Archive for December 14, 2014

Apple Canada’s Contracts With Canadian Carriers May Have Cost You Money

Posted in Commentary with tags , on December 14, 2014 by itnerd

You might recall that I posted a story on the Canadian Competition Bureau investigating Apple over their contracts with Canadian cell phone carriers. Now we have some details on this via Reuters. In short, Apple contracts may have:

  • Discouraged wireless carriers from reducing the price of other handsets, or offering other enhancements
  • Discouraged them from offering other handsets
  • Encouraged them to maintain or boost the price of wireless services for competing handsets
  • Dampened upstream competition between handset suppliers.

So, even if you have purchased a non-Apple phone, this behavior may have cost you money. This really reeks in my opinion. But even with that, according to the Canadian Competition Bureau, Apple is not being accused of doing anything wrong. That I find hard to swallow given what I have just wrote.

Leave a comment »

The IT Nerd Award For The Best SUV Goes To: Jeep Cherokee Limited

Posted in Products with tags , on December 14, 2014 by itnerd

CAM00002

This is the last award that I’ll be handing out and like the other car categories, this decision was a toss up. On one hand there’s the Mazda CX-5 GT which brought insanely great handling, a extensive suite of technology, and good fuel economy to the table. On the other hand there’s The Jeep Cherokee Limited which lives up to the Jeep heritage and brought its own array of technology to the table along with good fuel economy. In the end, I gave the nod to the Jeep Cherokee Limited. Granted, most SUVs never touch dirt in any significant way. But the Jeep Cherokee Limited will handle off road conditions with ease thanks to one of the more advanced four wheel drive systems on the market. That’s something that you’ll appreciate in other conditions such as a winter storm. Not only that, it has a ton of technology in it including ParkSense which gives the Jeep Cherokee Limited the ability to parallel and perpendicular park itself. That makes it ideal for your urban adventures in addition to your off road adventures. To top it off, it has a 9 speed transmission mated to the V6 engine to keep your fuel costs down. Something that I appreciated when I was testing it for my review last summer. To be fair the CX-5 almost pulled this one out because it quite frankly is a very good SUV that deserves a very good look if you are in the market for one. But what tipped the scales in favor of the Jeep was ParkSense and its off road capabilities. Those points made it my choice for the best SUV of 2014.

This was fun to do as it really made me think about what truly are the best products that I review. Congratulations to the winners and I look forward to doing this again next year.

Leave a comment »