Apple goes green

Welcome to the folks watching live on Instagram. So you know, every so often I am inspired to try something new and different, and of course today it backfired just a little bit because I went on Instagram and next thing, you know, everyone's saying on the live chat that, oh, Rich, I can't hear you your status key. And then of course I got to spend you know, ten fifteen minutes trying to figure out what's going on. What you know, is it the cable? Like you know, what's the setup?

Because you know, not only does the Instagram app change every week, but also you know this setup, like I've got my setup here that I've actually now kind of kept in one place. But things just change, like technology changes every day and that is why I'm here. That

is why I'm here for you. So lots going on in the week, lots going on in the world, continuing to watch the situation over in Ukraine, which is basically making me sick on a daily basis, So you know, thoughts to anyone that has any family in that region. I feel for you, and you know, I just feel for the world at large right now, because it just feels like we're in a very volatile situation that can

change very quickly. And the unfortunate part is that we literally just came out of the worst two years ever in my lifetime with the pandemic, and now or hopping into a war that just seems to be very confusing. And you know, I mentioned this last week. I don't want to harp on it, but you know, the idea of all these people that have been displaced, not to mention people that have been hurt or killed, it's just unnecessary.

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

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

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

it's really an unfortunate situation in so many ways. All Right, let's uh, let's get to the big news of the week other than, of course what's happening in the world. But Apple did hold their first event of the year, and it was a how can we say, yanner? I mean, I don't want to knock Apple, because you know, they're they're look, they're coming out with stuff, they're doing things. But the reality is this event was not their most exciting. And I have no doubt that this computer that they

came out with is just phenomenal. But you know, ninety nine percent of people are not purchasing that computer. So most people when they're looking at Apple are looking at, you know, the iPhone. They're looking at maybe an iPad. But I mean, look, you bought an iPad. Like we just talked to Matt in the pre show on Instagram Live and he said that he had one of the original iPads he's replacing the screen on, So look how

long that has lasted him. I get emails from people all the time, they're like, oh, I've got this going on with the iPad and this and that. I said, look, before you buy a new one, you know, start by refreshing the old one. Either do a factory reset, fix the crack whatever. Now, fixing a crack screen on an iPad is very expensive, as Matt realized, and so it's not necessarily a thing you want to do is spend you know, three four hundred bucks to replace a screen

on an old gadget. But anyway, so a couple of things that Apple announced. Number one, I mean, they led with like an iPhone thirteen in green, and then an iPhone thirteen Pro and Alpine green. Come on, I mean, it's okay, that's cool, but like, is that really like big big news? No. Then they came out with an iPhone se three. Now this is actually pretty cool. This is their most inexpensive iPhone. It starts at four hundred and twenty nine dollars, which is actually a thirty dollars

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

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

this phone. You're buying this phone that's kind of like the entry level device, but you're getting the top of the line processor, which is pretty phenomenal. So this again four hundred and twenty nine dollars, available March eighteenth. If

you like a home button, go with that phone. Otherwise, I personally would probably recommend the iPhone thirteen, And I've told people to skip the iPhone twelve at this point if you're purchasing a new phone, because that is the first time that Apple had five G on their devices, and the battery just not as strong. So the battery life on the iPhone twelve's not as good as what I've seen in the iPhone thirteen. Of course, on my

iPhone thirteen, the battery has taken a huge hit. I'm running a beta version of the software, which I should probably exit because the battery is just so bad on my phone at this point, and I keep waiting for the new beta to get better, but it's just not. My battery just goes dead really fast. Let's see iPad Air with the M one processor again. The M one processor is Apple's top of the line, their own silicon that they've made, and so it's really fast. It's really amazing.

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

So this is the iPad Air. It's got that M one chip, The USB cport is twice as fast, it's got five g if you pay an extra two hundred and fifty dollars. Cellular used to be an extra hundred bucks. Now it's up to two fifty extra everything. I mean, I don't know if you're like me, but like every day I wake up and I check my email and like some kind of price has gone up, like whatever it is. It's like, oh, Netflix is a dollar more

this month, Hulu's a dollar more this month. Oh your alarm system is three dollars more this month, You're I mean everything. I mean, it's just it's pretty wild. I think that because of inflation and all these different prices, Like, yes, like things cost more. But I also think that like pretty much every company is just jumping on the bandwagon and saying, oh yeah, let me let me raise rates too, because we can. Everyone just assumes prices are going to

be more expensive. Right now, Let's see, it also got an improved twelve megapixel camera which supports center stage and uh, that's basically it all right, now, let's talk about Apple's Mac studio. So Apple came out with a new processor called the M one Ultra. They basically took two of their top of the line chips and mushed them together to create one mega chip. I mean, it just sounds like something out of like a sci fi horror movie, right, like they just put these two chips are like and

it works. So this is like their fastest chip ever. Fastest desktop computer ever. The Max Studio kind of looks like a Mac Mini, but it's got a lot more power, a lot more ports, and it's let's see, it's got four thunderbolt four ports. Let's see an Ethernet port, two USBA ports, HDMI port, audio jack, and then on the front you've got two USB C ports and an SD card slot. This thing can also run eighteen simultaneous video

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

old product. They say that thing, oh that was a heap of trash. This thing this is ten times faster than that that just came out last year. And so it's just I love how they do that, and yes, this stuff is still good. This is why I talk about this this thing with Apple where when you when you're looking to upgrade your Apple product, you almost want to buy it like the first day it comes out. And let me explain why. So every Apple product is on like this ticking time bomb clock of it's going

to be upgraded in the next year. So when you buy the iPhone thirteen, right from the day you get it, the time is already ticking down to when the iPhone fourteen is going to come out and blow this thing out of the water. And so to get the real cutting edge use out of their devices, you basically have to buy them on the first day they're available so that you have that full year of sort of use before the new one comes out. And yours is old

old uh you know, old news. I mean, it's kind of a joke, but that's the way I see it in my head. So this Max Studio computer is going to start at two thousand dollars using the M one max chip, and then the M one Ultra, which is their newest processor. That one's going to start at four thousand dollars. But wait, there's more. They also introduced a new monitor that is sixteen hundred dollars. This computer at

four thousand dollars does not come with a monitor. So the Mac the studio display is this super high end monitor that has all kinds of stuff. It has its own chip built in, so it actually is powered by like the same chip that's in an iPhone. It's just that powerful because it does it has like a camera and speakers and all this stuff. So pretty wild stuff from Apple. Nothing that expensive. Sorry, nothing that I okay,

not gonna say, not impressive. It was just you know, Apple comes out with so much stuff right now, and they come out with so much oh and people in the comments are commenting, that's the only five K panel. But Apple comes out with so many products nowadays, and they're appealing to so many different levels of products and people and price ranges that they have to release this

stuff like it's the most exciting stuff ever. But realistically, when it's a green iPhone thirteen, it's like, Okay, that's cool. But at the same time, it's just you know, just giving people more options when they go into this and they say, oh, that's pretty cool. I can go for a green phone. Okay, very cool. All right, let's get

to the first question of the show. Hey, good morning, Rich there's a joke on this show that people always say good morning Rich in their emails because literally they see me on TV on KTLA in the mornings and then they type, oh, I've got a question for that guy, and they type a question, and then that's why they say good morning Rich. So it's always good morning unless someone's really hipped to that and they're like a regular listener or follower, and then they say something else besides

good morning, Good morning Rich. I've been a Samsung user forever and looking at switching to Apple. Never had an Apple product. I love photography. I carry a big camera for that. But I'm looking at the thirteen pro versus the one you mentioned on KTLA today. Oh, Samsung, use my phone for calendar calls, contacts and a bit of searching slash booking while traveling. Also looking at getting the Apple Watch, and I believe they link. Do you think the se will meet my needs? Stick to the thirteen

pro or stay with the Samsung twenty two? Thank you? John in British Columbia, who someone I met someone from Canada the other day and they they you know, I of course, like you know, as an American that just has no understanding of a lot of I do have some understanding of. I've been to many places in the world, but like Canada is like this big, giant place I'm

not fully understanding of. And they said, you know that they lived in somewhere in Canada, and I was like, oh, I've been to Toronto, and I think they were from what's the other big city, not Quebec, it was like another one, but anyway, it was nowhere near where she was from. And I was like, okay, and I kind of like just I sunk into the corner. Anyway, Okay, to answer your question, John, what would I say if you love photography? I think there are two phones for

you right now. There's the iPhone thirteen Pro, which I think has the best camera and video camera that I've ever used on a smartphone. So you say you carry a big camera, if you're still going to carry that camera, maybe you don't need a phone that has such an amazing camera, but if you're trying to ditch that camera. So I know someone a family member that whenever they traveled, they would bring that big DSLR hanging around their neck take pictures with it. And I just said, look, why

are you doing that anymore? No, what do you need to bring that for your picture that you're getting off that DSLR is not infinitely better than the picture that I'm gonna snap by just pulling my iPhone out of my pocket and taking a picture. And so that kind of resonated with them, and the next time they went on a trip, they just took their iPhone and they said it was amazing. They took great pictures. It didn't really impact their trip. They didn't have this big thing

around their neck. And so it just kind of depends. If you're a big photographer. Of course, there's always going to be a place for a big DSLR that takes amazing pictures that you blow up and they look great on the wall. But if you're just taking snapshots on a vacation and quickly pointing and shooting, a smartphone is going to be just fine. Now, I think the se will meet your needs if you continue to carry that big camera, and if you want to switch the iPhone

four hundred and twenty nine bucks, it's a good entree. Yes, the Apple Watch definitely links, although my Apple Watch, for some reason, even though I'm paying for the cellular, has not been working with the cellular connection, which is really annoying. So I gotta figure that out. But that requires going to a store, and I have no desire to go to a store and sit there and try to chat with someone about my watch. Last time has happened to me.

I was on the phone for like an hour with the tech support person and I actually ended up figuring out how to do it. You know what, maybe I'll try that again, Uh okay, or stick with the Samsung S twenty two. I mean, if you the Samsung S twenty two lineup is really good, the camera's really good, I think you're gonna be happy with that. But if you want the Apple Watch, then you're gonna have to go with the iPhone. And that's just the bottom line. Now.

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

to the video aspect, like iPhone video. And it's not just me that says this. I mean it's every professional I talk to in my industry. We just can't believe how good the video quality is off of the iPhone thirteen pro. I mean, it's truly just phenomenal that we can shoot video professional video for television on a smartphone and nobody knows the difference. I mean, yeah, if you use the wide angle you can tell, but it's really

quite remarkable. So anyway, I think you'll be happy with any of these, but it depends, like I said, on exactly what your needs are. All right, let's talk about cryptocurrency. You know, it's like every party I go to, every get together. It's not like I'm going to like major crazy parties, but you know what I mean, Like every get together where there's a couple people in a room,

the conversation always turns to crypto. And maybe that's just because I'm always like asking people, are you into crypto? Do you have crypto? Do you got a position in crypto? I'm just curious, like what people know about it, what people want to know about it. And so it's one of these things that's top of mind. It's everywhere you hear about it. I mean, look here in Los Angeles the Staples Center is renamed Thecrypto dot Com Arena. I mean,

this is wild. And so, you know, it's just one of these things that is it's taken off, but it is still very much in its infancy. And so with that all in mind, President Biden signed an executive order to say, we are going to check out what's going on with these cryptocurrencies because a couple things are happening.

Number One, probably the biggest is that it's unregulated, and so the government typically has maybe a duty to make sure that consumers are not scammed by this kind of stuff, make sure that obviously they can collect taxes on these things. And so that's number one. So this I'll tell you what they're gonna do in this In this executive order, they're basically going to study cryptocurrency for a couple of months,

present that to Congress and you know, the Senate. I'm guessing in some sort of uh, you know, however, however law stuff works. You know, However, however, the executive branch of the government works, but they're gonna present that to them and then they're gonna come up with like solutions, and the solutions are in six areas consumer protection. So again, they don't want people to be scammed by this stuff. Financial stability, like does having crypto in a big way

somehow put the US at risk of financial collapse? Illicit activity, So they want to make sure people aren't using this for a legal activity. US competitiveness, like if every other country is using crypto and the US falls behind, that could be a problem financial inclusion and responsible innovation, and so you know, they want to make sure that everyone can have a hand in this if it's something that we should proceed with. Now, this is going to proceed

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

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

it's that much easier. So imagine, oh, hey, Rich, we're looking into your finances. So in the meantime, we're just gonna freeze your your digital accounts for a minute here, a minute turns into a week whatever, and that's it. It's instantaneous. You know, right now you got to go through the bank. You gotta tell them. You gotta probably send them like some sort of you know, uh, I don't know whatever. They send them a letter. It's probably

through the old mail. You have a stamp. We gotta we gotta send this to Rich's bank to uh to stop his funds. You got a stamp over the no stamp. It just used that government stamp that just kind of works for everything. It's all like free. But you know, when it's digital, it is it is kind of scary to have the digital dollar. But at the same time, you know, if that's what people are moving to, that's something that the US needs to have to be competitive

with the rest of the world. I mean, China's looking into it. Actually their their report that they kind of came out with a preliminary report that said forty million people in America have bought or sold or traded crypto, and then they also said that one hundred countries are looking into the feasibility of digital money. So here's the other thing. Countries don't want to be They don't want

to be swept. I guess what's the word. They don't want crypto to take off without them being a part of it, because that could be a problem for these countries. And you know, it's kind of like when you look at America, like who really runs like kind of the

financial system. I mean, you've got big players like Visa, MasterCard, Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, they all they all have a vested interest in not really helping crypto in its current form takeoff because guess what, they already have their own systems in place for moving money around and helping people have accounts. So they don't really want this stuff

to happen the way it's happening. They want to say, like, hold on, uh, can we regulate that the way we regulate all of our banking systems, because guess what, you know, we have an ability to collect money and transfer fees and all this other stuff that you know, Crypto does have fees, but not in its purest form. You know, if you buy crypto through like a third party app, yeah, you're gonna have to pay some sort of fee on

it to do that. But in its most pure form, you know, I believe you can just transfer money, you know, to someone else, a person, a person, and anywhere in the world, and by the way, instantly, and uh yeah. In the comments, Rob says digital money can be turned off too easily. Yeah, but I imagine that even even

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

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

to the grocery store to buy your water. I mean, we saw some of this during the pandemic, where you know, shelves were just sort of empty, right, and you just imagine like, oh, there would never be a time in America where I can't get the things that I want to get. Well, yeah, we all experienced that in the past year. It happened. And so with money, it's like, oh, well, if there's an earthquake, I'll just go to the ATM

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

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

the next question from Susan. Susan says, I know you stay up with all the gadgets, and I have a question that I'm hoping you might be able to help with. Do you know why or have you heard anything about issues with the Facebook Live feature on portal. I purchased one for my adult daughter several months ago, and she used that feature for our business and was really happy about it. Suddenly the feature disappeared and tech support can only say it's not available any longer. Needless to say,

we are a bit frustrated. I thought you might be able to shed some light or give us some suggestions. Thanks for your time, have a great day, sincerely, Susan. Susan, you have experienced what we what I call on this show as the short attention span of tech companies, and this is a problem across so much tech. So the Facebook Portal is a device that is either it comes

in a couple different forms. It's basically a video chat device that is like a screen, or it sits on top of your TV, or it's a They made one that looked like a picture frame at one point. But the bottom line is it's a screen with a camera that allows you to either video chat with other people, go on Facebook Live like you said your daughter did, or of course just use it to do other things Facebook oriented things and other stuff too. I think they

had other stuff built in. Now the portal never really took off in a big way. So you've got Amazon's devices, You've got Google Home devices are those are probably two of the biggest and Facebook this came out at a time when when I'm still Facebook is just really in the crosshairs of the privacy kind of watchdogs, and people said, no, I'm not putting a Facebook a Facebook device with a camera and a microphone in my house, and so a

lot of people didn't. Now, you see, none of that matters to you because you purchased this for your daughter. So you want to know why this feature went away. And sure enough, I did a little research on the Facebook Live feature on the portal, and the page that used to describe how great this feature was is mysteriously vanished off the internet. And so, yeah, they probably got rid of it in a software update because no one was using it, or not enough people were using it,

and they didn't want to support it anymore. And so what do you do in this case? You can't bring it back. It's too late. You can't. You can't add the feature on your own, so you're kind of out of luck. And this is a this is I've talked about this on the show before, but there are companies that are worse at this than others, and I'd say Facebook is a pretty big offender. Facebook. You know, their motto has been for a long time, act fast and

break things. I think something to that extent. But the reality is they come out with stuff and if it doesn't work. It's like throwing spaghetti at the wall. You know, I'm Italian and that's what we used to do to try to see if the swetti was ready. I know it's a weird thing, but it's like the idea is they would throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and if it's stuck, sure we'll keep it, and if

it didn't, they just move on. So just this week we heard that Instagram got rid of IGTV, which they made a huge deal of when it came out, and now it's just Instagram Video and now they're all into reels And how long are they gonna be into reels until either people stop watching them or doesn't work anymore, and then they give up on those. But TikTok's so popular that probably won't happen. But there's not much you

can do. And so there are some companies that are a little bit better at this than others, like Apple, I think comes out with stuff at a slower cadence and doesn't necessarily get rid of things very quickly. And then the other the other company that does a lot of stuff, they throw a lot of stuff, as Samsung, but I feel like in recent years they have definitely kind of streamlined things a little bit and they've made things.

It's just a little bit more like, Okay, we're not gonna like they They actually never came out with this one speaker, this h it was like the Bixby home speaker. They showed it off at a show and they just never came out with it and that was it. It's just like they didn't. Now they come out with a lot of other stuff. But I feel like Samsung is like, you kind of know that they're coming out with the foldables,

They're already on like the third generation of those. You know they're coming out with their Galaxy lineup, and you know they're now coming out with the H the A lineup, which is like their more budget lineup, And so they're pretty consistent. Google very inconsistent. Google is like, oh my gosh. They are just like, hey, we'll give you anything, and uh oh okay, it didn't work. Okay, let's just does just not do that anymore. So this is just the

reality of these tech companies. It happens, and there's not much you can do about it. So sorry, Susan, but that's just what's going on. Thanks for the question. All right now. Have you noticed, let me ask you this, have you noticed that gas prices have gone up where you are? It's so funny because I live in California, and the gas prices here are just wildly, wildly astronomically like mind boggling high. And it's just California. Everything is very,

very expensive. And when you live in California, you kind of forget just how expensive things are until you go to another place. Now, if you're going to a resort in like Hawaii, or like a resort town, or you know, a big hotel somewhere, yeah, you don't really realize. But it's when you go to like regular places in America, like all the other cities in between Los Angeles and New York, you realize that what what not? Everything is eight dollars for a bottle of water? Where was I?

I was in Santa Barbara and my wife and I for we were in a hotel and are we didn't have any water and there was no water. There was no water around, like no seven eleven or anything like that, and so we just had to keep walking until we found a bottle of water, and so, you know, and it was just getting frustrat eating because we couldn't find it.

I was like, all right, fine, whatever. So we went into this little like winery place that I was like, I bet you they have a bottle of water here, and so I pick out two bottles of water from the refrigerator and I'm like, how much could this possibly be? You know, like five dollars each. No, the water was

twelve dollars a bottle, twelve dollars. So this this woman, you know, this person working there, rings me up and it's like she's like twenty four dollars, you know, plus tax I'm just like what, but we needed the water and what are you gonna do? And so we bought the water for twelve dollars and my wife and I were just joking that this. We're like, I think the wine that you're selling here by the glass is cheaper than twelve dollars, but it probably wasn't. But anyway, what

was my point? Oh, yeah, you just have to kind of pay for stuff and you just take for granted. Like I'm continually there's a couple of cities, Los Angeles, Hawaii and Las Vegas. I'm continually surprised by the prices that people will charge for things. It just like every time I think I've heard it all, I'm like, oh, okay, twelve dollars for a bottle. Oh no, that's fifteen. Oh okay,

there you go. Uh but gas I digress. So gas Buddy is an app that a lot of people are using to try to find cheaper gas prices, which I totally understand you should be at this point. It used to be when gas was like, you know, ten fifteen cents difference, Like, okay, not that big of a deal, but at this point, with gas pushing like seven dollars here in California, you gotta go in your neighborhood and find the cheapest gas, and so you just got to

do it. So if I look at gas Buddy, So, gas Buddy is basically this app that you know, they get the information from the gas stations or whatever, and they they tell you how much gas is and so great, very convenient, very nice. But the thing that gas Buddy is doing on the back end, and this is according to an article from Wirecutter, is that, of course they're collecting a whole bunch of data on you. And the reality is that a lot of people are saying where

their location is, their exact location. It's tracking you all the time, and then they sell that information to third party data brokers. So just a scenario. You ever wonder why you get so many of these random calls? Where do people get your phone number? Yeah, a lot of times it's through spammers and scammers, but a lot of times it's also just you're giving it up to one company you didn't read their privacy policy, and they're selling

it to other companies, and that's just what happens. So with gas Buddy, it's kind of like this thing that they say that if there is no price, you are the product. So if you're getting something for free, your data is what they're making money off of. And if you want to know exactly how much, according to this article, they were selling location data for nine dollars and fifty cents per one thousand users. And they have a lot

of users. They have millions of users, so it's you know, they've got a lot of this data, and they've got data of where people are driving, where people are going. They've got their name, they've got their address, they've got their email, they've got all kinds of information that you just give up to this app because it says, hey, will you sign up with us? And you say sure, but they put the skip sign up in little gray

lettering in the corner. So whenever you're using an app, by the way, whenever you sign up for an app, always always, always look for the option to skip signing up for an account if you don't need one. A lot of times skip if there's like a big box in the middle of the app that says please sign in. There's sometimes a little X or a little skip that's

just kind of grayed out and in the corner. We call that a dark pattern in the industry, and it's basically it's a pattern that you say, well, this windows in front of me. There's no way to skip it. Sometimes you can close out the app and that will skip it. Other times there's a little tiny skip button that you can't really see or you know, there's just various ways of doing it. So always try to skip

creating an account if you can. And then when you're creating your account, be very very mindful about the information that you're giving up to that company, because chances are that information will be packaged up and sold and sent somewhere else, and so just be aware of that. So for instance, I keep a Google Voice number that I will give out more freely because I don't care if a lot of people get it, because it's not something

that is ringing my phone all the time. So if it's a company that I'm signing up for, I'll most of the time give them that phone number. So when I was doing all the loyalty cards and stuff for you know, like roufs and things, it's like I would give them that number because I know it's it's going to different places. And here's the other thing. And I've talked about this before, but when you sign up for a website, that information goes into a data warehouse that

then combines it with other information. So imagine there's a couple databases one, two, three, four, five, six seven. This one has your email address, this one has your phone number, this one has your name, this one has your address. What they do is they merge them all together based

on signals. So if you use the same email address, and on one account you gave your email and phone number, and on another you gave your email and your physical address, they just merge that all together and now they have a complete look of who you are, where you're going, where you're shopping, how you're spending your money, when you do things, how you do things, the websites you're looking at. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. Data data, data, data is huge, huge business. Believe me,

how do you think Google's in business? Data? One hundred percent data business. I mean, every single thing that Google does is based on data. They love data, they have so much of it on us anyway. And then now, yeah, the way that they're using the data is that they don't sell it directly, but they will sell against that data. And that's another thing is that you know your data

might be private, but they're still selling against it. And so when they say, oh, we know this person, this person, this person is into hot wheels, they can then sell hot wheels ads against that, even though they didn't give up your name and information. So you have to think about how this stuff works. Okay, so long story short on gas Buddy. Two things that you should probably do. The number one, don't sign up for the drive the drives feature unless you want all your information given away

to third party companies. And then you can go in on your location settings. You only want to give them location every time. So only when you are using the app do you want to have them giving them the ability to use your location? And this is the thing

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

And it's just turned on by default, So you want to go in and turn that off, just to you know, protect yourself a little little bit more. All right, let's get to the next question. Steve says, Hey, Rich, virtually all major banks can be set to notify users of any charges. I set mine to notify me of any charge of one cent or more. This includes any attempts, so I see it all. Of course. Two factor on top is safeguard. If you agree or disagree, let me know.

If you agree, please let your vast audience know. Thanks Rich, best regard, Steve, the one and only mister Gadget. Wow mister Gadget is listening. Cool, thanks, mister Gadget. I think I met Steve once at an event. You know, it's been like two years since we've had these tech events, so I haven't seen a lot of people. But yes, I one hundred percent agree with this. For sure you should.

So my credit card was stolen a couple of weeks ago, and it was I think I told the story, but basically I used it at a restaurant and within ten minutes I had gotten a text from my bank saying that my card was stolen. It was used at a gas station in like Iowa or something, and I was like what that wasn't me At first I thought the the text message was bogus. I was like, what, There's no way, I'm not I'm not in Iowa, Like how

is my card being used there? And so I've talked about this on my podcasts before, but I have a rule if my card I'm not a huge credit card person, but if my card, I do carry one. If my card is leaving my hand, if someone else is taking my card, I give them my credit card. If I am doing the transaction myself, I will use tap to pay, or I will use the chip in my debit card, and the reason for that is I like to spend cash so that I don't overspend, and so it just

helps me with the budgeting. But with a credit card, I definitely make sure that I use that for transactions that are unprotected, so that means online transactions where your card number is just going out into the world, or of course any transaction where they're swiping my card, because a swipe is pretty much the worst thing that they can do to your card at this point, because your number is unencrypted, it is out there, it is just

totally ripe for the taking. And so you always, at the very minimum, no matter how you're paying, whether it's debit or credit, you always want to use the chip, always want to use chip tap to pay. Even better, Chip and tap to pay are actually quite the same when it comes to security and privacy. But my number one Tap to pay, number two is chip. Number three is do not use the swipe ever, never ever swipe your card. In fact, I will ask, especially smaller merchants,

I'll be like, are you swiping my card? And when they say they're swiping it, I say, oh, hold on, let me don't take my debit card. Here, take my credit card. So if you have to swipe, if you must swipe, use your credit card, because at least that gives you a little bit of protection if your card is stolen. In the case that mine was a couple weeks ago, right when I was using it. So I don't know if the waiter took a picture of my card and sent it off into the internet, or maybe

it was just totally unrelated, but it happens. It still happens on a daily basis. So anyway, what Steve is talking about is I think we were talking about the Do I talk about this later? Yeah, I guess I'll just talk about this now. But I think he was talking about the whole Zell fraud thing, because people are using these cash apps like cash and Venmo and PayPal

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

like no international transactions. So look into your bank and see, you know what they allow you to do and what kind of notifications you can get. Now, I get it with a credit card. I always think that that's better than the debit card because when the debit card is hacked, your money's gone and now you have to fight your bank for your own money. When a credit card is hacked, you're like, okay, you guys, let me know when you figure that out, because I'm not paying that bill. And

what can they do. I mean, it's like their money that they've already given, and so it's just a it's just a little bit more of a you know, a relief when something happens to your credit card than it debit card. And so I understand why people gravitate towards credit cards because it puts that little buffer zone between them and their money. And I totally understand that. And

so that's that. Let's talk about Zell now, because there's a big article in the New York Times about how Zell has a lot of fraud because it's built into bank accounts. So what happened was all of the big banks like Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, they all said, wait a second, how what's going on with PayPal and Venmo and cash app, Like all these people are using this to transfer money and they're going around our systems and they're not having to pay for it, and so whoa, whoa,

we should be in on this. And so they came up with something called Zel and they built it into your bank account. And that's great because I actually prefer Zell because it's a really easy transfer where it goes from my account to your account and there's no middleman and so it just the money just appears in your account. That's good. But the problem is the transactions are not

as protected as you think. In fact, they may not be protected at all unless it was fully unless someone hacked into your account and started doing a Zell transaction. What the New York Times is saying is that if you are tricked into doing a Zell transfer to someone, let's say you get a text message, and this is how it works. Typically I put this on my Instagram, by the way, So let's say you get a text that says, hey did you just transfer one thousand dollars

via Zel to this person. Press one for yes, two for no, and you press one and next thing you know, you get a phone call from your quote unquote bank and they say, uh, okay, we need to verify this so we can take care of this really quickly quick. What's your username for your bank? What's your banking user name? And yes, I get it. Not everyone will fall for that, but some people would, and a lot of people do.

And they say, oh, it's you know, it's rich on Tech And they say, okay, great, we just sent you a text message with a confirmation code. Please give us that code. And you give them that code, thinking you're confirming you are who you are. And by the way, legitimate companies do this. So, for example, Hilton, when I call up Hilton to do anything with my account, they say, okay, we just sent you a text message. Read us that

text message. Verizon does something similar, and so these companies do that, and this is what these scammers prey upon. They are basically social engineering the legitimate systems that these companies have put in place to protect us, and by reverse social engineering them, they use these little systems against us. So you've already been trained to know that. When you get that confirmation code in your text, it's like, Okay, my bank is confirming what I thought, like this is

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

and now they have control of your account. All this is happening in real time while you're on the phone with this report representative who's trying to just keep you on the phone longer and longer to talk about the problem. And next thing you know, you're being cleared out of your money. Now there are limits on Zeal so that you can't be fully cleaned out in one day, but it's still a lot more money than you want to

lose from your account. So what the New York Times thesis was is that they're saying that when people are tricked into doing a Zell transfer, like if I just trick you into a zel transfer and that money goes into your bank and then you call and you say, hey, wait, I didn't authorize that. They say, but yes, you did. You actually did authorize it. You made the transaction. We can't just because you got tricked into it doesn't mean

that we're on the hook for it. And the problem is, unlike a credit card, this is actual cash, this is real money. So the way a credit card works, if I own a business, my credit card company only, like if I accept credit cards, the credit card company only pays me out once a month, right, I mean, maybe quicker if it's some of these new things like Square

and of course some of these other systems. But there's always this ongoing like balance that you have with a credit card company, Like they might owe you one thousand dollars, they might owe you five hundred dollars. And when someone does what's called a charge back and they say, hey, I dispute this charge, what a credit card company does while they investigate is they will just hold that money.

They will withhold that money from the business. So they say, we know we owe you six hundred dollars, but we're actually not going to give you that money right now because someone is disputing the fact that you charge them six hundred dollars, and we need to look into that to make sure that before we release this money to

you that this is a legitimate transaction. So that's why when zell goes through, and it goes through really fast and it's cash and someone can withdraw that from the ATM, that money's gone in an instant and so this stuff, these scammers have gotten very, very smart about how to do this. According to this New York Times article, eighteen million Americans were defrauded through scams involving digital wallets and person of person payments. So when you say how could

this happen? How could this happen to someone? You are smart. You're a smart person. You're listening to a podcast from a tech person on Instagram. You're ahead of the curve. There are so many people out there who are not doing this. They're not educating themselves. They might be a little bit older, they might be a little less tech savvy, and that is the problem. It's not a problem for them. They're just regular people and they're not keeping up on all this stuff. I have to keep up on all

this stuff. When I read this Zealscam, I said, uh, that's brilliant. But what I have thought of that. Personally, maybe not, but I am critical of anything that arrives in my inbox. Any text message I get, I have to sit there and analyze is this real? Is this a scam? Is this going to somehow defraud me? I get people that forward me messages all the time, and I have to kind of analyze them and figure out if it's fraudulent or not. And it's Believe me, these

scam artists work on numbers. They work on large numbers of people. Not every single person that's sitting there, you know, in the world is one hundred percent up on every single scam. And so, as someone just said in the chat, it's a problem keeping up with the scammers. Absolutely, it's their job to figure out how to scam us. It's our job to go to work, raise kids, make a living, you know, have a little time off, whatever. It's their job to just take our hard earned money from us.

And so, believe me, they are going to try to do that all the time, and they will try new ways, and as technology evolves, they just continue to find new ways to exploit it, and they will continue. This is not going to end ever, believe me. And this is one reason I know, I'm very high on the security stuff because it's just so it's such a problem that it's just it makes me so angry that people still

fall for this stuff, and smart people. I've had smart, smart people call me up in near tears saying that they believe they fell for a scam. And it happens to the smartest people out there. It's just that these people, like I said, it's a full time job to scam us, and so they get really good at their jobs. Okay, but my point is number one, be critical of every and don't just you know, I know what you're listening and you understand, and you're sitting here on a tech podcast.

But you've got to tell your friends and family this stuff. That's what you need to do. That's your job is to tell friends and family about the things that you're hearing about so that they know when they come across it, they go, wait, huh, that is weird. I did get that message from Zell that said, did you authorize this? And I actually ignored it because I didn't even know

that I, you know, use Zell. And so you just have to be able to tell your friends and family about this stuff and just make sure that you know you're not gonna be able to protect everyone, but you know, getting this stuff out there in a bigger way. This why I talk about it on TV. This why I talk about it here. That's why I do this stuff because I do like if I can just save one person from getting scammed or from doing a raw deal or whatever, you know, I feel good and that's a

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

factor authentication. I can't speak highly enough of two factor authentication. I know that the scammers are using it to scam us, but you still have to use it. And if you're using weak passwords, get a password manager please. I know it's a lot of work to use these things, but

do not use the same password across various accounts. Please don't ever, don't ever use the same password twice ever, I mean ever, ever, ever, in fact, you answer those questions that say, you know, what's your your mother's maiden name or your first pets name, don't even give the real answers. How many of your friends know the answer to your mother's maiden name and your your pet's name and where you went to college? Don't ever do that

use a fake answer, and don't. In fact, what I do is I actually use a password generator to generate a sixteen a sixteen character random string, and then I put that in there. And so there's no way when someone asks like what my hometown or my you know, city I grew up in, it's like sixteen random characters, I have to go into a program and figure out what that is and copy and paste it. Because even

I don't know the answers to my own questions. So, and now I'm not saying you have to be that that you know wild about it, but definitely just think about this stuff, you know what I mean? And hey, miss Carter on Instagram is saying she uses last pass, and Janet says, I appreciate all your info. It might be new for some individuals. Absolutely, and yeah, Google knows the answer. Someone just commented and Coco says, I would

forget that password if it was random. Yes, that's why you have to use the password manager to put that in there. So believe me, you know it's you just have to be very aware of this stuff because it's just it's sad, Like you sit there and it's like, it's funny when I even when I'm posting stuff about the scams, I'm like, come on, really, like who's gonna fall for this? But I get the text and the emails and the messages just start flowing in from people

that have a story. Yep, that was my mom, Yep, that was my dad, Yep that was me, Yep that was my nephew. And believe me, this stuff does happen. You don't have eighteen million people that are affected by this in the US and no one knows someone that was affected. Believe me, people are affected, all right, mister Gadget, You really got me going on that one. Okay, Tesla Tesla increasing the price of their cars once again. So as you know, if you listen to me on this podcast,

you know that I purchased a Tesla last year. I personally love it. It has been amazing and it came at the right time, especially with the gas prices and everything. I understand that electric cars are not for everyone. I understand that we are not at a place in America where electric cars are easy to acquire, operate own. But yet, you know, if you look at California, it's obviously one of the biggest states for electric cars, and of course

Tesla as well. But it's also like when you look at the top five cars in California, like the Tesla, I think the Why is almost overtaking the top car, which I think is the Honda Civic. But don't quote me on that. I know it's like the Accord is in there or the Camera, and then the Civic is in there, and the Model three and the Model Why and another car. But I mean it's pretty wild. But anyway,

I love the Tesla. It's been amazing. But the price since I purchased it has gone up so much that even I would have to think twice about purchasing at this point. So let me just tell you about the price increase. So they raised the prices one more time by one thousand dollars. That's because nickel prices are surging, so the price of making the batteries is going up. In this electric article says in twenty twenty one, Tesla made so many price increases they've lost count. It's true

even when I was purchasing. I mean, just in the couple weeks after I purchased my car, the price I think went up three times. So the prices are now as follows. The Model three Long Range went up by one thousand dollars. It is now fifty two thousand dollars. The Model Why went up by one thousand dollars, and it has gone up ten thousand dollars in the past twelve months. And so I don't know they didn't give the price to the Model Why. But it's just But

here's the thing. I mean, all cars are just expensive right now. If you if you do not need to switch cars, now, is not the time to buy a car electric or not electric. I know. Well, this is the reason why this all comes up, and a lot of people were talking about electrics is I did a story on KTLA about is it time to switch to an EV? And my thought was because everyone always asked me like, oh, you know, you save so much money

on gas. But here's what I've realized in purchasing my car, is that number one, if you already have a car that is already working for you the gas Let's say your car is paid that would be you know, the best scenario. If your car is paid for. Gas is expensive, but it's just a small part of that operating cost, or it is the probably the biggest part of the

operating cost for the year. But when you're buying a new car, it's always going to be more expensive to acquire something new because now you're talking, you have a new payment or you have a new amount that you're spending, and it's going to be more than your old car no matter what. And then just something as simple as installing an electric charger at home, which is probably you know, two thousand dollars. That's gas for a year. Now, maybe at the new prices, gas for a year's three thousand.

But the reality is it's it's not just like, oh, you switched to a let your car, you save money, yes, right now, if you're charged. If you're comparing just one thing and that is charging versus gasing up, it's always cheaper to charge. It's just it just is. Electricity is

cheaper than gas. But when you look at the overall cost of the car, if you're talking about buying a Tesla for forty eight thousand dollars or fifty one thousand dollars or a Model Y for sixty thousand, you can get into a set of gas wheels for like twenty five grand. And so you're talking that twenty five thousand dollars spread to get that electric car that will pay for gas for many, many years. Now, I'm not advocating one way or the other. I'm not here to convince

you to buy an electric car. I'm not here to say gas is good. I think the whole gas thing is, you know, it's tough on our environment. It's tough that we're you know, it's a it's a you know, we look at what's happening in the world. I mean, it's whatever. There's I'm not getting into the political stuff about the gas versus electric or just gas in general. But the reality is buying an electric car today is more expensive than acquiring a gas car. That is why we're seeing

all of these incentives and rebates. Because the government and other industries have to subsidize the price of the car to make it somewhat feasible for people to want to buy it. But once you're in it, yes, it's a lot cheaper. I mean, the maintenance is simple. You can charge up for free to a lot of places, and it is cheaper to actually charge. But anyway, my point is, you know, I'm just following this whole ev stuff since now I'm kind of vested in it. I really think

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

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

charging infrastructure. But these other car companies are coming up quick, believe me, and they're coming up with some pretty good deals too. If I didn't get the Tesla, I would have gotten the Volkswagen ID four because I just fell in love with that car. Fantastic car. They're doing it at a great deal. They've got good lease deals, they've got good purchase deals. You get the incentives, but it's one of these things that you know it's gonna take

a while for everything. So anyway, Okay, where am I at? Here we go? Oh my gosh, I can't believe the show's gone this long, Mike says, do I have to buy a new iMac? I can't find any way to update to a newer OS. Thanks. Oh and interesting. Okay, so I see it came from one I guess some people share their accounts. I guess because sometimes I get an email and it comes from one person, but it's they sign it another Okay. Twenty four, twenty fourteen, iMac with l Capitan and they want to update it to

Mac os Monterey. So this happens a lot. And what you have to do is you have to go onto Apple's website and at the bottom of the page that lists the operating system, it'll tell you which computers are supported. And if I go to their web page, I'm looking at this, he said, or she said. They have a twenty fourteen iMac, So I'm looking at iMac and it

says late twenty fifteen and later are supported. So that means that your Mac cannot run the latest version of the software, which means it's either you have to stick to your old software or it's probably time for a new one if you're trying to if you're trying to run the latest software. And the reason why you want to run the latest software is to for the security that it offers, although Apple is getting better about separating

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

by the latest software, then keep it. Keep it as long as you can until you're so frustrated with it you want to throw it out the window because it's running so slow. All right, let's get to one more story here. Peloton. I know this is kind of a smaller thing, but I know a lot of people do have Pelotons, or they're into it whatever they want one. But Peloton now is skipping the middle man, and now you can use the Peloton app for Apple Watch to track your workout on the bike. And that's really not

just a bike but also the the treadmill. So what so, I guess in the past what has happened is that if you had the bike, well, I don't know how it works. I don't have a Peloton. I have a third party bike that I use with the Peloton app. But the way I have to do it is that basically, when I get on the Peloton, I have to start an Apple Watch. If you know, it's just a workout on my watch, and that will record me independently of

what the app is saying. So the app might say you did one thing, but the watch says you did another I don't know how the bike worked in the past, but basically what they're saying is now you don't have to open up a third party workout on your Apple Watch to record that that workout on the Peloton to count towards your rings and things. So now it will get all of these stats directly from your Apple Watch and then send them into Apple Fitness. You know where

you see your rings closing. So long story short, it's just a cleaner setup when you have a Peloton in an Apple Watch. So you can now connect your Apple Watch with the Peloton app on the watch to your health app on iPhone and you know your workouts are are I'm really struggling with this one. It's just tracked in a more direct way. So if if before the bike was tracking your workout, it may not have had

the metrics that your Apple Watch has. Your Apple Watch has built in heart rate, it's got other sensors that it is constantly using to monitor you. Yes, the Peloton bike might have had its own sort of like algorithm for figuring out how much calories and things that thought you burned, but now it will be directly working with your Apple Watch to take that data from the sensors and put it right into your health app and so

that you can see exactly what you did. And it's just like I said, it's just a much cleaner, cleaner setup. So I don't think I have time for one more question. Let's see here. Uh, okay, I'll do one more question. Since yeah, we'll see. Sally asks, I'm having balanced problems. I'm thinking of getting an Apple Watch. Since she's asking about the Apple Watch. Am I going to have to get data service like for a cell phone for the fall feature to work correctly? Thanks? So, Sally, that's a

great question, and it's a very complicated answer. So the short answer is the Apple Watch fall detection will work, but it may not be able to actually dial nine to one one or for help unless your phone is nearby or unless you have cellular on your phone on your Apple Watch. So it gets kind of complicated. So the way that the fall detection works is it's built into your Apple Watch. Apple Watch fall detection, I have to see they I think it was the Apple Watch

four that they introduced this on. When did they do this? Let's se yep, look at that? Man, what a good memory Apple Watch series four and later, and also Apple Watch se. If you're watched it texts a hard fall, it will attempt to dial nine on one. If your phone is nearby, it will use the cellular connection on your watch on your phone to put that call through and get you emergency help. I've had this activate a couple of times, so I'm wrestling with the kids. It

actually activated the other day. I was doing something like a workout or something, and I don't know what either. I don't know. It's just activated and I said, no,

I'm fine, but so okay. So again, if it detects a hard fall, it will attempt to connect your Apple Watch to your Apple your iPhone and it will call nine on one and it will send your location and it will get you help, and it will also text your contacts that you've identified as your emergency contact saying, hey, look this happened, you know, you know, get help or whatever.

If you have a cellular version of the Apple Watch, it will be able to dial nine one one no matter what wherever you are, whatever you're doing, even if your iPhone is not nearby, because you have that cellular connection. Your Apple Watch has a connection to the Internet. All on its own, and it will call nine one one. Now here's where it gets a little interesting. Even if you have a cellular Apple Watch, without cellular connected like an active data service like ten ten dollars a month,

you're not paying that to your provider. It should still dial nine one one if you have a hard fall, because the way that phones and cellular connections are set up, they will continue to dial nine one one no matter what. You do not need a data plan to dial nine one one. Now I'm looking at Apple's information about the Apple Watch, and it doesn't say specifically that you have to have a data plan to have the watch dial nine one. So I would not rely on this information.

I'm telling you right now without without confirming it with your your carrier and or Apple. But the reality is typically if you take any old cell phone that is just laying around in America, it will dial nine one one, even if there's no data plan associated or cellular plan associated with that phone. And they did that on purpose because they want people to be able to call for help in America. So that's the way it works. That may work that way in other countries. I just don't know.

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

I was playing stopped playing and that was it. It like couldn't pull the next song because it had no cellular connectivity. And that's how I realized that my cellular wasn't working. Apple Watch is really it's so tricky because the Apple Watch it's so slick, the integration with the iPhone. It never really tells you when it's using cellular, when

it's using Wi Fi, when it's using your phone. It's using a combination of those things to communicate and always try to have a connection, and it's always trying to use the least power hungry connection and always the cheapest connection. So even if you have cellular on your Apple Watch and your phone is always nearby, it's always going to route through your phone cellular connection and not its own

cellular connection. So you may be paying ten dollars a month and never actually need to use cellular because your phone is always nearby. Not something that Apple widely advertises, but it's something. It is a delineation, and I tell people the only reason you ever need a cellular plan on an Apple Watch is if you are with your

Apple Watch without your phone. So if you're like me and you're running without your phone, that's when you want the cellular so that you can access either music or emergency, call someone whatever when necessary. All right, So, oh, that sound means it is the end of the show. If you are on the Instagram Live, stick around after the show ends. I'll hang out and talk to you for a bit. But otherwise guess what that's gonna do it

for this episode of the show. If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer, you can go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech, hit the big blue send email button, or just go to rich on Tech dot tv and hit the email icon. I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast. Just go to the listening app of your choice, write a quick line about what you like about this show to help other people understand why they should listen.

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I do appreciate you spending it right here with me. I'll talk to you real soon.