I've got the Samsung Galaxy S twenty Ultra in hand, a cell phone plan for zero dollars per month? Could Apple soon let you pick your own default apps? Plus your tech questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich Dmiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where we talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about, and I also answer the questions that you send me. My name is Rich Dumiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel
five in Los Angeles. Joining me is producer Megan, who is still trying to find something good to watch on Netflix.
Yes, I am. The struggle is real.
It is well, when you've watched everything on.
There, I know it's tough. There's really nothing left.
There's just nothing left after Yeah, you know when you've watched season two and season three. But you said this show Babies looks good.
No, actually I saw it. I was like, this this show is for my mom, like finally a show made for my mom. She doesn't like adults, Yeah, no, she she wants something that's like, you know, cute and simple.
And what is it about.
It's about babies and like like how babies she would see. My mom was a nick you nurse.
Oh, okay, that's right.
That's why.
Okay, that is Upper Alley.
It makes much more sense. Okay, well, but that's what's great about Netflix.
I'm still trying to find finish the Taylor Shift documentary The Morning Show, and I don't know, but I am going on a plane soon, so I will definitely catch up on something. It might be. I don't know, but I did finish three books in the past like two months, so that's good.
Yeah.
I just I just finished the the book by Robert Eiger. It was called A Ride of a Lifetime.
Does he go by Robert or Bob? Uh?
Well, when you're friends with him, you call him Robert. Okay, yeah, he's Bob Eiger. Yeah, he's the CEO of Disney. I actually thought it was a very much more behind the
scenes looked than I thought Disney would allow. There's nothing, nothing in there, but he goes into his relationship with Steve Jobs and like the Pixar sale, the Marvel sale, the or should I say, the purchase, the Pixar purchase, the Marvel purchase, the Star Wars purchase, the Disney plus Star I mean, all this stuff that's happened at Disney, and it was a great book, and I read it
for free on Libby. The biggest takeaway I got was really the interpersonal relationships that he had built over the years and how he handled people, especially high powered people, because there's a lot of fragile egos at those levels, and I thought he did a great.
Job with that.
Yeah, let's get to the first story of the week, which is the Samsung Galaxy S twenty. It is in my hand right here. Look at this here it is. It's giant, but I will tell you best feeling Samsung device ever. It's thicker than typical devices, but they made it in such a way that it's the edges are nice and rounded, like in a perfect way where it actually feels good in your hand. It looks so much like the iPhone It kind of, but I don't think so. I think I think it has that Samsung classic kind
of look to it. It's got the hundred times zoom on the back. Last night I took it out to take some pictures with it, and I want to do pictures at night because you're gonna see a million pictures. You're gonna see two types of pictures with this device. You're gonna see a hundred time zoom because everyone's trying that out. I can give you the bottom line of that, you never need it. There's never going to be a
photo you take it a hundred time zoom that's worth anything. Now, there could be certain little circumstances where you get in real close on something or you get a better vantage point. But I will say the zoom on this camera in general is really good, even up to ten times, which is sort of optical, which optical means you're getting the
best possible quality. After that, it's kind of a crapshoot, but it's still nice up until you know, when you get into thirty fifty, one hundred, it's it's not really usable. With that said, it's kind of fun to have. And so you'll be seeing pictures with the zoom. You'll be seeing a lot of outdoor pictures, like of flowers in the sky. Every picture I've ever to, every camera I've ever tested in the past ten years, can take great pictures of the sky, great pictures of flowers, great pictures
of landscapes, great pictures of houses. They take pictures inside bars, you know, like the liquor all lined up like it's gonna look good.
Yeah, maybe those are just my pictures, those are just your pictures.
But the pictures that I wanted to take were at night. So I went to city Walk last night in Hollywood and I just kind of tried out the camera there against the iPhone, and I will tell you, the thing that I noticed is that these cameras take very different pictures. The Samsung pictures, in my opinion, they kind of pop. They definitely pop, and when you see them, you're like, WHOA, that's a great picture. And then you look at the iPhone picture and it's kind of like ah, but you
look at them closely, and they're both very good. They're just different, right, And it's a preference. From what I've learned on my Facebook page and all the comments I'm reading, it is very much a matter of personal preference.
And I asked you, I said, like, did so you're looking at whatever you're taking a picture of, and which camera took the most realistic picture?
I think the most realistic was the iPhone, Okay, whereas the Samsung pictures look like the brightness was sort of pumped up. So if you're looking at a scene, then you look at it through the Samsung viewfinder, you're like, wholl where'd all that light come from? It's letting in a lot more light. Now, Okay, so it looks great. I would say I thought I was going to be blown away by the camera. I think that it's great, and I think everyone that gets this phone is going
to think it's really nice. It's not. I wouldn't say it's like ten leaps ahead of the iPhone. And believe me, it's only day one. I've had this thing for less than twenty four hours, right, so they'll be more testing you have time. I'm more I'm forming my opinion. But my simcard has gone from my iPhone into the Samsung. It's because I want to use it as a daily driver, so I can see the battery life is like, I can see what placing calls is like, taking calls, writing
out texts without I message, all these little things. I will be testing over the next couple of weeks to see how it is.
Do you prefer I mean this is you still have to like feel it out, but like, do you prefer typing on the Samsung over the iPhone?
Or is that I feel like the iPhone's easier to type on. I feel like there's a lot of little aspects of the iPhone that are very good that you kind of forget about when you go back to Android and I go back and forth a lot, right, and so I see and I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember like that for some reason, like the screen is just it's just easier to type on on the on the
iPhone for some reason. I don't know why it is, Like I've I've I've experimented with like taping, taking the haptic off, which haptic is like a little vibration when you tap a letter. iPhone doesn't have that. Okay, Samsung does, all the all the androids do. So I tried like taking that off to see, like, em I don't know, So we'll say, uh, I think that at this point, iPhone eleven Promax versus the Samsung Ultra, you're gonna be very happy with either one. It really comes down to preference,
like what do you like? Yeah, so all right, let's get a question.
All right, So our first question, Oh, if you.
Want to see all those pictures I took Rich on tech dot tv my website, Oh yeah.
Check those out. So if you want Rich to answer your tech questions, go to his website. Rich on tech dot tv and hit the contact button. Our first question comes from Giovanna. I have an elderly and who replies to all my posts on Facebook with huge animated gifts. But is it jiffs? I don't know, okay, but I don't want to hurt her feelings by telling her they are annoying. I scoured the web for instructions on how to block these on Facebook, but without success. Is this
even possible? Thanks so much for your help.
The Jeff, oh gosh, you know, I can't remember if it's Jiff or Giff. I think it's Jiff, the guy who created and I think the company who does all the little jiffs for like Instagram, is like named Jiffy. Okay, not Giffy, right, so you know what I'm talking about.
Like the guy gif Jeff is named after someone.
Well, the original thing was graphical, oh god, a graphical interface format or something, graphical interface format.
Okay, did you know that? Nope?
Yeah, So I think that's where Jeff originally came from, Graphics interchange format. So I think that was the original and that's why people said it was gift because it ghics. And then you get to jiff, which is like the peanut butter, which has nothing to do with the jiffs, and you say jiffy, which is like the peanut butter. So long story short, I don't. I don't argue anymore. I just say, I sayeff and it's fine whatever. I
just and you could say however you want. But yes, jiffs are so popular on everything, and I hate them. I cannot stand jiffs. I get them, people text them back to me. And here's what bugs me about jiffs. You tell me if you feel this way. They stressed me out because they loop over and over. So when you're looking at your phone, at your text message with a friend and all you see is the gift going over and over and over, I'm like, will you stop moving? Yeah,
it gives me an unsettled feeling. See, I love it, you love all that unsettledness is your whole life and chaos.
Because of it. No, it makes me laugh because it's like someone dancing, or like every time right for like an hour, I don't okay, but okay, I don't sit there and stare at it like I like see it and I'm moving Okay.
If your phone is sitting on a on a place like okay, on my kitchen counter and I stop typing with someone right Like, I'm texting with someone and I just see the little gift going over and over and over. It really like out of the corner of my eye. It really bugs me. And so that's why I try not to use them very much in my text because I feel like you're putting a burden on someone else by sending them that file.
A burden, yes, because it is looping and it just it stress. Send you a jiff, you get annoyed.
I just I try.
I have to like te funny because the intention is to make you laugh.
It does for one second, and yes, stop, don't get me wrong, I do laugh. I think there should be a timer where you can set how long a jiff plays. Like going through Instagram stories, you want to look at the person's story, but the thing is going and going in It's like Friday. It's like waving, you know, like a little wave of the word Friday. It's like, stop moving.
Let me just see what's going on in this picture. Okay, Oka? Are you okay? Okay?
So to answer the question, I see why this. I understand why this woman doesn't like this, but I will tell you that I don't think there's a blanket way to turn off the comments in you know, your Facebook post.
You got to block your aunt.
You gotta either block your aunt, which you don't want to do. I mean, there's there's a feature on Instagram called restrict which lets only your aunt see her stuff, but nobody else sees it, which is like even sadder. So you're they're just commenting into like a black hole. And then the other thing you can do is, let's see is hide her comment so you can hover over and hide, which is equally a sad So oh yeah, okay, I meant to I meant to talk about this with
the Samsung stuff. When you get a notification on the Samsung AS twenty Ultra, the vibration is so crazy.
It you heard that, it sounded like you were being electric cused, yeah.
I didn't know. I was like, what just happened here?
Wow?
It is crazy. So I'm not going to get used to that.
It's not a silent vibration. It is a loud phone.
iPhone is like this little thing is like, yeah, this is this is like electrocution.
It's like an engine. I'm gonna put that over there.
Okay, Well, it's reminding me still hear it anyway, good question, but.
No, you can't do that, sorry, Giovanna.
Speaking of iPhone, do we talk about iPhone? Yeah, we did with the apps and stuff, but this is this is really crazy and I think this is a huge deal. Okay, So, Apple, according to Bloomberg, is considering letting you set default apps on your iPhone. And I've talked about this on the podcast You want to talk you think I hate jiffs, just talk about how much I hate that you can't set default apps on the iPhone.
Now.
Apple in the past has said that the architecture of the system keeps you from being able to set your own mail app, or your own calendar app, or your own brout web browser app. But the reality is no, they can make it work. They just choose not to because guess what, the more you use Apple stuff, the more money Apple makes. And Apple, according to Bloomberg, installs thirty eight apps on their phone an iPad, including Safari,
web browser, maps, messages, and mail. For me personally, I always talk about this when I'm surfing Yelp, looking at a restaurant. I feel like it's a mind. I feel like the whole iPhone is a minefield.
I thought you were to say something else.
It's like a land mine.
Yeah.
You sit there and you're on Yelp. You're like, oh, let me look at directions to this restaurant, and it's like boom brings you to maps that you don't want. It's like, oh sorry, and on my phone it's sorry.
It'll download Yelp. Yes, well but that's everywhere.
Well that's on like, uh, that's if you're looking at a Yelp review from Google. I'm talking about if I'm in Yelp the app and I go to click directions or in Redfin and it's like, oh, find directions to your new house that you're gonna buy, okay, and it's like, oh, I can't. It's like sorry that you want to restore this app because Maps is not I don't have Maps installed on my phone. I don't want Apple Maps on my phone. I do, but okay, very angry today.
I oh, gosh, kind of scary and I'm just kidding.
I do I get fired up about this stuff because it's really bugging me.
Yeah, And I think I think it's just very evident that Apple, you know, they don't like to budge with well, now it sounds like they want.
To Well, this is just a report, but so I think the idea is in iOS fourteen, it'd be like a clean break. They'd be like, we have figured out how to bless you with this new feature.
So what does this mean? You? Like, you get your iPhone and there's no apps, and.
You know, I just mean that you can right now? You know how you can delete the default apps, like you can delete the mail app or maybe I.
Don't know if you app, but I always feel sad about.
It, right you do, because Apple makes you feel that way. But to me, I've used Gmail on my fine phone for ten years. Yeah, and I don't use the male app, and so I don't need it, nor do I need every link to go to the mail app or every link to go to Safari. And so by Apple saying here, you can set your web browser so that everything you do on your phone goes through Chrome, that'd be awesome. You can set your map so every time you ask Siri for direction somewhere, she would take you to Apple Maps.
And they've gotten around this in weird little ways where if you ask Siri, h Siri play album on YouTube music it will do it, but that's so cumbersome. Who's gonna say that? So for me, when I was playing like the Ingrid, Ingrid and Dress, okay, okay, So I was playing her song the other day and I was gonna call it up on YouTube music and it didn't work. I had to say I just got frustrated. So I
ended up saying, just play her song. Even because I have a subscription to Apple Music, and so Siri defaults to that. It's like so much easier to say, H Siri, play Ingrid, Ingrid Andress. Oh my gosh, by the way Siri responds to h Siri, it just responded like three times on my eyes.
I just I still can't figure out Apple Music. I got Apple Music, and I still am like, it's really tough for you, Megan, Well, Spotify is just so much easier. Wait, you switched. No, I'm doing three three months? Oh why why? I was just like curious, really why? Just because I was curious? Why are you curious? Because they have like it's the same thing as Spotify, and oh.
They had like an exclusive Justin Bieber album.
Yeah I am not a big Justin Bieber fans, or are.
You curious or are you just forced into it because.
There's so many times I just wanted to see what it was like.
She did three months free. Huh.
Yeah, you have Apple Music. I have Apple Music and I and you're a big fan of it.
No, I'm really not.
Oh.
I mean I like the lyrics. I like how it times the lyrics. Have you tried that feature?
No?
It's really fun. Okay, It's like how you That's how I sing along in the car. Yeah, you just you press the little lyrics and it shows you the song. It's like karaoke and your that's really fun. How you learn? That's how you learn the real words. Okay, let's do another question.
All right. This next question comes from Tim.
I feel like this podcast may have just deleted the whole thing and start over.
That's so mean. Gmail and Yahoo want the phone numbers of people to further secure email accounts. Is this legit? Why do they want it? Uh? It is.
Legit.
It is legit.
You know why what is this called? That talk about it called go on? I always talk about.
It factor two factor to authentication.
Two factor authenticationation. That's right, So they want your phone number because a lot of times when I get these emails all the time. People say that they can't get into their Yahoo account, they can't get into their Google account, and they're like, uh, what do I do? So if you weren't able to get into your account, it does two things. Number one, it gives you that second layer of authentication.
Laughing because.
It's just one of those days. It gives you that second layer of authentication so that when you log in, it will text you a code and then you type that code.
Is it authentication or authentication?
I think you're adding an F in there. I think you're adding authentication. No, there's not authentication. That's not even a word.
Authentication. By the way, everyone he uses that all the time, that button. Whenever I mess things up, hegos.
Are Yeah, pretty much, I've got that on my phone. So it does that. And then the second thing it does is if you ever lost your account, like lost access, they can use that to verify you are who you say you are. And so those are two ways that I can help you out.
Yeah, it's kind of like the fingerprint.
Kind of like the fingerprint and what I get. The other day, I got of setting up something and it said my password manager, and it said you want to set away to recover your your password in case you forget it or something. So again, these companies you start out with like one little piece of information, but if something were to happen to your account, they don't really have much to go by. So let's say for Gmail
you lose. Let's say you sign up for Google Gmail with just in your email address or I guess I don't even know how you do that. You sign up for an email dress, right, right, So I think when I signed up, it's just your name and your I.
Think I think you give them an email address, maybe after like a siblings email.
Yeah, I don't know, Well now I do they and you probably should do this is go into your what they call gosh. It's like really sad, but it's like you basically if you die. There's like it's called like inactive account. So I have my Gmail account. If I'm inactive for like six months, it hands it over to Lindsey's probably.
Just have a self discharcte.
That's so sad, right, but you have to think of these things. Yeah, it's like your little your little email will it's like who would you give it to? Megan?
Who who would you leave your email account to my sister. Yeah, wow, it's really Do.
You have to delete anything in there that you don't want to see? I don't really like love letters that went unanswered.
Oh those are my like really old, like AOL hotmail account, AOL account AOL Yeah, surfer girl chick sixteen. That was my screen name, was it really? Yeah?
Oh wow? I thought you were a kidding. We've talked about Disney Plus here a lot. Visio says you can now get the official Disney Plus app on their Visio TVs. When this first launched, Visio was a notable holdout from all these TV manufacturers you had. You know, people were accessing it on the Fire TV and the Roku and all these other devices and a couple of the TV platforms like a Samsung and stuff like that, but Visio wasn't there, and so I got a lot of emails
people saying, hey, how do I access this? And before or you had to go through Airplay or Chrome Cast. Now you can finally just download the app and get Disney Plus on your smart Cast Visio TV. This is a new option. You can also use your voice with Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa. So kind of cool. This is gonna roll out over the air, so I don't even think you have to download it probably just shows up on your screen. But if you want, I would personally
I do a software update just to make sure. But it's gonna work on Visio smart Cast TVs dating all the way back to twenty sixteen.
Wow. Yeah, that's exciting. Yeah all right. This next question comes from John. I accidentally deleted my MP four files about twenty gigabytes on my laptop. Can I still recover that file?
Ooh? Well, this is this. I hate emails like this no, because it's just so sad to me. Most of the time, when you're deleting something on a computer, it goes into the recycle or trash bean. Yeah, and you can always recover it until you empty that recycle or trash bend. If you didn't empty it, you'd still have these twenty gigs. Since he's emailing me, I'm guessing somehow it got emptied. Yeah, and I'm also guessing that he didn't have a regular
backup of his computer. So again, these are the things I talk about on the show all the time that are like you just have to do them. It's not like, don't wait for a rainy day. Don't wait until something happens. You have to back up your computer in one way or another. And if you're not doing a full backup of your computer, turn on the features on your computer that will help you have things backed up in the cloud.
For instance, on a Windows computer, set up one drive and make your working file folders kind of in the one drive, and one drive is constantly syncing to the cloud, so that anything on your desktop or whatever's in those folders is available all the time. On my Mac computer, my desktop is SYNCD with high Cloud. So if my computer crashed and I had some document on there that on my desktop, it would be in the cloud. And you just have to do this. Otherwise, plug a hard
drive into your computer and just let it back up. Otherwise, use a wireless backup system. I mean, there's a million ways to back up your computer. I know it's not fun, it's not enjoyable, it's not exciting, but you just kind of have to do it.
And you know it's not enjoyable when you lose all your stuff. Losing your stuff just better to be safe.
Better to be safe than sorry. That's my advice. I totally agree, all right, This is an interesting little A little electrical tape can trick a tesla into speeding. I thought this was a pretty scary story because we rely on you know, we think about these autonomous cars and I think about this all the time because these cars are making decisions that involve your livelihood when you're in this car, and I imagine they have a lot of
fail safes in them. But you've ever been in a car where someone like takes a turn really hard, you know, like there you go against the car. When you're in like high school, you do stupid stuff like that. You ever do that like right around, like just drive just be like yeah, I mean it's no, I no, I.
Mean I know I kind of know what you're talking about.
Like, you know, we used to go in high school and like just when we were first starting to drive, do like stupid things that like I hope my kids don't do. You would you know, go really fast and like turn really hard, you know, and like yeah, pull some of those stunts. They could be really dangerous. Right anyway, you think you think about a tesla doing these things, like what if a tesla just jerks to the left and like whoa you slam into something.
Yeah, that would be like, that'd be terrible.
And so these researchers at McAfee were able to trick a Tesla into speeding by just putting a tiny little bit of black tape on a thirty five mile an hour speed limit sign. They extended the middle of the three so it looked like almost like an eight, but not really. It was still disconnected. But they just extended that three out, okay, and the car read it as eighty five miles an hour, and so it started speeding up and they did slow down the car manually before
it got out of control. But again, it's kind of scary crazy. Now here's my takeaway from this. So this was a twenty sixteen Tesla that this worked on. They could not get it to work on a twenty twenty Tesla. Okay, so maybe Tesla has improved things. Yeah, But at the end of the day, don't you think as we have more of these cars on the road, it's a whole cottage industry of people trying to hack these cars.
Yes, yes, I just start thinking of people just going around and messing.
With signs exactly, not just signs, but they're going to figure out different ways like, I even look at the lines in the road that a lot of these cars read. And you look in Los Angeles, some of these lines are all over the place, and I've noticed it with my car. It's got the automatic like lane keep I've noticed for sometimes it's kind of like you're like, eh, it's just a little bit of a correction. You're like, what what did you just read there on that road?
And imagine that people start messing with the roads or just doing anything they can to mess with these cars. It's kind of scary because anything else that you have that's gadget oriented, your phone, your computer, like, yeah, it gets hacked this and that, like okay, but like your car is like a life or death situation.
Kind of scary. Scary. Oh not good, Okay. This next question is from Clyde. I have an iPhone ten S Max. I use Photos, but I also have Google Photos on my phone. I have the same photos in both apps so that I can easily send photos to those with Android phones. When I delete photos from the Google app, why does it delete the same photos from my Photos app in my iPhone?
Yeah, so this is an option when you first set up Google Photos, when you first delete a photo from Google Photos, it says, do you also give permission to delete it from your Photos app? And I get it. This is kind of confusing because it's like a weird delineation where you think you're just looking at the photos through your Photos app, but it's really you're looking at Google Photos copy of them, very complicated like this. When I saw this question, I kind of I realized, like
just how it's not very easy to explain. Okay, but here's he's asking what he wants to get rid of Google Photos altogether.
No, no, no, so no he noticed when he deletes photos from the Google app, yep, they delete on his iPhone.
Okay, yeah, that's just the way it's set up, and I don't I'm not sure that you can change that. I think if you there. I went in and I looked at the the read and write access because you can say you can read but not write, and right means ability to delete. But I believe the first time that you tried deleting a photo in Google Photos, it says, can we delete it out of your iPhone? As well? And if you say yes to that, every other photo you delete, it'll just delete them out of your iPhone.
No that's not good.
Well, yeah, if you're thinking that it's not so, let me just try deleting a picture. If I delete this picture that you took me, it says allow Google Photos to delete this photo. This photo will be deleted from iCloud photos on all your devices. So you just hit don't allow okay, and then it would delete it.
Uh.
Well, interesting what happened as it just doesn't delete it at all. Yeah, So I think you kind of have to you have to accept that reality or else it's not so what I would recommend. And I think the second half of his question was kind of related to just getting rid of Google Photos altogether. I think that if he wants to do that, you can't. My best advice is to actually delete Google Photos off your phone, and then you can go back and kind of do
whatever you need to do with your photos. But if you go through and delete all the pictures out of Google Photos, it's going to delete them on your phone as well. So you want to just delete the whole app, get rid of that, and then you can work on I feel like people.
Must do that all the time. Yeah, make sure they go back up.
Yeah, and then they just yea.
Wipe their iPhone and then suddenly all.
Yeah, yea, it is see to me, it's like it just makes perfect sense, Like I get it, but I understand how it can be so tricky because you're thinking, wait, where does this photo live? Or am I seeing it on my phone? Like is Google Photos just a viewfinder to the photos on my phone or is it a whole other set of photos in the cloud that are also reflected on my phone. And if I delete a picture here, does it delete it there? Yeah, it's kind of complicated.
It is complicated, and I'm not sure that we.
Explained it very well there. I know, I think I'm more confused now than ever.
So basically, if you delete a photo on your iPhone, if out.
Of the Photos app, it does not affect Google Photos. So it kind of goes one way, goes both ways, the other way does not go. It's like a one way street.
Okay.
So if you go into your photo and that's the other confusing part, that's really the Photos app versus Google Photos app. You know, I have mine right next to each other on my phone. Okay, So like the other day I was telling Lindsay, I was like, oh, go into your photos and she kept opening Google Photos. I'm like, no, no, your regular photos, Like there is that delineation of like, yeah, there's photos.
Versus Google so but so then, just to be clear, you can delete your photos on your iPhone and they won't delete from your Google Photos. Correct, Okay? Yeah, confused about that. It's the other way.
Wait I think now hold on, now you have me questioning this because I'm like, wait, does it sink? Does it sync to what I just do? Does it sink? I don't think it does. But yeah, I don't think it sinks to the other way. Yeah, Like, once it goes into Google Photos, it's in there. Yeah.
Okay, once it goes in it's in it's there. Yeah.
Okay, Okay.
I think we just confused because I mee you, and I told my aunt to go on Google Photos because she wanted to make space on her computer.
Yes, so the other thing you could do, and I should probably mention this. If you want the safe way to free up space on your phone, like if you want to make more space by offloading your pictures into Google Photos, there's a there's an option that says free up space, and you tap that and it says do you want to delete online, it says three items from your device to free up space. Oh okay, And that's even more confusing because you're like, wait, if I delete these,
are they still available? And then they're available in your Google Photos app but they're not on your phone. It's kind of I see why people stick to just kind of like iCloud, because that's what I do. Yeah, let's talk about some of the cheapest cell phone plans available. We talked to Whistle out this website that lets you compare various cell phone plans. So check them out. They've got, you know, all every plan is kind of like analyzed
and figured out and you know whatever. But I thought it would be interesting to ask them about what are some of the cheapest plans out there, because I keep seeing these plans advertised. And the one that really got me to think about all this was the text Now. They started this plan where it's free. So you get a simcard from this company called text Now and they will literally give you free calls on the Sprint network
and free texts. There's no data. And we're going to talk to the CEO of text Now in just a moment, but let me go through some of these other plans. Let's see Ting has a plan for five hundred minutes plus a thousand texts that's free for six months. After that, it is I think twenty dollars a month, and that gives you five hundred minutes plus one thousand texts. Mint Mobile has a three month plan for twenty bucks. If you just want to try it out, you pay sixty
dollars up front for three months of service. You get eight gigs of high speed data plus unlimited talking text, and you get free colls to Mexico and Canada. Plus you can use your phone as a hotspot. Mint Mobile is pretty good. That's a really good one. I think they're doing great things. Oh yeah, Good to Go Unlimited. They weren't on AT and T. It's twenty dollars a month for six gigs for your first three months, then it goes down to three gigs.
But it's on AT and T.
See all these plans they have like pros and cons. The fact I've never heard of Good to Go Unlimited, but the fact that it's on AT and T is kind of nice. Yes, they also have Cricket, which is also AT and T. They have some great plans then Sprint has something called Unlimited Kickstart. That's just thirty five dollars for unlimited talking, text and data, and you have to pour it in a new line, so they want you to switch to do that. Visible is from Verizon.
I think this is the best one to the launch. Visible is forty dollars a month and it's unlimited data talk text, and it used to be limited to a certain speed, and then they lifted that limitation. And I'm not sure if they I think they brought that limitation back on, but I'm not really sure.
We've done a couple of stories on Visible too. Yeah, let's see do they still do.
Uh yeah, okay, so they do cap it? Oh okay, well says mobile hotspots capped. It doesn't necessarily say that the speed is capped. Let's see what it says about speed. I'm gonna just search on here speed, you know anyway, So you have to keep that in mind that you know, there are some pros and cons to all these things. Tello has a plan from Sprint fourteen bucks a month for unlimited talk text and two gigs of data a month.
TWIGB Have you ever heard of twig B?
No?
What's that?
Unlimited text in five hundred minutes on Sprint and Verizon for fifteen seventy five for six months. Wow, twigb twigby, I've never heard of that one. Joining us now to talk about text Now and their zero dollars a month plan is Derek Ting, CEO of text Now. Derek, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
All right, so is this legit? Can I really get a plan for zero dollars per month?
Definitely? We just launched a cell phone plan that gives you nature My coverage for texting and calling for free.
And how do you do that?
So let's hold on, let's explain the plan. So first off, you get a SIM card. You send me a SIM card for ten dollars and then I popped it in my phone, obviously my phone. What kind of phone do I have to have?
Any phone that supports the spread network, which is most phones today actually neurophones are are agnostics. So for example, like the Pixels, the newer iPhones, they all support all the carriers, and of course any you have any phone that has been on the Sprint network or even like a reseller or m ME and O of Sprint. So for example, a use the Boost Mobile phone, a used Virgin mobile phone, anything like that will work as well.
And so you get the SIM card, you pop it in and you set up your account and it's zero dollars. What do you get for that zero dollars a month?
You get to text and call for free anywhere there is either Wi Fi or a connection to the Sprint Nation and Wide network. And all you got to do is get buy the SIM from us installer app and a way you go. And the way we make the service work is like all their free services, we toward the service with ads. So while you're using our app, there are there's a banner in the bottom and unintrusive and that pace for their free talking text.
Okay, so the ads. Tell me about these ads. I got producer Megan here as well. She really wants to know about these ads. Tell me about the ads.
Yeah, yeah, the ads are really unintrusive. They're in the bottom of the app and they're really getting the way. And also after you hang up a phone call, there's a full screen ad that you could dismiss.
And we.
There's a number of brands that advertise on our app and they're all very high quality ads and very safe ads for everyone.
So if I'm texting, an AD isn't going to like block the keyboard. It'll be under the keyboard.
Yeah, so it would be actually just on top of the keyboard, so like like that, not on top of keyboard, It'll just right above it, so it wouldn't get in the way of the keeper at all.
Is it the same like if someone because people might know text now because you have an app that's free, and people might also be confused. You're like, well, there's a million apps that offer free texting and calling. Why would I go with this? The difference here is that you're actually getting a cellular service connected to this app through the same card.
Yeah, and on top of that, you get your own phone number from your own error code. You can customize your phone number. And that's also another thing that is really different from our service versus other service is that we give people phone numbers. So that means we our service allow them to break away from a traditional carrier. So that's a lot of people when they sign up for text now, they realize, hey, I don't need to be paying Brydon or at and t all this money anymore.
I got a phone number from text Now and I'm just going to use that for free from now on. So that's really the main difference between text Now and with other texting and calling services.
It's crazy to think that you could potentially save so much money a month if you just like wean yourself off Wi Fi or wean yourself off cellular data and just use Wi Fi along with what you've got offering. But you also offer data upgrades as well, and are you hoping that people eventually just upgrade and get the data plan as well.
Our goal is to work hard to make things free or as close to free as possible, so that's always been our goal. We started out with texting free, and then we eventually make calling free, and then now we're making nationwide talk intact on Assellar network free. So we're going to continue to make more things free. And yeah, right now we have data, even need data. We have really low cost data plans to add on two gigs twenty bucks a month and you get a limited LT
for forty bucks a month. But as always, we're working to make things free and as close to free as possible for our for our customers, and.
Who do you see this being good for.
There's a lot of different people that use our service, and you know, we've seen We've seen single moms use it that have limited income. We've seen entrepreneurs use it that are starting their own business. We're seeing people that are just in a tough situation and this is a lifesaver. Because of this, they could apply to jobs and otherwise
they wouldn't have been able to do it. So we've all sorts of walked of life use our service, and we're really really happy to be able to make a positive difference in people's lives and if providing providing pre phone service to them.
Awesome directing of texts Now. Thanks so much for joining us. How can people find out more about the service?
You can I look for us in the app store or play store by searching for text now, or you can check us out at textnow dot com.
All right, Derek, perfect, Thank you so much. Okay, Megan, you're up.
All right. So this next question comes from Rufus. I had a question which is a better Which is better for a high school student? An iPad or a MacBook?
Hmm, good question. I would say I would say MacBook if the student actually wants to get work done.
I'm a MacBook Air.
Yeah, yeah, MacBook.
Air is fine.
I would just go yeah, I mean I would just go with the standard whatever you can afford, like the highest you can afford, because you want to keep that for four years, right, so whatever you can afford if it, you know, personally, I would go with like the MacBook thirteen inch, just because that's going to give you the most bang for the book. But probably an Air is fine I.
Had in high school, I mean in college if you're.
Just doing like paperwork and stuff like I used to love. When the MacBook Air came out, I bought it immediately. I love that so thin. It was like so light, I could even light. And I think with the iPad you can get a lot done. Nowadays, I just think it's more cumbersome than like a computer that actually has a keyboard and a mouse and all that good stuff. Totally so, but I I think either will be fine. But I kind of joke about getting the work done. But I think I think the MacBook would just be
a better choice in general. I agree, all right, A couple other things before we go here. Galaxy Samsung says the Galaxy Z flip sold out online and limited number of devices in store. So there, I guess calling this a success, and I think so I would agree. We talked about it last week's podcast. I love the z Flip. I thought it was a great little phone. It's not for everyone, but it's a cool little device that I,
you know, I don't have trouble. I wouldn't recommend it to the masses, but i'd recommend it to people who like it. Like if if you're if you feel compelled to get that phone. I wouldn't say don't get it, right, okay, but I wouldn't say, like, oh, get this phone, like you have to want that phone. Yeah that makes sense.
Yeah, you're just saying it's a good phone if you're interested.
Yeah.
We did a story on assistive technology for those dealing with vision loss and two things I'd love to tell you about. The first is the Microsoft Seeing AI app. And you saw this in person at the Braille Institute. It's an app that you install on your iPhone and you can point it at different things like money, what else.
You can point at barcodes, you can point it at signs. Does it read signs? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it reads.
So it just does a whole bunch of stuff, Like it's kind of like a second set of eyes. If your eyes are not it'll read things aloud like okay, yeah, so that's interesting. And on the Android side, there's an app called Google Lookout and I looked at this one. It looks like it's only available for pixels at this time, but hopefully they'll expand it as they get more support for other phones. But that's very similar. They're leveraging Google's AI to point your phone at things and it will
speak what it thinks it's seeing. So if you point at the Eiffel Tower, it would describe the Eiffel Tower or show you know, tell you that computer, all that good stuff. So those are two really good things. And you know this is important because you know, people I get older, they're dealing with vision loss. And a lot of people are born with vision loss or they somehow acquire vision loss throughout their lifetime. So no matter what it is, if you're in that position, technology really is
helping out. And I can't speak from experience that's not happening to me, but I whenever I talk about it, the response is very broad. A lot of people email me they're like, oh, This is great for my dad, this is great for my mom, this is great for me. Here's what works, Here's what doesn't work. So I think that this kind of stuff is just good to know about. So again, it's called the Microsoft Seeing Ai app and Google Lookout. Those are the two apps I think you
should look into. Oh my gosh, you know what that music means, Megan, Oh no, wait, don't go hold on, wait, wait, let's still get what Okay, okay, Oh, that's gonna do it for this week's episode of the show. For links to what we talk about, take a look at the show notes. If you have a question for me, Megan, tell them where to go.
Uh, just go to rich on Tech dot tv and just hit the contact link and you can send in your question.
All right, we'd love for you to rate and review this podcast. It helps other people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com, slash rich on tech, or text the link to a friend.
If you have one.
I hope so, I hope you. I mean your friend probably doesn't want a link from the show. They're like, really, come on, like this is what you text me?
Yeah? I send all my friends the podcasts.
Let's see Meghan, tell them how to find you.
Oh, I'm on Twitter at producer Megan.
And I am on Instagram at rich on Tech.
He's also on TikTok right now.
No, I really don't do that. Looking where we stand. Let's see. Uh, let's see. Stiggins says, this is my Saturday Morning regular listen, so you can leave a review just like Stiggins did. Thank you, Stiggins, I'm rich to Merrow.
Thanks so much for listening.
We will talk to you real soon.
Hi,