Advisorator’s 2025 plans


What to expect from Advisorator this year

Plus: Avoiding iPhone text scams, a simpler podcast app, and Samsung’s new phones

Hey there! I’m Jared Newman, a longtime tech journalist, and this is Advisorator, my weekly tech advice newsletter. Did someone share this newsletter with you? Sign up to get it every Tuesday.

Thanks for subscribing.

As 2025 gets underway, I’m having a hard time reconciling my enthusiasm for technology with how much worse a lot of it’s getting.

Much of what passes for technological advancement these days seems to be about extracting value from people rather than empowering them. The tech giants that grew rich inventing useful new products and services are increasingly moving into a kind of maintenance mode, looking for new revenue levers to pull or flashy buzzwords to satisfy shareholders even when the results aren’t in users’ best interests.

Ed Zitron wrote the definitive essay on this phenomenon last month, loaded with examples of how popular tech products are gradually deteriorating. But allow me to throw in a few more:

The issues aren’t all AI-related. I could also mention Meta’s decision to effectively give up on moderating Facebook and Instagram, Spotify’s price hike for audiobooks you never asked for, Amazon search results becoming overrun with ads, or the feature bloat that’s transformed iOS from a beacon of simplicity into a complicated mess. I used to get excited about what these companies were up to, but now I mostly just dread it.

This is where Advisorator comes in. I started this newsletter in 2018 with the goal of sharing my enthusiasm for technology in an approachable way, having noticed that the non-techies in my life were often blown away by what they didn’t realize they could accomplish. Heading into 2025, it’s time to acknowledge a shift in the mission.

Yes, I still want to celebrate technology at its best, but I also want to call it out at its worst. Above all, I want you to feel like you’re in command of technology, not the other way around.

In practice, that means you can expect a few major focuses from Advisorator this year:

  • More emphasis on tech products and services that aren’t designed to take advantage of you, like the examples in my “becoming a tech hippie” piece from last year.
  • More ways to interact with technology on your own terms rather than those dictated by huge tech companies and opaque algorithms, like using an RSS reader for news or subverting YouTube’s control over online video.
  • More advice on basic tech literacy, so you can confidently navigate unfamiliar apps or unexpected scenarios.

Writing a weekly newsletter, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the grind without ever stepping back to view the whole. I’m sharing these goals as much for you as for me, as a way to stay accountable in the year ahead.

Advisorator is doing well, state of the journalism industry considered. The newsletter has nearly 10,000 readers across its free and paid editions, and while I still contribute to sites like PCWorld and Fast Company as a freelancer, Advisorator’s paid subscribers are collectively my biggest client.

I write this not to boast (well, maybe a little), but to point out that you’ve given me both the time and a platform through which to help folks feel more empowered by technology. I’m grateful for the opportunity, and it’s not one I’ll take for granted.


Tip of the week

Advisorator’s “Tip of the Week” section is typically reserved for paying subscribers, but not today. Consider subscribing if you enjoy these quick tips.

Don’t fall for this: If you use an iPhone, beware of text messages about undelivered USPS packages or unpaid road tolls, especially if they ask you to reply so you can click on their links.

As Bleeping Computer’s Lawrence Abrams reports, Apple’s Messages app protects users from scam texts by making links from unknown senders non-clickable. The only way to enable those links is by replying, and so a growing number of scammers now include instructions to “reply Y” and reload the message. Once enabled, the links lead to bogus USPS or transit authority sites whose only purpose is to steal your payment info.

I can’t recall ever seeing a legitimate sender soliciting a reply to make links clickable, so if you see a message like this, just ignore it. When in doubt, you can always contact the post office or transit authority directly to clear things up.

What about Android? Google’s Messages app has automated spam detection built in, and it should be enabled unless you turn it off. In October, Google said it’s improving detection of bogus package and job-seeking texts in particular, but only in the beta version of Google Messages for now. It’s also starting to test warnings about potentially dangerous links, but only in select countries.


More tech advice awaits

There’s a bunch more to this week’s newsletter, which you can unlock with a paid subscription:

  • A simpler alternative to Apple’s Podcasts app.
  • Deals on wireless earbuds, charging stands, ergonomic mouses, and more.
  • Weekly news roundup covering Samsung’s new phones, overblown AI “agents,” and more.

Advisorator costs less per month than the price of one beer in a small-to-medium-sized city, but your support is priceless to me. Get started here:


Thanks for reading!

Got tech questions for me? Just reply to this email to get in touch.

Until next week,
Jared


Did someone share this newsletter with you? Sign up to get it every Tuesday.

Thanks for subscribing.