Edward Kiledjian

We knew Google Play Music was coming to IOS and now its official.  For $9.99 a month, you get millions of streamable songs and you can even cache them for offline listening. 

The service is flexible enough to stream different qualities of music (you decide) which could be useful when on a bad network or when using too much bandwidth.

Unlike Apple's iTunes Radio service, it is cross platform (important if you live on both ecosystems). It's now available in 21 countries (my native Canada is not included):

1. Australia
2. Austria
3. Belgium
4. Czech Republic
5. Finland
6. France
7. Germany
8. Hungary
9. Ireland
10. Italy
11. Liechtenstein
12. Luxembourg
13. Mexico
14. Netherlands
15. New Zealand
16. Portugal
17. Russia
18. Spain
19. Switzerland
20. United Kingdom
21. United States

Smartphones are great but they all have 1 major flaw, limited battery power. Sure we have USB plugs all around us (most of the day) but how many of us carry USB or lightning cables necessary to top-up our power hungry pocket monsters?

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the upcoming Plusus Lifelink. 

Now Nomad wants to offer something a little different via its IndieGogo campaign. An always with you charging cable for your device (USB or lightning) that looks like a key and lives on your key-chain. For $US40 your get one of each. 

I think this is a great option but Plusus has a 50% off discount on their solution (link is in my original article) which means you can buy a pair for $28  (instead of $40) plus the Plusus one has a length of 7" which means you will be able to use it in more situations.

I think the chargeKey is clever but based on pure specs, my money is still with the Plusus Likelink. 

Moto X isn't the fastest, lightest or most feature packed Android smartphone but it is the one I like the most. It is a near stock Google experience but comes packed with incredibly useful little features that make the experience fantastic. The most exciting feature is the always on voice control which no other phone has been able to match yet.

The Motorola Moto X was launched in Canada on Rogers for $189 (with a 2 year contract) and now the price has dropped to $99. Of all the Android phones you can buy today (excluding the Nexus 5), this is probably the best deal out there for an icnredible phone.

Roger

Fido, a Rogers sub-brand also has the Moto X for $99 (if that is your provider of choice)

Black Friday is almost here for my american readers and the'll have to chose with console to pickup. Obviously this is a first-world problem.

Google had said its All Access Music service would be coming to IOS in May and many months later, still nothing. Our favorite leaker has now come forward with happy information that Google Music for IOS will launch shortly (or as he said, the launch is "imminent").

Under Armor has its own Armour39 tracking service but most users complained it lacked some basic features and wasn't polished enough. It seems Under Armour heard all the complaints and is buying competing fitness app MapMyFitness (for $150M)

MapMyFitness brings 20 millions users and the ability to suck in data from Jawbone UP, Nike Fuelband and of course from its own smartphone apps. UnderArmor will leverage all of this tech and user base to take fitness analytics to the next level. 

Under Armour

It seems every new smartphone tries to beat (on specs anyway) the previous generation and the byproduct of this competition is $800 smartphones. Today Motorola is trying a different approach by releasing an interesting mid-level device for $US180 off contract.

For the $US180, you get:

• 8GB of internal storage ($200 for 16GB)
• 4.5" 1280x720 (329PPI) display
• Snapdragon 400 processor (quad-core running at 1.2GHz)
• comes with the latest Android 4.4
• The trusted bluetooth feature from the MotoX is in the MotoG

No one expects a monster device for $180 so there are phone features you will be sacrificing like 

• No LTE (up to HSPA+ 21MBps)
• A 5 megapixel read camera 
• 720p video capture maximum (no 1080p)
• No always listening mode (like the Moto X)

Even with all of the above, I think this will become a huge hit for Motorola and hopefully other carriers will start making more affordable phones for the next 1 billion users that will get connected.

It seems the phone may be available in Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia in the next couple of weeks. It is expected to hit US shelves early 2014.

Apple did a stealth launch of the iPad Mini overnight at 0300ET and the Apple,ca online reservation system is now available to serve you (yes... even in Canada). It lists the locations that have inventory and the list seems to change periodically so check it out to see if your local Apple store has any available.

Ive checked a couple of times and even touched base with American contacts and it seems the only models available immediately are the WIFI versions in 16/32GB versions.

At 0730ET all locations were in Ontario and Quebec but this may change throughout the day.

It seems none of the manufacturers can keep their upcoming devices secret and now Motorola has fallen victim to spec leaks for its upcoming Moto G budget phone.

Let me introduce you to the upcoming Motorola Moto G Android smartphone.

We expec the phone to be announced today at 9AM and nothing should be considered confirmed until then but here is what we think we know so far:

• 4.5-inch 720p LCD display
• 1.2GHz quad-core processor
• 1GB of RAM
• 5MP camera that shoots 720p HD video
• 1.3MP front-facing camera
• HSPA+ data connectivity (no indication of LTE)
• 8GB of internal storage
• 129.9 x 65.9 x 11.6 mm
• 143 grams
• 2,070mAh Li-Ion battery

We expect the price to be around $US 250 without a contract.

Leak source The Unwired

Windows phone is a nice mobile operating system for people upgrading from a featurephone (or dumb phone). Its major problem was that many of the most popular Android and IOS apps were missing from its ecosystem.

Now another app has finally made its way to Windows Phone (version 8 only) is Vine. The app seems to be a nice port that takes into account the Windows Phone operating system specific features like Live Tiles, lens support, adding Vine users to your home screen, etc.

The core feature of Vine are all included. The newer feature from Android and IOS are still missing but should come eventually if the app becomes popular on Windows Phone.

I doubt this will make anyone swtich from Android or IOS to Windows Phone but it does give Windows Phone users more features they have been asking for.

Download it from here now.

As excited as we were for the release of the Nexus 5, we were more excited to see Android 4.4 (aka Kitkat). One benefit of a Nexus device is super fast updates and now we learn that the Nexus 4,7,10 devices will be getting the update shortly. Additionally the update for Google experience phones HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 will receive their updates in a couple of weeks.

Can't wait for the automatic update, go to Settings > About device > Software to check.

Telus is flying high with a good subscriber count, revenue increase and a reduction in user complaints.

When Telus announced their Q3 results, we learned that they had a 5.2% increase in wireless revenue (compared to a year ago). They added about 100,000 subscribers (now counting 7,810,000 subscribers).

For the first time, Telus also included coverage information in its report. We learned that their HSPA+ network reaches 34.9 million Canadians. The Telus LTE network reaches 27.9 million Canadians.

The Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications released an interesting report showing that Telus had a solid 27% decline in consumer complaints (year over year).

Official Release

700mhz is an incredible band that every carrier wants to get a hold off. It goes through buildings like a hot knife in butter. It reaches much further which is great for providing coverage is rural areas. Canada is about to auction is highly prized band and 15 bidders wanted in on the action. Now Industry Canada has published the final list of qualified bidders.

The auction starts mid-January and the government is hopeful this will spur wireless competition. 

1. Bell Mobility Inc.
2. Bragg Communications Incorporated
3. Feenix Wireless Inc.
4. Globalive Wireless Management Corp.
5. MTS Inc.
6. Novus Wireless Inc.
7. Rogers Communications Partnership
8. Saskatchewan Telecommunications
9. TBayTel
10. TELUS Communications Company
11. The Catalyst Capital Group Inc.
12. Vidéotron

the iPhone is a wondrous device that has thousands of uses thanks to all the 3rd party peripherals and apps available in the ecosystem. Now you can add laser pointer to the list. 

You plug the device into the headphone jack and instantly convert your $800 smartphone into a $30 635nm laser beam.

When you plug anything into your headphone jack, the phone thinks you have headphones plugged in so it redirects are outgoing sounds and incoming sounds to the headphone jack, which is typically bad. By turning the iPin 90 degrees, the contacts get moved and the phone assumes the "headphones" have been unplugged and everything works normally. turn it back to use the iPin's laser pointer feature. 

iPin Laser 

Plusus is releasing a very portable charge cable solution called Lifelink which is the size of a credit card and 2 credit cards thick.  

Once opened up, it give you almost 7" of cable so you don't need to shove it next to the charge source (laptop, adapter, etc) 

The flexible cable is reinforced with unbreakable Teflon so it will last a long time. when clipped to your keys, it is light and you will hardly know it is with you (until you need it). 

Make sure you follow this special link to get 50% off during the pre-order phase by signing up for their newsletter.

50% off link 

For transparency, I have no financial benefit from the above link (referral or otherwise). I am providing it as a service to my readers.

PlusUs LifeLink 

EVLeaks has reported that Motomaker is coming to more US carriers which means more Americans will soon be able create customized Moto X Google Android smartphones.