👀 Phone’s secret map

Welcome to your Tuesday, {{first_name | friend}}. You probably hit “Print” the way you click “I agree” on terms and conditions. Boldly, blindly, zero fear. But your printer cartridge is hiding one of the biggest markups in consumer history. Ounce for ounce, brand-name ink costs more than high-end perfume. More than champagne. More than human blood. Seriously. 

😳 So here’s the question. How much on average does brand-name printer ink cost per gallon? A) $200, B) $800, C) $2,700 or D) $12,000? Take a wild guess, the answer’s at the end. Hint: Your gas pump would need a fainting couch.

💰 Stop paying to sit on hold. Alex wrote in to say he ditched his big carrier after spending 45 minutes arguing with a chatbot about a $3 charge. Sound familiar? He switched to Consumer Cellular. Same 5G coverage, and a real person in the U.S. picks up the phone. He’s also saving $85 a month. Switch today and get $25 off with code: KIM25. Over 50, get one line of unlimited talk, text and data for $35.*  — Kim

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⚡ TL;DR (THE SHORT VERSION)

📖 Read time: 2 minutes

OK, pick up your iPhone right now. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services > Significant Locations & Routes. Enter your passcode.

See that number under Summary? Prepare to be shocked.

That’s how many locations your phone has secretly logged. Every place you go. When you arrived. How long you stayed. Your doctor’s office. Your friend’s apartment. The hotel in Vegas. That place you told nobody about.

It’s turned on by default. Apple never asked. And it’s been running since the day you set up your phone. Nice, right?

Apple calls it Significant Locations. It tracks places you visit frequently to “improve Maps, Calendar and Photos.” Sounds harmless. But think about what that data reveals: your daily routine, where your kids go to school, your therapist’s office, how often you visit someone and for how long.

Apple says this data is encrypted and stays on your device. On your device means anyone who knows your passcode can see it. A jealous partner or a nosy coworker. Law enforcement in some states doesn’t need a warrant to legally compel you to unlock it with Face ID. Then it’s all right there.

Google Maps has a feature called Timeline that does the same thing, except even more detailed. Routes, time stamps, how you got there. Google changed the default to off in 2024, but if you’ve had an Android for years, you probably turned it on and forgot. Your history could go back years and years.

Even if you turned off Timeline, Google may still save location data through Web & App Activity. Searching for a restaurant? Location saved. Getting directions? Saved.

While you’re at it, revoke location access for any app that doesn’t absolutely need it. That weather app? Approximate is fine. Your flashlight app? It needs your location like a fish needs a bicycle.

Your phone knows more about where you’ve been than your best friend, your spouse or your mother. And it’s sitting there waiting for someone to look.

You could say your phone really knows all your secrets. Location, location, location. 

🗣️ TEXT THIS STAT: Your iPhone has been secretly logging every place you go since the day you turned it on. It’s called Significant Locations, it’s buried six menus deep, and it’s turned on by default. Go check yours right now. GetKim.com

Tim Boucher went all in on AI as a creative experiment, cranking out 125 ebooks and 40 music albums to put these tools to the ultimate test. The results were fascinating enough to land him in front of the U.S. Copyright Office. But after all that output, was it actually worth it?

Listen on Komando.com →

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

🌊 Reeling in the internet: Remember TAT-8? Probably not. But it remembers you. It was the first transatlantic fiber-optic cable, went live in 1988 and kicked off the modern internet (paywall link). It died in 2002 and has been sitting on the Atlantic seafloor ever since. Now a salvage crew is hauling 3,700 miles of it into Portugal to recycle the copper, steel and plastic. Your entire online life started with this cord. They’re literally pulling the plug on internet history. Btw, all the stories about sharks eating the cables are 100% bait, clickbait that is.

PayPal hit, again: Nothing makes people sweat like a PayPal email that’s actually real. PayPal confirmed a breach tied to its Working Capital loan application, and a hacker had access from July 1 to Dec. 12, 2025. Yes, six months. PayPal says it refunded customers and reset passwords. The annoying part is the data, names, SSNs, birthdays. Watch for targeted phishing, and stop reusing passwords.

💼 Stop drowning in bad résumés: Posting on random job boards floods your inbox with unqualified spam. I trust LinkedIn Hiring Pro because it actively targets professionals with the exact skills you need. It cuts the noise so you only interview serious candidates. Get $100 off your first job post with LinkedIn Hiring Pro.*

Olympics yard sale: I saw this and immediately thought, fair. The 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics handed every one of the roughly 3,800 athletes a limited-edition Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7, plus piles of sponsor gear. Some Team USA folks turned around and listed it on eBay within days. I’m talking about phones at $2,500. Snowboarder Hahna Norman says people think Olympians are loaded. Most aren’t. Rent still shows up.

Hey, Plex: Samsung is baking Perplexity into Galaxy AI on the upcoming Galaxy S26, working inside Notes, Calendar, Reminder, Gallery and Clock. That’s right, not only search, a living agent rummaging in your apps. Could be useful, could be annoying. We’ll see. Hey, Plex sounds like you’re trying to summon a youth pastor.  

🎧 What the phonk: Ever watch a Reel, feel your heart rate spike and not know why? That’s phonk, the sneaky soundtrack (paywall link) behind half the internet. YouTube says the genre’s biggest producer, Slxughter, reached 981 million unique viewers last month. That’s not a typo. Teens are making these tracks in bedrooms and clearing serious cash. You’re not choosing phonk. It’s choosing you. Here, take a listen. I think it’s a lot like elevator music, bad on so many levels.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: YouTube Picture-in-Picture mode is free, and nobody told you. Right-click the video. Now right-click it again. The menu changes. Select Picture-in-picture, and the video floats over all your current tabs while you work. No Premium required. You’re welcome. 

Stop liking Instagram posts you want to save: That’s what collections are for. Next time, tap the bookmark icon instead, hit Start a collection and name it. “Recipes, Inspo, Travel,” whatever fits. Add more posts by bookmarking and selecting the folder. Find them all under Settings and activity > Saved > Collections. Look at that, private and organized.

iPad keyboards are pretty flexible: Pinch inward to shrink it to phone size. Touch and hold the More button to drag it anywhere on screen. Pinch outward to go back to normal. Want to split it in two for thumb typing? Touch and hold the keyboard icon in the bottom right and tap Split. Pinch the halves together to undo it. Finally, a breakup that doesn’t hurt.

Mobile websites are hiding things from you: Filters, buttons, whole features. Gone on mobile, there on desktop. On iPhone Safari, open the Page Menu and tap Request Desktop Website. On Android Chrome, hit the three-dot menu and toggle on Desktop site. It’ll look tiny, so flip your phone to Landscape. Turns out the site wasn’t broken, just the view.

🔇 Silence unknown callers forever: Tired of spam calls interrupting dinner? On iPhone: Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers. On Android: Phone app > Settings > Caller ID & Spam > Filter spam calls. People in your contacts still ring through. Everyone else goes straight to voicemail. Easy.

Steer clear: What’s the one thing you wish someone had warned you about before you clicked, downloaded or signed up? Drop your story here. I read every one. 

Post a cute sunset. Accidentally dox yourself.

Meet GeoSpy AI, the tool that turns any social media photo into coordinates in less time than it takes to take a picture of your latte art. Next, it drops the searcher into a 3D street view of the exact spot. Car window? Reflections? Doesn’t matter. It reverse-engineers the pixels and triangulates like CSI: Instagram.

This Shazam for locations is being marketed to law enforcement, governments and insurance companies. The Big 3 of Big Brother.

🔜 Tomorrow: Your AI isn’t dumb. If you’re still typing “write me an email” and wondering why it sounds like a corporate robot wrote it, that’s on you. Most people talk to AI like they’re filling out a DMV form. No context, no personality, no direction. And then they’re shocked when the output reads like a toaster manual. Tomorrow, I’ll give you the insider fix no one will tell you about but me.

🛑 Stop falling for the free phone trap. Big carriers hide the real costs inside long, inescapable contracts. Consumer Cellular gives you honest pricing and zero gimmicks. I only recommend brands that deliver real value. Switch today, get $25 off. Over 50, get 1 line of unlimited talk, text and data for $35. That’s a deal!*

The answer is C) Approximately $2,700 per gallon. A gallon of gas runs you around $3.50. A gallon of milk, about $4. A gallon of brand-name printer ink? Roughly $2,700. That makes it more expensive per ounce than Dom Perignon, Chanel No. 5 and, yes, human blood ($1,500/gallon). 

HP, Canon and Epson make an estimated 60% of their printing revenue from ink and toner, not printers. That’s why a new printer often costs less than replacing its cartridges. The fix? Third-party ink cartridges work fine for everyday printing at a fraction of the cost. Your printer might throw a warning. Ignore it. 

Or as I mentioned the other day, a basic Brother laser runs about $140, and one cartridge lasts over 1,000 pages. Inkjets are for people who print daily. The rest of us need a laser. 

🖨️ What did the printer say when it ran out of paper? Oh, sheet. (lol)

Before you go, tap a rating below. It’s the fastest way to tell me you’re loving this. (And it seriously makes my day.)

🧠 The best firewall you’ll ever have is right between your ears. Keep feeding it. — Kim

Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily

🏆 THE KIM CHALLENGE: Forward this to ONE person who needs to hear it today. Pick the person who popped into your head while reading. You know who it is.

Photo credit(s): ChatGPT, Yale, @oliviscusAI via X

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