Latest News

Brantford resident Steve Szikora received a bill from Rogers that totalled over $26,600 for 3 months of use on his iPhone. He says he doesn’t owe and has refused to pay. After unsuccessfully working with the Brantford Rogers location, he was contacted by a local paper and Rogers has since reversed the charges with Elizabeth Hamilton, director of corporate communications with Rogers Wireless said “There is no debate, there is an error on his bill. We would like to apologize to the customer and correct the error immediately.”

If you’re in the market for some new wheels and want to spend a cool $64,450 for a base model, you can pick up the new Lexus IS F.

Why is this on MobileSyrup? Well, Lexus has made it possible for us mobile fans to view all the specs, prices and pictures of what they are calling “The Beast”  – this comes with a “5.0-litre 416-hp V8 engine and the world’s first 8-speed Sport Direct Shift automatic transmission”.

Tony Wearing, Managing Director of Lexus in Canada said “Consumer research indicates that more than 75 per cent of Canadian households have access to a wireless phone with internet access. The IS F combines passion, luxury and world’s first advanced technology in a performance sports sedan. It brings a new level of excitement and advanced experience to the Lexus brand, so it will be the focus of our engagement with Canadians through mobile media. We will be able to bring Lexus to mobile users and become the
first automotive manufacturer in Canada to participate in a research lab connecting Canadians to Lexus from their mobile devices.”

Go to the Lexus mobile site here

Nokia Corp. reported a massive 30% hit in its Q3 profits. Overall through July through September profits fell to 1.09 billion euros (US$2.7 billion), from 1.56 billion euros a year earlier, Net sales dropped to 12.2 billion euros ($16.6 billion), market share fell to 38%.

However, it sold almost 118 million handsets, up from 112 million last year. Nokia CFO Rick Simonson said “We don’t manage for volume or market share for the sake of market share. We manage for market share that’s sustainably profitable. We’ll continue to make sure that we focus for maximizing the total profits, the total cash flow.”

More info at Nokia.com

The BlackBerry Partners Fund has appointed Marc Faucher and Matt Golden to its investment team. Kevin Talbot, Co-Managing Partner of the BlackBerry Partners Fund said “Marc and Matt add competencies that perfectly compliment the knowledge and experience currently resident within the members of the BlackBerry Partners Fund management team. With these appointments the BlackBerry Partners Fund has further solidified itself as the preeminent source of venture capital for mobile application or service developers.”

The saga continues for the HTC Touch Pro in Canada. This is honestly like a soap opera,.. same story line but with more characters added everyday.

Remember the leaked Best Buy ad a couple weeks ago that said the Pro was “coming soon”. Then we had the Future Shop ad that listed the price at $239.00 on a 3-year contract. Well, on the actual Future Shop forum we found a post from “abheibs” that was titled “False Advertising in recent FutureShop Flyer (Canada)”.

Not sure who “abheibs” is or even if this story is valid as this was his/her first post, and could not find any info on the quotes, but he/she states that the HTC Touch Pro will not be in Canada for a while. Read the whole thread here:

“The most recent Canadian FutureShop flyer advertises that they have the HTC Touch Pro (NOT DIAMOND) “GET IT 1ST!” for $239.00 on a 3-Year Contract with Telus Mobility.

The problem is – Straight from the horses mouth (HTC in this case), “the HTC Touch Pro is not available in Canada and wont be for quite some time. There are alot of hurdles involved in getting devices into countries with carriers under subsidized programs. If companies are advertising the HTC Touch Pro forsale and as available in Canada, they have made an advertising mistake.”

Straight from Telus Mobility Public Relations “Telus Mobility has been trying to get the HTC Touch Pro onboard but has been unsuccessful in doing so – the device is currently not available in Canada, and appears to be the case at least for the rest of the winter at the minimum.”

More to come on this story soon.

Rogers might have some hidden gems up their sleeve this holiday season… Doug over at BlackBerryCool had a quick conversation with a Rogers Customer Service Rep today and found out some possible juicy info!

Late November we might see another touchscreen available from Rogers – this time it’s the BlackBerry Storm! This was recently announced by both Bell and Telus, however, the audio recording boldly states that we might expect Rogers to follow suit with a November launch, just in time for the big Q4 push. Remember, this was just a conversation and the customer service rep might have, could have, possibly may have been confused.

Hear the conversation here

**UPDATE** - Elizabeth Hamilton, spokesperson for Rogers Wireless confirmed that the Storm is not heading to Rogers. “Saw your post and you’re right, the customer service representative made a mistake. As you know, I won’t comment in advance on what our holiday lineup has in store, but I can confirm it does not include the BlackBerry Storm.” (BGR)

This is too funny! No longer do you actually need to use your imagination to count sheep… the Apple App Store does it for you!

“Sheep Count” is one of the latest apps to come to the market, this is $0.99 and can put you to sleep in no time. Depending on how you set the sheep loose you can have an endless amount of sheep moving across your iPhone to count. Or if you really cannot sleep you can change the settings by such features as “Day” and “Night” and even set the time between having the sheep jump over the fence.

More info here

All we need now is to see this beast in actual Rogers stores! The Sony Ericsson W760 has been delayed a number of times in Canada – there has been billboard advertising that stated it will be available “late August”. Now we find that the W760 shows up in the games section of Rogers website and is ready for action. Our Sony Ericsson insider said “Mid- October”… so expect it over the next few days.

Nothing that a bit of time and Photoshop can’t fix. Last week we revealed that Rogers has put the smooth looking Samsung Jack “Merlot” on its site with Fido branding. Everything has now been corrected and we can continue to focus on the Canadian election tonight.

You can go ahead and find out more of this sexy maroon colour here at Rogers

MTS has been named one of Manitoba’s Top 20 Employers for 2009. Employers are evaluated on eight criteria: physical workplace, work atmosphere and social, health, financial and family benefits, vacation and time off, employee communications, performance management, training and skills development, and community involvement. Pierre Blouin, CEO, MTS Allstream said “MTS is proud to achieve this mark of distinction as we celebrate our second century of connecting Canadians this year. There are many top businesses in Manitoba and it’s an honour to be recognized among the province’s 20 best”. More here