Samsung delays the fold. You'll soon be able to return Amazon items to all coals, a new app that realtors will appreciate, a new way to scan documents. Google Fit comes to iOS, Apple Watch gets lost at sea and returns months later. Plus your questions. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the stuff that I think you should know about happening in the tech world. Joining me is producer Megan. Producer Megan, what's up? Good?
I'm good?
How are you good? There's a lot of stress surrounding the podcast this week. Let's be honest. I totally changed the way that you did things here. I was like, don't do things that way. Did that? Did that make you feel stressed out about? No?
I mean it's just, you know, a lot of moving pieces. It's exciting, and so obviously we want to live stream eventually and have live questions and all that. So there's a lot of moving pieces and.
We try to figure it out out You figured it out. But well, first let's start And I know you have a lot of questions for me this week, so we'll get to those in a moment. But first, let's start with Samsung. You probably heard the news that they are postponing the launch of the Galaxy Fold. The Galaxy Fold is their smartphone that literally has a screen that folds in half. I won't spend a whole bunch of time in this story because you've heard it. You've heard it
over and over. But we do have some more information about why people are thinking this device failed. So it was supposed to launch on Friday, April twenty sixth. That is not happening. If you're listening to this later, clearly it didn't happen. If you pre ordered one of these things, you did not get it in the mail. So what happened was a couple of reviewers got their test units. They failed. Samsung quickly pulling the plug on this just being like, you know what, we got to go back
to the drawing board. We're going to figure out what's going on. In their official statement, they said they need to run further internal tests. They plan to announce the release date in the coming weeks. Now, I fix it as the company that breaks down everything. Whenever there's a new gadget that comes out, they break it down, they take it apart. And the reason why they do that is so that you can order pieces and repair these
things yourself. But most people just like to look at their blog and see kind of like what's inside all their favorite gadgets. So according to I fix It, they say that the problems revolve around the phone's hinge, which allowed the device to fold back and forth. But they say it's very fragile and there's a gap. Now, the hinge isn't fragile, but the gap in the hinge makes the phone fragile because it can allow specks of dust to get inside, which can get behind the screen and
really just totally screwed up. That's not good, not good at all. So that's what's happening with the Samsung Galaxy Fold. Will this phone ever launch?
I don't know, Probably not.
You think probably not?
Well, it sounds like they have to rebuild.
The phone, so yeah, I mean it sounds like it's a pretty big problem if there's like, like what can you do put like a layer of plastic or something around the hinge to make it like r But the other thing is, didn't they manufacture all these phones already? So what do you do with all those phones?
Yeah? I have no idea.
I don't know. I mean, it's kind of like what happened with the Note seven where they had to like trash a whole bunch of phones because they were blowing up. Yeah, I mean, this is just a crazy thing to happen to a big company. All right, Producer Megan. Enough about that, let's get to your first question.
Okay, So this first question is an email and it comes from Kurt John. Subject is movie apps. He said, can you do an update on theater apps? Thanks for your other tech tips.
Oh well, thank you. Okay, So Kurt John wants to know about theater apps. These are those movie ticketing apps that are pretty hot right now. I guess they were kind of hot. Now they've kind of cooled down because people are like, uh, I got burned by movie pass because they keep changing, like the rules and restrictions. But the one that started all is movie pass right, and movie passes thing is like go see a movie, you pay a certain amount of month and you can see
as many movies as you want. Now I'm looking at the movie past website right now now, and look at this. There are so many restrictions already on it. Right, so it's like a month get started it says, by the way, when build annually versus ach or E check, which means they want to take the money right out of your checking. So already I'm like, uhh, I'm not doing that. Then you have number two, which is the one I'm using,
which is Cinemia. Now we did a segment with Cinemia, and I have a subscription through that, and I will say it is complicated to use, but it does work. So the one I have, you pay a certain amount of money every month and you get to see a movie in pretty much any format. So I can choose you know, regular, three D, Imax, forty whatever, and this one. Looking at their website right now, because the plan prices change a lot.
But I canna ask how much is like the current The.
Current one is right now ten ninety nine a month. So for ten ninety nine a month, you get two tickets per month in any format, so you can go see a three D movie, an Imax or forty. Now here's the thing. What I notice with Cinemia is the way that you buy your ticket. It's all virtual. They give you a virtual credit card. You have to buy your ticket through the exact way that they tell you. So It used to be you can go on Fandango
for any movie. Now it's like every theater I choose, it's like you have to go to that specific theater's website. So I was up in Pedaluma and I saw a movie up there, I had to go to the random website of that movie theater to buy my ticket. And the other thing is once you go to the movie theater, so what keeps you from buying movies for your friends? You have to go to the theater and check in
at the movie theater within a certain timeframe. So there's a lot of little caveats, but with that said, it's pretty amazing that it does work. The other two ways you can go are AMC and Cinemak have their own sort of movie clubs. Right, so AMC is called Stubs a List and Stubs a List lets you see up to three movies per week basically with no blackout dates, no whatever. But it's kind of expensive. Twenty four dollars a month plus tax and.
See potentially three movies a week.
You could see a lot of movies. Now you're limited to AMC. Let's see movie club by Cinemark gives you one two d ticket per month, your unused tickets do rollover, which is kind of nice. Then you get twenty percent off concessions and waived online fees. So ten dollars a month basically gets you one ticket, so that's not bad. Movies are expensive, right, So okay, there you go.
That's the four that was great helpful.
Again, goes from Movie Pass at the cheapest but probably the most restrictions to AMC which is the most expensive but kind of the easiest to see movies. So great question. All right, let's move on to Cole's and Amazon. So I don't know if you know about this, but Amazon and Cole's did this target program where they used target in the probably shot bad use of words, right. They did this pilot program where they let Amazon customers return stuff to Cole's stores, and they tried it with one
hundred stores in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Milwaukee. I tried this out personally, and it was a you can literally get an item delivered to you from Amazon. You don't like it, whatever, you just bring it into the cold store. They have a separate register and everything where you can bring this thing back. You don't even need the packaging, So maybe the packaging that it came in, but not like the box, right, and you just give it to the person. They scan something out of your email and
you're on your way. They take care of everything. And I'm guessing the way they save money is that they put let's say twenty people return stuff, they put it in one big box Amazon and ship that to Amazon, right. Instead of twenty people shipping things to Amazon, which costs money, this is much cheaper to do things in bulk. So the news is that they're expanding this program to all Calls locations, So it's gonna roll out. It's not gonna
happen overnight. But the reality is, if this is an option to you, because a lot of times I've noticed on Amazon when you're returning stuff, they have really clamped down on kind of your options for free returns. Like it used to be they would just come to your house and pick up anything, not so much anymore. Now they want to know the reason why you're returning it, and depending on that reason, it will they will give you kind of a level of where you can return
stuff and how much it costs. But I love the idea of this expanding to all stores. If it's an option for the next time you need to return something to Amazon. Definitely try it out, all right, Megan? Pred you sure? Meghan? Do we have something else?
Yes? We have another question from Roland. He wrote on your Facebook. He asked, Rich, I do not know if you can help me with this, but I'm desperate.
Oh.
Facebook publicizes your birthday, whether you like it or not. I wrote them a letter stating that I did not want my birthday publicized, but they did it anyway. Is there anything else I can do to prevent my birthday from being publicized on Facebook?
I don't put my birthday on Facebook. I know because Megan's checked many times.
Yeah, I really want to know his age.
You're always on the hunt for my data birth, so I don't have it on there. And all I did was go to my profile okay, and then you go to about, and then you go contact and basic info okay, and then near your data birth there's a little edit button that looks like a pencil and you just press that and there's like only me. I forget what the options are, but it's like everyone only me, and like maybe close friends or something, and all you do is put only me. Just switch all your data birth info
to that and that's it. Now. The downside to this is are you on Facebook at all? Yes, you are.
I know what you're gonna say.
What You're not.
Gonna get happy birthday messages and that's so sad.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm gonna say. Every year, my birthday comes and goes and nobody wishes me a happy birthday, and so I do get a couple No, nobody does because I don't put it out there. So a couple of the dedicated friends will text me because they know my birthday. But all the I call them klingons on Facebook that just look for the birthday wishes they don't know,
so it's like it just doesn't happen. Now, I've actually tweaked this in years, and maybe I'm really evil for doing this, but I've tweaked it, and like some years I'll turn it on and it's like boom, a million Facebook wishes for a happy birthday. Other years nothing. Yeah, so that's how you do it.
But I have it. So you see my birthday and then you just don't see the year, so no one knows my age.
Not that Megan. It's pretty simple. You don't hide it you'll hide it as you get older. That's what I did for at some point I was like, oh, yeah, I'm twenty something, you know tech reporter. Now it's like, nope, I'll just leave that. Leave some things to the imagination. A new feature from Zillo lets you create three D
home tours for free. When you're actually shopping for a house, going to see the house, you will know in less than five seconds if it's a fit for you, right, and you're like, oh, I wish they just showed that on the pictures. A lot of times they hide stuff. While Zillo is giving folks a new way to create three D home tours using just an iPhone, which is really cool because it's called the three D Zillo three
D Home. It's an AI powered mobile platform for iOS devices that allows anyone to create three hundred or capture three three hundred and sixty degree panoramic photos of a house and create a three D tour, which is really cool because if you can put a three D tour on your listing, more people see it, more people are exposed to it, more people are interested in it, and yes, it'll help people decide quicker whether they want are truly interested in your house. But you kind of want to
do that anyway. You don't want a million people come in to your house that don't really care. Right. So the interesting thing about this is that it's free. And if you're a real estate agent or you've sold a house, you know that this has been going on forever. People have made three D tours, but it was expensive. It took expensive equipment, elaborate setups, and a lot of time. Zillo says, this is free and it only takes an iPhone and it probably takes fifteen to twenty minutes.
That's crazy.
And in their research they found when they did this as a test, they reported agents reported that listings with three D tours attracted more potential buyers. So I like that idea.
That is cool. Okay, So I have a tweet for you, Rich. It's from at dawn Y tech guy. It's not a question, it's more of like a statement, and he just says, Hi, Rich, I've been wanting to remap my Samsung Galaxy S nine. Going into Bixby Settings, then select Bixby key. I selected double press to open Bixby and single press to open an app. Yes, I love push bullet. So this is like a new feature, I guess, and he is a fan.
There's a lot going on here, Don, Yeah, so there's a lot. Let's break it down. But okay, so what you're referring to is on the Samsung devices, and I forget when this started, but they put a dedicated button on there that when you press it, it's like there's you know, most phones have a volume rocker and then a power button, right, and maybe a home button on
the iPhones. Well, on the Samsung devices, they have an extra button that is literally just dedicated to Bixby, and there was no way to really disable that up until now. So now in the apps in your Bixby. So if you want to do what Don did he going, you activate Bixby the first time you go into settings, and there's a new option as long as your software is updated, that allows you to choose what happens when you press that Bixby key. You can't really disable it, but you
can kind of change what it does. All right, good question. By the way, Don, according to his profile on Twitter, is from New Jersey. So wo shout out to Don in New Jersey.
Shout out in New Jersey.
So I found this cool app? That just came out today, I think, but it's from Zoho Zho and I'm always, I don't know why, I'm fascinating with the idea of document scanners on my phone. So iPhone has a PDF scanner built in sodas Android. I use one called Scannabowl, but I'm always looking for something new and better and this one seems really good. So it's called Zoho doc Scanner. So doc Scanner. I tried it this morning. It's super simple.
You basically open up the app, it recognizes the paper that you have it pointed at, and it immediately starts scanning. So here, Megan, I'll show you this. I've got this paper. So watch how good this is? Got it right there? Boom, Okay, let's try it. Let's see. You got to get the edges. Look at that. So there you go. Now I have a great shot of that. And the other thing you can do is you can edit, so you can crop it. Whatever you can mark up so you can draw on it.
So if I want to draw like circle something, I can do that. Oh that's really cool. And you can do all this again.
Sign it.
I can sign it. Now. Here's where it gets a little tricky. So here's my little rich On Tech tip. If you want to sign it, they have a little thing that's like more and add signature right, so watch what happens. Boom there comes the upsell. Right. So they want you to pay a dollar forty nine a month or three dollars a month to do all the like fancy things on this app. Here's my rich On Tech tip. Instead of doing the signature, all you got to do is zoom in to wherever you want to sign. Let's
say this is the signature line. Go mark up first, then zoom in to where you want to sign, right, and now I can sign the paper. Son need to use their fancy thing. You just sign with your finger. It's not as like you know, yeah, robust is what they do. Anyway, it's a great little app. It saves us a PDF. Let me just make sure you can actually export it without paying. But if I go share and I go to save to files, yep, I can share it as a JPEG or a PDF. So great
little app. Again, it's called Zoho Doc Scanner.
Okay, so next question actually has to do with your book. This question is from Jacqueline zero two, that's her name on Instagram. She said, Hi, I would like to purchase your book, but it's telling me on a Kindle not an iPad. Do you know if that's correct? Thinks in advance.
So she's saying that she's trying to read it on her iPad, but it's telling her she can't. Okay. So here's what's happening. And this is kind of like it's a little window into the war between Apple and basically Apple and everyone Apple in the world. So the way Apple sees it, anything that you do through their through an app on the iPhone or the iPad, they should get a thirty percent cut of that of that purchase basically.
So with the Kindle app on iPad, if you browse through it, you'll notice quickly like, wait, why can't I buy any books on here? And it's really frustrating and it confuses a lot of people. I learned this when I put my book out the first time as a digital book. People are like, oh, it's not available for iPad. I'm like, yes, it is, Like, just download the Kindle
app and it's in there. But what people don't realize is that Apple disables the purchasing of any digital content through their app so you can't purchase anything digitally through the Amazon app because they will have to give a cut of that to Apple according to Apple's rules. So what they do is they just disable it all together. So if you go and buy the book on the website or even the web browser on the iPad, you can buy the book and then if you open up
your Kindle app, it will be in there. So that it's a really weird thing. But and it confused a lot of people myself because I was like wondering why when I first started selling my book, people were like, Oh, I can't buy it on the iPhone or the iPad, And I'm like, that's not true. That's just not like. It's basically any book that you buy through Amazon that's a Kindle book. You can download the free Kindle app to your iPad and read the book through your iPad. So got it?
That makes sense?
Yeah, all right, speaking of Amazon, now, I'm going to segue into Amazon Key for a Garage is now available. So if you're not familiar with this program, this allows Amazon Prime members to get deliveries in their garage using this key Smart Garage kit. So in addition to them opening your front door, with Amazon Key and putting a package inside, or opening the trunk of your car and putting a package in there. You can now choose in garage delivery. So to make this possible, you do have
to have some technology set up. You do have to have a Chamberlain, my Queue connected garage door opener, so I don't have this. I'm thinking of getting it because I kind of want this feature. So when Amazon announced that they would open up your front door if you have a special electronic key on your front or lock on your front door, people went crazy, like, no way Amazon opened the front door to my house. So they figured, okay, well, garage, maybe you do need to get one of these garage
door openers. So it's either my Queue Connected Chamberlain or lift Master Wi Fi garage door opener. So they will sell you this equipment. By the way, the garage hub is fifty bucks, which I don't think includes the opener, by the way, and you can also get up I'm very confused by this, but basically you need to install something that lets them open your garage to cret your package in there. Do you have another question?
I do. The next question is from Larry. Subject is email hackers, So he asks, Hey, Rich, I enjoy your segments on Ketla. I recently received a few emails that show that they are from me to me. I didn't open them, but did a print preview to see what it was about. And they said that they had hacked into my account and that they wanted a bitcoin ransom or otherwise they would show the porn sites that they claimed I looked at. First of all, I never looked at any Oh.
Okay, glad, glad, Larry's making that clear.
Secondly, a friend of mine said that I should just ignore these emails.
What do you think your friend is? Right, Larry? So a couple things. Number One, this is a scam that's been going around, and I'm glad that you kind of like understood that they wanted like a bitcoin ransom. You know, it's like, come on, really like. So what they're doing is they're sending like millions and millions of emails to folks, and this is kind of phishing, so they're trying to it's actually not even phishing because they're trying to get you to send money to them. So what they're doing
is they're preying on your vulnerability here. Now, these emails. We did a segment on this on Katla. Actually, these emails are usually personalized for you, so they usually have like your home address in them, or they have some sort of personal information like maybe even a password that
you've used in the past. So what they're doing is they're going through these dumps of passwords and email addresses that are available openly online that have been hacked, and so they're saying like, Okay, we know your email address, we know that this one of your passwords. We also know what you're doing online, so we're gonna, you know, we're gonna take action unless you send us some cash.
And the reality is they're just praying on the fact that you're like, oh, shoot, if they have my email address and that is one of my passwords that I've been using, what else do they have? And so that's when you get kind of scared into sending them money. But the reality is they don't have anything, and they're just trying to like pray upon you. So ignore these.
And also if they include like a link in the email, don't click.
On the ever click the link link. The other thing that you can do is and I do this on my email, I actually have images turned off by default because a lot of the times these companies, these hackers, if they're really smart, they will track the opens on these emails, so there'll be a little tiny tracking pixel in there, and they'll know, Larry, that you open the email.
So now they know that you looked at it, and they're kind of like, all right, now let's really prey upon him a little bit more and be like, we know that you read our email, and so we want to you know, why aren't you responding to us?
Yeah, but he did say I did didn't open the emails. I did a print preview. So is that a thing?
I guess. I don't know what email program he's using. Maybe he can do a print I don't know, but that's it. That's smart. So he didn't open it, so that's always smart. That's the other thing is I always recommend, if you think of emails kind of like spamy, just lead it without even opening it. But what I do is I actually have turned off my images, so I have.
You can go into your settings on your email and look for the option that says images, and it says always display external images or ask before displaying external images, And so I have those off, so you basically can't track when I open an email. Okay, do you have another question?
I actually I do. This one is about roaming charges and it's from Cindy W. She asks, Hello, Rich, I recently went on a cruise to the Panama Canal. My husband received a few phone calls, but he did not answer them on this trip. However, upon returning, my phone bill showed we were charged through dollars for each call. Can you tell me why this happened and can we dispute it?
Okay, so hmm interesting. Uh, I think you can dispute it for sure. I don't know how to happen. I think what's happening here is number one, your phone was on roaming. So if you have an iPhone, if you don't want this to happen, and believe me, this happened to me one time when I went to China, I got like a nine hundred dollars bill from AT and T because I forgot to turn roaming off. And I'm not kidding. All I uploaded I think it was like twenty five megabytes. It was really tiny, but it was
a huge amount of money. And so I called AT and T and they finally did work with me to get the charges reversed. They they ended up. The way they got around it is they backdated my account with some sort of like minute pass. So I bought like twenty five megabytes for like twenty dollars or something ridiculous, and they backdated it to before the trip, and that's how I got around it.
So because it was through cellular, yes.
Not Wi Fi, got it. So I was actually uploading stuff to Dropbox and I didn't realize that all these pictures that I uploaded were like going through cellular and not Wi Fi, and so I quickly realized my mistake. I turned my phone off, but it was not fast enough, and so I did get home and you get your bill, by the way, like two months later the roaming charges. Maybe it's gotten better now, but usually roaming charges show up like a month or two after your cycle, so
it's kind of funny. I'm like looking at this, I'm like, ooh, I gotta look into that. So anyway, on your iPhone, if you go into cellular, there is an option where it says Cellular Data options, I have roaming turned off just in case I go somewhere that it's on it'll won't flip through that. So that's the number one thing
you can do. Now, what you have to do is you have to call eighteen tier or whoever your provider is and just totally play dumb, be like, yeah, I didn't have my phone on like I didn't, and they know. They're like, we're not stupid. They hear these calls every day. But what you have to do is tell them I didn't answer the calls. So I get what's happening is
just to make your phone ring. It probably takes some network connectivity to that random network in Panama that you were using, and they will argue that because those two networks had to talk, there was a connection made and they don't care if you answer your phone or not, it still charges it as a call. Yeah, right, so it's probably that one minute of time that you get is like included in the ring whatever. Anyway, this is something that you can totally dispute. Cindy, Definitely call up
your service brighter, dispute it to all hell. Do not let this one go.
Good luck, Cindy.
Yeah, if you did not use your phone, and if you're not lying to me right, like I assume you're not lying, like, I assume you didn't use your phone if it just rang, Like, come on, an average person would think that, like your phone could ring.
Without being charged, right, totally.
Google Fit is now on iOS, so if you're familiar with google Fit, it's kind of like their answer to a fitness app. And what they've done is they revamped it a couple months ago. They have two simple activity goals, move minutes and heart points. So basically, the more you move, the more move minutes you earn, and the more intense that movement is, the more heart points you earn. So you don't have an Apple Watch, but I kind of
live and die by my minutes on here. So I've got move I guess it's move I don't know move points on here. I guess it's like calories or something. And then I have my move minutes. So just because you're moving, you'll get your move calories, but you may
not earn your move minutes. So like yesterday, I took a hike and I earn like fifty eight move minutes because guess what, when you're walking, it's strenuous on a hike, so you actually earn like good minutes, right, But you can walk around all day and not earn any minutes because it's not very strenuous just to walk. So that's kind of like the.
De You know how I love my walks.
You do love your walk You Megan is a ninety year old and a twenty year old's body. It's true, so it comes out that she walks a lot.
I go on hour long walks, Good Walk podcasts while I do it, so multitasking.
That walk around the block, We'll cure everything. Yep. So you probably would not earn a lot of minutes on those walks. Now, sometimes you do, depends on like the strenuous nature of the walk, and sometimes the Apple Watch will tell you to be like, hey, a forty five minute walk, We'll give you all your man that's like you need to fill for the rest of the day. But anyway, so the cool thing about Google Fit on iOS. You might be thinking, well, why do I need that.
I already have an Apple Watch. I've got Apple Health. It's cool because it works with various things. Anything that talks to Apple Health will help you get your activity move points and your heart minutes, so or sorry, yeah, move minutes and heart points. So if you want a simpler way to kind of slice and dice your activity. It's an easy way. So, for instance, for me today on my Apple Watch, I have three hundred and twelve
calories that I've burned but one minute of movement. Like, so I haven't done much today, right, I've just got work now. On the iOS Google fit app, it translates that into fifty four movementutes out of sixty, which I don't know how that's that must be for yesterday. Hold on, that can't be for today. There's no way.
Fifty four out of sixty.
There's no way that's for today. How is that possible? Yeah? I don't Okay, I have zero Okay, I have zero heart points, and this says I have six hundred and sixty seven calories burned.
So they're different, they're very different.
But it sounds like the move minutes are actually just moving like minutes that you're kind of like moving. But I don't have any heart points, which is the tough thing to get. So kind of they're both on the same level with the heart points, and you have a stack there you can only choose one more.
No, I was like thinking, which one do I want to ask? But I think that this one is probably going to help more people. This is from Marianna B. She says, hello, rich, My husband and I currently have YouTube TV, but heard it's going up to fifty dollars. I was just curious what your thoughts are on all these streaming services versus cable. We have Netflix, Amazon Prime and use the antenna to get KEYTLA. Seems like it would be cheaper to just have cable again, since we
pay fifty five dollars for the Internet. What are your thoughts?
This is I feel like we get this question every week, right, isn't this like a no? I love it because it's it's I get so many of these questions and it's a really tough one. But I'll boil it down to a couple things. Number One, Yes, you can probably at this point get cable, and you're gonna get more for your money at this point, like you're paying fifty five dollars for Internet, which, by the way, you must be on a promotional plan because a standard for Spectrum is
now sixty five. And what Spectrum is doing slowly but surely they are getting everyone off these promotional plans and they are not giving them another one. So like me, I pay sixty five. I was paying forty five, and I'm not even gonna call them to pay the fifty five because it's like such a pain to get through to someone that it's like, all right, final pay. So that's a twenty dollars spread every month. That's like twenty more dollars I could be spending on like a you know,
a streaming plan. So anyway to answer your question, yes, you can get more with cable. Here's why I hate cable. Okay, it's not because they don't offer good deals. They do. I get these things to my house every week. I can pay ninety dollars for Spectrum cable and Spectrum Internet, which is way cheaper than one paying for streaming. But here's the thing. I don't want the cable box. I
don't want the hassle of cable. I don't want a cable box in any way, shape or form in my house because the on screen display is terrible, the software is terrible. The customer service is probably fine, but I don't want to deal with you. I want to be able to sign up for services and delete services at will. Right, So that's why I personally don't want cable. So if you want to go to the cable route and you're fine with the crappy DVR they give you and the
crappy software by all means, go for it. It is an easier process. It is an easier system overall, because guess what, you turn on your TV. You go to your cable box, you press the letter or the number of the channel you want to watch. It's simple. You get all the things you don't have to deal with an antenna. It is easier. But to me, it's just not the way of the future, you know. So that's kind of like my thought on that. I know, that's
kind of like a rich's rant. But my flip side of all that is, yes, these services, like all all these streaming services are getting complicated to keep track of the channels keep changing, the prices keep going up. So what I recommend is, you know, figure out what you want, what do you want out of life when it comes to your your cable So if you only need KTLA, you've already got the antennas, you're fine there. Maybe you don't need a streaming service like YouTube TV or any
of these other ones. Maybe you can subside on Netflix and Amazon Prime plus the antenna, Like, why do you need all the other stuff? Now? If you're telling me Rich, I watch Bravo and I want to watch what is it? Real Housewives? Is that the big show? So that means that you need a cable service, right, because that's not available anyway else as far as I know, Okay, it's on Hulu, so day and day or what day and date? Like like okay, what days on and when? Do I get?
Okay, good point, Yeah, it's it's not the current season. They don't have the currencyason never want to watch the.
Current season, right. So again it's like all these little like mind land mind. It's very tough. So I would go to untangled dot TV type in the shows or the programming or the channels that you like to watch, it will spit out the streaming services that are best for you. So for me, I always give the example,
I only watch two channels, Nick Junior. I don't watch these, but Nick Junior and Disney Junior are the two channels that I need for my streaming service, and a lot of them don't offer both of those, and so I have direct TV now. I pay fifty dollars a month for basically those two channels, and so my wife and I always have this discussion of how can we cancel direct TV now to reclaim that fifty bucks, and we can't because we need those two channels. So that's just the way it is.
But everything's gonna change when Disney comes out with their streaming service.
Yes it is, and it's gonna be a game taker for parents. It's gonna be basically like in my case, I will say I will pay the six ninety nine a month for Disney Plus and I will go without Nick, right, Yeah, and that'll be fine because now I'm saving fifty dollars minus seven dollars is what.
Fifty dollars minus seven is forty three dollars.
I'll be saving forty three dollars a month. Yeah, I mean we should I do with my extra cash?
Megan, go to Dell Taco? All right.
Finally, this is a story we did on KTLA. You saw it here first, and it is it has been seen around the world. Now, this is an Apple watch that was lost at sea. So I'll tell you the story. A guy named Robert Bainter was is a is a body surfer in Huntington Beach. He loves his Apple watch. He rode a big wave and next thing you know, he looked at his wrist and it was gone. So he spent an hour looking for his watch. He didn't find it, and he basically turned on Find my iPhone.
He put his watch in lost mode, which displays a little message on your watch that says like, hey, if you find this, can you call me now. A lot of people question that part of the story. They're like, hold on, how did his watch get into find my iPhone or lost mode? When Apple Watch has to be on cellular or Wi Fi. So clearly he was either on a cellular connection. I didn't know if he had that on his watch, or he was connected to some sort of Wi Fi networ so on my Apple Watch,
I'm connected to like Spectrum Wi Fi. Because my phone is connected, it kind of passes that over. So there is a chance that he was on like Spectrum WiFi and that's how it was able to put that lock message on his device. I know more than you need to know. Anyway, long story short, he gave up hope. Six months later, he gets a phone call and this guy says, Hey, are you Rob Bainter. I think you lost an Apple Watch. If you can describe this watch, I will give it back to you. Sure enough, it's
his watch. He described it. He couldn't believe it. The thing still worked.
This is such a funny story. I was obsessed with it when you had told me, okay, like can you go and like cover this? I got really into it because it really just blows my mind. I don't have an Apple Watch, so of course now I want to get an Apple Watch because I think they're like indestructible. Robert and his wife were so lovely and they were they're huge KTLA fans, so.
They weren't lying because a lot of people are questioning kind of like the whole story.
Oh no, they were not. I mean I didn't detect any like lives going on. This was very legit. Like we literally walked right down to the water right where he was bodysurfing, and he was like, this is like the spot where I'm always body surfing. He had had the Apple Watch for two years.
Oh wow, okay, you've got more details.
Yeah, I have some.
I have described the haze, so I'm assuming that's from the sand that was like hitting up against it.
The horr what's weird is so Basically, like there's a pier in hunting Huntington Beach right by where he was bodysurfing that day, and if the if the apple Watch had gone through the pier, it probably would have like caught up yeah, from like the rocks and like everything
that's under the pier. So basically the apple Watch had to have like been sucked out into the ocean and then past the pier and then like you know, six months pass, maybe a fish picked it up and like finding nemo like brings it up north of the pier.
Yeah, they win for a while.
Yeah, that's really funny.
And then it's three years north and some guy found it, right.
And the guy that found it he he had thought that it had happened recently because he thought, oh, no, idea, maybe this was yeah, this was today. So in the phone call that he left for Robert, he's like, hey, man, like, if you lost this recently, like I have your Apple Watch. But it had been six months so and by that point Robert had already gotten a new Apple Watch kind of moved on with his life, and then you know, it turned back up.
So one thing I just realized that we forgot to do with this story is interview the guy that found it. Yes, so he's like the mystery man. I think we need to follow up. Yeah, I know, but I love the idea that he found it and he was honest enough
to return it. But the thing is like the watch is pretty useless without like if he didn't return it, it's like he couldn't reactivate it because all the Apple products have like activation lock, so if you don't log in with the iCloud that it was activated on, you can't do anything with it anyway. So yeah, anyway, great story. It turned up in a whole bunch of places and pr Yahoo scenet. This story was basically like all over
the world. So and I think it's going to keep going because it's like people are just still hearing about it, just.
Like that Apple Watch. It's like fighting Emo. Yeah, it really is.
I would love to have like a little video camera view of like what that Apple Watch went through for six months, because what I think happened is realistically, it was slashing around the ocean for only a little bit of time and then it washed up on shore pretty quickly, and then it just was evidence to someone like you know, probably was under the sand or something like, I don't think it was sloshing around the ocean for six months.
I think it was under the sand kind of something like.
I don't think it was like slashing around. That seems kind of crazy, but anyway, it still worked and that was a cool thing. So Rob Bainter and his wife, by the way, they emailed only me, right, didn't they say that?
They?
Yes?
They they So. Robert's wife she's a huge fan of Rich and she was like, I, you know, listen to every tech report when this happened, and like, you know, when we found the watch, she immediately thought like I'm going to reach out to Rich, which she did obviously.
Yeah, and I get a lot of emails, by the way, and I took one read of the first line and I don't have her email in front of me, but it was literally like my husband lost his Apple watch at scene. It returned six months later, and I was like, yeah, done. I email her right back, said when can we shoot this? Yeah.
Immediately immediately she mentioned that too. She was like he responded within like two minutes.
So I was like, yeah, there are some I know. I know that sometimes if you email me you may get frustrated because I don't email you back, but I do have a priority list in my head of like, yeah, I can tell when there's urgency and an email, and I know when to write back and I know when. Also, some emails I get do not have that same urgency, and I can take a little bit of time because, believe me, I get a lot of emails, especially with
this podcast. Now hello at richon tech dot tv is the email address if you want to get to your question in But believe me, we get a lot of them, and I do reply to most, but sometimes it can take a little bit.
Yeah, sometimes he doesn't respond to me, So don't be offended.
That's going to do it for this week's show. Thanks so much for listening to the rich on Tech podcast. The best thing you can do with this show is to rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or share it with a friend. Let them know that you listen. Don't keep it a secret. Basically, thanks to the new listeners we have out there, we did feature the podcast on KTLA and our other partner stations, so we did pick up a few new listeners. So if you are one of them, thank you for listening to the show.
For the very first time. I swear it will get better. No, just kidding, No, that's the way it is. I've been saying that the show is going to get better for basically I think there's like two hundred episodes on iTunes. Like I always promise it'll get better. It never does, but it's always.
Fun, right, I think it's getting better.
My book is one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone. It's available on Amazon right now and it does have four and a half stars. So thank you for all the folks who have reviewed it, and you can find me at rich On Tech. Producer Megan, Where can folks find you?
Twitter? Megan mcmonagle is why are you laughing?
Do you still haven't changed yet?
To producer Megan? I really I'll do like a vote or something.
Producer Megan. Just you know it's so easy to produc mean, just start typing it within h P R O D and it's like boom there you are. Yeah, okay, but Megan mcmonagall, it's like what was that again?
Yeah?
Anyway, you can find Meghan there. You can find me all over the place. Thanks so much for watching on KTLA five am, seven am, nine am hours or any of our partner stations. Thanks for listening to the Rich on Tech podcast. I'm Rich demiro On, behalf of myself and producer Megan. Have a great day. We'll talk to you real soon