Stories by Austin Blake

X has finished a full rewrite of its Android app, a project that took more than a year and ranks as one of the biggest engineering efforts in the company's history. Nikita Bier, Head of Product at X, announced the launch on Monday, saying, "Today we're announcing the completion of one of the largest engineering...

A retired Rogers insider is asking the CRTC to ban advance billing, the practice that has nearly every Canadian paying for phone, internet and TV service 30 days before using it, according to the Toronto Star. Stephen Lawton, 74, spent 18 years as a senior adviser in the office of the president at Rogers, sitting...

Freedom Mobile has launched a new campaign targeting Canada's major telecom carriers, accusing Rogers, Bell, and Telus of finding ways to charge subscribers extra despite recent regulatory changes. The carrier launched a dedicated campaign page on its website asking, "What The Fees?", to call out its incumbent competitors directly. Freedom Mobile said that when the...

Apple has quietly updated its AppleCare+ protection plans, introducing price increases that specifically target Canadian Mac and iPad buyers. The price changes first surfaced in the U.S. as first reported by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week. A closer look and Canadian customers are also facing these prices increases as well. After AppleCare+ went up in...

Toronto-based fintech Wealthsimple has started rolling out an upgrade to its spend tracking features, giving users more control over how they monitor their monthly expenses. The digital platform introduced several updates to its Spend Insights tool to help its users easily see where their money goes each month. Among the new changes is an automated...

Apple’s price increases keep coming, and this time subscription prices have gone up, and they also apply to Canada. Starting with Apple Music, pricing have gone up by $1 and $3 depending on the plan: Student: $5.99/month (no change) Individual: $11.99 (was $10.99) Family: $19.99 (was $16.99) “As a result of rising licensing costs, Apple...

Google is rolling out a major update for its health tracking platform that addresses some of the most common user requests. The latest Google Health app version 5.04 is heading to both Android and iOS devices over the next week, bringing highly requested nutrition tools, improved sleep metrics, and bug fixes. If you're just tuning...

SpaceX and Starlink have shaken up how it handles international roaming, and for anyone who takes cross border road trips, there's some good news buried in the changes. The company has started grouping countries into shared regions, which means your service area just got a whole lot bigger. If those new 30 day roaming limits...

Google is expanding its artificial intelligence tools by letting you link third-party applications right into your search results. The update is starting to roll out to users in the U.S. this week. The feature will likely expand beyond the U.S. to Canada but for now its launch is limited. By using AI Mode in Google...

Artificial intelligence is starting to do more than just answer questions. These days, AI agents can handle chores for you like shopping online or updating your accounts. The catch has always been security, because handing your login details over to a machine is a risky move. Now, Toronto-based 1Password has built a way around that...

Apple has officially secured approval to bring its new artificial intelligence features to iPhones in China. The country's cyberspace regulator gave Apple Intelligence the green light on Wednesday, clearing a major hurdle for the company. China requires all tech companies to register their artificial intelligence models with the government before offering them to the public....

Rogers-owned Chatr has just made some major changes to its top-end prepaid plans, reducing data by quite a bit. The changes come after we recapped prepaid plans in Canada yesterday for July. Here are changes made today by Chatr on its website we spotted: $19/500MB $21/1GB $25/5GB $30/15GB (was $29/35GB) $35/30GB (was $34/80GB) $100/year: 400...