It's time for our Tech segment with Rich Demurow.
Good morning, Rich, Hey, good morning to you, Bill, welcome back.
Thank you.
I have to tell you, as you know, and as people now know, I went off to Italy where I got married and engaged in my honeymoon.
And did you know, let me tell you.
Do you know how many times your name came up in the two weeks that I was gone?
Three weeks and I came that I was gone.
Not once, that's correct, absolutely, yes.
Zero, Oh, thank you.
You're welcomed me humble absolutely.
Rich of course is not only kfi's tech guy and heard on the show every Saturday here on KFI eleven to two pm, but he's also a reporter on KTLA every day, the tech reporter Instagram at Rich on tech website, Rich on tech dot TV.
We're also very proud of the fact where at least the station is at Rich. You are syndicated and started right here on KFI.
Yes right there, have expanded since it's been great and KFI is still my first love.
Uh. That's his contract talk here by the way, I have seen his contract. He has to say that all right, big news on the tariffs, of course, that is the economic news globally, and you think of tariffs in terms of goods and services that are brought in, let's connect tariffs to tech because we get so much tech from overseas, at least the manufactured.
Part of it.
Yeah, I mean I think that, you know, for me, the only thing that I think of when it comes to tariffs. I know, we've talked about cars and all these different things from maple syrup to whatever, But for me, it's all about tech because all of these goods come from overseas.
Pretty much a majority of.
Them are made in China and of course Vietnam, Taiwan. So the entire tech industry is wondering, like, hey, what is happening here? Are we going to be seeing higher prices from the consumer standpoint? And also companies like what, you know, what do they do? How do they react to this? Do they immediately put these things on and pass the added costs on to consumers?
Or do they wait and see?
Because there's so much turmoil right now, we don't really know what's happening. So the Chinese tariffs are supposed to happen starting April ninth, which is tomorrow, we don't know if that's going to happen. According to a report out of Bloomberg, they're saying that Apple stores saw a rush of consumers buying things like iPhones. And I would say just in general, like people texting me and asking me questions, there's been a lot of interest in especially phones and
laptop computers. That's what people are wondering, you know, are these things going to increase in price? And then Nintendo, while you were gone last week, Bill, they announced the switch to and then they said they have to delay pre orders because they're just not sure, like how this is all going to shake out.
Do they have to charge more?
These things are going to be more expensive than four hundred and fifty dollars, which is the announced price that they came up with.
Yeah, with this tit for tat with China, and I don't see g President g or President Trump backing down. Both these guys have no problem playing chicken, and that's what's going on. And they both have a lot to lose and a lot to gain with these tariffs, more to lose than to gain.
But let's talk about iPhones.
If the tariffs go up to one hundred percent, which looks like Wednesday, they very well. Might I don't see Trump backing down very quickly. What is an iPhone going to cost right now? It's a thousand bucks for an iPhone?
Yeah, I mean there's a report over the weekend. You know, the top of the line iPhone could be like over two thousand dollars.
Twenty five hundred something like that.
You know, most people are getting the basic iPhone for eight hundred dollars. If that doubled in price, that'd be sixteen hundred. I from everything I can tell, the tech companies are taking sort of a weight and see they do not want to raise prices right now. And to give you an example of a computer, you know, there are still deals to be had out there because a lot of the stock that we're seeing is stock that has already arrived in the country. It's already in the country,
so those prices don't go up necessarily overnight. But future stock that arrives that's where the problem is. And like you said, you know, these are two countries that don't want to back down. I mean, those are two leaders that are just sitting there, you know, with the world in their hands right now, and we're the consumers that are just feeling uncertain. C NEET did a survey and basically one in ten shoppers made big ticket purchases late last year or early this year to avoid these tariff
price jumps. And I think the rest of the people are just worried and wondering, like, hey, what do I do now?
Realistically, when they talk about doubling prices, the price is one thousand dollars. iPhone is not going to double the two thousand dollars because shipping costs are not going to increase. Certainly, the forty percent profit margin that Apple makes her thirty five percent profit margin, that's not going to double to seventy percent.
So so it's the cost of.
The good at Goods as it leaves China and comes to the US. But still we're talking about a huge, huge jump in price, and.
You know what, and.
The you know look, these companies, I think at the beginning, if this goes on in a small way, these companies are probably going to take a hit on the profits that they make, right They're probably going to try to hold off any giant price increases as long as possible.
On the flip side, if one.
Company doesn't, because right now, nobody wants to be the first electronics the first tech company for a big headline to say iPhones just went up by one hundred dollars, right, They don't want to be the first, because that's going to kick off a chain of events where every tech company can now say, Okay, now we can raise the prices too.
And then for consumers.
Who are already sort of like in a tailspin here wondering like what's going on, that's not a good thing because then all of a sudden everyone has an excuse to raise prices. And it reminds us a lot of that pandemic era, right where one person raised prices and the grocery store prices just.
Kept going up, up, up, up up. We don't want that to happen with our gadgets.
Well, it's not going to be fun at all.
And thank goodness that I just bought my new iPhone, which, by the way, I still don't know how to work it.
Uh, I just you know, it's kind of need the technology.
I don't know if we talked about this, but I've become a grilling freak for you know, just for some reason, I'm now grilling like every day, and uh, there is a thermometer that I have that works on an app.
That immediate of the meat.
It's so neat, and I still don't know quite how to work it because it's an app and it's I'll get there because right now I'm.
Just the meter bill.
I don't know.
It's a little thing with the black handle that you it just sticks in the meat and you just put it on the grill.
Yeah, it's about one hundred dollars.
Meter is the big one.
Yeah, that's that's I mean, that's probably a meter, but it's it's basically an app connected thermometer. So I tested the first one way back in the day. Wasn't a big fan because it was like a beta version. Now they've you know, they sent me a new one. I have yet to try it. With summer grolling seasons coming up. What do you what do you make in most days?
Oh?
Steak?
And I went to, uh, this is this is one that I never thought I would do, and that is I go to Costco, of course, where I buy my meat, and I am buying prime meat at twenty six dollars a pound for the high end steak. Now keep in mind twenty six dollars for one pound of meat is equivalent to two shirts or two pairs of pants at Costco.
And you got to make choices?
Do you want to? But that is uh, just just to become a grill nutcase.
All right, We're gonna come back and we have a bunch more to talk about. Uh smart watch a budget one the day, oh app which I have absolutely no idea.
Is this a Harry Belafanie uh situation here?
I have no idea what that means.
But okay, okay, fank okay, you don't know what that means?
The stated me kno, that.
Is that is that's that day.
You depour bunch all right?
Banana okay, Uh, that's okay. That's the deo song Harry belafon Eclipse of Music, having nothing to do with this app at all. But I just wanted to throw that out because I just wanted to throw that out.
So what is the dao app?
Okay?
Well, I do know that song, by the way, that was in the Beetlejuice movie, So I do know that.
Oh that's right, it wasn't the Beatle Juice music. Harry Belafani introduced Calypso music the United States in the nineteen fifties, and he also and he then went on to become one of the great heroes of the civil rights movement. He was there at the march on Washington, the Martin Luther King, I have a dream speech day and on and on. But anyway, let's talk about the app, because this is good for you for knowing that. By the way, the yeah, what's the app?
You know a little bit of pop culture. So this is an app called deoh. It's it's based out of Portland. And the whole thing is to reward you for spending less time on social media. So if you can limit your usage to thirty minutes a day, you could earn five dollars in rewards, and you can exchange those rewards, you can bank them and then get discounts on products like JBL YETI, a whole bunch of other products that
they have listed inside the app. And the whole point is to keep you off of Instagram, TikTok, Facebook X. And the founder said they did this because you know, we're not getting anything in exchange for this unless you're a social media influencer making money off this stuff. You're basically giving up your data and your attention and they want you to reclaim that, so we'll see how this goes.
Yeah, I'm a little confused.
You're getting points for not going onto all of these social media apps?
Correct? And how do they measure how many? You're not going to?
Great question?
So on the iPhone they're going to I'm assuming they take advantage of the screen time where they can read how long you've been on certain apps.
So under thirty minutes you're good.
Over thirty minutes, they start docking that five dollars down to zero.
And who is coming up with the five dollars if there if they're not monetizing.
This, well, it seems like since you have to put the five dollars towards these rewards, it seems like it's more of a these companies have you know, given products to this Dayoh, startup and that's how you get it.
So let me look at the products that they've got.
They've got north Face hydro flask and Espresso dice in. So it seems like it's it's more of a partnership with these companies to say, hey, look, you know, we'll give you a discount. You know, it's like maybe you'll get fifty dollars off of dice in if you if you spend that little bit of time on social media. So it's kind of a partnership, it seems with these makes sense.
It's marketing again. I'll buy a marketing partnership. That's I'll buy that. Now.
The five dollars is signifies what a length of time And I don't quite know the formula here.
Thirty minutes or less gets you five bucks. So thirty minutes or less you get the five dollars. You get that every day. So if you theoretically in a month you can rack up one hundred and fifty dollars, that to me, Bill seems way too good to be true, because that seems like if you're on this thing for two months, that's three hundred dollars worth one of these brands. So there must be like some fine print. I act only use it towards like fifty percent of the product or something like that.
Yeah, and you have to be somewhere A Nigerian prince is connected to this.
I'm convinced of.
That, well, a Nigerian prince in Portland.
But that's remember those remember those scams, God, I love those all right? Rich, thank you Saturday Morning, eleven to two pm here on KFI and Instagram, at rich on Tech website, rich on Tech Dot TV, rich you have a good day.
We'll catch you tomorrow on this year on the TV. Take care bye, Thank you, Bill all right,