Lightning strikes: iPhone goes USB-C!

the place where I answer your questions about technology. After all, I believe that tech should be interesting, useful and fun and it shouldn't trick you. Phone lines are now open. Here we go triple A Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. If you have a question about technology, give me a call, or you can also email me. Just go to Rich on tech dot TV, hit the contact button, send your email.

It goes right to me. I will mention some of those on the show today and also in the feedback segment. If you have something you want to tell me, you like, something you don't like, something you just want to chime in, give me an email. Guests this week on the show, Lisa at A Chico of Cnet. Lisa tests a lot of mobile phones. I met up with her at the Apple event. We talked about the new iPhones, all that good stuff. So Lisa will be joining us a little

bit later. And a good friend of mine, Mark Saltzman, USA Today columnist. You might have seen this guy on the TVs at Costco at one point. He's everywhere. Mark Saltzman will be talking about the new iPhones as well, and he says something that he's got a hot take about iPhone versus androids, So you definitely want to stay tuned for that. Well, this week, there is only one thing in the news, and that is the Apple event.

New iPhones, new Apple Watches, what else, oh, new AirPods And the big, big news on all of these devices is that Apple has finally followed the ways of the rest of the world and gone USBC. It has been a long time coming, and they did not do this out of the kindness of their heart. As much as many of you love Apple, and you know, I like certain aspects of this company, they didn't just choose to

go USBC. They would have stuck with their own proprietary stuff forever if it wasn't for the European Union saying Apple or pretty much everyone, you gotta go USBC. It's better for the environment, it's better for people, it's better for the consumers to just have one cable that works

on every device. Now, over the years, in just my short history of covering tech, let's see, we have had USBA, we have had USBC, we have had micro usb B, we have had lightning, we have had thirty pin connectors, we have had barrel connectors, we have had oh my gosh. Back in the day before USB happened on computers, there were all kinds of different ports and things to plug stuff in. I mean, it was just you never knew you got a new printer, you had to plug it

in with some sort of weird cable. Nowadays, thankfully everything's USB. We have really taken that for granted, and this is probably going to be a temporary thing for Apple. I feel like they're moving towards a wireless future for the iPhone and it's just a matter of time before they do away with that cable altogether. I mean, realistically, we're not even transferring data with these cables anymore unless you

need to. Most of the time, people are either plugging in their phones just to charge them, or at this point you're just wirelessly charging. And even the cars, you know, it's all wireless car play, it's wireless Android auto, more and more less of a reason to plug in these phones. So what's new about the iPhone fifteen, Well, break it down. You've got the iPhone fifteen and fifteen plus. These are pretty much the base model iPhones they get. Yet last

year's Pro model features Dynamic Island. That's that little pill shaped bubble up at the top where the cameras lie on the front facing of the phone. They've made that into a little infotainment space so it shows things like, you know, what you're currently playing, if you've got a timer, things like that. So last year that was new on the iPhone fourteen pros. Now it's come to the iPhone

fifteen base models. Forty eight megapixel camera. This is the first time we've seen a forty eight megapixel camera on the base model iPhones, so that's new, and they take photos by default at twenty four megapixels, so you're getting a much much higher resolution picture and theoretically much better

camera quality. Crash detection already on there, Satellite connectivity already on there from or actually that's coming to there as well with triple A. So if you have one of these phones, Apple really leaning heavily into the sort of it's going to protect you in the worst case scenario situation. The things they did not bring to these base level iPhones no high refresh rate on the screen, so the Pro models have one hundred and twenty hrtz refresh rate.

I know this gets a little nerdy, but basically, when you are moving and swiping through the phone, everything's just buttery smooth on the Pro models. Not so much on the iPhone fifteen and fifteen plus, although if you're not used to that, you probably don't even notice that. But if you're in a family that has a Pro model of the iPhone and a regular model and you switch

between them, oh yeah, you definitely notice. Let's see, Oh, portrait mode is also AI now, so you know how you have to switch to portrait mode if you want to take one of those pictures with the blurry backgrounds, You no longer have to do that. You literally just aim your camera at a person or a pet. AI says, oh, we're going to collect extra information about this picture so you can later make the background blurry. That's kind of cool.

The screen is twice as bright. The other thing they did not ring is always on, always on display, not coming to the base model iPhones. Always on display is probably one of the handiest features of the iPhone on

the Pro models. That's sticking to the pros. Prices start at eight hundred bucks nine hundred dollars for the Plus models, and there's still no telephoto lens on this device, so you get an ultra wide and a standard but because it's a higher megapixel camera, they can crop it to two times, so it's almost like a real zoom lens, but without an extra lens. So that's the iPhone fifteen.

Now for the Pro and the Promax, these are the more interesting of the models because this is where Apple has decided to really put out all of their best features on these devices. So the Pro models have this new titanium frame design which makes them lighter, and yes, I've held them, they are definitely noticeably lighter. They're also

very smudgye on the sides. They also have this new action button, so instead of that little switch that lets you switch between mute and on mute, mute and Ringer that is now a customizable button, which is really really handy. You can customize it to do nine different things, everything from starting a voice recording, starting the camera. You can

also just leave it on Ringer silent mode. But the thing that's really interesting is that you can now set this to do a shortcut, and that means it's pretty much unlimited. It's a button that could be yours. You can make it do whatever you do. Most on this phone, you can set that as a shortcut, and that's a rarity for Apple to let you set any sort of thing your way. They barely do that on the iPhone.

It's their ware the highway most of the time. But now the fact that you can customize this action button with shortcuts, that is a huge pro move and one that I applaud Apple for. Now here's where it's not so nice. The cameras are diverged yet again. So if you're going the Pro and the Pro Max, the Pro has a three time zoom. The Promax gets a five time zoom, and so if you want the most zoom on an iPhone, you have to go with the Promax. And it's nice. No, it's no Android ten x zoom

that they have on the S twenty three Ultra. But it's a nice start and for iPhone users, again, I'm not going to compare what Samsung is doing to the iPhone because they are just in totally separate motes. At this point. You're either iPhone or you're Android, and yes, you can compare and contrast, but the reality is, if you're an iPhone person, you're probably deep into Apple's ecosystem

and you're not considering switching anytime soon. So five time zoom if you used to have three is really nice. USBC as well on here is also faster, so you're getting a faster USBC data transfer twenty up to twenty times faster than lightning. And what's that good for? If you're shooting like big giant video files or raw video files, the stuff that pros are doing on this phone, it's going to be a little bit easier to transfer to your computer. You can also set the default focal length

twenty four millimeters, twenty eight millimeters, or thirty five. Again that gets a little nerdy, little pro but again, these are all things that if you are a pro iPhone user, they're really good. They're really good updates, and you're going to be very happy with these updates. Later on, the phone is going to get a software update that's going to get it let it shoot video in three D. They call it spatial video. And that's all getting it prepped for that new headset that Apple's going to have

next year. Now here's where Apple did something a little bit questionable. The prices are unchanged from last year. The Pro starts at nine to ninety nine. The Pro Max now starts at eleven hundred and ninety nine, and last year technically it started at eleven ten ninety nine, So technically the price is one hundred dollars more expensive, but you're getting two hundred and fifty six gigabytes of storage

on that eleven hundred and ninety nine model. They no longer have a one to twenty eight gigabyte model on the Promax. So needless to say, yes, the price is the same as last year, but there's not a cheaper option this year, so it starts at a more expensive price. So semantics there for sure. But and this comes in a couple of different colors blue, black, white, and titanium. I think the natural titanium is a way to go this year. It's a nice natural color, and you're probably

gonna put a case on it. I may go caseless this year, just because I don't know. I'm just feeling like I might. And this is a really lightweight phone, so it's very easy to manipulate in your hand. So that is the update from Apple on the iPhone fifteen and fifteen Pro and the iPhone fifteen and fifteen Plus available in stores on September twenty second, already available for pre order. Some of you listening may have already pre ordered, and so you already have your ship date and all

that good stuff. But I will say, just to kind of top this off, we are going to talk about Apple a lot throughout this show. Probably gonna be a lot of questions from you about these new iPhones and these new Apple devices. Plus our guest are going to talk about him, so we will go through that, plus

much much more on the show. Coming up, we're going to talk about the way that MGM got hacked and hopefully you can avoid the same scam we've got our guests, uh and producer Adam actually has a story to tell about how someone very close to him fell for a scam. Something that you are getting in your email on a daily basis, and so he's going to explain exactly how his family member fell for that scam. And it is quite scary because it can happen to anyone. But first

it is your turn. Give me a call triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. If you have a question about technology, give me a ring. My name is rich d'miro and you are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology and so much to talk about this week. Anytime Apple does an event, it's I mean it's fun to go. I mean, obviously I went up there.

It's you know, two days of just madness. There's a just a who's who of everyone in the tech world is up there in Coopertino, and it's fun. It's like it's like part homecoming. You see all your friends, you see all the people that you know from YouTube and from around the world. I mean there's there's tech people from every corner of the earth that fly to Coopertino. And by the way, with only about two weeks heads up, Apple sends out invitations for their events just about ten

days before, so they keep everyone guessing. And this year there was really not a lot of surprises. But the fact that we got the USBC on the iPhone that we've been wanting is a big deal. I think that that's going to be great for just streamlining gadgets because now pretty much every modern gadget uses USBC. And so it's going to take a while because people are not going to switch overnight. They're not going to all get the new iPhone. But as time goes on, things will

get fits out. It will be easier to pack, it will get easier to you know, you're in the back of a taxi and you need to charge your phone. It's no longer a do you have an iPhone or an Android cable. It's just one cable. You're in a hotel room, you want to plug into something, and it's just one cable. So it's kind of like just the way that things should be. And I get why Apple didn't change it earlier because they had a good thing going.

They've got the Lightnings. It was their proprietary cable. They made a lot of money on it. But now that it's USBC, it's going to be a lot better, and I'll talk about some of the other products too that they announced, including the Apple Watch Series nine, the Apple Watch Ultra, and the air Pods. Plus I'll have some guests to talk about that as well. Let's go to the phones. Let's go to Dominic and Coasta Mesa. Dominic. You're on with Rich.

minutes later it's at eighty five percent. After I I check, you know, a couple of apps. And so here's my thought on this whole Instagram thing. I have seen this happen. I get so many emails from people specifically about music on Instagram stories. It seems to be all over the place. Now. Instagram is one of these apps that is updated very very frequently, Like I'm talking on a weekly if not sometimes twice a week basis. So there's always a change

happening on Instagram. And I have heard about music issues on Instagram for a very long time. I have not found a rhyme or reason to why these things happen on Instagram. It seems to do with a software update. It seems to be different people's models of iPhones, different software that it's running. Just you know, they're doing this fast, and so I think that they're not one hundred percent testing it on every model, and sometimes things break when they push out an update. So my advice dominic is

to number one. If you want to try to get this working again on install Instagram, turn off your phone, restart it. You can ask Siri, Hey, restart my phone, restart it, reinstall Instagram. You should come back up with the app. You may not even have to log in again,

and then see if it works that way. If it's not working, I would just keep an eye on the app updates, which you can check out by opening up the app store, and you can do tap your profile in the upper right hand corner you pull down from the center of the screen, and then you can check your app updates. If you have an update for Instagram,

run that update and see if that helps. But quite honestly, I think this just falls into a matter of time where it will be fixed if it continues to happen after a long period of time, then there's definitely something wrong. But I just tested it on my phone. It works, so the feature is not broken on a worldwide basis, but it could just be something that's related to your personal setup. Thanks for the call today, Dominic and Costa Mesa. Triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven

four to two four one zero one. Give me a call if you have a question about technology. More Rich on tech right after this Triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Jamie is in Corona. Jamie, you're on with Rich Hi.

the Beatles. Like I was mentioning the Beatles history. So if I search for that and I've got this enabled, you know, I'll see all of the little snippets and results that Google typically offers up, but at the top, I get a generative AI summary about the Beatles, and I don't have to click through a whole bunch of websites. It literally writes almost a report like you would if you were in school about the Beatles. And you can

do this across any topic. It's handy for shopping and so I will tell you it is incredible and I would recommend turning it on. So if you want to turn this on and you're on Google, it's open to everyone at this point, just go to labs dot Google. So if you go to labs, I know it's weird that there's no dot com. If you go to Labs dot Google, it will bring up what's called Google's latest Experiments, And there's a whole bunch of different experiments you can do.

And so I would turn on the one that is SGE, which is the search with generative AI. So that's again Labs dot Google and SGE is the one that will get you these new results I'm talking about, and I think they're very handy. That's one. Now, the second place you can go is barred B A R D dot Google dot com and that's another opt in. Now, to answer your question, Jamie, is this less private than other things?

And the answer is yes. So if you look at bard now, when you search anything on Google, it's going into a database. Now, whether or not they save that information and link it to your account as a different is a different question. But what they're saying is when you sign up for this, there are different rules about the searches because this is an experiment and they're trying to teach their AI what people search, what they click on,

what they read, how the AI responded. So in this case, it is a little bit different than your typical searching on Google. And so yeah, you do give up a little bit more, and I would be a little bit cautious about putting any personal personal information into these AI search engines. And that's across the board with any of them, not just Google. So if you look at Google's barred, it says a big bold thing on my screen right now says human reviewers may process your barred conversations for

quality purposes. Don't enter sensitive information, and you can click learn more and will tell you all about the privacy policies of this whole situation. But I'm glad that you picked up on that. I'm glad that you're noticing this. And I think that this generative search is really handy. I think that it's been incredible in fact, on your iPhone. If you want to see this stuff as well, download the Google app and it will put this stuff at the top of your results on the iPhone as well,

And it's really really handy. So I say, go for it, but just know Jamie that you want to be careful with the information that you're putting in there. And also just the fact that, yeah, there may be a human that is reviewing what's going on, because they're still teaching these systems and you can see if you go to SGE privacy, it will tell you. Let's see Google SGE.

I got to find out where the privacy policy is, so I will put that link as well on the show notes so you can see exactly what's happening with that. Good question. Good question, Jamie and Corona. Glad you're checking that stuff out. So I'm sure you've heard about this whole MGM casino hack. I'm not going to rehash everything that happened, but you know, as a cyber attack disrupted the hotel, casino and website operations for a long time. The hackers claim to steal and encrypt some of the

MGM data. They demanded ransom payments, and reports say that MGM fell to what's called vishing, not phishing, But this is vishing, a convincing phone call impersonation. Vishing is a type of attack. It's a type of phishing attack, but the name stems from voice and phishing. So basically, the scammers pretend to be someone, often a legitimate business, and trick you into giving up your private information or access

to your bank accounts. A lot of times this happens in the real world, not just to big companies, But it happens to you and I when you click a link on either social media or an email or something pops up on your screen and says, hey, call this number to fix a problem. And the technician that's actually answering the phone is a total scam artist. And this happens with phone calls that you get. This happens with emails that you get, a lot of emails that we've

gotten recently. It may say, hey, confirming your subscription payment to Norton Anti Virus or Spies geek Squad. It's a four hundred and ninety eight dollars. We'll be charging your card on file in the next three days. Oh, if you didn't want this, just call this number and we'll fix it up and we'll make sure it does you don't get charged. But when you call that number, that's when this scam happens. Hey, producer Adamy there, I'm here, rich, How you doing this? I'm doing great, but I'm angry

because this happens a lot. And I know that this happens to smart people. You had someone in your family recently fall for a scam to this degree.

on the phone while I'm on the other line. But eventually I get through to her and what had happened was in the email there was a number to call that said, if this four hundred and ninety nine dollars charge has been made an error, call this number and we'll refund it.

we immediately took action. Everything's been frozen and stuff. But man, like you say, she is, she's not, you know, a dumb person. But I grilled and asked her what the deal was and it was like why she never thought this was fake?

And here's the phone number. We should call this number on air and see what happens.

know and they trick us with those. And look at if MGM Casino, If an employee at MGM Casino can fall for this and take down the entire operation of a multi billion dollar corporation, why do you think your company puts that little message on your emails that says this is from an outside person, not in your organization

because it's that scary to them. They know that they are just one step away from an employee giving away a two factor authentication code or getting into the VPN or whatever they're doing to get this this hack to happen. And they know it's scary these companies. This is why you have to go through those training situations and those you know. Hey, can you spot a phishing email? So please be aware and do not call these numbers. Do not click a link in an email to log in.

Do not call a phone number in an email. When in doubt, go to the website itself directly and look for the phone number and call it that way, all right, phone number for me triple eight Rich one oh one. Thanks for sharing your story on them. By the way, uh eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one. Do you have a question, Give me a call. This is Rich on Tech. Jeff is in New York City. Jeff, you're on with Rich.

actually play music. They just play like sort of like a white noise kind of thing. But the good news is some Bo's employees have started up a company called Oslo Ozlo and they're bringing back very similar sleep buds with very similar technology. So if you want to check out those ozlosleep dot com now. And what I was going to say to complete my thought is that I can't have something in my ears when I sleep. Some people can, some people can't. So there's different types of

these buds out there. Some of them actually fit in your ears. Some of them are soft, and you know they're comfortable when you're sleeping. I don't find that to be very comfortable, but I'm just giving you some options here. So There's a pillow you can get called Solely sol I and this is a sleep headphone pillow, and so you can sleep, you know, on your side, you can sleep on your back in different positions, and this pillow kind of wraps around your head and you can put

the music into the pillow via bluetooth or wired. It just depends you know how much you want to pay. And all these things, by the way, are not cheap. I mean, if you want to get a cheap pair of your buds that you can sleep in, sure you can search Amazon. And the top one is these sleep band headphones. Those are about twenty dollars. They've got forty eight thousand reviews. That's probably where i'd start, just to

see if that's something that you would like. This is a brand called Perry Tong p e r Y Tong, not a brand that you've heard of, but it's the overall pick on Amazon. If you just want something cheap and simple and easy. It's kind of like a headband with bluetooth. And so that's that's something you can use

as well. The other thing, the other recommendation comes from my friends at Wirecutter Lauren Dragon over there, she tests all the headphones and earbuds, and she likes these Soundcore by Anchor, And if you've heard of Anchor, a lot of the tech people like this brand. They make a lot of charging stuff and their brand for audio is called Soundcore. They make what's called the Sleep A ten Bluetooth Sleep earbuds, and again there are a hundred bucks.

They're not cheap, they go in your ears. They don't look comfortable to me. I haven't tested them, but I guess a lot of people sleep. And then they have high ratings. But those are another option, and so they look a lot like the Bows earbuds that I was talking about. So those are a couple of options for you. If you want something that's just wired, I'm sure you

can just type in Sleep earbuds on Amazon. And with Amazon they've done a pretty good job now of showing you what's sort of the best mix of highest ratings, the least returns, and the cheapest price. So the overall pick. There are the Sleep earbuds that are just twenty bucks. Again, they don't look comfortable to me, but you know, if you're trying to sleep and you're trying to have something that's in your ears, these are some of the options that you can do. So I gave you a pillow,

the bows and the soundcore. Oh the other one other thing another one hundred dollars. Sleep band Acoustic sheep is another one that Wirecutter recommends. But again it's a band. It goes over your head, but it's a hundred bucks. Of course people like that. The ratings are not that high on that one, so maybe I would skip that. But of course you can put a little speaker under your pillow as well. That's another option of how to get that audio. But or you can just use your

phone next to your bet. I've done that in the past. Just turn your phone on, put on some sleep or you know, podcasts, whatever you want, and there you go. All right, Jeff in New York, thanks for the question. Triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one and sure, fall asleep to my show, fall asleep to the podcast version you are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,

talking technology, talking scams, talking how to avoid scams. Plus we're talking Apple. Lots of new Apple products, many people pre ordering there were some issues. You would think that Apple, such a big company, would have pre orders down by this point, but apparently people still had issues with pre orders early in the morning. You know you're gonna get the phone eventually. You don't need to necessarily be there the second, you know whatever, it's exciting. I know, I know,

I know. All right, let me give you a couple of takeaways. A couple other things they mentioned at the event. Triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one zero one is the phone number if you want to hop on the line chime in. You got a question about technology, you want to ask me about a product, you need an app recommendation, anything, Just give me a call Triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one.

I do these things on my Facebook page. Ask me anything, and it's like the questions come in fast and furious, and then I always end it with hey, by the way, call me on the radio show there too. Apple Watch nine is the new version of the Apple Watch. And the big thing about this Apple Watch is that it is believe it's Apples like first carbon neutral product, which is a pretty big deal, and it's going to get this new feature called double tap, and you can check

it out on my Instagram at rich on Tech. It's pretty cool feature. It lets you tap the main button on the screen just by tapping your two fingers together. So if you want to start a phone call, end a phone call, start a stop watch, whatever you want to do, that's the main button on the screen, play pause, whatever, You just tap your two fingers together. And it's using the blood vessels. It's actually looking at the veins in your wrist. It's looking for the constriction of the blood

to figure that out. And that's all made possible apparently by the new processor inside the S nine sip chip. And they said that it's really good at monitoring all day long, and so it's got the power to do that, and so it's a kind of a neat new feature. Only available on the Apple Watch nine and the Apple Watch Ultra two. It's not coming to the previous Apple watches apparently. Let's see they also have this new Oh, Apple ditched. Apple ditched leather completely as a company, no

more leather. They said, we're done with it. We're gonna be carbon neutral by twenty thirty, so we're not doing leather anymore. So their new material is called fine Woven. And I played with this material. It's definitely does not

feel leathery. It feels more like almost like a swede or like some sort of like almost like the you know, like when you unvelcrow something like that backside of the velcrode almost feels like that, not the part that's like the plastic gee part, the other side, like the felty part. So that's the new material. It's called fine Woven. And I asked them if it was like waterproof, because it was you know, fake or you know, synthetic or whatever. It is recycled, and they're like no, so I guess, yeah,

I don't know. Apple Watch Series nine starts at three hundred ninety nine dollars. The se starts at two hundred and fifty dollars. Those will be available on September twenty second. Not a lot of new features. The screen is brighter on that the battery stays the same. They've got a new thing called smart Stack, which is like a way to look through all of your notifications and things like important upcoming calendar events on there. Then you've got the

Apple Watch Ultra too. This is their you know, their top of the line Apple Watch. Again, it's got that new chip, it's got that double tap feature, it's got a three thousand knit display which is fifty percent brighter than the original, so it's much much brighter. It can also it's got a expanded altitude rain so it can go from negative five hundred to nine thousand meters and still I guess function properly. Let's see what else, eight

hundred dollars. Still, the price is the same, The battery life is the same, thirty six hours or seventy two on low power. And it's a good look and watch. I you know, the Ultra is really like, you know, if you want if you're kind of like the sports enthusiast, the hiking enthusiast, the biking enthusiasts, you need your battery to last a long time because you're using a lot of GPS tracking on this device. That's the watch to get. So a couple more announcements. Let's see AirPods Pro two.

These now have USBC so it's the same exact AirPods except they've got USBC charging on the case. Now, can you just take your old air pods two? Your AirPods Pro two and put them in a new charging case. No, you cannot. Apple's not selling the case separately in typical Apple fashion. Now there is a workaround, but I don't know if it would work, because you can file like a warranty claim and say you lost your case and maybe they'd send you the USBC. But I'm not sure.

So the other thing is they've got this new adaptive Audio mode, which I did have a chance to check out. It's quite incredible. So it mixes noise cancelation, it mixes understanding if someone's trying to talk to you, it mixes it makes the audio louder or softer, depending on your surroundings. And it's really really good. It's using AI. So the bottom line is with these new AirPods Pro too, there's

no more putting them in and taking them out. You can pretty much leave them in all day long if you so desire, and this adaptive audio mode will just change the sound that you're hearing to adapt to whatever you're trying to do. If you're listening to music and all of a sudden things get louder outside, it's going to bring the volume up. If you're listening to music and things get softer outside. You walk into a quiet park, it's gonna bring the volume down a little bit so

your ears aren't blown out. If you're trying to talk to someone and you start talking to them, it will adaptive so you can hear them. I mean, it's really really impressive what they did, and I did a full demo of that and it was great. Two hundred and fifty dollars, still the same price. They also have a new USBC EarPods, which is a wired version of ear pods.

Those are nineteen bucks. Lots and lots of options. Lisa at a Chico from c net will be breaking down some of her thoughts on these new Apple products very soon. All right, let's go to Steve in Orange. Steve, you got a story about how you got scammed?

give it away from you. It was coming from somebody in a Facebook group that I'm a member of, and because I'm a member of that, it also had a couple of names of my friends that are on my Facebook that are also members of that particular group. It appears to me the person the scammer was reaching out in a public way, not an individual way, and just throwing out, hey, if you need a new laptop, I've got one. I'm gonna get you know, get rid of it. So I typed in, yeah, I could use an Apple,

you know, I can use the MacBook. Sure, And then he he wrote back, and he waited like an hour, and he said wrote back and he said, yeah, okay, you can have it. Just give me I'm going to look at the FedEx. Give me your ads, and i'll tell you what the shipping's going to be.

you on the phone. And then he wrote back, oh really, that's what you just said. Oh really, and then I said yes really, So that pretty much ended it. I didn't carry it farther than that. I called PayPal and they gave me my money back, which is, you know, shout up to them. That was great.

don't know what you do once you've been cloned. But right now the hacker is still on the messenger with me, and I could.

to be someone I know. And so he's like, hey, Rich, how you doing.

I do not recommend that you engage with these people because it can get out of control, it can get out of hand, and it's probably just not a good idea. I'm doing it just to learn and like kind of Steve did it just to benefit ourselves and benefit my knowledge. But in general, do not answer the phone for these people. Do not click on links in the email, do not

respond to the text messages. The more that you do this stuff, and the more you respond and engage them, the more that they will stick their friends on you because they know they've got a live one, and so you don't want to do this stuff. By the way, good good website to a checkout is the BBB Scam Tracker BBB dot org slash scam Tracker. It's a great place to research the latest scams and also look up

the latest scams. You put in one keyword, I'm gonna put in Messenger and let's see if someone mentions, oh yeah, Facebook, Messenger all over the place. So again it's a very easy way to kind of research scams. BBB dot org slash Scamtracker. I'll put it on the website. Rich on tech dot tv in the show notes. All right, coming up, more of your calls at triple eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one. Let's see, we'll talk about some of

the other items in the news as well. So, got a lot of calls today, so we're getting to those. You're listening to rich on Tech. Lots of ways to find me online at rich on Tech is my username on Instagram where I'll hang out the most, probably on Instagram Stories, Facebook, Twitter, slash X. I'm also on threads and that's the name of the podcast. If you want to download the show to listen to later, just search rich on Tech in your favorite audio app. You can

do that. And I kid you not. In the time we've been talking about all these scams, I actually just got one twenty one minutes ago to my email that says concerning your refund and it's a geek Squad my purchase details once again. This time it's only for four hundred and seventeen dollars. The one that I tweeted out earlier was for four hundred and eighty nine dollars in nine nine sense, so this one's a little bit cheaper.

Oh and it's going to renew once September sixteenth. So we've been getting a lot to talk about scams in this show. It is just wild how many of these things are happening out there. But if you want to go to my Instagram and see some of the stuff that I've been posting. I've got a lot from the Apple event, including what the new USBC looks like when you plug it into the iPhone, kind of a joke that I posted that people are like, really, it looks

like plugging in anything. I know, that's kind of my point. And then I've got hands on with the new iPhone fifteen, the fifteen Pro. I've got the different colors of the iPhone. I've got pictures from the Apple event. I've got the double tap feature. I've got oh, this is kind of fun. Actually, I posted yesterday a Starbucks deal in the app. And then this this is wild. This glass that you can put on your iPhone. The guy takes a hammer to it.

It's a small hammer, and then he takes a giant hammer and it's the glass is just fine, Like that's a screen protector I want. But of course if you drop it probably would be you know, all over the place, and speaking of scams. By the way, a good website. If you want to train your loved ones on these things, send them the website scamspotter dot org. Scamspotter dot org will help them identify scams. And it's all about the gift cards and the different things that they scam you with.

Coming up after the break, we're going to talk to Lisa at a Chico of Cnet about some of the new Apple products. First, let's go to Sarah in Ventura. Sarah, you're on with Rich.

re download these links again if they went away. There's also a way you can lock down your home screen on Samsung devices in the home screen settings so that you can't mistakenly change it. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here on location in Cooper, Tino. We just got out of the big wonder Lust event here at Apple Park, and joining me now to talk about it all is Lisa at A, Chico senior editor at c NEET. Lisa, you cover a lot of phones and different gadgets.

your iPad if you have a newer model. A lot of them now have USBC, So I think it just made a lot of sense for Apple to make that transition, and of course they had to make that transition, but I do think it'll make more sense for consumers as well.

this device? Do you think it's a pretty good upgrade?

speaks to who this phone is really for. It's for that person who wants more customization, maybe for the person who is a bit more productivity oriented, kind of like Samsung's Galaxy S twenty three Ultra, right, Like, yes, that phone has a powerful camera, but it also has a giant screen and a stylist, which is for people who you know are being more productive.

we're seeing Google jump on board. We're seeing other companies release more devices like Motorola that are foldable, Apple is the main outlier, but to me, the iPhone fifteen Pro with the new titanium design and things like that, and even the regular fifteen, which you know, like we talked about, has a bunch of new features from last year's Pro.

These phones do feel different than their predecessors in a way that's a bit bigger than usual, and part of me wonders if this is, you know, also part of an effort to stand out and get people talking about their phones at a time when foldables are not necessarily becoming a hit because a lot of people still aren't

buying them and they're still extremely expensive. But it's just interesting to see, I guess, a different approach and a different take on a device that has largely stayed pretty much the same for the last like ten to fifteen years, aside from processor improvements, camera improvements, bigger and better screens, all the things you.

So this was trained on Audio Sparks, so this is a library they trained it on via partnership, so it's actually legitimate. You know how there's that whole debate with AI about how they're training these models. Well, they use legitimate sources for this, so that it's legitimate you can actually generate for free twenty second clips. If you pay you can do ninety second clips, and if you pay you can actually use the clips for commercial purposes. So

really interesting, But this is just the beginning. Stableaudio dot com is the website. Let's see how much does it cost to upgrade to pro? So for free you get twenty tracks a month up to forty five seconds okay they're wrong in their press release here, and then for twelve dollars a month you can make up to five hundred tracks up to ninety seconds and commercial use. So what do you think of the audio? I mean, it's not bad, you know, And if I think you know,

this is the beginning. So if you learn how to prompt these things, it's all about with the AI. It's all about how to prompt you know when you want to do something. And keep in mind the first time you do something with AI, like if you're chatting with like chat GPT, you can always like ask to rephrase, like you can say like if it writes something back to you and you don't like it, you can say, hey, can you add this factor? Can you elaborate more on

this angle? Or can you add this or take away this. It's almost like a back and forth chap. It's really really handy. Phone lines triple eight Rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one. Let's go to Rick in mission viaho Rick you're on with Rich.

is right now? We have sixteen Mega RAM on the MacBook pros and we both use a lot of apps at the same time and often get the little message that we're running out of RAM.

So I think overall you're going to take a little bit of a step back.

the pro computers. So you may notice that it's fine for what you're doing, you may notice that it's not as good because of what specific tasks you're doing. Especially you know, when it comes to the M one chip versus the M two, more memory is always better, but and more screen size is always better. Are you trying to replace two computers or one two? Well, well, maybe start with one and see how it works. Is this like a business that you're running off these things?

fine depending on what you're doing. But for me personally, like I think the pros where it's at when it comes to video and if you're doing any sort of video editing, I do think that the pros are better. So I would say start with hers, maybe try, you know, try some of the things that you do on her computer. But for her, the upgrade is a no brainer for you. I think that the I know it's twenty twenty, I know that it's it's going on a couple years old.

But I might wait for your computer and just deal with what you've got, unless you're just at at your wits end with this memory issue.

basis on that thing, and it was just fine. I mean, there's no I had no issues except for the fact that I just wanted the shiny new thing and I got it, and I kind of regret it because the screen size I went from was a sixteen inch to a fourteen inch, and I feel like the ergonomics on the fourteen inch are not as good as the sixteen inch. So maybe stick what you got until maybe they come out with the next level of processors or the next level of pros. See what they do there, and then

take it from there. Good question, Rick, It's always tricky with the with the computers the laptops, because it seems like newer is better. Speaking of laptops, chromebooks getting ten years of updates. So there's this big to do about all the schools that switch to chromebooks during the pandemic, and they had to throw a lot of them away because they just weren't lasting a couple of years with the software updates. So Google said, you know what, We're

going to do ten years of updates. So starting in twenty twenty four, that's next year, chromebooks from twenty twenty one on are going to get ten years of updates. So even if you have an old Chromebook that's made from twenty twenty one on, you're going to get ten

years of software updates. Now, they're not saying that this is going to be like, you know, operating system updates necessarily, but it's going to be it's going to be at least ten years of you know, well it says operating systems, so actually it will be this will keep these things stable secure. Google is also going to step up their repair process because a lot of people faulted these chromebooks for not being very repairable. So that's a huge deal.

So ten years of updates for Chromebooks will make more schools purchase them, make them more feasible for schools instead of having to swap these things out after three years four years. You know, kids go through the school for four years whatever five years, depending on the school, and they can keep the Chromebook the entire time. So that's a good thing. Thanks Google for doing that. Eight and eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one. You are listening

to rich on tech. Tesla milestone this week fifty thousand superchargers. We know that the world of evs is turning to Tesla superchargers. A lot of the new evs in the next couple of years are going to come with a Tesla charger inside, even though it's made by Ford or GM or Hyundai or whatever. They're all getting on board with Tesla's charging standard. And so Tesla announced this week fifty thousand superchargers. They painted it red actually with a

commemorative plaque to commemorate the milestone. So of course all the Tesla folks are looking for this thing apparently now I don't know if it's found. Maybe this article is older, but Roseville, California is apparently where it is. Tesla supercharger network expanded from just six stalls in September twenty twelve to fifty thousand around the world in September twenty twenty three. And I will tell you when you're looking at evs, I know I drive a lot of them. I test

drive a lot for segments. And the biggest issue with non Tesla's is when you get it out of your driveway. The charging situation. Now, if you're charging at home and you're charging at work, you can have any ev you want. It's when you're on a road trip that it gets really really tricky because if you're relying on random chargers, you may not find one that works, you may not find one where you need it, you may not find one at all. And so that is the big hesitation.

And that's also the reason why these car companies have all moved to Tesla's network of charging, because they said, you know what, you did it right, you figured it out, and it's already ready to go. So I think that's bad for the Tesla drivers because there's suddenly going to be an influx of lots of folks charging at these superchargers, so we'll see if they can keep up. Tesla Model

three is getting an update in twenty twenty four. For the twenty twenty four model, it's getting a feature that I could not believe was not in the car that I got, the Model three blind spot indicators. You know, you drive all these cars. Almost every car I test drive has a little red light on the mirror that tells you if there's a car in your blind spot. And for some reason, the Model three did not, excuse me,

did not have that. And now it has that, and so that's finally, I mean, this is like a feature that is like almost worth upgrading your car for it's so good. But the other thing that they do is they like make a warning sound if you have someone in your blind spot, but for some reason that never really works, so maybe someone really has to be in

the blind spot. But anyway, that's a that's a big, big new addition because the blind spot indicator lights, if you have them in your car, they're just so much better than any other system. Let's go to the phone lines here. Let's go to Jim. Jim is in Huntingdon Beach. Jim, You're on with Rich.

you highlight Windows ten or eleven as well. But if you highlight in the in the file Explorer, so you know, if you just open up any folder, highlight the the icon of the or the file name, and just hit F two up at the top and you it'll immediately go to rename the file and you can just type in whatever you want. You can also right click the file and select rename, so that's another way of doing it. So just go right click and let's see here. Well

I'm seeing let's see open with favorites. I don't see it on there. I guess you can go to properties and change it there, but that's kind of that's that's too much work. The F two is probably the way to do it, So Jim, try it out. Stop cursing out Windows, and I think that's gonna be the easiest way to do it. You don't even have to open the file to rename it. Once you've got it in your file folder, just hit that F two key. So good question. I'm glad we were able to figure that

out so easily. Let's go to Darlene in Lomita, California. Darlene, you're on with Rich.

Obviously we don't want those, so the older models that they're selling are the fourteen and the thirteen. So you know, it's kind of depends do you have a budget, Like, do you want to spend or not spend a certain amount.

not really gonna work. So what I would do is I would go on Verizon's website, see what they're going to give you for your old phone. You'll probably get You're probably not gonna get much, I'll be honest. The iPhone eight is not going to give you too much. But I think I think the best phone for you is probably the iPhone fourteen plus. And that way you get a nice big screen, you can play your games, you can look at your pictures. They've got a whole

bunch of fun colors. It's not the latest phone, but quite honestly, this is going to be a really solid device that's gonna last you years. So you're going to get your trading money for your old which is not gonna be too much. I can how long do we have, Adam? Okay, I'm just trying to see how much you might be expecting for that old device. Let's just see. Let's just

select a smartphone. Let's say iPhone eight. Ooh, Darlene, You're only gonna get sixty bucks for that phone, so it may be better to keep it as a backup phone. So but I would recommend the iPhone fourteen plus. I think if they can sell you like the thirteen plus, then you know, maybe go for that. But they they may do it. Apple doesn't officially, but but Verizon may because they may have stock of that still. But I think you go with the thirteen plus or the fourteen plus.

Either way, it's gonna be about eight hundred bucks, and I think that's gonna be a good, solid choice for you, and it's a good upgrade. It sounds like you've had this iPhone eight for a while huh, yes, yes I have. So I think you'll notice your pictures will be a lot better, your battery life will be a lot better. And you don't care about the new USBC. You're not like, you're not really caring to get that.

the call, Darley, and appreciate it. Triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to two four to one zero one. Solving problems, changing lives. We're doing it all right here on rich On Tech. Coming up this hour, we're going to talk to Mark Saltzman about more of the iPhone stuff and more of the Apple stuff. You'll get his take on iPhone versus Android two. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you. Pat writes in, uh, do you know why the calendar on Samsung phones doesn't list Jewish holidays?

or Outlook. And they have one with emojis and one without emojis, and it displays major holidays such as Rashashana, Yam Kapor, Passover, Hanukkah, does not include the minor and modern holidays fast days anyway, So that's what you want to do.

once you open it up, it'll be in there. By the way, if you want to manage your calendars, if you're using Google Calendar on your iPhone or Android, you can tap on the left hand side and it shows all of your different calendars, events, tasks, you know, all the different calendars you have. You can select those or de select those, and you can also change the color that those calendars show up as. And I've got tons that you know, I've got one for like the New

York Jets, I've got one for the usc Trojans. So you can have all these things on your calendar. All about getting that feed, and if you want to get rid of them, just go on that left hand side in the menu and just get rid of the calendars the calendars that you don't want. Same thing on Samsung. If you're inside the Samsung Calendar, just tap the left

hand side. There's like a little menu button and then you can see all the different calendars says MyPhone, Samsung account, Google, and you just go through and you can de select or select. Now on the iPhone, I wish I had my calendar app. I don't use the iPhone calendar app. I think it's poorly, poorly designed and it's been around forever. But there is the same thing on there. You can go into your calendar. I believe it's in the settings.

Let's go into the settings on the iPhone and you go down settings, you go down to calendar and same exact thing. So settings on the iPhone calendar, it says accounts and then you have all your accounts iCloud, Exchange, Outlook, Gmail, and then you can toggle the accounts you want, and then you can also toggle the calendars that you want, so you can do your default calendar. A lot of people don't select their default calendar and they forget and

it's like random things show up. So if you ever have a default calendar, and then when you go into the app, you can choose the calendars that you want. I believe it's at the bottom of the app, but they all let you do this. So the point is it's your calendar. You put the stuff on there that you want. If you want a feed of the holidays that you celebrate, put it on there. Let's see, let's go to Oh, we've got thirty seconds. We can't go a call, so we're not gonna do that. Oh, today's

Rossiashana as I'm heard? Okay, so do you say happy Rasashana? I don't know. Is that a thing?

worried about that whole situation. All right, Coming up, we're gonna talk to Mark Saltzman about iPhone, all the new iPhones, and what he thinks about iPhone versus Android. You are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here on location in Coopertino day after the big Apple event and joining me now to talk about

it is Mark Saltzman. You've probably seen him online. He's been in USA Today for many years as a columnist, also AARP magazine and maybe at Costco on those TVs.

Right for Android, there's I mean fewer today now that if you have bowed out like LG and so on, but you've got the Pixel and Samsung and others. Only Apple makes iPhone, so you're stuck with you know, with that. But to many they want to stay within the Apple ecosystem. If they've got a Mac, an iPad, air pods and

the like, some of which require an iPhone. Apple Watch does, but yeah, you know, its it boils down a personal preference Android has some advantages, more choice, more price selection as well, more apps to choose from, and less let's call them safeguards. If you are more tech savvy and you want to get into the code and tweak things or download apps that are not just at the Google Play Store, you can do that. Apple's got what they call their walled garden approach where you can only download

apps from the App Store. But that's fine for many people who don't want to risk getting any kind of viruses.

of a car. If you want to see what git you need to go to to catch your flight, it'll count down when you're boarding and show you that, and then you can tap for a deeper dive. And there's hundreds of applications. I really like dynamic Island. But as you hint to that, Rich, only last year's Pro models had that. Now all four iPhone fifteen's have that. Better

cameras across the board. We do use our phone now as are for most of us a primary photography device, and it's our camquorder, if you will to use that out dated term. So yeah, bring it on and that makes anybody, and you couple that with AI, it makes anybody take fantastic photos.

for the consumer overall. Apple maybe grudgingly made the change, and they at least adopted it a year early, and internationally they're not just selling a separate phone to Europeans. So kudos to Apple on that. It's better on the environment for in terms of electronic waste.

Very hard to gauge and pin it to on particular company. But they're making these concessions or these moves towards this carbon neutrality for I'm sure a few reasons. So kudos to Apple for trying to get ahead of that twenty thirty goal. In fact, the Apple Watch Series nine and the Apple Watch Ultra two, both of which were unveiled at the Apple event as well, are going to be

Apple's first carbon neutral products. If you buy the aluminum version of Series nine and pair it with a band like it's all numbers, right, So if you pair it with this special sport band with this new material, then it's truly carbon neutral. So it's a step in the right direction. I'm not going to fault to company for trying to make an effort, regardless of what their motives are.

So I think that's super convenient and fast, and it also is great from an accessibility standpoint for those that may have dexterity issues, you know, they have trouble maybe touching a small screen. They may have you know, Parkinson's

for example, as some of my family members do. So I think that's a great feature that's only going to be available in the two new watches, but hopefully they'll roll it out and trickle it down to the other Apple Watches over time like they have with iPhones features as well.

happening when it comes to sports streaming. So spammers are creating fake streaming links for high school sporting events and posting them on social media, hoping that you would say, oh, let me watch my kids game on the on the internet. And then they say, oh, we got to log in, you got to put your payment information in and guess what, Nah,

it's fake. The links look like they're legitimate. They tag the schools, they tag the teams, but they're totally fake and they're trying to steal your personal data.

so definitely research that. Who would have thought. I mean, look again, these scam artists just try to find anything that we do and they put a twist on it to ruin it for us. This is why we can't have nice things. This is pretty nice though. Polestar, this is I would say. I've tried a lot of different electric cars. The Polestar is probably one of my favorites, after the Tesla. I love the design of it. It's owned by Volvo. Actually, Polestar two has integrated Amazon Prime

Video into their infotainment system. This lets you stream Prime Video content while you're parked or charging, not while you're driving. The Polestar two runs Google's Android Automotive OS, which has several including YouTube ways and a web browser. So it's kind of fun. Now you can watch you know, prime video stuff. What's a good show on Amazon Prime? I don't know. My wife was watching What's that one this summer I turned pretty or something.

already watched it on the plane. I feel like you really have to like converse with your spouse or your partner about like what you're watching so that they can you know you're in sync, and the ones who aren't just saying probably not a good sign for the marriage. Ring the relationship I should say, you don't have to be married. That could happen in any relationship. Ring has a new pet tag for lost pets. It's a ten dollars pet tag that puts a QR code on a

pets callar to help reunite pets. With or lost pets with their owners. This is not a high tech thing like an air tag. This is literally a QR code. So you put your pets information on the Ring app, and if someone finds your pet, the QR code is what they can scan to help connect you with your you know, back to your pet. So what's unique about this is that it's low tech. You don't have to charge it, you don't have to think about Bluetooth, Wi Fi,

sidewalk network, whatever. You just have to set up the information on one time. And once you set it up, what the secret here is that ring protects your personal information, so your phone number is not around your dog's neck. Now I don't think everyone would have a problem with that, like, but you know, you never know today's day and age, with all the privacy concerns, your phone number is kind

of like your main thing. So this in this case, they would scan the QR code, it would open up a page where it tells your information about the pet, but then it says, hey, do you want to connect to the owner, and they would facilitate a phone call or a text message, but all through like a secure messaging or calling syste them. So basically it never reveals your information, which is kind of smart, especially if you're just not wanting your personal information out there. Pre Orders

start now. Ships on October fourth, and it's nine to ninety nine and cruise. This is the robotaxis up in San Francisco. With all the issues, they are trying to do something nice to kind of get the attention off all the weird stuff that's happening. They have a wheelchair accessible version of their driverless Robotaxi, which I think is pretty incredible. So this has a retractable ramp and interior

space for a wheelchair user. They worked three years on this and they aim to provide mobility options for twenty five million Americans with disabilities. This is a huge deal. We've heard a lot about how driverless cars are great for people with impairments. This is a huge, huge deal because someone in a wheelchair can now call this car, it'll drive up to them. They can get inside and get wherever they want to go. So that's happening with crews.

They're going to start testing in October on closed courses and then twenty twenty four they'll try to get these things. At least you know it's somewhere where they can test these on the real streets.

I would check at passwords dot Google dot com. If you have them saved on Chrome, they would also be there. Maybe your Chrome is not sinking. That's the only thing I can think of. I don't think they all got deleted. It would take a lot to delete all of your passwords, So check out passwords dot Google dot Chrome and see if they are there. If they are, then it sounds like you just need to get them back into your Chrome web browser by sinking them up. Jorge Dallas says, Hey, Rich,

I hope this finds you well. I find your info interesting and helpful. Thanks, and your professional opinion. Is Apple Care plus a useful additional benefit for this new iPhone fifteen. Side note, if you don't want your Apple lanyard and credentials, I'd love to have it autographed. Would be even better. So many people ask for my Apple lanyard. I got to figure out how to give that away. Do I think apple Care plus is worth it? Ooh, I know,

it's like a given, everyone gets it. I come from the standpoint of whatever it costs for Apple Care a month, just put that in a savings account and if you ever need to use it, now you have a whole bunch of money towards the repair. I find that to be a better situation because if you if you put a screen protector and you put a nice case on your phone, I mean, really, what do you need Apple Care for unless you lose your device and you have to get a new one. But then you know you've

got to have the higher level of Apple Care. So put the case on, put the screen protector on, save the Apple Care every month and put it in a separate account, and when you need to do something, then you can use that money. That's what I like to do. I know it's weird, tell Abella says on Instagram, I enjoy listening to your show, so much, so much info given.

Thank you. Jane shared a message from her insulin pump says it's not going to work with iOS seventeen, so something to keep in mind if you're upgrading your phone, if you have some sort of like medical device, make sure it's compatible. Randall says Rich. I've been using inexpensive AMFM radio with wired earbuds for a long time during sleep. I haven't been strangled by the wires just yet. Just sharing, no problem if it works for you, and let's see. Uh,

Gail says I. Good afternoon. I'm getting my chores done and listening to your broadcast. Oh my god, I can no longer listen without a pattern paper. So much information what Facebook, messenger scams, bbbscam information scamspoter dot org. Haven't even had time to look at your information about the new Apple items, although I did see your report on that hammer proof screen. Wow, keep it coming, although I

can barely keep it up. We did check Apple calendar does show the Jewish holidays, so yeah, there you go. All right, that's going to do it for this episode of the show. You can find links to everything I mentioned on my website. You can find me on social media. I am at rich on Tech. Next week it's Amazon's turn. They are launching new devices. I'll tell you what you need to know about that. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend your time.

I do appreciate you spending it right here, little old mate. Thanks to everyone who makes this show possible. Thanks for Adam for sharing your story. My name is richdmiro. I will talk to you real soon