Understanding Telus’s new Premium Plus financing plan
Spend more to save some money with Telus’s new Premium Plus financing option.
Last week, Telus launched a new plan under the Premium Plus name.
At a time when many U.S. carriers are all-in on financing options, Telus’s new Premium Plus plan is a hybrid system, providing customers a considerable subsidy in exchange for a two-year contract, along with flexibility in choosing to spend around $10 per month more on a plan in order to spend less for the phone upon purchase.
What is Premium Plus?
Premium Plus is the name of a new type of financing option offered by Telus, the second-largest carrier in Canada. It allows customers, new or existing, to add a small amount of money to their plans per month in exchange for paying less for the phone at the register.
How does it work?
It’s actually quite simple. Telus’s ordinary Your Choice share plans are priced based on the type of phone you buy: a premium smartphone, like a Galaxy S7; a smartphone, like a Moto X Play or other low-cost Android phones; and BYOD, where you bring your own device.
Premium Plus is interesting because it lives alongside the phone’s subsidy, and is completely optional.
When you buy a premium smartphone, Telus subsidizes the cost by as much as $600, which allows you to buy it for considerably less than its retail price, in exchange for signing a two-year service plan. A Galaxy S7, for example, costs $900 when purchased outright, but $250 up front with a two-year plan, making the subsidy $650.
But $250 is still a lot of money to spend when you’re also signing up for an expensive plan, so Telus decided to add the option of allowing customers to tack on an additional $10 per month to that two-year plan in order to lower the up front cost even further — in this case to $50.
So Telus is increasing the subsidy?
No. What it is doing is allowing you, the customer, to finance the cost of the phone over two years, by adding an additional $10 or so to your monthly bill. This is a system that Telus’s flanker brand, Koodo, has had for some time.
Premium Plus is interesting because it lives alongside the phone’s subsidy, and is completely optional. It allows you to buy a $900 Galaxy S7 for $50 up front.
Is Premium Plus only available for certain phones?
Yes, the Premium Plus model only works for phones that are already heavily subsidized, and fall under Telus’s Premium Smartphone category. Devices that cost around $500 outright don’t need Premium Plus because Telus is already subsidizing the vast majority of the phone’s cost in exchange for a two-year service plan.
Tell me: Is Premium Plus a good deal?
Well, it’s an interest-free loan, so yes. Telus isn’t charging interest on the additional discount, it is just breaking a portion of the phone’s unsubsidized cost into manageable monthly payments that are tacked onto the end of your monthly bill.
Is it a good deal? Well, it’s an interest-free loan, so yes.
There doesn’t appear to be a “downside,” per se. It’s a matter of figuring out whether you can stomach an extra $10 per month on your bill versus paying more for a phone at the time of purchase.
Which phones are compatible with Premium Plus
According to Telus, any phone in its Premium Smartphone category is compatible. Specifically, that includes:
- iPhone 6s / 6s Plus / 6 / 6 Plus / SE
- Galaxy S7 / S7 edge / S6 / Note 5 / S6 edge
- LG G5
- BlackBerry Priv
So should I go for it?
That’s totally up to you, but like I said, there doesn’t appear to be a catch or inherent downside to the deal. It’s just a response to the weak Canadian Dollar, which has caused the price of handsets to rise.
Got a question about Telus Premium Plus plans or anything else to do with the Canadian market? Let us know in the comments!
Google Maps shows its rainbow side with Toronto Pride Parade details
Google has announced that it will be showing its rainbow colors in support of Toronto Pride this Sunday, July 3rd.
As part of Google Maps’ support for Pride in 16 cities around the world, Toronto’s Pride Parade will highlight the route, as well as traffic information around the area, this coming Saturday. According to Google, it is a part of the company’s “mandate to bring temporal events to life and provide people with the most up-to-date, accurate, and useful information, so they can make the best decision on where to go.”
As you can see, the parade route will be highlighted in Pride’s traditional rainbow hues, and traffic be diverted around the busy areas until the chaos has cleared on Sunday around 5pm. The specialized routing will begin showing up to people in the Toronto area on Saturday, July 2nd.
Here’s the Android Nougat statue at the Googleplex!
A new tasty treat lands in Mountain View.
With each major version of Android, Google unveils a new statue at its Mountain View, Calif. headquarters. This year is no different, with the freshly minted Android Nougat getting its own mascot outside Building 40 at the Googleplex.
Naturally, we had to run out there this afternoon and grab some pictures of the latest addition to the Android family, which we present for you down below. Enjoy!
Android Nougat Facebook Live tour
Android Nougat statue photo gallery
Android Nougat
Android N (currently in Developer Preview status) is now Android Nougat! It’s the 12th nicknamed version of Android and will be released to the public in the fall of 2016. Here’s everything you need to know so far!
- What’s new in Android Nougat
- All Android Nougat news
- Should you use the Android N Dev Preview?
- About the Android Beta Program
- Join the Discussion
Best puzzle games for Android
All the top Android puzzle games that are worth your time.
Whether you enjoy a relaxing game of Mahjong, you love solving brain teasers, or you like finding the most creative physics solutions, there are plenty of a puzzle games on Android that you’ll be able to lose yourself in. Here are some of our favorites.
- Cut the Rope: Magic
- World of Goo
- Lara Croft Go
- Dots
- Mahjong by 1C Wireless
- The Room Three
- That Level Again 3
Cut the Rope: Magic
In ZeptoLab’s seventh iteration of the popular physics puzzler, you’re once again tasked with feeding little Om Nom by solving physics puzzles to get the candy into his greedy maw. The familiar dangling candy is present, but new to the series is the ability to transform Om Nom into other creatures, including a yellow bird that can hover in the air, and an even tinier version of himself.
Each level may be cleared by simply feeding Om Nom, but you’ll also want to collect the stars that are strategically placed in various spots. The more stars you collect, the more crystals you earn, which you can use to unlock new magical-themed worlds. You can also “conjure” eight crystals every three hours, or watch an ad to be able to conjure them more often.
There are in-app purchases in the form of packs of crystals, and you also have the option of buying hints to help you solve the puzzles and grab all the stars.
While the game can be downloaded for free, there is the option to pay 99 cents to remove the ads. In our opinion, it’s a miniscule amount to pay to enjoy the game ad-free.
Download: Cut the Rope:Magic (free +IAP)
World of Goo
“Higher and higher” is the catch phrase for World of Goo, a super fun and addictive game that’ll soon have you hooked.
The object of the game is to get as many of the tiny goo-ball creatures to the end point of each level — a vacuum pipe — through building (sometimes massive) towers and bridges. The trick is that the building blocks you have to work with are the goo-balls themselves, and every piece of your structure removes one goo-ball from play.
Weight distribution and structural integrity play a role. And as you progress in levels, the vacuum pipe gets harder and harder to reach, and you have fewer goo-balls to work with.
World of Goo has no ads or in-app purchases and is totally worth the mere $4.99 it costs to buy.
Download: World of Goo ($4.99)
Lara Croft Go
From developer Square Enix comes another mobile spin-off of a popular console and PC game franchise: Lara Croft Go.
Using simple swipe-to-move mechanics, you’ll guide Lara through 101 puzzles fraught with perilous pitfalls and dangerous foes. Each puzzle is part of a chapter, six in total, and involve finding ways around obstacles, avoiding traps, and battling baddies.
Along the way, you’ll find various tools to help you navigate through each puzzle, as well as relics that unlock new outfits for Lara. Should you get stuck on a puzzle, you have the option of paying for the solution via in-app purchases.
With its beautiful graphics and simple mechanics, Lara Croft Go is addictive and fun — and definitely worth the $4.99 asking price.
Download: Lara Croft Go ($4.99)
Dots
Like all the best puzzle games, Dots is simple to learn, difficult to master and highly addictive.
The main object is to connect as many dots of the same color as you can, with certain patterns, such as a square or a W being worth more points.
Dots has four game modes each with different spins on the main objective:
- Timed: Connect as many dots of the same color as you can in 60 seconds
- Moves: Connect as many dots of the same color as you can with 30 moves
- Endless: No limits — connect as dots of the same color as you can
- Challenges: Play against others (multiplayer) to connect the most dots of the same color
To be able to play on Endless mode you’ll have to pay $2.29, but it’s worth it for a relaxing experience. Another in-app purchase grants you the ability to earn dots twice as fast.
With the dots you accumulate, you can “buy” more power-ups, which enable you to do things like stop time, erase a single dot, or wipe out all dots of the same color that are currently on the screen.
The game has absolutely no ads, and a really unique and clean visual style. (Protip: AMOLED screen owners, try night mode to save battery power!)
Download: Dots (free)
Mahjong by 1C Wireless
We’ve played a number of variants of the Chinese tile-matching game, and of all those we like the version from 1C Wireless the best, due to its varied game modes and minimal ads that don’t interrupt the gameplay.
This Mahjong game has four modes:
- Classic: Pick from over 39 different towers and start playing
- Time attack: Choose your tower and see how long it takes you to clear the titles
- Challenge: Choose your tower and keep matching titles without while working against the timer at the top of the screen.
- Endless: Play through random towers, matching all the tiles in one before moving to another.
There is an option to pay 99 cents to remove the ads, but since they are so minimal (just a banner at the bottom of the screen), it’s not really 100 percent necessary.
Download: Mahjong (free)
The Room Three
The Room Three is third sequel to Fireproof Games’ award winning puzzler, The Room. Reminiscent of point-and-click classic adventure series such as Myst and Siberia, The Room Three has you figuring out how escape from the clutches of your kidnapper, the mysterious Craftsman.
You navigate around by swiping around the screen and double tapping to focus in on an object or puzzle. As you progress through the game, you’ll find objects that will help you find your way out. As you go, more and more of the story is revealed through notes left for you by the Craftsman.
The game is pretty long and involved, so expect to spend many hours glued to your device as you solve puzzle after puzzle.
Download:The Room Three ($4.99)
That Level Again 3
That Level Again 3 is a tongue-in-cheek puzzle game where you have to basically figure everything out. And by everything, we do mean everything. For instance, the opening screen is a gray background with your character standing in the middle of it. You have to find the background (careful, don’t pick the one with spikes at the bottom of it) and build your user interface (UI) so that you can move your character around.
Ads in this game are minimal; they’re confined to video ads that you can choose to watch for additional help, letting clear a level or skip it entirely.
Prepare to burn a lot of time on this game — the most difficult puzzles and hilarious running commentary offer hours and hours of entertainment.
Download: That Level Again 3 (free)
What are your favorites?
We’ve tossed out the puzzle games for Android that we love, but how about you? Did we miss any awesome games? Shout out your favorites in the comments!
Goodbye, Facebook Paper, we hardly knew ye
Paper is no more.
In Pocket-lint’s review of Paper from way back in 2014, we praised the newsreader app and wondered at the time if it was Facebook’s best mobile product ever, but we also questioned if it would succeed like Facebook Messenger or crash like Facebook Poke. We now know the answer.
Facebook has announced it is shutting down the two-year-old iOS app. Users of Paper have begun getting a notice that warns the app will no longer work after 29 July, and according to The Verge, Paper will be pulled from the Apple App Store sometime Thursday. There is no Android app.
“Our goal with Paper was to explore new immersive, interactive design elements for reading and interacting with content on Facebook, and we learned how important these elements are in giving people an engaging experience,” Facebook explained in its notice to users.
It’s not too surprising to learn that Paper will be killed, especially considering Creative Labs, the Facebook division that built Paper and other experimental apps, was shuttered late last year as well. Also, many critically-praised features from Paper have recently been ported to other apps, such as Instant Articles, which took design cues from Paper, including giving publishers the ability to create custom layouts for their articles.
According to app research site App Annie, Facebook Paper was the 1,500-most download app in the App Store. In other words: no one was using the short-lived app. That said, it did have a 4.5 out of 5-star rating.
Update: It looks like Paper is already gone from the App Store, though its website is still live without any indication of the app’s abrupt death.
The game that makes Kinect worthwhile: ‘Fru’
When Microsoft announced that it would start selling the Xbox One without the motion-sensing Kinect peripheral in June 2014, Mattia Traverso and his team at Through Games were shocked. They were in the middle of developing a Kinect-exclusive title, Fru, a platformer that used players’ silhouettes to uncover hidden ledges and outlets in a Mario-inspired world. The Kinect wasn’t off to a roaring start to begin with, but Through Games was down to take a gamble on an innovative idea. Besides, during the first few months of Fru’s development, the Kinect was guaranteed to be sold with every new Xbox One. And then, suddenly, that potential was slashed.
“I’d be lying if I said the status of Kinect didn’t affect us,” Traverso tells me. “The surprise of the unbundling did hit our morale during production, and we had some doubts and worries about whether we would be financially viable at the end.”
But Through Games didn’t give up on Fru. They continued working with the Kinect and tweaking the game until it transformed into a stylish, otherworldly platformer starring a young girl in a fox mask. Standing in front of the Kinect, players contort their bodies and their silhouettes are displayed in real-time on the screen, at times uncovering hidden platforms and entirely new, mystical worlds for the protagonist to explore. After more than two years of development, the full game is set to hit the Xbox One on July 13th.
“Ultimately we really thought this concept was cool and could be expanded quite well, so we did not want to leave the game unfinished,” Traverso says. “We thought it was a good example of how Kinect is not inherently good or bad, but rather a tool for a creator to use.”
Fru is an incredible Kinect game. It’s perfectly responsive, mirroring players’ bodies in ways that Microsoft always promised its motion-tracking software would work. Pick up a book or a small dog (yes, I tried both of these things) and the game instantly recognizes it, adding rectangles to the end of your hands or revealing puppy-shaped platforms. Essentially, Fru is the game that should have launched with the Kinect nearly three years ago — it makes throwing down an extra $100 for a console bundle worthwhile.
Players can navigate through Fru’s levels on their own, contorting their bodies and maneuvering the controller at the same time, allowing the fox-mask girl to leap among floating platforms and swim through the water within their silhouettes. Or, Fru can be a two-player game, with one person controlling the girl and another acting as the silhouette. Either way, it’s a wonderful, yoga-inspired experience.
As they built Fru, Traverso and his team assumed there was still a market for Kinect experiences. Microsoft had shipped (not sold) 5 million Xbox One consoles by April 2014, just before Kinect was removed from the bundle. Traverso estimates roughly 3 million people have a Kinect, at least.
“That’s a sizable and viable audience,” Traverso says. “We saw quite a lot of people who were pleased to see that Fru was releasing because they had nothing else to play.”
Three million is not a terrible install base, but two years after Microsoft’s unbundling, it could have been larger. Recent estimates place Xbox One sales numbers at 21 million and Kinect sales numbers, now that the hardware is sold as a separate $100 peripheral, are a gaping black hole. Traverso doesn’t even have official numbers. All he has is an amazing Kinect game.
Fru took a while to develop because it’s built on a tricky, Kinect-based premise. Players’ bodies and accessories uncover hidden platforms and hallways for the protagonist to navigate; this means that the game is different for every player in a way not seen in traditional games. Body shape and size matter here, as do real-world physics.
“There’s so many different body shapes, moves, poses, physical constraints that a person might have or do, that a level might be super easy to someone and could be as hard as Super Meat Boy for another one,” Traverso says. “The solution was to playtest again and again and again, with a diverse set of testers: tall, short, thin, big, athletic, lazy, with short and long arms, legs, etc.”
In case you are wondering how FRU works, this GIF might confuse you even more. #experimentalgameplay pic.twitter.com/rnfECjx9WW
— FRU (@FRU_Game) June 29, 2016
After years of playtesting and development work, Traverso and the rest of Through Games aren’t sure if Fru will be the success they need it to be. Between unknown Kinect sales and usage numbers, it’s a huge gamble. But, they still have hope.
“Yes, developing a game that did not require Kinect would have been way safer,” Traverso says. “No, we have no guarantee that we will be able to reach out to our potential audience. But yes, I’d do it again.”
Nest seems to be working on a ‘smart crib’ loaded with sensors
The hyper-connected home of the future will come with an equally connected nursery. Nest, the company widely known for its WiFi enabled energy-saving thermostat and smart smoke alarm system, has filed a patent for a baby crib that could be “embedded with smart sensors”. According to the patent application, Nest’s potential crib would do away with some of the paraphernalia that comes with a baby’s bed. So instead of buying separate monitors, the crib would be loaded with cameras, microphones, a communication device and sensors to track the baby’s movements and even detect “a deviation from the pattern of behavior.”
The connected device maker that was acquired by Google (now Alphabet) a couple of years ago has stayed focused on creating a seamless communication between personal devices and home security gadgets. Given Nest’s existing catalogue of smart home products, a “smart crib” seems to fit right into the scheme of interconnected things.
Source: Recode
The Das Keyboard 5Q is for working smarter, not harder
Das Keyboard is behind some of the most impressive mechanical keyboards around. If you’re a keyboard snob, you’ve probably used one or two in your life. If you like customization and keyboards that do way more than just help you put words together, you’re going to want to check out the Das Keyboard 5Q.
The TQ is a cloud-connected, open API RGB mechanic keyboard and it’s up on Kickstarter now seeking $100,000 in funding. Not only can you customize each key to be color-controlled via the Internet, but it’s capable of allowing you to stream information directly to your keyboard. For instance, communicate important statistics to yourself by coding your numerical keys as a bar graph that represents productivity at your company, or allot special colors to keys to show whether or not a test you were waiting on passed or not.
The keyboard will also feature special Gamma Zulu switches by Omron that can withstand 100 million actuations. There are 104 of them on each TQ model, and they offer 1.5 mm actuation for speed. Beneath each key is an LED pipe with RGBs that are several times brighter than others on the market. In short, they’re meant to be colorful and attention-grabbing.
Das Keyboard is all about helping you work smarter with this infinitely more intelligent keyboard, and it seems like a pretty good investment if you’re looking to get things done a lot faster. If you’re interested in backing it, you can head over to its Kickstarter page here.
Source: Kickstarter
Spotify: Apple is holding up app approval to squash competition
How do you catch up with the biggest music streaming service? Well, not approving app updates is one tactic, and Spotify says Apple is doing just that. The streaming service sent a letter to Apple’s legal counsel this week claiming that the company is rejecting an update to Spotify’s iOS app and it’s “causing grave harm” to users by doing so. The letter explains that Apple won’t approve the new version because Spotify doesn’t use the company’s billing method for in-app purchases and subscription services. Apple announced the changes to app subscriptions in iTunes just before this month’s WWDC.
Like other apps, Spotify had been getting customers to foot the bill for Apple’s App Store billing fees by charging an extra $3 a month. It recently launched a promotion for the second time that gave new users three months of service for a dollar, if they signed up on the web. As you can imagine, that didn’t make Apple too happy, and the company reportedly threatened to pull the app entirely unless Spotify stopped pushing the deal for iPhone owners. It complied with the request, but it also nixed the iTunes billing option in the iOS version which lead to the current dispute.
Sure, Spotify users can still sign up through its website to avoid paying the extra money every month. However, charging extra to pay through iTunes puts the streaming service at a disadvantage when it comes to competing with Apple Music. Spotify still has double the paying customers as Apple, but with exclusives and things like Beats1, the iPhone maker continues to gain ground. We’ve reached out to both Apple and Spotify on the matter and we’ll update this post when and if we hear back.
Source: Recode
Facebook and the folly of self-regulation
There’s a whole bunch of content that you aren’t allowed to post on Facebook. Threats against public figures and other users, claims of imminent self-harm, harassment and bullying (in theory at least) and the purchase, sale or trade of regulated goods like drugs and weapons. What’s more, Facebook made a subtle change to its Community Standards back in January, effectively banning the peer-to-peer sale of firearm, ammo and explosives. Firearm shops and online retailers are still allowed to promote offline sales on Facebook — assuming all applicable laws and regulations are met — but private citizens can no longer offer their own weapons on the site. Now, while this is a commendable policy shift on FB’s part, the site’s enforcement of the new rules has been checkered at best.
See, Facebook doesn’t actively police its site for offending content. There’s no team of staffers or automated algorithm scouring for infractions. Instead, Facebook relies entirely on the user community to report banned content. Once a post, image or group is flagged by other users, a Facebook team will review the content and take the appropriate action either removing the content, temporarily suspending the user’s ability to post, shutting down the group wholesale or any combination of the three. In all, Facebook receives roughly one million reports each day, according to Forbes, though there’s no word on how many of those are gun-related.
“Facebook relies on the community of 1.6 billion people on Facebook to report anything – posts, photos, videos – that violate our terms, including our policies on firearms,” a Facebook rep told me during a recent phone call. “Given the volume of content shared each day, we believe this is an efficient way to identify content for review. Closed and secret groups are subject to the same policies, and we receive reports for content in these groups as well.” Of course, content within closed and secret groups are only visible to their existing members — not the larger FB community — so they’re basically expected to regulate themselves.
This method of enforcement does not sit well with a number of Facebook users — especially Mike Monteiro, Design Director at Mule Design. For the past few weeks Monteiro has advocated that users seek out and report groups and users that continue to flaunt the Community Standards and engage in peer-to-peer firearm sales. “We’re not trying to get anybody to change their stance on anything,” Monteiro told me. “We’re trying to get Facebook to do what they said they were going to do.”
.@monteiro 76 gun groups pulled from FB today, total of 449. pic.twitter.com/ol7HZoUTmy
— John Sibley (@jbsibley) June 27, 2016
To date, he estimates that more than 1000 groups have been shut down for gun sale violations — in no small part due to the efforts of John Sibley. “I have no idea how he’s doing this and I never met him before this,” Monteiro said. “The amount of pages that he’s managed to get shut down is amazing.”
Not everybody is happy with Monteiro’s efforts, mind you. “I’ve got an inbox full of death threats,” he said. “None of it surprised me, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. Most of these guys — and it’s always guys — are coming in with their ‘Good Guy with a gun’ arguments and immediately issuing death threats.”
Of greater concern to Monteiro are the actions of Facebook’s director of engineering, Chuck Rossi. As a recent Forbes article illustrates, Rossi has used his position and influence within the company to actively undermine the new gun sale rules and help to get a number of banned gun sale groups reinstated.
“I am 100 percent laser focused on getting your groups back to you so you have a chance to get them to comply with the new policy. It is my sole freaking purpose in life until it is done. I’m dumping extra work on my managers and my teams to cover for me while I take on this new role,” Rossi wrote in a February post to Admin Contact, a private assembly of FB administrators working on behalf gun-themed groups. “I know this new policy sucks. I personally don’t agree with it and everyone in Facebook is pissed about how it was rolled out.”
Rossi has reportedly managed to reinstate as many as 80 percent of gun-related pages removed in the past three months, an Admin Contact administrator told Forbes. “I’m not sure how somebody gets to keep their job” when they go against their employers publicly-stated policies, Monteiro said. “He’s not just disagreeing with it, he’s saying ‘I’m going to make sure the policy doesn’t work.’”
Whether this method of community-based policing will actually be effective in the long term remains to be seen. It could well become a game of Whack-A-Mole with pages and groups being shut down for violating the Community Standards only to immediately resurrect themselves and continue on as if nothing happened. Either way, the battle over guns on Facebook — like the larger issue of gun control in America — doesn’t look like it will be settled anytime soon.
AIVAnet 