front of one of the smart displays
because we don't have those timed out. And the problem
is if I time out the smart displays and put
them under their profiles. Now, Dad can't look at a
(28:00):
YouTube video on the smart display when I need to
see how to chop an onion or something. So it is.
It is a struggle, and it's really tricky and complicated.
But just know Tammy that you are not the only
one that is struggling with this stuff. So and I'll
check into kids Lock a little bit more and see
what the deal is with that. But it's let's see,
(28:21):
it's one hundred dollars for lifetime, sixty dollars for a year,
six dollars for one month. But yeah, there you have
it all right, Let's move on to Instagram. Instagram is
rolling out a new feature called recently Deleted and this
is a feature to help you in two ways. Number One,
if you delete something mistakenly, you can go back into
this little folder within thirty days and find it. The
(28:46):
other thing, and this is interesting, is that if someone
hacks your account, apparently they delete everything in your account.
And these instagrammers get really sad because there goes all
their work, right, all their stuff is gone that they've
wor on their pretty layouts, all this stuff, and they
can't get it back even if they happen to regain
control of their account. So clearly Instagram knows this happens
(29:10):
all the time, so they are making this recently deleted
folder where you know, if the hacker comes in and
they delete everything, it goes into that folder in thirty days,
and they can't just empty that folder. So to empty it,
you actually have to somehow verify your identity, and Instagram
does not say how you verify your identity. But the
(29:32):
idea here is that let's say you lose access to
your Instagram account, hacker gets access, they replace all your
posts with like bitcoin advertisements and flood your feed. You
get your account back, and now you delete all their
stuff and now you have nothing. So somehow you will
say to Instagram, yes, I am who I am, and
can I please now restore all this stuff? And so
(29:54):
you can do that. I guess maybe they let you
restore it, but not permanently delete it. That would make
more sense, I guess. So to find this, I haven't
seen this on my phone just yet, but when it's there,
it'll be under Instagram settings. Account recently deleted and you'll
have thirty days again to restore things on Instagram. All right,
(30:17):
let's see Kim says, Hi, my sister and I want
to get the new iPads eighth generations. Have you heard
when the ninth generation is coming out and we should wait?
And it looks like there's a little kissy emoji there
sent for my iPad. Okay, Kim, okay. So the thing
I've said this before on the show, but the thing
that I always look at when it comes to when
(30:38):
to purchase Apple products. I'm a big believer in the
fact that you should always purchase Apple products like as
close to the first day that they come out as possible,
because apple products have a new life span of about
a year and then an extended lifespan after that. But
the fact is you want to get the most bang
for your buck by getting them in that first year. Now,
(30:58):
when it comes to the iPad, the iPad standard iPad,
if you look on this website buyers Guide dot MacRumors
dot com, it has all the Apple products listed and
then how many days since the last release the average
amount of time until they release a new one. So,
for instance, iPhone the day since last release, it's been
(31:21):
one hundred and twelve days since the iPhone twelve came out,
which you can if you can believe that the average
is three hundred and seventy one days, which if you
think about it, yes, there's a new iPhone every single year,
and so the average is about three hundred and seventy
one days. Then you have the iPad Air. This was
released alongside the new I think it was well around
(31:42):
the new iPhone one hundred and twelve days ago. I
guess was it the same day? Yeah, I guess it
was the same day, So iPad Air and average time
for that is six hundred and thirty five days, So
that's about two years. So every other year they're releasing
a new iPad Air. Now the iPad this is the
one that you're talking about days since release September twenty twenty.
(32:04):
They did this a little bit before the iPhone. This
has been one hundred and forty three days. The average
is five hundred and seventy nine. So I would say
the answer to your question is go ahead, buy the
iPad because it doesn't look like we're getting another one
for about another year. Or I'd guess no. Well, let's
see five seventy nine minus one forty three, so you
(32:26):
got four hundred and thirty six days, So you basically
have a year and a half before the new iPad,
so I would buy the new iPad or right now.
That way you get the most use out of it
before the next one comes out. Again, that website is
Buyer's Guide dot MacRumors dot com. Let's see, do they
have anything that's like the longest iPad Mini is probably
the longest six hundred and ninety days since last release.
(32:49):
That was March twenty nineteen, so six hundred and ninety days.
And I think I bought my kids the iPad Mini
in September twenty sixteen, so that's nine hundred and twenty
two days ago. I do need to upgrade my one
kid's iPad Mini to a newer model. He keeps bugging
me about it because he's playing you know, more bigger games.
But anyway, great website, and that is what I look
(33:12):
to when I'm looking for those that buying guidance. All right,
this is a This was kind of a fun thing
that we talked about on social media on KTLA. But
you know how you've been in zoom meetings and next
thing you know, the person freezes or they lock up,
or their microphone cuts in and out. Well, this is
(33:33):
a an app that actually does this on purpose. It's
called Freezing Cam and the founder Kevin Peachee Picky p
I c c h I peach pick I can't say
it h Picchi. Let's call Picchi. So Kevin Picchi. He
made this app. It's called freezing Cam. It's a simple
app for your Mac computer. And when you're in a
(33:55):
meeting and you know things are getting a little crazy,
things are getting a little wide, do you need to
kind of take a little breather. You can just press
this freezing cam butt and it will freeze your camera
or it will stutter your camera so it looks like
you're having connection issues. In the future, there will be
an option to mess up with your mic as well.
(34:15):
This works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, go to
meeting wherebe or whereby, and WebEx works on mac os
right now, And he said the idea came from a
discussion with a bunch of friends who were complaining about
the hassles of having to turn on their cameras during meetings.
Oh okay, earlier I read that he said that it
(34:37):
was him wanting to turn on and off his camera
during meetings to do random things, you know, like sometimes
your kid comes nearby and you got to like, you know,
wish them away or you know, kind of swosh them away,
and then or they ask you something and you got
to talk to them. So it's just perfect. You just
freeze your camera or make it stutter, and you know,
you can do your business on the side, and then
you can get back to your meeting and nobody, you know,
(34:58):
they just assume that you you have a little problem
with your connection. So again it's called freezing cam. I
have not downloaded it because the last time I downloaded
one of these these camera add ons. The way they
work is that they become a virtual camera for your computer,
and once you get them on there, it's kind of
like every time, it's kind of like it sees it
(35:19):
as its own little webcam. So it could present some
issues if you're trying to join meetings, and it's always
going to default to that if you have that going on,
and sometimes if you forget about it, it's just I
had one. I downloaded two of these things to test
them out. One was from Snap and it was like
their virtual camera, which is really cool, but it you know,
it takes over your camera every time, and sometimes you'll
(35:41):
show up as a potato head. And then the second
one I did was just like Loomy. It was called
I Think Loomy AI and again it was really cool,
but I could never get it to work properly, but
it kept taking over my video camera. And so anyway,
now I don't use these virtual cams because they can
mess with your connections and what you need to do.
So just know that before where you download it, and
if you have a good way of uninstalling, you know,
(36:04):
just know, like I use an app called clean my Mac,
so that's always a good way to get that as well,
to get those programs out of there when you're done
using them. All right, let's get to another question from
uh Karna Happy Sunny Sunday. I love you and watch
(36:26):
you all the time. I love your advice and your tips.
I'm wondering if you could do a review on the
regular Galaxy S twenty one, not the Ultra. I'm thinking
of upgrading and the Ultra has some great features, but
it's just too much money for me. I want to
know how the S twenty one is. Thank you Karina, Well,
thank you Karina for the email, and you're right. I
when I did my review on TV of the SAMSUNGS.
(36:49):
I did the S twenty one Ultra. That's the one
I primarily concentrated on. The reason for that is because
I wanted to show off the latest and greatest features
and features set that Samsung has and I was thinking
from myself as a power user and to be completely honest.
Once I did that and in I've here's the thing,
(37:11):
this is the truth here. So when I'm doing my
reviews for KTLA, I only have a minute and thirty seconds, right,
so I do not have a long time to really
get into the nitty gritty of these devices. So I
have to do the most top level information that I
think the average person watching local news needs to know.
And that gets very, very tricky because I'm a nerd.
(37:34):
I you know, I know a lot about these devices.
I use them, I compare them, and I you know,
but the reality is I need to distill them in
a way that is super easy and super fast for
my audience and that fits into my time slot. And
so that's why generally I'll do more stuff on Facebook
and social media and you'll see me post about my
(37:54):
experience with these things along the way, so that if
you're following me on social or listening to me on
the podcast or my reviews online, you can actually get
a bigger picture of what this is all about. Now.
In years past, with some of these devices, I've often
done two in one, but I realized that that even
does a bigger disservice because there's no way that you
(38:15):
can compare and contrast these two things that quickly, and
it gets very confusing for the end user because I
have to say every single time what device I'm referencing.
She get one hundred times zoom on the Ultra. You
get a thirty time zoom on the S twenty one,
and that becomes very confusing after your you know, by
the time you get through your piece, all you've done
is say what's on the one and what's on the
(38:36):
what's not on the other. So with the S twenty
one Ultra, I decided to do just the S twenty
one Ultra, and it's it was kind of a disservice
because I realized after using the S twenty one, that
is a great phone for the for the typical person
and not necessarily the power user. In fact, that became
(38:56):
my favorite phone due to the form factor and the
size of it. I like the functionality on the S
twenty one Ultra, but I like the size of the
S twenty one better. But here's another thing. I can't
really go ahead and do another segment on KTLA and
for all my stations on another Samsung phone right after
I just did a Samsung segment on the S twenty
(39:17):
one Ultra and then I do an S twenty one
the next day. It would be very confusing. And also,
you know that's a lot of It's just it's very,
very tough, And these are the decisions that you know
kind of are in the background that I don't necessarily
talk about in a public way. But as the sort
of editor in chief of my own segment that goes
out to all these stations, I have to make the
best decisions based on what I know to be kind
(39:40):
of what's happening. And I don't want to do a
disservice to people out there that do want something that
is better than the iPhone or comes up more closer
against the iPhone. The S twenty one I see as
a very good phone, but it's nothing like groundbreaking compared
to what's out there, whereas the S twenty one really is.
I mean, it's pretty fantastic as a device. So that's
(40:00):
a long, long answer to or long explanation to. The
simple answer is yes, the S twenty one is perfect.
It's fantastic. I don't have any problems with it. I
would use it as my daily driver if mainly if
it had more memory, perhaps because it only has eight gigs,
which is enough, but I find that I to me,
(40:23):
I just want the best, and when I'm using the
iPhone twelve Pro, that's the best, and the Samsung S
twenty one is not the best that Samsung has to offer.
The S twenty one Ultra is and I want that
in the form factor that is convenient to me, and
the S twenty one Ultra is just not convenient. It's
so big that I just I want to use it
and I can't. It's just too big on a daily basis.
(40:46):
It doesn't fit in my pocket, it doesn't you can't
hold it comfortably. And so for all those reasons, the
S twenty one is my favorite, but I just can't
really bring myself to using it because when I really
think about it, it's not better than when I get
off the iPhone twelve Pro, and that is my personal
experience and my personal situation. For you, if you want
(41:07):
the if money is the most important thing, what you're saying,
that's just too much money, then yes, the S twenty
one is going to be just fantastic and it is
a great phone. But I'm primarily interested in content creation.
And again this is inside baseball, but I want to
be able to do things that are unique and different
and not necessarily available to everyone. And by the Ultra,
(41:29):
that's what you get because you get one hundred times
zoom and all these other cool camera tricks that are
very unique, and some of the things are not available
on the iPhone and so even on the iPhone twelve pro.
And so that's why I'd like to use it, because
then you have some cool tricks that people look at
your social media and say, oh, that's cool, how did
you do that? You know this picture and picture mode
(41:49):
and things like that. So again that is my situation.
But for you know, an average person who's just using
this phone. It's their phone. You're not really cared about
all that stuff. You're not really interested in trying to
impress people with fancy, random features like I am. So again,
S twenty one is a fantastic phone. It's Samsung's best ever,
not just you know, it's just their best ever. They've
(42:11):
never made a better phone than that device. And so
that is a fantastic phone to get, and I highly
recommend you get it. All Right, I said earlier in
the beginning of the in the beginning of the podcast,
that there are some what I say, how did I
call them? Oh, dangerous smart doorbells. And this is something
that I've kind of alluded to, but this is some
(42:33):
security research from Cyberscoop. They talk about vulnerabilities in Genie
and Mercury branded security cameras and smart doorbells. And I've
often talked about how when you're looking at Internet of
Things devices, the smaller companies or the let's say, the
more inexpensive companies, you know, the stuff that's sold really cheap.
(42:55):
And I know Mercury specifically because I was at Walmart
and I bought one of their five dollars smart bulbs.
But here is kind of the concern in the back
of my head. And I'm not saying it's always, but
you think, okay, if these things are selling for really cheap,
where are they cutting the corners? And in some cases,
it could be the security of those devices. The software
might not be as robust when it comes to security,
(43:17):
it might not be as updated as much as some
other devices like a ring or you know, a Nest
camera or maybe like a Google Nest Audio like a
speaker from them. So you do have to be on
your guard when it comes to these cheap, cheap devices.
And so these researchers say that they found some vulnerabilities
(43:38):
in the Genie and Mercury branded security cameras and smart
doorbells that would allow hackers to take full control of
these devices and remotely disabled cameras through a denial of service,
and some exploits would even allow hackers to gain remote
access to a video stream of one of the affected doorbells. Now,
with all this said, the company Genie told these folks
(44:02):
the cyber Scoop or someone that we have no known
exploits of any of these vulnerabilities. So a lot of
times when you hear this scary stuff on the news,
it's it's researchers that find these vulnerabilities, but they're not
necessarily tested in the public, Like it's not just happening
all the time. And you have to keep that in mind. Now,
that doesn't mean you should let your guard down. It
(44:24):
is scary when these vulnerabilities are found because it only
takes one one hacker to exploit them and to use
it in a big way to their advantage, and you
don't want to be on that train. So again, what
does it come down to. By the way, Mercury spokesperson
told Cyberscoop that the fixes should be available later this month,
we're recording this in February, so hopefully by the end
(44:46):
of February. But again I think this is just more
of a bigger word to the wise kind of explanation
is that no matter what, you got to use different
passwords for things, you got to set up two FO authentication,
and you have to just more importantly keep in mind
what you are doing. Any of these smart gadgets that
(45:07):
you put on your network, if they are exposed or
if someone has access to them, it could end up
exposing your entire network. And if you have something like
I do, like a NASS on my network, and you
know someone might be able to get access to that,
So again you have to think down the line of
what is the repercussion of someone getting access to one
(45:29):
of my things on my network. So don't let your
guard down and do what you can to fortify your network. Personally,
I use a guest network when people come into my home.
You know, oh, Rich, what's the Wi Fi password? Hold on,
let me take the two seconds to actually get you
on my guest network, which is insulated from my regular network,
so that a you can't go in and change things
or switch things, or you know, mess with my smart
(45:51):
home stuff or access my resources on the network. You
can have your own personal network. You can do whatever
you need to. And you know, let's say there was
a some sort of malware or virus on your phone
that would propagate to my network when you connect, it
would just stay on the guest network. And that's why
you have a guest network. So if you have one
of those on your router, please set it up and
(46:14):
use it. It's it's a pretty smart thing to do, all right.
Let's see question from Joe Ann. I have an iPhone eight.
I want to know what is the easiest way to
delete duplicate photos in my album? And my answer is
an app. I feel like I just answered this question
(46:34):
on another podcast. Maybe I even answered this question. But
Gemini photos that is the That's the app that I
would recommend. The main thing I would say is make
sure that you have a backup of your pictures on
your computer before you go through and delete these duplicates
because this you know, it's nice to let these apps
do things on their own and let them kind of,
(46:56):
you know, help us and do things in an automated manner.
But you know, if something ever happened, you don't want
to lose your picture. So Gemini g E M I
ni Gemini Photos. I think, let's see how much they
charge for this app. Well, I can't really tell you
because it's trying to force me into the app store,
which I don't want to do. But in general I
(47:18):
would do I would plug your iPhone into a computer,
make a complete backup of your iPhone, and then I
would run Gemini Photos. And a regular listener of the show,
Tony has pointed out to me that I often talk
about Google Photos and how you should back your photos
up to there and then you can clear out space
(47:39):
on your iPhone by back by using their clear up
space or clear up storage functionality, which deletes the photos
off your phone. And Tony was saying, Rich, you know
you might want to tell people that when you do that,
it's probably going to delete their pictures out of iCloud
as well, and that's probably true. I don't use iCloud
for my photos, so I don't really have a lot
of experience there, but yes, if I had to think
(48:01):
about that, if you are let's say you're on an iPhone,
you save a picture to your iPhone and it's backed
up to iCloud, and then you clear that picture out
by uploading it to Google Photos and letting Google Photos
reclaim your storage, it would delete that picture off your phone,
which would then in fact delete the picture from iCloud storage.
So yes, you probably don't want to use Google's automated
(48:24):
functionality to delete your pictures off your phone. You would
want to go in and delete them manually, the ones
that you don't need from your camera roll. But I
would also say that you probably shouldn't need to do
that if you're using iCloud photos. There's a feature or
an option in settings to optimize iPhone storage, So if
(48:46):
you have that turned on with iCloud, it will offload
your photos to iCloud and keep little thumbnails on your phone,
but it'll keep the full rest pictures off on the cloud,
so that's not taking up space on your phone. And
then let's say you ever wanted to share one of
the pictures or whatever, it'll immediately download it back to
your phone on demand when you need it. I know
it all sounds very complicated, but yeah, good good delineation.
(49:09):
Good thing to kind of think about. You know, if
you're cleaning up your pictures on your phone, you don't
want to see them go all over the place. Oh
my gosh, is that it. I think it's time for
the end of the show. Yes, it is. That's what
that sound means. So I have any other things to
talk about? No, I guess not I do. I mean,
(49:31):
there's always more questions that I can answer. I mean,
the question is just keep coming. Facebook dot com, slash
rich on Tech, Instagram dot com, slash rich on Tech, insta,
let's the other on Twitter, rich on Tech. That's gonna
do it for this episode of the show. If you
have a question for me, you can submit it. Two
ways to do it. Go to richon Tech, dot tv,
(49:51):
slash podcast, hit the microphone button in the lower right
hand corner to leave a voicemail, or you can just
email me Hello, at richon Tech dot tv or go
to my Facebook page Facebook dot com, slash rich on
tech and hit the big blue send email button. Also,
if you want to rate and review this podcast to
help other folks discover it, that would be fantastic. You. Also,
(50:11):
you often email me saying how much you like it,
which is great and I love that. But tell the
world you know, leave that leave that review on iTunes,
that would be the best way to do it. You
can find me on all social media at rich on Tech.
I just want to say a quick note, by the way,
kind of a little goodbye, not to you, but to
my boss, Jason Ball. He is leaving KTLA. This is
(50:33):
the person that hired me twelve years ago to do
a tech job, to do my same job at KKEL,
and then I moved over to KTLA. It's been ten
years there and he is leaving on his own accord.
He is somewhat retiring, figuring out what to do next.
He has been an inspiration at KTLA. He has let
me fly. He is let my wings spread out and
(50:58):
soar there. So thank you Jason for your hands off
approach to day to day but swooping in when necessary
to give us the guidance that we so often need
in this business. So thank you for that. Thank you
for pushing me to do this podcast and really fighting
to get it under the KTLA umbrella a couple of
years ago. It's been fantastic. I will miss you, I
(51:20):
will keep in touch with you, and best of luck
no matter what is next for you. My name is
rich Dedimiro. Thanks so much for listening. Stay safe, I
will talk to you real soon
You can now unlock your iPhone with your Apple Watch,
dangerous smart doorbells, freezing your webcam on purpose? Plus your
tech questions answered? What's going on on rich Demiro? And
this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk
about the tech stuff I think you should know about,
and it is the place right answer the questions that
(00:32):
you send me. So who am I? The tech reporter
at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. That is where
I present stories on a wide variety of consumer tech
topics on a daily basis. I also post stuff to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
I'm having a lot of fun there lately because, oh,
(00:53):
let me just tell a quick story. I had no
idea this book was so impactful. Story. My kid and
I are in Target and this has nothing to do
with tech, but we're in Target and my kid sees
a book that he wants to get two of them.
One was like a dinosaur book. The other one was
(01:13):
this book called Love You Forever. And so I get
him the books and my wife I didn't have a
chance to read it to him first. My wife read
it to him the next night or so, and he
comes into my office the next morning and he just
puts the book on my desk. He goes, Dad, can
you please return this? I said, what why? I just
(01:34):
I don't want it. I didn't know it was so sad.
I'm like, oh, okay, So I take the book and
I you know, at dinner that night, I'm talking to
my wife about the book, and I'm like, what's the deal.
She's like, oh, just go ahead, try to read it
to him. So I started reading this book called Love
You Forever. And let's just say it is nearly impossible
to get through this book without needing at least a
(01:58):
box of tissues. And I don't know what it is.
If it's the words, if it's the way it's written,
if it's the combination of the pictures. But I was like,
I was, Oh my gosh, it was really really interesting.
And so I said, wow, if this happened to me,
I wonder if someone else out there has ever heard
of this book or had this happen. And I posted
(02:18):
my Facebook and sure enough, the comments just come flooding in.
And clearly I was very late to the train with
with the Love You Forever book. Because it's been around forever.
People know it, people know it to be a tear
jerker and just the way it is. So anyway, if
you really want to challenge yourself, I think there needs
to be a TikTok challenge with this book because you
(02:41):
can't make it through the end without If your eyes
are dry by the end, there might be something wrong
with you. I'm just saying. So, I think there should
be a TikTok challenge once these kids discover this book,
because well they wouldn't be it probably wouldn't affect them,
but they should give it to their parents. The TikTok
challenge should be they give this book to their pay parents,
record them reading it and see how far they get
(03:02):
before Niagara falls. Anyway, I hope you're having a fantastic day.
I hope you're having a great week and everything's good
over here. Just really excited about where the future lies
with this whole pandemic, you know, getting through it. It
feels like there's a little light at the end of
(03:23):
the tunnel at this point. I mean, people I know
that are close to me have gotten the vaccine and
that is very exciting. And I just the numbers where
I live in Los Angeles have been dropping, so that's good. Restaurants,
I got a haircut the other day. Can't believe that
little ding for the haircut. And anyway, so it's good.
(03:44):
I'm feeling good and I have a lot of hope
for things getting better. Speaking of the pandemic Apple with
the iPhone, they're now letting you use your Apple Watch
as a way to unlock your iPhone. This is a
new feature coming to iOS fourteen point five, which'll be
the next version of the mobile operating system. They did
come out with a beta for developers and a public beta,
(04:07):
but I don't really recommend that you download the public
beta unless I don't know. I always find that they're exciting,
but you know, then you kind of regret it at
the end of the day because now your phone is
not on the standard track, and it's you know, unless
you're a real real techi that it's just it's kind
of a headache sometimes because there's a little bug that
affects something that you want to do, it's going to
be a problem. And so that's for that reason I
(04:29):
just kind of stay away. I used to do the
public betas, but I don't really do it anymore. If
you have a test device, fine, but this new feature
will allow you to put on a in Settings on
the Apple Watch or Settings on the iPhone, rather under
face ID and passcode, you can opt into iPhone unlock
with Apple Watch, and so the iPhone will recognize when
(04:49):
you are wearing a mask and you try to unlock
your iPhone, and it will default to checking to see
if the Apple Watch is on your wrist. If it's
on your wrist and it's unlocked, and you haven't removed
it from your wrist, and you know, I'm sure Apple
has some little secret security baked into this whole process,
it will then go ahead and unlock your phone. You'll
feel a haptic feedback on your watch or on your wrist,
(05:11):
so that you know that your watch has unlocked your phone.
I think this is fantastic. It's not a new idea.
I mean, Android has had this forever. It's smart unlock.
I mean they've had this forever, forever, forever. But the
difference here is you know they're using I guess they're
using Bluetooth to do it. The other thing is that
(05:32):
this feature already works with the Mac, which I'm not
even sure it ever works right with me. I sometimes
it works, sometimes it doesn't. I don't know. I don't
even notice. But I had the idea for this last
month in January, and I tweeted out, I said, you know, Apple,
and I said exactly this, and so for that reason,
thank you for listening. Apple. You did what I said.
(05:55):
And although I'm not going to be downloading it anytime
soon until the real software comes out, I should say
the final software comes out, that is exciting because it
is a pain to type in your password so many times.
And I noticed this mostly at the grocery store when
I've got some sort of list on my phone of
what i want to buy, and I'm constantly unlocking my
(06:15):
iPhone like with the passcode, and it's kind of a lot.
The other thing is that let's see here, so Apple
Pay does not work using this method, so you can't
be at the checkout and just you know, do Apple
Pay from your phone. But if you have Apple Pay
set up on your watch, then you can do it
that way anyway. So there you have it easier to
wear a mask and use your iPhone. All right, let's
(06:41):
get to our first question. Let's see here. Oh, well,
it's not on here. Let me get it here. I
had to restart my computer because it actually was like
frozen or something. I don't know what happened. That was
where I've got all these extensions inslved right now, which
I think are messing up everything because I'm testing them
for like these shopping add ons. So I'm doing a
(07:03):
segment for KTLA or planning a segment about that. So
I've been testing all these shopping add ons from like,
you know what is this retail me not or at Tucin.
I don't know all these other ones anyway. All right,
Pete says Rich, could you please tell us about this
new security app total av for iPhones for three dollars
seems too good to be true. Check on this for
(07:24):
your followers please. I have an iPhone twelve. Pete. I've
said this once before and I will say it again.
Here's my thoughts about total av. You do not need
this for your iPhone. You do not need it for
your iPhone. Let me say it one more time. You
do not need this for your iPhone. Nothing against Total AV.
I'm sure they make great products, but the fact is,
(07:47):
there just is not a need for antivirus software on
an iPhone. Now. The reason I say this is because
the iPhone's operating system architecture is totally different than something
like a Windows computer, And even the Mac computer is
so locked down now that I would actually be surprised.
(08:07):
I'm sure there's more ways into a Mac, but your iPhone,
there's really only two ways to kind of exploit this
if you have everything running as the standard kind of
set up, like if you're not if you're not jail broken,
you don't have like third party apps that you've sideloaded somehow.
But really, realistically, the two ways someone could you know,
hack into your phone is through your messages and I
(08:29):
Message and then through Safari, and I Message has been
really really locked down in iOS fourteen, so that's even
more secure. And then in Safari they do find some
exploits every once in a while, but again it's not
something generally that could like take over your whole phone
unless it's a major, major exploit. So for the average
(08:50):
person that's just sitting there thinking that they might get
a virus on their phone, on their iPhone specifically, it
just doesn't really happen. And so I think when it
comes comes to the iPhone and this total av I
just don't think you need it. I think it's a
lot to do for something that is just it. You're
paying for something that just doesn't really do much on
(09:12):
an iPhone because the architecture of the iPhone is that
a program can't sit there and like constantly scan everything
that's happening on it because everything is so locked down.
Let me see how much? What are the features that
they say, okay, Total av iOS and iPhone app helps
you keep you safe from online criminals through VPN and
website filtering, as well as anti fraud and theft services
(09:35):
such as data breach alerts and Locate Device Location tracker. Well,
device location is already it's already built into the iPhone
with find my iPhone, data breach check, webshield, device locator system, security,
secure search browser. I don't want to use this random
third party browser. Photo manager, Battery monitor, I mean it
(09:58):
tells you how much battery I've left on the iPhone,
Private connection VPN okay, Total av Free, I mean, so
I just again, I think the main thing here is
to get you to do that in app purchase for
a lot of stuff that you may not necessarily need
on your phone. How much are they charging for this
in app purchase? Fifty three ninety nine for the year.
(10:20):
So what they do is they get you to get
the the app, perhaps for free or for three dollars
like you said, and then next thing you know, they're
hitting you up for fifty three dollars. So I would say, Pete,
just skip it. That's my advice until I'm proven wrong.
I'm actually gonna do a segment where I talk to
an iPhone security expert and I'm gonna challenge it. I'm
(10:40):
gonna say, like, do people need this stuff? I don't
think they do. That's been my advice for many years now.
And I'm talking specifically on the iPhone Android, a little
questionable Mac computers, a little questionable Windows computers. Most of
the time, I just recommend that you use the built
in defender program, but specifically iPhones. Like I said, if
(11:00):
you are not sideloading stuff, I just don't think you
need this stuff. So good question, Thanks for asking it,
and hopefully I'll have a segment soon where I get
answers from an iPhone security expert. Well, you probably heard
the news this week that Jeff Bezos is stepping down
from role of CEO at Amazon. He has done some
(11:21):
amazing things at this company, and this is a company
that if you could remember, several years ago, people actually
wondered if Amazon would ever make money. How wild is that?
And now we've gone from that to an Amazon that
can deliver almost anything you can imagine to your front
(11:43):
door in two hours to one day. I mean, we
have the super speedy delivery because we live in Los Angeles,
and it's just unbelievable how fast things can get to
your house from Amazon when you live in an area
that they fully service, where they are fully up and running,
an area that's still you know, more suburban when they
(12:03):
get it, when they get into things like you know,
the little delivery robots and the delivery drones and people
on bikes. I mean, it's just it's unlimited what this
company can do right now, there's a lot of momentum
behind them. It is. If you have an Amazon Prime membership,
basically that's your shopping search engine. You don't even care
(12:23):
to look anywhere else. And I found myself trying to
look for things in other places. You know, if I'm
buying a TV, or if I'm buying anything, but if
it's something that's pretty simple and I know that it's
going to be on Amazon, that's pretty much where I go,
and I remember when Amazon Prime first came out, it
was I think it was fifty nine bucks, maybe it
(12:45):
was even less. But now it's up to I think
one point thirty nine or something like that. But it's
well worth it. People over last they said one hundred
million people pay for that. Just that alone is amazing.
In his letter to employees, Jeff says, the journey began
twenty seven years ago. Amazon was just an idea. It
had no name. Now they employ one point three million people.
(13:06):
Invention is the root of our success. We pioneered customer reviews,
one click personalized recommendations, which I still don't think they're
there just yet. I still think there is a huge
opportunity on Amazon to upsell folks with more recommendations based
on what they are, what they've purchased in the past,
and things like that. I don't see a lot of that.
When I shop on Amazon, I basically buy the stuff
(13:28):
that I come in for and that's it. Prime shipping,
walk out shopping, Climate, Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, Marketplace, I mean
so many things not to mention Aws. Now they have
a new person stepping in to become CEO. Andy Jasse
and you know, Jeff Bezos is still going to be
on the executive board or let's see what's he going
(13:51):
to yeah, chief of the Amazon chriff of the Amazon board.
He said. The thing is, you know, being CEO of
Amazon is a very big responsibility. It consumes you twenty
four and he wants to spend his time on other
things like you know, his fund, Blue Origin, all the
space stuff, the Washington Post and some other things he
has going on. But he thinks Amazon's going to continue
(14:12):
to figure out new and exciting ways of doing things.
And it's always scary when the figurehead leaves a company
like this. I mean, yes, he'll still be involved. But
you know how much of this came from him? I
don't know. At the beginning, sure a lot of it.
But as it goes on, did it come from him
or does it come from committees and ideas? Who knows?
I guess time will tell. But my favorite is the
(14:34):
last lines of his letter. He said, keep inventing. Don't
despair when at first the idea looks crazy, Remember to wander,
let curiosity be your compass. It remains day one and
I shared a note about this on my social media.
It remains. Day one is just so powerful. Imagine I've
been doing my job at KTLA for ten years now,
(14:57):
and if I think of the next couple of years
as today is day one, imagine what that does for
your thinking. You have a fresh outlook on things. This
podcast is the first podcast, and how would you do
it differently if you were just coming into this versus
doing it for two hundred episodes? So I thought that
was really powerful and it really resonated. And one of
(15:18):
these days I'm going to print out all these little
things that I clipped from Instagram, all these little inspirational quotes.
I want to put them in my office because they're
only inspirational if you look at them and you reference
them right. Otherwise you kind of forget about them. But
it really does do a lot. I love the inspirational stuff,
even if I find inspiration of things. I don't necessarily
seek out inspirational quotes, but I do find things inspiring
(15:40):
and those are the best kind for me, all right.
Thomas writes in Hey, Rich, I love your show. Thank
you for providing such great information. I want to select
and print one hundred family images for each year starting
in twenty ten. I am worried that they will eventually
be lost in the cloud if I print them and
(16:00):
put them in albums. Should I buy a printer and
print them myself or should I use the service like
Shutterfly Nation's photo lab at Arama. The factors I want
to consider are quality, durability, cost, time, investment, ease of use,
and thank you so much for your guidance, best Thomas
Wow durability fifty years. I think that you should. I
(16:24):
don't think I would go the printer route. If you're gonna, well,
you're gonna print hundred images each year, you don't say that,
you don't really say what size these pictures are gonna be.
I would think that you should probably just go with
a printing lab because since you are doing so many pictures,
I think it's probably easiest to just do that. So
(16:47):
at Arama I have gotten pictures printed from because they
did a unique size that I needed and I was
very impressed because they are a photo company, a camera company,
and so I thought they did a really great job.
I forget what I ordered from there, so you know,
I would definitely I would go with one of these systems,
(17:08):
you know, like the adder. Where is the Adorama Prints.
Let's see, there we go photo printing. So uh oh
they oh wow, well maybe they use Okay, they call
it printiq p R I n T I q U E,
And so I think I'd go with something I would test.
Here's what I would do personally, I would try about
(17:30):
three of these services myself and see which one I'm
most impressed with. So pick the same picture and upload
it to you know, this, uh printique. I would upload
it to like a Shutterfly and Nation's photo Lab I'm
not as familiar with, but I would upload it to that.
Now here's the other thing you can do, And this
(17:51):
is a great search just to know in general. But
if you type in Shutterfly into the search engine, you
type and Shutterfly versus, and this will give you a
whole list of similar printing places. I guess. So upcome Snapfish, MPIs,
mixed book, Nations, photo Lab, chat books. Now some of
(18:13):
these are actually oh, Amazon Photos, let's not forget about
that one. So some of these are more for photo books.
But I'm not sure if you're you say you're gonna
put them an album, So I'm guessing you just want
the pictures. So that's what I would do so, I
would look up Nations Photo Lab versus and that should
bring up more of the professional ones, which is MPIs
(18:34):
or Shutterfly. And we all know that Costco recently, or
you maybe you don't know, but Costco recently stopped doing
their in store printing. But of course you can still
print not in store, you know, you can mail or
upload things to them. But once you get the pictures
back from these various services, I would analyze them, see
which one you like the best, see which one has
the best mix of quality and also the price that
(18:59):
you pay for it, and then go from there and
also look on their website at their FAQs and see
how long they say their pictures are going to last. Now,
you know, to me, it seems like, you know, the
printed pictures last pretty long. I think if you're going
the printer route, like a printer that you'd use at home,
I'm sure they have all that information on the printer
(19:20):
itself when you purchase it, how long these pictures are
expected to last. And what you're talking about doing I've
wanted to do as well for many many years. I
always say I want to print, you know, a bunch
of pictures and put them in albums, and I want
to do this once for every month, so you know,
like January twenty twenty one, it's a great month to
start and just pick out, you know, a bunch of
pictures and print them and put them on your on
(19:42):
your you know, shelf at home, and then when people
come over, when people start coming over again, it's such
a natural thing for people to just pull this off
your coffee table or off a shelf and just start
flipping through all your great pictures. Now, I know Google
will do this for you automatically. I believe they will
pick a bunch of pictures out of your Google Photos
and automatically send them to you. I haven't tested this,
(20:04):
so I don't know if you can go in and
kind of switch things out before you print them. But
I also know that you can just say, like, hey,
make me a photo book. I mean, the photo printing
on Amazon Is or on Google Photos is pretty elaborate,
and they're using AI to pick your pictures, so I
would also check into that one. All right, good question,
And uh yeah, maybe I'll do that one of these days,
(20:26):
because I used to print pictures a lot and I
just kind of stopped, all right, let's get to some
of the rumor mill news. I don't typically do a
lot of rumor mill stuff just because, you know, I
try to make this show something of news you can use,
like I like it to be informative, but like you know,
helpful for your life. And all the Apple rumors in
(20:47):
the world, there are so many podcasts dedicated to them,
and that's fine if you want to keep up with
all the rumors, that's great. Personally, you know, I keep
an eye on the rumors, but this show is not
about rumors. It's about real life stuff. And the problem is,
you know, there are some things that just bubble up
to a place where you have to talk about them,
and this Apple Car has sort of gotten to that
(21:08):
place because we just keep hearing so much about the
Apple Car. I'm not going to spend a whole bunch
of time on it. But CNBC reporting that Apple is
going to sign a deal or has sign a deal,
or is very close to signing a deal with Hyundai
Kia and they're going to make the Apple Car at
their plant in Georgia. And this is a multi billion
dollar deal. It's not just a Kia or a Hyundai.
(21:29):
That's sort of branded as Apple, and it's it's kind
of like remember when the iPhone came out, and you
know they use fox con to manufacture it, but AT
and T was kind of the carrier. So imagine that
Hyundai Kia. Their technology is the base of this car,
but Apple is the developer and the designer, and they
(21:51):
kind of dictate everything except for maybe how the car goes, right,
I'm not sure. I mean, we'll see, but the production
they're saying is maybe gonna happen in twenty twenty four.
And you know, this could be big for Apple if
they if they capture a bit of the market place
because it you know, cars are a huge market, and
(22:11):
you know it has all the inklings of an Apple product. Right.
It's a thing that people would like to be done better.
It's a thing that could be electric, it's a thing
that could be high tech. It's a thing that you
upgrade all the time. I mean, look at the least
the phone least people lease their phones all the time.
Now they can lease their cars. I mean they're already
doing that too. So it has all the markings of
(22:31):
a of an area that's ripe for disruption. But cars
have been very tricky and Tesla I think has done
a good job of disrupting. But and I think Apple
can do it given the base they have and the
money they have. But it's not like an overnight done deal.
But with all that said, would I buy an Apple Car? Probably?
(22:51):
In fact, I've been saving up for a Tesla, and
you know, maybe I'll just wait. I think I'm gonna
wait a little bit longer to purchase. But if I did,
I mean, maybe I'll just wait till twenty twenty four
when one of these comes out. The only problem is
buried inside all these headlines it says the Apple car,
the Apple car, the Apple car is the fact that
the first generation Apple car might only be for delivery companies.
(23:14):
They say it's going to be fully autonomous, which I
don't know, we'll see. I mean, there's a lot to
unpack with the Apple Car. But again, this is why
I don't do too many rumors, because it could happen,
it could never happen, and it could happen completely differently
than whateveryone's reporting. All Right, Tammy says, Hello, I was
(23:37):
wondering how I can control what my son does or sees,
or how much time he spends on his iPhone. I
have an app called kids Lock, but I'm not very
happy with it, and Tammy, the reason you're probably not
very happy with it is because it's tough to lock
down things on the iPhone. I'm assuming again with the iPhone,
(24:00):
it's very tricky. On Android, you can do whatever you want,
Developers can make whatever you want happen. On iPhone, it's
very tricky because there are very specific rules and regulations
that developers have to abide by when it comes to
the way that the apps interact with the rest of
the phone. So I'm guessing that this app does everything
through a VPN if I had to guess, because on
(24:22):
the iPhone you can't just have an app come in
and say, oh, we're going to restrict your time on YouTube,
We're going to restrict your calls and text. It just
really can't do that kind of stuff as far as
I know. Yeah, kids Block does not block basic functions
like calling and texting. So if you can't block that,
how can you really be called a kids lock, Right,
So I think this must use a VPN. Yeah, that's
(24:47):
some I'm guessing anyway, So what I use at my house,
I'll just tell you what I use. I use a
combination of things. I use screen time, which I think
is probably your best bet if you're on the iPhone.
If your kid is on the iPhone, and it just
takes a little bit of set up, you put them
on the family plan, you set it up. You can
do it all from your phone and then it just
carries over to their device, and you can give them
(25:09):
a certain amount of time for websites. You can give
them a certain amount of time for apps. You can
make down time, which means you know your kid can't
do certain things at certain times. You can block all
websites except for ones that you approve. So maybe you
only want PBS kids to be available, you can do that,
or you can say I only want Apple approved dumb
you know, kid sites, or you can say block adult sites.
(25:31):
Whatever you want to do, you can pretty much do it.
The main thing that you can't do, and I find
that this is the toughest thing, is that, well you
can you can sign you can assign time limits for apps,
like for YouTube. But if your kid is like mine,
they use a combination of things. Like my kids also
use a computer and they also use a TV, So
I use a thing called Circle, which can do these
(25:55):
things across everything. So it can it can put time
limits across everything. It can you know, block out apps,
it can block out certain you know, anything you want,
and your opportunities are unlimited with Circle. But Circle is
a device that physically plugs into your network and controls
it that way. And so you do have to pay.
It's like one hundred bucks one hundred and twenty bucks,
(26:15):
but you get a year free and then after that
you have to pay for the service. But I find
that if you want the most control, you got to
go with Circle, because, like in my house, sometimes we
go through times where we completely block YouTube where it
is just no dice, you can't get onto it, and
you can just do that. We can also limit the
time on YouTube across all their devices. So let's say
(26:37):
they spend fifteen minutes on their iPad watching YouTube, and
then you know, fifteen minutes in the bedroom watching YouTube,
and then fifteen minutes on the main TV watching YouTube.
It will be smart enough to add all that time
up to be to reach their forty five minute limit. Now,
there are a lot of downsides to this, and believe me,
I'm always giving my kids more time extra time, screen time.
(26:58):
You know, everything shuts down at six pm, so they
give me a hard time for that. It is not easy.
You know, the more you lock this stuff down, the
more it does affect you as a parent because you
have to then spend the time to unlock it or
give them more time when they run out or when
you know, on a weekend or something. So and it
does take a lot of time to set up. But
I think at the end of the day, the easiest
(27:18):
thing to do is just to start with screen time
and if that doesn't do what you need, then you
move on into some other aspects of limiting this stuff.
But believe me, it is a struggle. Even in my home,
we have effectively blocked roadblocks completely and you know, the
rest of the stuff is all timed out. But believe me,
my kids get around it. What they've done now is,
(27:40):
you know, since YouTube is timed on all the main
TVs and all their computers, they now watch YouTube on
the smart displays and so they'll just they'll just sit
in one in front of one of the smart displays
because we don't have those timed out. And the problem
is if I time out the smart displays and put
them under their profiles. Now, Dad can't look at a
(28:00):
YouTube video on the smart display when I need to
see how to chop an onion or something. So it is.
It is a struggle, and it's really tricky and complicated.
But just know Tammy that you are not the only
one that is struggling with this stuff. So and I'll
check into kids Lock a little bit more and see
what the deal is with that. But it's let's see,
(28:21):
it's one hundred dollars for lifetime, sixty dollars for a year,
six dollars for one month. But yeah, there you have
it all right, Let's move on to Instagram. Instagram is
rolling out a new feature called recently Deleted and this
is a feature to help you in two ways. Number One,
if you delete something mistakenly, you can go back into
this little folder within thirty days and find it. The
(28:46):
other thing, and this is interesting, is that if someone
hacks your account, apparently they delete everything in your account.
And these instagrammers get really sad because there goes all
their work, right, all their stuff is gone that they've
wor on their pretty layouts, all this stuff, and they
can't get it back even if they happen to regain
control of their account. So clearly Instagram knows this happens
(29:10):
all the time, so they are making this recently deleted
folder where you know, if the hacker comes in and
they delete everything, it goes into that folder in thirty days,
and they can't just empty that folder. So to empty it,
you actually have to somehow verify your identity, and Instagram
does not say how you verify your identity. But the
(29:32):
idea here is that let's say you lose access to
your Instagram account, hacker gets access, they replace all your
posts with like bitcoin advertisements and flood your feed. You
get your account back, and now you delete all their
stuff and now you have nothing. So somehow you will
say to Instagram, yes, I am who I am, and
can I please now restore all this stuff? And so
(29:54):
you can do that. I guess maybe they let you
restore it, but not permanently delete it. That would make
more sense, I guess. So to find this, I haven't
seen this on my phone just yet, but when it's there,
it'll be under Instagram settings. Account recently deleted and you'll
have thirty days again to restore things on Instagram. All right,
(30:17):
let's see Kim says, Hi, my sister and I want
to get the new iPads eighth generations. Have you heard
when the ninth generation is coming out and we should wait?
And it looks like there's a little kissy emoji there
sent for my iPad. Okay, Kim, okay. So the thing
I've said this before on the show, but the thing
that I always look at when it comes to when
(30:38):
to purchase Apple products. I'm a big believer in the
fact that you should always purchase Apple products like as
close to the first day that they come out as possible,
because apple products have a new life span of about
a year and then an extended lifespan after that. But
the fact is you want to get the most bang
for your buck by getting them in that first year. Now,
(30:58):
when it comes to the iPad, the iPad standard iPad,
if you look on this website buyers Guide dot MacRumors
dot com, it has all the Apple products listed and
then how many days since the last release the average
amount of time until they release a new one. So,
for instance, iPhone the day since last release, it's been
(31:21):
one hundred and twelve days since the iPhone twelve came out,
which you can if you can believe that the average
is three hundred and seventy one days, which if you
think about it, yes, there's a new iPhone every single year,
and so the average is about three hundred and seventy
one days. Then you have the iPad Air. This was
released alongside the new I think it was well around
(31:42):
the new iPhone one hundred and twelve days ago. I
guess was it the same day? Yeah, I guess it
was the same day, So iPad Air and average time
for that is six hundred and thirty five days, So
that's about two years. So every other year they're releasing
a new iPad Air. Now the iPad this is the
one that you're talking about days since release September twenty twenty.
(32:04):
They did this a little bit before the iPhone. This
has been one hundred and forty three days. The average
is five hundred and seventy nine. So I would say
the answer to your question is go ahead, buy the
iPad because it doesn't look like we're getting another one
for about another year. Or I'd guess no. Well, let's
see five seventy nine minus one forty three, so you
(32:26):
got four hundred and thirty six days, So you basically
have a year and a half before the new iPad,
so I would buy the new iPad or right now.
That way you get the most use out of it
before the next one comes out. Again, that website is
Buyer's Guide dot MacRumors dot com. Let's see, do they
have anything that's like the longest iPad Mini is probably
the longest six hundred and ninety days since last release.
(32:49):
That was March twenty nineteen, so six hundred and ninety days.
And I think I bought my kids the iPad Mini
in September twenty sixteen, so that's nine hundred and twenty
two days ago. I do need to upgrade my one
kid's iPad Mini to a newer model. He keeps bugging
me about it because he's playing you know, more bigger games.
But anyway, great website, and that is what I look
(33:12):
to when I'm looking for those that buying guidance. All right,
this is a This was kind of a fun thing
that we talked about on social media on KTLA. But
you know how you've been in zoom meetings and next
thing you know, the person freezes or they lock up,
or their microphone cuts in and out. Well, this is
(33:33):
a an app that actually does this on purpose. It's
called Freezing Cam and the founder Kevin Peachee Picky p
I c c h I peach pick I can't say
it h Picchi. Let's call Picchi. So Kevin Picchi. He
made this app. It's called freezing Cam. It's a simple
app for your Mac computer. And when you're in a
(33:55):
meeting and you know things are getting a little crazy,
things are getting a little wide, do you need to
kind of take a little breather. You can just press
this freezing cam butt and it will freeze your camera
or it will stutter your camera so it looks like
you're having connection issues. In the future, there will be
an option to mess up with your mic as well.
(34:15):
This works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, go to
meeting wherebe or whereby, and WebEx works on mac os
right now, And he said the idea came from a
discussion with a bunch of friends who were complaining about
the hassles of having to turn on their cameras during meetings.
Oh okay, earlier I read that he said that it
(34:37):
was him wanting to turn on and off his camera
during meetings to do random things, you know, like sometimes
your kid comes nearby and you got to like, you know,
wish them away or you know, kind of swosh them away,
and then or they ask you something and you got
to talk to them. So it's just perfect. You just
freeze your camera or make it stutter, and you know,
you can do your business on the side, and then
you can get back to your meeting and nobody, you know,
(34:58):
they just assume that you you have a little problem
with your connection. So again it's called freezing cam. I
have not downloaded it because the last time I downloaded
one of these these camera add ons. The way they
work is that they become a virtual camera for your computer,
and once you get them on there, it's kind of
like every time, it's kind of like it sees it
(35:19):
as its own little webcam. So it could present some
issues if you're trying to join meetings, and it's always
going to default to that if you have that going on,
and sometimes if you forget about it, it's just I
had one. I downloaded two of these things to test
them out. One was from Snap and it was like
their virtual camera, which is really cool, but it you know,
it takes over your camera every time, and sometimes you'll
(35:41):
show up as a potato head. And then the second
one I did was just like Loomy. It was called
I Think Loomy AI and again it was really cool,
but I could never get it to work properly, but
it kept taking over my video camera. And so anyway,
now I don't use these virtual cams because they can
mess with your connections and what you need to do.
So just know that before where you download it, and
if you have a good way of uninstalling, you know,
(36:04):
just know, like I use an app called clean my Mac,
so that's always a good way to get that as well,
to get those programs out of there when you're done
using them. All right, let's get to another question from
uh Karna Happy Sunny Sunday. I love you and watch
(36:26):
you all the time. I love your advice and your tips.
I'm wondering if you could do a review on the
regular Galaxy S twenty one, not the Ultra. I'm thinking
of upgrading and the Ultra has some great features, but
it's just too much money for me. I want to
know how the S twenty one is. Thank you Karina, Well,
thank you Karina for the email, and you're right. I
when I did my review on TV of the SAMSUNGS.
(36:49):
I did the S twenty one Ultra. That's the one
I primarily concentrated on. The reason for that is because
I wanted to show off the latest and greatest features
and features set that Samsung has and I was thinking
from myself as a power user and to be completely honest.
Once I did that and in I've here's the thing,
(37:11):
this is the truth here. So when I'm doing my
reviews for KTLA, I only have a minute and thirty seconds, right,
so I do not have a long time to really
get into the nitty gritty of these devices. So I
have to do the most top level information that I
think the average person watching local news needs to know.
And that gets very, very tricky because I'm a nerd.
(37:34):
I you know, I know a lot about these devices.
I use them, I compare them, and I you know,
but the reality is I need to distill them in
a way that is super easy and super fast for
my audience and that fits into my time slot. And
so that's why generally I'll do more stuff on Facebook
and social media and you'll see me post about my
(37:54):
experience with these things along the way, so that if
you're following me on social or listening to me on
the podcast or my reviews online, you can actually get
a bigger picture of what this is all about. Now.
In years past, with some of these devices, I've often
done two in one, but I realized that that even
does a bigger disservice because there's no way that you
(38:15):
can compare and contrast these two things that quickly, and
it gets very confusing for the end user because I
have to say every single time what device I'm referencing.
She get one hundred times zoom on the Ultra. You
get a thirty time zoom on the S twenty one,
and that becomes very confusing after your you know, by
the time you get through your piece, all you've done
is say what's on the one and what's on the
(38:36):
what's not on the other. So with the S twenty
one Ultra, I decided to do just the S twenty
one Ultra, and it's it was kind of a disservice
because I realized after using the S twenty one, that
is a great phone for the for the typical person
and not necessarily the power user. In fact, that became
(38:56):
my favorite phone due to the form factor and the
size of it. I like the functionality on the S
twenty one Ultra, but I like the size of the
S twenty one better. But here's another thing. I can't
really go ahead and do another segment on KTLA and
for all my stations on another Samsung phone right after
I just did a Samsung segment on the S twenty
(39:17):
one Ultra and then I do an S twenty one
the next day. It would be very confusing. And also,
you know that's a lot of It's just it's very,
very tough, And these are the decisions that you know
kind of are in the background that I don't necessarily
talk about in a public way. But as the sort
of editor in chief of my own segment that goes
out to all these stations, I have to make the
best decisions based on what I know to be kind
(39:40):
of what's happening. And I don't want to do a
disservice to people out there that do want something that
is better than the iPhone or comes up more closer
against the iPhone. The S twenty one I see as
a very good phone, but it's nothing like groundbreaking compared
to what's out there, whereas the S twenty one really is.
I mean, it's pretty fantastic as a device. So that's
(40:00):
a long, long answer to or long explanation to. The
simple answer is yes, the S twenty one is perfect.
It's fantastic. I don't have any problems with it. I
would use it as my daily driver if mainly if
it had more memory, perhaps because it only has eight gigs,
which is enough, but I find that I to me,
(40:23):
I just want the best, and when I'm using the
iPhone twelve Pro, that's the best, and the Samsung S
twenty one is not the best that Samsung has to offer.
The S twenty one Ultra is and I want that
in the form factor that is convenient to me, and
the S twenty one Ultra is just not convenient. It's
so big that I just I want to use it
and I can't. It's just too big on a daily basis.
(40:46):
It doesn't fit in my pocket, it doesn't you can't
hold it comfortably. And so for all those reasons, the
S twenty one is my favorite, but I just can't
really bring myself to using it because when I really
think about it, it's not better than when I get
off the iPhone twelve Pro, and that is my personal
experience and my personal situation. For you, if you want
(41:07):
the if money is the most important thing, what you're saying,
that's just too much money, then yes, the S twenty
one is going to be just fantastic and it is
a great phone. But I'm primarily interested in content creation.
And again this is inside baseball, but I want to
be able to do things that are unique and different
and not necessarily available to everyone. And by the Ultra,
(41:29):
that's what you get because you get one hundred times
zoom and all these other cool camera tricks that are
very unique, and some of the things are not available
on the iPhone and so even on the iPhone twelve pro.
And so that's why I'd like to use it, because
then you have some cool tricks that people look at
your social media and say, oh, that's cool, how did
you do that? You know this picture and picture mode
(41:49):
and things like that. So again that is my situation.
But for you know, an average person who's just using
this phone. It's their phone. You're not really cared about
all that stuff. You're not really interested in trying to
impress people with fancy, random features like I am. So again,
S twenty one is a fantastic phone. It's Samsung's best ever,
not just you know, it's just their best ever. They've
(42:11):
never made a better phone than that device. And so
that is a fantastic phone to get, and I highly
recommend you get it. All Right, I said earlier in
the beginning of the in the beginning of the podcast,
that there are some what I say, how did I
call them? Oh, dangerous smart doorbells. And this is something
that I've kind of alluded to, but this is some
(42:33):
security research from Cyberscoop. They talk about vulnerabilities in Genie
and Mercury branded security cameras and smart doorbells. And I've
often talked about how when you're looking at Internet of
Things devices, the smaller companies or the let's say, the
more inexpensive companies, you know, the stuff that's sold really cheap.
(42:55):
And I know Mercury specifically because I was at Walmart
and I bought one of their five dollars smart bulbs.
But here is kind of the concern in the back
of my head. And I'm not saying it's always, but
you think, okay, if these things are selling for really cheap,
where are they cutting the corners? And in some cases,
it could be the security of those devices. The software
might not be as robust when it comes to security,
(43:17):
it might not be as updated as much as some
other devices like a ring or you know, a Nest
camera or maybe like a Google Nest Audio like a
speaker from them. So you do have to be on
your guard when it comes to these cheap, cheap devices.
And so these researchers say that they found some vulnerabilities
(43:38):
in the Genie and Mercury branded security cameras and smart
doorbells that would allow hackers to take full control of
these devices and remotely disabled cameras through a denial of service,
and some exploits would even allow hackers to gain remote
access to a video stream of one of the affected doorbells. Now,
with all this said, the company Genie told these folks
(44:02):
the cyber Scoop or someone that we have no known
exploits of any of these vulnerabilities. So a lot of
times when you hear this scary stuff on the news,
it's it's researchers that find these vulnerabilities, but they're not
necessarily tested in the public, Like it's not just happening
all the time. And you have to keep that in mind. Now,
that doesn't mean you should let your guard down. It
(44:24):
is scary when these vulnerabilities are found because it only
takes one one hacker to exploit them and to use
it in a big way to their advantage, and you
don't want to be on that train. So again, what
does it come down to. By the way, Mercury spokesperson
told Cyberscoop that the fixes should be available later this month,
we're recording this in February, so hopefully by the end
(44:46):
of February. But again I think this is just more
of a bigger word to the wise kind of explanation
is that no matter what, you got to use different
passwords for things, you got to set up two FO authentication,
and you have to just more importantly keep in mind
what you are doing. Any of these smart gadgets that
(45:07):
you put on your network, if they are exposed or
if someone has access to them, it could end up
exposing your entire network. And if you have something like
I do, like a NASS on my network, and you
know someone might be able to get access to that,
So again you have to think down the line of
what is the repercussion of someone getting access to one
(45:29):
of my things on my network. So don't let your
guard down and do what you can to fortify your network. Personally,
I use a guest network when people come into my home.
You know, oh, Rich, what's the Wi Fi password? Hold on,
let me take the two seconds to actually get you
on my guest network, which is insulated from my regular network,
so that a you can't go in and change things
or switch things, or you know, mess with my smart
(45:51):
home stuff or access my resources on the network. You
can have your own personal network. You can do whatever
you need to. And you know, let's say there was
a some sort of malware or virus on your phone
that would propagate to my network when you connect, it
would just stay on the guest network. And that's why
you have a guest network. So if you have one
of those on your router, please set it up and
(46:14):
use it. It's it's a pretty smart thing to do, all right.
Let's see question from Joe Ann. I have an iPhone eight.
I want to know what is the easiest way to
delete duplicate photos in my album? And my answer is
an app. I feel like I just answered this question
(46:34):
on another podcast. Maybe I even answered this question. But
Gemini photos that is the That's the app that I
would recommend. The main thing I would say is make
sure that you have a backup of your pictures on
your computer before you go through and delete these duplicates
because this you know, it's nice to let these apps
do things on their own and let them kind of,
(46:56):
you know, help us and do things in an automated manner.
But you know, if something ever happened, you don't want
to lose your picture. So Gemini g E M I
ni Gemini Photos. I think, let's see how much they
charge for this app. Well, I can't really tell you
because it's trying to force me into the app store,
which I don't want to do. But in general I
(47:18):
would do I would plug your iPhone into a computer,
make a complete backup of your iPhone, and then I
would run Gemini Photos. And a regular listener of the show,
Tony has pointed out to me that I often talk
about Google Photos and how you should back your photos
up to there and then you can clear out space
(47:39):
on your iPhone by back by using their clear up
space or clear up storage functionality, which deletes the photos
off your phone. And Tony was saying, Rich, you know
you might want to tell people that when you do that,
it's probably going to delete their pictures out of iCloud
as well, and that's probably true. I don't use iCloud
for my photos, so I don't really have a lot
of experience there, but yes, if I had to think
(48:01):
about that, if you are let's say you're on an iPhone,
you save a picture to your iPhone and it's backed
up to iCloud, and then you clear that picture out
by uploading it to Google Photos and letting Google Photos
reclaim your storage, it would delete that picture off your phone,
which would then in fact delete the picture from iCloud storage.
So yes, you probably don't want to use Google's automated
(48:24):
functionality to delete your pictures off your phone. You would
want to go in and delete them manually, the ones
that you don't need from your camera roll. But I
would also say that you probably shouldn't need to do
that if you're using iCloud photos. There's a feature or
an option in settings to optimize iPhone storage, So if
(48:46):
you have that turned on with iCloud, it will offload
your photos to iCloud and keep little thumbnails on your phone,
but it'll keep the full rest pictures off on the cloud,
so that's not taking up space on your phone. And
then let's say you ever wanted to share one of
the pictures or whatever, it'll immediately download it back to
your phone on demand when you need it. I know
it all sounds very complicated, but yeah, good good delineation.
(49:09):
Good thing to kind of think about. You know, if
you're cleaning up your pictures on your phone, you don't
want to see them go all over the place. Oh
my gosh, is that it. I think it's time for
the end of the show. Yes, it is. That's what
that sound means. So I have any other things to
talk about? No, I guess not I do. I mean,
(49:31):
there's always more questions that I can answer. I mean,
the question is just keep coming. Facebook dot com, slash
rich on Tech, Instagram dot com, slash rich on Tech, insta,
let's the other on Twitter, rich on Tech. That's gonna
do it for this episode of the show. If you
have a question for me, you can submit it. Two
ways to do it. Go to richon Tech, dot tv,
(49:51):
slash podcast, hit the microphone button in the lower right
hand corner to leave a voicemail, or you can just
email me Hello, at richon Tech dot tv or go
to my Facebook page Facebook dot com, slash rich on
tech and hit the big blue send email button. Also,
if you want to rate and review this podcast to
help other folks discover it, that would be fantastic. You. Also,
(50:11):
you often email me saying how much you like it,
which is great and I love that. But tell the
world you know, leave that leave that review on iTunes,
that would be the best way to do it. You
can find me on all social media at rich on Tech.
I just want to say a quick note, by the way,
kind of a little goodbye, not to you, but to
my boss, Jason Ball. He is leaving KTLA. This is
(50:33):
the person that hired me twelve years ago to do
a tech job, to do my same job at KKEL,
and then I moved over to KTLA. It's been ten
years there and he is leaving on his own accord.
He is somewhat retiring, figuring out what to do next.
He has been an inspiration at KTLA. He has let
me fly. He is let my wings spread out and
(50:58):
soar there. So thank you Jason for your hands off
approach to day to day but swooping in when necessary
to give us the guidance that we so often need
in this business. So thank you for that. Thank you
for pushing me to do this podcast and really fighting
to get it under the KTLA umbrella a couple of
years ago. It's been fantastic. I will miss you, I
(51:20):
will keep in touch with you, and best of luck
no matter what is next for you. My name is
rich Dedimiro. Thanks so much for listening. Stay safe, I
will talk to you real soon
Host
Rich DeMuro
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