The real answers on iTunes, going Away, a rundown of the new features coming soon to the iPhone, Apple Watch and more, a new way to shop for what someone is wearing on Amazon, Spotify's new music app, and tires that Don't Pop. Plus of course, your pressing tech questions. What's going on? I'm Rich Damiro. This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about this stuff I think you should know about happening in the tech world. Plus I answer your tech questions. Joining me as always is
producer Megan. Producer Megan, Welcome to the show.
Hello, how are you?
I am good. You know this week was a big one. Yeah, because it was WWDC Worldwide Developers Conference from Apple, and I went up there on Monday. It is very quick trip when up there Monday morning, came back Monday night. I would have loved to stay all week, but with
our broadcast schedule that's kind of tough. But it's just to me, it's like being a kid in a candy store because Apple announces all stuff that's gonna happen with all their products, and at this point they have so many that I use I mean the iPhone, the Mac computer, the Apple watch Apple TV. I don't really use but iPad I don't really use that either, Okay, but they made a lot of They announced a lot of new
features that are really cool. The biggest thing, and I've never seen a reaction like this in my life, well I have, but this was a big one. They announced that iTunes is going away. So I'm gonna break that down for you because I've gotten so many emails, so many questions on my Facebook. I mean, I'm talking when KTLA did it. So what happened was to give you a little bit of a backstory. The story broke on
like Friday afternoon, I believe, and it was bloomberg. Someone wrote about you know, iTunes was probably gonna go away, and next thing, you know, what happens. It gets picked up everywhere and of course mixed into a million different like playing a game of telephone. Right, iTunes is dead bloom blah blah blah boom, And so next thing you know, people are going nuts. What happens to all my music?
What happens to all my this? That thing? And so here I am to break it down because Apple is not very happy about how this has been portrayed, because it was confusing, Right, iTunes means a lot of different things. It means iTunes the software, but it also means iTunes the store, right, and the iTunes store. Let's be clear, is not going away. iTunes software is being split into three different pieces, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and Apple TV, and almost all of the functions that you're used to
will be inside those three different apps. Now, when it comes to synking your phone, that will be handled by Finder on the Mac. Are you familiar with Finder? Yes, It's like, well, I don't even know how you describe it. It's like the.
The basic like the window on Window.
Like, yeah, I guess Windows is Windows is not a good way to describe it.
Can also search on Finder.
It's just like it's Finder. It's like where everything happens, all your files live. Right. So that now when you put your plug in your iPhone, which, by the way, one was last time you plug your I phone into your computer.
It's been a long time.
Yeah, you never, I mean you do it all through i Cloud now. So, but there are still a lot of people, especially in our audience, that still do things kind of an older way, right, and that is purchasing music. So again, let me just go through some of the things. Number one, the music that you have, it's all gonna be there. It's going to be in the Apple Music app, okay.
And that is music that you've imported, which means you rip CDs it'll still be there, or music that you purchased, the playlists that you created will all still be there again. They'll move to the Apple Music app. They will not be in iTunes, They'll be in Apple Music. You have an iTunes gift card that will still work, that will still work on all the different platforms. That's not going away. The iTunes store is not going away. iTunes credits not
going away. iTunes subscriptions you subscribe to something through iTunes not going away. The backup, the restore, the sinking, all that stuff is moving to Finder. Like I mentioned, movies and TV shows that you rented or purchased will now
be in the Apple TV app. And this is really confusing because Apple has Apple TV, then they have the Apple TV app, which I find will be really weird because are you talking about Apple TV, Are you talking about the you know that the TV app, the little app that's on your iPhone and on your Apple TV. It's so weird.
Which I never use.
Well, they want you to use it more.
What about Apple TV plus, that's just going to be there, That's.
Going to be inside the Apple TV app. Got it, Okay, So that's there. Now here's one thing that is changing, it seems. It seems according to this support document that Apple put out that you will no longer be able to purchase or rent movies and TV shows through iTunes the iTunes store on your Mac. You will now have to use the Apple TV app for Mac. So whatever it. Basically you can still rent.
It makes sense.
If you're looking for stuff to watch, you go to the TV app, right.
I always thought iTunes was like too much, too much going on. You have just switched to like these different toggles on the top to get to movies, to get to music.
Like absolutely, this.
Actually is so much better and so much simpler for everyone.
I agree one hundred percent. Audiobooks will be in iTunes. So what I'm saying, Megan, in also many words, is that nothing's really changing, it's just the places you go to access stuff. So again, now here's the one caveat if you're on a Windows computer right now, iTunes is staying the same, So they're not going to change it.
They're not splitting it up as of right now. Who knows what's going to happen in the future, but right now, if you're on Mac, yes, you're gonna have three new apps when Catalina, the new Mac operating system, comes out in September. Until then, everything's gonna be the same. And then once things change, they'll still sort of be the same. They'll just be doing things in different places. Now. One thing that Apple did not really mention that I think is the best about all this is that you will
now be able to plug in your iPhone. And I mentioned I don't really plug in my iPhone, but I might do this now. It will kind of act act. Let me say that, right when you plug in your iPhone on your computer, it will pretty much act as a flash drive, so you can store documents on it. You know, you have this iPhone with a whole bunch of storage on it. A lot of my storage on my phone is not used. If I can throw some files on there and just use it as a flash drive,
that's kind of cool. So you'll be able to drag and drop anything basically onto your iPhone, right cool.
One question about Catalina.
Sure. Will we have great island.
Great island, beautiful place?
Yes?
Will we have to pay for that or is it just no, it's a free update.
Yeah. It used to be used to have to pay back in the day to.
Download the software and go pick up the disc from app the Apple Store.
Okay, back in the day, that was like I think it was like twenty dollars to upgrade. Then they decided to make it free. And on the iPhone back in the day, I think it was five dollars to upgrade your iPod Touch or whatever it was. It was like five bucks for the new operating system. It's all gone away.
Now it's all free. The reason it's free is because a security security wise, they want you to update and new feature wise, like basically, the more they can update and sell you stuff, the more you know, like on the back end, right.
Better for them to have the latest software on.
Your Okay, all right, Megan, let's get a question on there.
Okay, So our first question comes from Larry Turner. The subject is iPad. I need a new iPad? Should I wait until September?
Ooh? So I will tell you the place I go for anything Apple related that I need to know if I'm gonna buy something. So now, my theory on Apple products is you want to buy them as close to the first day that they come out as possible. Why do I say that because if you look at the history of Apple products, they all get updated, whether it's an iPod touch, while those take longer, whether it's an iPhone, it comes out like clockwork. Every year. MacBooks get updated,
the iPads get updated. So if you're buying it on the first day, to me, you're getting the full use of that price that you're paying until the price drops when they launch the new product, because generally when they launch the new product, the prices come down. So there's two ways of looking at this. To me, if I'm paying five hundred dollars for a new iPad, to me, I want to get the maximum use out of that iPad,
like the day it's fresh and available. To me, that five hundred dollars, I'm dividing that by how many days I'm using it, right or how many years. Or you can look at it second way, and you can always buy things the day the new one comes out, because you're going to get a discount on the old one, right, So you can buy the old one and get the cheaper one. But my point is, what's the person's same again, Larry Larry always look at Buyer's Guide dot MacRumors dot com,
Buyer's Guide dot MacRumors dot com. What they do is they give you a very simple way of knowing how long it's been since an Apple product came out. So right now I'm looking iPhone ten s. They're saying caution because the new one's coming out in September. So they're like, if you buy that right now at full price, you've gone six months of that price. You know, you could have gotten six more months of use out of that. This makes sense. It's kind of this weird thing.
Yeah, okay, I've been doing it backwards.
You buy it later.
Yeah, Like I bought my Iphoney Plus like six months after it came out, right, But it's always around the same time of year.
So that's fine. You're in that middle cycle and hopefully you get a deal now. iPad air right now, iPad pro is neutral, iPad pro as neutral, yeah, iPad pro, iPad air by now, and iPad MANI buy now, iPad don't buy. So if you're looking at the standard iPad it's been four hundred and thirty six days since they released a new one. The average is five eighty three, which means you only have one hundred days of use before the price drops. You see how I'm figuring this out.
So anyway, Larry great resource. It's the Mac Rumors Buyer's Guide. I always consult it and for me personally, like I like to buy stuff the day it comes out, because like my kid's iPad minis, I bought them literally the first week they're out because I was like, okay, and it's been three years, so we've gotten a lot of good use. Now. If you look at the iPad Mini, it was just updated recently, it's only been eighty days.
Before that, it's been three hundred ninety days, and so I had it for three hundred and ninety days of basically I paid full price, but divide it by three ninety and now it's a pretty good deal.
Yeah, So he should if he wants the new iPad, he should wait until it comes out.
It depends on the iPad he wants. If it's the iPad Pro, it's neutral. You can make your own decision, iPad Air or Mini. Buy him right now. iPad don't buy got it? All right? Cool? Great question. Okay, let's talk about some of the new features coming to the iPhone. So I talked about WWDC. iOS thirteen is the new version of the operating system. And if you know me, well, you know that I wrote a book on iOS twelve, which was one hundred and one handy tech tips for the iPhone.
Yeah you did.
They should have a buyer's guide for that because that's about to sunset. Because when the new software comes out, a lot of the things will still work. But it's like, rich, you need a new book, right, So I'm thinking about writing the new version, which I probably will. So main features I'll just go through quickly dramatic new look dark mode, which kind of fun. Yeah, I mean it's just kind of fun to have a.
Different you're going to use that?
Oh yeah, I'll put it on schedule so i'll have it go. I'll have it go on automatically at sunset and off at sunrise, so yeah, which will give me like maybe five minutes of use because I go to sleep before the sunsets most nights. Okay, face ID is going to be faster, thirty percent faster to unlock. Now you don't have face Idea on your iPhone, but I do, and it is noticeably amazing, but it's also noticeably slow. Like I could definitely take the thirty percent improvement and
really be happy with that. The operating system itself is faster and more responsive, the apps are smaller. Photos is totally going to change to help you curate your pictures in better ways. Apple Maps, which you use right, Yes, I don't, I know, but it's been getting better and Apple says they drove four million miles to completely rebuild the database, so it is getting a lot better. Personally, Google has the market on this. They really know what
they're doing and it's very smart. So except for CarPlay, which used to only be maps, now it supports Google Maps, I pretty much do not have a use for maps in my life. So the new maps, though, will be better. It's going to roll out to the entire US by the end of twenty nineteen, and basically there's more detail on the maps. So it's pretty dramatic the level of detail that Apple has been able to build into maps compared to when it first launched, and it has been
getting better over time. Let's see what else they also have This new look around View, which is basically street view. Are you familiar with that on Google? Yes, So it's basically now Apple has their own version. So in a nutshell, Apple has been doing a really good job with maps. Will it be enough to get people to try to go back to it? Probably not to me. The people that use maps are people that don't understand that it's not Google Maps, don't really care, or don't really navigate
that much like you. I don't know if you navigate. I navigate a lot, and I'm always like using Google Maps to like see exact times to get places and go places. If you're not using that, it's not that bad of a deal, you know.
Yeah, I use Google Maps on my computer and then I use Maps on my phone.
Gosh what it's just how you do it, how I do it. Messages, I'm very excited about this feature. So I Message is kind of the de facto messaging app in America. It will now let you set a username and profile photo, which is a small thing, but it's so cool because if you look in your list of messages, you know, I've got pictures. One that really bothers me. My agent shows up as a picture of his dog, and I have no idea where that picture is being
pulled from. And it's really annoying because like I want him to look like him right right, and I can go through and change it manually. But who does that, right? I mean sometimes I do. Yeah, I've done that. It takes a lot of time effort. So anyway, so you can on your end, on your phone, you can set how Megan looks to other people when you I message them. Interesting, that's really fun.
That is fun.
Siri has a new voice. She's going to be more natural sounding and also one hundred percent computer synthesized. So they used to put actors in a voice booth ask them to say a thousand million different little terms like turn right, turn left, or they'd say turn and then you go right, left, up, down, around, and then Siri would blend those things together. Now she's one hundred percent made by a computer.
So voice is made by a computer, it's not humans. Yeah, that's crazy.
And she sounds pretty good because they showed a little demo and she sounds great. Car Play is getting its newest, its biggest update ever. It's getting a whole new dashboard. I love car Play. I think it's the best Google for their side of things is actually updating Android Auto as well, So it's clear that we need an evolution with these two systems that I really love. I mean, I think I love car Play, I love Android Auto.
So again car Play is getting an update, and Siri is now going to support third party navigation and audio apps, which is huge because again, Apple Music, why do I love it? Because Siri works with it. So if Siri was to work with Spotify, maybe I'd take another look at that, right, even though I think Apple Music is better.
QuickPath is the iOS keyboard is getting swiped to type, which I know is a small thing, and again you can get it with third party apps, but why if you can get it on the regular keyboard, that's fine. And Files will now let you access external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drive, so you will be able to plug a USB flash drive into your iPhone and it will be able to see the files on there, which is something that's never been done before.
That will also work on the iPad, which is really cool. So a lot of new features. iOS thirteen is going to be a big one. I got to start writing.
That book, Yes you do. That's exciting. All right, Megan, Okay, so this I thought this was kind of a funny transition. This next comment comes from John Nielsen and the subject is android phones. He says, all you seem to talk about is Apple phone. How about something for the millions of Android users who don't care what Apple is doing.
Oh, I love the irony that you do that, Like all afin just talked about Apple.
But the reason why I think we had just gone to like we've gone to so many Android events in the last few weeks. I just think it's funny because it sounds like he just catches you at the wrong time.
Right, or he gets really annoyed when I talk about Apple. But here's the thing, you know me, Well, yes, am I an Apple fanboy? No? Right, you're so.
He rich changes his phone Like every month he'll go back to an Android and he'll say how much he loves it, and then he'll get bored of it and he'll go back like he switches it up. So I just think it's funny that this person thinks he's a fan.
Boy, right, And so it's fine. And this is the joke among all tech folks is that if you talk about Apple, you're paid by Apple, and you're an Apple fanboy and you're an Apple lover, you talk about Android. Oh well, Google's paying you and Samsung's paying you. How much you being paid by Samsung to talk about Samsung.
The reality is things come and go in waves. Last month we had a bunch of Samsung news because we had the Samsung event where we had the new Samsung phones, and then we had the new Galaxy Fold and I talked about that. Then we had the one Plus, which is the Android phone. I went to that event in New York. By the way, flew there to go there because I wanted to out of the kindness of my heart,
even though they paid thank you, one Plus. But my point is I wanted to be there because I love what one plus is doing, and I love Android, and I appreciate Android, and I also appreciate what Apple's doing. And yes, I do switch my phones up a lot, like a lot of tech people, and I do try things out. There's a lot of things that iPhone does that's really good. There's a lot of things that Android does that's really good. So I'll direct you to some of my coverage, but I talked about a lot of
Android stuff in the past month. But again this is Apple's week. They're having their Worldwide Developers Conference. Of course, somebody talking about Apple a lot. And speaking of Apple, let's talk about the Apple Watch because at WWDC they also talked about what's going to be new for the Apple Watch. And I'll just go over some of the features. Apple Watch, by the way, one percent the best wearable out there today. There is nothing better. I know you
want one so badly. The Apple Watch is just quite simply amazing. And I'll be honest. When I go to Android and I use my Android device, the thing I missed the most is my Apple Watch because I love the health functions. There's just so many little things that I do on it. When I go for a run in the afternoon, I sit there, I pop in my AirPods. I literally just walk out the door. I don't need anything except my key to my house because I have music on my watch. I can stream music on my watch.
I have cellular on my watch, which means if I need to make a phone call or if someone needs to get a hold of me while I'm running, I can do that. I have GPS, all these analytics. It all drives back to my health app, which means I can see exactly, you know, how many calories I've burned, or what I'm doing or how you know my move for the day. It's amazing and so Apple Watch is
continually getting better. A couple of new features in Watch os six, by the way, is first off, they have a new cycle tracking app for women, so something you know, I'm not personally excited about, but you know, I think it's very good for women. Yeah, I think that's awesome. There's a new noise app, and the noise app will actually alert you if you're in an environment that's for
your hearing. So if you're at a concert or you're construction worker, it will tell you, Hey, you know what, It'll give you hints, just like it does for your fitness, like hey, by the way, you should probably stand up and you know, move around a little bit. Hey, by the way, if you're in this place for four hours the way you're listening to this music at this at this loudness, it's going to mess up your ears. So isn't that smart?
Yeah, that's really smart.
And so it's just kind of stuff like that that's just brilliant. For the first time ever, there's gonna be an app store directly on the Apple Watch, which means you think about an app that you want, you can download it right to your watch without your phone being nearby. Yeah, obviously you'll need Wi Fi or cellular for that to happen. There's new watch faces. There's an API to stream music, so right now the only music you can stream or the only audio you can stream on the Apple Watch
is through Apple Music. Well, they're opening up their API so now others can do the same. So they showed the example of a Major League Baseball game, which total yawner for me, But I'm sure some people like that. But I have a baseball is really fun in person, but to watch a baseball game on TV.
I totally agree.
I mean, come on, I know any any sport is fun in person, some are more fun on TV. Voice Memos app is now available or will be available on Apple Watch. Your audio books will be available. Uh, there's a new calculator app which really appeals to the sixth grade nerd in me that used to wear the Calculator watch. That will be right on the on the watch and it will help you do tips and split bills right
from your wrist. So that's kind of cool. If you're at a restaurant you got six friends, you all want to split the bill, or like when Lindsay and I go out for dinner, like we always split the bill. So oh still.
Yeah, I love that. Oh. I was like, okay, no, but that's okay if it was true, I think that that's Uh.
Lindsay works very hard, so she she it's it's all equal. In the Tomurro household, Siri will display full web page results as well in the Apple Watch, so again, uh and this, by the way, all these updates, I believe we'll be going all the way back to the original Apple Watch, like the first generation, which is pretty cmazy.
So okay, well, I think it's timed now to really switch gears to this next question from Stanley Dent. He wrote on your Facebook page. He said, Rich, your segments are great. I have a question. My cousin gave me his old Surface Pro, but for some reason kept the keyboard, so I didn't know it was one hundred and fifty dollars, but I went on Amazon and I saw one that was sixty dollars. Should I get the Microsoft keyboard for one fifty or should I go the cheap route, which
is sixty. Thanks keep up the great work.
It's a good question. And this is the thing that people kind of forget when they buy these little like tablets that can become computers. And we talked about this in the last episode. I believe is that even when you buy those things, you still have to purchase a lot of accessories like a keyboard case, which are not cheap. So he says, how much did you say it was one hundred?
He said it was one fifty one to fifty, okay, the actual So for the.
Official one, so I'm looking on Amazon, which okay, yeah, it's like one thirty seven. Yeah, it depends on which one you get, so they can be up to one fifty. But yeah, go for the cheap one, Like why why would you not? I mean it's not gonna be as like as like made for the thing, but like, I'm looking at this one. They have one for forty three dollars, sixty dollars, that's probably the one he's looking at. The
sixty dollars one has great reviews, and why not? I mean you can always return things on Amazon, like most of the like ninetynine percent of the time free of charge, So why would you not try the cheap o one. Here's the deal. The reason I'm saying that is because he's getting this as a hand me down to begin with. So clearly this is something that he didn't invest his
own money in. So it's like he's gonna be fine with something that's like this, the keyboard that's not the official one, right, yeah, so this is kind of like a bonus in his life, and so I think the keyboard doesn't need to be super duper expensive. One thing to look out for. By the way, when you're shopping on Amazon, they have these new little tags. They're very controversial, but they it's called Amazon's Choice.
Oh yeah, doesn't that just mean Amazon wants you to buy it?
It does. But here's the thing, this is why I love it. Amazon in the background is using big data to figure out where to put that tag. It's not just on the product that they think like they want to push. They're using return data. They're using customer purchase data. So let's say that the most popular Let's say you're buying a I don't know, let's say you're buying a case for the iPad, right, and they notice that the cheapest.
You could put a case on there for seven bucks, right, and a million people are gonna buy it, right because it comes up super cheap. You're like, oh seven bucks okay, Well, next thing, you know, everyone starts returning that case. Amazon doesn't want to recommend that case because guess what, it actually costs them more to keep selling that case. So Amazon's choice is gonna be the case that is fifteen ninety nine that they notice that people buy but actually
you really like and they give it higher reviews. Yeah, So that's what Amazon's choice means. They're using all this data. They don't explain exactly what the data is behind it, but from what I've pieced together, that's what they're doing.
Well, I was just checking to see the I just got a phone case and I bought it on Amazon, but I didn't like I got a cheap case.
Yeah, And I was.
Curious because normally I look at the choice thing and I always thought it was a push. But I did actually buy the Amazon's choice case, which was like twelve dollars.
And are you happy with it?
I love it?
See, And that's what.
I'm saying, Like, it's fine, let me say, it's just like a simple rippy.
It's kind of like the it's like the Apple silicone case, but it's it's like a cheaper version. And it's because the Apple will be like fifty bucks or forty bucks whatever. This is like how much twelve ninety nine, twelve ninety Yeah, and it's perfect and it feels great. So again, look for those Amazon Amazon Choice cues. You don't necessarily have
to buy that, but it definitely helps. And I know they're controversial because people are saying, well, Amazon's just pushing the stuff like you were saying.
That they want to and they actually but they were right.
It's a sales tactic, but it works to me. It's helping you, and they are using big data and it's I'm sure they continue to tweak it, but again, just look for these little these little cues. All right, I know we got a lot of Apple stuff, but I'm gonna keep going through it because there is a lot of Apple stuff this week. So let's talk about the new mac os Catalina. This is the new desktop operating system for your Mac. I love the fact that it is named after Catalina Island, which is just off the
coast of Los Angeles. If you have not been, definitely take a visit. So when I first met my wife, Lindsay, her family would go every year for Fourth of July. So I went many years when I first met her. I have very fond memories of going there because I never I was from New Jersey. Well I'm still am, but to go to this tiny little island that her family was like they always just rent a house for the summer for like a week or whatever, and we'd all go and it was just I have some great
memories from there. And so I personally love Catalina. I love the fact that they named it after that. But again Catalina. The things you need to know two things. Number one, this is what's going to happen with iTunes when it's going to be split up. The second thing, and the feature I'm very excited about, is called sidecar, and this will enable you to use a iPad as a second display on your computer. So for me, I have my computer, my little laptop and a lot of
times I'm editing video. I think it'd be so cool to have like I message or my email up on a secondary screen. And you can do this with an app right now called Duet duet and I think it's a fifteen dollars app but it's called duet display, and so I've used that before. You plug in your iPad and it becomes a secondary display. Wasn't perfect. I think Apples is probably gonna be a little bit better than what they're doing. But again, well they say zero lag,
so maybe it does work perfectly. I used it when it first came out. But yeah, I mean that's kind of cool. I like that.
So you would get like I mean, depending on where your computer is, you could get like something to hold your iPad.
Well, okay, so funny you say that I saw. So you can get a little stand, you know, like a little kind of tripod for your iPod or tripod for your tripod for your iPad, so you can get that on the iPod. Yeah. I love how my brain like just rhymed it because I'm so used to reading like kids books at night that like, yeah, my brain is like Doctor Seuss. You can get a tripod for your iPod. And there's a redfish, bluefish, green fish, yellowfish. But the other thing I saw when I was at WWDC, someone
was already using the secondary screen. I think they just used it with duet maybe, but they had a clip that somehow clipped to their MacBook screen and then the other side of it clipped to their iPad, so their iPad was actually just hanging off their screen. So I thought looked kind of dangerous because it's a clip that clips to your screen and seemed kind of dicey. But yeah, anyway, interesting, and then let's talk about tvOS. This is what powers
Apple TV. The things you need to know about that is you're getting a new home screen that I am very much against because it has one of my least favorite features of Netflix. Oh no, what do you think that is? When you're scrolling through looking for something to watch, what.
Happens, Well, it gives you the percent.
No things start auto playing. Oh I hate that and I cannot stand It's so annoying. So that's going to now come to Apple TV. And I get why they do it because they want to sell you on a show. Like if you watch it, if you look at a show, what do you get? You get a title and a thumbnail And ninety nine percent of the time there are all these shows you've never seen a word about.
They have to do that.
They have to do it because they want to show you what the show is and you're right, oh my god, that's a murder mystery. Oh my gosh, I need to watch that. Yeah. They're also getting multi user support so when you're watching on the Apple TV, you can, you know,
everyone could has their own kind of personalized recommendations. And they're getting new four k HDR screensavers that were filmed under the c So you know, people love these screensavers on Apple TV because they're so beautiful and I like to have my own pictures.
But yeah, I was thinking of like my desktop background.
Yeah, yeah, we do a good job. People love backgrounds.
Yeah.
And finally enough with the Apple News. But I'll give you one more thing that I'm personally very excited about is that on iOS thirteen, you will be able to ask Siri to play over one hundred thousand live radio stations, so basically all the radio stations from iHeartRadio, tune In, and radio dot com, which is all the CBS stations. So if there's a radio station that you like, you can ask Sirira to play it without third party software.
Right now, if you say, like, you know, play one on two seven KISSFM, you may have to go it may open iHeartRadio or whatever. This will just play it natively, which is a small but very interesting feature because of the fact that now it's just kind of you can see radio stations almost like promoting the fact of like, hey,
just ask Siri to play us. Yeah, you know, and you can do this on Google Assistant right now, like on Google Home they already do that, but this on Siri is kind of big because right now, as far as I know, the only thing she does is like basically CBS News and Beats one, so you know, you're kind of limited. But the fact that you can just say, hey, play one on two seven KISSFM or KFI AM six forty or Z one hundred or whatever station you can
think of, that's kind of cool. And it's very powerful for in the car because as more people use CarPlay, you can just pull up the station that you want. Radio stations sort of have a fighting chance of competing with all the other stuff.
This is good for radio. Yeah, for sure, I love that. That's really cute. Okay, so my next question is from Mike, and it's about the Samsung eight plus update. My phone updated itself yesterday and I hate it. I'm afraid The answer is no. But is there any way to reverse this improvement and go back to a phone I know how to use. I always watch your spout on keytla and follow you on Facebook.
NOPs, Mike answers. No, Mike, I'm just gonna go right through this one. Let's just take another question, because no. The thing is, these phone manufacturers they change things up. You got the one UI update. There's no way to go back easily. And my advice is that you will get used to it. As someone who tests a bazillion phones, and you know, I go from phone to phone and I see what they do and what they don't do,
you'll get used to it. Mike. I know it's it's tough, and it's unfortunate, and yes, some features do go away, but there's really no way around it. It's kind of the evolution of things. All right, One more questions.
Okay, I'm gonna ask you another.
Question, shorty, it's very short.
Yes, it's I'm gonna get a similar response from you. This is from Norma and the subject is annoying group text? How can you remove yourself from group text messages on an iPhone?
There's not a way I know to do that. So I tried to remove myself from my I'm on my family's group text, which is pretty amazing. It's like, you know, when they start texting, it's like it's like rapid fire. So, as far as I know, if you go into like the info, you know, you can tap at the top. I don't see a way of removing yourself. Oh you see it.
Yes, I'm sorry. I have a group text open. So if you click on the info at the top of a group text, you see you can add a contact. But if you keep going down, it says leave this conversation.
Oh what hold on? So see, why don't we have that? I don't have that, see, so I think it's only if everyone is on I message. That's what it is. That's the difference. See, because I've got a mix of I message and not I message. Oh interesting, So let me go to a conversation with you and Louis because we're both or here's a message. Here's a conversation with all three of us on I message. Yes, and yes, you can leave.
And by the way, when you leave, it will say that you left left. So I'm just saying that because I don't know. I feel like people get offended. I think the best way to do to handle something like that if you are sick of getting alerts, is just to hide the alert.
So swipe from right to left on the message in the message pain like on the list of messages, swipe right to left, and it will say hide alerts. And if you delete it, it doesn't it just comes back when the next message comes back. So hide alerts will give you the option to hide for basically indefinitely. It kind of silences that. But again, if they're all on I message, see I learned something new today, you can leave. And if they're all I message they're not, then you're kind of screwed.
So sorry.
Yeah, that's the way it works. Okay, Megan, I think you're gonna love this. And I love it and I'm not even into fashion, and I love this. This is like the dream of kind of what we've wanted from the internet for so long. Okay, this is something new from Amazon. It's called style Snap and so what it is is you take a picture of what someone's wearing and it will search for that similar visually looking outfit on Amazon.
I love it already.
Isn't this amazing? I tried it. So I upload a picture of myself wearing a T shirt and it found just like a bunch of T shirts, so it didn't find the exact style I was wearing. But yeah, it's really cool. It's inside and it's already there. It's inside the Amazon app. If you go in the Amazon app, click the camera icon in the upper right hand corner of the app, and then at the bottom you'll see a bunch of options, just like you do on Instagram,
where you swipe between the options. This one is called style snap. You open that up and then here's the thing. You can either upload a picture, take a picture, or you can upload a screenshot. And let me explain why the screenshot is so important. I know why.
Why because if you screenshot something from Pinterest that you like, drag it because I was like, what if I see something whoops?
Yes, that's right, that is exactly And here's not just Pinterest, Instagram influencers, right, this is all about And here's why I love this, even though I'm not a fashion person. It's just amazing because how easy is it. You like what someone's wearing and you want to get the same or similar looking thing, and you can find on Amazon and buy it within like two seconds. So this is something that's been a long time coming. It's kind of
like the dream of all shopping. Yes, right, you see something you like at someone's house, a light, a magnet, whatever on a white see a magnet but whatever.
Yeah, it's not just for clothes. Well, this I think is just okay because I was going to say, you're talking about lamps.
But they have this like Wayfair has something like that. You know, like all these apps have like similar things. I think they work to different extents, but this is amazing. So again, it's called style Snap and basically what people are gonna do is they're gonna screenshot their favorite instagrammers wearing whatever outfit they're wearing and then upload it to Amazon and purchase it. So I think that's brilliant by Amazon.
I don't buy clothes on Amazon, though.
Well, this is the reason this will miss Megan. This is what will make you buy clothes on Amazon. This is why I don't buy a lot of clothes on Amazon either. But I would gladly if I could figure out. Clothes are a little tricky because once I have my sizes, I like to go to the same place, which is Gap H and M and Old Navy in Wondering and Banana. Yeah, there's a lot of Gap family there. I'm like the boringest person when it comes to clothes.
I'm surprised you didn't say Ja Crew.
No. I worked there for one day and I had to buy all their stuff to like work there, and then I never worked there again. But A Crew's too expensive for me. Banana Republican is now they always have like forty fifty percent off, except for the jeans I like, which never go on sale. Oh the travelers.
Got it all right. So this next message is from ad Montenegro on your Facebook page. He wrote, Hey, Rich, I currently have Verizon, but I feel like I'm overpaying for three lines. I do have reception everywhere I go, But is there any other network out there with the reliability like Verizon but less expensive.
This is a fantastic question, And you know what my answer is going to be because this was one of the first stories that you did here when you joined.
Oh I no, yeah, I know.
But I will tell you the best service if you want to switch from Verizon is to switch to Verizon Verizon's Visible that is and Visible is Verizon's sort of secret prepaid plan, and it's kind of I guess this. I don't even know if you call prepaid. It's just I don't even know why they're doing this, but it's so smart. It's kind of underground. It's forty dollars a month for the same exact Verizon network, Okay, and it is amazing. You're going to get this same features that
you have pretty much. Some things change, you know, there are you know, like internationally, you're not going to get international calling, but that's you know, like not many people need that, right, But you're gonna get the same network. It's gonna be high quality, it's gonna work in all the same places. If you have an iPhone. He didn't mention what phone he has, but if he has an iPhone, you just pop their SIM card in the new Visible sim card. And the difference is that you have to
sign up online. There's no stores, so they're saving money in these different little ways. But the customer service is fantastic.
We did a big story with Visible when I heard about them, and I couldn't believe that this was like a thing, and so I'm telling you it was one of the most popular stories of twenty eighteen because and I actually talked to a guy today who we're going to do a follow up with who switched because of my story, and he saved like over like one hundred dollars a month and he loves it and he said it's fantastic.
Isn't there a new update? Though? With Visible?
There will be it's the it's on the DL. Yeah, so there will be some changes that I can't talk about just yet. But I think if you're a subscriber or you're thinking of subscribing the subscribing, you will like it Visible. I'm telling you. It's like I'm if I was a CEO of Verizon, I'm like, wait, you're like eating our young Like why are you letting us? Like why? But again, people are switching from Verizon to Verizon, so
it's probably fine, yeah, but still pretty amazing. Anyway, check out Visible, and I think you will really like it. Something else to check out is Spotify's new app called Stations. And this is Spotify's answer to Pandora. So and you might be wondering, well, why do I need that if I have Pandora, Well it's Spotify. I mean you could try something new, right, So and I think Spotify might have more music than Pandora, like actual more songs in their library. I don't know that for a fact, but
I think they do. So. Spotify Stations is this new app. It's a brand new app that just launched in the US on iOS and Android. It's a lightweight app and it's so simple, Megan, you've tried it. Yeah, you download it, you open it up, you sign in if you have a Spotify account. If you don't, you create one, and next thing you know, it is playing music. It's got some stations that are already kind of pre populates based
on your previous profile. If not, you can go through you can choose an artist and it kicks off with that and starts a station just like Pandora. Or you can search through genres and start a station just like Pandora. And the thing is, when you open up the app, it just starts streaming.
Yeah, it's a lot cleaner looking than Pandora. And I think lightweight is actually the perfect word to describe it as fun colors.
But it's so simple, so simple, and you will hear ads. If you're a free user, you will be able to thumbs up and thumbs down songs. You can skip up to six an hour, just like Pandora, and if you are a Spotify Premium subscriber, you will get which you are, you'll get the full experience, which means no ads and unlimited skips. So why would you want to use this if you're a Spotify Premium Well, because ninety nine percent of the time when I open up Spotify when I
was a subscriber, what did I do? I just started a playlist?
Yeah, and it's overwhelming to pick, like what song am I gonna? I'm yeah, I love I love this.
And the UI is really cool because it's just it's swipe up, swipe down to scroll through your stations. It's just super You kind of have to download it see what we're talking about, but it's very easy and it's super simple. So Spotify calls this an experiment, so it
could go away at anytime. But I think in general they're just trying to get Spotify can be intimidating because and also I'm sure there's an element of people that don't understand that Spotify has a free version inside the main app, So they're probably appealing to people that search for Spotify free and then this comes up and then they open it up. They're like, Oh, that's exactly what I wanted. It's just like Pandora, so and you don't have it's just simple. Yeah. I don't think there's offline
though right now. So if you're on a plane, you probably wouldn't be able to use it. But maybe I'm wrong, Maybe they do it. Yeah, test it tomorrow. Got another question. Yes, this question is, Oh, this's got to be a really quick question.
Oh, okay, then I won't ask this one because it's kind of long. Okay, This next question is from Sherry Cortes. Subject is home WiFi. For the last month, my Spectrum WiFi disconnects randomly on different devices smart TV, iPad, PlayStation four. Some devices in the same room will be connected while others are not. Spectrum did some over the phone troubleshooting, but it didn't help. Since we now since we own our own router ter router, we may get charged if
they come out to repair. How can I tell if the problem is with our router or with the Spectrum service? Do you have any suggestions?
Oh, this is kind of a tricky one because I'm I'm going to assume it's her router, it's her WiFi, like it's Spectrum is providing the service to their house, and on their end, they can actually tell if the signal is good, like if they're providing you a good signal, and what happens to it once it dissipates through your
WiFi they can't control. And especially since she said she owns the Wi Fi that's being popped out, like the whatever router, either she bought it themselves or you know whatever, Spectrum is gonna be like, uh, if we come over there, we're gonna charge you because it's not our built in Wi Fi. I think if you pay them like five bucks a month or whatever it is to like rent theirs, then you know, maybe they would fix that for free
if you complain. But since it's her own, there's really nothing she can do or nothing Spectrum can do without charging. That's understandable, right, because they Spectrum can't be held liable for like the thousands of different Wi Fi routers that are available. Right, my advice is to probably get a mesh network system like euro or Google. I would probably in this case, I'd probably recommend Google Wi Fi because it seems like she has a pretty simple setup just
need some better coverage. But I'd probably recommend Google Wi Fi. Check it out. It's sold at Costco or net Gear Orb. Right, those are the ones that we recommend, so check those out. I think it's unfortunately it's probably a problem on your end. Also, before you do any of that, just kind of move your your Wi Fi. Whatever spits out your Wi Fi signal, take that and physically move it to a higher place in your room and make sure it's not blocked by anything.
A lot of times people with these in cabinets they put them behind a TV or behind a picture frame. Make sure it's out in the open and kind of on a higher level, and see if that helps dissipate the signal, because Wi Fi signals are not very good at moving around things.
Do you recommend putting Wi Fi like in the center of your house.
Oh?
Absolutely, And also if there's two stories.
Like, yeah, get it as close to the center as you can.
Okay, yeah, oh wow, we really need It's actually.
Almost it's actually almost better to put it on the second floor because it can Wi Fi travels down like it kind of falls down, it kind of goes out, it emanates in almost like a donut. So if you can think of it that way, you want it in the center and you want it to fall down rather than.
Ryan definitely have the same problem machinery.
All right, that's going to do it for the show, if you can believe it. We discussed a lot in today's show. I was I know, call me an Apple fanboy, but I had to get through all the Apple news. But I just want to say thanks for listening to the show. Thanks to all of our new subscribers. I did find a problem in our subscription feed that was not going out to a lot of folks. So if you're listening for the first time this week or last week, thank you for being back on board. I did not
abandon you. I just had a problem when we switch providers and a lot of people didn't get the show for a month. So I feel really bad about that. But you're all back on board at this point. Again, we are part of the KTLA family at this point, So thanks to all of our new listeners. If you found us because of that, If you haven't subscribed and you're listening to this on a web page or you know, some random tweet or wherever you found it on the dark web, probably probably not fair Web.
We're not on the.
Dark Oh, we're not in the dark web. They're not listening to this on the dark web.
I can assure you that.
Please subscribe. If you haven't done so already, just search rich on Tech in your favorite podcast app. The ones I like are Apple podcasts. I like pocket Casts and Overcast are a few good ones. My book, if you don't have it, is called one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone. It is available on Amazon in paperback. And I guess that does make me not an Apple fanboy, but an Apple writer at least. I mean I do have you know, Like, yes, I know a lot about the iPhone, but I also know a
lot about Android too. Yeah, don't forget to sign up for a newsletter. It is at richon tech dot tv. Every week I send you a little newsletter that is highly personalized for everyone that gets it, and it just talks about all the stuff that I think you should know about as well. Producer Megan, you are off to Mexico. Yes, How exciting is that?
I'm very excited for a wedding. Yes, so, and then we're off to Shanghai.
Off to China. Looking forward to that. We'll have much more about that very soon, but safe travels to Mexico and also China. That's going to do it. Anything else to say before we go?
Everyone, have a great weekend
All right, I'm rich Demiro, have a great day, and we'll talk to you real soon