Syrupcast

This week on the SyrupCast MobileSyrup features editor Igor Bonifacic and managing editor Patrick O'Rourke, along with freelance tech reporter Josh McConnell and MacRumors tech reporter Joe Rossigno, discuss what they expect to see at Apple's upcoming September 12th fall hardware event. As far as leaks go, we will almost certainly catch a glimpse of the rumoured iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max. The team also expects to see the Apple Watch Series 4, a new version of Apple's smartwatch that's tipped to feature a larger display and smaller bezels. Further, the team doesn't think that the new MacBook Air will debut at next week's event. A bold prediction is that Apple could hold an additional keynote in October like the company did back in 2016 to reveal a revamped MacBook Air and new version of the iPad Pro. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Subscribe on iTunes Direct download link Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to

This week on the SyrupCast, MobileSyrup features editor Igor Bonifacic, managing editor Patrick O'Rourke, and staff writer Jon Lamont, catch up on the last three week's worth of mobile news. The Galaxy Note 9 has the team talking smart phone pricing expectations and what Samsung's latest smartphone means for the future of iterative smartphone updates. The Note 9, starting at an expensive $1299 CAD, has the team questioning how expensive smartphone prices will get in the coming years. An added feature to this iteration of the Note series is the S Pen's Bluetooth-enabled photo snapping functionality. You can now use the Note 9's S Pen as a shutter button, which the team argues is not enough of a draw to spend $1299 on a phone. That said, the Note 9 also features significant hardware updates, including a Snapdragon 845 Processor and 8GB of RAM in the 512GB version of the smartphone. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on

This week on the SyrupCast MobileSyrup features editor Igor Bonifacic, telecom editor Rose Behar and PHD student at Carlton University Ben Klass, talk about all the telecom and mobile news from the past two weeks. Justin Trudeau has shuffled his cabinet, replacing Melanie Jolie, Canadian Heritage Minister, with Pablo Rodriguez. The team discusses what they think the change will mean for Canadians. Also in the last two weeks mobile overage rates have gone up again. Ben Klass joins the podcast to discuss the impact of these increases. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcast@mobilesyrup.com. If you're feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode! Total runtime: 34:01 New minister: 2:00 Increased rates: 6:00 5G: 21:00 Shoutouts: 30:20 Ben gives his shoutout to his sister Rebecca, who just ran an olympi

Tau is yet another Netlfix science fiction film with an interesting, important core idea but a disappointingly shoddy execution. This week, MobileSyrup news and telecom reporter Sameer Chhabra speakers with MobileSyrup features editor Igor Bonifacic about Federico D'Alessandro's Tau. Later in the episode, Lex Gill, a research fellow at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, speaks about digital profiling and the ways in which our digital footprints are being used to target us.   Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Do you have any recommendations or suggestions for which movies we should discuss next? Send us an email to sameer@mobilesyrup.com. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode! Facebook.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on the SyrupCast, MobileSyrup features editor Igor Bonifacic and telecom reporter Sameer Chhabra discuss the latest TCL-made BlackBerry branded smartphone, the KEY2. The KEY2 brings all of the features that BlackBerry fans have to come to expect from the partnership between the former smartphone giant and TCL. However, the smartphone's price tag lands squarely in flagship territory, making the KEY2 a tough sell in a hyper-competitive industry, especially considering its processor is only a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 660. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcast@mobilesyrup.com. If you're feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode! Total runtime: 17:23 Blackberry Key 2: 1:30 Shoutouts: 14:05 Sameer gives his shoutout to Justice Kennedy. Igor shouts out Viewer Experience.  See

What makes Incredibles 2 so fascinating is how intimately aware it is of the current state of politics in the world. It's a movie set in the 1960s that somehow manages to address the conversations about feminism, gun control and identity that are taking place today. All that, and it also manages to cram in a story about screen addiction as well. This week, MobileSyrup news and telecom reporter Sameer Chhabra speaks with MobileSyrup news and telecom editor Rose Behar about Brad Bird's Incredibles 2. Later in the episode, Fardous Hosseiny -- national director of public policy and government relations at the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) -- sheds some insight on the subjects of internet, video game and screen addiction. For more information about the resources offered at the CMHA, visit the Centre's problematic internet use website. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Do you have any recommendations or suggestions for which movies we should

This week on the SyrupCast features editor Igor Bonifacic, telecom editor Rose Behar and telecom reporter Sameer Chhabra are joined by Ben Klass to discuss his recent proposal to the CRTC. Recently, Canadian carriers released information on low-cost, data-only plans for Canadians. The plans left a lot to be desired. Last week, a report filed by telecom analyst Ben Klass and professor of communication studies at Carleton University, Dwayne Winseck, proposed an alternate plan for low-cost, data-only rates. The proposal, called the 'CRTC flex plan,' suggests that people should be able to access a small amount of data (250 Mb) for $5, along with larger amounts of data at market prices. Additionally, the crew discusses the federal government's recent order for the CRTC to investigate high-pressure sales at Canada's largest carriers. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts on the matter. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcas

This week on the SyrupCast, Igor Bonifacic, Patrick O'Rourke, Brad Shankar, and Bradley Bennett sit down to chat their favourite games from this year's E3. Patrick's picks are The Last of Us Part 2, Halo Infinite, and Skull & Bones. Brad chooses to highlight Spider-Man, Kingdom Hearts III, and Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Bradley selects Forza Horizon 4, Fallout 76, and Sea of Solitude. Finally, Igor takes note of Ghost of Tsushima, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Sable. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcast@mobilesyrup.com. If you're feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode! Total runtime: 39:02 Gaming galore: 2:45 Shoutouts: 31:30 Patrick gives his shoutout to Fortnite for the Switch. Igor shouts out Grime Fandango. Brad gives a shoutout to The Incredibles 2, and finally, Bradley gives a s

A movie with a solid idea, but a relatively weak execution, Netflix's The Titan might just be the first movie that Viewer Experience is unable to recommend. It's a movie that's about biohacking, genetic engineering and space exploration, but that fails to deliver on almost all of those fronts. This week, MobileSyrup news and telecom reporter Sameer Chhabra speaks with MobileSyrup managing editor Patrick O'Rourke to try to get to the bottom of why Netflix's sci-fi slate seems to avoid being impressive. Later in the episode, Wise Elephant Family Health Team lead physician Dr. Sanjeev Goel speaks about biohacking and the SPARK Biohacker Summit in Toronto. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Do you have any recommendations or suggestions for which movies we should discuss next? Send us an email to sameer@mobilesyrup.com. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future epis

This week on the SyrupCast features editor Igor Bonifacic, managing editor Patrick O'Rourke, and freelance tech journalist Josh McConnell, discuss all of the announcements from this year's WWDC. As Patrick returns from covering the events of Apple's World Wide Developers Conference, the team sits down to discuss their thoughts on everything that was unveiled. One notable difference at this year's conference in comparison to past keynotes was the lack of new hardware reveals. Among the new software updates announced during the conference are macOS Mojave, iOS 12 , tvOS 12 and watchOS 5.   Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcast@mobilesyrup.com. If you're feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode! Total runtime: 45:02 WWDC: 2:00 Shoutouts: 40:00 Patrick gives his shoutout to Moonlighter, a rece

This week on the SyrupCast, MobileSyrup features editor Igor Bonifacic, telecom reporter Sameer Chhabra and telecom editor Rose Behar chat about a new report recently released by the CRTC. Rose joins the team from Ottawa after attending a media event in Gatineau at the CRTC's head office. The report, requested by the Minister of Heritage and Innovation ahead of reviews of the Broadcasting Act and Telecommunication Act, suggested that internet service providers should contribute to media funding in the same way that cable providers do. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcast@mobilesyrup.com. If you're feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode! Rose gives her shoutout to VIA Rail. Igor shouts out the pipeline deal signed by Justin Trudeau. Finally, Sameer shouts out his podcast, Viewer Experience.

Part of what makes HBO's Westworld so appealing to so many different people is how it can be so many different things all at once. It's a show that's simultaneously about artificial intelligence, video games, storytelling, all while being a show that, at its core, is about the wild, wild west. This week, MobileSyrup news and telecom reporter Sameer Chhabra speaks with MobileSyrup news and telecom reporter Rose Behar to attempt to find out what Westworld all about. Later in the episode, University of Waterloo artificial intelligence professor Dr. Fakhri Karray speaks about AI research taking place in Canada, while British Columbia-based video game developer Raphael van Lierop sheds some insight on the subject of video game design. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to sameer@mobilesyrup.com. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode!

On the SyrupCast this week MobileSyrup features editor Igor Bonifacic and telecom editor Rose Behar chat about all things Google I/O 2018 related. This year at Google I/O there were over 100 announcements, with some being more notable than others. The company focused it's efforts on meaningful engagement and digital wellness. Among some of the most exciting reveals were Android P's beta and new updates to Google Assistant. Google also announced Duplex, the company's AI-powered phone call technology, which has many both worried and excited. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcast@mobilesyrup.com. If you're feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode! Total runtime: 34:47 Google I/O: 1:25 Duplex: 9:00 Shoutouts: 28:20 Rose gives her shoutout to Michael Geist's recent article. Igor shouts out the U

Imagine a world without privacy or anonymity, where a totalitarian surveillance state has access to your deepest, darkest secrets. No, this isn't 2018 and we're not talking about social media, this is the world of Andrew Niccol's Anon. On this week's podcast, MobileSyrup telecom and business reporter Sameer Chhabra speaks with managing editor Patrick O'Rourke about their thoughts on Netflix's latest sci-fi flick. Later on in the episode, Brenda McPhail, the director of the Canada's Civil Liberties Association's privacy, technology and surveillance project sheds some insight into the state of privacy in Canada. Dr. Ann Cavoukian, former information and privacy commissioner of Ontario and the director of Ryerson University's Privacy By Design Centre of Excellence, speaks about her theories on privacy by design. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to sameer@mobilesyrup.com. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording

This week on the SyrupCast features editor Igor Bonifacic is joined by telecom editor Rose Behar and managing editor Patrick O'Rourke, to chat about the long-awaited LG G7 ThinQ. LG has announced its next flagship device, the G7 ThinQ, a smartphone that at least at the outset, seems to offer a solid experience -- though there's nothing particularly exciting about it. The phone has been long-awaited amid a flurry of rumours and leaks leading up to its release. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcast@mobilesyrup.com. If you're feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode! Total runtime: 32:25 G7 thoughts: 1:45 Shoutouts: 23:15 Patrick shouts out Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. Rose gives her shoutout to Facebook's newly announced dating feature. Finally, Igor aires a grievance about some not so friendl

This week, MobileSyrup telecom and business reporter Sameer Chhabra speaks with staff reporter Brad Shankar about Joe and Anthony Russo's Avengers: Infinity War. Later on in the episode, storyboard and concept artist Rob McCallum and Western University media studies professor Tim Blackmore speak about science fiction, the film industry, sci-fi design and why we seem to love the genre. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to sameer@mobilesyrup.com. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on the SyrupCast, features editor Igor Bonifacic is joined by telecom editor Rose Behar, telecom reporter Sameer Chhabra and Laura Tribe, executive director of Open Media, to talk about Rogers, Telus and Bell's proposals for low-cost, data-only plans. On previous episodes of the Syrupcast, the team has talked about the pending CRTC decision regarding Wi-Fi-first MVNOs. After the CRTC decided to uphold previous rulings against Wi-Fi-first MVNOs, it requested that existing telecoms offer low-cost data plans. The resulting proposals from the Big Three were released this week to much criticism from consumer groups and the public. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcast@mobilesyrup.com. If you're feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode! Total runtime: 36:17 CRTC decision: 1:38 Shoutouts:

This week on the SyrupCast, MobileSyrup features editor Igor Bonifacic is joined by managing editor Patrick O'Rourke and telecom reporter Sameer Chhabra to talk about Motorola's new phones and Patrick's look back at the iPhone X six months after the phone's release. Motorola just announced its 2018 series of mid-range smartphones. The team discusses the strategy behind Motorola releasing so many mid-range smartphones at once, as well as Sameer's experience at the company's G6 and E5 preview event in New York. On the high-end of the smartphone market, Patrick discusses what it's been like to use the iPhone X for the past six months. His main takeaway is that the gestures he initially found clunky are now so ingrained that he has a hard time using any other smartphone. He also has new thoughts on the look of the phone. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcast@mobilesyrup.com. If you'

This week, MobileSyrup telecom and business reporter Sameer Chhabra speaks with telecom and business editor Rose Behar, as well as features editor Igor Bonifacic, about Steven Soderbergh's Unsane. Later in the episode, filmmaker Nicole Holland, as well as executive producer and director of marketing for Vancouver Film School Christopher Ian Bennett and festival operations manager for the Toronto Smartphone Film Festival Susan Lee-Pierce, discusses smartphone filmmaking and the potential future of cinema. If you're a victim of stalking, please visit the YWCA as well as the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to sameer@mobilesyrup.com. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, send us a voice recording of your question or comment and you may end up featured in a future episode!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on the SyrupCast, telecom editor Rose Behar is joined by podcast producer Robyn Edgar and telecom reporter Sameer Chhabra, to discuss Facebook's recent privacy issues, as well as the new Sony Xperia XZ2. Over the course of the past few weeks major privacy issues surrounding Facebook have surfaced. This week Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held a call with journalists to discuss the Cambridge Analytica breach. On the call, Zuckerberg said that the original number of 50 million people affected is actually more in the ballpark of 87 million, 600,000 of those being Canadians. The team talks about what this means and what's next for Facebook. Back in the mobile tech space, the team gets into the pros and cons of the brand new flagship smartphone from Sony, the Xperia XZ2. Tune in to hear the SyrupCast team's thoughts on all things telecom. Do you have questions, comments, thoughts, or anything you would like addressed on the podcast? Send us an email to podcast@mobilesyrup.com. If you're feeling extra adven