Hands-On Tech 180 Transcript

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0:00:00 - Mikah Sargent
Coming up on Hands-On Tech. We've got another grab bag episode planned. Stay tuned to see what questions get answered.

Hello and welcome to Hands-On Tech, the show where I, Mikah Sargent, do a few things. I sometimes answer your questions, I sometimes do cool product reviews and everything in between.

This is the show that has merged together the question and answer style. Ask the Tech Guys, with the hands-on style of hands-on tech itself, to give you kind of one place to go for a quick taste of tech every Sunday or, you know, whenever you get around to it. If you're listening to this in the podcast form, thank you to those of you who are tuning in live. I appreciate seeing all of your smiling, wonderful faces in our various chat areas. But without further ado, I think it is time that we get rolling here on the show Now with a grab bag episode that differs from some of the episodes that I have planned and have done in the past, where it's a little bit more focused on the topic. So when I get questions from folks who are asking the same thing or very similar things, I kind of realize okay, this is a problem that a lot of people are having, let's focus an episode kind of on that problem. This is just one where lots of people have lots of different questions and I am looking forward to answering them. So the first question this week comes in from Edward. Edward writes in and says I have an iPhone 12 that has an inoperable screen. Interesting choice there the phone appears to function and I was able to update it via a forced restart. My goal is to extract the photographs from the phone to my MacBook Pro. Do you have a solution for this? Now, longtime listeners of this show of, rather Ask the Tech Guys and, frankly, anything that I am a part of will probably be screaming at their screens right now, or their phones or in their car or whatever, knowing what I'm going to say next, because the first thing I'm going to suggest is a little app called iMazing.

iMazing is an app that I have used for ages now. Good job, eric, you knew exactly where I was going. That is a way to manage backups of your iPhone, your iPad, whatever device you happen to have. So with this application, you get really robust connection between your computer and your phone, your iPhone specifically. You can do just backups, which is fine, but you can also do things like transfer photos, messages, whatsapp messages, certain data from different apps voice memos, books, ringtones, contacts, calendars, get access to parts of the file system, check your device for the apps that are on it and download and install apps on it, remove apps from it, rearrange apps Basically everything that you maybe remember once being able to do on your Mac. iMazing lets you do that on your Mac with your iPhone or on your Windows machine with your iPhone.

Now here's the thing this tool that I have used and recommended for ages does have a free trial, but if you want to use it in the long term, there are a few options. iMazing has this great thing where they offer either a subscription service and I'll tell you the benefits there or just a one-time purchase and, importantly, iMazing has never once given me any money or anything like that. I just really like this application and think that it works great. They're not a sponsor of the network or anything like that. Like this application and think that it works great. They're not a sponsor of the network or anything like that. So, with a personal device license, that's just a one-time purchase. If you just want it for one device, edward, for just your iPhone, you, if you decided to buy it would spend $40 one time. But what's great is that you have and we're going to get to the.

There's some people in the chat talking about a few things. Don't worry, we're going to get to those Because, again, this is a trial, that you can give it a go first, but there are options too for a subscription. When you do that, a lot of people will have, like, an iPhone and an iPad, or maybe two members of the family have iPhones, something like that. You have more than one device. Imagine spending $40 for one and then $40 for another so you can interface with those two devices. No, no, no, for $34.99 a year this is US dollars, so $35, you can get three devices and manage all of those with the subscription. So there are some options there.

Now we need to talk about some of the caveats, as it were, when it comes to this, and this is why I suggest doing the trial to see if it's actually going to work for you. Depending on how this iPhone 12 was set up and depending on what inoperable means it will have an impact on what you're actually able to do with this device when you set up a basically whenever you pair a computer and your phone for the first time, it does require that you type in your PIN or your password or whatever happens to be on your phone. Now you were able to do some forced restart stuff. You were able to update it somehow, and so there's a possibility that you've got more access to it than I'm able to understand. So there may be some ways to be able to plug this into your computer and do that If you don't have a passcode on your phone. If you are able to use guided access to gain some level of interfacing with the device, then that is a possibility as well.

Now, when it comes to this, it is a little bit. There's a possibility that you're going to run into an issue, and so this is where I want to kind of take things a little bit further. There's a possibility that you're going to run into an issue, and so this is where I want to kind of take things a little bit further and suggest to you that you might consider, depending on whether you uploaded this stuff to iCloud photo library in the past or have put it elsewhere, if it's only on this phone, if it is only on this phone, it may be worth it to you to go to ifixitcom and typing in iPhone 12 and getting an iPhone 12 screen and replacing the screen. The screen for an iPhone 12 is. It looks like $90 for an LCD version of the screen. Um, and if you need the parts, if you, you know, you're not someone who has the little um, the little pentalobe screwdriver or the, the little pentalobe screwdriver or the necessary components, then you can get it for $97. And then you could replace the screen on it, you could interface with it, you could get everything off of it if you wanted to.

So my suggestions to you are consider starting with the iMazing trial. See if you're able to get the photos off of the device that way through a backup of the phone. Then you need to make a decision between two things. There's a possibility, a possibility that you are able to go to a certified repair person, and if they, okay. So here's what I'm going to say Talk to a nearby Apple store, if you can, and share this information with them. Talk to a local repair place, because if, let's say, if I was running a repair shop and somebody came to me with this problem, I would likely have iphone 12 screens uh, in stock, right, I would have those at the ready, because people would bring in their iphone 12s all the time and need to repair, replace them. So what I would do in that situation as a repair, uh, technician, slash person who is helping people with their tech is I would take one of my iPhone 12 screens, pop that in interface with the device long enough to get off the photos that needed to be, get that need to be taken off of there, and then return the phone to you with its inoperable screen. You'd be able to, you know, go about your way with now your photos as a separate thing. So there are some potential kind of in the middle solutions to this problem, uh, but they do involve some footwork on your part in terms of talking to different groups there to you.

And, of course, this is the time that I will remind you all that it's always a good idea to use some form of backup for your devices. You may check maybe you accidentally turned it on, because it sounds like Edward. You know that you did not turn on iCloud photo library, that you have not backed up your photos to the cloud, because if you have, then it's as simple as accessing that backup and getting the photos from there. Um, but given that you have presented the information to me with the level of detail that you have and the troubleshooting that you've done. Um, I am guessing that you probably don't have that backup, for whatever reason, and given that you were needing to pull it, uh, from the device, uh, someone is suggesting maybe remote screen sharing, uh, again, the problem here is that all of that requires some level of interfacing with the phone itself, and, from what Edward is suggesting is presenting the phone, he's not able to interact with the phone. It's not able to tap on anything, get any kind of connection between it and something else to be able to tell the phone to do something. So, edward, I wish you the best of luck. I'd love to hear more from you and we can see how your problem progresses, hopefully, toward a solution.

All right, the next question is one that won't take too long to answer, so we'll get through this pretty easily. Dj has written in and said I've recently upgraded to an Eero 6 router. I was able to get all of my 2.4 gigahertz devices switched over to the Eero by pausing the five gigahertz. Yes, this is, by the way, a feature with Eero. It's a little buried, and so if someone has ever had an issue with this, so it's a little buried. And so if someone has ever had an issue with this because we recommend Eero, I recommend Eero a lot on the network and so if some of you have gotten Eero devices and you're curious how you go about pausing five gigahertz, you go into the settings portion of the Eero app, you go into troubleshooting, you tap on my device won't connect and then you tap on my device Device is 2.4 gigahertz only and there's an option with a blue button that you can tap that says temporarily pause 5 gigahertz radio.

Now let's go back to it. Dj says, however, my smart plugs just won't connect. I picked up a few Eve plugs on the Apple store and they will not connect either. Are you aware of any smart plugs that will work with Apple Home? All right? So there's a little bit to unpack here.

First and foremost, the main advice that I'll give you is that there's a great website that Apple keeps updated. It's at applecom slash home hyphen app slash accessories. When you go to that web page, it has the full list of well, the in theory full list of home app accessories that work with Apple Home. So these are devices that have passed the tests that Apple provides and you can find the different categories, so you can choose outlets, for example, and it will scroll you down to the outlet section where you can see the full readout of all of these. Now what's interesting and kind of frustrating is that Apple used to provide links out to these different devices. They stopped doing that at some point and so now it's just a list of items that work with home, but you can kind of scroll through and see if your devices are in that list, and if they are, then you are good to go. So let's talk about some of the stuff that you have to keep in mind.

If you have in the past, if you've had any because you said you upgraded to an Eero 6 router, maybe you were using an Eero router before and if in the past you used the I can't remember what it's called now, but it is a setting that Apple had previewed that would connect with the router and provide a special HomeKit. I think it was just a HomeKit enabled router, but it was essentially a little security system, a little firewall that was built in at the router level, and Eero at one point did support this system, and back when this first came out. I made use of this HomeKit secure router I think is what it was called, yeah, and back when this came out I had used this on my in my HomeKit home and over time, eero kind of they didn't officially stop supporting it, but sort of unofficially stopped supporting it, and I was able to get my new devices to connect by disabling this feature and I have never used it again since that day, and now it's also not available in newer versions of your router. But if at one point your HomeKit Home app was registered with that, then it's possible that that is still corrupted. Here is the way that I have tested this in the past A great way to see if there's something corrupted with your HomeKit Home is to simply go into the Home app and add a new home and then take one of these devices this Eve device that you bought, for example and then take one of these devices this Eve device that you bought, for example and try to add it to this new home and if the device connects like that, then you know that there's some sort of configuration error that exists in your original smart home setup.

Now, that's a very frustrating thing to hear, I realize, and a frustrating thing to have to deal with. I realize it was the solution that I had to do. I had to completely basically undo my entire HomeKit home setup and start fresh. But upon doing that, everything connected right away. I stopped having dropout connectivity issues and it actually worked for me. It was quite nice, was quite nice.

Um, there is a suggestion, by the way, in the chat for of the issue with your connectivity. And, yes, eero does have WPA3, which was I think it's still in beta, if I remember correctly. So again in settings, and then, or rather in the Eero app, you can choose discover and then, or rather in the Eero app, you can choose discover and in there there's Eero Labs and WPA3 is there. If you have that toggled on, try toggling that off and see if your connectivity suddenly works. Thank you, yzf donor. We'll have to give that a try and see if that works.

All right, folks, we are going to take a quick break here before we come back with the rest of this grab bag episode of Hands on Tech.

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All right back from the break and it's time for our next question. This one comes from Nick. Nick writes in and says this is a fun question. I have a very expensive laggy wristwatch made by Apple, the Apple Watch Ultra 2. I currently prefer to wear my Amazfit T-Rex 2 because I cannot get the Apple Watch to do real-time steps. The Apple Watch will show that I've done 4,000 steps, then could easily jump up to 6,500 steps and I haven't been anywhere. So it's not reliable in helping me work out if I've been active enough for the day. I would prefer to wear the Apple Watch, as I have atrial fibrillation and the ECGs were useful for my cardiac consultant and I can use the ECG function when I'm feeling a bit rubbish to see if that's the reason why the lag in steps is just ridiculous.

I don't understand how Apple cannot do continuous heart rate monitoring or counting steps. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a way to get what I need? So, nick, there are a few suggestions that I have for you and a few thoughts that I have as well. Suggestions that I have for you and a few thoughts that I have as well. The first thing I will say is this I have spoken to people who would call themselves, who describe themselves as fitness nuts, and those fitness nuts when they do their fitness stuff, when they go running, when they go biking, when they go hiking, when they go swimming, when they do those things, they use a more purpose-built fitness tracker for those things, a device whose sole purpose is to track their metrics, to track their heart rate, to track their all of that stuff.

And nine times out of 10, I'm hearing that they no, I shouldn't say nine times out of 10, maybe 70% of the time I'm hearing that they're using some form of Garmin device. These more standard smart watches that serve as fitness devices, but also this, that and the other are not going to be as precise as something that, again, is just purpose-built to do this one thing, because they're not as constrained when it comes to the size of the device, the weight of the device, in many cases not as constrained by battery life, and so all of those things add up to being able to design the thing that the person needs that will give them the exact, precise amount of steps that they take, the exact calories that they burn, or as close as you can get without having someone's specific metabolism figured out, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that's my first kind of initial thought, but I do want to mention that there are some things that you should keep in mind. It is important that you go into your health app and you look at your steps and you check from where the data is coming, because, depending on what apps may have access to your activity and how they are able to not just track but also log your data, you could be getting multiple apps logging data at the same time. It's also important to understand that an Apple Watch and an iPhone both serve as devices that can track your steps, can track your movements, can track all of that information, and so if at times you're carrying your phone in your pocket, you don't have your watch with you, that information can still be added to the health app and updated and provided to give you some information about the activity that you're doing.

But, yes, if you're looking for a precise means of tracking that stuff. I think that you are right to have, for example, your Amazfit TexRex. I think that you are right to have, for example, your Amazfit TexRex or I think it's called T-Rex, not TexRex, but the Amazfit T-Rex 2, because that device is going to be more purpose built to do what it is that you are after, which is to have that precise tracking information. If you are okay with the steps being a little bit off and you feel like the trade-off is there because it means that you get that ECG functionality, then maybe it's worth it. And maybe it's worth it to have one wristwatch on one wrist and the other device on the other, because for you, you want to have that precision of one and the ECG functionality of the other. Or maybe it's worth it to you to use your Amazfit watch as your primary tracker and then get a third-party device like the I'm forgetting what it's called Cardia ECG. I'm forgetting what it's called Kardia ECG, the Kardia K-A-R-D-I-A, which is an EKG monitor or ECG monitor that you can use independent of all of this. And so the Kardia Mobile 6L is the six lead echocardiogram device that you can use, or electrocardiogram, not echocardiogram device that you can use, or electrocardiogram, not echocardiogram that you can use to be able to kind of check in with yourself. So it could require investments in new technology. It could require a change in your habits, it could require a change in your expectations for what the device is and all of that is going to impact it. We will also include a link ScooterX has posted in the chat. Thank you, that is kind of a good reminder to calibrate your Apple Watch for improved workout and activity accuracy. Apple teaches you how to precisely calibrate your information and how to reset your calibration data as well, so we will include a link to that in the show notes.

All right, moving along, the next question comes in from Kyle. Kyle writes in and says my wife wants to photograph small items with her iPhone on a tripod. Is there a way to connect her iPad to view and use it as a remote shutter release to prevent vibration on the iPhone? Thanks, kyle. In California, kyle, there are a number of more complicated ways to pull this off, using special dongles and special technology, and I didn't want this to be a complicated experience. Interestingly, when it comes to video, it's very easy to do this because there are a number of apps that have been purpose built to provide this functionality and, in fact, uh, apple just recently made it easy to do with the final cut app um on your devices.

But you assuming that your wife doesn't have an Apple watch and instead is just rocking the iPad and the iPhone and wants that large screen of the iPad to be able to view, there is, I found an app available for 99, exactly what you are asking for. It will let you um control the device with your using your iPad as the remote viewfinder and your iPhone as the camera app. Now, all of those apps that have existed out there are, I'm not going to lie pretty old. They get some updates from time to time, but they are not as new as one might want when they're recommending an app. The app that I've recommended, uh, the last update to it was about a year ago, uh, that it got an update, and I've seen some others that are four, three years out of date.

So 99 cents, I think, for IP camera. Comma wireless camera is not bad when it comes to, you know, doing this and getting that set up. So, kyle, I wish your wife all the best with the photography. Feel free to share some of it whenever she gets the chance to use her iPad to serve as that shutter release, because, again, there are other apps that will let you kind of screen share from that, but they do not also serve as a camera shutter. So that is why this IP camera, wireless camera, is a great option to be able to actually take a photo with your phone, or rather with your iPad, using your iPad. All right, jim is the next person who writes in and Jim writes.

My wife is interested in checking out Starlink for the mobile unit, so that when we travel we will always have good Wi-Fi. Is it possible to take it on a cruise ship like Disney Cruises and use it? I know that they have a unit for mounting in your personal boat, but that's not what we would need to do. Any help is appreciated. Disney Cruises or any cruise ship, I'm not a representative of the TSA. I'm not a representative of any of those organizations, so I cannot speak for them when I say, yes, this will be allowed on the cruise ship. Yes, this will be allowed on the plane. Yes, I don't know that, but Starlink Roam and that's R-O-A-M, not R-O-M-E Starlink Roam is a service that provides the Starlink Mini and that is a device that you can just stick on your back. This is what Starlink has to say.

Starlink Mini is a compact, portable kit that can easily fit in a backpack, designed to provide high speed, low latency internet on the go. It includes a built-in Wi-Fi router, lower power consumption, a DC power input and max download speeds over 100 megabits per second. Apparently, you can get this in the mobile version that is regional. That is the one that you may have been talking about. It's for RVers, campers, travelers throughout a continent. But if you are after one where you can actually be in motion on land, then that is the mini Rome R-O-A-M option. So this is going to depend on what you you know exactly are looking for. But yeah, this device, it can be put on a backpack, carried around with you and then placed wherever you need it to be, so it's possible to be able to install that.

Thank you, eric, for distracting me with that joke. Eric in the chat said I had Starlink Rome, but I sold it and got Starlink Naples. For a second I thought that that was real. So yeah, I don't know, it's a big rectangle that is definitely backpack sized, but I could just see you trying to walk onto the cruise ship with it and them going is that a laptop? And then maybe you could convince them that it is. But if you couldn't, then they might be like what are you bringing on our ship? So I have concerns there.

As ScooterX points out, you might just want to use the Wi-Fi provided by the cruise ship. Many of them are upgrading to faster Wi-Fi. But you know, if you are trying to do your own, roll your own, then you can probably try to use this um scooter link. Scooter link might as well call you scooter link at this point. Scooter x uh did include a reddit thread where somebody says this and they or asks a very similar question and there is a uh. There are a few responses here that say for one, many of the cruise ships are already adopting Starlink. So you may see if they have Starlink already and that's what they're using are kind of cautious or providing cautionary tales, saying look, um, if you are using this and you are expecting good signal, being off land, like being in the ocean, is going to have an impact on what your connection might be. Uh, so you'd have to get a quote maritime plan for times when you're not close to kind of coastal coverage areas.

They are also not friendly to folks keeping electronics plugged in when you're out of the cabin, so you may have an issue with that. You also couldn't keep it on your balcony unless you were out on your balcony at all times, because they will ask you to put it away. It's probably better to just use the built-in Wi-Fi of the cruise ship, if you can help it. Otherwise, you may run into some headaches when it comes to this as well. And, of course, yeah, you would need to have actually one of those cabins with a balcony in order to make use of that too. So if you don't have one of those, then not great. So, jim, I think it's probably best I'm seeing this across the chat and everywhere else that it's probably best if you just use the internet provided by the cruise line. It's probably best if you just use the internet provided by the cruise line. If you're looking for more protection, you can always use a little VPN in between you and the cruise line's own Wi-Fi, but I think you'll save headache and, potentially, money probably money, given the cost of investing in this by just using the Wi-Fi.

Folks, that is going to bring us to the end of this grab bag episode of Hands-On Tech, if you can believe it. I want to thank you all so much for tuning in this week. I remind you you can send us questions H-O-T. At twittv. We do still have folks asking about the shift from Ask the Tech Guys to Hands on Tech People asking where Leo is. Leo is still alive and well in Petaluma. You can catch him later on on this Week in Tech so you can watch him there and, of course, throughout the week on his various shows and, of course, throughout the week on his various shows. And you can head to twittv slash blog B-L-O-G to learn more about the show Change.

Thank you so much for tuning in. H-O-T@twit.tv is where you email me. You can find me online at Mikah Sargent or head to chihuahua.coffee C-H-I-H-U-A-H-U-A.coffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Don't forget to subscribe to Club Twit twit.tv/clubtwit. It's just $7 a month and you will become part of a fantastic club. We'd love to have you there as well, with loads of benefits that you can learn more again at twit.tv/clubtwit. I have been Mikah Sargent reporting to you from Portland Oregon. Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll catch you next week. Bye-bye.