What is going on?
You are listening to rich on Tech Live. This is the show where we talk tech, give you the inside scoop on useful tech news, apps and websites. Plus I help you get the most out of your gadgets by answering your tech questions live. Hey, they're Umrich Tomro tech reporter at KTLA TV in Los Angeles. You can learn more about me at richontech dot TV. Welcome to everyone watching on Facebook Live and welcome to you listening no matter where. You are so happy you joined me today
on the show. Today we are gonna talk iPhone ten upgrade deals. We're gonna talk about Amazon's new security camera and the program where they drop off packages in your house. Are you ready for that? Plus I've got a new travel website that rewards you for booking with gift cards. And I'm gonna have some Halloween Easter eggs that you can use with Alexa. These are gonna be a lot of fun. Phone lines will be open in just a moment.
You can call them with your questions at three one zero five nine four three zero zero three three one zero five nine four three zero zero three. So if you're watching this live, you know that today is the big day for the iPhone pre orders. Well I should say tonight Friday, October twenty seventh, and let's talk about the iPhone ten. So iPhone ten goes on sale next Friday in the stores, but you can pre order it
starting Friday, October twenty seven. So some of you will be listening after that, but some of you are listening right now. So here's the deal iPhone ten. You know I played with it. My video on Facebook did twenty two million views, so man, there are a lot of people interested in this thing. It'll be available in silver and gray, in sixty four gigs and two hundred and fifty six gigs. So that one thousand dollars price, seeing
that's for the sixty four gig model. If you want to bump up, I don't know what the price is, but I think it's like eleven and fifty dollars for the two fifty six gig. WHOA, it's a lot of money here, folks. Now, Apple would like you to buy the phone through the Apple Upgrade iPhone Upgrade program. Okay, this is available at their Apple stores basically and Apple dot com. That will cost you fifty dollars a month, okay,
and I'm gonna go over all the carriers. I'm gonna go over eighteen and T, Verizon, T Mobile, and also Apple's programs as well. So Apple also has a iPhone trade up program, so you can trade in your eligible smartphone for up to three hundred and seventy five dollars in credit to lower the cost of the new phone.
And I you know, I'm kind of I'm kind of both ways on that because I love using your your old phone to upgrade, but most people don't have a paid off old phone, which is part of the problem. And also it's really nice. The beauty of iPhones is that they hold their value really well. So it's kind of nice that you can give your phone to someone else in your family like I usually do, because iPhones, even after the generation the new one comes out, the old ones are still pretty good.
So now that's just the phone itself.
Don't think that when you walk out of that don't think that when you walk out of that Apple store you're only going to be buying that phone. You're gonna be getting some accessories as well. So let me tell you about the new accessories that Apple has for the iPhone. Ten leather and silicone cases available in various colors. Those start at forty dollars. Then you've got a brand new leather case, which is the iPhone ten leather folio. That's going to be one hundred dollars, so ten percent of
the price of the phone for a case. Then they also have lightning docs for fifty dollars. So that's from that is from Apple. Now let's talk about what AT and T is doing. So as far as I can see, not much. I don't have anything on them just yet for what they're doing specifically for the iPhone, but they're doing the orderings tonight at three am October two, twenty seventh, so three am Eastern time, October twenty seventh for the pre orders at AT and T.
Let's see for delivery.
And they say iPhone ten will be amazing for watching direct TV now and all the entertainment you love. And I am a subscriber to direct TV Now, so I can't say it's a good little program for thirty I pay thirty five bucks a month, some grandfathered in from like day one, so yeah, their payment is thirty three dollars and thirty four cents times thirty months. So if you want to on AT and T, there you go. Let's talk Verizon. So Verizon, let's see, they're doing the
pre orders again Friday, October twenty seventh. They'll be available through the my Verizon app. They're really trying to get you to buy a phone through their app, which is kind of weird, so you can get up to So their deal at Verizon is that you can get up to three hundred dollars back on an iPhone ten with device payment when you sign up for a Verizon Unlimited and trade in a select phone for a limited time.
So I always tell people that the best.
Time to buy a phone is when the phone first goes on sale because that's when the carriers have the best deals. And it's always like that. So you wait a couple of weeks and you know, these deals go away. So I always recommend that if you think you want this, it really is the best time because right now you're getting that three hundred dollars trade in promo credit. That's pretty good. So let me tell you about this with Verizon, because there's a little bit of a catch and I
figured out something interesting about them. So Verizon has okay, so it's one thousand dollars minus your three hundred dollars trade in promo credit, and they apply that over twenty four months.
So let's actually do the math on that.
So if you take three hundred dollars divided by twenty four so you get twelve dollars and fifty cents off the price of the phone each month. And if we know our math, it's fifty dollars minus what I just say. It was fifty dollars minus twelve fifty, So fifty minus twelve fifty would be thirty seven dollars and fifty cents. And that's giving up your old phone. Now here's the caveat and all this. When you return your old phone, your old phone is probably worth more than three hundred dollars.
Now sometimes they're not, which is the best part of this deal.
So if you have a super old phone, it's actually better to get that three hundred dollars promo credit, because what they're doing is Verizon is taking a little bit of a hit there. They just want to get you on that new phone, so they're gonna give you more than your phone is actually worth. So you got to kind of weigh the pros and cons. If you have an iPhone seven, it's probably worth more than three hundred dollars.
So if I go to let's see, if I go to gazelle dot com, which is kind of a trade in recycling site, and this one really does not give you that much for your phone. But it's really easy to get rid of your phone through this website, gazell dot com. So if I go iPhone seven plus, let's say it's on AT and T and it's a standard thirty two gig phone, they are going to give me and I'm in good condition, Oh wow, They're gonna give me two hundred and eighty dollars. So Verizon is actually
a better deal in that scenario. So that is a pretty good deal one hundred bucks for the old one.
Now here's the thing.
I did talk to Verizon and I asked them about this. I said, Hey, that twenty four month credit thing, what if I pay off my phone early? And they said, no, Dice, you lose the extra credits. So you have to use your phone over twenty four months and in order to get those credits. So that's kind of a catch. It's not a contract, but what they're saying is Basically, if you pay off your phone early, then they're not going to give you that money off every month.
So I thought that was kind of interesting.
It's basically a way of keeping you on Verizon as long as you can.
Okay, let's see here.
So T Mobile, Okay, starting Friday, customers who trade in their qualifying iPhone will get up to three hundred dollars off their new iPhone ten or eight or eight plus via twenty four month credits on T Mobile's interest free installment plan. So again, T Mobile is doing the same thing. You have to stay on their installment plan for twenty four months to get that credit every month.
If you don't, guess what, you lose the rest of the credit.
So iPhone ten customers can get in on T Mobile's new iPhone upgrade program. So down the road, let's say you want to upgrade from the iPhone ten even though you just got it. Customers can trade in their iPhone ten when it's fifty percent paid off. So if you go to twenty four months, basically that'd be twelve months from now, so another year if you want to get the new iPhone ten, which maybe it'll be the iPhone eleven.
I guess T Mobile will wipe out your remaining payments you can upgrade to the next iPhone And yeah, I mean, let's see, so that'd be worth five hundred. You know, it's it's so confusing, isn't it so confusing? So here's the equipment installation plan on T Mobile. If you do a sixty four gigabyte phone and you put down two hundred and eighty dollars, you get the phone for thirty
dollars a month. If you do their Jump on Demand, which is zero down for a sixty four gig that's going to be forty one dollars and fifty six cents a month. Now I email T Mobile and I said, hey, what the heck is the difference between the T Mobile equipment installation installment plan and the Jump on Demand plan? And here's the answer I got. So let me get my friend here. Let's see, here's the answer I got. Okay,
So the difference is T iPhone upgrade program. That's like the best program they have, Okay, T Mobile, it's the simplest way basically.
Kay.
So that's it. So you okay, yeah, that's it.
You get you get the new phone for the price, plus you get up a three hundred dollars off your new phone via twenty four monthly installment.
So she mobile.
Okay, So that's the iPhone upgrade program. Then there's the Equipment Installation Plan, which is interest free for twenty four months. Then there's a Jump on Demand when you can you get the option to get a new device every thirty days. If you're on an eighteen month agreement. That's basically a lease that is not a purchase of the phone. So the other plans you can basically purchase the phone. The Jump on Demand you are leasing the phone.
Okay. Wow, so complicated.
And I'm not going to go over Sprint because uh, I'm not really recommending Sprint right now.
Let's see.
I know that's mean, right, let me let me look, let me see what Sprint's doing. But you know the other thing about Sprint is they're gonna be uh they're gonna be merging with T Mobile it sounds like anyway. So I don't see any special deal on Sprint. All I know is at Sprint. Okay, So you can save three hundred and fifty dollars by trading in your old phone, that's pretty good. So and you can upgrade every twelve months. Okay, so they're doing a pretty good very it's very competitive.
But here's the thing.
I have gone into these stores and I don't understand it. Ninety percent of the time I'm sitting there talking to the representative and I just like, my eyes are glazing over.
I just don't understand.
So if I don't understand it, I feel bad for you guys, because this is my life and that's all I'm doing is going through these things, and I just like, I literally don't understand. When I bought my wife's phone on AT and T, I bought it on one of those installment plans, and I could not understand what I was doing. I was like, all right, fine, at the end of the day, I'm just gonna sign and we'll see what happens. And I ended up paying it off and it was fine.
But it was so confusing.
So anyway, there you have it. iPhone ten. A lot of people waiting for this phone. It's going to be huge.
Next week.
You're gonna hear me talk a lot about it. So I apologize in advance. Next week's gonna be an iPhone week. So just so you know, all right, we got a lot going on on the show, so you guys stick around both online and on Facebook Live. Man, we got so much more to talk about. I'm gonna talk about Amazon's new security camera. Also, we've got Amazon's new service that lets delivery people open your front door and place your package inside.
Are you ready for that? I don't know. I'm kind of torn on that one. We got to talk about it.
Plus, we'll have your phone calls with your tech questions. The phone number is three one zero five nine four three zero zero three three one zero five nine four three zero zero three. You are listening to Rich on tech Live. I'm Rich Demiro. I'll be back with you in just a bit. Welcome back to Rich on tech Live, Demiro. This is the show where we talk about technology and give you some inside scoop on all the cool stuff
happening in the tech world. Taking your calls live at three one zero five nine four three zero zero three, and on the line, we've got a caller from.
Four to four zero four four zero. You're on with Rich.
Hey, Rich, how are you doing I'm doing fantastic? How are you doing?
Good?
So?
Who am I speaking with?
Nick?
Nick? Where are you calling from? I don't know where that four four zero is.
Cleveland, Ohio?
Oh wow, Cleveland. Are you watching on Fox eight? I hope, yes, awesome the Tech Report? All right, what's going on?
Nick?
So I'm gonna prevord to the iPhone ten? Uh actually tomorrow basically where Yeah, So I'm trying to figure out should I get the belkan H charging pad or the mofy one. I wonder which one'll be better for charging the iPhone ten.
Oh, that's a good question. So I've got the on let me put over here.
I've got uh, I've got the belt on my desk here, and I've got the Mophi on my desk at work. So you know, I I haven't really noticed a huge difference between them. I mean, I think that the thing about the phone is that you do have to hit a sweet spot when you charge it. So, and Nick is referring to the new wireless charging capability of both the iPhone eight and the iPhone ten. I don't have iPhone ten in my hands just yet, yes yet, But I do have the iPhone eight and it does have
the wireless charging and I love it. So, you know, how much are the prices any different on them?
I think they're They're pretty much the same, the Dulcan.
And the MOPy, So it really comes down to a matter of personal preference. And the only thing I will say, I'm noticing on the on the Belcan there is a little indicator light, which I kind of like because it tells me that my phone has hit the sweet spot and that it's lighting up, so I know, and I
don't remember seeing that on the the other one. So that might push me forward, because if you don't hit the sweet spot on the phones and you get it settled just right on the on the charging pad, it will sit there and not charge, and you don't want that to happen. So but but as you know, esthetically, the Belcan is white and the Mophy is black. As far as I know, I don't I don't know if they come in different colors, but those are the colors I have, so.
And they're both basically the same.
I mean, I'm just thinking back to putting my phone on my desk and I don't remember seeing it light up at all in any way. So I mean, your phone obviously comes to life for a second to know that it's on, that it's charging. But I like the indicator light on the Belcon, so that might push me over to the Belcon for my if I'm going to choose one. So you know, these companies send these things
to me to try out. So that's kind of how why I have both of them right now, because they both wanted me to see how their charging system works.
But I think that's that would be.
A defining factor for me with the Balcon one is the little light because the indicator light, you can't really discount the importance of not having to kind of mess with your phone every couple of minutes to make sure that it's still charging.
So that's what I'd go for. Okay, cool, you you excited.
I am a very excited li iPhones sand. Yeah, I'll be up pre ordering it online.
So what's the deal with the pre order because I'm not doing that, So what's the deal with that?
What's the I.
Mean, hold on, hang on here, what's the what's the deal with that? So it's it's three am.
I think yeah, it's three am, yeah for the East Coast, and then West coast I think it's twelve am.
Okay, interesting, Yeah.
So so three am forre Its Coast, I'll be up the reason I want to pre order it because I don't know if it's going to sell out and then before I get to like a store, and then I will be able to get till twenty eighteen.
Yeah, no, exact it.
I agree, you got this thing. I'm not now, I don't. I don't have any inside knowledge on this. I don't know anything more than anyone else. But I have a feeling this is going to be very tough to get, so I would say, yeah, this is going to be tough. So and it's weird because I think it's interesting for people to pre order stuff that they've never seen before, you know what I mean. But at the same time, yeah, it's it's you gotta do it, you know what I mean, if you know you want it.
I've never ordered I've never pre ordered a phone before until when I saw the iPhone ten because the brand new you know, pre order a phone.
Yeah, well, and and you know a lot of people order them because they kind of know what they're going to get with Apple.
It's going to be good. It's not you know, it's going to be high quality.
And believe me, I played with this thing, and you know I played with it at the Apple event and it was great, and believe me, it was very nice and for a first generation phone of this quality and kind of what they've done here, it's it's pretty darn nice. And I love the size because it's in between the eight and the eight plus, so.
It's a really nice size too.
See.
I like it too because I have a seven plus right now, which is like a five point five in screen display. With the ten you get a regular sized phone and more screen in the Plus.
Yep, like we'll not, yeah exactly, because it's it's takes up much more of the screen. So I think you're gonna love it. I'm looking forward to playing with it next week.
I can't wait.
Uh.
It's weird because you know, I go to these Apple events and I get to play with this stuff.
But it's like a whirlwind, you know what I mean.
You get it so fast, and it's like they take it out of your hand and then you're like okay, and then people are asking me questions like, well, wait, how is the screen?
Was it brighter? Was it this? I'm like, oh, I can't remember because it was so fast.
It all happened so fast, But but I do remember being very impressed with a first generation kind of bezeleless phone from Apple. So it's gonna take a little getting used to the new swipe functionality, but I think you're gonna be okay.
Okay, Well, thank you. I really appreciate it.
All right, Nick, I appreciate it.
Thanks for watching out there in Cleveland, Ohio. And let's just go right to our next caller in the two.
Six to two area code. Two six to two. You are on with Rich.
Appreciate it.
Hey, what's going on?
Please lower your radio behind you so I can hear you properly. Okay, we can't get that one, so we're going to go to eight o five eight oh five, you are on with Rich.
Hey, Rich, do you have a quick question for you?
This is Jr.
From cama Rio.
Hey, Jr.
Eight, I've got a new Apple eight sixty four gig and I've been hearing these really strange train sounds coming from the device, not touching it. Did you just hear like a train horn? Have you heard anything like that?
A train? Like a notification sound?
Yeah, like a notification sound. But I've got no applications open or anything, and I've heard it like three times.
The only thing I can times The only thing I can think of is because it's funny because I just heard a sound like that on my phone the other day, and I think it's Facebook. I think Facebook might be serving up that sound because I don't have notifications generally turned on on my phone, but I think Facebook is doing that, So I don't know. Maybe the commenters on Facebook Live will join in, but I've noticed with my phone now I wear an Apple Watch, so it's kind
of weird sometimes I see notification. Like basically, what I'm saying is, sometimes I've heard noises coming from my phone and I look at it and I don't see a notification associated with it, so I'm kind of confused.
I don't think you were hacked. I don't think.
The only thing I would say is go into your notifications and you know, turn off Facebook notifications fully and see if that helps. But I think I'm kind of sure that that's what I've been hearing on Facebook as well, so hopefully that helps. I mean, unless Apple's playing some prank on us and giving us the train whoosh.
Yeah, yeah, that's strange because, like I said, I checked on the Apple support the other day on when I first heard it, and they're saying that it's it's been told before that people are hearing these sounds.
That's weird.
Oh I don't know, maybe some kind of software glitch.
Yeah, I know.
The only the only glitch I did hear of was the the glitch that made the the audio crackley from the speaker or the headset of the phone. You know, if you have your ear up to the heads that you know the earpiece, and my phone actually did have that problem and they did fix it with a software update, so I don't hear that anymore.
So that could be at JR. But man, what a weird What a weird thing.
I know, when you hear a notification sound that you're not familiar with, you're like, wait, what's going on? And if you don't see it, it's really confusing. So great question. Thanks for calling from CAMERIOH. So, who is ready to have Amazon open your front door? Amazon announced two things this week that are really strange but also kind of interesting. So the first is a cloud camera, so they're now competing with the nests of the world, the Logitech Circle Cam.
And this is a one twenty dollars camera that works with Alexa and it features HD resolution, night vision two A audio, twenty four to seven live stream, and algorithms that detect motion. And the cool thing about this is that you can say, Alexa, show me my blank cam, you know, whatever you call it, and you'll just see it right on your if you have an Alexa show or if you have an Echo spot, or if you have a fire TV or a fire tablet.
So that's really cool.
So you know, this is a competitive place now. These home security cameras. I've got a couple of them, and I love them.
They're just great. They really are nice. They give you peace of mind.
You can record twenty four to seven, you can go back and see what's going on.
What I like about this one.
Let's take a look at the It basically comes with the essentials for keeping an eye on your home, including access to the last twenty four hours of clips. So that's an advantage right there if you get a Nest camera. If you get a Nest they do not give you access to the last twenty four hours. It's literally just a live stream. So if you wanted to go back and see something that happened, you couldn't unless you pay. So with the Amazon one, you're actually getting a free
day worth of going back. Now, if something were to ever happen in your home, and hopefully it doesn't, this would come in handy because you would get to see review what happened with the camera, and so you can go back for twenty four hours and that's free. So Basic here, So if you want to get thirty days or I'm sorry, if you want to get more than just twenty four hours, you can get seven dollars a month for Basic that gives you seven days for up
to three cameras. Extended gives you ten dollars a month for fourteen days, and pro gives you twenty dollars a month for thirty days for up to ten cameras. So this is this is very competitive. And yes, I apologize to the folks in the live stream for saying that word with the A not Amazon, the other one, because I know it activates everything, so sorry, I normally don't do that.
But this is very competitive.
I pay I think seventy five dollars a year for just one Nest cam for the I think it's ten days.
So this is this is this is big.
Amazon is really trying to get into the space. So but here's what they really.
Want you to do. Amazon wants you to.
Let their survey people open up your door so they're delivery people. This is a new service called Amazon Key. I'm sure you've heard of this because it's been talked about in the news a lot. But this is going to be available in thirty seven cities across the US, including Los Angeles and many others, and it will grant your access to your house when the delivery person comes.
But not just delivery people, also all the other things that Amazon is trying to sell on their service on their site now, including made service, dog walking service, and also professional services like you know, hanging a camera or hanging maybe mounting your camera or mounting your TV. But again, the camera is called the Amazon Cloud Cam. And here's the deal. Starting November eighth, when you order on Amazon, if you have this new Amazon Key program, literally when
you're checking out, you select in home delivery. So instead of saying one day, two day, same day, you say in home and they will come to your house. And Amazon is not doing this, They don't get access to your house.
Through a key.
What you have to do is you have to replace the lock on your door with a special smart lock and that this starts at tw hundred and.
Fifty bucks, by the way, not cheap.
So you get a smart lock, and what happens is when the delivery driver gets near your home, they request access. Amazon verifies via GPS that they're at your house, and then the cloud cam which I just told you about, starts recording, and then your door is unlocked. So no access codes or keys are ever provided to delivery drivers. And you also get Amazon's happiness guarantee. And some folks on the chat are saying that we don't get twenty four to seven live stream with the let's see, Yeah,
you get twenty four hours of clips. So I'm not sure with the camera what that means with clips, So I guess maybe every time it sees motion it will make a little it'll trigger a recording, so you might not be able to scrub back the whole twenty four hours. So but yeah, the Amazon key is really fascinating to me. So the the other thing you could do not just get your package. So basically they open your door, they
slip your package inside, the camera records it. It sends you a little notification on your phone that says, hey, your package was delivered. Here's a video of it, here's proof, and then they close your door and they walk away and this okay, So why does Amazon want to do this? Well, because a lot of times what happens with Amazon is people Amazon no longer requires deliveries on like ninety nine percent of things you buy from them, even if it's
an expensive item, which is crazy. But the problem is Amazon's numbers. People have crunched the numbers and said, you know what, it's cheaper for us to send out another five hundred dollars gadget than to request a signature because that takes time and energy.
So they just figure it's all built.
Into the price of the products nowadays. And what they're saying is with this new program, they can cut down on the shrinkage as they call it, which is basically theft packages stolen from front doors. And Amazon has done the numbers. Believe me, their data driven company, they know that people are going to do this and it's going
to be better for them. So the other thing you can do once you have this is that you can also get a maid service from Merrymaids, pet sitters and dog walkers from Rover and also twelve hundred services from other providers across sixty professions. So basically, what I'm saying is, if you need your toilet unclogged while you're at work. Let's say you leave for work in the morning, the
toilet's clogged, you literally request a plumber through Amazon. They will come to your house, open your front door, do whatever they need to do, and walk out. How crazy is that? This is the world that we live in today. Just amazing Amazon, Amazon Key, and Amazon Cloud Cam. Who's going to be signing up? Tell me how it goes for you. You're listening to rich on Tech Live. More of your calls after this. Plus I'm going to talk about a new travel website that rewards you for booking through
them with gift cards. Plus I've got a great video editing app for your phone, both iPhone and Android, so stay around for that and I'll have more of your calls after this at three one zero five nine four three zero zero three three one zero five nine four three zero zero three More of rich on tech Live after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech Live. I'm rich Demiro talking tech with you on this wonderful day. Thanks so much for joining me. I appreciate it and
uh more about me At richontech dot TV. We've got a caller now from the nine oh nine area code nine oh nine you are on with Rich What's on?
What's on your mind? Today?
It's Sam from pimone. I got another quick question for you. Hey, Sam, Hey, I just finally got around and hooking up my Xbox one and I don't have enough hdm my hookups in the back of my TV. Now. I know they make these four and five into one deals, but does anybody make one that's you know, that like switches automatically when the unit is on.
Ooh, that's a good question. I don't know.
I don't think so, because the problem is that would be expensive. I mean, these these systems you know you're talking about you're referring to. It's like, I think it's called CEC, which is like component control or something like that. But basically all the new gadgets like an Apple TV will when you press it, you know, when you press the power button on the Apple TV remote, it will turn on your TV and tune it to the right input HDMI input. So that's kind of what you're referring to.
I don't know of one of those that does that. The best place to look for something like that sam is monoprice dot com. The only other thing I could recommend is maybe look for one that has a remote control. I know a lot of them have little remotes, but from what I've seen, all these Hdmi switchers are about fifty bucks and they're all pretty cheap. And you know, the one that you decide to get, you know, it could be good, it could be bad. It's just you got to kind of look at the reviews and see
what people like. But I don't know one that switches by itself off the top of my head, but I think that the best place you would go to find that would be something like Monoprice. The reality is with the I know, if you have an older TV and you know the HDMI ports are kind of at a premium, it could be a challenge. And I it's weird because I with my old TV, I almost got one of those switchers, but I ended up.
I didn't want to.
I want to do anything possible to avoid those switchers because they're not it's not a clean setup. I like a clean setup. So my father in law he actually has one, and you know he's got a I think it's a push button or it could have remote.
I'm not really sure. But he likes it. It's great.
I mean he he wanted it because he was going from fireTV to Apple TV. He had some shows on one, some shows on the other. But I think he's uh, I think he's settled on fireTV. He likes that slightly better than the Apple TV because it's faster. Good question, Sam three one zero five nine four three zero zero three three one zero five to nine four three zero zero three.
Phone lines are open.
So let me tell you about this new website called upside dot com. This is a new travel website and it's from the guy who founded priceline dot com. Remember that website, Priceline. I was one of the first people ever to use Priceline. By the way, I was in a price line ad back in the day, if you can believe it, because I heard about this website Priceline dot com, and I bought tickets to Vegas, two tickets via plane for twenty dollars each because I named my
own price, and I thought this was amazing. I told everyone I knew about it, and no one believed me. Right, and then they emailed a bunch of people that use this website first you know, Priceline, and they said, hey, will you send it a picture?
We want to use you guys in an ad.
So I sent him my picture and next thing you know, I'm in USA today, my little tiny picture. And I asked Jay I interviewed him recently, and I said, hey, do you remember those ads?
I was in it?
And he said, oh, my gosh, I do. Anyway, he's back with a new website called upside dot com. And the difference with this website is that they give you a gift card for booking through them.
So today I looked at a flight.
It was a standard price, same price as it was on every other website. But with this upside dot com, if you book through there, you basically get a ten dollars Amazon gift card. So why not, you know, if you can get something extra. So here's the deal. They've got a couple of things that they do differently. They have this new big data travel engine, so it shows you the top six flight choices and the top six hotel choices that when you buy them together, save you
money and help you on your business trip. So this is mainly for business travelers. That's kind of what they're doing.
So they you know, it's like basically when I book I book my.
Own flights for work, and it's a lot of work.
You're always comparing, you know, this and that. So I noticed today when I went on Upside and kind of looked up a sample flight, it kind of picked times at the like the top flights were like the perfect times for business travelers, Like they're not gonna give you a red eye, They're gonna give you like the flight was at a perfect time in the morning, perfect time in the afternoon, and I thought it was great and it was really fast to kind of find my flights.
So when you purchase a trip, you get a gift card at Amazon or fifty other retailers, and once you select your flight in your hotel, they actually show you another kind of itinerary that might save you some money
or get you a bigger gift card. So I'm guessing on the back end they've got some deals with certain hotels where you're like, hey, I want to book a Weston and you kind of go through the whole flow of booking, and then at the end, before you press book, they say Hey, by the way, if you stay at a Let's see, because Marriott's the same Let's see Weston.
Oh.
If you stay at Hyatt, we'll give you an extra twenty dollars on your gift card because they have a deal with that Hyatt.
So that's what I'm guessing they're doing. I don't know that to be true, but that would make sense.
That's a great business model, by the way, because when it comes to booking hotel rooms, I mean realistically, they're kind of all the same. Let's be honest. You're staying at a standard hotel room like a Hampton In. I mean, what's the difference between that and a residence in.
Not much. I personally like Hampton In. It's better.
But that's my favorite cheap hotel, by the way, and it's not even that cheap anymore. It used to be like one hundred bucks a night. Now it's like I've seen them for like two three hundred. I'm like, what for a Hampton. You also get your Frequent Flyer miles no Worries credit card points. But here's the other thing
they do at upside dot com. They also give you a twenty four to seven concierge level customer service by phone, chat and text, so basically you have the same customer service that you would get if you were traveling on a big corporate budget. So I think it's really interesting. And you can still cancel all your flights and everything, and you're well, your flights obviously have all these crazy rules, but the hotel rooms are not sort of prepaid, so you're good.
You can still cancel them and change them if you need to. There it is upside dot com.
It's meant for kind of entrepreneurs, small businesses, people that don't have the giant concurs of the world. So that's what we use at our work is Concur, which is kind of a big, big corporate travel company. Funny, I was in Cabo and who is partying like crazy having a giant party at my hotel? But Concur the big company that I have to justify all of my expense reports too.
So I'm sitting there.
In Cabo on vacation and I go up to the Concur people. I'm like, oh, you guys are having a nice, big fun party and I gotta justify my three dollars Starbucks to your software program, thank you very much, And they laughed, But that's what it is. It's all like algorithmic. It's like it kind of looks through your expense report and makes you justify things that it thinks are sort of out of the norm. Three one zero five nine four three zero zero three is the phone number. The
lines are open. You can call in right now. Three one zero five nine four three zero zero three. Let me tell you about a cool app that I am just digging. I was on this panel last week, and you know, we asked the panelists kind of some of their tools and tricks and tips and all that good stuff, and this one was really cool and I never even heard of it. It's called video Shop, and this lets you edit video on your iPhone or your Android. Video Shop is the is the app, and basically video Shop
is two dollars. I bought it for the iPhone and it's also for Android, so two bucks. And it does everything. I mean, from what I've seen, this is really full feature, so.
Check it out.
It lets you do sound effects, it lets you do music, you can trim out little parts of the video you don't want.
You can do slow motion, combined.
Clips, reverse duplicate subtitles, animated titles, filters, transitions, photos and it's it's really cool. I used it the other day to make a little compilation video on Snapchat. I took like five little pictures and put them together.
It was so easy.
Video Shop is the website. And by the way, I'll put all this stuff on the on my website. Rich on tech dot tv, I have show notes for each podcast and you can see them there. All right, three one zero, you're on with Rich three one zero? What's going on? Who am I talking to?
Hi?
Hi?
Who's this rock Sandecan? How you doing today?
Thanks? Rich? I love your week.
It cool.
I have a qritch. I'm okay, I'm okay. I'm a little concerned about I have an iPhone Success Plus, which I love. I actually I edit and I even edit on the phone.
It's really great.
Comes with the I movie. But I noticed the latest OS up up upgrade. I know I'll have to get a new phone soon. I notice the my phone drains faster, my battery dreams faster. And I don't know if that's an because the OS update, or it's just my phone is aging.
Or well, it's probably a little bit of both.
Now have you done all the updates that have come out, because there's been like four of them, I think, or three. Okay, so you've done them all, okay, and and so you've restarted your phone and it still happens. It drains like faster, like like significantly faster than you remember.
It's it's after you know, I particycle like crazy, and it's still it's still draining. And it's funny because I just put up five K this, my five K Retina Apple Apple, my iMac.
It's great.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Really it seems like it's oh, they're great, and and it seems like it's even Maybe it's also I don't know, because it's really changed because the iPhone and the computer, you know, they sink in like automatically, and maybe that's it too. I don't know if that's all in my mind.
It was well, okay, what do you mean they sink automatically? Are you plugging it into sync or are you doing wireless sink?
Well? I do, I defin to do both well if.
You yeah, if you're doing if you're doing wireless sink, you know through iTunes, that could be draining the battery if it's sitting next to your computer all day and it's doing that like over and over.
It could be a couple things. So here's what I recommend.
So first off, I think that you have to go through your phone, and it could be because your phone is aging.
A little bit.
You said this was a success or a six success plus. Okay, okay, success plus. I mean that's really not that old, so you should not have problems. The only thing, when did you get this phone? Like, did you buy it when it first came out, like the first day?
No?
I bought it last year in Okay.
So you didn't get one of the first batches because the first batch of six S devices were definitely recalled because of battery issues. My wife's was part of that, and I brought it to the Apple store and they gave her a new battery. So I would go on the website, Go on Apple. Okay, let me tell you what to search. Okay, so go to Apple battery replacement. Okay, sorry, Apple battery recall. Let me see if that brings it up. So if you go to Okay, here it is so
iPhone success program for unexpected shutdown issues. Now this just says six S, but I'm not sure if it means success and success plus put in your serial number, okay, and it will tell you if your battery is one of the recalled batteries. Now I put in my wife's serial number and boom, it was immediately recalled. I brought it into the Apple store two days later. She had not a brand new phone, but they just replaced the battery.
And what would happen is the telltale sign is that your battery drains really fast, and it could be that it could be just something else on your phone after the upgrade. But what I'd recommend to do Roxand is look at that first off. And then the second thing I would do is I would look at what you have installed on your phone, So go through, get rid of all the apps you don't need, reset your phone,
see if that helps. And then the third thing I would do is go through in your settings and look at your location services and make sure all the apps that you think don't need access to your location all the time set that to only when using this app, and hopefully that helps. Otherwise you can go nuclear on it, and you can wipe the entire phone, and then you can start over and install everything once again on the phone.
So hopefully that helps.
I know your success should not be breaking down at this point. I mean it's not that old so and the new update, I mean, yeah, you might take a little battery hit, but it shouldn't be that bad. I think something's hanging up on this phone. So good question, Roxanne. Thanks so much for calling in today. I appreciate it. All right, coming up more of your calls at three one zero five nine four three zero zero three.
We're gonna check social.
Media and uh we'll wrap it up. You're listening to Rich on tech Live. I'm Rich Dmiro will be all right back.
Welcome back to Rich on tech Live. I'm your host, Rich DeMuro.
We are talking about technology and taking your calls live at three one zero five nine four three zero zero three.
Thanks for joining me today.
It's been a blast. Three one zero five nine four three zero zero three. Let's go to the nine O nine area code nine O nine you're on with Rich.
Hello.
Hello, Hi, who am I speaking with? My Name's are Vella Arvela. How you doing today?
Doing good? Thank you?
I have a question.
Sure I got a sam Fun fifty inch smart TV about four years ago and is months ago. All of a sudden the picture went dark, so I believe if they have picture tubes whatever nowadays they have must be burnt out. I still had full audio. Okay, My question is in that it was only four years old. Do you have a recommendation on a TV that I actually I went online and this is apparently a common problem.
Well, okay, let me just tell you one thing real quick about the common because I see this a lot. Like basically, anything you search online, you'll find someone that had the same thing happened. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a common thing. Like I will look for the most minute things that are happening with my gadgets, and like someone will say that this similar thing happened. So it doesn't mean it's necessarily common. But yes, someone could have
experienced it. But the whole Okay, so the screen is dark, and but you still hear sound.
What can I help you with a recommendation? Maybe on a brand that I thought Samsung's were supposedly good. Also, I hear sonis are good. But four years for a TV?
Yeah, no, way fifty yeah, no, that a TV does not last. No, four years is a lifetime of a TV is way longer. I had my visio for I think six years and it was still just perfect exactly. And now my newer TVs they're going, they're going, you know, they're a little bit you know, they're a little bit newer, but they're just fine. No, a TV should last longer. Was there anything that happened to this TV? Did it get dropped, did it get water? Anything that could have been weird about it?
No, I was just sitting there watching it. It was actually on, and all of a sudden the screen went dark.
Okay, so now some people in the past have said that this could be an overheating problem. It could have you tried spraying some canned air into the back of it cleaning it out. I have not, Okay, so that could be one thing. So what I do first is, I mean, do you like this TV? Or you are you fine with buying a new TV because new TVs
are not that expensive these days. Although I feel like I understand that you feel a little bit burned by getting a TV that's only four years old and you got to pay for a new one, so you just want to get a new one and cut your losses or do you want to try to make this thing work?
Well, I don't want to pay for repair because at.
That point, yeah, exactly, I understand, because if you pay for repair that's three four hundred bucks. You can get a new TV for that price. So here's my rankings of TVs. So if you want the best value in a TV, I would recommend going with a Viseo.
So I have a Visio as my main TV. It's fantastic.
I mean the colors when I compare it to my Sony TV are definitely not as good. It's just not as good quality. But does that mean that when people come to my house you're like, oh, this TV is horrendous. No, No, you don't notice if you're not looking at them faced to you know, side by side. But once you see a Sony you will say, oh my gosh, you know this is this is crazy? How much better it is? So what I think at the pinnacle at the top is definitely Sony. And then after that I would say
that LG and Sam's are both really good. Now you don't want to get another Samsung because you already feel like you've gotten burned by them.
So that leaves LG.
So Sony's going to be really expensive, so you probably don't want that one. I would probably recommend an LG or a Visio. I mean, I think Visio. I can't recommend video enough. I was actually the first person in the nation to recommend and showcase Viseo on the Today Show going back ten years now. Can you believe that?
And I'll never never forget. I couldn't believe it because I was I was at Senet at the time, and I remember this guy at Visio emailing me and saying, Hey, this a forty two inch TV for two thousand bucks. And at the time, every other TV that I tested was like closer to three or four thousand dollars, And I said, how can you do that? And sure enough that company you've seen him. I mean, they're everywhere. They have sold so many TVs. Now there's two other TVs
I like that I can recommend. If you want to get a smart TV with the smarts built in. There's a really nice TV from Roku and TCL. It's called the TCL Roku TV, So that one's really nice. And then another one I really like is from Amazon called the Amazon Element TV. And if you go on their website, just search Amazon Element. And the cool thing about those two TVs is that one has Roku built in, which is a nice Roku interface, and one has one has
Amazon Fire TV built in. And not only do they have those built in, you can also attach an antenna to those TVs and watch your local programming, which is really nice in.
This day and age.
Oh whoa, Okay.
Yeah, so and I know, I know.
Obviously any TV can take an antenna, but not necessarily. These integrate it into the smart TV screen, so that's the big difference. Of course, you can always switch an input, but this makes it on your main TV. So I've tested both of those TVs.
They're really cool.
They're a great price point, so I think that that would probably be a good good value for you.
So perfect I wrote it all down.
Okay, thank you so much.
Watch your show every day.
Oh well, thank you so much for calling. I appreciate it. Thanks so much.
All right, wow you guys fast and furious with the questions here, let me get two questions real quick. Let me just do one question here real quick. Okay, this is from is Darro is Isidro?
Is it ro?
I don't know, Sorry I totally butchered your name, but here's the question. Mister Demiro was wondering where my wife and I can sell are used but an excellent shape, Galaxy Note fours and Galaxy S fives. We have two of each and recently opted out for iPhone sevens. Ooh, your time and help are greatly appreciated. Well, here's the deal. So what I would say, I would try Facebook first. That's the first place to sell these things. And I'm
not saying Facebook marketplace. Just put a post on Facebook and say, hey, anyone want to buy a Galaxy Note four or a Galaxy S five. You never know, you've got a lot of friends out there someone might need a new phone. That's my first place because that's going to be you cheapest because it doesn't cost you anything and you can do the transaction with your friends or your neighbors. Then here's my rankings. If you want the
most money but the most work, go on eBay. So eBay is going to be the most work to sell your phone, but you're also going to get the most return on it. And now both these phones Galaxy S five Galaxy Note four that you're not gonna get very much for these they're not worth that much, but you know you will find someone to buy them, I assume. But you're not gonna get that much. At least on eBay, you'll get a fair market price because you know it's a perfect store. Glide g l yde. This is a
place to buy and sell phones. Now you don't have to do that much work with Glide, but you also don't get as much. So I'm going down the list here, so you're getting less and less everything I mentioned. But Glide might not support these two models. You can definitely sell iPhones on there and some of the newer Samsungs, but not maybe not these devices.
So that's Glide g l y d E.
And finally, if you want to just unload these things as fast as you can, just go to get zel dot com and Gazelle is fast. That's the name that will be the fastest way to unload a phone, but you also get the very least And if you want to do it locally, there's a service called Eco ATM. You can look up those in your area. They're owned by Coinstar, and you literally just deposit your phone in
this thing. It's like a little recycling kind of electronics recycling bin, but it's digital, so you throw your phone in there and it gives you like a little gift card for whatever it's worth. These phones will not be worth very much, so good question. Thanks for asking that. All right, before we go, let me just tell you some Alexa Easter egg So if you haven't, oh gosh, I said it again. Sorry if you have one of
those Amazon Smart sneakers. If you have an Amazon Smart Speaker, here's some of the things you can say for Halloween. You can say, blank, what should I be for Halloween?
Blank? What's your favorite scary movie? Blank? What are you being for Halloween? Blank?
Let's get spooky? Blank, sing a spooky song. Or you can ask for some Halloween jokes. You can ask for some Halloween hacks. And if you have kids at home, you can do Scooby Doo Mystery theater. This is an interactive storytelling skill for kids and families. So basically all you have to do is say, oh, you have to enable the skill and say blank open Scooby Doo. And I think if you just say that to a it will say I don't have that skill yet, can you please?
You want me to enable that skill? And then you can enable the skill. So again blank open Scooby Doo. So, if you want to have some fun with miss A. You can say what's your favorite scary movie?
What are you being for Halloween? Halloween jokes?
And if you're into Stranger Things, I've got some Halloween some Stranger Things Easter eggs for you, so you can say ay yes. And by the way, I see on the Facebook Live Adam asks can a spit out candy? Yes, she can because you can order stuff through her, so you can ask for hey, order me some candy.
Try saying to A for Stranger Things? Are we in the upside down? Friends? Don't lie? Do you like waffles? Now?
I only watched the first episode of Stranger Things, so I guess I need to catch up on that. So I'm not versed on the whole waffle hack, but I know that's a recurring theme because Lift is doing some rides with a Stranger Things mode, and I guess the waffle is there too.
That's gonna do it? Wow, thanks so much for joining me today.
Yeah, well, usually I do a little rapid fire segment here, but I think I think we're run out of time here, so I gotta go. You can find me on the KTLA five Morning News on weekdays around five point fifteen seven fifty and nine thirty am. You can also see me on various stations around the US. Check your local listings. Well, you can't really check your local listings because you won't find me on there, but if you see me pop up on your local news, then just wave at the TV.
Don't forget to check out my website rich on tech dot tv, where I have links to everything I mentioned here and on air, And please subscribe to this podcast. Just search rich on tech in your favorite podcasting app. If you're on iOS, my favorite is Overcast, and if you're on Android.
It's pocket Casts. And also tell your friends, because come on, don't keep me a secret.
We want to get in front of as many people as possible. That's gonna do it for me. I'm rich Damiro. I will see you next time. Thanks so much for listening to rich on Tech Live.
