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Tech News & Commentary
Jaime in Tampa, Florida listens to the Podcast and asked: “What are your views on getting an extended warranty? Let’s say you get a new phone and you want to get insurance on it. Is cell phone insurance a good idea?”
It depends on what your warranty covers and what you paid for your phone. Most warranties won’t cover the stuff that actually breaks smartphones, cracked screens, water damage, those kind of issues. How often do you hear anyone complain that their phone stopped working after a few months before of a factory defect? If that’s all the protection you’re paying for, skip it.
If the warranty you’re looking at covers some accidental damage, then it may be worth considering. It all depends on how much it costs and how likely it is that you’ll use it.
Also, if you get a free phone and something happens to it, it’s probably not as big a deal as if you paid $500 for a phone and something happened to it, so it all depends on how much having a free replacement is worth to you, and how likely it is that you’ll be covered for what killed your phone and actually get that replacement.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Consumer Reports
with Donna Tapellini
These days just about every student needs a computer. But what’s right for a college student staying in a dorm may not be the best choice for a sixth-grader at home? Consumer Reports Senior Editor Donna Tapellini shares some computer recommendations for students of all ages.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they
have been playing with recently.
For Android:
On our NEW Twitter Page @itRadioShow …
@ambbrynic said: “favorite app?? GasBuddy (on Android)!! I’m all about saving money so this app is right up my alley! And it’s a plus to enter to win free gas with it, too. Improvements would be accuracy in location. Sometimes I’m headed east & some of the closest stations it shows are west. I think it’d also be cool to be able to share good deals with FB & Twitter through this app.”
For iOS:
• Rob recommends: NBC Olympics, FREE
“I’ve caught the Olympic Games bug! I’ve enjoyed cheering for our Team USA. They’ve made us very proud as usual. I downloaded the NBC Olympics app and have been able to stay on top of the latest news and results. The app provides top news, results and schedules, TV listings, pictures, videos and more. I like the interface, too. Though, sometimes it was a little slow. If you’re watching the Olympics, this is a good mobile companion. And, as of this broadcast, you have at least a week left before the games are over.”
— Rob
• Chris recommends: The Weather Channel, FREE
“This app has been very useful to me, many times. I have had it for a while and I used to like it. But they recently did a complete revamp of the app, and now I LOVE it. It makes it very easy to get the weather information, not only for your area, but for anywhere in the world. You can save your favorite locations and scroll through them at a moment’s notice. One of the things that I think is cool about the app, is the background image changes depending on the current weather conditions. If it’s a sunny day, for instance, you’ll see a clear blue sky with a nice bright sun. If it’s cloudy, you’ll see clouds, rainy will show a rain drops all over your screen, and so forth. You can also access the current radar maps for anywhere on the globe. The app is free in the iTunes store and works very well on the iPhone and even better on the iPad.” — Chris
• Andrew recommends: Brewster, FREE
“Syncs all your contacts from Facebook, any of your email account, address book or whatever, and organizes you contacts into one central location. AND! It does it for free. One of the best features with this app, is that it merges all duplicate contacts into one contact making searches quick and easy.” — Andrew
Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.
Guests in this hour:
Kelly Starling, PR Manager – AT&T
As we get closer to school starting again, wireless devices are among the items topping students’ school supply list. But, what should you buy and what call plan would work best? Kelly shares some helpful tips.
Isa driving through Mississippi asked: “I lost my iPad, but everything’s saved to the cloud. How do I retrieve it?”
You kinda need another iPad. All the stuff you store on iCloud stays on iCloud ready to be retrieved, but not by logging onto a website and downloading it manually. You can just restore a new iPad to make it look and feel like your old one.
You do that by just selecting to restore from an iCloud backup during the initial setup of the new iPad.
There is an exception — iWork documents are stored online and can be accessed through iCloud.com, the same goes for your iCloud email, contacts and calendar, if you were syncing those.
For everything else though, you’re gonna need a replacement device, but if you know someone with an iPad, you might be able to convince them to let you borrow it to get your stuff back. Just make sure they sync it first so they don’t lose their own stuff.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
AT&T: iHome Portable Rechargeable Mini Speakers
C.Crane: Senta Forty Premium Wooden Headphones
Microsoft: Copies of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013 Software
NQ Mobile: Activation codes for NQ Mobile Vault (Premium Version) – An Android app that keeps your text messages, pictures, and videos safely hidden from prying eyes.
StrikeForce Technologies: Several Download Keys for GuardedID – anti-key logging software