Apple goes green

A rundown of Apple's latest products including green iPhones, a new 5G iPhone SE, why Gas Buddy could be a privacy nightmare, Tesla raises prices again, how to steer clear of Zelle fraud, the United States takes a closer look at crypto and Peloton now directly supports the Apple Watch.Listeners ask about Samsung versus the latest iPhone SE, losing the Facebook live feature on Portal, avoiding debit and credit card theft with card alerts, how to tell if an iMac can get the latest software and how the fall detection feature works on an Apple Watch.Follow Rich!richontech.tvSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Apple unveils new products, including its fastest computer yet. Gas
Buddy is kind of a privacy nightmare. The US is
taking a closer look at Crypto 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

(00:31):
place where I answer the questions you send me. I'm
the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Welcome to the folks watching live on Instagram. So you know,
every so often I am inspired to try something new
and different, and of course today it backfired just a

(00:54):
little bit because I went on Instagram and next thing,
you know, everyone's saying on the live chat that, oh, Rich,
I can't hear you your status key. And then of
course I got to spend you know, ten fifteen minutes
trying to figure out what's going on. What you know,
is it the cable? Like you know, what's the setup?
Because you know, not only does the Instagram app change
every week, but also you know this setup, like I've
got my setup here that I've actually now kind of

(01:15):
kept in one place. But things just change, like technology
changes every day and that is why I'm here. That
is why I'm here for you. So lots going on
in the week, lots going on in the world, continuing
to watch the situation over in Ukraine, which is basically
making me sick on a daily basis, So you know,

(01:36):
thoughts to anyone that has any family in that region.
I feel for you, and you know, I just feel
for the world at large right now, because it just
feels like we're in a very volatile situation that can
change very quickly. And the unfortunate part is that we
literally just came out of the worst two years ever

(01:57):
in my lifetime with the pandemic, and now or hopping
into a war that just seems to be very confusing.
And you know, I mentioned this last week. I don't
want to harp on it, but you know, the idea
of all these people that have been displaced, not to
mention people that have been hurt or killed, it's just unnecessary.
We live in such an amazing world that we have

(02:20):
access to more in our lives than we ever have
at any time in our in my lifetime. I feel
for you. I believe me, We're all feeling the same
way right now, wondering what's going on, what's going to happen,
feeling for the people over there and the world at large.
So I just want to know that, let you know
that I am thinking about that stuff. I know in
my segment, I try to keep things pretty lighthearted and

(02:42):
I try to give you the information you need. But
I'm human. I'm reacting just like you are to things
that are happening in this world. And so I don't
want to go without mentioning that. But I will say
that it is fascinating to me how quickly we have
cut off Russia in so many different ways, all the
different companies, from Amazon to FedEx, to Microsoft to Apple.

(03:06):
And I understand that we're doing that for a reason,
to send a message to their government and to their
you know, their leaders that say, hey, look, you know,
you're not going to have any of these amazing things
that we have in our modern world. Uh. But at
the same time, there's a lot of people that live
in that country that probably don't support the war, and
of course they are being penalized as well, and so

(03:27):
it's really an unfortunate situation in so many ways. All Right,
let's uh, let's get to the big news of the
week other than, of course what's happening in the world.
But Apple did hold their first event of the year,
and it was a how can we say, yanner? I mean,
I don't want to knock Apple, because you know, they're

(03:49):
they're look, they're coming out with stuff, they're doing things.
But the reality is this event was not their most exciting.
And I have no doubt that this computer that they
came out with is just phenomenal. But you know, ninety
nine percent of people are not purchasing that computer. So
most people when they're looking at Apple are looking at,
you know, the iPhone. They're looking at maybe an iPad.

(04:13):
But I mean, look, you bought an iPad. Like we
just talked to Matt in the pre show on Instagram
Live and he said that he had one of the
original iPads he's replacing the screen on, So look how
long that has lasted him. I get emails from people
all the time, they're like, oh, I've got this going
on with the iPad and this and that. I said, look,
before you buy a new one, you know, start by
refreshing the old one. Either do a factory reset, fix

(04:36):
the crack whatever. Now, fixing a crack screen on an
iPad is very expensive, as Matt realized, and so it's
not necessarily a thing you want to do is spend
you know, three four hundred bucks to replace a screen
on an old gadget. But anyway, so a couple of
things that Apple announced. Number one, I mean, they led
with like an iPhone thirteen in green, and then an

(04:57):
iPhone thirteen Pro and Alpine green. Come on, I mean,
it's okay, that's cool, but like, is that really like
big big news? No. Then they came out with an
iPhone se three. Now this is actually pretty cool. This
is their most inexpensive iPhone. It starts at four hundred
and twenty nine dollars, which is actually a thirty dollars

(05:18):
price increase. This phone used to be three ninety nine
or the previous model. But the neat thing about this phone,
number one, they redesigned it, which, okay, they updated the design.
Now it's kind of like an iPhone eight design. But
the cool thing about this phone is that they increased
the battery life. It's got five G it's got a
better camera. I'm not sure if they increased the water resistance.

(05:40):
But the main thing is that it also has a
home button, which is kind of nice if you're kind
of old school and you still want that, not if
there's anything wrong with that. But the main thing that
they did was they put the same chip that's in
the iPhone thirteen. They put that chip into this basic
level iPhone, which I think is a huge win for Apple,

(06:04):
and not just for Apple, but for people that buy
this phone. You're buying this phone that's kind of like
the entry level device, but you're getting the top of
the line processor, which is pretty phenomenal. So this again
four hundred and twenty nine dollars, available March eighteenth. If
you like a home button, go with that phone. Otherwise,
I personally would probably recommend the iPhone thirteen, And I've
told people to skip the iPhone twelve at this point

(06:25):
if you're purchasing a new phone, because that is the
first time that Apple had five G on their devices,
and the battery just not as strong. So the battery
life on the iPhone twelve's not as good as what
I've seen in the iPhone thirteen. Of course, on my
iPhone thirteen, the battery has taken a huge hit. I'm
running a beta version of the software, which I should

(06:46):
probably exit because the battery is just so bad on
my phone at this point, and I keep waiting for
the new beta to get better, but it's just not.
My battery just goes dead really fast. Let's see iPad
Air with the M one processor again. The M one
processor is Apple's top of the line, their own silicon
that they've made, and so it's really fast. It's really amazing.

(07:08):
But how many people are gonna run out and buy
a six hundred dollars iPad. Not that many. If you're
even considering an iPad, most people are probably getting the
three hundred and twenty nine dollars model, which is perfectly fine.
And if you're using an iPad for real like work work,
I mean, this is probably good. But you know, Apple's
just giving people options at this point. So this new

(07:30):
iPad has a kind of an iPad pro style design.
So this is the iPad Air. It's got that M
one chip, The USB cport is twice as fast, it's
got five g if you pay an extra two hundred
and fifty dollars. Cellular used to be an extra hundred bucks.
Now it's up to two fifty extra everything. I mean,
I don't know if you're like me, but like every

(07:51):
day I wake up and I check my email and
like some kind of price has gone up, like whatever
it is. It's like, oh, Netflix is a dollar more
this month, Hulu's a dollar more this month. Oh your
alarm system is three dollars more this month, You're I
mean everything. I mean, it's just it's pretty wild. I
think that because of inflation and all these different prices, Like, yes,
like things cost more. But I also think that like

(08:13):
pretty much every company is just jumping on the bandwagon
and saying, oh yeah, let me let me raise rates too,
because we can. Everyone just assumes prices are going to
be more expensive. Right now, Let's see, it also got
an improved twelve megapixel camera which supports center stage and uh,
that's basically it all right, now, let's talk about Apple's
Mac studio. So Apple came out with a new processor

(08:36):
called the M one Ultra. They basically took two of
their top of the line chips and mushed them together
to create one mega chip. I mean, it just sounds
like something out of like a sci fi horror movie, right,
like they just put these two chips are like and
it works. So this is like their fastest chip ever.
Fastest desktop computer ever. The Max Studio kind of looks

(08:58):
like a Mac Mini, but it's got a lot more power,
a lot more ports, and it's let's see, it's got
four thunderbolt four ports. Let's see an Ethernet port, two
USBA ports, HDMI port, audio jack, and then on the
front you've got two USB C ports and an SD
card slot. This thing can also run eighteen simultaneous video

(09:21):
streams at the same time. I joked on Twitter that
I need more eyeballs just to like take advantage of
the power of this computer. I mean, pretty pretty wild stuff.
And they just said, you know, they went through all
these stats saying how much faster it is compared to
all their computers. And that's one thing I love about Apple.
So they come out with these products, they say how
great and how fantastic they are, and then the next

(09:42):
year they come out and they literally just trash their
old product. They say that thing, oh that was a
heap of trash. This thing this is ten times faster
than that that just came out last year. And so
it's just I love how they do that, and yes,
this stuff is still good. This is why I talk
about this this thing with Apple where when you when
you're looking to upgrade your Apple product, you almost want

(10:05):
to buy it like the first day it comes out.
And let me explain why. So every Apple product is
on like this ticking time bomb clock of it's going
to be upgraded in the next year. So when you
buy the iPhone thirteen, right from the day you get it,
the time is already ticking down to when the iPhone
fourteen is going to come out and blow this thing
out of the water. And so to get the real

(10:27):
cutting edge use out of their devices, you basically have
to buy them on the first day they're available so
that you have that full year of sort of use
before the new one comes out. And yours is old
old uh you know, old news. I mean, it's kind
of a joke, but that's the way I see it
in my head. So this Max Studio computer is going
to start at two thousand dollars using the M one

(10:50):
max chip, and then the M one Ultra, which is
their newest processor. That one's going to start at four
thousand dollars. But wait, there's more. They also introduced a
new monitor that is sixteen hundred dollars. This computer at
four thousand dollars does not come with a monitor. So
the Mac the studio display is this super high end

(11:11):
monitor that has all kinds of stuff. It has its
own chip built in, so it actually is powered by
like the same chip that's in an iPhone. It's just
that powerful because it does it has like a camera
and speakers and all this stuff. So pretty wild stuff
from Apple. Nothing that expensive. Sorry, nothing that I okay,
not gonna say, not impressive. It was just you know,

(11:33):
Apple comes out with so much stuff right now, and
they come out with so much oh and people in
the comments are commenting, that's the only five K panel.
But Apple comes out with so many products nowadays, and
they're appealing to so many different levels of products and
people and price ranges that they have to release this
stuff like it's the most exciting stuff ever. But realistically,
when it's a green iPhone thirteen, it's like, Okay, that's cool.

(11:56):
But at the same time, it's just you know, just
giving people more options when they go into this and
they say, oh, that's pretty cool. I can go for
a green phone. Okay, very cool. All right, let's get
to the first question of the show. Hey, good morning,
Rich there's a joke on this show that people always
say good morning Rich in their emails because literally they

(12:17):
see me on TV on KTLA in the mornings and
then they type, oh, I've got a question for that guy,
and they type a question, and then that's why they
say good morning Rich. So it's always good morning unless
someone's really hipped to that and they're like a regular
listener or follower, and then they say something else besides
good morning, Good morning Rich. I've been a Samsung user
forever and looking at switching to Apple. Never had an

(12:38):
Apple product. I love photography. I carry a big camera
for that. But I'm looking at the thirteen pro versus
the one you mentioned on KTLA today. Oh, Samsung, use
my phone for calendar calls, contacts and a bit of
searching slash booking while traveling. Also looking at getting the
Apple Watch, and I believe they link. Do you think
the se will meet my needs? Stick to the thirteen

(13:01):
pro or stay with the Samsung twenty two? Thank you?
John in British Columbia, who someone I met someone from
Canada the other day and they they you know, I
of course, like you know, as an American that just
has no understanding of a lot of I do have

(13:22):
some understanding of. I've been to many places in the world,
but like Canada is like this big, giant place I'm
not fully understanding of. And they said, you know that
they lived in somewhere in Canada, and I was like, oh,
I've been to Toronto, and I think they were from
what's the other big city, not Quebec, it was like
another one, but anyway, it was nowhere near where she
was from. And I was like, okay, and I kind

(13:42):
of like just I sunk into the corner. Anyway, Okay,
to answer your question, John, what would I say if
you love photography? I think there are two phones for
you right now. There's the iPhone thirteen Pro, which I
think has the best camera and video camera that I've
ever used on a smartphone. So you say you carry
a big camera, if you're still going to carry that camera,

(14:04):
maybe you don't need a phone that has such an
amazing camera, but if you're trying to ditch that camera.
So I know someone a family member that whenever they traveled,
they would bring that big DSLR hanging around their neck
take pictures with it. And I just said, look, why
are you doing that anymore? No, what do you need
to bring that for your picture that you're getting off
that DSLR is not infinitely better than the picture that

(14:26):
I'm gonna snap by just pulling my iPhone out of
my pocket and taking a picture. And so that kind
of resonated with them, and the next time they went
on a trip, they just took their iPhone and they
said it was amazing. They took great pictures. It didn't
really impact their trip. They didn't have this big thing
around their neck. And so it just kind of depends.
If you're a big photographer. Of course, there's always going
to be a place for a big DSLR that takes

(14:48):
amazing pictures that you blow up and they look great
on the wall. But if you're just taking snapshots on
a vacation and quickly pointing and shooting, a smartphone is
going to be just fine. Now, I think the se
will meet your needs if you continue to carry that
big camera, and if you want to switch the iPhone
four hundred and twenty nine bucks, it's a good entree. Yes,
the Apple Watch definitely links, although my Apple Watch, for

(15:10):
some reason, even though I'm paying for the cellular, has
not been working with the cellular connection, which is really annoying.
So I gotta figure that out. But that requires going
to a store, and I have no desire to go
to a store and sit there and try to chat
with someone about my watch. Last time has happened to me.
I was on the phone for like an hour with
the tech support person and I actually ended up figuring
out how to do it. You know what, maybe I'll

(15:32):
try that again, Uh okay, or stick with the Samsung
S twenty two. I mean, if you the Samsung S
twenty two lineup is really good, the camera's really good,
I think you're gonna be happy with that. But if
you want the Apple Watch, then you're gonna have to
go with the iPhone. And that's just the bottom line. Now.
When it comes to the iPhone, I would say you
can go with the se but only if you're gonna

(15:53):
continue to carry that camera around to take professional pictures.
You can go with the iPhone thirteen Pro if you
want to ditch that camera. The advantage of the Samsung
S twenty two Ultra is that you're gonna get a
ten times zoom on your camera. I think the Ultra
takes really good pictures. I think the iPhone's just a
little bit ahead in certain aspects, maybe when it comes

(16:14):
to the video aspect, like iPhone video. And it's not
just me that says this. I mean it's every professional
I talk to in my industry. We just can't believe
how good the video quality is off of the iPhone
thirteen pro. I mean, it's truly just phenomenal that we
can shoot video professional video for television on a smartphone

(16:37):
and nobody knows the difference. I mean, yeah, if you
use the wide angle you can tell, but it's really
quite remarkable. So anyway, I think you'll be happy with
any of these, but it depends, like I said, on
exactly what your needs are. All right, let's talk about cryptocurrency.
You know, it's like every party I go to, every
get together. It's not like I'm going to like major
crazy parties, but you know what I mean, Like every

(16:58):
get together where there's a couple people in a room,
the conversation always turns to crypto. And maybe that's just
because I'm always like asking people, are you into crypto?
Do you have crypto? Do you got a position in crypto?
I'm just curious, like what people know about it, what
people want to know about it. And so it's one
of these things that's top of mind. It's everywhere you
hear about it. I mean, look here in Los Angeles

(17:18):
the Staples Center is renamed Thecrypto dot Com Arena. I mean,
this is wild. And so, you know, it's just one
of these things that is it's taken off, but it
is still very much in its infancy. And so with
that all in mind, President Biden signed an executive order
to say, we are going to check out what's going

(17:39):
on with these cryptocurrencies because a couple things are happening.
Number One, probably the biggest is that it's unregulated, and
so the government typically has maybe a duty to make
sure that consumers are not scammed by this kind of stuff,
make sure that obviously they can collect taxes on these things.

(17:59):
And so that's number one. So this I'll tell you
what they're gonna do in this In this executive order,
they're basically going to study cryptocurrency for a couple of months,
present that to Congress and you know, the Senate. I'm
guessing in some sort of uh, you know, however, however
law stuff works. You know, However, however, the executive branch
of the government works, but they're gonna present that to

(18:20):
them and then they're gonna come up with like solutions,
and the solutions are in six areas consumer protection. So again,
they don't want people to be scammed by this stuff.
Financial stability, like does having crypto in a big way
somehow put the US at risk of financial collapse? Illicit activity,
So they want to make sure people aren't using this

(18:40):
for a legal activity. US competitiveness, like if every other
country is using crypto and the US falls behind, that
could be a problem financial inclusion and responsible innovation, and
so you know, they want to make sure that everyone
can have a hand in this if it's something that
we should proceed with. Now, this is going to proceed
no matter what I mean. This is not whether the

(19:01):
US government blesses this or not. Cryptocurrency is here to stay.
It is a it is a thing, and it's there's
no denying some of the efficiencies of crypto. And there's
also some debate as to whether it's better than what
we already have, but in some ways it very much is.
So the administrations also, and this is really interesting, they're

(19:24):
also looking to this idea of a digital dollar. Now
that is kind of scary because could you imagine your
bank account at your current bank right now is all
digital and it is linked to the government. Now, I
get it. Government can freeze your assets, they can take
your assets, they can you know, seize them whatever they
want to do. I mean, it's the government. There's one
thing we've realized in this world is that the government

(19:45):
can pretty much do what they want. But when it's digital,
it's that much easier. So imagine, oh, hey, Rich, we're
looking into your finances. So in the meantime, we're just
gonna freeze your your digital accounts for a minute here,
a minute turns into a week whatever, and that's it.
It's instantaneous. You know, right now you got to go
through the bank. You gotta tell them. You gotta probably
send them like some sort of you know, uh, I

(20:08):
don't know whatever. They send them a letter. It's probably
through the old mail. You have a stamp. We gotta
we gotta send this to Rich's bank to uh to
stop his funds. You got a stamp over the no stamp.
It just used that government stamp that just kind of
works for everything. It's all like free. But you know,
when it's digital, it is it is kind of scary

(20:29):
to have the digital dollar. But at the same time,
you know, if that's what people are moving to, that's
something that the US needs to have to be competitive
with the rest of the world. I mean, China's looking
into it. Actually their their report that they kind of
came out with a preliminary report that said forty million
people in America have bought or sold or traded crypto,

(20:50):
and then they also said that one hundred countries are
looking into the feasibility of digital money. So here's the
other thing. Countries don't want to be They don't want
to be swept. I guess what's the word. They don't
want crypto to take off without them being a part
of it, because that could be a problem for these countries.

(21:10):
And you know, it's kind of like when you look
at America, like who really runs like kind of the
financial system. I mean, you've got big players like Visa, MasterCard, Chase,
Bank of America, Wells Fargo, they all they all have
a vested interest in not really helping crypto in its
current form takeoff because guess what, they already have their
own systems in place for moving money around and helping

(21:32):
people have accounts. So they don't really want this stuff
to happen the way it's happening. They want to say, like,
hold on, uh, can we regulate that the way we
regulate all of our banking systems, because guess what, you know,
we have an ability to collect money and transfer fees
and all this other stuff that you know, Crypto does
have fees, but not in its purest form. You know,

(21:53):
if you buy crypto through like a third party app, yeah,
you're gonna have to pay some sort of fee on
it to do that. But in its most pure form,
you know, I believe you can just transfer money, you know,
to someone else, a person, a person, and anywhere in
the world, and by the way, instantly, and uh yeah.
In the comments, Rob says digital money can be turned

(22:15):
off too easily. Yeah, but I imagine that even even
physical money. But the thing is, I guess at the
end of the day, you could always have a little
stockpile of physical money, like in case, you know, like
I do believe that it's pretty smart to keep some
cash around. Not that I do this, I should, and
I actually did for a little bit. I had like
a little stockpile of some money so that in case

(22:38):
there was ever a natural disaster or whatever. You know,
I could have that cash because I can tell you
when I was covering hurricanes back in the day in
my previous jobs, when a natural disaster happens, it is
like all bets are off. Your credit card's not gonna work,
You're not gonna be able to get gas. Nothing is
going to work. The way you think you can't go
to the grocery store to buy your water. I mean,

(22:59):
we saw some of this during the pandemic, where you know,
shelves were just sort of empty, right, and you just
imagine like, oh, there would never be a time in
America where I can't get the things that I want
to get. Well, yeah, we all experienced that in the
past year. It happened. And so with money, it's like, oh, well,
if there's an earthquake, I'll just go to the ATM
and get you know, get some cash out. Not gonna happen, Like,

(23:19):
you're not gonna be able to go to the ATM
and get cash out. They're not gonna work. So anyway,
I used to have a little tiny pile of cash
that I would keep as like a safety net in
the house. And then of course life happens and you
just like, oh, I gotta pay you know, this person here,
I need, you know, some cash. I gotta pay this person.
I gotta, you know, And then next thing you know,
you're down to zero and I haven't restocked. So I

(23:42):
should probably do that again. Anyway, I highly recommend having that.
But the point is you can have that little paper
stockpile that will work a cash is king, you know,
especially in a natural disaster, if you needed someone to
give you a ride somewhere, and you know, it goes
down to kind of like you know, the basics. Yeah,
they're gonna take a twenty our bill and get you

(24:02):
where you need to go. All right, let's get to
the next question from Susan. Susan says, I know you
stay up with all the gadgets, and I have a
question that I'm hoping you might be able to help with.
Do you know why or have you heard anything about
issues with the Facebook Live feature on portal. I purchased

(24:24):
one for my adult daughter several months ago, and she
used that feature for our business and was really happy
about it. Suddenly the feature disappeared and tech support can
only say it's not available any longer. Needless to say,
we are a bit frustrated. I thought you might be
able to shed some light or give us some suggestions.
Thanks for your time, have a great day, sincerely, Susan. Susan,
you have experienced what we what I call on this

(24:45):
show as the short attention span of tech companies, and
this is a problem across so much tech. So the
Facebook Portal is a device that is either it comes
in a couple different forms. It's basically a video chat
device that is like a screen, or it sits on
top of your TV, or it's a They made one

(25:08):
that looked like a picture frame at one point. But
the bottom line is it's a screen with a camera
that allows you to either video chat with other people,
go on Facebook Live like you said your daughter did,
or of course just use it to do other things
Facebook oriented things and other stuff too. I think they
had other stuff built in. Now the portal never really

(25:29):
took off in a big way. So you've got Amazon's devices,
You've got Google Home devices are those are probably two
of the biggest and Facebook this came out at a
time when when I'm still Facebook is just really in
the crosshairs of the privacy kind of watchdogs, and people said, no,

(25:50):
I'm not putting a Facebook a Facebook device with a
camera and a microphone in my house, and so a
lot of people didn't. Now, you see, none of that
matters to you because you purchased this for your daughter.
So you want to know why this feature went away.
And sure enough, I did a little research on the
Facebook Live feature on the portal, and the page that
used to describe how great this feature was is mysteriously

(26:11):
vanished off the internet. And so, yeah, they probably got
rid of it in a software update because no one
was using it, or not enough people were using it,
and they didn't want to support it anymore. And so
what do you do in this case? You can't bring
it back. It's too late. You can't. You can't add
the feature on your own, so you're kind of out
of luck. And this is a this is I've talked

(26:34):
about this on the show before, but there are companies
that are worse at this than others, and I'd say
Facebook is a pretty big offender. Facebook. You know, their
motto has been for a long time, act fast and
break things. I think something to that extent. But the
reality is they come out with stuff and if it
doesn't work. It's like throwing spaghetti at the wall. You know,

(26:56):
I'm Italian and that's what we used to do to
try to see if the swetti was ready. I know
it's a weird thing, but it's like the idea is
they would throw a bunch of stuff at the wall
and if it's stuck, sure we'll keep it, and if
it didn't, they just move on. So just this week
we heard that Instagram got rid of IGTV, which they
made a huge deal of when it came out, and

(27:17):
now it's just Instagram Video and now they're all into
reels And how long are they gonna be into reels
until either people stop watching them or doesn't work anymore,
and then they give up on those. But TikTok's so
popular that probably won't happen. But there's not much you
can do. And so there are some companies that are
a little bit better at this than others, like Apple,
I think comes out with stuff at a slower cadence

(27:40):
and doesn't necessarily get rid of things very quickly. And
then the other the other company that does a lot
of stuff, they throw a lot of stuff, as Samsung,
but I feel like in recent years they have definitely
kind of streamlined things a little bit and they've made things.
It's just a little bit more like, Okay, we're not

(28:00):
gonna like they They actually never came out with this
one speaker, this h it was like the Bixby home speaker.
They showed it off at a show and they just
never came out with it and that was it. It's
just like they didn't. Now they come out with a
lot of other stuff. But I feel like Samsung is like,
you kind of know that they're coming out with the foldables,
They're already on like the third generation of those. You
know they're coming out with their Galaxy lineup, and you

(28:22):
know they're now coming out with the H the A lineup,
which is like their more budget lineup, And so they're
pretty consistent. Google very inconsistent. Google is like, oh my gosh.
They are just like, hey, we'll give you anything, and
uh oh okay, it didn't work. Okay, let's just does
just not do that anymore. So this is just the
reality of these tech companies. It happens, and there's not

(28:44):
much you can do about it. So sorry, Susan, but
that's just what's going on. Thanks for the question. All
right now. Have you noticed, let me ask you this,
have you noticed that gas prices have gone up where
you are? It's so funny because I live in California,
and the gas prices here are just wildly, wildly astronomically

(29:10):
like mind boggling high. And it's just California. Everything is very,
very expensive. And when you live in California, you kind
of forget just how expensive things are until you go
to another place. Now, if you're going to a resort
in like Hawaii, or like a resort town, or you know,
a big hotel somewhere, yeah, you don't really realize. But
it's when you go to like regular places in America,

(29:31):
like all the other cities in between Los Angeles and
New York, you realize that what what not? Everything is
eight dollars for a bottle of water? Where was I?
I was in Santa Barbara and my wife and I
for we were in a hotel and are we didn't
have any water and there was no water. There was
no water around, like no seven eleven or anything like that,

(29:54):
and so we just had to keep walking until we
found a bottle of water, and so, you know, and
it was just getting frustrat eating because we couldn't find it.
I was like, all right, fine, whatever. So we went
into this little like winery place that I was like,
I bet you they have a bottle of water here,
and so I pick out two bottles of water from
the refrigerator and I'm like, how much could this possibly be?
You know, like five dollars each. No, the water was

(30:15):
twelve dollars a bottle, twelve dollars. So this this woman,
you know, this person working there, rings me up and
it's like she's like twenty four dollars, you know, plus
tax I'm just like what, but we needed the water
and what are you gonna do? And so we bought
the water for twelve dollars and my wife and I
were just joking that this. We're like, I think the
wine that you're selling here by the glass is cheaper

(30:36):
than twelve dollars, but it probably wasn't. But anyway, what
was my point? Oh, yeah, you just have to kind
of pay for stuff and you just take for granted.
Like I'm continually there's a couple of cities, Los Angeles,
Hawaii and Las Vegas. I'm continually surprised by the prices
that people will charge for things. It just like every
time I think I've heard it all, I'm like, oh, okay,

(30:58):
twelve dollars for a bottle. Oh no, that's fifteen. Oh okay,
there you go. Uh but gas I digress. So gas
Buddy is an app that a lot of people are
using to try to find cheaper gas prices, which I
totally understand you should be at this point. It used
to be when gas was like, you know, ten fifteen
cents difference, Like, okay, not that big of a deal,

(31:21):
but at this point, with gas pushing like seven dollars
here in California, you gotta go in your neighborhood and
find the cheapest gas, and so you just got to
do it. So if I look at gas Buddy, So,
gas Buddy is basically this app that you know, they
get the information from the gas stations or whatever, and
they they tell you how much gas is and so great,

(31:42):
very convenient, very nice. But the thing that gas Buddy
is doing on the back end, and this is according
to an article from Wirecutter, is that, of course they're
collecting a whole bunch of data on you. And the
reality is that a lot of people are saying where
their location is, their exact location. It's tracking you all
the time, and then they sell that information to third
party data brokers. So just a scenario. You ever wonder

(32:07):
why you get so many of these random calls? Where
do people get your phone number? Yeah, a lot of
times it's through spammers and scammers, but a lot of
times it's also just you're giving it up to one
company you didn't read their privacy policy, and they're selling
it to other companies, and that's just what happens. So
with gas Buddy, it's kind of like this thing that
they say that if there is no price, you are

(32:29):
the product. So if you're getting something for free, your
data is what they're making money off of. And if
you want to know exactly how much, according to this article,
they were selling location data for nine dollars and fifty
cents per one thousand users. And they have a lot
of users. They have millions of users, so it's you know,
they've got a lot of this data, and they've got
data of where people are driving, where people are going.

(32:51):
They've got their name, they've got their address, they've got
their email, they've got all kinds of information that you
just give up to this app because it says, hey,
will you sign up with us? And you say sure,
but they put the skip sign up in little gray
lettering in the corner. So whenever you're using an app,
by the way, whenever you sign up for an app,
always always, always look for the option to skip signing

(33:12):
up for an account if you don't need one. A
lot of times skip if there's like a big box
in the middle of the app that says please sign in.
There's sometimes a little X or a little skip that's
just kind of grayed out and in the corner. We
call that a dark pattern in the industry, and it's
basically it's a pattern that you say, well, this windows
in front of me. There's no way to skip it.

(33:33):
Sometimes you can close out the app and that will
skip it. Other times there's a little tiny skip button
that you can't really see or you know, there's just
various ways of doing it. So always try to skip
creating an account if you can. And then when you're
creating your account, be very very mindful about the information
that you're giving up to that company, because chances are
that information will be packaged up and sold and sent

(33:54):
somewhere else, and so just be aware of that. So
for instance, I keep a Google Voice number that I
will give out more freely because I don't care if
a lot of people get it, because it's not something
that is ringing my phone all the time. So if
it's a company that I'm signing up for, I'll most
of the time give them that phone number. So when
I was doing all the loyalty cards and stuff for
you know, like roufs and things, it's like I would

(34:15):
give them that number because I know it's it's going
to different places. And here's the other thing. And I've
talked about this before, but when you sign up for
a website, that information goes into a data warehouse that
then combines it with other information. So imagine there's a
couple databases one, two, three, four, five, six seven. This
one has your email address, this one has your phone number,

(34:37):
this one has your name, this one has your address.
What they do is they merge them all together based
on signals. So if you use the same email address,
and on one account you gave your email and phone number,
and on another you gave your email and your physical address,
they just merge that all together and now they have
a complete look of who you are, where you're going,
where you're shopping, how you're spending your money, when you

(34:57):
do things, how you do things, the websites you're looking at.
I mean, it just goes on and on and on.
Data data, data, data is huge, huge business. Believe me,
how do you think Google's in business? Data? One hundred
percent data business. I mean, every single thing that Google
does is based on data. They love data, they have
so much of it on us anyway. And then now, yeah,

(35:20):
the way that they're using the data is that they
don't sell it directly, but they will sell against that data.
And that's another thing is that you know your data
might be private, but they're still selling against it. And
so when they say, oh, we know this person, this person,
this person is into hot wheels, they can then sell
hot wheels ads against that, even though they didn't give
up your name and information. So you have to think
about how this stuff works. Okay, so long story short

(35:43):
on gas Buddy. Two things that you should probably do.
The number one, don't sign up for the drive the
drives feature unless you want all your information given away
to third party companies. And then you can go in
on your location settings. You only want to give them
location every time. So only when you are using the
app do you want to have them giving them the

(36:06):
ability to use your location? And this is the thing
that you can do with every app. Ninety nine percent
of the time, when I first get that notification that says,
you know, can you use my location, I'll say just
this one time, and then if I really love the app,
maybe I'll give them more access later down the road.
The other thing you can do is turn off the
location privacy. There's like a little toggling in these settings

(36:27):
that basically says, can we sell your information? A four square?
And it's just turned on by default, So you want
to go in and turn that off, just to you know,
protect yourself a little little bit more. All right, let's
get to the next question. Steve says, Hey, Rich, virtually

(36:47):
all major banks can be set to notify users of
any charges. I set mine to notify me of any
charge of one cent or more. This includes any attempts,
so I see it all. Of course. Two factor on
top is safeguard. If you agree or disagree, let me know.
If you agree, please let your vast audience know. Thanks Rich,
best regard, Steve, the one and only mister Gadget. Wow

(37:11):
mister Gadget is listening. Cool, thanks, mister Gadget. I think
I met Steve once at an event. You know, it's
been like two years since we've had these tech events,
so I haven't seen a lot of people. But yes,
I one hundred percent agree with this. For sure you should.
So my credit card was stolen a couple of weeks ago,

(37:32):
and it was I think I told the story, but
basically I used it at a restaurant and within ten
minutes I had gotten a text from my bank saying
that my card was stolen. It was used at a
gas station in like Iowa or something, and I was
like what that wasn't me At first I thought the
the text message was bogus. I was like, what, There's
no way, I'm not I'm not in Iowa, Like how
is my card being used there? And so I've talked

(37:54):
about this on my podcasts before, but I have a
rule if my card I'm not a huge credit card person,
but if my card, I do carry one. If my
card is leaving my hand, if someone else is taking
my card, I give them my credit card. If I
am doing the transaction myself, I will use tap to pay,
or I will use the chip in my debit card,
and the reason for that is I like to spend

(38:14):
cash so that I don't overspend, and so it just
helps me with the budgeting. But with a credit card,
I definitely make sure that I use that for transactions
that are unprotected, so that means online transactions where your
card number is just going out into the world, or
of course any transaction where they're swiping my card, because
a swipe is pretty much the worst thing that they

(38:36):
can do to your card at this point, because your
number is unencrypted, it is out there, it is just
totally ripe for the taking. And so you always, at
the very minimum, no matter how you're paying, whether it's
debit or credit, you always want to use the chip,
always want to use chip tap to pay. Even better,
Chip and tap to pay are actually quite the same

(38:56):
when it comes to security and privacy. But my number
one Tap to pay, number two is chip. Number three
is do not use the swipe ever, never ever swipe
your card. In fact, I will ask, especially smaller merchants,
I'll be like, are you swiping my card? And when
they say they're swiping it, I say, oh, hold on,
let me don't take my debit card. Here, take my

(39:18):
credit card. So if you have to swipe, if you
must swipe, use your credit card, because at least that
gives you a little bit of protection if your card
is stolen. In the case that mine was a couple
weeks ago, right when I was using it. So I
don't know if the waiter took a picture of my
card and sent it off into the internet, or maybe
it was just totally unrelated, but it happens. It still

(39:40):
happens on a daily basis. So anyway, what Steve is
talking about is I think we were talking about the
Do I talk about this later? Yeah, I guess I'll
just talk about this now. But I think he was
talking about the whole Zell fraud thing, because people are
using these cash apps like cash and Venmo and PayPal
and Zell thinking that they're protected for unauthorized transactions. But

(40:04):
when it's a cash transaction like that, it's a lot
tougher to get your money back, and especially with Zel.
So I agree. I have I have it turned on
on my account where I do get a notification when
my card is used, and so most of the time
it's fine, it's like, oh, good to know, but you
can also a lot of banks let you turn on
and off your card. They let you set certain parameters

(40:25):
like no international transactions. So look into your bank and see,
you know what they allow you to do and what
kind of notifications you can get. Now, I get it
with a credit card. I always think that that's better
than the debit card because when the debit card is hacked,
your money's gone and now you have to fight your
bank for your own money. When a credit card is hacked,
you're like, okay, you guys, let me know when you

(40:48):
figure that out, because I'm not paying that bill. And
what can they do. I mean, it's like their money
that they've already given, and so it's just a it's
just a little bit more of a you know, a
relief when something happens to your credit card than it
debit card. And so I understand why people gravitate towards
credit cards because it puts that little buffer zone between
them and their money. And I totally understand that. And

(41:09):
so that's that. Let's talk about Zell now, because there's
a big article in the New York Times about how
Zell has a lot of fraud because it's built into
bank accounts. So what happened was all of the big
banks like Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, they all said,
wait a second, how what's going on with PayPal and

(41:29):
Venmo and cash app, Like all these people are using
this to transfer money and they're going around our systems
and they're not having to pay for it, and so whoa, whoa,
we should be in on this. And so they came
up with something called Zel and they built it into
your bank account. And that's great because I actually prefer
Zell because it's a really easy transfer where it goes

(41:50):
from my account to your account and there's no middleman
and so it just the money just appears in your account.
That's good. But the problem is the transactions are not
as protected as you think. In fact, they may not
be protected at all unless it was fully unless someone
hacked into your account and started doing a Zell transaction.

(42:11):
What the New York Times is saying is that if
you are tricked into doing a Zell transfer to someone,
let's say you get a text message, and this is
how it works. Typically I put this on my Instagram,
by the way, So let's say you get a text
that says, hey did you just transfer one thousand dollars
via Zel to this person. Press one for yes, two
for no, and you press one and next thing you know,
you get a phone call from your quote unquote bank

(42:32):
and they say, uh, okay, we need to verify this
so we can take care of this really quickly quick.
What's your username for your bank? What's your banking user name?
And yes, I get it. Not everyone will fall for that,
but some people would, and a lot of people do.
And they say, oh, it's you know, it's rich on
Tech And they say, okay, great, we just sent you
a text message with a confirmation code. Please give us

(42:54):
that code. And you give them that code, thinking you're
confirming you are who you are. And by the way,
legitimate companies do this. So, for example, Hilton, when I
call up Hilton to do anything with my account, they say, okay,
we just sent you a text message. Read us that
text message. Verizon does something similar, and so these companies
do that, and this is what these scammers prey upon.

(43:14):
They are basically social engineering the legitimate systems that these
companies have put in place to protect us, and by
reverse social engineering them, they use these little systems against us.
So you've already been trained to know that. When you
get that confirmation code in your text, it's like, Okay,
my bank is confirming what I thought, like this is

(43:35):
this is a security code. But when they're asking for it,
what they're actually doing is they're doing a quick password reset,
and that little code is that one time code that
has been texted texted to your account to actually assist
in that password reset, and then they type in that
code and now they can put in their own password,
and now they have control of your account. All this

(43:57):
is happening in real time while you're on the phone
with this report representative who's trying to just keep you
on the phone longer and longer to talk about the problem.
And next thing you know, you're being cleared out of
your money. Now there are limits on Zeal so that
you can't be fully cleaned out in one day, but
it's still a lot more money than you want to
lose from your account. So what the New York Times

(44:17):
thesis was is that they're saying that when people are
tricked into doing a Zell transfer, like if I just
trick you into a zel transfer and that money goes
into your bank and then you call and you say, hey, wait,
I didn't authorize that. They say, but yes, you did.
You actually did authorize it. You made the transaction. We
can't just because you got tricked into it doesn't mean
that we're on the hook for it. And the problem is,

(44:37):
unlike a credit card, this is actual cash, this is
real money. So the way a credit card works, if
I own a business, my credit card company only, like
if I accept credit cards, the credit card company only
pays me out once a month, right, I mean, maybe
quicker if it's some of these new things like Square
and of course some of these other systems. But there's
always this ongoing like balance that you have with a

(44:58):
credit card company, Like they might owe you one thousand dollars,
they might owe you five hundred dollars. And when someone
does what's called a charge back and they say, hey,
I dispute this charge, what a credit card company does
while they investigate is they will just hold that money.
They will withhold that money from the business. So they say,
we know we owe you six hundred dollars, but we're

(45:20):
actually not going to give you that money right now
because someone is disputing the fact that you charge them
six hundred dollars, and we need to look into that
to make sure that before we release this money to
you that this is a legitimate transaction. So that's why
when zell goes through, and it goes through really fast
and it's cash and someone can withdraw that from the ATM,
that money's gone in an instant and so this stuff,

(45:42):
these scammers have gotten very, very smart about how to
do this. According to this New York Times article, eighteen
million Americans were defrauded through scams involving digital wallets and
person of person payments. So when you say how could
this happen? How could this happen to someone? You are smart.
You're a smart person. You're listening to a podcast from
a tech person on Instagram. You're ahead of the curve.

(46:05):
There are so many people out there who are not
doing this. They're not educating themselves. They might be a
little bit older, they might be a little less tech savvy,
and that is the problem. It's not a problem for them.
They're just regular people and they're not keeping up on
all this stuff. I have to keep up on all
this stuff. When I read this Zealscam, I said, uh,
that's brilliant. But what I have thought of that. Personally,

(46:25):
maybe not, but I am critical of anything that arrives
in my inbox. Any text message I get, I have
to sit there and analyze is this real? Is this
a scam? Is this going to somehow defraud me? I
get people that forward me messages all the time, and
I have to kind of analyze them and figure out
if it's fraudulent or not. And it's Believe me, these

(46:49):
scam artists work on numbers. They work on large numbers
of people. Not every single person that's sitting there, you know,
in the world is one hundred percent up on every
single scam. And so, as someone just said in the chat,
it's a problem keeping up with the scammers. Absolutely, it's
their job to figure out how to scam us. It's

(47:10):
our job to go to work, raise kids, make a living,
you know, have a little time off, whatever. It's their
job to just take our hard earned money from us.
And so, believe me, they are going to try to
do that all the time, and they will try new ways,
and as technology evolves, they just continue to find new
ways to exploit it, and they will continue. This is

(47:32):
not going to end ever, believe me. And this is
one reason I know, I'm very high on the security
stuff because it's just so it's such a problem that
it's just it makes me so angry that people still
fall for this stuff, and smart people. I've had smart,
smart people call me up in near tears saying that
they believe they fell for a scam. And it happens

(47:53):
to the smartest people out there. It's just that these people,
like I said, it's a full time job to scam us,
and so they get really good at their jobs. Okay,
but my point is number one, be critical of every
and don't just you know, I know what you're listening
and you understand, and you're sitting here on a tech podcast.
But you've got to tell your friends and family this stuff.

(48:13):
That's what you need to do. That's your job is
to tell friends and family about the things that you're
hearing about so that they know when they come across it,
they go, wait, huh, that is weird. I did get
that message from Zell that said, did you authorize this?
And I actually ignored it because I didn't even know
that I, you know, use Zell. And so you just
have to be able to tell your friends and family

(48:34):
about this stuff and just make sure that you know
you're not gonna be able to protect everyone, but you know,
getting this stuff out there in a bigger way. This
why I talk about it on TV. This why I
talk about it here. That's why I do this stuff
because I do like if I can just save one
person from getting scammed or from doing a raw deal
or whatever, you know, I feel good and that's a
good thing. So anyway, Number one, be critical of any

(48:57):
messaging that you get. Number two, don't click links that
you know you're curious what the link brings you to,
just don't do it. Number three, if something's too good
to be true, it really is. I get emails all
the time from people saying, rich, this is this computer's
half the price that it is on Apple's website, Like
should I buy it? I'm like, no, it's a scam,
like come on. And then the other thing is two

(49:19):
factor authentication. I can't speak highly enough of two factor authentication.
I know that the scammers are using it to scam us,
but you still have to use it. And if you're
using weak passwords, get a password manager please. I know
it's a lot of work to use these things, but
do not use the same password across various accounts. Please

(49:40):
don't ever, don't ever use the same password twice ever,
I mean ever, ever, ever, in fact, you answer those
questions that say, you know, what's your your mother's maiden
name or your first pets name, don't even give the
real answers. How many of your friends know the answer
to your mother's maiden name and your your pet's name

(50:01):
and where you went to college? Don't ever do that
use a fake answer, and don't. In fact, what I
do is I actually use a password generator to generate
a sixteen a sixteen character random string, and then I
put that in there. And so there's no way when
someone asks like what my hometown or my you know,

(50:23):
city I grew up in, it's like sixteen random characters,
I have to go into a program and figure out
what that is and copy and paste it. Because even
I don't know the answers to my own questions. So,
and now I'm not saying you have to be that
that you know wild about it, but definitely just think
about this stuff, you know what I mean? And hey,

(50:43):
miss Carter on Instagram is saying she uses last pass,
and Janet says, I appreciate all your info. It might
be new for some individuals. Absolutely, and yeah, Google knows
the answer. Someone just commented and Coco says, I would
forget that password if it was random. Yes, that's why
you have to use the password manager to put that
in there. So believe me, you know it's you just

(51:05):
have to be very aware of this stuff because it's
just it's sad, Like you sit there and it's like,
it's funny when I even when I'm posting stuff about
the scams, I'm like, come on, really, like who's gonna
fall for this? But I get the text and the
emails and the messages just start flowing in from people
that have a story. Yep, that was my mom, Yep,

(51:26):
that was my dad, Yep that was me, Yep that
was my nephew. And believe me, this stuff does happen.
You don't have eighteen million people that are affected by
this in the US and no one knows someone that
was affected. Believe me, people are affected, all right, mister Gadget,
You really got me going on that one. Okay, Tesla

(51:46):
Tesla increasing the price of their cars once again. So
as you know, if you listen to me on this podcast,
you know that I purchased a Tesla last year. I
personally love it. It has been amazing and it came
at the right time, especially with the gas prices and everything.
I understand that electric cars are not for everyone. I

(52:09):
understand that we are not at a place in America
where electric cars are easy to acquire, operate own. But yet,
you know, if you look at California, it's obviously one
of the biggest states for electric cars, and of course
Tesla as well. But it's also like when you look
at the top five cars in California, like the Tesla,

(52:31):
I think the Why is almost overtaking the top car,
which I think is the Honda Civic. But don't quote
me on that. I know it's like the Accord is
in there or the Camera, and then the Civic is
in there, and the Model three and the Model Why
and another car. But I mean it's pretty wild. But anyway,
I love the Tesla. It's been amazing. But the price
since I purchased it has gone up so much that

(52:56):
even I would have to think twice about purchasing at
this point. So let me just tell you about the
price increase. So they raised the prices one more time
by one thousand dollars. That's because nickel prices are surging,
so the price of making the batteries is going up.
In this electric article says in twenty twenty one, Tesla
made so many price increases they've lost count. It's true

(53:18):
even when I was purchasing. I mean, just in the
couple weeks after I purchased my car, the price I
think went up three times. So the prices are now
as follows. The Model three Long Range went up by
one thousand dollars. It is now fifty two thousand dollars.
The Model Why went up by one thousand dollars, and

(53:40):
it has gone up ten thousand dollars in the past
twelve months. And so I don't know they didn't give
the price to the Model Why. But it's just But
here's the thing. I mean, all cars are just expensive
right now. If you if you do not need to
switch cars, now, is not the time to buy a
car electric or not electric. I know. Well, this is

(54:00):
the reason why this all comes up, and a lot
of people were talking about electrics is I did a
story on KTLA about is it time to switch to
an EV? And my thought was because everyone always asked
me like, oh, you know, you save so much money
on gas. But here's what I've realized in purchasing my car,
is that number one, if you already have a car
that is already working for you the gas Let's say

(54:22):
your car is paid that would be you know, the
best scenario. If your car is paid for. Gas is expensive,
but it's just a small part of that operating cost,
or it is the probably the biggest part of the
operating cost for the year. But when you're buying a
new car, it's always going to be more expensive to
acquire something new because now you're talking, you have a
new payment or you have a new amount that you're spending,

(54:42):
and it's going to be more than your old car
no matter what. And then just something as simple as
installing an electric charger at home, which is probably you know,
two thousand dollars. That's gas for a year. Now, maybe
at the new prices, gas for a year's three thousand.
But the reality is it's it's not just like, oh,
you switched to a let your car, you save money, yes,
right now, if you're charged. If you're comparing just one

(55:04):
thing and that is charging versus gasing up, it's always
cheaper to charge. It's just it just is. Electricity is
cheaper than gas. But when you look at the overall
cost of the car, if you're talking about buying a
Tesla for forty eight thousand dollars or fifty one thousand
dollars or a Model Y for sixty thousand, you can
get into a set of gas wheels for like twenty

(55:27):
five grand. And so you're talking that twenty five thousand
dollars spread to get that electric car that will pay
for gas for many, many years. Now, I'm not advocating
one way or the other. I'm not here to convince
you to buy an electric car. I'm not here to
say gas is good. I think the whole gas thing is,
you know, it's tough on our environment. It's tough that
we're you know, it's a it's a you know, we

(55:49):
look at what's happening in the world. I mean, it's whatever.
There's I'm not getting into the political stuff about the
gas versus electric or just gas in general. But the
reality is buying an electric car today is more expensive
than acquiring a gas car. That is why we're seeing
all of these incentives and rebates. Because the government and
other industries have to subsidize the price of the car

(56:11):
to make it somewhat feasible for people to want to
buy it. But once you're in it, yes, it's a
lot cheaper. I mean, the maintenance is simple. You can
charge up for free to a lot of places, and
it is cheaper to actually charge. But anyway, my point is,
you know, I'm just following this whole ev stuff since
now I'm kind of vested in it. I really think
it's fascinating. California and the US at large are on

(56:34):
this march towards electrification, and you know, I even asked
the person that installed my electric car charger. I said, hey, look,
do you think the grid, like if everyone switched to
this kuld our electric grid in California support everyone charging
their car? And they said absolutely not, And so we can't.
You know, you can't have everyone switch over today. That
would not work. I mean, it would just take down

(56:56):
the entire system. But as we gradually get people on
and things change and there's more places to charge, there's
more options. Right now, according to the person I interviewed
in my story, there's like forty cars that you can
get that are electric. Last year that was half that number.
Next year it's gonna be double that number. So we're
seeing more and more options. Tesla right now is the

(57:17):
name that every single person knows. They have the best
charging infrastructure. But these other car companies are coming up quick,
believe me, and they're coming up with some pretty good
deals too. If I didn't get the Tesla, I would
have gotten the Volkswagen ID four because I just fell
in love with that car. Fantastic car. They're doing it
at a great deal. They've got good lease deals, they've
got good purchase deals. You get the incentives, but it's

(57:39):
one of these things that you know it's gonna take
a while for everything. So anyway, Okay, where am I at?
Here we go? Oh my gosh, I can't believe the
show's gone this long, Mike says, do I have to
buy a new iMac? I can't find any way to
update to a newer OS. Thanks. Oh and interesting. Okay,
so I see it came from one I guess some

(58:00):
people share their accounts. I guess because sometimes I get
an email and it comes from one person, but it's
they sign it another Okay. Twenty four, twenty fourteen, iMac
with l Capitan and they want to update it to
Mac os Monterey. So this happens a lot. And what
you have to do is you have to go onto

(58:22):
Apple's website and at the bottom of the page that
lists the operating system, it'll tell you which computers are supported.
And if I go to their web page, I'm looking
at this, he said, or she said. They have a
twenty fourteen iMac, So I'm looking at iMac and it
says late twenty fifteen and later are supported. So that

(58:43):
means that your Mac cannot run the latest version of
the software, which means it's either you have to stick
to your old software or it's probably time for a
new one if you're trying to if you're trying to
run the latest software. And the reason why you want
to run the latest software is to for the security
that it offers, although Apple is getting better about separating

(59:05):
security updates from the core system updates. And so you know,
if the computer's working for you, you're pretty good with your security,
it should be fine. But yes, your computer has been
phased out from the support system that Apple will give you.
And I tell people this a lot. When they email me,
they say, hey, do I need a new iPhone. If

(59:27):
your iPhone is working for you and it's still supported
by the latest software, then keep it. Keep it as
long as you can until you're so frustrated with it
you want to throw it out the window because it's
running so slow. All right, let's get to one more
story here. Peloton. I know this is kind of a
smaller thing, but I know a lot of people do
have Pelotons, or they're into it whatever they want one.

(59:50):
But Peloton now is skipping the middle man, and now
you can use the Peloton app for Apple Watch to
track your workout on the bike. And that's really not
just a bike but also the the treadmill. So what so,
I guess in the past what has happened is that
if you had the bike, well, I don't know how

(01:00:13):
it works. I don't have a Peloton. I have a
third party bike that I use with the Peloton app.
But the way I have to do it is that basically,
when I get on the Peloton, I have to start
an Apple Watch. If you know, it's just a workout
on my watch, and that will record me independently of
what the app is saying. So the app might say
you did one thing, but the watch says you did
another I don't know how the bike worked in the past,

(01:00:33):
but basically what they're saying is now you don't have
to open up a third party workout on your Apple
Watch to record that that workout on the Peloton to
count towards your rings and things. So now it will
get all of these stats directly from your Apple Watch
and then send them into Apple Fitness. You know where
you see your rings closing. So long story short, it's

(01:00:56):
just a cleaner setup when you have a Peloton in
an Apple Watch. So you can now connect your Apple
Watch with the Peloton app on the watch to your
health app on iPhone and you know your workouts are
are I'm really struggling with this one. It's just tracked

(01:01:16):
in a more direct way. So if if before the
bike was tracking your workout, it may not have had
the metrics that your Apple Watch has. Your Apple Watch
has built in heart rate, it's got other sensors that
it is constantly using to monitor you. Yes, the Peloton
bike might have had its own sort of like algorithm
for figuring out how much calories and things that thought
you burned, but now it will be directly working with

(01:01:39):
your Apple Watch to take that data from the sensors
and put it right into your health app and so
that you can see exactly what you did. And it's
just like I said, it's just a much cleaner, cleaner setup.
So I don't think I have time for one more question.
Let's see here. Uh, okay, I'll do one more question.

(01:02:01):
Since yeah, we'll see. Sally asks, I'm having balanced problems.
I'm thinking of getting an Apple Watch. Since she's asking
about the Apple Watch. Am I going to have to
get data service like for a cell phone for the
fall feature to work correctly? Thanks? So, Sally, that's a
great question, and it's a very complicated answer. So the
short answer is the Apple Watch fall detection will work,

(01:02:24):
but it may not be able to actually dial nine
to one one or for help unless your phone is
nearby or unless you have cellular on your phone on
your Apple Watch. So it gets kind of complicated. So
the way that the fall detection works is it's built
into your Apple Watch. Apple Watch fall detection, I have

(01:02:46):
to see they I think it was the Apple Watch
four that they introduced this on. When did they do this?
Let's se yep, look at that? Man, what a good
memory Apple Watch series four and later, and also Apple
Watch se. If you're watched it texts a hard fall,
it will attempt to dial nine on one. If your
phone is nearby, it will use the cellular connection on
your watch on your phone to put that call through

(01:03:09):
and get you emergency help. I've had this activate a
couple of times, so I'm wrestling with the kids. It
actually activated the other day. I was doing something like
a workout or something, and I don't know what either.
I don't know. It's just activated and I said, no,
I'm fine, but so okay. So again, if it detects
a hard fall, it will attempt to connect your Apple

(01:03:30):
Watch to your Apple your iPhone and it will call
nine on one and it will send your location and
it will get you help, and it will also text
your contacts that you've identified as your emergency contact saying, hey,
look this happened, you know, you know, get help or whatever.
If you have a cellular version of the Apple Watch,
it will be able to dial nine one one no
matter what wherever you are, whatever you're doing, even if

(01:03:53):
your iPhone is not nearby, because you have that cellular connection.
Your Apple Watch has a connection to the Internet. All
on its own, and it will call nine one one.
Now here's where it gets a little interesting. Even if
you have a cellular Apple Watch, without cellular connected like
an active data service like ten ten dollars a month,

(01:04:15):
you're not paying that to your provider. It should still
dial nine one one if you have a hard fall,
because the way that phones and cellular connections are set up,
they will continue to dial nine one one no matter what.
You do not need a data plan to dial nine
one one. Now I'm looking at Apple's information about the

(01:04:35):
Apple Watch, and it doesn't say specifically that you have
to have a data plan to have the watch dial
nine one. So I would not rely on this information.
I'm telling you right now without without confirming it with
your your carrier and or Apple. But the reality is

(01:04:59):
typically if you take any old cell phone that is
just laying around in America, it will dial nine one one,
even if there's no data plan associated or cellular plan
associated with that phone. And they did that on purpose
because they want people to be able to call for
help in America. So that's the way it works. That
may work that way in other countries. I just don't know.
Now with the Apple Watch. It's kind of its own

(01:05:19):
little thing. But I think because it still has a
cellular plan or it's still as cellular antenna built in,
it would still do that. I'm just not sure. I'm
having trouble with my Apple Watch right now. It's not
using the cellular plan that's that's assigned to it. I
don't know what the problem is, but so mine. I
went for a run the other day and typically I
just roam with my watch, and the first song that
I was playing stopped playing and that was it. It

(01:05:43):
like couldn't pull the next song because it had no
cellular connectivity. And that's how I realized that my cellular
wasn't working. Apple Watch is really it's so tricky because
the Apple Watch it's so slick, the integration with the iPhone.
It never really tells you when it's using cellular, when
it's using Wi Fi, when it's using your phone. It's

(01:06:04):
using a combination of those things to communicate and always
try to have a connection, and it's always trying to
use the least power hungry connection and always the cheapest connection.
So even if you have cellular on your Apple Watch
and your phone is always nearby, it's always going to
route through your phone cellular connection and not its own
cellular connection. So you may be paying ten dollars a
month and never actually need to use cellular because your

(01:06:26):
phone is always nearby. Not something that Apple widely advertises,
but it's something. It is a delineation, and I tell
people the only reason you ever need a cellular plan
on an Apple Watch is if you are with your
Apple Watch without your phone. So if you're like me
and you're running without your phone, that's when you want
the cellular so that you can access either music or emergency,

(01:06:50):
call someone whatever when necessary. All right, So, oh, that
sound means it is the end of the show. If
you are on the Instagram Live, stick around after the
show ends. I'll hang out and talk to you for
a bit. But otherwise guess what that's gonna do it
for this episode of the show. If you'd like to
submit a question for me to answer, you can go

(01:07:11):
to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech,
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You can find me on all social media at rich

(01:07:34):
on Tech and no matter where you live in the US,
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I guarantee you they are a lot of fun. You
will learn something. Thanks for watching those. My name is
rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so
many ways you can spend an hour of your time.

(01:07:55):
I do appreciate you spending it right here with me.
I'll talk to you real soon.