PCM30 Apple Watch: What to Know Four Months In -

Apple Watch is finding favor among the health conscious and fans of Apple Pay, but after four months of being on the market users says it’s the little things making the biggest differences.

Or as Bernard Desarnauts, founder of Wristly.co, calls it, the “delightful moments.” That is, those times when users can’t access their smartphones or tablets yet need access to the kind of information those devices provide – like an emergency text or call that comes through with two arms of groceries.

Desarnauts’ Wristly knows all about Apple Watch. Wristly collects feedback from users about how they use Apple Watch. He joins PC Mike this week to share what he knows – and what you should know – about Apple Watch after being out for about four months. Among other things, Desarnauts and PC Mike discuss:

How signs point to Apple Watch being more than just a novelty
How Wristly is able to tell how Apple Watch is being used by consumers
If Apple Watch is meeting users’ expectations or falling short
Who is finding most value in Apple Watch
How users are actually utilizing Apple Watch in their daily lives
How Apple Watch is helping people live more healthy lives
What issues users are having with Apple Watch
Is people who haven’t bought Apple Watch should get one now or wait

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Show Notes for Episode #30 Sept. 4, 2015 of the PC Mike podcast:

First Things First: I Need an App to Help Me Find Stuff. Can You Help?

A listener wants help finding an app that will help locate specific kinds of businesses, like restaurants, movie theaters, and even hospitals. Mike has the perfect solution in form of an app called AroundMe. The app can be found here: http://www.aroundmeapp.com/ [spp-timestamp time=”3:27″]

Thingamajig of the Week: Canary Home Security System

Paul Ulreich, Verizon’s Uber User, joins the PC Mike podcast to talk about the Canary Home Security system available at Verizon. [spp-timestamp time=”7:16″]

This podcast is brought to you by Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest and most reliable 4G LTE network.

There’s been a lot of talk about Verizon’s new simplified data choices and price plans (aka, the Small, Medium, Large, X-Large plan). With all the chatter surrounding these new plans, it can be hard to decipher what’s fact from fiction. Let’s set the facts straight and break down the details of this new plan, shall we?

1. Existing customers will not be able to stay on their current 2-year agreement/plan that allows for discounts on phones.
FALSE: Existing customers who remain on MoreEverything plans can still purchase devices with a 2-year contract.

2. Existing customers still under contract with two-year device plans cannot take advantage of the My Verizon Plans.
FALSE: Any current customer (no matter if on month-to-month, two-year contract or device payment plan) may choose to move to the new Verizon Data Plan at any time, or stay on their current plan.

3. If a customer wants to add a new line, they cannot add it to the old plan because it must be activated on the new plan (no discounted devices). FALSE: If current customers want to add a new line to their account on the MoreEverything plan, they can.
Now that you know the facts, decide for yourself. Visit your local Verizon retailer today to learn how you can take advantage of Verizon’s new simplified pricing plans.

Visit Roadtreking.com/vzw for stories about how technology can enhance and improve your life.

Tech News of the Week: The Importance of Being Connected, Apple Movies?

Internet Dependence: A new report claims that if the Internet goes down half the planet will come to a standstill. (Read more) [spp-timestamp time=”12:15″]

Facebook’s Big Day: One billion people used Facebook in a 24-hour period. (Read more) [spp-timestamp time=”14:33″]

Apple Movies?: Is Apple about to start making movies as a digital content producer? (Read more) [spp-timestamp time=”16:39″]

Online Learning – Free Trial for PC Mike Listeners

I get asked a lot about finding online courses for learning how to use photography software such as Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom CC, which are both on my recently updated list of tech gear. I talk about how I benefited from taking online courses as well as a special deal available only to PC Mike Techcast listeners at pcmike.com/lynda, where you can even try it free for 10 days and see if online learning works as well for you as it has for me. By the way, they have more than 3,300 courses to pick from – including more than 100,000 video tutorials – in subjects ranging from photography, video and audio to graphic design and web development. With Lynda, you can get:

– Unlimited access to all 3,314 courses – more than 100,000 video tutorials
– Learn new software and stay up to date

Listeners of the PC Mike podcast can get a free 10-day trial. Try any course. Start your trial now and see what you can learn. Just go to https://pcmike.com/lynda to get the free 10 day trial.

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App of the Week: Kitchen Tech to Help with Meal Planning and Prep

As summer ends and we head into the busiest time of year for many, planning meals ahead of time can help make things less stressful.

That’s why this week we bring you three great apps to help find, schedule, and prepare meals easier than ever.

Big Oven offers more than 350,000 recipes, featured collections, and menus. It can be customized to lifestyle and diet – even season – and has a feature to schedule meals. Big Oven also lets you convert recipes into shopping lists. Better yet, if you have a bunch of ingredients lying around but don’t know what to do with them, just type them into Big Oven and it will give you an idea of what you can make. A basic version is free for iOS, Android, Windows, and Kindle Fire. A paid version expands its capabilities.

The makers of the Pepperplate app say it’s the only app for “serious” cooks. You can collect and store recipes from around the Internet and also input your own. Pepperplate helps schedule meals ahead of time and also makes an ingredient-shopping list. When cooking, you can launch multiple cooking timers at the same time to help manage meal prep. It’s free for iOS, Android, Windows, Kindle Fire, and Nook Color.

Paprika allows users to snag recipes they find online and put them all in one spot for easy reference with the tap of a button. It, too, makes grocery lists to buy the needed ingredients and helps scale recipes to specific serving sizes. Paprika can schedule meals for a week or month also has timers for when food is being prepared. Paprika is $4.99 for iOS, Android, Windows, Kindle Fire, and Nook Color. [spp-timestamp time=”19:27″]

Main Topic: Bernard Desarnauts, Founder, Wristly.co

download — Bernard Desarnauts, founder, Wristly.co

Wristly.co is quickly emerging as the source of info about how Apple Watch and specifically, how it’s being used by consumers. Bernard Desarnauts, founder of Wristly.co, joins PC Mike to talk about what you need to know about Apple Watch four months after it’s first real customers started using it. [spp-timestamp time=”25:10″]

We Need Your Help!

As we begin a new podcast like this, it’s very important to get a bunch of reviews to be able to show well in the iTunes listings. So if you can, I’d sure appreciate it if you’d subscribe and leave me your rating and review.

Here’s how:

First, open up the iTunes app on your computer or mobile device. Click on Podcasts on top
> From the iTunes Podcasts page, use the “Search Store” field up at the top right corner of the page. Type in PC Mike Techcast under the Podcasts category.
> Click on the logo image of the PC Mike Techcast on the search return page
> From there, you can:

1) Subscribe

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3) Leave a written review.

Thanks to all for the kind reviews we’ve received so far. I read and appreciate every review! If you haven’t left a review please do so. I will be so grateful!

And remember, you can appear in future episodes. Ask a question or voice your comments by clicking the Leave Voicemail tab on the right side of this page here at pcmike.com. You can then use the microphone on your computer to record your question.

Thank you!