Apple debrief: iPhone 13 models, Apple Watch 7, new iPads and more

Thoughts on the new iPhone 13 models; iOS 15 launch details; Apple Watch Series 7 new features; iPad Mini upgrades; Apple Fitness+ enhancements; Amazon Kindle software update; Google cloud storage changes.Listeners ask about the privacy implications of joining a Zoom call, the best to-do list app, if I've ever heard of the cloud storage provider TeraBox, what do to about Spam texts, feedback on the OnePlus Buds Pro and why location info still shows up for photos even after turning off GPS tags.Follow Rich on InstagramFollow Rich on TwitterApple iPhone 13 info roundupiOS 15Apple Watch 7iPad MiniApple Fitness+Kindle software updateGoogle storage changesTo-do apps: Trello, Microsoft To DoTeraBox cloud storageSpam textsOnePlus Buds ProTurn off GPS tags on a Samsung phoneJeffrey's Image Metadata ViewerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Apple unveils new iPhones, a new Apple Watch, and new iPads.
Kindle gets a fresh new look. Google answers my storage prayers,
plus your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich
Dumiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where
I talk about the tech stuff I think you should

(00:31):
know about. It's also the place where I answer the
questions you sent me once again. My name is Rich Dmuro,
tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles, coming
to you today from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Why am I in Chattanooga, Tennessee?
Will I am here to see Volkswagen's electric car plant.

(00:53):
So they are making their new ID four electric car
here in the US in Chatta Nuga, Tennessee. So h yeah,
I'm here for like twenty four hours to check this
thing out. So I'm very excited. I took a run
this morning in this fine little town and it is beautiful.
It reminds me of living in Louisiana. So I used

(01:15):
to live in Shreveport, Louisiana for a couple of years
as a reporter, and it's it's so interesting because when
I lived in a small city, I did not respect
this small city lifestyle. So I grew up just outside
New York City. So even though I lived in a
suburban area, it was very much you know, an urban
area because it was just a community for New York City, right,

(01:37):
people commuted in from my city to the city. In
the city we call New York City the city. And
then I moved to Los Angeles for college. Then I
moved to Louisiana, well, Washington State, Louisiana, back to New
York and then back to LA. So a lot of
my time has been I guess most of my time
at this point has been spent in big cities. But
I did spend you know, four years in small cities,

(01:59):
and I didn't I didn't like them back then because
I was young and I wanted to you know, go
out and do stuff and you know, hang out. And
now that I'm older and have a family, that stuff
is not as important. Like I want a nice family place,
and LA is fine, but it's definitely, you know, not
the easiest place in the world to raise a family
and also to live. I mean, you know, small smaller

(02:21):
cities like this are just so much more geared towards
you know, working and raising a family. So anyway, beautiful place.
This run this morning totally reminded me of living in Louisiana,
fresh clean air. I ran across the river and then
I ran back on this like pedestrian bridge they have here,
which apparently the driver from last night told me that

(02:43):
this that's the longest pedestrian bridge in the US. I
don't know, I have to fact check that, but it
was great, and so here I am. I actually if
this if you're sitting there thinking rich the podcast actually
sounds pretty good, it's because I actually lugged all of
my podcasting equipment with me this time, so I made

(03:04):
sure that I wanted it to sound really nice, and
I wanted all of my bells and whistles literally bells
and whistles, to make this podcast sound as good as possible.
All Right, So here's the deal. I've got a couple things.
I'm gonna tell you something that I did personally, little
personal news that's exciting. I'll get to that a bit
later in the show. But this show is primarily going

(03:27):
to be focused on Apple's announcements. So if you don't
like Apple, if you're not an Apple fan, or you
don't want to hear about iPhones and iPads and all
that good stuff. It's probably not the podcast for you,
so go ahead, see you later. Pick it up the
next episode. Because Apple announced a lot they were small
changes to some of their devices. But when it's Apple,

(03:49):
they kind of suck all the air out of the
room in the tech world, and you know, they command
the respect that they get. I mean, a lot of
people in the US have these phones, so I'm gonna
give it the respect it deserves. I'm gonna go over
all that stuff. I've got a couple of other things,
and I'll still take questions from you, but this will
primarily be about the Apple event. So let's get started
with the with the first news. We got news about

(04:10):
the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple Watch, and Apple Fitness.
Let's start with the iPhone thirteen and the iPhone thirteen Mini.
So here's the deal. A lot of the changes with
the devices with the iPhone specifically, are you know this
might be an S model right in iPhone twelve S
and they do call it the iPhone thirteen. But and

(04:31):
some of the improvements, especially on the iPhone thirteen Pro
and Promax are definitely big improvements to the cameras but
in the battery life. But the rest of these improvements
are pretty minor, so I'm going to go through kind
of the biggest things that I noticed. So iPhone thirteen
and thirteen Mini same size as before, six point one

(04:52):
inch screen and a five point four inch screen. The
cool thing is what they did with both of these
phones now, the dual phones, they're basically the same, so
you only have to choose the size you want, so
you either want to go with Mini or regular, or
regular and Max. So the cameras are pretty much identical
now across the board, which I like. They made the
true depth camera sensor a little bit smaller, so the

(05:14):
face ID area at the top, I mean, it's still
a pretty big notch. It doesn't bother me. I don't
really know why people are so bothered by that. Battery
life improvement pretty big on the iPhone thirteen and thirteen Mini.
It's got this new A fifteen bionic, so the battery
is up to two and a half hours more on
the iPhone twelve than the iPhone twelve, and the iPhone

(05:35):
thirteen Mini you get up to an hour and a
half more than iPhone twelve Mini. So that's a pretty
big improvement, especially because these phones last year took a
pretty major hit, so I feel like maybe we're just
getting back to old battery life on the iPhone, but
Apple still says this is some of the best battery
life we've seen now on the iPhone thirteen and Mini.

(05:55):
The wide camera is the one that's improved, so just
one of the lenses, and the wide is kind of
your everyday camera, so that's the most important, and that
has the biggest sensor ever, so forty seven percent more
light it captures, which is really good. So when you're
taking your everyday pictures, that's the lens that you use
the most. It's gonna be a lot better. Now I
haven't tested these, so I can't say that for certain,

(06:17):
but that's kind of what they're saying. The other thing
they did is they brought this censorshift technology, which means
it stabilizes the sensor instead of the lens, which you know,
it's kind of it gets a little in the weeds there,
but the reality is your shots, even if you have
a shaky hand, should be more steady, and that means

(06:38):
that they'll be more in focus, and that means, especially
in low light photography, things will be more in focus.
They've got this new cinematic mode across all the phones
that kind of brings portrait mode to video. So if
you're thinking that, you know, you like these portrait mode photos,
now you can do that with your videos. Now. I
think this is kind of cool, but I don't think

(06:59):
it's feature that I have to rush out and upgrade
my phone for. If you think about smartphone video, it
kind of just you want everything to be in focus.
That was always the goal. Right now it's gonna be
where you can kind of have the background blurry and
the subject is in focus, but if you move the
camera to someone else in the background, it will now
focus on them and the foreground will be blurry. So

(07:21):
it kind of gives you that look that you see
in movies versus just a flat, kind of clear look.
Across the board, the A fifteen processor, they're not saying
that it's a lot faster, but I guess it does
certain things faster, like the graphics. But that's about it
all right. So the colors for the iPhone thirteen and
thirteen many pink, blue, midnight, starlight, and red, and they
also did double the entry level storage, so it's one

(07:45):
hundred and twenty eight gigs that gets a ding. I
have this video on YouTube from a couple of years
ago called Apple Math, and I kind of went through
the reality of what Apple has been doing with customers.
They've been playing games with them with iPhone storage for many,
many years. For many years, the entry level storage was
not half of the middle storage. It was like almost

(08:07):
a quarter. So it used to be like sixty four,
then two fifty six, then five twelve, which is not right.
So if you do the math, you're actually paying way
more for the entry level phone. Now it's the right way,
So it's one twenty eight, two fifty six, five twelve
On the thirteen and thirteen Mini. These phones start at
six ninety nine for the Mini, seven ninety nine for

(08:28):
the thirteen and they will be available on pre orders Friday,
September seventeenth, and then the phones will be in stores
on the twenty fourth of September. So that's pretty much it.
So do you upgrade if you have the iPhone twelve,
I don't think you need the upgrade to the thirteen
or thirteen Mini. When it comes to the iPhone thirteen
Pro and Pro Max, that's where it gets a little

(08:50):
more interesting. That's where we're seeing a bit more improvement.
But if you're on one of those upgrade plans anyway,
of course, it's always nice to get the new phone,
especially for the new battery life. But we'll talk about
the iPhone th thirteen and thirteen pro after this first question.
All right, first question from Dan. Hey Rich, I need
to join a Zoom conference as a participant for the

(09:12):
first time ever. I will be using my computer, a PC,
and I'm concerned about security. So if I have any
if I have Chrome or Edge, can I join the
conference and not need to open a Zoom account or
download any software on my computer? And if that's possible,
then can I be sure nothing will be downloaded by
Zoom without me knowing it. I would hope they don't
get my IP address or any other information. There have

(09:34):
been so many stories about Zoom and security. Thank you, Dan.
All right, Dan, So couple things here. Number One, Yeah,
they're going to get your IP address. I mean, that's
that's pretty standard for any website that you visit, unless
you're using a VPN. Number Two, I don't know what
kind of Zoom you're doing, but I mean, is it
really that secretive what you're talking about or what you're doing.

(09:57):
I mean, this is a free service on the public Internet.
So there's only so much, so many precautions you can take. Now.
Number one, you don't need to download Zoom to run
a Zoom to run a zoom like to be a
participant on Zoom. Now. The thing is they use what

(10:20):
do they call this, They call this dark dark patterns?
Is that what they call it? Where Zoom tries to
convince you you have to download software to join. So
when you click that Zoom link immediately it will say, oh,
we just put the installer on your computer. Make sure
you press run to join your meeting. And if you
don't do anything, you wait a little bit. Now it'll say, oh, shoot,

(10:43):
they didn't fall for our tricks, so hold on. Oh
let's give them a link now on their web page.
So they refresh the web page and then it says, oh,
do you want to join from browser? And then you
can join from your browser. But they really hide that
and they make it, you know, they force you to
or they try to force you to download the software
and make you think that's the only way to join.

(11:04):
That is not the case. WebEx does the same thing.
It's all these video conference apps because they want the
software on your computer because then you'll probably use it again.
And it's just easier. I mean, I get it. It's
just easier to join from the software. They get a
better experience. But you can join from just your browser,
but you have to kind of just wait and wait
for that link to come up that says join from

(11:25):
your browser, and you will see it. You might have
to scroll down to the bottom of your screen to
see it, but will it will show up eventually. Just
don't run the software that they download your computer automatically.
Now with that said, can you join a zoom without
logging in? I do believe you can, because typically you
just have to give a person a link which includes
the user kind of like the one time user and password.

(11:48):
But it depends how this zoom is set up. Sometimes
you will have to log in. I believe. I don't
know because I kind of forget. I do know that
I log into WebEx without signing up for a WebEx account,
so I think Zoom lets you do the same thing.
So that's that. Now. The other thing, the IP address
um or other information. I mean, they're gonna get your

(12:09):
IP unless you use a VPN if you want, just
use a VPN and log in that way. But that's
about it. Zoom insecurity Zoom is it's not. I don't
believe it's end to end encrypted by default, but you
could enable that in the settings. But it is encrypted
in transit, so whatever you're saying, no one else can
see theoretically, but I will tell you if you're putting

(12:32):
personal information out there on the Zoom call, yeah, there's
always a chance that someone could could sniff that information out.
But I do believe it's encrypted so that it should
be fine. And if the if the Zoom itself is
password protected, you should be okay. But in general, look,
if you're using a public service that is free, there's
only so much expectation of privacy that you can have

(12:54):
when you use that. So just keep that in mind.
And I think the big thing is just to join
it without signing up, and to join it without downloading
the software, and you should be fine. So good question there.
All right, Now, let's talk about the iPhone thirteen Pro
and Pro Max. These are the iPhones that got a
much bigger leap than the standard iPhone, and the reason

(13:15):
they do this is because Apple kind of like the
way Samsung does it. They do kind of an ultra model.
This would be their Ultra and they put all of
their newest technologies in the Pro models and then they
trickle them down to the regular models later on. Now
with the Max this year, I like what they did
and thank you Apple for doing this. They made the

(13:36):
iPhone Pro and Promax the thirteen models the same. They
are identical except for the screen size, so you no
longer have to choose. Last year you had to choose
the Promax had slightly better specs in certain aspects. This
time they're the same. So all you need to do
is say do I want that big screen or do
I want the standard size screen? And so last year

(13:58):
I went with the standard size. This year I may
be tempted to go with the Pro Max just to
get a bigger screen. I was watching Stuff, a little
movie yesterday on the airplane No Sudden Move on HBO Max,
which by the way, was pretty good. I didn't watch
all of it, so don't tell me anything. No spoilers here.
But I was watching my tiny iPhone because I love

(14:19):
packing really lean, especially for a trip like this that's
less than twenty four hours, and so I was watching
on my little tiny iPhone screen. It was just horrible,
like so small I could barely see what was going
on on the screen anyway. Aside, so what's new on
the iPhone thirteen pro models. They've got a new what

(14:40):
they call super Retina XDR display with promotion. I mean,
all that means is that it's a really good screen
that's brighter than before, and it has an adaptive refresh
rate up to one hundred and twenty hurts, which means
that when you're scrolling through things especially like Twitter, social media,
watching videos, and playing games, the refresh rate should be better,

(15:03):
so it will be buttery smooth versus a little I
noticed yesterday on my iPhone. Of course, now they announced
it that it's a little bit choppy when you scroll.
Not a deal breaker, it's not that big of a deal.
But most videos in the US at least are thirty
frames per second, maybe sixty, and so you probably never
noticed on videos. But when it comes to gaming and scrolling,

(15:24):
that's when the adaptive refresh rate will come in handy.
Let's see, so the camera's got improvements in a big way.
All the sensors and lenses for all three of the
rear cameras are new, and so you've got much better
low light performance up to two times two and a
half time, two point two times when compared to iPhone

(15:46):
twelve Pro and one point five when compared to iPhone
twelve Pro Max. You see what they did there, So
now they're revealing that the Pro Max was a little
bit better. You also have that sensor shift optical image
stabilization on both models. And let's see what else. The
Ultra wide Excuse me, the Ultra wide camera features a
much wider one point eight aperture and autofocus. So this

(16:09):
is we're talking the ultra wide lens. That's the one
that you can take in a lot more wide frame
on your photography. So ninety two percent improvement for low light,
which means if you took an ultra wide, So a
lot of times if I'm out and about at night,
I want to take a cool cityscape photo and I
go ultra wide. Immediately on the iPhone twelve Pro, you
notice that the whole screen went dark because it just

(16:32):
didn't take in very much light on that Ultra Wide.
Now it's going to take in almost one hundred percent
more so that's really really cool. So that means that
your ultrawide photos are going to be a lot better.
They also have auto focus on the Ultra Wide, which
is really cool, and that unlocks macro photography. Using the
Ultra whites, you can take macro pictures from a distance
of two centimeters, which is really close up. Now. I'm

(16:56):
not a huge macro photography guy, but you know, it's
kind of cool. I'll use it once in a while,
take some pictures of the flowers or whatever. Bugs. There's
also a new seventy seven millimeter telephoto lens. So the
telephoto lens now lets you do three times optical zoom.
It used to be two or two and a half.
Now it's three, and so that's nice. Now if you

(17:18):
look at Samsung, they're doing like I think, ten times
and obviously up to one hundred times on the Ultra.
I think the Ultra there, I can't remember. Don't quote me,
but I think it was thirty times optical. But maybe
it was ten times. I can't remember at this point,
it's been too long. But so the fact that iPhone
is pretty far behind in the optical zoom, you know,

(17:39):
but they're getting there three times is a good thing.
So you know, the more you can get with zoom optical,
the better. And quite frankly, when you zoom in, even
with the you know, the software assistance, it still looks
pretty good. On the iPhone, let's see, night Mode is
now available on all three cameras on the Pro models,
including the Telephoto. That's the first first time ever. So

(18:00):
when you take nightmode on all those cameras, it will work,
and it will capture more light and make your photos
look better. They've got this new thing called photographic Styles,
which I'll probably never use, but if you're a pro
photographer maybe you would. They've got pro res Video which
is coming later, and that's going to be a better
format if you're like a pro videographer. But again, if

(18:20):
you notice I keep saying the words pro, this new
Promax and Pro are really aimed at the person who
is very much interested in really really the best photos
and videos you can get, which aka is not the
average consumer. So when someone asks me rich do I
need to upgrade? I mean the iPhone, even the iPhone

(18:41):
like from a couple of years ago, cakes really good
pictures in everyday light when you get in those challenging
lighting situations when you're in a darkly lit bar or
restaurant or action with your kids, that's when these newer
phones will shine. So if you feel like your phone
is lagging those areas, that's where these would be a
good upgrade. Battery life definitely improved to the iPhone thirteen

(19:04):
Pro is gonna get you one and a half hours
longer than iPhone twelve Pro, up to two and a
half hours longer than the Pro Max on the twelve.
So if you have an iPhone twelve Pro like I do,
battery life has been a very sore issue. So I'll
take an hour and a half longer for sure, I'll
take two and a half hours longer, which would be

(19:25):
even longer. I mean, that's that's really good. That means
less charging for me, all right. Availability iPhone thirteen Pro
and Pro Max available in graphite, gold, silver, and Sierra Blue,
which would be my choice that Sierra blue one twenty
eight again two fifty six five twelve, and a new
one terabyte storage option. Now, this one terabyte storage is

(19:46):
great if you're shooting a lot of video, like for
me personally, I'll be shooting my entire story on the
iPhone here in Chattanooga, and so I would need a
lot of storage, but I bumped it down to ten
EP because we don't air in in four K anyway.
So it's fine to just do ten ADP because I
don't need all that extra storage gobbling up my phone.

(20:07):
So the one terabyte do you really need it? Know,
some people get it because they just want it. And
if you're a pro videographer, fine nine ninety nine for
the Pro, ten ninety nine for the Promax in one
twenty eight. I would not recommend getting the one twenty eight.
If you're going pro, you probably want to go two
fifty six minimum because one twenty eight is just going

(20:28):
to be way way too little storage. That's it. I
think that's it for the for the iPhone thirteen pro
in Promax. So am I impressed? I mean, obviously Apple
does a nice job of improving these phones. This is
what I call an S improvement. We didn't get a
major new feature like mag safe or Touch ID or

(20:49):
face ID or Apple Pay on these phones, but they
are really nice improvements, especially if you're interested in the
best video and audio. Are sorry, best video and pictures
you can get on a smartphone. And if you're on
one of these upgrade plans. It's great. I think ninety
nine point nine percent of people will be perfectly happy
with the iPhone twelve standard model Mini if they want

(21:11):
just a little tinier phone, and the Max if they
want or Pro rather if they want the best videos
and pictures, and Max if you want the best videos
and pictures with a big screen. All right, let's get
to a question, and we'll go to an audio question
this time.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Hey, Rich, my name is Andrew. I'm just wondering, you
get all those texts for contests and you get a
free gift card or something. How legitimate are those? I
always delate those. Are they very legitimate or are they
just scams and fishing trying to get your information?

Speaker 1 (21:50):
That's my question, Andrew, great question, and this is my
answer in one sound. Click on the links that you
get through texts. Let me say that again, do not
click on the links that you get through texts. In fact,
this is the way that hackers have been known to

(22:12):
take over iPhones. I don't think that the texts you're
talking about is that's what's going on here, but that
has been the infiltration method in the past. If hackers
figured out a way into the iPhone. It's through I message,
and what they do is they send malicious code. The
best code that they can send is code that doesn't
even need to be tapped. That's These are taps that

(22:35):
are like zero click exploits, which means you don't even
have to click the whatever they send in the attachment
for it to infiltrate your phone. And that's really bad.
And that's kind of the patch that we saw with
iOS fourteen point eight. That's the one that you saw recently.
If you haven't updated your phone, definitely update it. Because

(22:56):
the ways that hackers were able to get into these
phones was through I message and also through web pages
that had malicious code in them, and you really didn't
have to do much. In fact, I believe that all
they had to do was send the message to your
phone and that was it. Whatever the phone did to
like process the message would be enough for them to
gain access to your phone. Now, I don't think that's

(23:17):
happening here with these spam texts that you're talking about.
They are just mostly annoying, But what the endgame is
with these spam texts is that they are trying to
get your personal information which you know, if you click
the links, it tells them that you have an active
phone number, and it also if you follow the links,
it will you know, they'll just either try to get
your personal information, your personal data, or they will try

(23:41):
to say that you won something like I and I
do this stuff for you and I you know, I'd
click these links just to see what the deal is.
And the last one I clicked was it led me
to a website where I won a free pair of
I think they called them air phones, which looked strikingly

(24:01):
similar to air pods. And all I had to do
as the winner of the hour was to pay nine
to ninety nine for shipping for these air pods. So
do not fall for those kind of tricks. Don't even
reply stop. Now there are legitimate texts that you can
get to your phone and a lot of companies now

(24:22):
you do use text to get in touch with you.
But if it's a legitimate company, it will respond to
the word stop. So if you get a text from
a company like you know, I don't know, let's say
you sign up. You sign up for Wendy's Text Alerts.
You want to get some coupons in your in your
text and you know, once you sign up for these things,
they really take advantage. Once they get a hot number,

(24:43):
they're like, all right, we're gonna we're gonna text you,
and you'll get a text every day from Wendy's about
you know, trying the spicy chicken nugs or trying the
new baconate or sandwich or whatever. And so they'll they'll
text you over and over and you know, until you say,
oh gosh, I'm really craving Wendy's. But at some point,
if you get sick of those texts, you can just
text the word stop back and they will respect that

(25:06):
and they will stop texting you. That's a legitimate company
sending legitimate texts that you signed up for. If these
are not legitimate texts, if they are just scammers, you
do not want to respond at all. You can block
the number, but it doesn't really matter because they generate
random numbers anyway when they text you. But you can
just go ahead and delete that message. Do not respond,
do not reply, and definitely don't click the link in

(25:28):
that message. Andrew, great question, and thanks for texting in
or sorry calling leaving a voicemail I think you used.
There's two ways you can leave a voicemail. If you
want to email me, you can just email record it
on your phone and then email me the video the
voice message to hello at Richontech dot tv. Or you

(25:49):
can go to podpage dot com slash rich on Tech
and you can look for a microphone in the lower
right hand corner and you can send mic a message
that way. All right, next story is iOS fifteen. I
just talked about iOS fourteen point eight, but I talked
about all the new iPhones. If you're sitting there listening
and saying, rich you didn't really convince me. I don't

(26:12):
think I need a new iPhone. I think my iPhone
is going to be just fine. So in that case,
you will get a fresh new iPhone when you install
iOS fifteen, or at least it'll feel like a fresh
new iPhone. iOS fifteen is releasing on September twentieth. Now
this is this is so typical Apple. And you know,
I love Apple, but I also hate Apple in certain

(26:33):
ways because they do things that are just There's always
this idea of it's not I don't want to say
lying biomission, but it's kind of the idea of leaving
out information and then people have to seek out that information.
And as a journalist, I feel like this often happens

(26:54):
to me when I go and talk to someone about something,
whether it's a new car, whether it's a new gadget,
whether it's a new whatever. The person the representative never
sits there and tells me what the gadget doesn't do.
They only tell me what it does, and so it
is then my job to sit there and figure out Okay,

(27:15):
well they mentioned that it does this, but hold on,
did you drop support for this? And I have to
do a little slew thing to figure out this stuff.
And so Apple, I'm not saying that they were omitting information,
but let's be honest. For the millions upon millions of
people that have an iPhone out there, what are they
most excited about right now? Is it the new iPhone

(27:36):
or is it the upgrade to iOS fifteen. And yes,
there's always a couple of people out there that don't
want to upgrade, and that's fine. You should be doing
security updates. And in the future, Apple I believe, is
going to be separating out security updates from iOS updates
so that you can stick with an older version of iOS,
but you can still be nice and safe and secure
from hackers by installing the software updates. So that's a

(27:59):
good thing. But with that said, I think a lot
of people would have been interested to know that iOS
fifteen is launching on Monday, September twentieth, but Apple conveniently
left that out of their big old announcement. And so
why did they leave it out? Well, because why do
they want to advertise the fact that your old iPhone

(28:21):
is going to get a new lease on life in
a couple of weeks. It's gonna feel fresh. And then
if you get iOS fifteen installed, why do you need
to upgrade to a new iPhone? Because, by the way,
you're going to get some of the same features that
are coming to the new iPhones in the in the
current iPhones that you have, and by the way, this
works all the way back to the iPhone six S

(28:41):
and success plus. So if your iPhone is running iOS
fourteen right now as we speak, it will be able
to run iOS fifteen on September twentieth. Now do you
need to run out and install iOS fifteen on the
first day? I don't know. If you're nerd like me,
of course you want to. I mean I can't wait
to get that on my phone because it feels like
an new phone. And yeah, probably slows down your phone

(29:03):
just a little bit. Remember people talk about that, the
idea that Apple slows down the old devices, and then
it came out that yeah, they kind of did because
of battery issues. But now they're much more open about that,
much more honest. You can look in your battery settings
and see if it's being if it's if your battery
is wearing out to the point where your phone is
being throttled. But anyway, iOS fifteen coming out on September twentieth.

(29:30):
It'll work on all the iPhones, and a couple of
the features won't be available at launch, at least according
to nine to five, Mac share play will not be there.
But one of the big features that will be is
called Focus. And I'm hoping that this will help me
separate my work and my personal life a little bit better.
And you know, if you follow me on social media
at rich on Tech, you know my personal life and

(29:52):
my work life are very much intertwined. And I'll get
more to that in just a moment with my personal
announcement after the next question. But I will tell you
it's tough to keep the personal from the public. I mean,
it's just I am who I am. I cover this
stuff for a living, but I also live the life.
I mean, I live the life of wanting to check

(30:12):
out these gadgets and play with these gadgets and figure
out what works with gadgets and what doesn't work with gadgets.
And so I'm very open with you. I'm open with
the fact that you know, I'm going to be struggling
in the next couple of weeks to decide do I
want to stick with the iPhone or do I want
to switch my personal device to the Pixel six Pixel
six Pro, I should say, And that's going to be

(30:34):
a big decision because I've gotten so used to iPhone
and the iPhone lifestyle with my Apple Watch and air
tags and all this good stuff. But at the same time,
I'm kind of ready for something new, and just like
I don't actually, I don't think that's like a lot
of people. I don't think a lot of people are
thinking about switching because they're they're in their their lane.
You know, if you're Apple, they're very good at getting

(30:56):
you to stick with Apple, especially because of I message. Now,
I'm not going to be beholden to a platform because
Apple basically took my phone number and linked it up
to this I Message account that yes, it's so nice
and it's so great and it works so perfectly and
friends love it. But I don't need to be identified
by an I message blue bubble. That's just not Sorry,

(31:19):
like I will give up I message and when people
text me and it comes up green, oh sorry, I
mean you deal with it. And yeah, if you want
to take me off your group texts and all this
good stuff, you don't want to send me pictures and videos, fine,
then you know, find me on telegram. That's that's all
I have to say there. All right, what else is new?
And iOS fifteen? Weather application is going to be new
Ooho new weather application, new design for Safari, but Focus

(31:46):
is the big thing. This is again kind of a
smaller update, but there will be some new things in
iOS fifteen. All right, let's get to another question. Richard says, Hello,
rich I have a question about to do list apps
for iPhones. I have used three by five cards to
write my to do list seems like forever, but I'm

(32:07):
looking for a better system to organize tasks for a
work week. Any suggestions. Thank you, Richard. Well, Richard, the
system that you are describing is what I use, and
so I use three I use a combination of two things.
I use three by five cards, and then I use
a task list like a to do list. And believe me, Richard,

(32:28):
I have tried everything under the sun. So one of
my favorites used to be called wonder list. I've tried
Google tasks, I've tried Microsoft tasks or is it Microsoft
to do Microsoft to do. I've tried all the different
ways that you can keep track of your tasks. I've
tried apples, built in reminders, and here here's what's worked

(32:51):
for me. And I do two things now. I do
a combination of physical because I decided that I can't
give up the three by five index cards at the
end of the day. It is the best way. It's
just I like to see. And what I use the
index cards for is to plan out my stories. I
do a story for KTLA and our affiliated stations on Monday, Wednesday, Friday,

(33:16):
and I have decided that the best way of keeping
track of my stories is to write them out on
it used to be index cards. And I'll tell you
what I use now. And put them up on a
a what do you call a bulletin board with pins,
And that is the best way because what happens is,
let's say I've got next week stories all planned out.
I know, Monday, I'm doing a crime story on a

(33:40):
crime app On Wednesday I'm doing the Ford Maverick, and
then on Friday, I've got something else planned. And so
I know, let's say on Monday something comes up and
I've got to push Wednesday story to something else. I
got to push that to Friday. Well, it's easy for
me to just move the index cards around and with
the push, you pull it out, you move it, and

(34:01):
now Wednesday story becomes Friday story. I write a new
card for Wednesday and everyone is happy. Now I have
graduated those index cards to post it notes on a whiteboard,
and I discovered that through the pandemic, and it's just
much easier. It's just like a post It's just like
a card that you stick into the wall, but it's
a post it note and so it just sticks. I
put it on the wall, same principle, and that's how

(34:23):
I cover that. When it comes to my to do list,
the best to do list that I have found you
ready is Microsoft to Do List. And the reason I
like it is because a it is platform agnostic, which
means if I'm on my Android phone it works. If
I'm on my iPhone, it works, if I'm if I'm
on Windows, it works, if I'm on Mac it works,

(34:44):
and they've got apps across all those platforms. The other
thing I like about it is that you get this
thing called my Day, which is a fresh task list
for every day. And so if you're like me and
you put a lot of tasks on your list that
are sort of longer term and not just something you
want to accomplish on that day, it gets a little
cluttered with your typical task lists because you're looking at

(35:05):
stuff every day that's the same. But with this every day,
you get a fresh canvas, and so you can add
tasks just to that day and check them off just
for that day. But if you don't do them on
that day, guess what they go to your big list
of all of your tasks. And so I love that aspect.
I also love the fact that you can share this

(35:26):
easily with someone. So you can share the task list
with someone, all they have to do is sign up
and you can share that list with them and they
can be on board and so that really helps. Now
you asked for a three x five index card system,
and so I think what's closest to that if you
want to truly go just digital, I think what you

(35:47):
would like is called Trello t R E l l O,
and that is the most similar you can get to
sort of the physical card system, because the way that
you set it up, it looks like a board of cards,
and you can rearrange them, you can move them. You
can actually set up your Monday, Wednesday, Friday stories like
I do, and you can put them in you know,

(36:10):
you can put your cards underneath and you can shuffle
them around and it works really well. And then you
can make you know, even more board. So if you
want to have three columns for Monday, Wednesday, Friday and
you want a fourth column for your task list, you
can do that. So Trello is probably the best. They
do have a free plan and it works really well.
I personally don't use it because it just it's just

(36:31):
a little bit. I like the system I've settled on,
which is a combination of the post it notes and
Microsoft to do works for me. Oh yeah, One more
thing I like about Microsoft to do that not all
of the to do lists offer, is you can drag
and drop in your tasks an attachment like a file,
and so that's really easy. Like on Apple Reminders, I

(36:55):
can't find a way to attach a file. Maybe I'm wrong,
maybe they've added that functionality, but I really like the
fact that I can just add a file to my reminder.
So if I take a screenshot, or if I have
a PDF of a bill I need to pay or whatever,
I can just toss it in there and when I
get to it on my to do list, I don't
have to go phishing for that information. It's right in

(37:16):
the in the task itself. So great question, Richard, Thank
you for asking. And let's talk about the Apple Watch
and then I'll get to my personal info. I put
the personal info deep into the podcast so that way
you have to be a true listener to really get it,
because you know, if you're just listening and you kind
of tune now after five minutes and you say, eh,

(37:37):
what another yawner from rich then you don't get to
share in my personal news. All right, Apple Watch, you
have a method to my madness. Apple Watch series seven,
So what can I say about the Apple Watch series seven? Well,
number one, all the rumors were wrong. It did not
get flatter and look like an iPhone and all that.
They didn't change anything. They just made it. They made

(37:57):
the screen go a little bit more edge to end.
That's kind of what they did. And so twenty percent
more screen area and thinner borders, so you know, the
screen just goes much more. So the screen looks bigger,
even though they didn't really increase the amount of screen
real estate. I mean they did a little bit. They
made thinner borders, right, so it does look like it

(38:19):
goes a little bit more to the edges. Big whoop.
I mean, is this a reason to upgrade?

Speaker 3 (38:23):
No?

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Do they improve the battery life? No, battery life is
still the same. So the battery life is still eighteen hours,
which means you still need to charge it every single
day of your life. If you do anything with exercise,
you're gonna have to charge it even sooner than every day. Sometimes, Nah,
I'm just kidding. I take about a five mile run
and it actually does still last through the end of

(38:45):
the day, although sometimes it will charge it before the
end of the night. Whatever he got to charge the
thing every day. They did improve battery charging time, though,
so does charge thirty three percent faster through a new
charging architecture and magnetic fast charger USBC cable. I don't
know if that means you need a new one to
get that. I think it does. That's what it sounds like.

(39:07):
Let's see what's the other improvement. They made the screen stronger,
so it's got this new fifty percent thicker front crystal.
And I will tell you I talked about how my
Apple Watch Series six scratched easily. We'll see they didn't
say anything about scratching, but they said crack resistant. Now,
I don't think this thing scratches very easily. I think

(39:29):
it scratches if it's if it's rubbed up against a
certain type of material and it's kind of like your teeth.
You know, they're pretty strong, but if you're if you're
chomping on ice, which is made of crystals, and those
crystals the architecture of them just erecs havoc with the
architecture of whatever it's up against. There are certain things

(39:50):
that are just a stronger architecture, geometry. This is like
and look at this is actually what Apple says. Look
what they say, redesigned front crystal with a stronger and
more robust geometry. So I'm not a math expert, I'm
not a geometry major, but I just know that certain
shapes are are more are harder than other shapes. And
you can think about this when you look at supports.

(40:11):
If you have one beam like that looks like a toothpick,
and if you ever built one of these like toothpick
things in your life for like, you know, a project,
you know that like a toothpick just standing upright, if
you crush it is gonna crush pretty easily. But if
you make that toothpick into more of a of a triangle,
it's gonna support more of the weight, I think. I mean,

(40:33):
that's kind of what I remember. So this is That's
what I'm talking about here. So fifty percent thicker whatever
crystal that's supposedly more crack resistant. Also, for the first time,
the Apple Watch seven is IPX six dust resistant. Now
I have brought my Apple Watch to the beach and
the desert, not so much the desert. I mean, I

(40:53):
live in a desert in Los Angeles, but it's not
like there's like, you know, dust storms swirling around like
I'll never forget. I was driving to Texas one time,
and I'm not kidding. We got caught in a real
life dust storm and I've never ever seen anything like
it ever again in my life. I think it was
called Peko's Texas, and it was unbelievable. I remember we

(41:15):
got to our hotel. We could barely see anything in
front of you, and we get to our hotel and
it's just like dust swarming everywhere. And I remember we
ordered a pizza. We had to go out and get
the pizza, and it was just like I never had
experienced anything like it. So yeah, I guess dust could
get in this thing. I've never had problems with sand
at the beach ever with the Apple Watch Series six

(41:37):
and earlier. But now it is more dust resistant, so
it'll be more durable. It's still swim resistant, which is
really good. Now they added some updates with WATCHSOS eight,
and some of those updates include a keyboard, a quirdy
keyboard on it, so you now get a you know,
a real keyboard that's built in. You can either swipe

(42:00):
or you can tap the keys on it. So that's cool.
Let's see there's let's see what else, a new mindfulness app.
There's sleep, respiratory rate tracking, tai chi, and pilates workout types.
Let's see what else, what else? What else? Watch OS
eight now has new improvements if you ride a bike.

(42:21):
So I did not know this, but fall detection apparently
did not work really well if you're on a bike
or really working out, and I guess the algorithms have
been tweaked, so now know if you fall off a bike,
which is really really important. So now it also automatically
knows when you start a bike workout. And so again

(42:42):
these are some of those things will come to other
watches because it's in Watch OS eight, so some of
those things, those improvements will work. Five brand new aluminum
case colors, including Midnight, Starlight green, and a new blue
and product red. When does the Apple Watch Series seven
come out We don't know. Available later this fall. So

(43:05):
remember the rumors about the the shipping the Apple Watch
seven would not be available at launch. Well, they said
it was going to be available in limited quantities. Well
turns out it's yeah, that was right. Actually, Apple Watch
Series seven same price three ninety nine, Apple Watch se
two seventy nine, Apple Watch Series three at one ninety nine.

(43:26):
Don't go Series three. Please, don't go Series three. That's
way too old. Series three launched a bunch of years ago,
and gosh, let's see how old that is at this point.
If you have one, it's fine, but I would not
purchase a new one. I don't think that that's that's
a smart thing to do at this point. Let's see,
where where's my Wikipedia? Let's see Apple Watch serious three Wikipedia. Okay,

(43:53):
let's see. It was first available April twenty fourth, twenty fifteen, No.
Twenty twenty seventeen, three years ago. So I mean, that's
not too old as far as Apple products go, and
it's nice that it still works. But I would definitely
go se minimum and then I go Series seven if

(44:13):
you can. And I would personally go with Cellular if
you can, because I think cellular is the watch. I mean,
if you ever, well, I run a lot outside by
myself and without my phone, and so for me, Cellular
is the feature of the Apple Watch. And if I
ever do switch to the Pixel, I'm gonna activate my
Apple Watch with Cellular on the family plan, which is

(44:35):
gonna be a little wonky. I'm gonna use the family setup,
which is not ideal because it won't be perfect. But anyway,
that's a whole nother story. All right, let's get to
another question and then I'll do my personal info. Okay,
let's do another recording. Here we go another voice memo here.

Speaker 3 (44:51):
Hello, which they say is Josey. I have a simple
question for you. Have you heard about a cloud switch
service called telebox t E R A B or X
tearbox If you have want you, I want to hear

(45:12):
your input about it. If you haven't, well that's okay.
Things all right.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
So I had to look up terror Box and I
had not heard of this. But from what I see,
I mean, there's a lot of talk about whether it's
legit or not. And here's what I can tell. So
what terror Box is if you go to the website,
it's very simple. It's literally just a terror box used
to be called do box. It provides you with a

(45:43):
terabyte of storage and it's free. So but that's it.
There's no like, there's no information, there's no This is
what it concerns me about this is that there's no
about this website on the website, which is odd. So
I would definitely not use this as my primary storage

(46:05):
in fact, I would not even trust the you know,
the encryption, Like if you're just sharing like random, like
if you just need a terabyte of storage space to
store random stuff that's not very personal, that's just easy,
and you don't really care about the privacy, then I
think this would work. But I would I would not
guarantee or expect this to be around in a year

(46:26):
or two, like you just don't know. And that's I'm
only saying that because there's nothing about it on the
website like usually it would say about there'd be a
Twitter link or a LinkedIn, or a Facebook or an Instagram.
There's none of that stuff. But it looks like a
nice website. You can log in with Google log in,
create an account. There's an Android client and iPhone client.
And if you go to the iPhone client, let's see

(46:48):
what the ratings are. There's only nine hundred and twelve ratings.
It says it's owned by FlexTech, and so if you
look at the developer website, let's see, yeah, brings you
back to Terrorbox now. I was able to find a
press release. It says Terrorbox surpasses ten million global downloads.
This was on September fourteenth, twenty twenty one comes out

(47:10):
of sunny Veil, says terror Box, a cloud based storage
subscription provider, announced ten million downloads. While many competitors offer
free cloud most don't exceed five gigabytes without a paid subscription,
Terrorbox gives users one terabyte a free cloud storage space,
which is approximately two hundred and fifty six thousand and
four megabyte photos. Terrorbox automatically sinks files across devices and

(47:38):
local storage. Oh that's interesting, so you can ability, you
can upload files up to four gigs in size or
twenty gigs with paid easily share files online previews. Compatibility
with iOS, Android, and desktop computers, and it also sorts
into categories like flowers, food, and home. Available in iOS

(47:59):
and Android. TERBYX for Windows will be available on September sixteenth,
twenty twenty one. Oh that's interesting. Okay, that's like very soon.
Tear Box is a okay, and it actually has a contact,
a PR contact in the US, So I mean, look,

(48:19):
and I've actually gotten emails from these people, so like
the other let's see have I gotten from this agency?
Have I gotten anything? Yeah? I have so oh wow,
oh yeah, Okay, it's a legit agency because I've worked
with them on other things, so t E R A box. Yeah,
it seems legit, but again I would be cautious. I

(48:42):
would just be cautiously optimistic. Use this for like a
way to store stuff. You've got a terabyte in the cloud,
but just don't bank too much on it. And apparently
the company that it's owned by. I looked up a
little bit more and it apparently it's owned by a
Japanese division of a China company. So I don't know

(49:02):
take that at I just you know, we just don't know.
There's just not too much that I just wish it
had more information about who like owns this, but it
just doesn't. And you would think, okay, now I got
to another page that tells me a little bit more
about it. But again, okay, so if I go to
membership pages, normal user gets one terabyte and then a

(49:26):
premium user. Okay, so it tells you, oh, okay, this
is interesting. You don't get high speed downloads, and you
don't get automatic video back up. You can only say
five hundred files, playback resolution is seven to twenty, maximum
file size four gigs, and it's not ad free. Okay,
So there are some limitations to the free but again,

(49:48):
you can upgrade to premium for gosh, see I don't
I hate when they don't say how much pricing is
on their page anyway, So this is again terror Box
is something that you only want to do if you
are in need of some storage. There are other places
out there where you can get storage, maybe not a
terabyte for free, but you know, you can always exhaust
your other options like dropbox and one edrive and Google Drive.

(50:13):
But again they're all kind of clamping down on that
free storage. All right, let's get to my news. So
I've talked about this in the podcast before, but you know,
this podcast is called Rich on Tech. It's a lot
about me and my world, and I try to make
it as personal as possible because I'm a real person.
I'm a human being that covers technology in Los Angeles. Yes,

(50:35):
I'm on TV, so that makes me like, oh my gosh,
this guy's on TV. And you know, it's so interesting
that when you're on TV people think you're different than
you know, people that are not on TV. And I'm not.
I'm just a regular person that happens to be on TV.
So yes, you see me on there, anyone can see me,
anyone can know who I am. But the reality is

(50:57):
I'm just a regular person and I'm going through everything
in life just like you are. And whether that's family,
whether that's kids, whether that's problems, whether that's good things,
whether that's highs, whether that's lows, it's all there. My
life is no different than yours except for the fact
that I have to get up really early and be
on TV, and that's basically it. I have a job

(51:17):
just like everyone else. Some days are better than others.
So anyway, the reason why I tell you all that
is because some people try to, you know, hide their
personal life. I feel like I can't because my life
is so intertwined with what I do, whether I'm sharing
pictures of my kids, whether I'm sharing where I am going, whatever.
So with all that said, I'm not you know, this

(51:39):
is not like a big life change. Well it kind
of is. But the reason I tell you this is
because I wouldn't typically tell you about the type of
car I drive, because there's no reason to unless it
was pertinent to what I cover. And now I feel
like it is because this week I purchased a Tesla
and I'm very excited about that fact, because it's been

(52:02):
a long time coming. If you've listened to this podcast
in the past, you've known that I've or you know
that I've talked about the fact that my next car
will probably be a Tesla. And so it came to
a point where I felt like I wanted a new car.
I was ready, and I bought a Tesla. I bought

(52:23):
it on September first. I got it a couple of
days ago. How did I get it so fast? Well,
there's a little secret on the Tesla website called existing inventory.
And if you go on that website and you look
at the existing inventory, Tesla releases a couple of cars
looks like every day that are already made. Now, I
don't know what's wrong with these cars. Like I'm not

(52:44):
what's wrong, but like, how do they have these cars?
I'm not really sure. Is it someone that says I'll
never mind, I don't want it. They build these cars
and then they're just ready or do they just build
a couple extras. I don't know. But I got my
car in two weeks versus months. And the reason I
tell you this is because I will probably be talking
about the Tesla more and more and I will say,
I'm already obsessed. I love it. It has changed my world.

(53:07):
I'm learning all about it. I'm watching multiple YouTube videos
about all the different features. I'm getting used to the
idea of charging at work, you know, wherever I go.
I haven't done the home charger yet. But again, it's
this is a new experience in my life, and it
feels like when I first got the iPhone. That's really

(53:28):
what it feels like, because I'm exploring this new way
of doing things that is just so different and it's
really amazing. And I feel like I'm driving like something
that Elon Musk personally like gave me. It's so weird
because I feel like his imprints are on this car
with the humor that's built into it. But anyway, so

(53:48):
I tell you this because I will be talking about
it in future episodes. I am now on a very
different path in life, the EV path, which is really
you know, it's it's something new and in America we
are so gas centric that it is it is really
a leap of faith to go down this road of

(54:10):
EV and so I'm there. It's exciting. I will tell
you also that I sold my old car through Shift,
so that was an experience in itself. I you know,
with these new you know, I used to sell my
car with Carmacks when I've purchased cars in the past,
and I thought that was amazing. The fact that you
can just go somewhere and they purchase your car from

(54:30):
you and give you money for it is on the spot.
It is amazing. And then when Carvana came along, I said,
oh my gosh, now I can sell it to Carvana.
They come to you, Oh my gosh. And then I
saw Shift and I basically compared the pricing from Shift,
Carvana and Carmacks. Carmacks could not give me a quote
on my phone. Carvana was a couple thousand less than

(54:51):
Shift and Shift. The big difference is that when Carvana
takes your car, according to my friend, the money is
in your account immediately. With Shift, it does go through
a kind of a little more of a holding period
where they do come to your house, they do the evaluation,
but there is a final inspection off site that does

(55:12):
take a little bit longer to get your money. So
I was very nervous in handing my car over along
with my pink slip. I think that is that what
they call it the title whatever, you know, the slip
for the title and not having the money. But every
person I talked to from Shift assured me that I
would get my money, and I did after only twenty

(55:32):
four hours. They sent me an email saying, your car
passed the final inspection. Your money is on its way,
but it could take three to four days to get it.
So I can't say with certainty that the Shift process
worked out. It's Shift dot com Shift, by the way.
That's what I'm saying. But I can't say with certainty
that it worked out. But it seems to have worked out,
and I seem to have gotten more than Carvana. So

(55:55):
the way I understand it is that Carvana gives you
a little bit more than Carmak, and then Shift, it seems,
is paying people a little bit more than CarMax. Right now,
it's probably because they probably do less advertising on TV,
they have maybe a little bit less overhead, and they're
probably just less known, so they need more cars to
do the same thing as Carbona. So I think it's

(56:18):
an amazing world we live in today, the fact that
we have this already. I will tell you that range
anxiety is real. Every trip that I go on. I'm
just sitting there thinking, Oh my gosh, do I have
enough mileage to get there? How am I going to
charge once they get there? Am I gonna be able
to get back home? How am I going to charge
at home? Because I don't have a charger yet. But
it's a new world, and I've got to say, I

(56:39):
have not been this excited about something in the tech
world for many, many years, and so I am very
excited about that. And oh my gosh, we're already fifty
five minutes into the show. I haven't even gotten to
the rest. I have so much more to talk about.
I've just been very long winded, so I'll just keep
going a little bit. Let's talk about the iPad Mini

(57:00):
iPad MANI. This got some of the biggest improvements. What
do you need to know about the iPad MANI. It
is totally brand new. It's got this big eight point
three inch screen, comes in pink, starlight, purple, and gray.
It's got touch ID at the top on the fingerprint
sensor I guess, on the power button. It now supports
the second generation Apple pencil. It's got the new A

(57:23):
fifteen bionics, so a really fast chip that is in
the new iPhones. It's got the center stage, so the
cameras are improved. Center stage means that the camera will
follow you when you're doing a video chat. It's got
USB C, it's got five G optional cellular, and I'll
be honest, I think this is something that I am

(57:43):
going to purchase because I love the idea that I
can take this on trips. I know, I try to
pack light, but I still like the idea of a
little iPad, and especially if I'm gonna be using the pixel,
I'll still want the iOS for you know, researching and
just in general, and so this is kind of a
nice way of having that iOS experience. Maybe I don't

(58:05):
need it if I just do the new iPhone, but
this would be six hundred and forty nine dollars with cellular,
four ninety nine without cellular. And the annoying thing here
is that Apple raised the price by one hundred dollars
on this thing. It used to be three ninety nine
and now it's four ninety nine, and that is a
I just hate the fact that in twenty twenty one.

(58:27):
You know, I get it, they improved a lot of stuff,
but why do we have to have a price increase.
I don't like that. So yeah, all right, let's should
we do another question? Let's do another question? Uh, Dixon
writes in Oh, this isn't a question, it's actually a complaint. Hey, Rich,
I took your advice and bought one of these earbuds.
It arrived a couple days ago, since I live in Irvine.

(58:48):
First glance, the packaging was professional and I pleasing. I
immediately tested the sound quality compared to my Bose earbuds
that I've been using for years. I'm sorry to inform
you with big disappointment of the bad quality of the sound,
not even close to my bows and clarity and sound.
I reached out, Oh, these are one plus buds. I
reached out to one plus online to return the item.
As of today, five business days have gone by, still

(59:08):
waiting for the return label. I emailed them twice. The
response was wait twenty four to forty eight hours. I'm
still waiting. Their customer service is super slow. Just to
let you know my thoughts. I know you get paid
by sponsoring products on air, but this one is a
big disappointment compared to Bo's users. Best regards, Dixon. All right, Dixon,
Number one, I do not get paid to sponsor products

(59:31):
on air, So I don't get paid to sponsor pretty
much anything. Now, I will tell you there's a couple
of things that I do have happened to me, and
I will always let you know. Number One, I've said
this before. My paycheck comes from KTLA, So that is
how I make my money. I do not make money

(59:51):
by sponsored content almost ever. Now. In the past, yes,
I have done I think two sponsored Instagram posts when
I was allowed to do that under my previous company.
They allowed, I asked for permission, they let me do it.
I did it. That's that's the only thing. But if
you see me post about anything on my social media,
it is something that I just find interesting. It's something

(01:00:14):
I'm doing a story on. That's it. That there's no
money changing hands, and if there ever is, if there's
ever a situation where that happens, I will let you
know and I will be very clear about it. But
that does not happen because it's not really allowed to
happen under my current agreement unless I make other agreements

(01:00:36):
with my company, and so I don't get paid by
sponsoring products. That's just not something that I do in
the future. That may change. It could change, but that's
not currently how I operate, so that doesn't happen. That's
I reviewed the one plus buds because I genuinely love them,
and these are the one plus buds Pro that you're
talking about. I fell in love at these. I think

(01:00:58):
they are the I still think that they are some
of the best Android earbuds you can get for one
hundred and fifty dollars, which I think is a fantastic price.
Now you're talking about Bo's. I did not compare these
in my report to BOS. I just said that I
thought they were the best alternative to the air pods
for Android users. I am not an audio file I

(01:01:21):
am not a sound guy. I just come from a
personal experience of I've tested a lot of headphones out there,
or a lot ofhone earbuds. Some sound better than others,
some are better than others. But the reality is I
was very impressed with these. I thought they were amazing,
and I recommended them to everyone and anyone who was
willing to listen. Now, you are totally you are one

(01:01:44):
hundred percent entitled to your opinion, and that is what
makes the world go round. So if you found that
these don't compare to your bows. Go back to your bows.
I would have helped you. If OnePlus does not get
back to you in a timely manner, yes, I will
jump in and help you get satisfaction on this return.
I will not leave you hanging because, yes, this is

(01:02:05):
something I recommended you bought them didn't work out. I
think OnePlus is just smaller than Apple. They're not as nimble,
and they're not as like you know, they're not as
well positioned for returns like a big company like Samsung
or Apple. So yeah, it might take a little bit
longer for them to get you your money and your return,
But I do think it will happen. If it doesn't,
please get in touch with me, and I know you will,

(01:02:27):
but that in that aspect, I will help you. So
thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it. It's what makes
the world go round. Not everyone shares the same opinion,
and so it's you know, it's totally within your reason
to email me something like this. All right, let's just
get through some of these other announcements before the show ends. Here,
Apple's standard iPad, the three hundred and twenty nine dollars iPad,

(01:02:49):
which I still think is the best iPad out there
for the average person. What did it get new? It
got a new chip A thirteen bionics so it's more powerful.
It got a new front facing cam and with that
center stage feature I was talking about, And that's about it.
So that's pretty much all you need to know. The
standard iPad at three twenty nine is still I think

(01:03:11):
the best iPad for the average person, especially if you
have kids. People email me all the time saying rich
which I perhap should I get from my kids? The
Mini I would recommend, but it's too expensive at four
ninety nine's that's like really a lot three twenty nine.
This typically goes on sale for cheaper, so I would
say go for that Apple Fitness plus a couple things
to note there. They built new guided meditation into the

(01:03:34):
app and also pilates into the app, and that's going
to launch on September twenty seventh. Then later this fall
they're going to launch this new thing called group workouts,
where you can invite up to thirty two friends to
work out at the same time, kind of like a
group FaceTime, but with workouts. All right, let's get to
another question. Then I'll round up two more news stories

(01:03:54):
and then we'll go all right. Fred Wrights, Hey Rich,
how are you? I have a Samsung S ten Android
at and T is the provider my issue. I can't
find a way to stop the camera from identifying the
location the picture was taking. I already turned off the
location stamp and the camera settings menu and the main settings.
I deny GPS access to the camera. The interesting part
is that the location stamp is not on every picture.

(01:04:16):
It's very random. Sometimes it shows up on every second
or third picture. Other times maybe on the ninth or
eighth picture. All the firmware and software on the picture,
on the camera, on the are updated. Any ideas on
how to stop the camera from accessing location? Thanks for
your help, Fred, Fred here is what I think is happening.
Because you're on Samsung, I was gonna recommend that you

(01:04:39):
turn off the There's a thing called location tags. If
you go into your camera, open it up, open up settings,
and there's something called location tags. You can toggle that off.
Once you toggle that off, you can confirm that location
is no longer being attached to a picture. How can
you confirm that by opening Samsung's gallery app? I have

(01:05:00):
a feeling I know what's going on here. I have
a feeling that you're looking at these pictures in Google Photos.
And I'll explain what's going on in a second. But
in the gallery app, the only way to confirm that.
There's two ways. In the Gallery app, open up a
picture and with all these settings turned off. You said
you turn off GPS on the camera, you deny GPS

(01:05:21):
in the permissions. That's a great start. That's basically the
way to deny GPS what they call EXIF data to
being written, to being written on these photos. To confirm it,
open up these Samsung Gallery app, it is called Gallery.
Open it up, open up a picture, and if you
look at the details of that picture, you have to
use a little menu. Look at details. There should be

(01:05:44):
no location attached to those pictures. There's no way your
phone is still attaching location because you've turned it off
and you've disabled it. What I think is happening is
I think you're looking at these pictures in Google Photos.
And what Google Photos does is, because Google is so smart,
it is not just looking at the GPS tags on
those pictures. It's also looking at something called location history,

(01:06:06):
which is an aggregate of your location every time you
open up any sort of Google app on your phone.
It kind of figures out where you are. It takes
that into consideration. It says, oh, okay, Riches in Chattanooga,
he took a picture at nine am. Although it doesn't
have GPS, we know he's there. We're going to say
estimated location Chattanooga, Tennessee. Now, so I want you to

(01:06:27):
open up these pictures in Google Photos and see if
it says estimated location when you look at the location.
If it does, I think I've solved your problem. The
location is not actually being attached to this picture physically.
It is being estimated by Google. And what that means
is that only you can see where that picture was
theoretically taken, because Google is only showing you that data.

(01:06:48):
The other tool you can use is called Jeffries x
IF Viewer, and if you google Jeffrey's Image Metadata Viewer,
you can click that and you can upload the picture
there and it will show you the EXIF data. And
this is a good way to see if EXIF data
is being attached to the picture. If it is, you'll

(01:07:09):
see GPS coordinates. If it's not, you will not. So
great question there. Let me just get through two more
stories before this show is over all. Right, So Kindle
getting an update for the first time in a long time,
and if you've already seen it, maybe you have. But
Kindle software update is rolling out as we speak. The

(01:07:30):
new software update gives you more direct access to home
library in their current book, as well as easy access
to commonly used settings. So that is the main feature.
Now when you swipe down from the top, you can
get access to kind of the things that you need,
which is, let's see the airplane mode, Bluetooth sync settings

(01:07:52):
and brightness and so this is an easy way to
do just that, which is really nice. Also, then you
can get your access to her font and all that stuff.
My wife and I always crack up because she looks
at my font that I use on my Kindle and
it's super small. But I do adjust the lighting every
so often, like I find that the automatic adjustment of
the back light isn't the best. Maybe it's better with

(01:08:14):
a new update. So if you want the new update,
you can go into your settings and go to software
update in the Kindle. Otherwise you can just wait for
it to hit your Kindle. It's going to be hitting
it for a while. The feature that I do like that.
I think I've been talking I've already talked about on
the Kindle is the fact that you can now display
the book you're reading on your cover when your Kindle

(01:08:37):
is is not in use. And that's only if you
have the ad free version of the Kindle, which I
don't think most people have. Okay, Earlier in the show,
I mentioned that Google has Google has answered my Google
Cloud storage dreams and they came up with a middle
ground tier. So it used to be you had to
choose between two terabytes, which I used to pay ten

(01:08:59):
dollars for and ten terabytes, which I had to upgrade
to and pay fifty dollars for a month for my
Google Photos. Now they have a new five terabyte storage
plan which is twenty five dollars a month, which just
saved me. Get this, twenty five dollars a month, so
that is amazing. Thank you Google for doing that. And

(01:09:21):
I'm not going to go into detail on what I
still need to do with this situation, but I am
currently saving twenty five dollars a month on my plan,
which is really great. You can actually pay the whole
year in advance for two hundred and fifty dollars, So
two fifty divided by twelve actually brings your monthly payment
down to twenty dollars and eighty three cents a month,
which is even four dollars less a month than when

(01:09:44):
I'm currently paying. So I will eventually do that. I
just didn't, you know, I bought the car, so I
didn't really feel like spending another two hundred fifty dollars
when I saw this. So I will eventually do that
very soon. And thank you Google for doing that. Oh,
thank you for listening. That is going to do it
for this episode of the show. If you're listening on Facebook,

(01:10:06):
stay tuned. Afterwards, I will come to you and chat
for just a moment, even after the podcast recording ends.
If you would like to submit a question for me
to answer, just go to my Facebook page Facebook, dot
com slash rich on Tech, hit the big blue send
email button. I would also love it if you would
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(01:10:29):
why they should listen. Just go to rate this podcast
dot com slash rich on Tech. You can find me
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no matter where you live, in the US, you can
download the free KTLA plus app on Apple TV, fireTV,
and Roku. Scroll down to the tech section and watch
all of my TV segments on demand. My name is

(01:10:51):
rich Dmiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so
many ways you can spend well over an hour of
your time this time around, I do appreciate you spending
it with me. I will talk to you real soon. Mhmm.