Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Jeff Bezos selling shares, connected furniture news, a smart e-cigarette, video games and love, Twitter snooze, Apple seeking tariff exemptions, the SMART act, and more.

Nolan in Henderson, Texas listens on 97.5FM KTBB and asked: “I have a Samsung Galaxy 3 phone and I’ve noticed recently that some of the newer apps that are coming out, like from one of the airlines, it says my device is not compatible. I love the Samsung Galaxy 3, is there a phone that has similar abilities and will be with an Android system that is gonna last for 3-4 years. The one I work on now is Android system 4.3.”

Nolan, 3 or 4 years is the high bar here. A phone that runs Android and feels familiar to you is easier and most newer Samsung phones will probably feel mostly natural to you if you like your S3 – and any of them will work.

The problem is that if you want the phone to last 3 or 4 years, you will have to steer clear of the cheaper models like the J3. That’s not even because the hardware is so terrible that it can’t possibly last, it’s because Samsung and carriers never get around to updating the cheaper models which means that you’ll end up in the same situation you’re in now.

Just to add some perspective, Google’s own Pixel was introduced in October of 2016, they promised the phone would get OS updates until October 2018 after that maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t, and it would no longer get support after October for 2019.

That means that even for a Google-branded device, Google is not willing to support the phone for more than 3 years from the date of introduction and may not update it after 2 years have gone by.

Keep that in mind when you’re deciding on how much you want to spend in hope that you get a longer lasting phone.

Kevin in Nashville, Tennessee listens on SuperTalk WTN 99.7 and asked: “How do I get my Moto E4 1775 model out of safe mode. It seems to have gone there all on its own and I can’t get it out of the mode. I can’t find the means on the settings menu to retrieve my phone. I have also lost apps on my start page because of it.”

Kevin there’s a procedure regarding buttons you need to press to put the phone into safe mode in the first place, but just restarting the phone should be enough to turn safe mode off.

Safe mode is a diagnostics mode for when something is going wrong and you need to diagnose the cause with the least interference from non-essential software possible, so it’s usually only expected to be on for a little bit.

If restarting the phone doesn’t work you may want to check your notifications bar to see if there’s something you can tap there to turn it off. Motorola didn’t use to do that, but other brands like Samsung and LG do, so Motorola may have followed suit recently.

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