Apple has a bunch of new stuff, including iOS fourteen, watches and more. PS five pricing details revealed a new wireless doorbell from r Low, plus Your tech questions answered?
What is going on? I'm Rich Dmiro.
This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about, and it's also where I answer the questions that you send me.
My name is Rich Dmiro.
I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. I know, a local news station with a tech reporter. How interesting. But I've been doing it there for ten years and we have a lot of fun and I love doing what I do, and you know it if you watch me or follow me. This week was really cool.
There is so.
Much in this podcast today, so I will try to keep the items brief to keep me on time, but there is a lot to get through because Apple revealed a whole bunch of new stuff. And I also went to the new Amazon Fresh grocery store in Woodland Hills, California, which is in an old Toys r US and it's a new grocery store that is cool. It's kind of like the if you ever shopped on Amazon Fresh for your groceries that get delivered. It's kind of like that website,
but brought to life, so it looks really nice. It's very modern. But the coolest thing about it is this Amazon Dash cart and it's a magical shopping cart that when you put your items inside.
It checks.
You're basically doing self checkout as you go through the store, and so there's no checkout procedure. I used it twice yesterday, maybe three times to try it out, and you just put your stuff in the cart, it recognizes it. It's really fast at recognizing stuff. It actually takes a little picture of everything you put in there, and if it doesn't recognize it, it'll show you the black and white picture and it's like what is this? And you can take something out of the cart and it will take
it off of your tally. And that's the other neat part. There's a little screen on the cart that gives you an ongoing tallly of everything you've purchased. And I especially like this because I've done this thing where I put my phone or calculator, you know, on the cart and try to add things up as I go along, especially at Costco when I overspend.
So if you're trying to stick to a budget.
You can see exactly how much you're spending at the store, and not to mention, you know exactly how much things cost. So you got to watch my video on the Amazon dash car. It is on my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash Rich on tech. It is just so cool and oh my gosh, it's the future. It really is.
I'm not I don't know.
I think it's just every store needs that, every store needs that. Let's talk about iOS fourteen because it is now available. Perhaps you've already updated your iPhone. I had the beta version on my phone and then I had to take that off because I knew or the battery was just so bad. So now I've got the final version on my phone, the public iOS fourteen.
And it's fantastic.
It's so interesting to me that, you know, I grew up kind of loving Android, and I kind of switched over to iPhone specifically for you know, a couple of years now. But you know, I've always swapped back and forth, and.
There's a lot of little things on Android that I love, but there are a lot of little.
Things on iOS that annoyed me. But Apple just keeps getting rid of all of my pain points. I mean, they just keep adding these things that make everything work better and look better. And now with these widgets, you know, you can get Google on your home screen.
It's really cool.
So a couple things to look out for in iOS fourteen, which I recommend you download if you want a better experience. There are a lot of improvements. Obviously, some people are hesitant to download things right away because there might be some bugs. I think that this is one of the most solid operating systems out of the gate. It was solid when it was beta except for the battery and I think they've fixed the battery issues. So a couple
things you can do in iOS fourteen. Number one home screen widgets, so you can now put widgets on your screens, which can give you access to information at a glance, so your calendar Google. A lot of the third party widgets are not available just yet, but they will be and once those start getting in there, it's going to
be quite powerful. They also organize all of your apps now into categories, something called the App Library, so you can scroll through all of your apps in alphabetical order, or see them in folders that Apple creates incoming Phone calls and FaceTime calls are compact, so they don't take up the whole screen, which means if you're working on something Like yesterday, this happened to me. I'm working on something and a call comes in and I just swiped it away.
It was so great.
My screen didn't go black and show me the person calling. It was just perfect. It was exactly how Apple imagined it.
Picture and picture.
You could and watch things on your screen while you're doing something else. That's pretty cool. Siri.
I am not a big fan of the redesign. It's kind of weird.
It's now on the bottom half of your screen in the top half, and it kind of looks weird. It's very unappily to kind of have Siri over your home screen,
so that's kind of strange getting used to that. In messages, you can now pin messages, so if you have a group of friends that you talk to regularly, you can now swipe from left to right on that message chain and then it'll reveal a little pin and you press that pin, and now those that message group will stay at the top of your messages, so it's really easy to hop in there when you want to say something.
You can also reply to specific messages. So if you tap and hold a message in a thread, you can reply to that specific little message inside there, so people know that, like.
Oh, this is what he's talking about.
There's a lot of privacy enhancements. Now your phone is going to show you when an app accesses your camera or your microphone. You'll see a little green dot or some sort of color. I'm not sure what it is, but it's a little dot top of your phone in the upper right hand corner. And when you swipe down on your screen to see the control panel, it will show you like which app recently accessed your camera or your audio. There's a new translay app which is pretty cool.
I don't know when I'm gonna put that to you since I'm not traveling internationally anytime soon, but that's really neat. And then weather, they bought this weather app which was one of my favorites, called dark Sky, and so now the weather app has gotten an update. It'll actually tell you when it is going to rain minute by minute. Let's get to the first question of the show, and Laurie says, here's my question for you. My parents are getting older in their eighties. Earlier today, my mom fell
in the bedroom. Ooh sorry, she needed help. My dad was in another room across a large house. My mom texted him. He did not see the message. They both have iPhones, they don't have Apple Watches, which I know have the walkie talkie app. What's the best way for them to get an emergency message to each other from another room in the house. They do have an Echo dot in the kitchen. I was thinking they should get
a couple more Echo dots. Yes, that is the answer I would say, is get a couple more Echo dots. There's a feature called Alexa Announcements, and this will enable you to, oh, there goes my Alexa. This will enable you to have recently installed an Alexa Dot in my office for testing purposes.
And now it's actually gotten quite good.
Like I'm used to the Google Home but now I like kind of comparing the two and seeing what the reactions are. But anyway, I would say the Echo dot do the broadcast thing or actually on Google it's called broadcast and you can say, h Google broadcast this, and it will broadcast whatever you say to your all of your different devices, or you can choose out a specific room and on Amazon's Echo.
It's kind of the same thing. So I believe the syntax is.
A announce that you know announce, so a you know the name announce and then she will announce to the other one something. So if you were, you know, A announced I've fallen it and I can't get up, and then that would broadcast the other one. So I think that's a good way to do it. But Laurie, I would also look into the Apple Watch with fall detection. I know your parents live together, so that's a good thing. And by the way, congrats to them for you know, being together strong this long.
That's awesome.
But the fall detection is a handy feature in the Apple Watch that I think would benefit your parents. You might want to think of that. I know it's a whole big thing Apple Watch. It adds a whole nother level of complications to your parents tech setup. But start with the dots and go from there. Now, let's talk about the Apple Watch Series six that was just announced by Apple. It is now available and I've got one on my wrist. I've got the blue with the blue
new band. I forget what the bands are called, but I'm still forming my opinions on this watch. But I will just tell you this, the Apple Watch is quite simply amazing. I would put it in that same category as something like a smart home speaker, something like the Amazon Dash cart that I just was telling you about. And then the Apple Watch, I mean along with the iPhone. I mean Apple, when you really think about it, they
have had some really amazing products. When it comes to the iPhone, the iPad, and the Apple Watch, I mean these three things. This trio is just unstoppable. And the Apple Watch Series six kind of builds upon the series five. If you're happy with your watch and you don't need these new features, then.
You're just fine.
But it does add new features and blood oxygen sensor is one of them. So this is a feature that takes a blood oxygen reading in about fifteen seconds. Apple says it is not a medical device, but you know, if you want to keep track of your blood oxygen, get an idea of where you stand. This will do it throughout the day when you sleep and then when you want to take a manual reading. And the manual
reading is you know a little tricky. You got to sit there, stay still, and you know it works, but it you know it works better than other things out there. I guess some of the they're smart watches. It also hasn't always on altimeter, which can give you real time elevation, so if you're a big climber or whatever you want to see, oh how you are, you can do that. It also comes in two new colors, blue and red, and it has that automatic hand washing detection which I
haven't tried yet. I need to turn that on and see. I know I slack some times for the twenty seconds I know we all do. Sleep tracking is also in there. I did wear it to bed the last two nights, so the first night, yes, the sleep tracking worked, and it was kind of cool to see, you know, how long I slept. It tells you how long you were in bed and then how long you slept. It doesn't give you really good metrics like the way the fipbit does,
but you get an idea. And the other thing I noticed last night is that if you don't activate the bedtime setting, it will not track your sleep.
That's what happened to me last night.
I just turned on do not disturb, and I guess that's not enough for it to go into sleep mode. The other thing is if you're using sleep tracking on the Apple Watch, you need to figure out when you're gonna charge your Apple Watch. So now I usually charge at bedside. I will probably move my charger into the bathroom and I'll charge it while I shower, so you'll
have to top it off throughout the day. I don't know if that's gonna be long enough for you know, to probably not, but the watch does charge faster now an hour and a half to top off, I guess to get to one hundred percent eighty percent I think was like half an hour or something like that. Forty minutes.
So again, it's a great watch. They're you know, the two main things the oh, the always on screen is brighter, So when you're not when the screen is not fully lit, the always on displays lit and that's actually brighter, and I have noticed it is brighter. And it's also a little bit faster, runs twenty percent faster. Has a new chip, the U one chip, which will enable things like making your watch a car key digital car key, and that's kind of it. The prices remain the same three ninety
nine or four ninety nine for the cellular version. Like I said, it's already available and this is one of those devices that unless you the new features, you don't really need to upgrade it. You know, people are still rocking like a Series three. If it's working for you, it's working just fine. If you want the blood oxygen, then that is something. You know, if there's something with your health that requires that or that would be helpful to you, then yeah, this would be great. But again
it's evolutionary. It just continues to get better. The battery life is the same about eighteen hours, which you know, it'd be nice if Apple could get that up a little bit more. But at this point it seems like the way Apple's seeing this device is that people charge it on a daily basis. It's a little trickier when you're tracking your sleep. But again, forming my opinions on this, Oh yeah, they have two new types of bands. Let
me get my notes again. The bands are interesting because they have a soft silicone solo loop and then braided yarn. So it's like basically this little stretchable. It's kind of like a rubber band that you put around your wrist, and one's silicone and rubbery, the other one has this braided yarn over it.
I've got the braided yarn.
The one thing to know about these bands is that they're now sized, so they come in different sizes, like a seven, a six, four. I don't know what they go down to, but you do need to figure out what size you are. I am wearing a size six. My wrist is pretty small and it fits perfectly. And it's funny because you can see as your wrist expands throughout the day.
When you're in the.
Heat, your watch is a little bit tighter. But I find the six works for me. So if you have a bigger rist, you might need a seven. If you have a smaller rist, you might need a smaller size. All right, Valentina says, I need a few suggestions on online sales sites. I usually have yard sales once to twice a year to clean house, but everything going on, I don't feel comfortable having one. With so many sites to sell from home, I'm not sure which is the best and easiest for a non tech savvy person. I
would recommend offer up so well, I'd recommend too. I would say offer up, and they just bought the other one called let's let's go or let go, Let's go, let go, So I would recommend the offer up app which now has uh let Go, and then Facebook Marketplace. Those are the two that I would recommend. And we did a story about this. I think it was two
years ago. It's been a while, and my friend who sells a bunch of stuff on these apps, he recommended those two and it's funny that they merged offer up and let.
Go, Oh, let Go.
Now I've sold stuff on offer up. Personally, it's great, it's easy, it's simple. It's kind of like a little chat. You post stuff from your phone. People text you and then you text back and you say, all right, let's meet. And I did sell stuff through the pandemic and I just put on a mask. The other person had a mask and.
It was great.
And you know, you can use cash. I guess you could use Venmo if you wanted to, but cash is king. Facebook Marketplace is neat because it's built into Facebook, so it's just there. And also I think I would assume that Facebook. If I search for a new boat on Facebook, I would assume that would put some of those Facebook Marketplace adds in my feed for a new boat, because if someone's selling it locally, there's like, hey, here you go. That's kind of using the magic of what they know
about me to market to me. The other thing I would recommend if you're using one of these services and you don't want to give out your phone number is an app called burner b U r n er, and that will provide you with a temporary phone number that people can call or text for a low fee. And then the other recommendation the article that we did, my friend Chris said is the best day to sell is Sunday.
I guess Sunday is a day of leisure. People are looking to, you know, do things around the house, sell stuff, buy stuff, whatever. But those are the places I'd recommend and just you know, obviously be safe, be aware, and it generally helps to have someone with you when you do that in person handoff, I would just recommend that as well. Let's talk about another Apple Why this is an Apple Watch. There's gonna be a lot of Apple news, so spoiler alert. Apple Watch S is the new I guess,
lower priced Apple Watch. And the big difference between the Apple Watch S is the display. I have not gone hands on with this just yet, but the display and also the sensors that you get. So two main sensors you do not get in the Apple Watch s are the EKG and the new Blood Oxygen. So otherwise you get pretty much what you need. You get GPS, you get accelerometer, you get gyroscope, you get the always on altimeter, you get fall detection, you get emergency SOS, you get the noise app.
So you do get a lot of stuff in this s. I think that they just wanted to make something that was a little bit cheaper than the big one, and it also has a lesser processor.
So Apple very very smart company. Since they make all these processors, it's like, well, why make this processor? They make a new one every year, but then they've got the old ones that are still pretty good, and so they put those in their products that are a little bit cheaper because they've already put all the R and D into these processors, so why not get more use out of them. The Apple Watch SE also has a speaker and a microphone Siri walkie talkie. Like I said,
fall detection. Trying to see what else it has in here, Yeah, two seventy nine starting at for the GPS version. The GPS plus cellular starts at three twenty nine, And I think that this is a great option if you don't need the blood oxygen and also the heart rate stuff, or it's not heart rate because it still will take your heart rate, it's just not going to do the ECG. So that's like the heart you know, when it detects if your heart has a fib or something like that.
So this is a great solution. It's less expensive. And also they're targeting it towards their new family setup because a lot of parents are going to be buying Apple watches for their kids now. And I will get into that after the next question. I will explain all of that, all right, Chris says. And I know I'm going through this stuff fast. I just feel like I have so much stuff to go through that I want to get through it all. Chris says, I follow you and a listener.
You make me look techy to my grandchildren.
Thank you.
I have Wi Fi from Frontier since they were a Verizon. My router is a Verizon. I've had it for years. Should I buy my own? What is the benefit of replacing Chris? So, the benefit, Chris is that you would theoretically get higher speeds, but only if you subscribe to higher speeds. So what you need to do is number one, call Frontier and ask them and just say, hey, what is the speed that I'm supposed to be getting at my house? And they may say something like one hundred,
and you go, okay, well here's my router. Can my router get to one hundred? Most routers can. It's really I think that the well, sorry, a lot of the older route couldn't get the higher speeds. They were a different I think it was called dosis doccis. So there's like a certain level of software on those modems or maybe it was the whatever the whatever the specs were. They just couldn't handle the higher speed, so that when you got newer, higher Internet they would say, oh, we
have to swap out your modem. So I don't know if that's the case with you, but this kind of applies to if you're listening and you have had your router for a long long time, and maybe your company has increased speeds in your area.
You can't really.
Take advantage of those speeds if you have one of these older routers. But the only way to figure that out is to really ask, and so call up Frontier say what's the speed I'm paying for? And is my router able to handle that. If they say yes, then you're fine. If you want to upgrade and get faster speed, you probably will need a.
Newer router with the newer specs.
So if it's been this long, which sounds like it's been a while, you it's in your best interest to figure out if you the newer router, and the benefit of replacing again is just those faster speeds and also maybe the Wi Fi network. So back in the day the routers might have only had a two point four gigahertz network. Maybe now they have two point.
Four gigaherts and five gigaherts.
So again I would just call Frontier, talk to them, ask them and see what they say. And if you're paying for a router, you're paying for a rental of this modem, then you know, if it's included anyway, you might as well get the new one. Might just be a little bit of a hassle of switching it out. You might have to do that yourself. Every company is different. A lot of stuff is self installed nowadays. But again, yeah, just see what the deal is with your speed and
if your modem can handle it. If they can't, get the new one, good question. Well, I promised i'd talk about the new Apple Watch Family Setup, and this is brilliant. Apple is going to sell a whole lot of watches thanks to this new feature and on this podcast. Although I have no good way of figure out what I've said on this podcast, you know what I should do.
I should transcribe each episode after I'm done with it, because there's always like little things that I say that I want to remember or bring back and I can never remember. But I know for a fact on this podcast, I talked about the fact that Apple should free the iPhone from the or sorry, free the Apple Watch from the iPhone, because overnight it would become the most popular kids watch in America. And if you've ever seen these
kids watches, they are terrible. They're just they're terrible. They're really gross. They're big, they're bulky, they're expensive, the software is horrible. Kids are wearing them and it's like this giant thing on their wrist. Well, I said that Apple should make the Apple Watch work with kids, and they
did so. For the first time, an Apple Watch can be set up through a parent's iPhone through this feature called family set Up, so the parent sets up the Apple Watch through their phone, and then they can monitor pretty much what the kid is able to do on the device. So what does the kid get? They get texting, they get calling, they get Apple Maps, they get Siri,
they get alarms, they get the app store. But the parents can pretty much regulate everything that's available on their device and what they can do and when they can do it, kind of like screen time but for the watch.
But the reality of this.
Is that this is amazing for parents, and I get it. I don't want to get into the whole debate over, you know, whether kids should have a phone or device.
I don't think they should.
I think you should wait as long as humanly possible to give them to your kids. But the reality is, do my kids have an iPad?
Yes? They do. Do they love it? Absolutely?
Do I have to pry it from their tiny little hands every once in a while, Yes, But that's the world we live in. I don't know what to say. Am I on my phone more than I should be?
Probably?
Did you watch the Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix? If you didn't, please watch it because it's very eye opening, even though I already kind of knew what they're talking about all These notifications are just there to lure you in. They're like the equivalent of when you went fishing, you had a lure that was shiny and the fish would you go for it? Well, that's what these notifications are. They're shiny little objects that they dangle in front of
us and we go, Oh, what's that? Someone liked my picture?
What's that? Someone commented? What's that? Someone texted me?
Oh my gosh, I gotta check my phone right now. And I'm guilty of it all the time. And that's why I have most of my notifications turned off. But these apps are tricky. They make notifications kind of tricky because you don't want to turn off all of the notifications because you might miss an important one that you actually need. And so anyway, round and round in circles
we go. So here is the trick about family set up. When, as I understand it, from Apple, they want you to use an Apple Watch that has a cellular antenna in it. So you actually need to use an Apple Watch with cellular, but from what I'm hearing, it sounds like you don't necessarily have They don't require you to activate the cellular although it is only strongly suggested.
That you do that.
And the reason they say that is because think about it, your kids at school, your kid is at their friend's house, your kid is at the playground. These are places where they may not have the Wi Fi connection available on their watch, or they're not gonna be able to connect to Wi Fi because when they go to the mall, yeah there's free Wi Fi, but what kid is gonna
sit there and connect it on their Apple Watch. Now, if your kids ate and go to the mall by themselves, that's a whole nother story that's really not probably not happening. But the reality is there are lots of places where they would not necessarily have a Wi Fi connection. And so Apple is asking parents to use a watch or requiring that parents use a watch with cellular and it seems like you can still use this feature, but they want you to activate the cellular so that you get
the full use out of this entire thing. And what they can do is they kind of have a phone on their wrists. They can make calls, they have their own I Message, you know, they can send texts, they can do a whole bunch of stuff.
I mean, it's an Apple Watch.
And so they can also use emergency sos so they can press the side button and notify people automatically. There's medical idea on this thing. There's a feature called school Time, which this is a special watch face designed for parents and teachers. So this is a watch face called school Time that when it's on there, you can look at it and be like, okay, cool. The apps are restricted and do not disturb is turned on, so during school.
Because Apple already saw that some teachers are gonna have a problem with this, they will be able to see that school Time watch face and say, Okay, Johnny is paying attention because he's got that on, so he's not sitting there playing with his watch. So Family Setup is available. I again have not tested this just yet. I will be testing this to see how it works. But the reality is I think this is really really smart. And
here's the way they put it. To set up Apple Watch with family set up to a new assistant guides users through the configuration steps on iPhone. Family setup requires family sharing and an Apple ID for the child or older member of the household, and cellular service enables all of its features. So it's not saying you have to but you will have to use a watch with cellular, So no matter what, you have to have an Apple Watch Series four or an Apple Watch se with cellular.
So that makes it a little bit more expensive to do that.
And then I'm looking at these plans, like T Mobile emailed me and they said, oh, we have a great new plan for the kids with his family set up. It's ten dollars a month on promo for a limited time, and that's including a you know, discount of something and another discount.
I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa?
Hold on to add an Apple Watch to an iPhone plan was always ten bucks a month, and now you're telling me that these plans are going to be more expensive.
So it sounds like.
The wireless carriers really like this because they're going to be able to charge Johnny twenty five dollars because well, they don't have a an iPhone associated with this, so we need to.
Charge them more.
Even though we all know Apple watches are using like a tiny they're data sippers. They're using a tiny bit of data. I mean, mine is like it's almost negligent how much it is using. And yet you know I only pay a ten bucks a month, thankfully, but you know, the twenty five dollars a month. If that's where they want to try to charge us for this family setup.
That's a little steep.
But with that said, it does give you peace of mind. And my wife and I were debating this last night. I get it, you don't have to agree that kids need a watch or anything, but there are many many circumstances where parents will feel more at ease knowing that their kids are connected using this setup.
Dominic says Rich.
Do you have any recommendations for blue light filter screens for the Mac Book Air? Thanks for your great tips and Dominic, the answer is no, I do not. Now, there are a couple things out. Recommend Number one, I've been testing out blue blocking glasses. Apparently a lot of people are emailing me about these because they're feeling the strain on their eyes because they're working from.
Home so much.
I don't you know. I've tried to wear them for the last couple of mornings. I don't really see a difference. I mean, maybe a little bit, but it could be psychological that I feel better. But the other feature I would definitely turn on in your Mac is the.
I think it's called night shift.
Yeah, so go into your Mac preference system preferences, search for night shift on your display, and night shift automatically shifts the color of your display to the warmer end of the color spectrum after dark. This can help you get a better night's sleep. So that's mainly meant for, you know, blocking out a little bit of that blue light during the night, you know, the afternoon hours till you know bed, but you can also use it during
the day if you want. Again, I don't know, it's one of these things where I know we hear a lot about blue blocking. We're actually working on a story about that for KTLA. Apparently our interviews came back from my producer Megan, and she said that one person said yes, yes, yes, it's great, and the other person said no, no, no, it's not that great, So we will find out. I think it's one of these things where if it makes you feel better and you personally feel better using a
blue light filter, then go ahead. And to answer your question, I would assume that three M has some privacy screens or some sort of screens you can attach that have blue light filter in them, but I'm not completely sure, but if you want, you can also try some blue light blocking glasses, and there are a whole bunch like Felix. Gray is the big one that makes them. I think WARB. Parker does it. I've been testing. Let's see what are the ones I'm testing. These are called pixel pix e
L pixel blue blockers. I've got the toros, which are nice. I mean, they're they're great. They're just they feel like window glasses, but they block blue light. So you know, if it makes you feel better, do it. But I can't say with certainty that it works or it's fantastic. All right, So more Apple News. Apple One. This is the subscription bundle plan. So if you have a bunch of these Apple services like Apple Music, Apple TV plus Apple Arcade, iCloud and more, you can get them all
now in one plan. So let me just go over these plans that launch later this year. Individual plan includes Apple Music, Apple TV plus Apple Arcade and fifty gigs of iCloud storage that is fifteen dollars a month. Then you've got the Family plan. This includes Apple Music, Apple TV plus Apple Arcade, and two hundred gigs of iCloud storage that is twenty dollars a month and can be shared among six family members.
So let's just do the math.
If you're paying for Apple Music Family Plan, which I think is fifteen, Apple TV Plus, which I don't think anyone's paying for yet, but Apple Arcade, which I am, that's five dollars a month, so right, there is twenty bucks a month. So now you get the other two for free, Apple TV Plus and two hundred gigs of iCloud storage, which I think I pay three dollars a month for, so right there is gonna save you eight bucks.
Then you've got the Premiere Plan. This is Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, Apple Newsplus, Apple Fitness Plus, and two terabytes of iCloud storage, all for thirty dollars a month that can be shared among six family members. And it sounds a lot thirty dollars a month, but that is a fantastic deal. If you purchased all those things separately, I mean Apple Music, that's let's just say it's fifteen, Apple TV Plus. I think it's five. That's twenty,
Apple Arcade, twenty five, Apple News ten. That's thirty five, Apple Fitness that's ten forty five two terabytes of storage. I think it's ten fifty five sixty five so that's like thirty dollars a month you're saving. So that's a pretty good deal. I don't know which one I'll do.
I might do.
I already see the problem is I get Apple Music including my Verizon plan, So that makes it very very tricky because I have to extract that from my plan and see but I I would think the Family Plan would be really good for me for twenty bucks a month, So I'm gonna look into that. Maybe I can downgrade my Verizon plant and not include the music. You know what, Maybe I'll do that, downgrade my Verizon plant to not include But then I got then I got rid of
the gotta get rid of the HD video streaming. If you drop down anyway, it's very complicated. So let me go over another another subscription service I mentioned called Apple Fitness Plus. This is sort of just a lot of people are saying it's their answer to Peloton, which is true, but there's a lot of fitness apps out there that do video classes. Peloton is just the most popular. But one I really like is called Aptive. They do they
started out as audio, now they do video. But Fitness Plus is Apple's version, so you know, it's gonna be more apply. You know, it's gonna keep you in that Apple ecosystem with the Apple Watch, the Apple TV, and of course the iPad and the iPhone. Most of the workouts can be done with no equipment or just a set of dumbbells. They've got cycling, treadmill, rowing, hit, strength, yoga, dance core, and mindful cool down. And they also have
an absolute beginner program. This would be good for me, just to give you the basics of movement and exercise. And the big thing that Apple is promoting in this is the on screen kind of handoff of information between your Apple Watch and your iPad or however you're doing these things. So on screen you're gonna see all your metrics, like in real time, so how many calories you're burning, your heart rate, your rings and if you close a ring, it's going to like burst on the screen, so you
can be very excited. Then of course, they have this curated selection of fitness trainers that are all Apple employees now, and they're all sort of different. You know, some are martial arts backgrounds, some are yogis, some are runners. It's kind of like the way Peloton does it. It's they've got all these really kind of fun, energetic folks that you can identify with, right, so that you find the people that you identify with, and that's the classes that
you sort of stick to. So I've got my favorite trainers on Peloton. One interesting thing that Apple said, and that I think they called this out for a reason. They said, you know, privacy is huge on this, and the workouts or the trainers that you use will not be stored with your Apple ID, So basically this stays private on your phone. So I find that really interesting because you know, Peloton has a whole bunch of data on us about who we like to take classes with
and you know how we're working out. But the workout data here is staying private, which I find to be really different compared to what everyone else is doing. Apple Fitness Plus is ten dollars a month or eighty dollars for a year. It's going to launch sometime later this year. All right, next question from Wilmer. Hey, Rich, I'd like to start a podcast. Any insight on the equipment one should purchase in order to make it sound as good as yours. The podcast would be interview style, so two
to four mics would be the ideal setup I'm looking for. Well, here's my advice, because I've been doing this podcast for many, many years, and if you've been listening since the beginning, you know that it is sounded vastly different over the years. And I like to think that I've improved it, but a lot of it stayed the same. I mean, most
of it's just me talking into a microphone. And yes, I try to do the occasional callers, occasional guest host to bring in you know, other folks to read the questions, like producer Megan. But at the end of the day, if you're starting a podcast, you know, the reality is you just need a.
Board and microphones.
So I would recommend just getting I started with a really inexpensive mixer, a barringer mixer that I bought on Amazon, and I would just look for a USB version of that, and then look for some mics. Go on YouTube and everyone recommends stuff that they want, you know, beginner podcasts.
Just see, just get a good, good mic, a good MIC's stand.
I've got like an extension arm stand and you know, a mixer, and that's all you need. But the reality is just kind of upgrade as you go along, So I assume you're not going to be making millions of dollars on this podcast overnight. So my advice is to
just build as you get into a groove. And my my biggest thing with this podcast is I want to be able to do it on a regular basis, So I don't want to just have one episode one week and then ah, three weeks go by and I'm on vacation and I don't do another one for another month, and how annoying is that? And yes, there's been times when I go on vacation and I don't file a podcast.
That happens a couple times a year, but most of the time I have stuck to my schedule of Thursday or Friday recording to put the podcast out, and that's what I want to do, and that's the main thing. It's like, I think it's more important to stick to a schedule than to worry about the quality being being perfect, perfect perfect. And as you get along, you can get
more things. In my room here, I've got little drapes that I are little moving blankets from Harbor Freight that you can just hang on the wall or put over your furniture so that the room doesn't sound so hollowy. I've got an extension arm. Like I said that that works, and now I've got the road the road Caster. Let's see what are these mics. The mics are the road pro Caster, the road Caster Pro. It's always like I think, once pro Roadcaster and then road Caster Pro. But those
are the things I use to do this podcast. And I also use an app called Seconds to time things out so that I can stay on time and stay on task. But again, you know, then I just use a pair of Apple headphones. But again it just just start small and build up as you go along. The main thing is to just you know, you can start with the app called Anchor and just record it into your iPhone. But if you have two to four people, you know, you can't really do that, I don't think,
But you know, you can experiment along the way. I've experimented with a lot of different ways of doing this, and you know, just see what works for you, what works for your podcast, and most importantly, just continue to do it.
All right.
I don't even want to talk about this story because I know by the time you hear this, who knows if it's still going to be happening, but I'll mention it since it's really interesting. But the US is going to start banning downloads new downloads of TikTok and we Chat. This news dropped from the US Commerce Department, and we've heard back and forth about TikTok for a couple months now. Now we Chat is somehow in the mix. I wasn't
aware of that before, but now it is. And so we Chat and TikTok are both owned or I guess I don't know if they're owned by the Chinese government, but they obviously are based in China, and that scares the US, and so the US is worried that some of the data that these apps collect could be, you know, somehow funneled to the Chinese government, and so therefore they are either banning them outright or just kind of limiting
their access here in the US. So Sunday, September twentieth, theoretically you will not be able to download Chat or TikTok on.
Google Play or the Apple App Store.
And then they're going a step further and on November twelfth, for TikTok, they're gonna really kind of clamp down on it and say that you know, ISPs here in the US can't even give people access, So there's basically no way you'd be able.
To access TikTok after November twelfth. Do I think that's gonna happen. Absolutely not. I think that this is gonna be resolved.
I think that this is a little bit of politics mixed into a little bit of fear, mixed into a little bit of you know, someone wants to deal and so I'm not too concerned that TikTok is going to go away in the US. And we Chat, I mean, that's that's pretty concerning because we Chat is the the app over in China. And so if you imagine people that are here in the US that are conversing with their friends and family in China, they're probably using we Chat. And so if that's cut off here, that's gonna be
a problem because people rely on that. Yes, you can find something else, but you know, so in China you're not allowed to use some of these other options, which would be like something like Facebook or you know, Instagram, you can't really access those. Now that goes to this whole big problem of you know, is China suppressing.
Speech over there? Yeah? Probably, because when I was over there.
It's really tough to talk to people in the US unless you're on the terms that China.
Wants you to use.
So do I think this is gonna happen in full? I don't think so, but it's something to be aware of. And if you want these apps on your phone, you gotta download them now and see what happens. So for for we Chat, it seems like it's gonna go away, like all the functionality seems like it's gonna go away over the weekend on September twentieth.
But I don't know.
I mean, I assume there's gonna be some sort of last minute deal to save these things. But for TikTok, you have a little bit longer November twelfth. But again, you won't be able to download either of these theoretically after Sunday, September twentieth, So we're gonna keep an eye on that one. See what's gonna happen. But now you know what the deal is, all right? Do I have another question here.
Online sales? We did that? Ah, here we go.
Robert says, good afternoon, Rich you said you only got good mornings.
Oh yeah, that's funny. I did say that. Oh you listened to the podcast.
I installed iOS fourteen on both and both my iPhone and iPad no longer show chrome Cast as an option to cast. They still show the fire TV stick. Do you have an idea on how to cast with a new update?
Thank you.
So what I think is happening, Robert, is there's a lot of new security procedures built into iOS fourteen, and one of those I don't know if you've noticed, but every app that you open it says can this app discover things on your network? And you're like, wait, what what do you mean discover things on my network? So the inkling is to say no. And I have a feeling that to number one, you got to do two things.
Number one, you got to open up these apps again to see if you mistakenly hit no to the network discovery. Because what that network discovery is it is like it's saying, like YouTube, when you open it up, it needs to be able to look on your network, on your Wi Fi network and discover the Chrome cast device. That's what it's asking for. I know it sounds scary, and Apple makes all these things sound very scary, like this app got your precise location seventeen thousand times. Do you want
to allow that? You're like, yeah, it's Google Maps. I mean I think it needs that to function. Now for other apps you don't need that, And I think it's very smart that Apple's done this because for something like a photo app, like you know, a photo editing app that makes your face look better, does not need access to your location twenty four to seven. So I think it's smart that Apple's done this, But it does get confusing.
So anyway, go ahead and open up these apps. Make sure that you are saying yes to network discovery on the ones that need to discover the things on your network. So if it's something like you're trying to use, you know, Hulu and you want a Chrome cast, and maybe you can if it's not showing up, delete Hulu, reinstall it, and when you get to that network discovery question, just say yes, good question.
All right.
We have the PlayStation five details launching this November. Three hundred and ninety nine dollars for the digital edition, four ninety nine for the addition with an Ultra HD Blu Ray disk drive, so one hundred bucks more for the disk drive, which you may or may not need. I don't think you need it, but you know I don't. I have not had a disk drive in my house
in so long. Both use the same processor, which is kind of cool, high fidel De graphics up to four K. They both have the same high speed solid state drive, and both models offer better dual Sense wireless controllers with.
Three D audio.
So you basically get the same thing, except a disk drive on one, no disk drive on the other. Did I say when it's launching? It is coming to us on November twelfth, So this price at three makes the digital edition of the PlayStation five one hundred dollars more than the digital edition of the Xbox series. I think it's the s the smaller one, So that's a decision you have to make. There are a lot of options with this thing, too, a lot of accessories you've got.
Let's see, a dual Sense wireless controller is seventy bucks if you want extra one of those. They've got a three D wireless headset with three D audio that's one hundred bucks, with a microphone, HD camera sixty bucks, a remote control thirty dollars, and a charging station for your remote controls all right, sorry for your two controllers, that's thirty dollars, so oo start saving now for those holidays. I'm likely getting my kids the Xbox I think it's gosh, which one is it?
The Xbox Series? Is it the S? I'm thinking it's the S, right, yeah, the S. So I want the S.
So that one's the digital Xbox and I think my kids will like that one. Oh I hear my kids scream right now? Isn't that funny? Working from home? It's just the stuff that goes on is just wild, because you know, we're all here, my wife, me, my two kids, and my one kid is in kindergarten. He doesn't you know, it's really tough for kindergartener to be on Zoom for classes.
So my other one, my older kid, takes everything very seriously, and the little one, of course, gets bored after a couple of minutes, and he starts jumping around, you know, upsetting my older kid.
It is pretty wild.
So if you hear them screaming in the background, that's the backstory. Now, you know, let's go to one more story or do I have time for one?
Or two?
Maybe two quick stories here? Arlow has a new wire free video doorbell. This is a one and ninety nine dollars device that's launching in a little bit later this year. But it's kind of like the same thing as their wired video doorbell, except it has.
You know, it's battery.
So the the interesting feature about this is that they have this thing. Now I need to test this outcause I'm very curious how this works. But they call it direct to mobile video call. So I get a lot of emails from folks that have a ring video doorbell and they say, ah, my ring takes so long. By the time I get the notification, tap it, and then the video starts, the person's either walked away or it's just too slow. And a lot of that has to do with your Wi Fi signal, because for mine, it's
pretty darn fast and I've got decent Wi Fi. But Arlow must know that there's a pain point because they have something called direct to mobile video call, and calls go to your phone directly, so you don't miss a visitor. Now what does that mean.
I'm not sure.
I don't think it's setting up some sort of ad hoc network, but I guess it's somehow routing these calls faster through your home Wi Fi to your phone, so immediately the video stream is on your phone and you can answer it and see the person. Also has two way audio video messaging, so your guests can now leave a voice message if you're unable to answer the door, which is kind of cool.
HD video with HDR.
Night vision, it's weather resistant, it's got a built in siren so you can trigger it if there's a problem at your house, and one hundred and eighty degree viewing angle. So it is going to be one hundred ninety nine dollars two hundred bucks when it launches later this year.
But again, people love Arlow because they make these video cameras that are super easy to put up anywhere, and they were kind of the only game in town until you know, Rain came along with their stick up cams, and then now you've got the Wisecam outdoors which.
Are super cheap.
But people love Arlow, and again, this will probably be something if you're in that Arlow ecosystem that you'll really like having. And I think that's all the questions I get I had today. One more thing. Verizon is acquiring Trackphone Wireless. Not much to tell you about there, but you know, if you have Trackphone, Verizon is going to be purchasing them, which you know, is kind of interesting.
I mean track phone. The The interesting thing about this is that I was under the impression that trackphone worked with all of the mobile wireless providers, and I assume
that they're only going to work with Verizon now. So it says that let's see, yeah, trackphone has approximately twenty one million subscribers, and thirteen million of them are on Verizon, So that leaves what eight million subscribers that are on some sort of other network I'm guessing at and T. So I'm not sure what that means, Like, are they
gonna make all those people switch to Verizon? I'm not sure, but it's just something good to know keep a lookout at on the horizon, because that is something that is one of those need to know kind of things. Oh my gosh, the music, it's already here.
You know what that means. That's gonna do it for this episode of the show.
If you would like to submit me a submit a question for me to answer, just go to richontech dot tv and hit the email button at the bottom of the page. Also, if you would rate and review this podcast.
It would really help. I don't know how, but it does somehow right.
Everyone says that at the end of the podcast. Also share this podcast with a friend that is really gonna help. Just tell a friend, Hey, I listen to Rich and you know he says some good stuff. Go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on tech. I know some of you have emailed me about producer Megan. I am working on getting her back to the show. So yes, rest assured. I will get her back. It's just figuring out how to do that. Yes, she still works with me,
but it's just the show has been tricky. You can find me at rich on tech on all social platforms. My name is Rich demiro On behalf of everyone that gets this show to your ears. Thank you so much for listening. Stay well, stay safe. I'll talk to you real soon.
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