There isn’t a minute in my day when I am not in front of a screen. I wake up and check my emails on my phone, at work I have two monitors glaring at me and at night I am streaming my favourite TV shows on Netflix. Screens are my life. Thus, this Editor’s Picks is all about my favourite tech must-haves.
HTC One M9
What do I love about this smartphone? The HTC Sense 7 interface learns my habits and organizes my apps into three smart settings for home, work and out, placing them on the homescreen depending where I am and the time of day. It has infinite personalization possibilities. I can take a picture of my favourite piece of art and place it as my wallpaper and my HTC One M9 will take colour elements from that photo to create a totally custom screen, down to colour coordinating the app icons. Plus, the camera and photo editor that come with the phone pretty much combine all the features from my favourite apps. No need for Instagram filters anymore! (Available in Canada at Bell, Best Buy, Koodo, London Drugs, Rogers, SaskTel, T-Booth, TELUS, The Source, Videotron, WIND Mobile and Wireless Wave in-store on April 17, 2015 for $199, based on a two-year plan)
Tidal
I’m already an avid Songza and Spotify user, so when Tidal launched I was extremely interested to find out what this music streaming service had to offer, besides the fact that Jay-Z is backing it. Here’s the deal: It offers higher audio quality, exclusive content (like a new track from Beyoncé© or an exclusive video premiere from Rihanna), and curated editorial. It may be more expensive than other streaming services, at $9.99 or $19.99 a month for Hifi (better sound quality), but if you are a Beyoncé© fan and like your music loud, this is the streaming service for you.
Snapchat
I am so embarrassingly late to the Snapchat game, but I am here now and this is happening. Our social media manager is tired of my consistent questions (“How do I add an emoji?” or “How do I chat with someone?”) as the app is not at all intuitive for those of us over 25 years old. But now that I understand it, I love it. Be sure to follow my ever-so-fascinating life by adding SecretsEditor to Snapchat to see my daily stories.
Sonos
A playlist the whole office can agree on. Since buying a Sonos player for 29Secrets HQ, we can’t picture work life without it. With Sonos, it unites the entire office’s digital music collection in one app that we each can control from our phones or computers. Think of it as a jukebox, each of us can add songs to the playlist wirelessly as the music plays from the Sonos speaker.
