Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Charger issues, TouchID and FaceID for iCloud, Uber train and bus ticket, ridesharing effect on accidents, Amazon and food delivery, Dr. Alexa, and more.

Son in Houston, Texas and asked: "I received a call from comcast saying that I exceeded my 1 terabyte and I have 7 echo devices, do they drain my data?"

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/07-12-2019/07-12-2019-H2S1.mp3

Son, no your Echo devices are transmitting fairly little data. They’ll use a little more if you use them to stream music, but not enough to go over a 1TB plan on their own.

Your most likely culprit here is video streaming, particularly 4K video, but anything will add up.

Streaming media in general is what does it for most people, but high def video uses much more than just about anything else.

Do you have multiple people in your household that stream video at the same time? That can do it.

Did you ditch cable for a streaming live TV service for example?

All that can add up quick, but your Echo devices are likely not solely to blame unless you’re using them for lots of audio and video streaming.

Chris shared his experience: I am a cord-cutter. I ditched my cable over a year ago and stream all of my content, including live TV, using Hulu. I logged into my Comcast account recently to check my data usage. Unfortunately in my neighborhood, my only choice for Internet is Comcast or satellite. And with my usage, satellite isn’t an option. But I noticed that I typically use just under half of my Terabyte limit each month. And I live alone, except for when my son is with me, usually streaming on one device at a time. So you can see how it would add up quickly if you have more than one device streaming HD content at a time.

I did see a notice on my account that said “You have 2 courtesy months to exceed a terabyte of usage without a charge.” It goes on to say that after those courtesy months, I will be charged $10 for each 50GB of data and that the charges will not exceed $200 no matter how much I use. Gee, thanks for doing me the favor, Comcast.

Laurie in Brunswick, Georgia listens on 93.7 FM WBQO and asked: "I have two iPhones, 1 is an iPhone 6 and the other is a 6 plus. I don't know how to back up, one is registered to me and one is not registered . I don't know how to back up, how to get the information off the iPhone 6."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/07-12-2019/07-12-2019-H2S2.mp3

Laurie, you have two options to back up your iPhones. The easiest ones is to just flip a switch and let the phone do it in the background.

That’s what you get when you turn on iCloud backups, your phone just backs up your apps, photos, wallpaper, app layout, settings, contacts, text messages, bookmarks, etc. and it all happens without you having to do anything.

The catch is that Apple gives you 5GB for free, anything over that costs you some money (not that much, the first add on package costs $1/month). You can probably back up both of your phones with the free allowance though.

Your other option is to back up using a computer and iTunes. You’ll either plug your phone in or back up over WiFi and the backup will be stored on your computer. It requires more work on your side,