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New Apple CEO! And PayPhone Tag - come play!
New Apple CEO! And PayPhone Tag - come play!
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About this episode
Apple’s CEO handover takes center stage as Tim Cook steps down and John “Jony” Ternes (Tim Cook’s successor) is confirmed as CEO, with Cook moving to executive chairman. The hosts break down why the move wasn’t a surprise in substance, the generational strategy, and what it means for Apple’s next big bets like the foldable and AI. The rest of the show is practical tech help: fixing a weird Gmail “ghost” address, improving laggy home Wi‑Fi, and a deep dive into Payphone Tag—an outdoor, map-based capture-the-flag game built on Australia’s payphone network.
Cars:
Ford Explorer
Tim Cook has announced the date he will step down at CES with John Ternus taking over, what's it all mean?
We play a new game, called PayPhone Tag and you can join in!
Plus your calls on Email issues on Android, Saving MONEY on your mobile and smartphones as cameras!
Be part of the show, send us a text or whatsapp to 0477 657 657
Filter:
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Concept
Vision Pro
"...it means he has that kind of VR knowledge and obviously that probably played strongly into the Vision Pro but where does it go from here..."
Vision Pro is Apple’s headset that blends digital stuff with what you’re looking at in the real world. The point here is that the CEO’s VR experience likely helped shape it.
Apple’s Vision Pro is a mixed-reality headset aimed at combining virtual content with your real-world view. In the segment, the host connects the new CEO’s background in VR to the Vision Pro’s development and direction.
Concept
WWDC
"...Do you have Tim Cook and John Ternes on stage as a handover for the first major event or do they do that at WWDC?"
WWDC is Apple’s big yearly event for developers. It’s where Apple often shows off new software features, and sometimes hardware too.
WWDC (Apple Worldwide Developers Conference) is Apple’s annual event where it typically announces major software updates and sometimes new hardware. The host is asking whether Tim Cook and John Ternes will appear for a handover at WWDC or at the iPhone event instead.
Concept
Apple foldable
"...but nothing much will change but we do have the Apple foldable launching this year"
They’re talking about Apple possibly launching a foldable device this year. It’s basically Apple’s next hardware idea they expect to come out soon.
The segment mentions an “Apple foldable” launching this year, referring to Apple’s rumored or expected foldable device plans. This is a product-direction topic rather than an automotive one, but it’s a notable “what’s next” item in the discussion.
Topic
PayPhone Tag
"you've got a real map of Australia, [1488.0s] which shows a dot for every payphone... [1516.0s] I drove to Hornsby and captured five or six bloody payphones."
PayPhone Tag is a location-based game where players capture or claim payphones on a map. The episode segment describes using a map of Australia with payphone dots and driving to collect them.
Concept
triangulated three payphones
"And if you've triangulated three payphones, [1492.0s] you own the area within."
Triangulation means using three known locations to figure out where something is. Here, the game uses three payphones as reference points to narrow down an area you can claim.
Triangulation is a method of estimating a location by using the relative positions of multiple known points. In this game, “three payphones” are treated like fixed reference points, and the intersection area is where you effectively “own” the territory.
Concept
cool down period
"And one of the ideas was, you know, should we have a cool down period, you know, that sort of thing... Like, you know, once you capture it, it's yours for a day."
A cool down period means you have to wait a bit before you can do the same thing again. Here, it would limit how fast you can “capture” a payphone spot so the game doesn’t move too quickly.
A “cool down period” is a game rule that adds a waiting time before a player can take the same action again. In this context, it’s being proposed to slow down how quickly someone can capture or claim a payphone location.
Term
flagship phone
"[2152.0s] Yep. [2153.0s] I mean, you gotta, you gotta look at this one, right? [2155.0s] This is a flagship phone. [2156.0s] So it's $1,800 for a start, but it's got a Hasselblad system."
A flagship phone is the “best” phone a company sells right now. It usually costs more because it has the newest features and hardware.
A flagship phone is a manufacturer’s top-tier model for the year, usually with the most advanced camera, display, and performance features. In practice, it’s often priced at a premium because it’s meant to represent the brand’s best technology.
Term
Hasselblad system
"[2155.0s] This is a flagship phone. [2156.0s] So it's $1,800 for a start, but it's got a Hasselblad system. [2159.0s] Now that doesn't mean it's as good as a Hasselblad camera. [2161.0s] Let's be real."
When a phone says it has a Hasselblad system, it usually means the camera was made with help from Hasselblad or uses their camera know-how. It can improve photos, but it’s still not the same as using a real Hasselblad camera.
A “Hasselblad system” typically means the phone’s camera hardware and/or image processing is designed in collaboration with Hasselblad, a well-known camera brand. It’s often used as a quality signal, but it doesn’t guarantee the phone will match a dedicated Hasselblad camera’s results.
Car
Ford Explorer
"...mmick or not, but they have this Hasselblad Earth Explorer Master Kit. Oh, is that that add on that looks li..."
The Ford Explorer is a larger SUV meant for carrying people and gear. The podcast mentions a special add-on kit for it, which is designed to support activities like photography or exploring outdoors. It’s basically the same SUV, but set up with extra equipment for a specific hobby.
The Ford Explorer is a midsize SUV built for everyday family use, with room for passengers and cargo and available features aimed at comfort and convenience. In the podcast context, it’s mentioned alongside the “Hasselblad Earth Explorer Master Kit,” which sounds like a specialized add-on package that turns the vehicle into a more capable platform for photography or outdoor exploration. That kind of kit is notable because it connects the Explorer’s practicality with a specific lifestyle use case.
Term
Telstra
"Do you go anywhere where you feel like Telstra is the only option, like you go on the outskirts..."
Telstra is a phone and mobile network company in Australia. They’re talking about whether Telstra’s signal works well when you’re driving outside big cities, where reception can be weaker.
Telstra is a major Australian mobile network carrier. In the context of the conversation, they’re discussing whether Telstra is the only provider that reliably works in rural or fringe areas where cell coverage can be spotty.
Term
Tangerine
"Do you have your Tangerine there? Yeah. Everywhere I've been..."
Tangerine sounds like a mobile phone service provider. They’re basically asking if that provider has good signal when you travel away from cities.
Tangerine is referenced as a mobile service/provider in the conversation about coverage. The hosts appear to be comparing whether their chosen carrier works consistently while traveling across different regions.
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The EFTM podcast. Talkback technology. Got a question about tech?
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All righty, great to have you company. Thank you for joining us.
Tuesday, April 21, the day that we will remember
Tim Cook stepped down as Apple CEO.
Well, announced he was stepping down anyway.
Doesn't come much bigger than that.
Put it this way, when ABC calls me to be on the television,
it's a big tech story.
It's funny, I can kind of judge the story by the number of phone calls.
Yeah, today's a big day. It was already a big day because it's my Tuesday
for all my radio spots, but then we end up with a huge announcement
at about 6 a.m. our time in Australia and Sydney anyway,
that Tim Cook would be standing down.
Long rumoured. And this is the thing.
I got this question a lot. Is this a shock?
The announcement was a shock, but the contents of it were not, right?
So we weren't made aware it was going to happen.
We weren't sitting by the phone waiting for an email,
but when it was announced it was not a shock.
What was announced? Does that make sense?
John Ternes, the new Apple CEO, was well rumoured.
And I think that's probably part of the strategy over the last couple of years
or certainly last six months.
People like Mark Gurman at Bloomberg have been solidly reporting this.
And I think that is a strategy.
I think from a business perspective, you leak the hell out of what's happening
and see how it lands.
And it landed okay. There wasn't any major pushback.
They aren't struggling to justify this.
It's kind of made perfect sense in many ways.
So Tim Cook will become the executive chairman of Apple.
John Ternes will become the CEO.
And obviously the quotes are glowing.
Tim Cook says it's been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple
and I've been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company.
But he says of Ternes, he has the mind of an engineer,
the soul of an innovator and the heart to lead with integrity and honour.
He's a visionary whose contributions to Apple over 25 years are too numerous to count.
So 25 years, the bloke is not old.
Like I'm talking, I don't have to find out.
We can probably find out, I guess.
But I'd say he's not 50.
I'm going to Google him as we speak.
Yeah, born in 1975.
So he is 50, just 50.
Now Tim Cook's 65.
So that to me is the indicator here.
And Tim's direct leadership team are senior.
You know, Greg Joswiak, Bob Borches,
people who have been at Apple for a very long time
and frankly at some point have to question their own desire to retire.
And so Ternes is the youngest of them
and that's the smartest pick because he'll last the longest.
If Bob Borches or Greg Joswiak were appointed CEO,
you'd be questioning when they were going to retire.
Because, you know, they're of Tim Cook's ilk and age.
So it makes sense to go with someone younger
who has absolutely got 15 more years, maybe 20 in him as CEO.
So Tim Cook did 15 years as CEO.
That is a solid innings.
It's now a $4 trillion company.
So Ternes says,
I'm profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple's mission forward.
Having spent almost my entire career at Apple,
I've been lucky to work on a Steve Jobs and Tim Cook.
So that's fascinating, right?
Because it's also a way for Apple to cement
the Steve Jobs mantra legacy vision for another 10 to 15 years.
So if you wait another five years for Tim Cook to leave,
you lose Ternes because he'd go somewhere else.
You lose some of the senior executives who are getting older
and you have a bunch of young people
who don't have the Steve Jobs legacy built into them.
The distortion field is strong there
and that's a really important part of the business.
So under Cook's leadership,
it's grown from a market capitalization of $350 billion to $4 trillion,
representing more than a 1,000% increase.
Yearly revenue has quadrupled from $108 billion
in the first year of Tim Cook's time to $416 billion.
Wow.
That's a lot of money.
That's a lot of revenue.
So congratulations to John Ternes.
He'll be great.
He's an engineer.
He's led some of the most amazing products.
He's worked through the iPad line, the AirPods line,
iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch.
There's talk online about how he was
a mechanical engineer designing virtual reality headsets
at a company called Virtual Research Systems
where he joined Apple in 2001 as a member of the product design team.
So that's a fascinating thing for me
because it means he has that kind of VR knowledge
and obviously that probably played strongly into the Vision Pro
but where does it go from here
and that is the vision for Apple's future.
He's not going to change anything in the next little while.
The teams that we don't see, the rooms that we've never seen,
what are they working on
that we push them to work on.
That's the big change.
He is going to take the role of CEO on September the 1st.
Now, September the 1st by my calculations
is one week in one day.
Actually it'll be one week exactly
because the iPhone event would normally be on Tuesday.
It'll be one week before the iPhone event this year.
Do you have Tim Cook and John Ternes on stage as a handover
for the first major event or do they do that at WWDC?
It's going to be fascinating but nothing much will change
but we do have the Apple foldable launching this year
and that story is going absolutely bonkers right now on EFTM.
We have not seen traffic like this in a very long time.
So a lot of interest in the foldable from Apple,
all eyes on Apple because of the foldable
and because of the AI.
So let's just see how it all plays out for John Ternes.
Congratulations the new CEO of Apple.
He'll be fine.
Nothing can go wrong for years.
I think of a company the size of Apple
with a product line up like Apple's
like a cruise ship or an oil tanker on the open seas.
It doesn't just turn around.
It has to be turned over much time.
So you won't see any vast changes in the early stages
but change is definitely a foot.
Join the conversation.
Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.
That's all you've got to do.
I'll take your email.
Producer Rob will be in touch and we'll get you on the line.
John's on the line.
Good day, John.
Good day again mate.
How are you?
Yeah, really good.
What can I do for you?
I noticed something strange in my Gmail
on my Android phone.
Let me open up Gmail on my Android phone
I've got my bearings.
What did you notice?
Yeah, some time back.
Well, Gmail asks for confirmation
of your credentials every now and again
and you've just got to re-enter.
It's usually OptusNet email that happens with.
So I do that and then it's okay.
But then just before Christmas,
Optus had problems with their emails
and I couldn't re-establish contact
with OptusNet through my Gmail accounts.
And so I kept doing it
and then I realized that my name
had been spelled differently.
If I give you an example,
maybe an email address is
abcd at optusnet.com.au
Well, that'd be my email address
but this other email address had a line
above the A.
Okay, when you say you're seeing this
alternate email address, where?
In emails that are received or sent
or in your actual account?
No, I've not had any problems from it
but I went and looked for a Gmail address
that I wanted to do some eBay shopping
and so if I had an email and it was
there was problems with it,
I could just delete it and forget about it.
Sure, sure.
It's sort of a throwaway thing.
So I went into settings.
So if you go into email
and then your top left corner with the lines.
Yep, all the way down the bottom of settings, yep.
Settings, general settings.
And then at least your email accounts.
Yeah, and then with your email accounts
you manage notifications.
So in there was my other email addresses
plus this one with this line.
Right, so you're saying if you go on your Gmail,
if you hit the hamburger menu, you go to settings
and on the very next page where it says general settings
and then at the very bottom it says add account
but in between are any email addresses
you have set up through the Gmail app.
You're saying you could see an extra one
which was yours misspelled.
No, excuse me.
If you go into general settings
you then go into manage notifications.
What I wanted to do was to add a sound byte
to tell me I was getting emails alerts from this email address.
And it was listed in there.
And so there's like a double up of my email address
so a b c d optosnet.com.au
and then the second one was sitting there
with a line above the A.
Are you sure it doesn't appear in that settings list
as well as under general settings notifications?
No, it's not in any accounts or anything at all.
It's just something odd.
When I was trying to fix things up with Optus
when they were in troubles before Christmas
I didn't notice that this address was coming up automatically.
You know, as you put your information in
automatically fills out the boxes.
Of course, yeah.
I was trying to do that.
And of course you're not looking for a little line
across to the letter A.
Not at all.
So you just do it blindly for how many times
you hit your head before you stop trying to put your
information in.
So then I spotted it.
I went, oh, where's that come from?
So I re-typed it in properly and then it connected
and I've not had problems and I've not received
because if you got that email from me
and you were one of my friends or contacts
you would just blindly click on it
thinking it's from me.
Yeah, totally.
And then if there's a link there you're in trouble.
So I've actually fixed it.
I mean, I think you're right.
It's nefarious.
It's probably happened somewhere where you've typed it
and because the A, that little line of the A comes
when you hold down the A on the keyboard
for 20 seconds and it'll come up.
So you could feasibly see how that might happen, right?
But my only concern and I think it's probably
wildly overcautious.
But there is a slight concern that,
you know, you never know what might have happened here.
I would be changing my password for that email account.
So the one that had the A over it,
on the standard regular one, just for safety,
just for security, just for pure peace of mind
I would change my password on that account.
But that email is not something I want to use.
That one with the line above the A.
No, no, no, the normal one, the one without the line.
The one without the line.
Just in case, right?
Someone somehow infiltrated something
just for pure peace of mind, mate.
Change the password so that you know for sure.
And if you go into Gmail on your desktop,
so on your computer,
you should be able to find a place
to log out of other devices.
So if anyone happened to have somehow gotten into you,
so when you're on Gmail.com,
you can scroll all the way down the bottom
and it says last account activity.
You can click on details and it will tell you
what other computers are logged into your account
and you can actually just log them all out.
All right, I'm going to have a look later.
All right, just for safety, mate.
I did get rid of it.
Yeah, good. Well done.
I went in and it's a bit of a risky take.
I deleted storage and cache in the app settings for Gmail.
So it took it all the way back
and I was going to try and see if I could just re-update it,
but it wouldn't do it through Play Store.
So then I went and I'd taken all my email,
deleted them all and then reinstalled them all.
And because I've got rid of the storage settings,
this nefarious email address disappeared.
So it's no longer there.
So, yeah, that was at 3 o'clock this morning.
All right, well done. You nailed it,
but just for safety, let's change that password.
Yeah, I will. Good on you, John.
Yeah, go on.
Have you got a minute just for a quick question?
Yeah, hit me, hit me.
All right.
I have a home network and I have smart devices.
As I mentioned before, I'm with Optus.
So did they do all my, they're my server
and I've got their latest modem with big black box thing.
I can't give you the model number.
Yeah.
I have about 22 different smart devices.
Tappos, switches and energy monitors,
couple of digital minis, fetch TV and two computers,
but they all don't run all at the same time.
I'm getting lagging.
I'm getting things slowing down
and Optus told me that I've got too many devices.
Is there any way to up the network
so that I can use these?
Well, how many networks show in your home?
Does it show John's network
and then John's network underscore 5G
or does it just all show John's network?
I've got two.
I've got the 2G, 2.8G and 5G networks.
I set up myself.
Well, the first thing I do is I do a little mini audit
of all the devices and make sure that all the ones
that aren't important, i.e. your TV, your phone,
they're important, right?
Things that need bandwidth.
Make sure they're on the 5G network
and make sure everything else is on the 2.4.
Yeah.
Because, you know, it's the whole thing
of something must be slowing it down.
The other thing you could do,
so are you able to replicate
and see the problem through a speed test, for example?
You're able to see the speed concerns?
I did up my speed.
I paid a bit extra to get 500 megabytes.
So it hasn't really helped.
The TV just lags every now and again.
Get a whole lot of messages on it about broadcast errors.
And have you done a speed test at the TV area
or on the network anywhere?
Oh, yeah.
What do you see? What speeds do you see
if you're paying for 500?
It's pretty close to about 200 or 300.
That's not horrible.
Yeah, it's not horrible.
No, it's not.
But is there a device I can get
that can give the network a bit more capacity?
No, well, it's really about that motor, you know?
So you're probably at the point where
if they're not willing to help,
then you probably need to contemplate.
Look, before I get to what you could do,
just one more troubleshooting exercise.
Run a stand at the TV.
Is your TV connected via ethernet or Wi-Fi?
It's Wi-Fi.
So stand at the TV.
We'll put a laptop next to the TV.
Put it on the Wi-Fi and do a speed test.
Do three speed tests.
Get yourself an average.
Okay, you're seeing 250 or whatever.
Yeah.
I mean, there's no way
that should crowd a problem for the TV.
Let's be honest, if she's got 200 there.
So one thing with the TV is to forget
the Wi-Fi network and reconnect to see
whether it just needs to kick off the bum, basically.
But aside from that, you could go around
and turn things off.
So the best scenario of all is turn everything off,
except the modem and your laptop, for example,
and do the speed test again
and see whether you get vastly better speeds.
And if you do get vastly better speeds,
then one by one, turn things back on.
Let it connect, let us do a thing
and see which thing is dragging the network down.
Yeah.
And if it turns out that nothing's dragging
the network down, it's just rubbish.
So it's just bad Wi-Fi.
Then you need to contemplate getting yourself
a different Wi-Fi solution.
Forget the...
You can still use that existing modem.
Are you on Fiber or Hybrid Fiber Kyax or HFC?
What do you want?
It's supposed to be Hybrid Fiber.
Yeah.
So you're on the old Foxtel Optus cable, yes?
Yeah.
So then you don't need the modem at all.
You can just plug a mesh router
into the little black NBN box
and connect that way.
So it would be an investment,
but you could buy yourself a better mesh system.
You know, Netgear or be your Amazon hero,
something like that.
Yeah.
I thought so.
Just to the speed test,
197 download,
or 48 upload.
I mean, it's not amazing for 500 speed.
No, it's not.
So you should walk around the house.
What I have to do is you draw a floor plan in your house
and then walk around writing those speeds around
to see whether it's a distance thing
or if you're standing next to the modem
and you do a speed test and you're not getting 400.
Dude.
Yeah.
You need better Wi-Fi.
Yeah.
All right.
Okay, cool.
Let's do that.
All right, mate.
Good luck.
Yeah.
Have a great day.
Thank you.
Cheers, mate.
Good on you.
Thanks very much.
Bye-bye.
Yeah.
Trying to solve those problems is best we can.
You know, not always easy.
Not always easy.
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If you've got a tech question or you want to talk about something cool in your tech life,
doesn't matter what it is.
Now, something cool in my tech life is these TikToks have been frustrating me for the last
week.
I keep getting them in my feed.
And then I thought, oh, I'm going to dive deeper into this.
It's a game called Payphone Tag.
Now, I don't know how best to describe this to you.
So producer Rob was set a task.
Find me the creator of Payphone Tag.
And the croissant Alex himself is on the line.
Alex, good day.
Good morning.
How are you going?
Very well, mate.
I call you the croissant because every user on Payphone Tag gets an emoji.
I'm like a torchlight.
My code name, my agent name is Quicktorch.
Is there a limit to the number of emojis before we go on?
Because that's problematic for you.
Well, you've hit the nail on the head.
I'm slightly concerned at this stage because, yes, there is a limit to the number of
emojis that exist.
You know, when I built the game, I didn't think that it would be a problem.
But yeah, I'm having to kick people off if they don't capture anything so I can keep
the emojis free.
Well, look, here's the thing.
So I started out here.
It's you and the TikToks, right?
Is that who I'm seeing in the TikToks?
That is.
That is.
Let's go back to basics.
And when your family say, what have you done?
How do you explain Payphone Tag to them?
Well, I just say, look, you know, you go around to a payphone, you get given a pin,
you call my number and then you appear on the map and it's simple as that.
But you got to make sure that you don't lose your payphone and have someone else
steal it.
And then they sort of look at me a bit funny and then I point them to the
website and they pull it up and they go, shit, you know, this is a thing
and people are playing it everywhere.
And there's a Pokemon style attachment to it in my mind.
Pokemon Go, where you have to leave the house.
You can't do this from home.
You have to leave the house.
And in the case of Pokemon Go, you have to find a Pokemon Go in your area.
In your case, it's find a payphone.
Now, payphones are fixed.
They're set in place.
There's 13,000 of them in Australia.
And you've essentially, because you are head nerd here, I'm assuming.
You are the number one nerd who not only went, I've got a phone number.
What can I do with it?
You then programmed some sort of voice app to answer the phone.
Then you back ended it by creating a map of all the payphones in Australia,
which is public data.
So you've been able to do that pretty easily, I assume, but still nerdy.
But the key here is that everyone who signs up gets their own code
as you say.
And all you've got to do is go to a payphone, ring this phone number
into your code and you claim that.
It's like capture the flag in a computer game, isn't it?
That's correct.
You've claimed the phone.
So of the 20 or 30 that I've claimed thus far,
anyone today could be out and about and claim them off me,
which affects my ranking.
That's right.
That's right.
And you get a little notification to say, you know,
you've just lost this phone or that phone.
And now it's always a little bit disappointing when that comes
through, but it just gives them the motivation to go out
and claim it back, you know?
What would you say to a user is the goal of the game?
Do you capture the most or what's the best approach statistically?
I don't know about the best approach, you know,
obviously to have fun.
And a lot of people have different sort of goals, you know,
there's a bit of a scoring method.
There's a various leaderboards and ranks, you know,
the most captures in total, the most that you currently hold,
the most territory.
I think that one's really interesting because it's not
just the payphones.
They make little triangles.
When you capture all three in a triangle,
that then becomes your area on the map.
And you can continue to expand your area.
And I couldn't believe it when there was Easter.
I saw this person going from Mildura all the way across
Victoria in this massive line.
And then they went back.
It's a fire truck.
Is that who you're talking about?
The fire truck.
The fire truck.
And this person's just, you know,
must be a truckie or loves driving.
They've done so many kilometers.
But the points aren't that high,
but they really stand out on the map,
which, you know, some people really like that.
And this is the thing,
you've got a real map of Australia,
which shows a dot for every payphone.
And if you've triangulated three payphones,
you own the area within.
And there's someone, the alarm clock,
that's captured something out at Udindadda,
Kuperpedi, and somewhere else near the
Wilmerer Defence site.
And they've created the most enormous triangle
in the middle of Australia.
Yet here I am in northern Sydney going,
you know what?
It's three o'clock this morning, mate.
You know what?
I didn't go straight to the office.
I drove to Hornsby and captured
five or six bloody payphones.
And I'm going to tell you, mate,
I spent an hour this morning
capturing payphones at 3 a.m.
That's the nerdiest thing I've ever done.
And now I own an area quite large
around my local area where the EFGM office is.
And I have plans this evening to go over the valley
and capture a couple more,
which will expand my area greatly.
But I'll be disappointed if someone captures my area.
That's the fun of it, really, isn't it?
There is no purpose other than the challenge.
That's right.
That's right.
You know, a bit of self-reward.
And look, I think it's interesting.
We've got a Discord channel where people are chatting away
and that's growing over time.
And you get to know some of the characters.
And there's people that are going out every day,
every night.
Particularly, there's a person on the Central Coast
and they've just claimed that area.
As soon as someone attacks them,
they'll go straight back out and claim them all back again.
And I don't know if they're getting frustrated,
but they obviously enjoy it because they keep playing.
And then you'll get someone that will just come
into the center of their territory and take one.
And then all of a sudden,
all the triangles in that area disappear
because they don't have all the edges connected.
And it sort of ruins their map for a moment.
And I'll go back and claim it again.
You know, it's a simple, simple thing.
But you mentioned, I think, in the info page,
you're like, you know, have fun.
Go outside, explore your city.
That's actually a really cool part of it.
I've got to be honest.
I was thinking it's annoying.
I found this after the school holidays
because I'd love to take my 14-year-old out
because a lot of pay phones on the train lines, right?
Let's just get on the train and get off at every station
and keep capturing.
Because a lot of them are on the platforms, too.
You don't have to actually tap out.
Well, the question is, though,
can you get off the train, get to a pay phone,
claim the pay phone,
and get back on the train before it leaves?
You know, like, you know, some are only every half an hour
and you might have to wait around a little bit
for the next train.
You're a thinker.
But you've got to have your dialing down pat.
What's your day job, Alex?
What do you do for a job?
What's my day job?
I'm a dated guy.
No.
Who would have guessed?
I'm a dated guy.
I do dated things.
But my passion is actually maps,
which links in here.
I studied geospatial engineering.
There were four of us that studied at UNSW a few years ago.
It's cancelled the course.
But, yeah, I loved it.
And I did it because I was interested in that sort of stuff.
You know, got a background in bushwalking.
That's my real, real passion.
And, yeah, so I like that sort of stuff.
What a great combination of two things,
a passion and a skill.
Mapping and data because it is really just a data set, isn't it,
from Telstra that says here's where the pay phones are,
down to the meter.
And then you're just placing them on a map
and using code to draw lines between them.
It's not rocket science, but it just takes thought.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
A bit of sitting and thinking.
And look, you know, the reality is I bought,
I heard that you could buy numbers pretty cheaply.
You know, I bought a number and I said,
what do I do with it?
And I already had an earlier website called FreePhone.
And the idea was that it would tell you your nearest pay phone
to where you were and give you the phone number.
Right.
And then you could call it.
And then, so, you know, if you were standing near a pay phone,
but not quite at it,
it could be ringing before you get to it
because you called it on your phone, you know.
And you could do funny things like that
and see if anyone picks up that sort of stuff.
Which brings me to a great user suggestion
from Reddit.
I posted this in one of the Telstra forums yesterday
and someone made a suggestion.
This is quite cool.
I love this idea, but it's wild, right?
Imagine you claim a phone
and then it rings another random pay phone.
And if someone picks up, you earn extra points
and you steal that phone at the other end
and you get the opportunity to actually talk
someone into joining the game.
Hey!
It's going viral.
Okay.
That's quite the idea.
I reckon we can make it there.
Diplomatic.
Diplomatic.
There's a secret party line.
I don't know.
I assume you've been around when they were a thing.
I wasn't.
But essentially, you can dial in with a special pin,
a secret pin.
And instead of capturing the phone,
it puts you on a conference line.
So if anyone else dials in with that same number,
you can talk to each other.
Great.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The party is a clue, you know, there.
Okay.
But yes, I'll leave that for the listeners.
But yeah, that's already there.
But I like the idea.
I'm going to have to...
I haven't been following Reddit,
so I'm going to have to find out about this idea
and maybe add it in.
I think the great thing about it is it's super nerdy, right?
So you're only going to get the nerdiest of ideas.
But you do really have a challenge
because you've got a limited scope, limited scale.
You know, I do love also that you're not capturing people's data.
You didn't make me sign up with an email or anything.
It's just sign up and you get a pin.
That's it.
And because there doesn't need to be security on this thing.
It's a game.
No.
But...
Until it gets serious.
Until again.
Well, yes.
Well, that's what happened, right?
Yesterday, I'm walking around Central Station.
I'm like, oh, bank of five phones, bank of four phones.
I'm just going nuts.
And by the time I walked away from Central Station,
I had a nemesis in the app.
I had an enemy.
I mean, I love that gamification of the simple concept.
It's fun.
I have been thinking about the rules and talking about them,
you know, as it evolves.
And one of the ideas was, you know,
should we have a cool down period, you know, that sort of thing.
And I don't know.
I'd be interested in people's views.
Cool down period.
What do you mean?
Like, you know, once you capture it, it's yours for a day.
No.
No.
Something like that, you know.
Maybe there'll be physical confrontations at pay phones.
Yeah.
Between nerds.
Yes.
Yeah, between nerds.
Yeah, they're pretty friendly.
Actually, you know what?
But you know what?
It's the opposite, actually.
It needs to be a five minute window because nerds,
well, I'm introverted.
I don't want to come across anyone else.
So that's, I've already done that.
Confrontation to me is conversation.
So can we just make it five minutes
or something like that?
I went to, I did a video this morning and I went to record
the sound of the agent, the picking up.
And I went back to the same phone and it played some horrible
voice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Monkeys, monkeys.
Right.
And I'm like, Jesus, I've got to go and drive to a different
phone now to so I can record this whole thing.
Sorry about that.
You can't recapture a phone.
So that's your problem.
I'm pretty proud they made in less than 24 hours.
I'm 68th.
I reckon that's pretty good.
Okay.
What's your agent?
I'll look it up here.
My agent is quick torch.
Quick torch.
Quick torch.
Yeah.
So I'm 68th out of 525.
I've had 130 not, no, I'm 139th in captures.
Yeah.
Okay.
Um, you know, everything else looks pretty standard
for your numbers.
Quick torch.
Oh, and you've got it.
You've got a clan as well.
Oh, you know, I started a clan for the EFTM group.
A cell.
Yes.
Well, you're lucky I let four characters.
You're very good.
I mean, you did that.
I thought that was fantastic.
Um, you know, you've got it.
Have you feared your profile?
There's a social media profiling.
It even previews the number of captures that you have
and your current stats, you know, in the URL preview.
So where do I do that?
When you go to your agent in the agent section down
the bottom, it says share profile.
Yeah.
I'll get on to it.
I'll get on to it.
You know what?
Good on you.
I just wanted to say good on you.
I think it's cool.
I think it's fun.
I think it's simple.
Um, I think it's clean and that's what's great about it.
Yeah.
It's, you're not, I mean, you're an idiot because you're
not making money off this thing or anything like that.
But that's what's great about it is it's just a bit of fun
and you just need to think about scale now.
What if you do get 2,000 people, 3,000 people
and you run out of emojis, you know,
that's, that's what you need to work out.
Do I, do I, do I lobby the emoji consortium
and ask them to create more emojis
or maybe I come up with another solution?
I reckon I can probably do the second one.
I think the second one is probably the way to go.
AI to generate a bunch of images or something.
You know, is the crypto resolution over?
NFT is still a thing or?
A bunch of, bunch of weird monkey faces.
Just do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mate, congratulations.
The, the, the website is payphonetag.com.
If you've got Android, you can install an app as well,
that makes it really easy.
Payphonetag.com.
Have some fun folks.
As, as Alex says, get out,
explore your city, capture some pay phones.
Simple as that.
Good on, good on you, mate.
Thanks for the chat.
See ya.
Bye.
See ya, buddy.
Cheers.
Tech cars.
Lifestyle.
This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.
Great to have you company.
Thank you very much for listening.
And happy to help if I can.
Send me a text 044765757.
Witte's on the line.
G'day, Witte.
That's right for you.
No, really good.
What can I do for you?
Yes.
So, um, this is my question.
I've been, I'm a Melbourne based photographer.
I shoot mostly weddings and portraits.
I've also been a local fan for a while.
Yep.
I was part of their product ambassador program in
2024 and 25.
So I've seen, yeah.
So I've seen that their cameras have evolved.
Yeah, very much so.
And I've been seeing this exciting phone.
Their new flagship, the fine X9 Ultra.
Right.
And honestly, it's one of the few phones lately that
made me want to dig deeper.
Yeah, sure.
It feels like one of those phones that could be
really interesting if it delivers.
Yeah, absolutely.
And what, so what phone do you have today?
I'm currently with Oppo Reno.
Okay.
Yep.
I mean, you gotta, you gotta look at this one, right?
This is a flagship phone.
So it's $1,800 for a start, but it's got a Hasselblad system.
Now that doesn't mean it's as good as a Hasselblad camera.
Let's be real.
It's nothing.
But it's, it's exceptional photography.
No question, right?
What's stopping you from just going and buying one?
Well, price.
I'm not sure about this, this thing.
I don't know if it's a gimmick or not, but they have this
Hasselblad Earth Explorer Master Kit.
Oh, is that that add on that looks like a big telescope?
Yeah, yeah.
That's, that's right.
That's the one.
I mean, look, it's not part of the base price.
So you're not going to get that.
You're not going to get that when, when you,
when you buy it anyway.
So, you know, you don't, you don't need that, but it would be
a good extra thing to have if you love photography.
Yeah, I mean, last time I went to Japan last year,
I bought my bulky camera with me, but I took zero
photos from the bulky camera and I took all the moments
captured by my phone.
So it'll be interesting if I have like a phone that
really dependable.
So I can depend on.
Bottom line is that will be a great phone, a great camera.
And if you chose to buy that add on, you'd certainly have
a nice little gimmick to play around with, but I wouldn't
say it's a necessary thing to add on, but you're not
going to have any disappointment with the Find X9 as a phone.
It's a genuine upgrade from what you've got today.
And I think you'll absolutely love it, mate.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
All right.
So don't hesitate, mate.
Save the money by the phone.
Yeah.
Thank you.
All right, mate.
Good luck.
Happy shopping.
Nice.
Cheers, buddy.
Cheers.
Sometimes you've just got to hear someone say, go and
get it.
I don't know.
That feels like that was that situation to me.
Oppo Ambassador previously using an Oppo phone now.
I've seen a great Oppo phone option.
Yeah, it's a great option.
Good luck.
Be part of the show.
Thanks to Vodafone, you can text 04477657657.
Great to have you company.
Love to hear from you if you want to talk tech.
Dean's on the line.
Good day, Dean.
Good day, wire.
Mate, really good.
What can I do for you?
Oh, I just heard one of your episodes.
I think it was the last podcast about a gentleman and he
paid his phone out and going on to a different plan.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
Smart move if you can do it.
Yeah, I ended up doing it with a few months ago and I
went and I went to Tangerine.
But I paid out my Google Pixel phone and, you know,
went to Tangerine and went from a $70 a week,
a $70 a month plan each for me and the Mrs
with Telstra to Tangerine.
Went to $15 a month for the first four.
And now, and then it goes to $30 a month.
We get $30, you get data that rolls over a month.
So there's a roll over as well.
So if you don't use the data, you get a bit of it next time.
Yeah, it's 12 months.
So you get up to a thousand gig of roll over.
Holy Jesus.
Yeah.
Wow.
And you're paying, you're paying,
hang on.
So forget the discounted price.
Let's go.
Let's go four months in advance.
You're going to be spending $30.
So by two, you're going to be spending $60 a month
for you and your Mrs on the plan.
When you were spending $70 for one of you.
Yeah.
Well, both on $70 a month plan.
So I'll pay an $140.
Did the $70 include your phone?
No, no, no.
Plus I was paying you.
I had my wife's phone we had paid out,
which is a Pixel 7.
Yeah.
Pixel 9.
But I paid my phone out,
which I had about 500 bucks on.
Yeah.
So it paid for itself,
paying it out and then going to the other plan.
Isn't that wild?
And do you tell people this
when they don't believe you?
Yeah.
And I was trying on the Telstra network
and my phone,
it's like I haven't changed networks.
The only difference is I got Tangerine
on me, but instead of Telstra.
It's what actually says Tangerine, obviously.
Yeah.
Have you done the numbers?
That's $960 a year.
Yeah.
That's crazy money.
Well, that's right.
That's right.
I couldn't,
I tried at first to see make sure the service was okay.
Yes.
The wipe over.
Yeah.
And it hasn't folded.
It just does.
It's exactly what you said the other week.
People should look at it.
I don't understand.
Do you go anywhere where you feel like
Telstra is the only option,
like you go on the outskirts,
skirts of any towns or cities or areas
or the country?
Do you have your Tangerine there?
Yeah.
Everywhere I've been,
I've been able to drive all the way to Port Macquarie
for work.
I've been down past Goldman.
I haven't been out west,
but I've been as far as the Blue Mountains
and I haven't had an issue.
It has never dropped out of me.
Actually,
honestly, I work in any area.
I work in it.
Like I'm,
my phone signal drops out.
I'm even,
I just still pick up what Telstra used to.
Yeah.
And you know the funny thing is,
even if you go to 10 buck two
and you go,
oh, there's only one bar here
and or it drops out or something,
you go,
but I'm saving 960 dollars a year.
That's right.
Like that does offset it, doesn't it?
Like even if,
even if there was a small,
like let's say,
you were checking speeds.
Let's say Tangerine doesn't get priority
on the network or something.
You don't get the same 5G speeds as a Telstra customer.
Who gives a rats?
It still works.
Yeah.
It's the 5G.
I think it does it.
I don't,
it's the second tier that Telstra offer,
like the speed wise,
but I,
I haven't noticed the difference of it.
Because who,
mate,
because 4G was fine.
Speed was.
Let's be honest.
The 5G,
the speed,
I've never had an issue of like downloading
or any of that or that
because at all,
but most of them went to my home on my wife.
Anyway,
which is going over to them as well now,
but Tangerine,
because I was a buddy, but.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Cause so buddy was Aussie broadband and then Tangerine
bought them, didn't they?
So have they just gotten rid of the buddy brand now?
It's just all Tangerine.
Yeah.
It's going to Tangerine,
but they kept me buddy playing going.
And I'm still got the buddy speeds as well.
So cause about the thousand and one hundred.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I highly recommend it.
I just bought a pop message here when I,
mate,
that's awesome.
I heard you on talking about it on your last podcast
or that people really want to look at it.
Good on you, mate.
That is great real world feedback and good on you for saving
your family some money, mate.
No worries, mate.
All the best.
Good to chat.
Cheers, buddy.
That's Dean who saving nine hundred and sixty dollars a year.
Now let's say he had to pay out his phone there.
So he had to jump up five hundred up front.
So in the first 12 months,
he's only going to save four hundred and sixty dollars.
But he owns the phone outright nine hundred and sixty a year,
which, by the way,
is enough to buy a nice new phone,
a Google Pixel phone.
There's plenty of Google Pixels under a thousand bucks every year.
So even if every three years they bought a new phone each,
that's still nine hundred and sixty dollars a year,
two years out of three.
Makes sense, doesn't it, folks?
Makes sense.
This is the EFTM podcast.
All right.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for downloading.
I'll see you all again next week.
I'm actually going to be in China next week, but don't worry.
We've been working hard.
So there'll be a show next week.
And then back on deck in May for yet more talkback technology
right here on the EFTM podcast.
So if you would love to be part of the show, please get in touch.
I'd love to hear from you.
It doesn't have to be a...
What you might call a stupid question.
It doesn't have to be a product question.
It can be a product brag.
You bought something cool.
You want to share it with the world.
Let me know.
Go for double seven, six, five, seven, six, five, seven.
Download the EFTM app and make sure you enter to win.
This is always something to win.
But also make sure you can contact me through there as well.
You can just click the Ask Trev button right there in the app.
So I would love to hear from you, folks.
Until then, have a lovely week.
And we'll do it all again very, very soon.
Join the conversation.
Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.
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