Is the Samsung Galaxy fold of flop, Amazon and Google makeup, Verizon increases a key fee, and iPhone hacked for parents. BBM says bye bye and your questions. What's going on? I'm Rich dmiro. This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech things I think you should know about, plus I answer your pressing tech questions. Welcome to the show. And joining me once again is producer Megan. Producer Megan, welcome, Welcome.
How's it going?
It's going well. I was up in Petaluma over the weekend. You were in Coachella.
Uh huh, same thing.
But we both lost our voices, So I guess that's what happens when you're on the radio for six hours on the weekend. I was filling in for Leo Laporte. You were presumably screaming for all the fans you saw.
I was singing with all my might.
Who was the best performer you saw?
You know, Ariana Grande was pretty amazing, Like her voice gave me goosebumps.
I was very improsuded.
Well.
I listened over the weekend on my YouTube music app because they had all the live Coachella streams. I thought was kind of cool. Yeah, but I did not hear her. Actually, the only band I knew that I listened to was nineteen seventy five I think. Okay, so I listened to them and the other ones I didn't know, but I just kind of kept it on. It was kind of fun to like this was all live and you know, it was kind of fun. But a lot of stuff happened this week in technology. Probably the biggest story at
this point is the Samsung Galaxy Fold. So I got to go hands on with this device. This is the foldable smartphone from Samsung that's going to launch on April twenty six, or at least as of this recording, that is the plan. Now after you hear the story, that might change. So a little bit of background. Number one, this is probably the first phone in history with Samsung in the time that I've been a reporter that they did not give me a review unit, which is kind
of odd. Usually they send me a review unit before, you know, at least before everyone else or you know, maybe the main the big media gets at first. Then I get a sex but before it launches. Right this time, they didn't do that. They said, hey, you're welcome to come to our store at the Americana at Brand and check out the device they gave me about, you know, two hours. There was no it was it was kind of open ended. But I went there and it was great.
I was very impressed. But the first thing I noticed about this device is that the screen looked unreal, Like I literally said, oh, this is a fake screen, right, because it looked like the printed magazine page more than a smartphone screen. And that will come in handy after
you hear the story. So now the story is that four tech reviewers have damaged their phones basically, so the screen has pretty much crapped out on their devices, and we're trying to figure out is this something they did or is this something that is a bigger problem with the device. Now, two of the reviewers, okay, two of the reviewers removed what they thought was a protective screen on a protective layer on the screen, but it turned out not to be a protective layer. It actually is
the screen, and so they totally messed theirs up. So that you kind of have to discount a little bit because you're not supposed to peel off the screen of your phone, right, And that goes back to what I was just saying about the screen looked unreal. Well, I guess that's how they get it to fold. Is it's literally like some weird screen material that you're not used to. Now. One person said the Verge said that they propped up the phone with a little bit of molding clay during
a photo shoot and their problems started after that. So they say, maybe some of that molding clay got stuck into the hinge on the phone and that caused the issue because they had some sort of bulls on their screen. We're not sure. But then CNBC said their phone straight up just conked out and it didn't work. So do we have another one of these Note seven fiascos on our hand? Do you remember when that whole thing happened, Megan, Yes.
I do, and it kind of sounds like that right now.
Well I know, but it's too early to know. I mean, that's the thing, Like, I want to give Samsung the benefit of the doubt. We folded this thing and unfolded it several times and it worked pretty well. But they say it's last. It's made for like many many opens and closes. I think it was like one hundred a day for five years, right.
And the screen is beautiful, and I think now people will know like moving forward. Okay, I'm not gonna peel off the screen, you know, but this thing.
Is also two thousand dollars. If I bought a two thousand dollars device and it conked out in the first week of use or two days in some of these cases, that's a problem. Now, the other side of all this is that Samsung, of course extensively tested this device. So we saw the video where they put the thing through the ringer, where they opened and closed it like a bazillion times. So did these four journalists just stumble upon something Samsung didn't find in that whole time or is
this isolated? We're gonna have to watch this one. But kind of my overall thoughts on this doesn't really change. The reality is this is a first generation device. It's probably something you want to wait on. Anyway, people who buy this thing have an abundance of cash. I think they want to be on the cutting edge, they want to be able to show off to their friends, so they're probably still going to buy it. But for the
average person, probably something you want to wait on. And I will tell you my impression of the device is. I came away very impressed. Now, I don't think it's the use case scenario that I need right now, but I love the idea. In the future, if they can get iPhone form factor that flips open like this to a big screen inside, that's amazing. That would be really cool, and that's what I'm hoping for. Yeah, all right, Megan, You've got some questions for me or what yes, I do?
Okay, So my first question is from Anthony Laura. He says, good morning, rich I just got a new work phone. I'm going from Sprint to T Mobile, but that's not the issue. I have a Sprint corporate account for my Pandora, so I don't have to worry about commercials. In your opinion, music app wise, what's the best music app to use Pandora? Google Music, Spotify Help.
Okay, A lot of exclamation points at the end of that.
Okay, So good question. And this is something that I've got a lot of experiencing because I've tried all the music apps. If you look at my sonos at home, it's actually kind of ridiculous because right now I'm a subscriber of I'll tell you all the ones YouTube music Pandora. I have an account. I'm not a subscriber Apple Music, Spotify and which also I mean YouTube Music also includes Google Music. So those are the ones I have. Also, iHeartRadio, I have which you don't have to. I don't subscribe
to it, but I have it. But here's here's my thought on all these programs. So number one, I mean, Spotify is the biggest, right, everybody knows Spotify and it's is it the best? I mean, I think it's big. I don't know if it's the best. It's it's really good at you know, playlist, there's a playlist for everything. I find that there are a lot of playlists and sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not very good. I also find that everyone uses it, so it's just kind of
like it's become like water. It's like, oh yeah, Spotify is like the music app, right, So I think it's good and personally what I like to do, I always like the number two because it's kind of like they try harder, you know what I mean, Like Spotify knows what it is. Obviously they're great, but I kind of like things that always try a little bit harder. And so for me, I've really liked Google play Music in the past. I know, totally weird because who uses that.
But Google play Music I like because it actually kind of knows more about music because of YouTube like it takes all that data into action for what it creates. And I love oneplay is so two things. Google play Music used to own this thing called songs, which they have one of my favorite playlists, which is called Blogged fifty,
and that has taken over to Google Play. But Google play is going away, So really we have to be talking about YouTube music, and I will tell you right now, YouTube music, out of all the services, is my absolute favorite. So I would say check out YouTube Music, Anthony, because I think that they're doing a really nice job. The search is great. You can type in a couple of lyrics to a song and it will come up with the song. They have live versions of songs, which I
really like. So if you really like a song that's on the radio, next thing, you know, if you start listening to that on YouTube music, it will kind of unearth some of these live performance of that song, like if the person played on like the Today Show or like Jimmy Fallon or whatever, you'll start seeing that on your homepage, which I find really cool because it's fun
to see that Pandora. Pandora is great for like, I feel like Pandora is like the first music thing that everyone starts with, right because it's free and it's simple and it's easy. And then after a while you kind of get bored because they play the same songs over and over and over and over. But there is one feature I like on that, and that's the Shuffle All
your playlist feature. So if you pick like five playlists and then you do the shuffle the Master Shuffle, it will pick songs from all those different playlists, which I do like. And Apple Music is really good if you get it for free with Verizon, which you don't have Verizon, You've got Sprint, you know, then get that, but you don't have that free, so I wouldn't I wouldn't really look into that one. But anyway, if you're getting Pandora for free, I mean, I don't know, it's kind of
a nice work perk. But I would check out YouTube Music. I kind of like that one.
Yeah, I want to try that now.
It's great.
It's really good.
I find that they are very very good, and they just got car play support, So if you have car Play Apple CarPlay in the car, it's really cool. I also see this is the thing. There's little things I like about all the different services. And there's like a station I really like on iHeart, which the name is it's called a colectic rock, which I really like because it's like songs from anywhere. You know what I mean,
don't it's not one genre. So I like that about iHeart and I haven't been able to find a station like that anywhere else. And on YouTube Music, I like the pop in country mix. It's like a mix of pop songs and country songs, which is kind of cool too. So all right, Anthony, thanks for emailing in the question. Now, this is one of those days where finally two tech
companies make peace and it actually benefits the consumer. So Amazon and Google have announced, you know what, We're putting all of our sides behind us, and we are finally going to have our apps on each other's platforms. Now
what does that mean? So it means that the official YouTube app will be launching on Amazon Fire TV devices rejoice, And the Prime Video app from Amazon will finally get chrome cast support, or maybe it had chrome Cast support before, but then they pulled it because of this whole little war they had. But this is a big thing. Now. You might be saying to me, hey, rich, look, I already have YouTube on my fireTV. Yes, but it's not
an app. That YouTube that you see on your screen is actually just a link to a YouTube TV optimized website. So this will actually be a real YouTube app which will give you your full library of content, the ability to play videos in four k HDR at sixty frames per second, which I know video folks love. I don't even know what that means, but I'm sure it's great, and you'll get the Chrome cast stuff as well. So the problem with this announcement is this really annoys me.
It's not coming today, Like when you make an announcement like this, shouldn't it be today? Come on? I agree, So it's coming, and they give us a date. It's in the coming months. Come on, okay, so like in four months exactly. The only worst thing than coming months is by the end of the year. Let's just give a whole long runway for this thing. No, we want this today. When you announce something, I want it that day. I want to be able to download it right now.
That's not happening. But YouTube TV and YouTube Kids will also come to fire TV later this year. All right, Producer Megan.
Next question, Okay, next question is regarding Wi Fi connection issues. Okay, my wife and I both have an iPhone eight just purchase December, and lately here we're connected to our WiFi at home, we cannot get any connection.
We both use the app you showed.
On one of your segments, Meteor, and it shows poor connection. We also have Alexa, Alexa Dot and a laptop all have a good Wi Fi connection.
We're baffled. Any suggestions, Thank you?
Did they leave their name?
Gerald Landenberg?
Jerald, Jerald, Gerald L Gerald? Okay, wi Fi issues? So I don't know what changed because it sounds like everything was working just fine and then all of a sudden it broke. So my feeling has something to do with your iPhone. But it's kind of odd because both you and your wife are having a problem with your iPhones.
Right.
Is that what they said?
Yeah, that's what they said.
That's kind of a head scratcher because I can understand one of you having a problem. But here's what I think. I think something changed with your network just a little bit and it sounds like both your iPhones reacted in a way that's not good, or maybe you've got some sort of software update on your iPhone that's kind of not working with your network in the current setup. So what I think you should do is do a network reset. So if you go into your settings on your iPhone,
you can reset your all kinds of settings. But the one that most people don't know about is called the network settings reset. So I'll tell you how you get there. You go into Settings, okay, and then you go into General and you scroll all the way down to where it says reset. And this is a scary thing because people are like, reset, I don't want to go near there. Right. Well, once you get in there, you have about one, two, three, four, five, six different options for resets. We of course all know
the reset all content and settings. That's the one that you do before you sell your iPhone and eRASS everything off of it. But the one most people don't know about is called reset Network Settings. And when you tap that, you'll have to enter in your passcode. But once you do that, it will reset your Bluetooth, your Wi Fi, and your cellular back to factory settings, which means everything's going to be cleared out, all your paired cars, all your paired devices, all your Wi Fi networks that you've
logged into. It's kind of a fresh start, so you will have to relog into all those different Bluetooth devices and Wi Fi networks from your phone. But it's kind of a fresh start and it's kind of nice. So I say, do that, and hopefully once you log into your WiFi, it shouldn't be bad because it sounds like your WiFi is working for everything.
Else, right, right, That's what it sounds like.
So I think the network resetting should start. Good question, Megan, Okay, I'll let you prepare for the next one. When I talk about some iPhone rumors. And I don't really love to get into the iPhone rumors because there's literally a new one every day. But when Ming Chi Quo talks, everyone listens. This is the noted Apple analyst, and he is saying now that Apple plans to upgrade the front camera and the twenty nineteen iPhones from seven megapixels to
twelve megapixels. Holley lujah, Megan, come on, that's exciting.
Right, No, that's big, I mean exciting.
This is something every time I've gone to an iPhone event, I always sit there and say, did they upgrade the selfie camera? And I think the last time they did it was like several generations ago. So no matter what the iPhone, the selfie camera on the iPhone has taken on a life of its own, like people really rely on it, and it's still pretty bad when you're not in like super nice bright light. So I'm excited for this.
That's all basically have to make. The only thing is it's going to get from a four element lens to a five element lens component. So whatever that means, it probably sounds better, right, more megapixels, better components. The only little teeny tiny thing I hope they do is add a wider screen, like a wider field of view to the selfie because the selfies are great if you're taking just one selfie of yourself, but if you want to do like a groupie, you know, group selfie. Yeah you
never heard that, No, I just made it up. So if you want to take a group group selfie, they need a little bit wider angle. We'll see if they do that. I'm not sure, but that's another thing. Verizon meanwhile, is they're kind of increasing fees not very nice for Verizon. So this is my I hate this fee to begin with,
and I can't believe it's going up. So the fee that I hate is called the upgrade or activation fee, and this is when you go into the store, you plunk down eight hundred bucks for a brand new phone, and then they slap you in the face saying, oh, by the way, it's thirty five dollars just to put
that phone on your account. And you're like, wait, what, I just spent all this money on this new phone, and you're charging me an extra thirty five bucks for what for your person to type the number into the computer. So that is now going up to forty dollars for the upgrade according to cnet. Now they say that I don't know how much it was before. I remember being thirty five bucks before, but I can't really remember the
last time. So actually, I will tell you this. The last time I activated two of my phones on Verizon, the guy said he's like, if you call in, they will credit you that activation fee. And I was like really now. It took me a while, and I did this for my phone and my wife's phone, So I called up for I think it was my wife's phone first, and I said, hey, guy in the store mentioned that you can credit me this activation fee, and she's like, yeah,
we can do that. I was like really, And then I said, what about my phone that I activated a couple months ago. She goes, let me look, yeah, we can do that. So I saved seventy just with one phone call to Verizon. So app thank you. Yeah, yeah, so that was huge. But they are raising that fee, so I don't know. You can try the whole call in and see if they'll credit you. You know, I've been a nice customer. I pay my bill on time, all
that good stuff. But if you do activate through the app, they're reducing the fee by ten dollars, so now it's only twenty dollars if you do it through the app or through online, which I actually applaud Verizon four because if you're doing it online, it does physically cost them less money because they're not processing as much with a
human being. So I'm glad I can understand them. You know, I don't understand them raising the price at all, but I'm happy that they are acknowledging the fact that online users should get a little bit of a reward by doing it themselves, all right, Megan, producer, Megan, next question.
Okay, this next question is from Susie Olsen. Hi, Rich, I take a lot of photos with my iPhone seven plus. However, when you were filling in for the tech guy, I think you told someone that there was a better camera and a different iPhone. Thank you for your help, God bless you.
Oh wow, thank you. Let's see I missed. I missed the name here. What was it, Suzie? Okay, Susie, Susie Olsen? Okay, Susie, so you have an iPhone seven plus? What she said?
Yes?
So, uh okay. Here's the thing. I talk about cameras on phones a lot, and I think what it really comes down to is is this phone performing the way
that you want it to. So if you're happy with your pictures and you think they're good and fine, and don't worry about what Rich says on the radio When people ask me what the best camera is, of course there's always a best camera, and I would say that's probably the Pixel three right now, right, But I will tell you that I think the iPhone ten are and the ten s and the ten tennis Max rather have really great cameras, and they've improved by the way over
the ten So is there a better camera? There's always, Susie. It's like life. There's always gonna be something better out there, right, But you know, is what you have working for you? I think it's just fine unless you're unhappy with your pictures. Now, if you're unhappy with your pictures, i'd recommend going with the iPhone ten are. But if you're perfectly fine with what's going on, then just stick with what you got.
I think you have a fine I do think the camera has improved on the iPhone immensely since you got your device, But again, if it's working, just stick with it, right. I do think that low light photography on the iPhone I don't feel like it's improved that much over the years. So if that's where you're having a problem, you're not going to see a huge improvement in that area. But if you want the best camera out there on the market right now, I think the Pixel three probably has that.
But what I recommend you switching probably not for that one specific feature.
Yeah, that was kind of deep.
I just have to say, well, you know, I try, it's going to be something better there's.
Always gonna be something better there always, no matter what, whether it's job, whether it's love, whether it's life, whether it's your car, whether it's anything.
It's always some French fries.
Is there is there better? What's the best friend tries?
Well, my opinion, in and Out has the best friend try?
What that is a very unpopular, very awkward Are you Are you just joking? No?
I actually love in and Out French.
Fries and I but you're calling them the best.
That's my opinion.
They're not the best. Yeah, I think I think like the McDonald's is probably.
Those are pretty good too.
Photographer Luis says McDonald's from the side, and I think, I mean the only thing about McDonald's fries they're engineered to be the best, whereas In and Out fries are like literally you're watching them cut the potatoes. So I like the fresh you like the fresh fries, real potato, You like fresh French fries exactly what other you know?
Uh?
Yeah, I don't know. I do like good French fries though, like if they're good, they're yeah, you know, I mean that's not odd, but that's an interesting It's funny because when the La Times did the rankings of the French fries. They put those as last.
I know you posted about that Instagram and it did.
It did. Oh my gosh. You guys had a lot to say about that. And I've got a lot to say about this T mobiles new TV service called t Vision. So we talked about this on the last podcast, and I'll admit I was wrong about a couple of things. Number one, it is not delivered by Coax cable. I said that T mobiles new TV service was delivered by Coax. It's not. It's actually delivered over the Internet through an Ethernet cable, so you have to keep your high speed
Internet for this to work. I was right about that. But here's the other thing I learned because I went hands on with a demo. You have to have cable service from a particular provider for it to work. Because T Mobile's actually leasing, not just like the cable line. I don't know, it's really complicated, but they're actually leasing, Like you can't just get this over any Internet. You have to have specific Internet from a specific provider. So what do you get for one hundred bucks? You get
a whole bunch of channels, You get this DVR. There are some there's no fees, well, there are fees. If you have an extra box fee, there's taxes you have to pay. That was I impressed. I was not impressed. I really wanted to love this because I'm a big fan of the original TVO and I thought this was kind of like TVO reimagined. It's really not. The DVR
is amazing, I'll give you that. It's got all the channels you need, but the features are kind of eh, and I'd rather have something like a Apple TV or a fire TV, a platform that has pretty much every app available. The voice functionality was not very good. It
connects to Alexa and Google, but it's really awkward. You have to say things like a ask Tvision to search for Game of Thrones or a ask Tvision to search for or tune into KTLA, So it's kind of weird, like you're faster just supress channel five on your remote than to ask all that right. Also, the remote does not work RF, which means it's a line of sight, so I had to aim it at the box, which is also weird because I'm so used to Apple TV
and Roku and all these other ones. With the remote, you just kind of hold in your hand and you aim at anywhere and it still works, right, And then you lose things like Spectrum Sports net La that carries the Dodgers if you switch. And by the way, once you switch and get rid of your cable, your internet fee is probably going to go up. So again, right now, I'm not really hip on the t Vision and the apps.
There's only a handful of apps. It's like YouTube, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and they say by the end of the year there's those dreaded words. Again, by the end of the year they're gonna have Amazon and Netflix. But by the end of the year that's like six more months, more than six months. Yeah, that's a whole That's a lot can change in a year, right, So again, I love what T Mobile's doing, and I think that they're trying to like push cable forward, but this is not it just yet.
I think in the future, when T mobile has a five G wireless network that reaches everyone and you can literally plug in their box to the to the Wi Fi or to the to their wireless five G that'll be great or even better when you can download the T mobile t Vision app to your Apple TV and just use it that way that will be good. But then I'm like, well, why do you need it? Just use your Apple TV. So again, head scratcher. If you want to read my full review, it's on my website.
Rich on tech dot TV Megan back to you.
Our next question is for Christina Truhilo. She says, Hi, Rich, I'm a huge fan and appreciate all your tips in the morning. A while back, you talked about a site or app that once that once you input your insurance info, it compares various insurance options to find you the lowest rate. I remember it was an easy name, one syllable, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was. I could really use it now if you could help dog my memory, I would be super appreciative.
Thanks a lot.
Okay, this is actually something I need to do right now, so thanks for reminding me. Christina. The website is called Gabby Gabi and she was right, it was simple, right, yeah, But I just got my renewal for my insurance and it went way up and I didn't change anything. So it's like an extra I think like thirty or forty bucks a month, which I will be shopping around. I haven't shopped for new auto insurance in like a decade, So it's one of those things like who wants to
you know, who wants to do that? Right? You go, you get your fee, you don't you want to deal with it. So the website is Gabby and here's what they do differently. So they use artificial intelligence to actually look up your current insurance and compare rates. So most of the time you just type in all this information
blah blah blah blah. This one you link your current insurance accounts, you log in with that, they go in and they kind of like crawl your account to see what all the coverages you have and stuff, and then they scan and go out to a whole bunch of providers. I'm looking on their website right now to see who the Triple A, MetLife, Clearcover, Farmers, Hippo, Geico, Traveler, State Farm, Safeco, Nationwide, Mercury, twenty plus companies. And they get a quote from those
companies based on your current service. Now, if you don't feel comfortable, because some people might say rich that sounds like an invasion of privacy. If I put my PDF, you know, if you put that, if you you know, link your insurance account. You might be feeling like that's an invasion of your privacy. So alternatively, you can upload a pdf of your you know, coverages, and they'll scan the PDF and look at it that way. But I think you just want to do it the way you should,
which is log in with your current account. They're using security and all that stuff. But the other thing they do is if they can't find you a cheaper rate right now, they will continue to monitor your insurance for when it's renewal time and they'll send you an alert, which, by the way, Gabby, I sign up for you and I did not get that alert and it's my renewal time,
so hopefully that feature is still working. But and if you're in California, by the way, Christina, I will just kind of cut to the chase and I'll tell you the cheapest quote you're going to get from them is probably clear Cover, which is this new insurance company that's operating and it's relatively new, but they're operating in California is one of their states, and they're really competitive. So that's who I'm looking at because it's pretty good coverage
for pretty good price, so good questions. Thank you, good questions, Megan speaking to T Mobile. I know we were talking about them before and speaking of money, they now have this new thing called T Mobile Money, and this is kind of a checking account for the you know, millennial or anyone else who wants a cheap digital checking account. So it's open to anyone. This was something that was around before, but now they've made it nationwide and you sign up right from your phone, right on an app,
and you can make mobile check deposits. You can set up direct deposits, pay bills, send a paper check. There's no check like payper check, but they'll cut one for you. You can add your card to a mobile wall like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay. You can make payments person a person, and you even get a MasterCard debit card. And the ATMs are all free, fifty five thousand all point ATMs. There's no fees, so no overdraft fees,
no ATM fees, no monthly fees. So this is kind of a cool idea if you are looking for a checking account that you don't want to deal with a lot of these fees. A lot of the big banks do not offer like a free, truly free checking anymore. The only caveat with this one is you have to have a two hundred dollars in deposits every month for it to be like pretty much, I don't really know what they do. If you don't, I guess you don't
get interest if it doesn't. But here's the interest. If you're a T mobile customer, you get four percent interest on up to three thousand dollars. If you're a regular customer, you get one percent interest on your checking. So anyway, Tea Mobile Money available now nationwide. Check it out. Google Home has a few new tricks you can use, and this is a I guess linked to the Spring, but
Google came out with the blog post. There's a new Gentle Sleep and wake feature, So if you have Phillips Hughes smart lights in your home, you can now ask Google to turn on Gentle wake Up, which will pair your morning alarm with gradual brightening of your lights. Now, Megan, I know I wake up super early. I think you
do too, because you're in here when I'm in here. Yes, at KTLA, So this would not work for us, But if I was on a normal sleep schedule, I would love this feature because I would love to be gently woken up by the lights in my room getting brighter. Yeah, it's kind of like the sunrise, right, So that's cool. Then you have wake up my lights, which you can say, and you can say wake up my lights in the bedroom at six am, and this will gradually brighten your lights at that time.
So I would need that for like three am, yeah, a.
Lot earlier, but that'd be cool. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a great idea. I mean, I love the idea of I always set my alarm using bedtime on the iPhone because it gently increases the volume of the alarm versus the blaring alarm which went off today and it was very jarring. Sleep my lights will do the same thing, except opposite, so they just so this is kind of cool.
Let's say you're watching Netflix in the living room. You've got this shoe, the Google heel or the Phillips shoe lights, you say, sleep my lights, and then it will gradually dim your lights I think over the next like half an hour or so to like darkness. So you know, like when that when those lights go.
Dark, it's time for bed.
Time for bed So if you can't, you know, if you have no self control, the lights will tell you when it's time to go to bed. The other thing you could also do is say the code word, you know, Google play white noise and you'll get some white noise out of your speaker as well.
I love that future.
Did you have any more questions?
Or I have two more?
Oh my gosh, how many did you get? I think we'll take one more, So give me the best one you have. Okay, you pick Megan. This is this is your moment.
Okay, okay, this is a good question.
This is the time to shine.
This is from Paulette Sorenson. She says, Hi, can you please help me with suggestions for a wireless printer for my iPad two? I have a Verizon, my MEFI, my five Fi, my Fi jet pack seventy seven thirty.
Oh wow, very thank you for the very specific numbers there.
Yeah. Thanks.
I have tried to research this and everything I find says they are very difficult and time time consuming to set up. I am a senior not to tech savvy and must must say not so much. Wait, most say not much. Customer service comes with one. I appreciate your segment on Fox Sacramento and any advice you have for me, I would use the printer only a few times a.
Year for documents that come through email. Thank you, Paullett, Okay.
Paul Ette number one, thanks for watching on Fox forty. A lot of people don't know, but our report is syndicated to a bunch of TV stations nationwide, not just KTLA. Fox forty up in Sacramento is one of them. And Paulette, to answer your question, here's the thing. So what you're probably referring to is AirPrint. This is a feature that Apple tried to get to take off many years ago. It never really did. Like some printer support it, some don't.
But here's a little secret about all the printers out there. You don't need Apple to support them with AirPrint as long as it's a Wi Fi printer. Just bypass AirPrint altogether and just literally download the app from the manufacture of the printer you have. So, if you have an HP printer, literally go to the app store and just download the HP print app. If you have Brother Printer, like I do, you just go to the app store, you download the Brother Printer app, and now you print
through that app. So it makes it very easy. It's kind of like when you open up a document it says, you know, share two. You literally share it to that app and then the app handles the printing and the talking to the printer. So you don't actually need to have that air print feature. So if your printer connects to your Wi Fi network, this is probably the best solution.
But again, even if I'm even if you're out there and you've got a printer that's older like mine is like five six years might be seven years old at this point, it doesn't matter. It doesn't need all this fancy stuff. You just as long as the app that's made for that printer talks to the printer, you'll have a lot of luck printing right from your phone and it's really easy. So good question there, all right. So for parents, if you're a parent, this is one of
my favorite tips. And I shared this on my Instagram and I shared on my Facebook and parents are loving it. And this is what happens, Megan, you're not a parent, but here's what happens. When you're a parent. You want to reclaim as much of your personal time as you can, so you offload a lot of your time to your iPad with your CA.
Yeah, that's what my parents did.
It's great parenting, right, Yeah, I'm just kidding. That's how you're raised.
Don't just don't play with your kids just as.
Much as iPad time you can give them, Just give them that time. So here's the thing. So, yes, I get it. Screen time is terrible and you should. You're a terrible parent if you ever let your kids watch your iPhone your iPad. But the reality is we do. And that's what happened. When I grew up, we watched cartoons. We watch them forever. I'm fine, right, am I pretty normal?
Yeah? I mean parents need a break.
So exactly, parents need a break.
Treat yourself.
So this is a feature called guided Access. And with this feature, when you hand your iPhone or your iPad to your child, they can't exit the app that they are using. So, for instance, you say, all right, kid, I'm trying to have some dinner. You watch YouTube, right, and so you hand them YouTube. What happens two seconds later they're like, mom, I can't figure this out. The app exited. So you're like, oh, okay, watch this. So when you turn on guided access, you then triple click
the home button or the side button three times. It will bring up this feature, and then it locks that app so you can't exit it, which is really cool. So now there's even if you want to take it a step further. Let's say there's a function on the app, like on the Netflix app, which I don't understand. By the way, Netflix, the kids can switch out of the kid's profile in a second to any other profile they want by just tapping the profile button. Why would Netflix
allow that? Right, they don't care, So you as a parent might want to keep that area from them touching, right, so you can actually circle on over the button that you don't want them pressing, And the iPhone is smart enough to like kind of basically grade out like they can't touch it, which is kind of cool. So not only can they not exit the app, but they also can't touch that button to switch profiles or search or whatever function you want to kind of like gray out
right disable. I should say so again, when you're done, you just have to again triple click three times and it will ask you for a printal passcode. Don't share that with your kids, obviously, and you can go back to using your phone as no. But if you want to watch the whole tip, it's on my Instagram at rich On Tech. But a lot of folks have kind of loved that tip, right, Megan.
Yeah, I mean my parents would love it. But I am not really a child anymore.
So BBM does that mean anything to you?
BBM? Yeah, BlackBerry, do you remember did you ever have one? No? Right, I didn't, but everyone I knew how to.
But you remember, like BBM was like the way.
I was, the I Message of like two thousand and seven.
Yes, so BBM is saying goodbye May thirty first, twenty nineteen, goodbye to BBM. So BBM was way before its time. It was basically an I message before I message existed, right, except I liked it better because I message hijacks your phone number and sends your text through their you know, proprietary stuff which I won't get into that. But BBM was actually a pin. Remember send me your BBM pin?
Yes?
Yes, what would you just why?
I didn't have it?
But I do remember semi your pin. People would post them on our websites whatever it was like, you know, here's my pin. So this is so sad. The blog post from BlackBerry is so sad. It's three years ago. We set out to reinvigorate BBM, so I guess they tried to make it a thing again a couple of years ago. They say, we poured our hearts into making this a reality, and we are proud of what we built.
The technology industry, however, is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on. Though we are sad to say goodbye, the time has come to sunset the BBN BBM consumer service. We hope you will cherish many fond memories of BBM that helped shape messenger platforms to become what they are today, which is true. But how sad is that it's like it's sad. They
know it's sad. It's not sad because nobody's used it like ten years, So yeah, it is, but it's still like you have fond memory. So I give you exhibit Exhibit A. This is I searched my Gmail for BlackBerry or BBM pin and here's what I found. Dated Monday, May eleventh, two thousand and nine, Rich d'miro wrote to my wife, when you get a second, send me your BlackBerry pin so we can BBM and stop using texts go to options than status to find it love rich. Wow,
that's poetic, isn't that crazy? So just cra Almost ten years ago to the day, I was sending this message to my wife Shakespeare to ask her for her BBM pin. It would be a lot nicer if, like we were dating back then. I was like, send me your pin, you know, but I think we're already married. I should probably know that. Yeah, we were married. So anyway, BBM
is dead. Don't try to BBM me. You're gonna have to use I wish that we can decide on a platform like BBM because as much as I love I message, I hate the fact that one company controls I message. I would much rather have a cross platform like tech messaging if that was like better, you know, if like you can send pictures and videos and see you received text and all that stuff. But my message is great, But it's it's Apple's baby, and when one person controls something,
it's not good for the consumer. No matter what as much as we love it, it's still not good for us. So that's the lesson learned. Yeah, all right, thanks for listening to the show. That's going to do it. For this episode of rich on Tech. If you like the show, rate and review it on Apple Podcasts. But the best thing you can do is really just go ahead and tell a friend about it. So my book is one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone. It's
available now on Amazon. It's a bestseller, back to number one, by the way. Yeah, so a lot of people love it. Four and a half stars at least, it might even be up to four point eight. But it means a lot of people read me and like it. Okay, it's not just two reviewers like not like it's like my mom and like my sister that reviewed it, because, by the way, they probably haven't even read it, like my wife. So I'm not going to call them out.
I'm not going to call them out, but I just did you.
Know when your friends ask you questions that were in the book? Yeah, and I'm like, you clearly did not read chapter ninety seven. Not that I know the chapters, but like, it's pretty clear when I gave you a free book and you're asking me a question six months later that you didn't read it. But it's okay. My wife is like, that's what I have you for.
Yeah, exactly.
Megan where do they find you on social media?
I'm on Twitter and Instagram. Just Megan mcmonagall.
Oh you haven't changed it yet to producer Meghan not Yeah, I want to. I know you don't want to.
Honestly, I really don't want to.
I know. That's why I'm gonna keep just pushing you on it. It's okay, all right, so find heer Megan mcmonagle rhymes with chronicle humrich Demiro rich on tech on Instagram and Facebook. And I've also got my newsletter, so don't for forget to subscribe to that. Just go to rich on tech dot tv and tap newsletter. And what I do is I send you a digest of all the stuff I think you should know about. Write your email inbox. Kind of like a written version of this podcast.
But it's also kind of like what I did that week, where you can find me next all that good stuff. It's a short pictures and it's a lot of fun. So again rich on technewsletter at richon tech dot tv on behalf of producer Megan and myself. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you real soon.