I take a virtual reality ride.
On a ride, some good advice when it comes to those passwords security questions, Instagram gets rid of an interesting feature, and of course your tech questions answered.
What's going on? I'm Rich Dmiro.
This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the stuff I think you should know about happening in the tech world. And I answer all of those little questions that you send me through all the different ways you can send those to.
Me, joining me as always producer Megan. What's up?
Oh? All the little questions, Well, they're big questions, little ways.
I don't know. There's big little there.
There's a play on words there, and I totally did not get it. But you were not with us last week. I know the show was not the same.
That's so sad.
Lots of people emailed in wondering where you were.
I bet it was probably my mom.
She go, have you seen Megan, because she's been gone for a week now. Like, No, it's probably in some tropical place where I want to share where you are?
Yeah, I was in Cabo in Mexico.
How is Cobo these days?
It's such a unique place, really fun, beautiful.
It's been a couple of weeks since I've been there.
Yeah, I think you need to go.
I think you I would like to.
Maybe don't bring your kids.
Oh okay, we're thinking of that.
I mean, I feel like it's a fun place to just have a good time, let loose, like Vegas, but Mexico.
Oh.
Interesting, there's no gambling though. No, okay, then I'm out.
Oh okay, but you like tequila.
Maybe I might do that.
We'll see, have a have a sip.
Followed by a lot of water, one little sip and then I'll pass out. Uh, let's see what should we talk about first this week? I guess we'll talk about Oh, you want to talk about the Instagram thing first? Okay, let's talk about Instagram removing what I called the creepy feature ever and I call it.
The most necessary feature.
So the Instagram, In case you did not know, they removed a feature this week called following. And I actually got a bunch of emails about this and dms on Instagram from people saying where did this feature go? And I said, don't you watch the TV? Yeah, or look at my tweets or look at my Instagram stories. I mean, we posted this, they don't. She's like no, I was like, oh, I don't know where to go from there. So Instagram
ditches what's called the following tab. This was in your activity feed, so it's look, you either knew about it or you didn't. You either used it or you didn't use it. It's the part next to the hearts where you look at all your likes and who's following you and who commented on your stuff. Next to that, you would see all the stuff that your friends were doing on Instagram. Yeah, and sometimes you would see some pretty interesting movements from your.
Friends, pretty weird, you know, pretty weird.
You basically learn what your friends are into.
It was very.
Telling, like it, I mean, I don't know certain people. I was like, oh okay, like just just certain people, sorry, specifically men liking like a lot of model stuff. And it's like, oh, okay, you know, I don't know. I feel like if you're like dating someone, that's kind of a nice feature to have, or it's stalking.
Well that's so that's the thing. I mean.
Okay, So two sides of this, yes, so number one do you think?
Well, okay? For by the way, Instagram.
Said that nobody really cared about this or used it which I don't know if that's true.
I feel like they're kicking themselves.
Here's here's what I think.
Here's the reason why I think Instagram got rid of it. It was a it was the it was a very unprivate part of the site. So when people are on Instagram, you can see who you're following. You can you can kind of see like now they've done the thing where like if I go to a picture that you've already liked, it'll h and you're my friend, It'll put your name at the top and be like Megan like this picture, or like I can see you know my friends that
like that picture. Oh that's interesting, they follow this person too. But this was like one place where you can go you can see like just everything they've liked in the past hour.
Yeah, now that's gone.
So I feel like Instagram did this because they wanted to make Instagram a little bit more private, more personal. Well I feel like they did it because they want people to like more pictures that they would have hesitated liking. Okay, so now you're talking about some creepers that you obviously have seen on there, that have liked a bunch of stuff because they didn't care or they didn't know this existed.
But now that people are like, oh nobody can see what I'm doing, they can be all the stuff be like crazy.
Yeah, I mean whatever, it's fine, but it's it's just I think, like it's they're going in a different direction, and so now I feel like it's harder to like discover stuff.
You know, well they have those explore pages.
Right, but you have to like think about that.
You got to think about that. I agree. I never used the following.
I would maybe look at it once a year, so I never really did daily.
I just occasionally be like okay, and then I would see like Rich Demurrel likes food something I don't know, and then I'm like, oh, that looks interesting.
I did discover one thing on Instagram, though, and this is really it's a sad state of affairs with the whole influencer culture and the whole everything. Yeah, and you can do this on Instagram in a million different ways. But if you just look at the similar pictures to whatever you're looking at. Like, let's say you go to a cool restaurant that's in Los Angeles that has a
cool Instagram wall. Well, if you tap the location, the place on Instagram, you will see your same exact picture taken a thousand different times from a thousand different people.
It's all the same. There's nothing unique. It's really sad.
You think you're being so cool by getting this cool angle or whatever anything exactly, take your pick. It's all been done. And the other thing, and this is my other new trick on Instagram, is that if you go to the explore page and you look at anything that's interesting on the Explore page, like here is this new phone that's like this weird looking phone, and literally I just scroll up and this one, of course is not really working because it's too new. But let's say you
just like look at a picture of an iPhone. It says the perfect case. It will literally just you scroll up and it's the same thing over and over.
Same thing with influencers.
Let's say you like a fitness influencer, scroll up after you tap on their picture, and you'll see a thousand of the same type of fitness influencers.
It's all the same.
It's so crazy.
So anyway, so much out there. There's nothing new on Instagram anyway. Yeah, all right, you got a question for us, Megan.
Yes, I do this first question, Concept Conception wrote in on Rich on tech dot tv. If you ever want to send Rich a question, you just go to rich on tech dot tv and just click the contact page. So Concept writes, dear Rich on October fifth, I downloaded the latest update for my iPhone eight and then he said that the bedtime feature is always on the alarm screen, his bedtime alarm, and he can't get rid of it, and so his concern is that he might accidentally activate it.
My concerns, I may actually activate it. What do you suggest. I'm a big fan of you, So I guess.
Are you saying that or is that still? That was definitely okay? I didn't know if you switched back to Megan.
Okay, Yeah, the bedtime in the in iOS thirteen, bedtime is now in the forefront. So when you go to your alarms, it is now on the alarm page at the top. And that does freak out a lot of people because nobody uses bedtime.
They don't really do you use it? No?
No, nobody does except me. I love bedtime. I will tell you why. Why Because when you say.
The alarms, I know meanime no, but like I have like every minute.
Oh my gosh, trouble waking up.
It's it's like somehow Megan got the alarms go by like the thirty second mark.
Yeah.
The reason why Bedtime is so great is because when you set a bedtime alarm, the alarm arm gradually comes on.
So normal alarm on the iPhone is like that.
Yeah, bedtime starts out soft and it gently gets louder. Yes, And so I love that. For that feature alone, it is worth the price of admission. Take the time to set up bedtime. I also think that it's easier to set the alarm for bedtime because you just use the slider and you can also see how much time you're
going to sleep. So what happens is when I get into bed at sadly really early in the night, I will put my wake up time, which is generally really early, and then I'll put the little slider and see if I have maybe like fifteen minutes to kind of like surf you know, Instagram before I go to bed, because I'm like, oh cool, I'm getting six hours and forty five minutes of sleep if I go to sleep at nine pm versus eight thirty or nine thirty.
I do the same thing like in my brain in your brain.
Though, but this does it all for It calculates to forty. So anyway, conceptsy on. I think that's how I don't know.
I think that's how we say there's no cea conception.
Oh conception. Yeah, maybe, well we don't try. We try.
So I say, embrace the Bedtime and you can turn it off, but you're not gonna get it off that main screen. Let me see if I turn it off fully, does it go off the main screen?
Now it's still going to be there.
So I think Apple's just trying to put this on the main screen so that more people use it and realize try it out. If you haven't tried Bedtime, just try it. It's a little complicated because it looks intimidating because you have to set like every day that you want it to come up. And you might say, well, I have different alarms for different days. But just go in every night and before you go to bed, just hit bedtime and move the slider to the time you
want to wake up. It tells you how long you get to sleep, which is really nice.
I love that feature.
So you can set a different alarm for every day.
Well, you just have to go in manually into it. You can't automatically set it, but you.
Just use a little slider. It's it's easy.
Like if I want to wake up at four am tomorrow, boom, and I can go to bed at eight pm.
Nice knowing that I get eight hours of sleep.
So yeah, some people can do that math in their head, but it's really nice. And again, the main benefit to me is the fact that you can get that gradual alarm. I don't care what time you're waking up. Nobody wants to be blared awake. No. In fact, a lot of people are switching to these lights that gradually come up because I think there's a lot of health research that says you don't want to be like rocked awake, No, you want to be gently awoken.
Well, back in the day, when we used to just sleep right when the sun went down, exactly woke up when you know sunrise, people.
Didn't have to work for a living. Ye, go outside, hunted, yeah, go kill some animal word yeah.
Yeah, and they slept like twelve hours.
Twelve hours.
I mean if the sun sets at six pm and then you the sun rises at like six am, yeah, they probably slept a lot more.
Some good advice from Mashable on password recovery questions. Every website nowadays seems like it's getting more and more complicated when it comes to setting your password. And I think people are hip to the fact that they don't really log in using Facebook or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter anymore or Google. Twitter was there for a minute, but most of the time it's either Facebook and Google as a log in. I generally don't recommend using those as
a log in. Recommend using a unique password and your you know, email.
Address for every website.
And if you don't know how to do this, or if it's too much work, you know, maybe invest in one of these password programs, which last Pass is a really good one. One Password is another one, and also dash Lane is another one that I really like. And the advice from Mashable Jack Morse writing and Mashable, I love this advice. He says, do not answer those stupid questions that they ask you to recover your account truthfully, because a lot of times, like especially United Airlines, it's ridiculous.
It's like literally, what's your favorite flavor of ice cream? It's like, okay, for ninety nine percent of people are gonna put vanilla chocolate.
So there has to be a better way to.
Choose an answer that is not your true answer, it's off the cuff. And also with friends, a lot of people like what street did you grow up on?
Like I know that. Yeah.
For some people pick weird things and write in weird answers. Now you might be saying, well, rich, how am I going to remember these weird answers?
Two ways to do it.
I sometimes take a screenshot of the random answers that I make up for these questions, which can work, but then you have to keep track of the screenshot what he's recommending. And this is actually a little bit smarter, and I do this as well. Inside these password managers, the big ones, you can leave a note associated with a website, so in addition to your password, you can say, like first car. Everyone that knows you knows your first car. That's a good friend. Now, I hope your good friends
aren't hacking into your accounts. But my point is, okay, that was scary. But the point is you don't want to, you know, It's like it's like there's only so much information about you that's personal that people don't know.
You've been around for a while people know a lot of stuff about.
You, So good advice from Jack, make up those random answers and then just keep it in one of the secure notes on your password manager. And you might be saying rich, but if someone hacks my password manager, they get all this stuff. Well, you got to secure the password manager and big time you're.
Really DISCREETE five x one two four two nine one that is rich as past.
Word, but use that password, but also use two factor authentication and the app I recommend for that is AUF the A U T H Y. Again, you had to have multiple layers of this stuff because it's you gotta, you know, gotta keep on your toes at this because there's just people out there every day that are trying to get this stuff.
I mean, like, why are we working on the autonomous car when we should be working on the fingerprint reader for all things?
I'm all about that. What happened to that? Why do we stop doing That's how I mean the fact.
Yeah, like the face of lot maybe that's our side job.
But face unlock has been on the iPhone for a couple of years now. Why aren't websites like able to tap into that? Maybe maybe for security reasons they can't. I don't know, all right, Megan, Okay, we're not going to solve the world's problems right now.
You got a question.
Yes, This next question is pretty straightforward. It's from Kim, and she wants to know. Does your book have a section on how to keep your iPhone and other accounts secure?
Oh?
My god, we just talked about that, Kim, were you're not listening? Oh wait, she doesn't know, because she if anything I was, you weren't listening.
Did you say that your book has a section?
No, the book does not, do we I mean? The thing is the book one hundred and one iPhone Tips and Tricks available now on Amazon, paperback and ebook. It's all about iOS thirteen. I do talk about privacy in the book a lot, because there are so many new privacy features in iOS thirteen, and there's also a lot of privacy considerations in general.
Nowadays.
I feel like everything comes down to privacy. So is there a certain section of the book. No, But will you be smarter about privacy when you use the book? I think so, And I think the main thing with privacy comes down to understanding what apps are trying to get a hold of when they're you know, like, my wife came out to me the other day and she's like,
what's this and she shows me that new screen. You haven't downloaded iOS thirteen yet, you haven't seen it, but it's a screen that gives little blue dots on a map of all the places that you've gone and all the times that an app has accessed your location. And it's really scary because you're like, why guy, dark Sky accessing my location in all these different places? And I said, well, dark Sky has a feature that tells you when it's
about to rain. That's why it wants to know where you are at all times, so it can tell you that. If you don't sell that data, well, usually the privacy policy of a lot of them, they don't like dark Sky, I don't think sells that data, but yes they could.
Dark Sky is like the it's.
A cool app for the weather.
It's a cool weather app, and its main thing is that it tells you when it's going to rain wherever you are. It'll say light drizzle starting right now, in two minutes, and all of a sudden, you'll go outside and yeah, light drizzle, and it's that's their kind of magic. But they need to know where you are at all times. For that Magic Citizen, another app that we talk about all the time.
It scary, scariest.
If you just want to be scared about where you live, just download Citizen, put it on your phone.
Freak.
You will just hear about every armed robbery within five feet of you.
It's insane guy with gun down the block and like okay, right.
Take cover.
Yeah, And that app again needs your location at all times so it can tell you about the scariest stuff happening literally steps away from you.
We're so there's always.
Something, especially like Hollywood, there's always like you know, crazy man running with like.
No, it's like naked man running.
Knife, yes, with chicken and knife.
Yeah, it's crazy, it really is.
But anyway, it's a great app, but it needs to know your location so that it can understand where you are and tell you all the scary stuff that's happening around you.
If you don't want that.
In iOS thirteen, the first time that little thing pops up, just say don't allow, or you can say only allow while using the app. So in iOS thirteen you have the option for almost every app, I think it's every app now to either allow location once or only when the app is open, which is kind of nice. And then the other thing is Bluetooth that all the apps are asking for. We've covered that in a previous podcast. But every app wants access to your Bluetooth as well.
If it doesn't need it, don't give it the access. That's what you need to know. Let's see what should talk about next. This is an interesting little experience that I did yesterday. It is the Bride of Frankenstein Hollow Ride. This is a VR experience in a car. You sit in the backseat of a car, you put on a VR headset, and you ride in this car while you're in VR like a ride. It's so weird. Don't call it a ride, I know, whatever you do. Lots of
restrictions around this one, but yeah, I did this ride. Yeah, it's about five to seven minutes. It's basically an Oculus rift or just I don't think they call Oculus rift anymore. I think it's just Oculus headset off the shelf kind of stuff. But here's the thing. They kind of buried the lead on this whole thing. It's not a new ride at Universal Studios. It is what this company thinks is the future of backseat entertainment.
Did you ever have a car with like the DVD player in the back.
And a VCR VCR you have that you watch like Disney movies on the road trips with your family up to Arrowhead?
Yeah, yeah, good time.
We never had that in our car, the VCR or the DVD. Well you have iPads, Well, now there's iPads.
Yeah.
But so this company, hollow Ride, seems to think that the next generation is going to just put on a VR headset and the parents are in the front seat driving.
You know, they're kids are literally on a roller coaster. Right, That's actually kind of really fun.
Yeah, it's really fun if you don't throw up all over the back seat.
That also would be me and.
I will tell you that you did not do this, which you should have by the way, But I watched him do it.
Yeah.
Megan was holding the camera so it was tough for her to do it. Yeah, but it's just it was rough. I don't get carsick or motion sick, but it was. I walked out of there being like, you know.
Yeah, something's gonna happen.
Yeah.
So well, also they said, oh, you won't get you won't get sick.
Yeah, well, I think the best. The quote in the actual press release says it reduces motion sickness, so they definitely know it's a problem. Oh yeah, significant, Okay. Hollride technology provides a new type of immersion into any kind of VR content, creating a break breath taking immersive experience and significantly reducing motion sickness, So they know that motion sickness is a part of this thing. But with that said, this is totally free. You don't take my word for it.
Go try it out and see. Don't be scared like you got to try it. Yeah, but it's a five to seven minute ride. It's this whole thing where like you're in the back seat, You're you're shooting at monsters that come at you. The bride of Frankenstein is sitting in the seat in front of you.
It's cool.
It wasn't the best VR I've ever done. If you want the best VR by far, it's called Dreamscape and it's at Westfield Century City and at a bunch of other males in America.
That's the best VR experience.
I've ever seen that I still need to do.
You gotta do that one too. Just call them up and tell me I want to do it because you should.
Initially for this story, though, I when we were going into it, I thought that it was going to be more scary, like the footage I saw that you experienced. I thought like monsters were going to run up to you, and I mean it's Halloween times, so you know. But I agree wasn't as scary, No.
It was.
I thought there's gonna be things that came out at you. The only thing that really at one point and you see on my instagram at rich On Tech you can see where I kind of jump. It is the beginning where the bride jumps into the car. I'm not really giving things away. You know that's gonna happen. I knew that was gonna happen without even knowing. And then at the end of the day you're like whoa, yeah, and the whole thing you're just shooting at these monsters.
Yeah.
I thought there's gonna be kind of like a story arc and different things, and there wasn't.
It never really evolved.
So anyway, do I think it's bad technology, No, I think it's really cool, and I do think that will be a part of the future.
Is it there just yet? Probably not.
Yeah, and I also had a theory that I thought that VR on a plane would be kind of the coolest use of VR because you're locked in this seat, You're locked in this tube traveling at six hundred miles an hour. What are you gonna do? People watch movies on the plane. So if you can have a movie that's giant in front of your face because of VR, even cooler.
It's like it feel like you're in a theater.
Yeah, like a private movie theater with a giant screen. So I did do this. I watched a movie on the plane. I thought they were going to kick me off the plane because it was so like weird, creepy to see this guy like taking out his headset and putting in the thing. And then I set up a GoPro in front of me so I can get some videocause.
It's free, like who is this like live streaming?
And so that that I watched half of the movie before I kind of got sick.
You also got sick.
Well, this headset got really hot. I didn't get sick with the headset got really hot.
I have to work on that that. I have little fans, a.
Lot of things to work with this stuff. Yeah.
Anyway, I think VR is really cool.
Though, what have you done VR?
Not a lot, But I thought there's this whole thing about empathy VR, like helping people like understand. I mean it's like.
Deep stuff, but I like, if I'm ready for that, it's like.
The future of like journalism and teaching people about like what's going on in like certain countries. Okay, there are like these VR experiences and like Syria and you can like walk around and like it immerses you, yeah, to help you understand you just.
Like instead of getting sick, you just have cry.
At the they have some program at USC and it's like the Film School ICT.
They do a lot with soldiers with that like military. Yeah, it's implia. We did a story with them a long time ago. It's well, they do it. In fact, that's what they did. They the empathy training was basically it was something like you know because a lot of these soldiers come back and or military and it's like it's tough for them to adjust to everyday life because of PTSD and all this stuff. So this thing that we
saw that I think they they took me through. It's been a while, but I remember it, like helping them understand that not you know, every loud sound isn't affecting them, you know what I mean. It was that kind of stuff where it's pretty interesting. And then there's like a job interview where the person was a veteran and they were kind of seeing how to deal with that if you're an interviewee, you know, like that kind of stuff.
So I think there.
I think VR, don't get me wrong, is going to be the future of everything. Like Hilton Hotels, Rich Carlton, they will have a hotel in virtual reality that you take a vacation app. Wow, you won't have to go to Cabo anymore.
Megan every weekend.
Just you literally go on your open up that tequila.
Here's me and you're like in a blank room.
Yeah, no, it'll it'll put you in the room in the thing. You'll just like like close your eyes okay and be like one.
I think it cou'd be good for like elderly people that can't go.
So many again, there's so many applications.
So many applications. All right, So this next question comes from Aaron. She wrote on your Facebook, Hi Rich, Now that iTunes is a thing of the past, should slash could the app be deleted. Wait what I think she doesn't understand that you have to update your computer.
Okay, that's a good segment. Yeah, the mac Catalina stuff.
I've had a lot of people, Well no, I've had one person ask me what happens to my iTunes?
Like so iTunes, here's so, here's the thing.
She's referring to mac os Cattle, which is now available for your desktop computer. I don't recommend that you download it right away because it's not like it adds like crazy new features that you need like today. Like I am a tech person, I'm not updating my computer for a couple of weeks because I need a program. I'm going to New York next week and I need to have the use of my full computer, and I want any surprises.
Now. Do I want to update? Of course I do.
I love updates, but I want to make sure that everything works and all the little apps I have, You know, all these you forget about the one little thing that you need on your computer, and all of a sudden it doesn't work, and now you're frustrated and you got to wait for a software update for everything to get fixed. That software update can come from Apple or it can come from the third party manufacturer of the program or the developer, and either one it just is annoying to wait.
So yeah, just wait a little bit while things get worked out. But macOS Catalina, what she was referring to is there's no more iTunes on it per se. It is now Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and Apple TV. And those are three apps that are on your computer. Will all your iTunes purchases be there, yes, all your music will be in the Apple Music app. All of your TV shows and movies will be in Apple TV. So it's still there, it's just not in iTunes.
And if you have an iTunes Skift card that will still work, that still works. It's part of your Apple account and you can use that movies or Yeah. It doesn't go away.
Yeah, yeah, I just don't. I mean, I think that Apple is on the desktop at least. I mean, I don't know if a lot of people rent movies on their desktop, but most people, I think maybe use like Apple TV a their iPad, so it's not as much. I mean, you could still access the Apple TV store or the iTunes store through Apple Music or through Apple TV.
You know, the app.
It's confusing because it's called Apple TV even though there's there is a physical piece of hardware called Apple TV, but there's now also an app called Apple TV.
Yeah, that's very confusing.
Yeah, and then there's a third party app called Apple TV that runs on like Sony TV.
Is an Apple TV Plus.
Well, that's their subscription service which is part of Apple TV, the app, which can also run on Apple TV, the hardware.
When is Apple TV Plus November first?
Can't wait? Watch that new show with what's your name? Well that one too, but what's the other one? What's the girl that?
Uh?
Oh Haley?
Yeah, Haley Seinfeld.
Is it gonna be like Steinfelder Seinfeld stein Steinfeld Steinfeld? Okay, no Seinfeld, Hailey Seinfeld, No, Hailey Steinfeld, Hailey stein Feld, Yeah, Steinfeld.
She's in the new show?
Is it all episodes like available to watch immediately?
We don't know yet. Sounds like Apple might might not do that, but we don't know.
We don't know.
I feel like they should do that if they want people to keep it, you.
Know, well everyone that let's be honest, everyone that's getting Apple TV Plus for the first year is they're all freebies, you know what I mean?
Like I don't think anyone's subscribing.
I think it's all the people about iPhones and the Apple devices hook us.
They got to hook you up, bait and switch.
No, I think I think it's gonna be good. I mean, look all these services. If you find one show that you like on them, Like what did I watch the other? Okay, we watched on HBO. We watched Halloween.
Have you heard of that?
It's like the it's like an old school movie and they keep doing like new versions of.
It, like Michael Myers Halloween.
Yes, so there's like a.
New version of it with like Jane who's the actress, Jamie Lee Curtis. Yeah, so anyway, it came out last year. I didn't even know about this, but I'm browsing, Oh I.
Need to watch that.
I'm browsing Halloween.
Yes, yes, but it's on HBO, like which I get as part of my direct TV now, which I pay fifty dollars a month for. So to me just watching that one, that one movie is like a six dollars value, so I like mark it off in my head. I'm like, all right, forty four dollars to go.
To get my fifty dollars a month, but I get.
Every channel for that, which is actually it's like one hundred.
You're talking about your service in general. Okay, HBO go is not.
And then if I watch one USC game on a weekend or four in a month, and I'm watching it on Fox Sports or one of these espns, I am in my head mark off another five dollars. So by the end of the month, if I if I've used and my kids watch you know, Disney, Disney or nick, I'm like, okay, that was another five bucks.
So at the end of the month, it's I'm like twenty five dollars walking around.
You're like, all right, five dollars, check it off the list.
It's kind of a mental thing.
Yeah.
And then Netflix, What did I watch Netflix? I watched two things on my last trip. I watched that documentary Social Animals. Oh yeah, And then I watched a scary movie that was really terrible, which was okay. It was called like House on Witch Hill or which the Witch House or something.
Haunted House on Hill Street.
No, it was not that. Was it a series, Nope, it was it was a movie.
It was like a terrible B movie that you would never watch. But because it's free, on Netflix. Of course you watch it, got it, so me those two things were worth the sixteen bucks I pay for.
Now there's actually a show on Netflix which everyone was obsessed with last year called The Haunted House on Hill Street and it's actually like an amazing series, Like everyone was obsessed with it. So if you need another thing to ding off your list, that show's really good. Okay, I might like rewatch it because I want to get into the Halloween.
Yeah spirits spirit It's like deep yeah, okay, I don't want that. Well, okay, all right, let's see.
What other features on macOS Catalina. They've got sidecar, which is a new feature that makes your iPad a secondary display, which is kind of cool. There used to be an app or there still is called Duet which does something similar, but now it's just built into macOS. And now there are third party apps like iPad apps that are in the Mac app Store. So one of them that I'm excited for is called Tripe, which is kind of cool, and trip it I used to organize all my travel.
Now it's available as a desktop app. Cool.
And you also have Apple Arcade for five bucks a month, which I'm doing the free trial of right now. So, yeah, speaking of all this stuff, Tile, who is I think Tile is a little concerned for what's happening with Apple because Apple, the rumor is that they're coming out with their own Tile.
Are you familiar with this product?
Isn't it like a tracking device?
Yeah? Exactly, and for anything, for anything.
You can basically attach it to anything you want and it will use a combination of Bluetooth and then crowdsourced Bluetooth to find your stuff.
So let me explain.
So, let's save a little tile in your purse because you want to keep track of your purse. So you have an app on your phone that will ping this little thing in your purse that has a little battery in it, and it will be like, oh, your purse is I don't know if it just maybe makes a sound or if it tells you like it's in your house, because it tells you how far away it is something like that. Yeah, that's fine. That's one way of finding it. But let's say you leave your purse at work and
you're at home and you're like, wait, where's my purse? Well, how would it find because Bluetooth only has a certain range. So then what Tile does is it looks to see if anyone has a tile app installed in their phone nearby your purse, and it will ping the Bluetooth from their phone to your device and it will be like, oh, we found it over here, here's a location because it's going through someone else's phone. Yeah, so that is great as long as someone has tile installed on their device
near your tile. If they don't, then you're kind of screwed. So what Apple is doing they are building in this tile functionality to all their devices, which, by the way, there's an iPhone or an iPad or a MacBook around almost everything in the world, so.
A tile could work with an iPhone.
No, not the tile. Apple's upcoming tile knockoff, which is going to be called the.
Tile knockoff from Apple Okay tracker Tile Apple Tracker, who knows?
Yeah, poor Tyle, thank you. So I explained that.
Well, because they even like, buy the whatever the rights.
I don't know. It's just so sad that Apple. I get it.
It's kind of nice that Apple's doing this, but they should have just bought Tile and just integrated them.
Yeah, I agree with that. Maybe hey, maybe they put out an offer and Tyle said no, Yeah, so.
I doubt it, but probably so.
Tyle has a couple of new devices that they're still kicking. They're still doing stuff even though they know in like three weeks everyone's going to be laid off.
Oh so sad.
So Tyle has Tile Sticker.
This is a the thinnest it's literally a sticker you put on stuff, and it has a three year battery life and one hundred and fifty foot range and it can be attached to almost anything. They work with three m to make this adhesive that you can stick on stuff. I think that one sounds awesome because you can stick stick it to things. And you've got Tile Slim, which is a credit card shape which you can put in your wallet for your guy or a girl whatever. Yeah, no gender bias here, do whatever you want.
Put it whatever wherever you want.
Yeah, it's just a slim credit card shape and that has a two hundred foot range, which is two times the range of the last Slim That also works for three years. Then they've got their most powerful finder on the market with a four hundred foot range of Bluetooth, which is the Mate and pro. So anyway, the sticker is thirty dollars thirty nine ninety nine for a two pack, sixty dollars for a four pack.
These things are expensive. Wow, yeah they are, but it lasts for three years.
That's the downside of tile. So when Tyle first came out, I got it, of course because I thought it was so cool. And then I switched over to an other one that was a user replaceable battery.
I forget. I think it went out of business. But tile is kind of the thing.
But the problem with the tile is that when the battery runs out, it's kind of you to buy a new one. If to buy a new one not user replaceable, I think you can send them in. I think as my battery was going dead, they kept sending me emails saying, Hey, we'll give you a new one for fifty percent off if you send us the old one. I think they could pop it open and replace the battery.
Got it.
So that's what did you buy?
What kind of a tile?
It was the standard? It was just the tile. I don't know if it was whatever it was, did you use it? I put out my keychain and went on Lindsay's keychain and I put one of my my luggage. Yeah, and I'll tell you the one time I needed it because I was wondering where my keys were. I fired it up at the parking spot by Lax and no joke, a thousand tiles came up because everyone has these things on their keys, so it was kind of funny people
are using them. But I never lost my stuff to the extent of I needed the app to find it.
Yeah.
Do they make a tile that you can put on like a mug? That would be probably the stick his mug, Like he'll put it somewhere and then be like, where is my coffee mog?
I think actually I might try to do the tile again. I feel like it's so many people have them. Although I gotta wait for the Apple one to come out because when Apple comes out game over.
I mean there's literally an iPhone everywhere Apple. You know, me only Apple all day every day.
I just kid, we're gonna stay with the theme, I think.
Because I he'll tell me it's more Apple.
Do you really know?
Go ahead?
Okay? Someone asks, I mean not someone Josephine. She wrote in on richon tech dot TV, and she said, what happened to the series four? Watch online? Apple is selling the five and the three but not the four.
Well, I will tell you what happened to the Apple Watch Series four. It has been replaced by the Apple Watch Series five.
And that's the deal.
There's they So when Apple comes out with these new devices, they get rid of the old one and they do this weird thing where they skip a device. So you've got the Apple three on sale the watch, and then you've got the five. But the four has ninety nine percent of the functionality of the five except for the always on display. I want the four, but you can't get the four. So I actually think for you, you probably only need three because you don't need a detects old.
I agree, but that's how they get the price to be that magical under two hundred dollars. Yeah, but I will say Lindsay still wears the Series three.
It works just fine.
Yeah.
The thing that it does not have it doesn't have fall detection. It does not I might need that. Get a little old hair.
You're almost twenty five, you know you got to watch out.
Oh you said my age?
Oh are you? I don't even know how old you are. I have no idea.
Oh you are, Yeah, I had no idea, but you guessed, well, I was guessing you're under thirty.
I didn't know, Okay, but fine, I don't.
But you're getting up there.
Yeah, I'm almost as old as you were.
Still got a couple of years to do that. Series three has GPS. That's like, I think that was the first one they added GPS on. Maybe I'm wrong, but anyway, that's so. I think Series three is just fine. The main features you do not get is the compass. You do not get the always on display, and I think, let's say you don't get the ECG, so you can't take your heart rate.
You're sorry.
You can take your heart rate, you can't take your heart ECG, which is like you're I don't know, you know, like an ECG. No, not active heart rate, it's just a it's like your how's your heart doing kind of thing, Like you'll see your heart rate on the screen, but you just ECG's when you hold your finger on the side and it literally takes like a reading of like the electrical impulses from your heart.
That's the four.
This is the four.
Yeah, but you're gonna get the five.
Every everything I've heard about the five is that it no, the screen always on display is sapping the battery and the battery and the Apple Watch will last a day what you need. But and I to be honest, like,
there's only now. The only reason I think about the always on display is because I don't have it now, and I know it's a thing now, But there's only a couple of times when you're like at the gym or literally when you're your hand is on the table and you don't want to move any part of your body to see what the time is, right, yeah, and so you like do this little thing and you kind of like move your arm just the minimum it can go before it lights up, and it does. Yeah, So
it's not that big of a deal. And other times when you're like running, you gotta like tap it to turn it on. It's not that big of a deal. But anyway, you can't get that anymore. You have the three or the five. The three starts at two hundred, the five starts at four hundred.
But isn't there a place I can go to find the four?
Yeah, but why do you want it?
Just get the five that has the newest stuff, even though I think the processor in the five is the same as the four.
But okay, Josephine, I feel your pain.
But those are your choices, Josephine.
Sorry, let's talk about Since you've talked so much Apple, let's talk about Google. They have a new feature, by the way, Google Event next week in New York City. I am very excited. Depending on when you listen, Yes, it is gonna be very fun. Yeah. So depending on when you listen to this, the Google event is happening, maybe it's already happened. But I personally am very excited because I am very fond of the Pixel smartphone and Apple or Google just does like the best camera ever.
And so I'm just curious. We've seen so many leaks about this new device. I'm curious, like what it's actually gonna do. I'm curious to see the wide angle lens on or ultra wide on the Pixel four. I'm curious to see if they've improved anything else. Because I'll be honest, as a creator's device, the iPhone still wins every day, with the Samsung device a close second. And I say a close second. The actual the Samsung device is actually perfect as a creator's device. The problem is really with
the apps. And I was explaining this to a friend the other day. I'll just say my friend's name Chris Martinez who works here.
Oh yeah, we always debate.
This kind of stuff because he's like, dude, when you switching back to Android, and I'm like, I can't because here, there's the deal. iPhone apps are just better at when you're trying to do content creation, like when I upload stuff to Instagram and when I do stuff on Facebook. It just works better on the iPhone. Not to say you can't do it. So if you're not considering any of that stuff, it doesn't matter, like get the pixel
or get the Samsung. But when you're trying to do stuff like I'm doing, which is like responding to people's dms all the time, and you know, like, wait, he gets no. I get ms all day long, all day long. You have no idea how many dms I get?
Okay, I get a lot.
And the scariest ones and I don't know if you've ever gotten one of these, but they blur, like if you're not following that person, they blur the picture to protect your privacy.
You ever seen this?
Okay, Well they do it for a reason, thank god. Yeah, exactly, they do that for a reason. And I'm always like, oh god, here we go. What sometimes if if it depends on the message instantly, No, it depends on the message. If I can tell, if someone's like, hey, can you this my camera keeps closing on my phone and there's a screenshot attached, I kind of know what's going on. Yeah, but otherwise I feel so of course it can't. That's why they do that. But they actually I think there's
two levels. It's first one hundred ccent blacked out, and then it's smoothed out. Never had this, Yeah, I can't believe you've never seen this.
I'm glad.
So let me talk about the Google new features on Google that we know today, even though there's gonna be a whole bunch next week. But the main thing that they've done is with music. You can now switch your music to different speakers. And I will be honest, I tried to give Google a fair shot at being my whole house audio, even though you know I'm a big
fan of Sons and so I did. I finally grouped all my little players and all the different rooms, the little Google homes and all the stuff I've collected over the years, and I figured out that, yeah, you can play music to all of those. It was fine. But it wasn't as good as Sons. And I'll tell you why. The music was delayed in other rooms. The magic of sons is that when you're playing a whole bunch of speakers at once in your home, everything is perfectly synced up.
And that's been the magic of Sono since day one.
Yeah, Google Home.
It was good, but I could tell when I was shifting from room to room the music was slightly delayed in other rooms, and I could hear it, like one ear was in the living room, one ear was in the dining room, and you can hear the music was not insanc one hundred percent.
That's really not fun.
Yeah, Now, if you have a party in your house, you probably wouldn't notice because it wouldn't be a silent But when you're by yourself most of the time like I am, when you're.
Yeah that's your life.
Yeah, when you're pretty much.
Your face just now is just like so sad, like smiling really big. When I'm always alone at home between the hours of twelve o'clock and four o'clock, Yes, just twiddling twiddling my thumb.
It's scary that you know that.
I mean, it's not hard to figure out.
So now you can say to Google, hey, you know who moved the music to the living room speaker, or so if you're starting it in one room in your office, let's say you can move that music to a different speaker, which is kind of cool, and it pick up the music.
Hey G.
Yeah, hey G.
And then you can tap the cast button to see all the devices in your home or select the group of devices you'd like to play your music to or podcast and yeah, I mean that's basically it. Or now they say you can browse for your favorite YouTube videos or whatever on your Nest Hub Max, tap the cast control on the screen and move it to your Chrome cuts.
So complicated.
Yeah, disregard everything I'm saying about this stuff. Try this stuff out for yourself. I just tell you, as a tech person what I've tried. And I tried grouping the speakers because I was like, huh, let me see, can I group the speakers?
What will they sound like? Try it in your house. Maybe it'll work.
But it does work, and you can control them all from like Spotify, from Google Music. It's really cool. It's just not to the level of Sonos just yet. And I will say I did break down after that little experiment, and I bought the Sonos Move Speaker, which is their new Bluetooth speaker, which is sorry bluetooth and wireless, so you can take it anywhere, yeah, to like the beach, anywhere, and it works and it's really.
Cool, So anywhere anywhere you want. All right, that's going to do it for the show. Can you believe it? Megan? No, howd it feel to be back in the saddle here?
It's great? Yeah I missed it.
You did miss it when we were at Cabo.
Were you just like h I wish ild I was like, this is when I would be like, oh, Rich is probably doing the podcast right now.
So actually did on Friday.
I did do it on Friday. Yeah. Yeah, that's how devastated I was.
Sorry.
Do you have the best thing of the week?
Yeah? I actually yesterday I got to meet so we have a lot of guests obviously at Kate Tula, and I got to meet this girl from the Bachelor. Her name's Becca Tilly, and she was a podcast that I listened to.
That I really like and fame just being on the Bachelor.
She's on the Bachelor and then she actually was on it twice.
She was just a normal person.
Yeah she was. She's from like far no, I genuinely don't know, but she's like really cool. Like we literally talked for like twenty minutes, and I was like, I feel like we're friends now.
Did you tell her that you're a big fan of the Pods? Yes?
I was, like the first thing I said to her, I was like, I listened to your podcast like every week and you hear that, and so I feel like that probably creeped her out a little bit. I was like, I feel like I know you, and she was like, oh, like yeah, and then we started talking about like normal stuff like really easily. But like there are other guests where you just you know, like they don't want to really talk or they're kind of just like in their
own place. But she like literally her her and I and my friend Jen, we talked to her for a while.
Okay, so yeah cool, So that was a good thing. And did you tell her you have a podcast?
If you should be not? We should cross? What's that? What do they call it? Collab? We should collab? I know?
She was like, I did a seminar. Oh I spoke or basically moderated a panel out a seminar. The kro Seminar. I hope I'm saying that right, but it was great. It was in Long Beach over the weekend, and it was so great because it's not often that I leave my house, so I don't obviously get to meet anyone that I see from TV. But it was really humbling to see so many people come up to me and obviously watched the segment. They probably know that I'm on KTLA.
They probably don't know what I do, but they're like, I've seen you somewhere. Aren't you on for like a
second here and there? Yeah, but like I'm a big fan of KTLA, and I'm like, oh, thank you, and like and they're always like, tell someone I said hi, because they don't really know who I am, but they know I'm at KTLA, right, I mean they know you, so they so they all come up and I'm kind of kidding, but anyway, it was really nice to see all these people that do watch and we do make an impact because a lot of people watch KTLA, YEA
and in our other stations. I get emails from all over the US from all the other stations that are Segment Arizon as well, So that was really cool and It's just it was like a good little you know, like pump up where you're just like, oh, this is cool, Like I feel good.
Well, you had a fan come up to you, fan, you had a guy come up to you when we're at.
Universal, Yeah, I did. I think it was nice marketing.
For everything you do, and it was.
Just so nice.
I know, I was like, what do I do? I don't really do anything, but kidding you, I don't like. I mean, it's not like I'm like, I know, but I'm not like helping people. I mean maybe I guess.
In a way.
I mean, yeah, I think you're helping people.
Open your waist time I'm on your phone. All right.
I do have a newsletter, the rich on Tech Newsletter. Subscribe at richontech dot tv. I talk about all the cool stuff that you should know about, and I send you links to all the cool stories I've done and the little things that I think you should know. If you are listening to this podcast for the first time, please subscribe. You can do that in your favorite app. I don't even have to say podcast app anymore because all the major audio apps like Spotify and Pandora, they
all have podcasts. So just find US anywhere search rich on Tech.
You can do that.
My book is now available. It's called one hundred and one iPhone Tips and Tricks is available on Amazon both as an electronic version for the Kindle app and also as a paperback that will make a great gift this holiday season. You can actually read the ebook for free if you sign up for Kindle Unlimited, which means my evil plan is to get you to read it for free and then to gift the heart or the paperback to someone for the holidays, because you'll be like, oh my gosh, this was so good.
I need to get it.
Where has rich been all my life? Thanks so much for listening. Producer Megan. Where can people find you?
I'm on Twitter at producer Megan and yeah I'm on Instagram too, But I mean it's not really tech related.
So no, it's not. If you take a look at the first picture, that's all I'm saying.
Oh, I am on Twitter at rich Demiro and on Instagram at rich on Tech and Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech. We will meet you again right here next time.
That's right.
Have a great day. Bye bye.