Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss staying connected during the pandemic, tech companies helping to fire the virus with location data, Apple software and hardware news, a fine for Apple in France, and more.

Our guest this hour:

Josh Elizetxe (aka Josh Snow), Founder & CEO of Snow

Barbara in Fairbanks, Alaska listens on NewsRadio 970 KFBX and asked: "I have an iPhone and I have over 1500 photos and some videos on my phone and I was wondering how would I move them out of my phone and what's the best device I could use to store my photos and videos."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2020/03-20-2020/03-20-2020-H2S1.mp3

Barbara, the best device is many devices.

The easiest solution is to put them on iCloud, you can turn on that option in settings, though at 1500 pictures, they may want to charge you an extra dollar or couple of dollars a month for storage.

You can also upload them to a different service like Google Photos straight from your phone. Again, they may want a little money given the amount of pictures you have. You can move them to your computer by plugging your phone in and syncing the pictures via iTunes or Photos.

Once they’re in your computer you can store them in several hard drives, if you want to be safer.

The main strategy is to diversify, get them onto different storage devices or mediums if you can so if one fails you’ll still have them stored somewhere else. iCloud or Google Drive are unlikely to disappear, but they could choose to charge you more or eventually discontinue the service, so it’s smart to back up to several services even if you choose those to be your primary backup strategies (and they are great as primary backup strategies, by the way, because they back up in the background without you having to do any extra work).

Robert in Puerto Rico listens via Spotify and asked: "I already purchased a tablet and I'm planning to purchase a new computer. I'm not sure if I would like to buy a laptop or a desktop. I really don't need to travel a lot, so by purchasing the laptop, it really won't make a difference between the laptop and a desktop. My wife said that since I already have the tablet, then I won't need to purchase the laptop. What do you think?"

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2020/03-20-2020/03-20-2020-H2S4.mp3

Robert, it all depends on what you want to do with the laptop.

A laptop is still more powerful and versatile than a tablet, but a tablet is enough for many people. If all you need is an email and web browsing device, the the tablet is probably good enough, but if you want a device that can take on more complex tasks, or more serious gaming a laptop might be a better choice.

While we’re talking about gaming, that’s probably the most popular reason to opt for a desktop these days. Desktops can be far more powerful gaming machines, but when you buy one of those you lose the other reason people buy desktops: to spend less money. Powerful desktops aren’t cheap, but cheap desktops can be more than enough.

There are advantages to laptops beyond travel, it’s nice to be able to use it wherever you want rather than just at a fixed desk like you would do with a desktop.