February 11, 2022 • 32 mins
Hands on with Samsung's latest S22 Ultra; Apple introduces new unwanted AirTags safety measures; Wii Sports is reborn as Switch Sports; a plan for more EV Charging stations; Apple turns iPhones into Tap to Pay terminals, Disney+ subscribers; MoviePass is back, but does it matter?Follow Richhttp://richontech.tv/See 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 (00:09):
Hands on with Samsung's new S twenty two lineup. Apple
tackles unwanted air tag tracking, Everything old is new again.
We Sports comes to the switch plus your tech questions answered.
What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich
on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech
stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
place where I answer the questions you send me. I'm
(00:33):
the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
If the podcast sounds just a little different this time around,
it's because I had some technical difficulties. My podcast board
is giving me some feedback, so rather than have you
listened to that, I got a troubleshoot, see what's going on?
But I've already spent a couple hours doing that, so
(00:54):
I just want to get on with the podcast. So
here we are in a temporary setup and we'll see
if this, hopefully should sound okay. Big week this week
for Samsung. They finally unveiled the S twenty two lineup,
the S twenty two, Ultra, S twenty two, S twenty
two plus not necessarily in that order. So I've been
(01:15):
playing with the Ultra now for a couple of days
And this is an interesting thing because I rarely switched
my simcard into a phone that I'm testing. I used
to do it all the time. It became kind of
a pain, and so I stopped doing that, And with
this one, I decided to do it because it's been
kind of a while since I went all in on Android,
and I really just wanted to kind of see what
(01:36):
the experience is like. And so took my simcard out
of my iPhone thirteen Pro and I put it into
the Samsung Galaxy S twenty two Ultra. And so far,
it's been interesting. It's definitely it's weird because I've still
kept my iPhone nearby at all times, but I do
that typically with all Androids anyway. I always whatever Android
(01:59):
i'm testing, I always have a iPhone with me. But
it's been kind of weird because the texting thing is
definitely a thing. So being off of IY message, you know,
having friends say, Rich, what's going on? Why are you
texting me with green bubbles? It's just so like weird.
It's so like predictable that if you text someone with
(02:19):
from an Android, it's like immediately they say something to you.
So Apple's done a really good job of training people
to be like, what what is this green bubble? But
I'm trying to get through it and we'll see otherwise,
the phone is pretty good. Let me go through some
of the specs on this phone. So you've got three
different phones. You've got a six point one inch screen
on the S twenty two, six point six inch screen
(02:41):
on the S twenty two Plus, and then a six
point eight inch screen on the S twenty two Ultra. Now,
if you want the absolute best of everything, of course
you have to go with the S twenty two Ultra.
So the big news on the S twenty two Ultra
is the fact that it has a stylus. So, as
we know, Samsung has killed the Note line up and
this has become basically the Notes. You've got these two
(03:03):
lower models and then you have the upper model, which
used to be the Ultra. It's still the Ultra, but
now it's basically the NOE Ultra. So it's got the
stylus inside, which is something I think I like, but
I don't really need. I'd have to get back into
the swing of things of using a pen with my phone,
which is just something I'm not used to anymore. So
that's definitely a consideration. Fingerprint reader is super fast, the
(03:26):
cameras are excellent, and you've got a whole bunch of
different cameras on here. You've got a twelve megapixel ultra wide,
you've got one hundred and eight megapixel wide camera, you've
got a ten megapixel telephoto with a three time zoom.
Then you've got another ten megapixel telephoto with a ten
times optical zoom, and then your front facing camera is
a forty megapixel. And then of course the sweet spot
(03:49):
is really you don't want to go with the eight
megabyte or the one hundred and twenty eight megabyte based
storage model. Editor rich here, you know I meant to
say one and twenty eight gigabyte model. Well, one and
twenty eight megabytes would not get you very far in
this day and age, because that only comes with eight
gigs of RAM. You've got to jump up to that
two point fifty six to get that twelve gigs a RAM.
(04:11):
That's the sweet spot. And then it goes five to
twelve with twelve gigs, and then one terabyte with twelve gigs,
and then you have a five millionamp five thousand million
hour battery inside. So everything that I've seen on this phone.
It's just a powerhouse. It works really well, it's snappy.
Software needs a little bit of tweaking. There's some lag
here and there, but it's not a deal breaker. But overall,
(04:33):
I've been very impressed. I don't know if I can
stick with it because there's just so many things I
like about the iPhone. And it's not just the iPhone.
It's like it's the entire ecosystem that the iPhone is
a part of. Whether it's the Air Tags, whether it's
the Apple Watch, whether it's I Message, whether it's some
of the apps that I use on there. So it's
it's gonna be really tough. When it comes to the
(04:54):
night mode photography, Samsung made a big deal about the
night mode photography, and you know, it seems like the
night mode is definitely better on this device. Like the
photography at night is looking like it's brighter than the iPhone.
Is it always better, I don't know. I mean it
just looks brighter, that's for sure. So I'm gonna have
(05:14):
to test that a little bit more. The video looks
really nice. Prices start at eight hundred dollars for the
S twenty two, then you've got the S twenty two Plus,
which let's see how much that one is. That's nine
one thousand dollars. And then you've got the S twenty
two Ultra, which starts at twelve hundred dollars, and they're
gonna be available on February twenty fifth. So again, there's
(05:37):
been a lot of interest in these phones because Samsung
just continues to kind of tweak and evolve, and it
seems like they're doing a really good job with that.
So I've seen much more interest in these phones than
I have any previous Samsung models, So I guess I
guess they're doing a pretty good thing. All right, let's
get to our first question of the podcast. Lisa, Hey Rich,
I'm wondering if you can give me a recommendation on security.
(06:00):
Is it better to go through an agency or do
ring or one of those systems. Lisa, you know you're
talking to a tech guy that is looking at disruption
of all industries, and the companies like ADT I personally
just would not use because it's an old school company. Now,
(06:21):
I'm sure ADT does some really good things, but the
reality is their entire business is getting into a really
long contract that's very expensive, giving you the hardware at
a loss and then making it up on the back
end with an extremely long contract that costs a lot
of money. Whereas system like RING or Simply Safe or
(06:41):
any of these other DIY systems, you purchase the equipment
and then they make a reasonable amount of money on
you over the years. So personally, if I was to
go with one today, I would go with Ring. I
think that they're doing the best job of you know,
the different hardware they have, the different software they have,
they continue to push the envelope. They just came out
(07:03):
with the glass break sensor, so I think they are
overall the best system that you can get. Otherwise, I'd
say my second favorite system is probably Simply Safe, just
based on the fact that it does what you need.
It's simple, like they said, simply Safe. Although they are
raising the price by three dollars a month to twenty
eight dollars a month, I think they have a cheaper
(07:24):
plan that you can go with. But I would with
today's day and age, with all the software, bells and
whistles you want, you probably don't want the cheaper plan there.
But that would be my recommendation. So personally, I've been
looking to upgrade my ring system to do kind of everything.
I just haven't had a chance to do that, but
that's kind of on my list of things to do,
so that's what I would go with. All right. We
(07:48):
talked about air tags and unwanted tracking, and I actually
did a story about this on KTLA a while back.
And I'm not going to say it's because of my story,
but Apple definitely is a being the ante when it
comes to air tags and unwanted tracking. So couple things
that Apple is doing. Number one, working with law enforcement.
(08:09):
They say that, you know, these things are rare. These
are Yes, we're seeing them in the news all the time.
But it's a sexy story, right. I mean, you know,
you pop an air tag on someone, you can track them.
You pop it on a car, you can steal it,
you pop it on anything, and you can watch where
that thing goes. And yeah, it probably is that easy. Actually.
So they're saying that every air tag has a unique
serial number. Every serial number is paired with an Apple ID.
(08:32):
Could you set up an entire Apple ID with you know,
fake information? Yeah, probably if you want to be re elaborate,
but most people are not that smart. So they probably
would just not realize the depth to which Apple has
your information when you set one of these things up.
And they're saying they are working with law enforcement to
make sure that law enforcement gets the information, and they
(08:54):
say they have successfully partnered with them on cases where
information used traced an air tag back to the perp
who was apprehended and charged. So they're doing that. The
other thing they're doing is a new privacy warning. When
you set up an air tag, it's saying, hey, look,
this is a crime in many places, so don't even
try it. They're doing unwanted I guess some people are
(09:16):
getting unwanted alerts from their AirPods, and so they're going
to stop doing that as they're going to say that
air tags, our AirPods have been traveling with them instead
of an unknown accessory. Let's see what else is interesting, Oh,
precision finding. You'll be able to use precision finding with
an air tag so that you can find exactly where
(09:36):
it is. If you have an iPhone eleven, twelve or thirteen,
it's going to display an alert. You know, these air
tags are supposed to chirp when you are coming into
contact with an unwanted one. So they will chirp, but
that chirp is going to now also put a notification
on your phone so that you can figure out where
this thing is easier. They're also going to tune the
(09:58):
air tag sound to make it loud, so if you
are if you have one of these unwanted air tags nearby,
it's going to chirp louder than it did before. And
Apple says they are going to kind of revisit the
algorithm that that tells you when one of these unwanted
tags is near you. So the old one used to
(10:18):
be between eight and twenty I don't know. It just
was a random amount of time that if an air
tag was traveling with you, Apple would notify you at
some point, but that time was not necessarily etched in stone.
So now they're going to use a better algorithm to
kind of notify people earlier that one of these things
is traveling with them. So you know, this has been
(10:39):
in the news a lot. Apple is kind of tackling
it head on. And air tags are amazing, Let's be honest.
Ninety nine point nine percent of people are using them
for really awesome stuff. Like me, I've got them on
my keys, I've got them, you know, in my backpacks,
some my luggage, and it's amazing. And so that is
the ninety nine percent scenario. Yes, there are some people
(11:01):
out there that are using them for bad reasons, and
hopefully some of these changes will will kind of cut
down on some of those problems, all right. Mark says, Hey, Rich,
I saw your episode on New Televisions this year, and
you mentioned it's not worth getting an AK television due
to limited broadcasting in this format, so much that there
is none. However, I've owned in a Samsung eighty two
(11:22):
inch Q nine hundred R for two years. It's the
best TV and reception I have ever seen. Even though
even so, I told Direct TV to cancel my four
K subscription because I cannot tell any difference between their
four K broadcasting and what I could see on regular channels.
On the eight K set with twice as many pixels
as a four K set, the reception seems so much
(11:42):
clearer and brighter that it appears to be broadcasting in
four K without the use of four K specific channels.
Regard Mark in Houston, Texas. Mark, You know what, here's
the thing with all this stuff, I think it really
comes down to your eyes, what you like and how
it looks to you. So, for instance, I have a
four K set. I pay for Netflix in four K,
(12:05):
and I will tell you I cannot tell the difference
between Netflix and four K and HD. Now maybe the
maybe I don't. I just don't know what to say
about it because it's one of these things where, yeah,
I'm sure there are use cases where if you're watching
a four K football game, it probably looks amazing. But
if you're watching, you know, a ten ADP football game,
(12:29):
does it look that much better in four K? I
don't know. Like, let's put it this way. The super Bowl,
which is the biggest event, is happening this weekend that
is not being broadcast in four K. Clearly the NFL
has done their homework and they're saying, yeah, if people
don't really care, people don't really notice. It's not that noticeable.
So I think it probably would be with four K
(12:50):
with the with the big game. But you know, nobody's
broadcasting in four K. I mean it's very very limited.
If you look at any of the you know, major
cable services, I don't think there's any four K channels
on any of them. So, yes, Direct TV had like
one or two four K channels. One was just playing
a whole bunch of nature stuff last I checked. The
other one is doing sports events. But it's one of
(13:11):
these things where if you're on YouTube it's four K,
you know, it definitely looks good. Is it the best
like thing in the world. I don't know. I mean,
it's just one of these kind of Yes, it looks
better at the end of the day. But if everything
is all aligned, right, if all the stars are aligned,
the transmission is in four K or AK, your cables
(13:33):
are all good, your TV is tuned, and it looks great.
But the reality is most of us are just watching
random stuff. And I've even you know, you go into
I guess the best example is you go into any
car dealership in America or doctor's office, and the TV
screen looks horrible every time. It's just like it's just
not good. But most people just don't have it set
(13:55):
up in a way to make it look good. I
should tell a story. So I was one of the
first people to feature a four K TV on the
Today Show? And was it four K or is it
just HD? Actually? Sorry, this was going back just to HD,
and I remember being in the makeup room, and the
makeup people were like, you know, we're broadcasting in HD
now and it doesn't even look that great. And I said, well,
(14:17):
you know, you have to switch inputs to the HD input.
We and I helped them switch inputs and it was
like whoa, oh, actually that looks really good. So and
this happened at a Super Bowl party a couple of
years back with a friend of mine. I said, you know,
your TV is not even an HD. He's like, no,
yes it is. And I said, no, you really got
to switch a couple of these things on it. And
we went to the HDMI and sure enough, it was
(14:39):
like one of those minutes where wow, you just realize
this looks really good. So anyway, I think that's what's
happening with AK and four K. It's just there's so
many variables, but when you have everything lined up, yeah,
AK probably does look pretty good. I'm sure your TV
looks great because it's up sampling these things or upscaling,
and so yeah, if it works for you, I think
(15:00):
that's really all that matters. All right, Remember we Sports
that was one of the best games ever. It was
just such an exciting time for Actually this was one
of the other things I did on the Today Show.
I was one of the first people to show off
the Nintendo we and I'll never forget I bowled on
(15:20):
live TV and I got a strike, which I just
could not believe and it was just so great to
do that, and so it was really fun. But anyway,
WE Sports was really one of those games that kind
of just really showed off why the Wei was so
different than anything else we had ever used before. I mean,
we had the power Glove, we had other things that
(15:42):
were kind of you know, motion sensitive ways to play
video games, but the WE, not the WEU, the WE
just really encapsulated it with it just nailed it with
WE Sports. So according to this article in The Wirecutter,
they sold more than eighty million copies. And when Switch
came out, they came out of a couple games that
(16:03):
were similar using the motion controllers, but nothing like WE Sports.
And now I'm happy to report that Nintendo Switch Sports
is coming along and it will have basically very similar
gameplay to the Wei Sports, except you'll use the Joycon controllers.
So they're gonna have soccer, tennis, volleyball, badminton, bowling, and more.
(16:25):
They're also introducing a leg strap, so you can put
those joycon on your leg and you can play some
of these games with that. It's gonna be forty dollars
for the game. It arrives on April twenty ninth. They're
also going to have online gameplay, and if you want
early action on that, you can try it on February
eighteenth through twentieth. If you're listening to this, if you're
(16:48):
a Nintendo Switch Online member, you can play out some
of those games. So Nintendo Switch Sports, I think, is
gonna be amazing. Definitely something I'm gonna play with my kids.
I mean, so bring Back Bowling is just like, I mean,
that was like the best game on the Wii. I
don't care how many games came out afterwards. We Bowling
(17:09):
was just it was one of those games that anyone
can play. And I don't know if you remember this,
but I'm sure you do. So many people were like
crashing their controllers into their TV screen because they were
throwing them and it was crashing in. It was like,
of course, a big news story. I'm sure it only
happened like five or six times, but it was one
of those things that sounded so great. So that it
was it was definitely a big story for that to happen.
(17:31):
So Nintendo switched Sports coming soon, definitely going to be
a popular game for sure, all Right. Valisa via Instagram says,
I'm trying to find a good photo background change app
for Android. Do you know one? I'm trying to change
the background in my picks have a great day. Yeah,
I do have one. And I think I mentioned this
(17:52):
on the show before, but it's called Pixar pic Art
And this is such a cool video editing app. It's
so easy, you will love it. It's not free as far
as I know. I think there are like some some
uh you know, you got to pay to upgrade some
(18:14):
of these things. Let me see what it says. I mean,
there might be some free options that you can use,
but if you really want to step it up, you
got to pay. But it's available for Android and iOS
and uh let's see. Yeah, so they've got let's see
a weekly five bucks, monthly twelve dollars, yearly fifty six dollars.
(18:35):
Awesome photos. I love looking in the If you go
to the app store page for any app, you can
look at what the in app purchases are and this
is what is brilliant about Apple is that it's so
transparent to see like what people charge. And so what
I usually do if anything's charging like a yearly fee,
just look and see all of their different you know,
(18:56):
fees and see which one's the cheapest, and you know
you can end up getting. So what I do is
I always do the free trial and then they try,
of course to get you to subscribe. But what you
have to do is hold out just a little bit
and they will eventually email you or put an app
purchase notification with a better deal. So's that's a little trick.
So on Android, it's on Android, it's on iOS. Sorry
(19:20):
series asking me something, But it's on Android. It's on iOS,
and it's a great if you're just trying to remove
the background, it's super easy. It is a premium feature
on here. But they also have so many other features
as well. You can edit videos, You've got just so
many little features. It's you could spend all day on
this app. So again, it's called pix Ar pic sa
(19:43):
Art available for iOS and Android, and I think you
will like that app a lot. All right, So you
know that I've been driving the Tesla, I drove it
up to San Francisco, and so I like this story.
This is Washington is going to your mark five billion
dollars to create a national network of EV charging stations.
(20:05):
And I know this is a government program, So say
what you will about that. Tesla somehow has managed to
build their charging infrastructure. I don't know if they get
government funds or not. But if we're going to get
these evs to be used in a big way and
get rid of some of this what do they call it,
the charging range anxiety, that's the word I'm looking for,
(20:28):
range anxiety, then we have to get these charging stations everywhere.
And so this five billion dollar pot is going to
hopefully get states to put these stations in along the freeway,
along the interstate. That's the number one thing. And so
what is the stipulations of this program. Well, the stations
(20:49):
have to be installed every fifty miles, no more than
one mile off the interstate. And then the stations have
to have at least six hundred kilowatts of total capacity
with ports for at least four that can deliver at
least one hundred and fifty kilowats each. So that's that's
a pretty good amount and one hundred and fifty kilowats
is pretty fast. I think Tesla goes up to two fifty,
(21:10):
but even when I was at a two and fifty charger,
it still was just charging at one fifty. So one
fifty is pretty fast, and that's faster than a lot
of these random outlets you find all over the place.
So you know, this is from the Wall Street Journal.
This is what apparently is gonna happen. It's not gonna
happen overnight, but every fifty miles, I think is a
good clip. You know, you can find a gas station
(21:31):
every exit on the freeway. So now we'll see if
if these being everywhere is going to make people say, Okay,
I think I can deal with, you know, with having
an electric car. I personally have been living with the
electric car now for I don't know, six months, and
it's just great. I really love it. The range anxiety
is just not there. It's I'm I'm definitely aware of
(21:55):
my range on my car, and yeah, I'm basically always
at like a quarter tank or a half tank, no
matter what I mean, that's just where I'm at. And
so it would it be nice to have a range
of five hundred miles. Yeah, probably, But the reality is
most of the time, the only time that it's really
a problem is when you are on a road trip
and you are parking overnight on your road trip. So
(22:18):
if you go somewhere, getting there is gonna be just fine.
You're gonna be stopping for your charges. It's when you
get to your destination that things get a little tricky because,
like I explained in a video I did about the Tesla,
it's when I got to my hotel in San Francisco
that all bets were off. Did the hotel have a
charger yes? Did it work for my car? No? So
(22:38):
that means I had to go find a charger for
my car. Same thing when I went to visit my
brother in Visalia when he was visiting there. You know,
he was staying at an Airbnb and there, you know,
could I have found a plug to charge my car overnight? Maybe,
but it was kind of a pain and there wasn't
really one, not readily available unless I opened a window
(22:59):
or something. And you know, your car charge is slow,
but it's overnight, so it's not that big of a deal.
But again, so we had to drive and find a supercharger.
But the way that this is all set up right now,
the priority is being given to the interstates. Get people
on the freeway, and then they'll figure out how to
charge their car once they get to their destination, which
you know, is not that tough. There's a whole bunch
(23:20):
of chargers all over the place. It's just a matter
of finding them. And yeah, it's a little inconvenient once
you find them to you know, to continue to do that.
So you know, but overall, I think the cars are
going to really the the evs are just they're here
to stay and it's just going to continue to get
more and more. So all right, let's talk about Apple.
(23:43):
This is a really interesting move by Apple. So they
are basically opening up the NFC chip on the iPhone
to turn the iPhone into a credit card reader for
any business. So if you are a small business or
you've ever tapped on one of these little Square things,
remember when Square first came out, it was a card
(24:03):
reader that would stick into the headphone jack on the phone.
And then when phones lost the headphone jacks, they did
kind of a bluetooth play and so you would just
get this little reader that would bluetooth to the phone
and the reader would have NFC on it and you
can TAPLE. Now Apple is enabling all iPhones, or at
least certain model iPhones. I think it's iPhone Tennis and above.
(24:27):
They're going to basically flip the switch where those will
be able to take payments via tap to pay. This
is a huge, huge deal. I cannot tell you how
big of a deal this is because it allows any
small business in America with an iPhone to instantly accept
credit cards. Now you can say, Rich, they can use Venmo,
they can use They've already been able to use Square.
(24:49):
It's not that big of a deal. They probably have
a checkout terminal, but you don't have to invest in
any extra equipment or hardware. That is a huge deal.
So let's say you run a hair salon and you
have an iPhone. You can now take payments through that iPhone,
no problem. Now, I think this gets a little tricky
(25:11):
with that scenario because it's not the best case. Thing
is is that if you have a hair salon and
you've got a bunch of people working there and you're
not there, and you've got the only phone that accepts
the tap to pay, Yeah, that's kind of a problem.
But we'll figure this out. But the point is, if
you're a retailer, you can, you know, maybe get one
simple iPhone now and that handles all of your billing
(25:32):
or all your credit card payments and it doesn't need
to be attached to any sort of sort of special equipment.
So now, the other interesting thing about this is I
said in my tweet that this was kind of war
on Venmo and Square. It may not be because Square
could theoretically just use the framework that Apple is providing
(25:58):
to activate this. So Apple is not doing this in
their own software. They're actually going to open this up
for third party software to enable it. So that means
that Stripe can come in. That means that PayPal can
come in, That means that Square can come in. Anyone
who wants to accept credit card payments via tap to
pay through an app that they build can now do it.
(26:20):
And we'll see Stripe is the first one they announced.
We'll see if Square and these other reta other payment
processors bite on this system, which I think they'll they'll
have to because otherwise they're gonna be left in the dust.
And when it comes to Venmo, of course, PayPal owns Venmo.
PayPal will probably do this through the PayPal app. Venmo
will continue to be Venmo, which you know, most people
(26:42):
know Venmo through just using their you know, their user name,
which I think is not a very good system. So
if you have a QR code you can scan it,
that's much better because you know you're getting the right person.
I can't stand typing someone's name into Venmo. I know
everyone does it, but it's just kind of like one
of these things where it's I just never know if
it's like the actual person and they want to verify
(27:04):
with the phone number. So I think the QR code
is a lot easier. So we'll see what happens with
that situation. All right, Let's talk Disney Plus. According to Variety,
Disney Plus ended twenty twenty one with about one hundred
and thirty million subscribers, which is just phenomenal. So I
think they wanted a certain amount of subscribers. They had
(27:27):
like a five year plan. They just blew everything out
of the water. And Disney Plus is one of these
things that's like water in a lot of people's homes.
So one hundred and twenty nine million paying subscribers, each
person is paying what what is Disney plus seven bucks.
So what's one hundred and thirty million times seven, that's
(27:48):
nine hundred and ten million dollars a month for Disney.
That is a good amount of money just on Disney plus.
That's a pretty good new business. Huh. Now, I get it,
they're probably losing some money in the movie theaters or
a lot of money. But at the same time, this
is just a steady flow of cash. And it's not
just a steady flow of cash, it's something they can
bank on every month. So I don't think that this
(28:11):
is going to go below one hundred million subscribers, so minimum,
you know, seven hundred million dollars every month is just
kind of a guarantee. So what does that allow them
to do. It allows them to plan their slate of
new stuff against this money. And if you're like me,
if there's one new movie on Disney plus one new
piece of content every month, that's probably enough to keep
(28:33):
you there. So In Canto was the latest one. That
was probably last month, So I would look to February
to have something new. I'm sure there's something new that's
coming out that will keep us busy until the next month.
And this is kind of like what HBO figured out
a long time ago. Except with HBO, when you subscribe
through your cable service, you know number one, they would
(28:55):
have a show that would last six months to nine months,
and they parsed it out over that time, so it
felt like, Okay, every week, I have a new episode
for you know, six months, whatever it was. I don't
know how many months it went, maybe three months. With
these services, it's much easier to cancel, so you need
to have stuff that's fresh, like much quicker, and it's
it's one of those things where when you sign up
(29:16):
for HBO, you didn't really think about canceling because there
was just so much it was so much work to cancel,
whereas with Disney Plus and Netflix and all these others,
I don't I think those two are much more protected
compared to some of these other services, like maybe Discovery
Plus or something. With Netflix, it's just I'm keeping it forever.
Disney Plus, I'm keeping it forever. But you can come
(29:39):
and go on some of these other services, and so
it makes it a lot easier to come and go
for sure. Speaking of movie services, movie Pass is launching,
movie Past two point zero is launching this summer, and
it's gonna support a bunch of movie theaters. But here's
the thing, I mean, do we even care about Movie Past?
(30:00):
We need an unlimited movie Pass subscription anymore? I don't
think so. So they're going to use I read this
facial detection so you can watch these ads and that'll
give you credit to get towards watching movies. But who
cares at this point if you're a movie if you're
a movie lover, you've probably already subscribed to AMC. At
this point, you've probably already subscribed to Regal Cinemas, and
(30:24):
they're unlimited services, which I know are probably more expensive
at twenty five dollars a month depending on the area
you're in, But it's going to be a much easier,
probably system than going through all these hoops of Movie Pass,
which is probably going to be cheaper. Maybe it's ten
bucks a month, I'm not sure. But the reality is,
do we even need this anymore? I think I think
Movie Pass had a certain spot in our lives and
(30:48):
that that time is just kind of over. So speaking
of over, I know this was an abbreviated show, but
I wanted to get one on the books. Once I
figure out my equipment. I'll have a better show next week,
but that's going to do it this episode of the show.
If you have a question you would like for me
to answer, you can go to my Facebook page Facebook
dot com, slash rich on Tech, hit the big blue
send email button, or go to rich on Tech dot
(31:09):
tv and hit the email icon. I would also love
it if you would rate and review this podcast. Just
go to the listening app of your choice. Write a
quick line about what you like about this show to
help others understand why they should listen. Listen. You can
find me online. I am at rich on Tech on
all social media. By the way, don't rate this show,
just rate the other shows. This show was kind of
(31:30):
like a tougher one because of the production quality, but
I wanted I didn't want to not have a show. Also,
no matter where you live in the US, you can
download the free ktla plus app on appledv, Fire tv,
and Roku. Once you do, scroll to the tech section
and you can watch all of my TV segments on demand.
My name is rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening.
There are so many ways you can spend an hour
(31:50):
of your time. I do appreciate you spending it with me.
I'll talk to you real soon.
Hands on with Samsung's new S twenty two lineup. Apple
tackles unwanted air tag tracking, Everything old is new again.
We Sports comes to the switch plus your tech questions answered.
What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich
on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech
stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
place where I answer the questions you send me. I'm
(00:33):
the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
If the podcast sounds just a little different this time around,
it's because I had some technical difficulties. My podcast board
is giving me some feedback, so rather than have you
listened to that, I got a troubleshoot, see what's going on?
But I've already spent a couple hours doing that, so
(00:54):
I just want to get on with the podcast. So
here we are in a temporary setup and we'll see
if this, hopefully should sound okay. Big week this week
for Samsung. They finally unveiled the S twenty two lineup,
the S twenty two, Ultra, S twenty two, S twenty
two plus not necessarily in that order. So I've been
(01:15):
playing with the Ultra now for a couple of days
And this is an interesting thing because I rarely switched
my simcard into a phone that I'm testing. I used
to do it all the time. It became kind of
a pain, and so I stopped doing that, And with
this one, I decided to do it because it's been
kind of a while since I went all in on Android,
and I really just wanted to kind of see what
(01:36):
the experience is like. And so took my simcard out
of my iPhone thirteen Pro and I put it into
the Samsung Galaxy S twenty two Ultra. And so far,
it's been interesting. It's definitely it's weird because I've still
kept my iPhone nearby at all times, but I do
that typically with all Androids anyway. I always whatever Android
(01:59):
i'm testing, I always have a iPhone with me. But
it's been kind of weird because the texting thing is
definitely a thing. So being off of IY message, you know,
having friends say, Rich, what's going on? Why are you
texting me with green bubbles? It's just so like weird.
It's so like predictable that if you text someone with
(02:19):
from an Android, it's like immediately they say something to you.
So Apple's done a really good job of training people
to be like, what what is this green bubble? But
I'm trying to get through it and we'll see otherwise,
the phone is pretty good. Let me go through some
of the specs on this phone. So you've got three
different phones. You've got a six point one inch screen
on the S twenty two, six point six inch screen
(02:41):
on the S twenty two Plus, and then a six
point eight inch screen on the S twenty two Ultra. Now,
if you want the absolute best of everything, of course
you have to go with the S twenty two Ultra.
So the big news on the S twenty two Ultra
is the fact that it has a stylus. So, as
we know, Samsung has killed the Note line up and
this has become basically the Notes. You've got these two
(03:03):
lower models and then you have the upper model, which
used to be the Ultra. It's still the Ultra, but
now it's basically the NOE Ultra. So it's got the
stylus inside, which is something I think I like, but
I don't really need. I'd have to get back into
the swing of things of using a pen with my phone,
which is just something I'm not used to anymore. So
that's definitely a consideration. Fingerprint reader is super fast, the
(03:26):
cameras are excellent, and you've got a whole bunch of
different cameras on here. You've got a twelve megapixel ultra wide,
you've got one hundred and eight megapixel wide camera, you've
got a ten megapixel telephoto with a three time zoom.
Then you've got another ten megapixel telephoto with a ten
times optical zoom, and then your front facing camera is
a forty megapixel. And then of course the sweet spot
(03:49):
is really you don't want to go with the eight
megabyte or the one hundred and twenty eight megabyte based
storage model. Editor rich here, you know I meant to
say one and twenty eight gigabyte model. Well, one and
twenty eight megabytes would not get you very far in
this day and age, because that only comes with eight
gigs of RAM. You've got to jump up to that
two point fifty six to get that twelve gigs a RAM.
(04:11):
That's the sweet spot. And then it goes five to
twelve with twelve gigs, and then one terabyte with twelve gigs,
and then you have a five millionamp five thousand million
hour battery inside. So everything that I've seen on this phone.
It's just a powerhouse. It works really well, it's snappy.
Software needs a little bit of tweaking. There's some lag
here and there, but it's not a deal breaker. But overall,
(04:33):
I've been very impressed. I don't know if I can
stick with it because there's just so many things I
like about the iPhone. And it's not just the iPhone.
It's like it's the entire ecosystem that the iPhone is
a part of. Whether it's the Air Tags, whether it's
the Apple Watch, whether it's I Message, whether it's some
of the apps that I use on there. So it's
it's gonna be really tough. When it comes to the
(04:54):
night mode photography, Samsung made a big deal about the
night mode photography, and you know, it seems like the
night mode is definitely better on this device. Like the
photography at night is looking like it's brighter than the iPhone.
Is it always better, I don't know. I mean it
just looks brighter, that's for sure. So I'm gonna have
(05:14):
to test that a little bit more. The video looks
really nice. Prices start at eight hundred dollars for the
S twenty two, then you've got the S twenty two Plus,
which let's see how much that one is. That's nine
one thousand dollars. And then you've got the S twenty
two Ultra, which starts at twelve hundred dollars, and they're
gonna be available on February twenty fifth. So again, there's
(05:37):
been a lot of interest in these phones because Samsung
just continues to kind of tweak and evolve, and it
seems like they're doing a really good job with that.
So I've seen much more interest in these phones than
I have any previous Samsung models, So I guess I
guess they're doing a pretty good thing. All right, let's
get to our first question of the podcast. Lisa, Hey Rich,
I'm wondering if you can give me a recommendation on security.
(06:00):
Is it better to go through an agency or do
ring or one of those systems. Lisa, you know you're
talking to a tech guy that is looking at disruption
of all industries, and the companies like ADT I personally
just would not use because it's an old school company. Now,
(06:21):
I'm sure ADT does some really good things, but the
reality is their entire business is getting into a really
long contract that's very expensive, giving you the hardware at
a loss and then making it up on the back
end with an extremely long contract that costs a lot
of money. Whereas system like RING or Simply Safe or
(06:41):
any of these other DIY systems, you purchase the equipment
and then they make a reasonable amount of money on
you over the years. So personally, if I was to
go with one today, I would go with Ring. I
think that they're doing the best job of you know,
the different hardware they have, the different software they have,
they continue to push the envelope. They just came out
(07:03):
with the glass break sensor, so I think they are
overall the best system that you can get. Otherwise, I'd
say my second favorite system is probably Simply Safe, just
based on the fact that it does what you need.
It's simple, like they said, simply Safe. Although they are
raising the price by three dollars a month to twenty
eight dollars a month, I think they have a cheaper
(07:24):
plan that you can go with. But I would with
today's day and age, with all the software, bells and
whistles you want, you probably don't want the cheaper plan there.
But that would be my recommendation. So personally, I've been
looking to upgrade my ring system to do kind of everything.
I just haven't had a chance to do that, but
that's kind of on my list of things to do,
so that's what I would go with. All right. We
(07:48):
talked about air tags and unwanted tracking, and I actually
did a story about this on KTLA a while back.
And I'm not going to say it's because of my story,
but Apple definitely is a being the ante when it
comes to air tags and unwanted tracking. So couple things
that Apple is doing. Number one, working with law enforcement.
(08:09):
They say that, you know, these things are rare. These
are Yes, we're seeing them in the news all the time.
But it's a sexy story, right. I mean, you know,
you pop an air tag on someone, you can track them.
You pop it on a car, you can steal it,
you pop it on anything, and you can watch where
that thing goes. And yeah, it probably is that easy. Actually.
So they're saying that every air tag has a unique
serial number. Every serial number is paired with an Apple ID.
(08:32):
Could you set up an entire Apple ID with you know,
fake information? Yeah, probably if you want to be re elaborate,
but most people are not that smart. So they probably
would just not realize the depth to which Apple has
your information when you set one of these things up.
And they're saying they are working with law enforcement to
make sure that law enforcement gets the information, and they
(08:54):
say they have successfully partnered with them on cases where
information used traced an air tag back to the perp
who was apprehended and charged. So they're doing that. The
other thing they're doing is a new privacy warning. When
you set up an air tag, it's saying, hey, look,
this is a crime in many places, so don't even
try it. They're doing unwanted I guess some people are
(09:16):
getting unwanted alerts from their AirPods, and so they're going
to stop doing that as they're going to say that
air tags, our AirPods have been traveling with them instead
of an unknown accessory. Let's see what else is interesting, Oh,
precision finding. You'll be able to use precision finding with
an air tag so that you can find exactly where
(09:36):
it is. If you have an iPhone eleven, twelve or thirteen,
it's going to display an alert. You know, these air
tags are supposed to chirp when you are coming into
contact with an unwanted one. So they will chirp, but
that chirp is going to now also put a notification
on your phone so that you can figure out where
this thing is easier. They're also going to tune the
(09:58):
air tag sound to make it loud, so if you
are if you have one of these unwanted air tags nearby,
it's going to chirp louder than it did before. And
Apple says they are going to kind of revisit the
algorithm that that tells you when one of these unwanted
tags is near you. So the old one used to
(10:18):
be between eight and twenty I don't know. It just
was a random amount of time that if an air
tag was traveling with you, Apple would notify you at
some point, but that time was not necessarily etched in stone.
So now they're going to use a better algorithm to
kind of notify people earlier that one of these things
is traveling with them. So you know, this has been
(10:39):
in the news a lot. Apple is kind of tackling
it head on. And air tags are amazing, Let's be honest.
Ninety nine point nine percent of people are using them
for really awesome stuff. Like me, I've got them on
my keys, I've got them, you know, in my backpacks,
some my luggage, and it's amazing. And so that is
the ninety nine percent scenario. Yes, there are some people
(11:01):
out there that are using them for bad reasons, and
hopefully some of these changes will will kind of cut
down on some of those problems, all right. Mark says, Hey, Rich,
I saw your episode on New Televisions this year, and
you mentioned it's not worth getting an AK television due
to limited broadcasting in this format, so much that there
is none. However, I've owned in a Samsung eighty two
(11:22):
inch Q nine hundred R for two years. It's the
best TV and reception I have ever seen. Even though
even so, I told Direct TV to cancel my four
K subscription because I cannot tell any difference between their
four K broadcasting and what I could see on regular channels.
On the eight K set with twice as many pixels
as a four K set, the reception seems so much
(11:42):
clearer and brighter that it appears to be broadcasting in
four K without the use of four K specific channels.
Regard Mark in Houston, Texas. Mark, You know what, here's
the thing with all this stuff, I think it really
comes down to your eyes, what you like and how
it looks to you. So, for instance, I have a
four K set. I pay for Netflix in four K,
(12:05):
and I will tell you I cannot tell the difference
between Netflix and four K and HD. Now maybe the
maybe I don't. I just don't know what to say
about it because it's one of these things where, yeah,
I'm sure there are use cases where if you're watching
a four K football game, it probably looks amazing. But
if you're watching, you know, a ten ADP football game,
(12:29):
does it look that much better in four K? I
don't know. Like, let's put it this way. The super Bowl,
which is the biggest event, is happening this weekend that
is not being broadcast in four K. Clearly the NFL
has done their homework and they're saying, yeah, if people
don't really care, people don't really notice. It's not that noticeable.
So I think it probably would be with four K
(12:50):
with the with the big game. But you know, nobody's
broadcasting in four K. I mean it's very very limited.
If you look at any of the you know, major
cable services, I don't think there's any four K channels
on any of them. So, yes, Direct TV had like
one or two four K channels. One was just playing
a whole bunch of nature stuff last I checked. The
other one is doing sports events. But it's one of
(13:11):
these things where if you're on YouTube it's four K,
you know, it definitely looks good. Is it the best
like thing in the world. I don't know. I mean,
it's just one of these kind of Yes, it looks
better at the end of the day. But if everything
is all aligned, right, if all the stars are aligned,
the transmission is in four K or AK, your cables
(13:33):
are all good, your TV is tuned, and it looks great.
But the reality is most of us are just watching
random stuff. And I've even you know, you go into
I guess the best example is you go into any
car dealership in America or doctor's office, and the TV
screen looks horrible every time. It's just like it's just
not good. But most people just don't have it set
(13:55):
up in a way to make it look good. I
should tell a story. So I was one of the
first people to feature a four K TV on the
Today Show? And was it four K or is it
just HD? Actually? Sorry, this was going back just to HD,
and I remember being in the makeup room, and the
makeup people were like, you know, we're broadcasting in HD
now and it doesn't even look that great. And I said, well,
(14:17):
you know, you have to switch inputs to the HD input.
We and I helped them switch inputs and it was
like whoa, oh, actually that looks really good. So and
this happened at a Super Bowl party a couple of
years back with a friend of mine. I said, you know,
your TV is not even an HD. He's like, no,
yes it is. And I said, no, you really got
to switch a couple of these things on it. And
we went to the HDMI and sure enough, it was
(14:39):
like one of those minutes where wow, you just realize
this looks really good. So anyway, I think that's what's
happening with AK and four K. It's just there's so
many variables, but when you have everything lined up, yeah,
AK probably does look pretty good. I'm sure your TV
looks great because it's up sampling these things or upscaling,
and so yeah, if it works for you, I think
(15:00):
that's really all that matters. All right, Remember we Sports
that was one of the best games ever. It was
just such an exciting time for Actually this was one
of the other things I did on the Today Show.
I was one of the first people to show off
the Nintendo we and I'll never forget I bowled on
(15:20):
live TV and I got a strike, which I just
could not believe and it was just so great to
do that, and so it was really fun. But anyway,
WE Sports was really one of those games that kind
of just really showed off why the Wei was so
different than anything else we had ever used before. I mean,
we had the power Glove, we had other things that
(15:42):
were kind of you know, motion sensitive ways to play
video games, but the WE, not the WEU, the WE
just really encapsulated it with it just nailed it with
WE Sports. So according to this article in The Wirecutter,
they sold more than eighty million copies. And when Switch
came out, they came out of a couple games that
(16:03):
were similar using the motion controllers, but nothing like WE Sports.
And now I'm happy to report that Nintendo Switch Sports
is coming along and it will have basically very similar
gameplay to the Wei Sports, except you'll use the Joycon controllers.
So they're gonna have soccer, tennis, volleyball, badminton, bowling, and more.
(16:25):
They're also introducing a leg strap, so you can put
those joycon on your leg and you can play some
of these games with that. It's gonna be forty dollars
for the game. It arrives on April twenty ninth. They're
also going to have online gameplay, and if you want
early action on that, you can try it on February
eighteenth through twentieth. If you're listening to this, if you're
(16:48):
a Nintendo Switch Online member, you can play out some
of those games. So Nintendo Switch Sports, I think, is
gonna be amazing. Definitely something I'm gonna play with my kids.
I mean, so bring Back Bowling is just like, I mean,
that was like the best game on the Wii. I
don't care how many games came out afterwards. We Bowling
(17:09):
was just it was one of those games that anyone
can play. And I don't know if you remember this,
but I'm sure you do. So many people were like
crashing their controllers into their TV screen because they were
throwing them and it was crashing in. It was like,
of course, a big news story. I'm sure it only
happened like five or six times, but it was one
of those things that sounded so great. So that it
was it was definitely a big story for that to happen.
(17:31):
So Nintendo switched Sports coming soon, definitely going to be
a popular game for sure, all Right. Valisa via Instagram says,
I'm trying to find a good photo background change app
for Android. Do you know one? I'm trying to change
the background in my picks have a great day. Yeah,
I do have one. And I think I mentioned this
(17:52):
on the show before, but it's called Pixar pic Art
And this is such a cool video editing app. It's
so easy, you will love it. It's not free as far
as I know. I think there are like some some
uh you know, you got to pay to upgrade some
(18:14):
of these things. Let me see what it says. I mean,
there might be some free options that you can use,
but if you really want to step it up, you
got to pay. But it's available for Android and iOS
and uh let's see. Yeah, so they've got let's see
a weekly five bucks, monthly twelve dollars, yearly fifty six dollars.
(18:35):
Awesome photos. I love looking in the If you go
to the app store page for any app, you can
look at what the in app purchases are and this
is what is brilliant about Apple is that it's so
transparent to see like what people charge. And so what
I usually do if anything's charging like a yearly fee,
just look and see all of their different you know,
(18:56):
fees and see which one's the cheapest, and you know
you can end up getting. So what I do is
I always do the free trial and then they try,
of course to get you to subscribe. But what you
have to do is hold out just a little bit
and they will eventually email you or put an app
purchase notification with a better deal. So's that's a little trick.
So on Android, it's on Android, it's on iOS. Sorry
(19:20):
series asking me something, But it's on Android. It's on iOS,
and it's a great if you're just trying to remove
the background, it's super easy. It is a premium feature
on here. But they also have so many other features
as well. You can edit videos, You've got just so
many little features. It's you could spend all day on
this app. So again, it's called pix Ar pic sa
(19:43):
Art available for iOS and Android, and I think you
will like that app a lot. All right, So you
know that I've been driving the Tesla, I drove it
up to San Francisco, and so I like this story.
This is Washington is going to your mark five billion
dollars to create a national network of EV charging stations.
(20:05):
And I know this is a government program, So say
what you will about that. Tesla somehow has managed to
build their charging infrastructure. I don't know if they get
government funds or not. But if we're going to get
these evs to be used in a big way and
get rid of some of this what do they call it,
the charging range anxiety, that's the word I'm looking for,
(20:28):
range anxiety, then we have to get these charging stations everywhere.
And so this five billion dollar pot is going to
hopefully get states to put these stations in along the freeway,
along the interstate. That's the number one thing. And so
what is the stipulations of this program. Well, the stations
(20:49):
have to be installed every fifty miles, no more than
one mile off the interstate. And then the stations have
to have at least six hundred kilowatts of total capacity
with ports for at least four that can deliver at
least one hundred and fifty kilowats each. So that's that's
a pretty good amount and one hundred and fifty kilowats
is pretty fast. I think Tesla goes up to two fifty,
(21:10):
but even when I was at a two and fifty charger,
it still was just charging at one fifty. So one
fifty is pretty fast, and that's faster than a lot
of these random outlets you find all over the place.
So you know, this is from the Wall Street Journal.
This is what apparently is gonna happen. It's not gonna
happen overnight, but every fifty miles, I think is a
good clip. You know, you can find a gas station
(21:31):
every exit on the freeway. So now we'll see if
if these being everywhere is going to make people say, Okay,
I think I can deal with, you know, with having
an electric car. I personally have been living with the
electric car now for I don't know, six months, and
it's just great. I really love it. The range anxiety
is just not there. It's I'm I'm definitely aware of
(21:55):
my range on my car, and yeah, I'm basically always
at like a quarter tank or a half tank, no
matter what I mean, that's just where I'm at. And
so it would it be nice to have a range
of five hundred miles. Yeah, probably, But the reality is
most of the time, the only time that it's really
a problem is when you are on a road trip
and you are parking overnight on your road trip. So
(22:18):
if you go somewhere, getting there is gonna be just fine.
You're gonna be stopping for your charges. It's when you
get to your destination that things get a little tricky because,
like I explained in a video I did about the Tesla,
it's when I got to my hotel in San Francisco
that all bets were off. Did the hotel have a
charger yes? Did it work for my car? No? So
(22:38):
that means I had to go find a charger for
my car. Same thing when I went to visit my
brother in Visalia when he was visiting there. You know,
he was staying at an Airbnb and there, you know,
could I have found a plug to charge my car overnight? Maybe,
but it was kind of a pain and there wasn't
really one, not readily available unless I opened a window
(22:59):
or something. And you know, your car charge is slow,
but it's overnight, so it's not that big of a deal.
But again, so we had to drive and find a supercharger.
But the way that this is all set up right now,
the priority is being given to the interstates. Get people
on the freeway, and then they'll figure out how to
charge their car once they get to their destination, which
you know, is not that tough. There's a whole bunch
(23:20):
of chargers all over the place. It's just a matter
of finding them. And yeah, it's a little inconvenient once
you find them to you know, to continue to do that.
So you know, but overall, I think the cars are
going to really the the evs are just they're here
to stay and it's just going to continue to get
more and more. So all right, let's talk about Apple.
(23:43):
This is a really interesting move by Apple. So they
are basically opening up the NFC chip on the iPhone
to turn the iPhone into a credit card reader for
any business. So if you are a small business or
you've ever tapped on one of these little Square things,
remember when Square first came out, it was a card
(24:03):
reader that would stick into the headphone jack on the phone.
And then when phones lost the headphone jacks, they did
kind of a bluetooth play and so you would just
get this little reader that would bluetooth to the phone
and the reader would have NFC on it and you
can TAPLE. Now Apple is enabling all iPhones, or at
least certain model iPhones. I think it's iPhone Tennis and above.
(24:27):
They're going to basically flip the switch where those will
be able to take payments via tap to pay. This
is a huge, huge deal. I cannot tell you how
big of a deal this is because it allows any
small business in America with an iPhone to instantly accept
credit cards. Now you can say, Rich, they can use Venmo,
they can use They've already been able to use Square.
(24:49):
It's not that big of a deal. They probably have
a checkout terminal, but you don't have to invest in
any extra equipment or hardware. That is a huge deal.
So let's say you run a hair salon and you
have an iPhone. You can now take payments through that iPhone,
no problem. Now, I think this gets a little tricky
(25:11):
with that scenario because it's not the best case. Thing
is is that if you have a hair salon and
you've got a bunch of people working there and you're
not there, and you've got the only phone that accepts
the tap to pay, Yeah, that's kind of a problem.
But we'll figure this out. But the point is, if
you're a retailer, you can, you know, maybe get one
simple iPhone now and that handles all of your billing
(25:32):
or all your credit card payments and it doesn't need
to be attached to any sort of sort of special equipment.
So now, the other interesting thing about this is I
said in my tweet that this was kind of war
on Venmo and Square. It may not be because Square
could theoretically just use the framework that Apple is providing
(25:58):
to activate this. So Apple is not doing this in
their own software. They're actually going to open this up
for third party software to enable it. So that means
that Stripe can come in. That means that PayPal can
come in, That means that Square can come in. Anyone
who wants to accept credit card payments via tap to
pay through an app that they build can now do it.
(26:20):
And we'll see Stripe is the first one they announced.
We'll see if Square and these other reta other payment
processors bite on this system, which I think they'll they'll
have to because otherwise they're gonna be left in the dust.
And when it comes to Venmo, of course, PayPal owns Venmo.
PayPal will probably do this through the PayPal app. Venmo
will continue to be Venmo, which you know, most people
(26:42):
know Venmo through just using their you know, their user name,
which I think is not a very good system. So
if you have a QR code you can scan it,
that's much better because you know you're getting the right person.
I can't stand typing someone's name into Venmo. I know
everyone does it, but it's just kind of like one
of these things where it's I just never know if
it's like the actual person and they want to verify
(27:04):
with the phone number. So I think the QR code
is a lot easier. So we'll see what happens with
that situation. All right, Let's talk Disney Plus. According to Variety,
Disney Plus ended twenty twenty one with about one hundred
and thirty million subscribers, which is just phenomenal. So I
think they wanted a certain amount of subscribers. They had
(27:27):
like a five year plan. They just blew everything out
of the water. And Disney Plus is one of these
things that's like water in a lot of people's homes.
So one hundred and twenty nine million paying subscribers, each
person is paying what what is Disney plus seven bucks.
So what's one hundred and thirty million times seven, that's
(27:48):
nine hundred and ten million dollars a month for Disney.
That is a good amount of money just on Disney plus.
That's a pretty good new business. Huh. Now, I get it,
they're probably losing some money in the movie theaters or
a lot of money. But at the same time, this
is just a steady flow of cash. And it's not
just a steady flow of cash, it's something they can
bank on every month. So I don't think that this
(28:11):
is going to go below one hundred million subscribers, so minimum,
you know, seven hundred million dollars every month is just
kind of a guarantee. So what does that allow them
to do. It allows them to plan their slate of
new stuff against this money. And if you're like me,
if there's one new movie on Disney plus one new
piece of content every month, that's probably enough to keep
(28:33):
you there. So In Canto was the latest one. That
was probably last month, So I would look to February
to have something new. I'm sure there's something new that's
coming out that will keep us busy until the next month.
And this is kind of like what HBO figured out
a long time ago. Except with HBO, when you subscribe
through your cable service, you know number one, they would
(28:55):
have a show that would last six months to nine months,
and they parsed it out over that time, so it
felt like, Okay, every week, I have a new episode
for you know, six months, whatever it was. I don't
know how many months it went, maybe three months. With
these services, it's much easier to cancel, so you need
to have stuff that's fresh, like much quicker, and it's
it's one of those things where when you sign up
(29:16):
for HBO, you didn't really think about canceling because there
was just so much it was so much work to cancel,
whereas with Disney Plus and Netflix and all these others,
I don't I think those two are much more protected
compared to some of these other services, like maybe Discovery
Plus or something. With Netflix, it's just I'm keeping it forever.
Disney Plus, I'm keeping it forever. But you can come
(29:39):
and go on some of these other services, and so
it makes it a lot easier to come and go
for sure. Speaking of movie services, movie Pass is launching,
movie Past two point zero is launching this summer, and
it's gonna support a bunch of movie theaters. But here's
the thing, I mean, do we even care about Movie Past?
(30:00):
We need an unlimited movie Pass subscription anymore? I don't
think so. So they're going to use I read this
facial detection so you can watch these ads and that'll
give you credit to get towards watching movies. But who
cares at this point if you're a movie if you're
a movie lover, you've probably already subscribed to AMC. At
this point, you've probably already subscribed to Regal Cinemas, and
(30:24):
they're unlimited services, which I know are probably more expensive
at twenty five dollars a month depending on the area
you're in, But it's going to be a much easier,
probably system than going through all these hoops of Movie Pass,
which is probably going to be cheaper. Maybe it's ten
bucks a month, I'm not sure. But the reality is,
do we even need this anymore? I think I think
Movie Pass had a certain spot in our lives and
(30:48):
that that time is just kind of over. So speaking
of over, I know this was an abbreviated show, but
I wanted to get one on the books. Once I
figure out my equipment. I'll have a better show next week,
but that's going to do it this episode of the show.
If you have a question you would like for me
to answer, you can go to my Facebook page Facebook
dot com, slash rich on Tech, hit the big blue
send email button, or go to rich on Tech dot
(31:09):
tv and hit the email icon. I would also love
it if you would rate and review this podcast. Just
go to the listening app of your choice. Write a
quick line about what you like about this show to
help others understand why they should listen. Listen. You can
find me online. I am at rich on Tech on
all social media. By the way, don't rate this show,
just rate the other shows. This show was kind of
(31:30):
like a tougher one because of the production quality, but
I wanted I didn't want to not have a show. Also,
no matter where you live in the US, you can
download the free ktla plus app on appledv, Fire tv,
and Roku. Once you do, scroll to the tech section
and you can watch all of my TV segments on demand.
My name is rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening.
There are so many ways you can spend an hour
(31:50):
of your time. I do appreciate you spending it with me.
I'll talk to you real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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