First impressions of the Samsung Galaxy S9

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

On the surface, the new Samsung Galaxy S9 and its larger brother, the S9+, seem to look identical to their predecessors from last year. The near edge-to-edge display is still there, as is the tapered metal frame sandwiched in luxurious glass.

Samsung's gone for two extremes in colour this year. Canadians will have to choose between the austere yet elegant Titanium Silver or the striking Lilac Purple. Samsung Canada says there's a 60/40 split on pre-orders between the two colour choices. Do you like Audi grey or are you going for a Lamborghini purple? Depends on your style. 

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Review: Apple Watch Series 3 GPS + Cellular

Updated on Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 8:47AM by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Note: Author's carrier is TELUS which has yet to provide an ETA on Apple Watch compatibility. A second part to this review, which focuses on the LTE aspect, will follow as soon as the service can be tested.

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Apple Watch Series 3 brings improvements across the board for Apple's smartwatch and wearable. 

The biggest feature is the addition of cellular capability which makes it possible to use the Watch independently of paired iPhones. 

An embedded SIM card allows users to make phone calls, send SMS or iMessages, query Siri for information  and access Apple Music on demand.

Apple has apparently always wanted the Apple Watch to be able to manage its own connections. It did a great job incorporating Wi-Fi into Apple Watch. I've left my iPhone to charge at home and use the Apple Watch to access my gym's Wi-Fi connection to get notifications, messages and even mail.

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Thoughts on Apple's HomePod

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

San Jose, California - Apple's newest product category since the Apple Watch in 2015 (or, it can be argued, since the EarPods last year) is their HomePod speaker revealed here a few days ago and which is coming to the US in December (with mid-2018 availability in Canada likely).

In typical Apple fashion, the company comes rather late into a market that's already quite mature. Amazon's Echo can be credited for creating the connected speaker/voice assistant space, and it's a huge seller in the US, Amazon's even expanded their product line to smaller Dot speakers as well as licensing Echo across various OEMs, including high-end speaker brands.

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WWDC 2017: Apple enters smart speaker space with HomePod

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

San Jose, CA - Apple gave delegates to its yearly WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) a sneak peek at their new HomePod smart home speaker. At just under 7 inches tall, HomePod represents years of hardware and software innovation at Apple, including spatial awareness that allows HomePod to sense its location in a room and automatically adjust the audio to deliver a great music experience, a large, Apple-designed woofer and a custom array of seven beam-forming tweeters.

“Apple reinvented portable music with iPod and now HomePod will reinvent how we enjoy music wirelessly throughout our homes,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “HomePod packs powerful speaker technology, Siri intelligence and wireless access to the entire Apple Music library into a beautiful speaker"

Coming to the US and UK in December, HomePod is powered by an Apple A8 processor, it integrates Siri, has access to Apple Music's 40 million song library and can also control IoT and connected home devices by serving ans a HomeKit hub.