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Tech News & Commentary
Leonard in Raleigh, North Carolina listening on WPTF 680 AM sent us the following question: “I have a Sprint HTC phone, an older model. I also have an iPhone. I want to transfer my apps from the HTC phone over to the iPhone. Is that possible?”
Leonard, Unfortunately you won’t be able to transfer your old apps.
Android and iPhone run on different systems and don’t understand each other’s apps, and even when an app is on both systems, they’re on different stores and neither one is going to give an app away for free to someone who paid a competitor’s app store.
On the plus side, most apps are free and paid apps are cheap, so if you already know there’s an app you use regularly, paying a dollar or two may be acceptable, at least by now you know which ones you used to use and not use on your old phone.
The good news is that many apps can share information between iPhone and Android, so if you’re using the correct version of the app for each phone, you could still share data. But you will have to have separate Android and iOS versions of each app.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Chris in Baton Rouge, Louisiana listening on 107.3 WBRP asked us: “I just got a new Nokia Lumia smart phone, I’m upgrading from a very old plain vanilla phone from AT&T. I would like to hook it up the car so that I can use my bluetooth capability so I can listen to my incoming call and then maybe have some kind of gadget that go on my dashboard so I can use the telephone as the microphone, that way I can have two way conversations. I’m wondering what would be the best way to do this? What are some good cases I could use for this phone?”
Chris, You may run into a little bit of trouble sending phone calls over Bluetooth to a car radio that doesn’t support phone calls. The Bluetooth standard is kind of smart about things like that and your phone may know that it’s talking to a radio and refuse to send it’s phone calls to it.
You may read somewhere that your phone has something called A2DP, that means Advanced Audio Distribution Profile, and it takes care of distributing audio in ways that “make sense.”
Your phone may talk to your car radio and say “do you have a microphone? No? OK, then you’re just a fancy set of speakers, you’re for music, not phone calls,” A2DP reduces every device to “a set of speakers” or “a headset with a microphone,” you’re one or you’re the other.
You can look for other solutions to use your phone in the car though, for $20 you can find several different kinds of hands free bluetooth solutions that plug into a 12V port. The will just work as standalone devices and not as part of your radio.
As for cases, your best bet is probably to look online if you want variety, but generally speaking you should have no trouble finding one that you like. There are leather cases, rubber cases, causes with belt clips, artsy cases, solid colored cases, cases with kickstands, rugged cases in case you drop the phone, there are plenty of options, but they’re mostly online.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Cynthia Tercier, Creator and Owner – FirstInteraction.com
created to provide a safe venue where individuals can connect with other individuals and have an exciting First Interaction.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
In 1966, an international conference authorized the European formats PAL and SECAM, and it was in 1967 at the 25th IFA in Berlin, when the German Chancellor Willy Brandt pressed the button to launch color television in Germany. The communist Eastern Germany, started two years later, but used the French SECAM system to keep their citizens from watching West Germany’s color TV – their favorite but illegal source of information and entertainment. Only big, expensive screens were available in color, and content very slowly made the transition to color.
Belinda in Benton, Louisiana listens on KEEL sent us the following question: “I have a pad that will work at work but not at home. I don’t know whether its a cheap one but it will not work. I have tried putting in every code and number and it won’t work. I really need it because I take care of my elderly parents and its the only outlet I have.”
Belinda, We suspect you’re talking about your internet connection not working, since the tablet itself wouldn’t work any differently at home than it would at work. You’d have the same apps, unlock it the same way and nothing would change but the internet connection. To connect to WiFi you just need to know the network’s name and the password if there is one. You said you’ve tried every code and number available to you, so the password is probably what your problem is.
If you can find any labels on the router, one of them will likely tell you what the original password was. It could be under something that says WEP Key, WPA Key, Access Code, Access Key, or it may simply say what the code is without labeling it as a code, if that’s the case you can rule out anything that says “S/N” or “MAC Address.”
If those are the codes you tried and they don’t work, you can reset the router to factory settings, which would restore that code. The problem is that there’s no real way for us to tell you whether or not anything else was changed at some point on the router’s settings to make something else work.
Before you do anything, it may be smart to ask a tech-savvy friend to help you check the router’s settings, if they can get into the settings using another device they may even be able to tell you what the password is without changing any other settings or having to reset the device.
Just to be sure that you’re tablet is not the source of any of your problems, you can go to any cafe that offers free WiFi and see if you can use it there, but it sounds like the problem is with how you connect to WiFi, and your options for that are to either use the right password if you know it, or reset the router if you don’t, and you should probably try to have someone tech inclined check on-site before you reset it if that’s at all possible.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Terry in Carthage, Missouri listens to the podcast – calling in via the App sent us the following question: “I have a Dish Hopper unit. I do not have a SlingBox. I’m trying to find out a way I can download my weekly shows to my Computer or tablet and watch them on the road. I don’t want to use Internet because I have a limit on my home internet and don’t want to use it up.”
Terry, As far as we know you can’t transfer shows from your Hopper unless it has Sling built in.
The offline viewing feature was announced with the introduction of the Hopper with Sling, before that you could watch live TV on the go, but not save recordings to another device for offline viewing.
You could call Dish and ask about upgrading, sometimes they have promotions where they will upgrade your hardware for free or little money, and the monthly cost may be similar to what you’re paying now, otherwise unfortunately you may not be able to do much about transferring your shows for viewing on the go.
There’s one thing to keep in mind though, a lot of the Hopper services do go through the internet, so check and make sure that if you upgrade your DVR won’t be eating up too much of your limited bandwidth without you even knowing.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info, please email us here.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Other World Computing (OWC): NUGUARD KX – Kinectic Energy X-Orbing Case for Samsung Galaxy S4
iolo: Copies of System Mechanic – Tune-up your PC to increase performance and reliability.
Tylt: AL?N Screen Protectors for the iPad Air
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!